I downed the shot.

The room reeled. Jaz gulped his. His green eyes glittered with the buzz, and his arms tightened around me as he nuzzled my neck, hands sliding down my hips.

“Jesus,” Tony said. “Not wasting any time with the new girl, are you?”

“He barely let her get in the front door before he pounced,” Sonny said. “Making sure she didn’t have time to check out her options.”

“Jump before anyone else gets a chance, huh?” Tony said, kicking him under the table.

Jaz lifted his head from my neck. “After what she just saw in your head, I don’t think you had a chance.”

The others laughed and kept on Tony, razzing him, but Jaz’s attention returned to me, his hands rubbing my arms, then sliding down my legs, his whispers telling me he was well on the way to being drunk. I leaned back against him and lapped it up.

“What time is it?” he murmured.

I sputtered a laugh. “Why? Is there someplace you need to be?”

“No, just wondering. I’d check myself but…” His fingers slid to the inside of my thighs. “My hands are busy.”

I sighed and lifted my arm. There, on my wrist, was a sparkling new gold and silver Cartier.

“Holy shit.”

“You said yours was a cheapie.” He nibbled my earlobe. “You deserve better.”

I lifted the watch, admiring it through the haze of tequila. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Yours is in your purse.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His nibbles moved down the side of my neck, making me shiver. “But I hope that’s not all I get.”

I twisted to kiss him over my shoulder.

“Uh-uh.”

He put his hands under my armpits and lifted me from his lap and for a second, my fogged brain scrambled to figure out what I’d done wrong. Then he turned me around to face him.

“Ah.” I swung my leg over his lap, straddling him. “Better?”

He put his hands on my rear and boosted me closer. “Much. Now, as you were about to do…”

I brought my lips up to his. Any other time, that would have been all I’d have done—a quick buss with a teasing promise that he’d get more later…when we weren’t in a nightclub, on the edge of a crowded dance floor, sitting at a table surrounded by his friends. I’m a private person, and it doesn’t get much more public than that. But my brain still buzzed from the tequila and my body buzzed from the heist.

I kissed him the way I would have kissed him back there, if Guy hadn’t interrupted—a deep, hungry kiss, legs wrapping around his hips, body pressed against his, hands twining in his curls. He kissed me back as if this was exactly what he’d hoped for, his mouth crushing mine, tongue sliding in.

I dimly heard the catcalls of the others. “I’ll have what he’s having.” “Get a room!” “Hell, no, stay here and we’ll clear off the table.”

Jaz just kept kissing me and rubbing against me, so hard I gasped and arched up, breaking the kiss. His hands wrapped in my hair and he pulled me in again, and everything around me disappeared, sucked into the vacuum of the unbelievable vibes pulsing off him, like nothing I’d ever felt before, not anger or hatred or anything I could put a name to, but pure, unadulterated chaos. When I looked into his eyes, I saw fire—beautiful, devouring flames of chaos and hunger and need, and something deeper that told me I was what he hungered for, what he needed and—

The world went black. A snarl echoed through the darkness. Fangs flashed. The smell of blood, then the splatter of it, thick and hot. The brush of fur against my skin, dark as the night around it.

I ricocheted from the vision, breaking the kiss. My gaze tripped over the crowd, searching for the face I knew was out there: Karl.

Jaz’s hands slid to the back of my head, and he pulled my ear to his lips.

“Sorry,” he whispered, breath coming hard, words disjointed. “Too fast. Not here. Got carried away.”

“It’s not—I thought I heard my parents’ ring tone.” I pulled my personal cell phone from my pocket and flipped it open. “Shit, shit, shit!”

Jaz rubbed my arm. “Pretend you didn’t hear it.”

“I can’t. I’m supposed to check in every night. After last year, I’m on a very tight leash. I miss curfew, even down here, and I’m cut off.”

“Better call back then…from someplace quieter. Come on. We’ll find—”

“No,” I said as I slid off his lap. “You stay. I’ll be right back.”

HOPE: HUNGRY

I crossed the road and slipped into a back alley. A blast of night air knocked away the last haze of tequila.

Karl had seen me with Jaz, on his lap, drunk and making a fool of—

I rubbed my face. I was twenty-seven, single and entitled to go out, get wasted and get laid.

I sensed Karl’s silent approach. I braced myself, and turned. And he was there, like so many times before, arriving unannounced, simply…appearing—in a parking lot, a grocery store, my living room. I’d glimpse the werewolf vision, look up and he’d be there, acting as if he’d just stepped out for a minute and returned.

As he strode down the alley, the shadows hid all but his shape. It didn’t matter. His image was ingrained in my brain. I glanced at the shadow and saw that handsome face, jawline a little too strong, nose a little too sharp, but the flaws only adding an edge, a masculinity that belied the perfect grooming, the designer clothes. A wolf in banker’s clothing, I’d tease, and he’d laugh and make a wry joke at his own expense, always the first to poke fun at the image he cultivated.

But tonight there was no laugh. No über-confident smile. His face was a stone mask, his gray-blue eyes as cold as if he’d been striding up to a stranger. I saw that, and my last glimmer of hope guttered out.

I tried to read him, but when he was angry, he kept his thoughts a swirl, no image or words concrete enough for me to pluck out.

“Sorry to tear you away,” he said, each word clipped.

I forced a grin and plucked at my sweaty T-shirt. “That’s okay. I could use a few minutes of fresh air.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Because, naturally, that’s the only explanation for being on a guy’s lap in a nightclub. Actually, I’m not drunk. Working on it, though. What I was doing was following orders. Yours, if I recall.”