The Beast in Him (Pride #2)(16)

“Yes, thanks again.” The client disconnected the call and Jess wrapped her arms around her body.
“Okay,” she muttered to herself. “This dress. Bad idea in winter.” As were the goddamn shoes. Trying not to fall on her ass in the disgusting alley, Jess started to walk toward the opening leading to the street. As she reached the end, she saw two females standing by a piece of shit Buick. They seemed to be in quite an agitated discussion. Normally Jess wouldn’t notice or care, but she scented they were wolves. Wolves she didn’t recognize. She recognized all the local wolves and now the Smiths, but new wolves on an already small island asked for trouble.
As she approached the mouth of the alley, the two women stopped talking and those cold wolf eyes focused on her.
Uh-oh.
Smitty grabbed hold of Madeline Stark while Mitch grabbed his sister. Not easy since both females had decided to shift. In the middle of a full-human party no less. Has everyone lost their goddamn mind?
He shook Stark. “Shift back. Now!” She did and suddenly he had a naked hyena in his arms. Man, he could find much better ways to spend a Tuesday evening. He shoved her toward the bathroom. “Get dressed.” He threw clothes at her, but he had no idea if they belonged to her, her sisters, Marissa, or Mace’s sisters Serita and Allie, who’d delighted in joining the fray.
Mitch pushed his still-shifted sister into the men’s bathroom across the tiny hallway since he knew better than to put her in an enclosed space with the Starks. The other two lionesses followed Marissa in, and as soon as the door closed Mitch had to walk away, laughing before he even got five feet.
Smitty glanced around. The reason he found this little fight before it got truly ugly was because he saw Jessie Ann head down this hallway to the bathroom and the Starks follow her. Now he had no idea where she’d gone.
He knocked on the men’s bathroom door. “Y’all seen Jessie Ann?”
“Who?” a trio of voices answered back.
He rolled his eyes. “Jessica Ward?”
“She was here a few minutes ago,” Marissa answered.
Dammit. Where did she go? He needed to find her. Now.
He simply couldn’t get that vision out of his mind of that runt dog practically salivating all over her. At least the males in Jessie’s Pack had some wiry strength to them. Landry could get his ass kicked by one of Smitty’s three-year-old nephews.
Well, she couldn’t have gone far.
He stroked his chin and glanced around until his gaze finally settled on the back exit door. The one that locked automatically.
Smitty grinned. He sure did love his job.
Jess stood at the end of the alley, her gaze locked on the two females. One of them with a horrible red dye job snarled and advanced. Jess snarled back, unleashing her claws and bracing her stance. If this got ugly, she’d kick off the shoes. If it got really ugly, she’d shift. That was always a last resort, though, when out in the open like this.But before the female could get close, the other She-wolf grabbed her arm and yanked her back, shoving her toward the car.
“Not yet and not her,” she heard her whisper. Jess had wild-dog hearing. She could hear a pin drop a mile away if she needed to. “Get in,” the She-wolf ordered. The redhead started to argue, but the other one slapped her and pushed her toward the car.
Gee, as difficult as her Pack could be, Jess never had to bitch slap one to get her way. Even the Smith females didn’t slap. You either complied or they mauled. There was no in between in the Smith universe.
The two females got in the car and pulled away from the curb; Jess let out a relieved breath.
“Jessie Ann?”
Jess screamed and turned swinging. Unfortunately, it was much more of a flailing than any kind of actual fighting moves and Smitty easily caught her arms.
“What are you doing?” he demanded calmly.
“Beating you senseless?”
He let out that annoyed sigh she remembered so well. The same one he gave her when she fell out of a tree after Sissy and her She-wolves chased Jess up there in the first place.
She glanced down at the big hands gripping her biceps to hold her steady. “Do you mind letting me go?”
“Sure you can handle the basics of walking and talking at the same time, darlin’?” She bared fangs and he quickly pushed her away. “A simple yes would have gotten the same sentiment across, ya know?”
“Why are you here?”
“My team’s here for additional security coverage for the museum. Good thing, too, with lions and hyenas fighting in the hallway.”
Jess chuckled. “Good point.” She motioned to the door. “Since you’re security, can you let me back in?”
Smitty stared at her. “Do you have a ticket?”
She blinked. “It’s inside with my coat.”
“Sorry, darlin’, I’m not really authorized to let you in if you don’t have a ticket.”
Jess took a steadying step. “I’m sorry. What?”
“We’re only letting in people who have their tickets. You don’t. Sorry.”
Jess’s teeth began to chatter and she desperately rubbed her arms. What exactly was wrong with this man? Yesterday all he’d wanted to do was “help” her. Now she couldn’t get him to open the goddamn door when she was freezing to death. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Jessie Ann, you know how serious I take my job. I can’t let anyone into the party without a ticket.”
“You son of a—”
“Now, now, Jessie Ann. No call for that kind of language.”
She threw her hands up. “Fine. I’ll just go walk around the entire goddamn building and go in through the front. Hopefully I won’t die from exposure on the way.” 
“Nah, you know our kind don’t die that easy from the cold.” She ignored him and turned to walk away. “They won’t let you in either,” he said to her back.
She stopped. “Why not?”
“You don’t have a ticket.”
She spun on her heel, shocked she didn’t fall on her ass in these goddamn shoes. “Bobby Ray Smith, I swear to God—”
Still calm, he cut in and said, “Don’t blaspheme at me, Jessie Ann.”
“It’s Jess-i-ca!” she nearly screamed. “Not Jessie. Definitely not Jessie Ann.”
He shrugged. “I like Jessie Ann.” It was his calmness that had her crazed. That calm, in-control Smitty air. His brothers didn’t have it. His father definitely didn’t have it. So Smitty must have gotten it from his mother. But right now it made Jess want to take off her shoe and stab him in the eye with the five-inch heel.
He glanced at her hand. “You can use your phone. Call one of those friends of yours to bring your ticket.”
“They’re not carrying their phones. Their phones are in their coats.”
“Why wouldn’t they have their phones?”
She held up hers, gripping the small device so tightly she had the feeling she’d crush it. “Because I’m carrying mine!”
“No need to yell, Jessie Ann.”
“I can’t talk to you.” She spun around yet again and started to walk away.
“Of course,” he said behind her, “maybe there’s something we can work out.”
“And what would that be?” she bit out even as she kept walking.
“You go out with me tomorrow.”
Again, Jess stopped in her tracks. To her utter disgust and self-loathing, her heart leaped in her chest. “A date? You’re having me freeze my ass off because you want a date.”
“Not a date,” he said right by her ear and she nearly jumped ten feet straight up.
How does he do that?
“Just two friends hanging out.”
Of course. Because why would Bobby Ray Smith go out with “little” Jessie Ann Ward? Her leaping heart tripped and took a nice plunge off Depression Mountain. This had all to do with his ego and nothing to do with her. Sixteen years and she still wasn’t worth... Oh, forget it.
“My friends don’t let me freeze to death.”
“I’m sure you’re not as difficult with your friends as you are with me. Just say the word yes and I’ll get you right inside, darlin’.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I’m a Smith,” he said simply.
“What’s the difference?”
“To many there is none.” His grin was slow and so damn charming she wanted to slap it right off his face. “One word, Jessie Ann. Yes. And I’ll take you inside.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“That’s an ugly word. I prefer extortion.”
She couldn’t even feel her toes. The thought of walking around the entire goddamn building to get back inside made her cringe. Especially in these stupid shoes. Never again would Phil get her in shoes like these.
“I’ll never forgive you for this.”
“Doesn’t sound like a yes to me.”
“Fine. Yes.”
Smitty immediately took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders. It smelled like him, and she kind of wanted to growl and rub it all over her body.
He walked her back to the door, and as he opened it May nearly tumbled out since she had her hand wrapped around the inside handle.“Jess! There you are. We’ve been lookin’ everywhere for you, girl.”
“I had to take a call,” she growled.
May looked between her and Smitty. “All right,” she said before scampering away like the weak-willed mutt she was.