Jared (River Pack Wolves 3)(6)

The campaign office buzzed with activity. Normally, the hum and bustle would electrify Grace, and she would be out in the thick of it, watching poll numbers, checking strategies, scanning news reports. But this morning her head was swimming, and she was hiding out in the tiny corner office she never used.

She had been caught.

Caught shifting. Caught running in wolf form through the national forest. Of all things, caught by a huge, gorgeous shifter who had stood before her in all his naked glory sporting a king-sized erection she could hardly keep from staring at. It wasn’t like she had never seen a man naked before, although she could easily count the times, and none had involved a specimen like him. She had fantasized about him all night long.

Her vibrator had gotten a serious workout.

And he wasn’t simply hot—he was jarringly gentle, unlike all the stories her father spouted about shifters. Never mind that she was a shifter, too—that was her dark secret, the one she kept from everyone. She certainly didn’t hang out with shifters, and she only had second-hand knowledge of what they were truly like.

Until now.

Now her secret was in the hands of a man with only a first name—Jared. He had promised to keep her secret safe, but she had absolutely no reason to believe him. In fact, she had every reason to believe he would run to the nearest celebrity rag and spill the sordid details about the Senator’s daughter who was a wolf.

She buried her head in her arms, which were folded on top of the scramble of papers on her desk.

This mystery shifter wasn’t the only time bomb waiting to explode her life. Her father’s new legislation to register shifters would destroy her just as fast. She’d argued endlessly with him about it, to no avail. It was like a vortex of bad luck was coalescing around her, threatening to consume her.

She should be finding a way to forestall the legislation.

She should be hunting for information on the mystery shifter.

She should be making plans to move to Bermuda.

But all she could think about was that scorching hot man standing naked in the moonlight. Jared. Even his name was sexy. And the size of him, with all those muscles and that huge cock… Jesus, were all shifter men that turbo-charged with masculinity? He had a military look about him, too, with the controlled movements and the clipped way he talked. Which only brought another flush of heat between her legs.

Would he return to the forest tonight? She couldn’t help fantasizing about running out to meet him. He promised she would see him again—well, not exactly a promise. A simple nod from his dark, shaggy wolf form. One nod, and she was ready to run off and have sex in the woods with a man she barely knew.

An extremely hot man. A shifter.

God, her vibrator was going to need new batteries if he didn’t show up tonight.

Grace groaned and dug her hands into her hair, bunching it up in frustration. Then she slammed her fists down on the papers on her desk, sending them fluttering. She had to get her mind off the hope of random sex with hot shifter men and focus on stopping the cataclysms from crashing down on her all at once.

She’d begged her father to put off the introduction of the shifter legislation—or to cancel it outright. Totally fallen on deaf ears, not that she expected any different. This anti-shifter registration law was going to be the cornerstone of his re-election campaign.

She should know—she was his campaign manager.

Normally, she was a true believer. Hell, she’d written most of his policies. And they seldom had disagreements when it came to her father’s work. Together, they’d done a lot of good work—protecting the environment, looking out for the homeless. She was especially proud of his work on the behalf of veterans, those men and women who laid down their lives for their country. This shifter law was the first significant part of his platform that she’d even tried to talk him out of.

Obviously, it was a problem for her personally. Her father would disown her if he knew. His anti-shifter beliefs were true to the core. He had no idea his daughter was one, but she doubted that would make a difference. Which didn’t just distress her and make her live in constant fear of discovery, for her sake and for his… it embarrassed her. She loved her father. He was a powerful man, and he used that power in good ways. He worked hard, and he truly cared about people. At least, that’s what she had always believed. He wasn’t racist or sexist or cling to any of the other bigotries and biases that often plagued men of his generation. He was a good man who believed in the goodness of people—the only problem being that he didn’t seem to think shifters belonged in that class.

He called them animals.

He said they were dangerous.