Moves Like Jagger (Wolf Mates Book 4) Read online

  His chest tightened as the visual of her in Scar’s cage came back and then he smiled again. He knew he shouldn’t laugh, but their first meeting was pretty damn funny.

  She didn’t seem to mind his poking fun, either. She’d played right along. That’s when he’d found he wasn’t just instantly attracted to her physical beauty. He’d met plenty of those women back in New York. Great looking, but uninteresting in a deeper way.

  He was attracted to Viv’s willingness to laugh at his jokes, to spar with him. She was quick-witted, open, and it had taken all of ten minutes for him to decide he wanted a date with her.

  Among other things.

  But for right now, he’d settle for some one-on-one time with her. He wanted to know what made Vivienne Hathaway tick. Why she’d mentioned the being cash poor. How she’d come to find out she was a shifter, how her family dealt with it. What it was like to grow up with humans.

  Mostly he wanted to see her smile again, hear her laugh. Find out if those saucy retorts came from equally saucy lips.

  As the day began to fade into a purple and bruised-blue twilight, Jagger turned the key in the ignition of his Doggy Doctor van, catching yet another smile on his face in the rearview mirror.

  The smile of anticipation.

  Chapter 3

  Wrapping a towel around her head, Viv sorted her way through her meandering herd of cats and headed for the bedroom in the cottage JC had offered to rent to her while she got on her feet.

  Four furry black bodies zoomed ahead of her, racing each other to her new bed, where the other two cats slept soundly, curled into the fluffy red and white pillows she’d managed to somehow hide from the bank and their estate-sale hounds.

  Viv shook her head, pulling off the towel covering her hair and draping it on the antiqued white dresser. No feeling sorry for herself today. All that money didn’t define her. It just made her life easier.

  She could handle difficult. She would handle difficult. So she wasn’t rich anymore. So she couldn’t devote all of her time to rescuing animals anymore, but instead had to work a real job for a living. And so what if she’d given her parents what was left in her checking account to get them to Florida. Her mother’s sister, Evelyn, lived there and had welcomed them with open arms. Since her husband, Martin, died, Evelyn said she was lonely.

  They were safe and unscathed, and that was all that mattered. Out of harm’s way while she attempted to track down the bastard who’d stolen all their money.

  Hiram Abrahmowicz was going to rue the day she found him—wherever the hell he was. He hadn’t just been her parent’s accountant, he’d been hers, too. He’d sauntered off with the family fortune and was likely sunning himself on some island he’d bought with her parents’ hard-earned money.

  Still, she’d fared well. When JC had found out about her predicament, she’d driven to Hoboken like the cavalry, bringing her husband Max, his brother Derrick, and Derrick’s wife Martine. They’d scooped her up on the last day of the estate sale, wiped her tears, packed up what little she had left, herded the cats and driven her to Cedar Glen, where JC had demanded she stay in the adorable white cottage behind their house, rent free.

  To which Viv had vehemently opposed until Derrick offered her a job at the bar as a bartender. If she had few skills other than debutante and an unusable degree in the arts, she was, in fact, a killer bartender.

  She clenched her fists as Howie hopped up on the dresser and head-butted her, purring softly. Viv softened and scratched him under the chin, the only white spot on his entire body.

  “I know, I know, Snookums. This, too, shall pass, right? Our budget has nowhere to go but up, right?” Howie head-butted her in acknowledgment, resting his soft cheek against hers.

  AJ pawed at her calf, reminding her she had to move it along if she was going to be on time for Jagger.

  Viv inhaled a deep breath. Jagger. He was delicious and funny and sharp and enormous. The-size-of-a-mountain enormous, leaving her feeling small and delicate. Not something usually attributed to her and her curves, but it left her feeling sexy.

  She hadn’t been this excited about a date in a hundred years, and despite her poverty, she felt a little more hopeful today than she had yesterday.

  She had a job, a place to rest her head, a paycheck coming, and a date.

  Things were looking up.

  Nick rolled his round body at her feet, looking for tummy scratches, his wide green eyes hopeful. “Later, gator. Promise. Mommy needs to get her butt in gear. I only have an hour to get ready.” Giving Nick one last stroke with her toes, she turned to assess her sparsely filled closet.

  Gone were her fancy designer labels, replaced by some clothes she’d managed to sneak past the bank’s estate-sale people—a couple of pairs of jeans, and some T-shirts she used when she was on a rescue.

  Shit. She hadn’t given much thought about what she was going to wear on this date with Jagger. She didn’t even know where they were going.

  Lack of a cute outfit had never been a problem before, even though she preferred jeans. Scratching her head, she began digging through a black bag of clothes JC had dropped off earlier in the week.

  JC was miles taller than she was, but she could always roll the sleeves up on a sweater.

  The doorbell’s loud gong interrupted her search and had the cats scattering to investigate. Maybe it was JC with another one of her casseroles, or Max’s mother, Faith—who was the most beautiful decades-old woman she’d ever seen—with cookies. Faith made amazing cookies.

  They’d all made her their Project Pitiful, and while she was incredibly grateful, she was determined to earn her keep and find her way in this strange new land called Only Lint In My Pockets.

  It was probably JC. She’d offered to come over and hang out while she got ready for her date if she could get away from the new salon.

  Making her way to the door, she popped it open, a smile on her face.

  To find Jagger standing outside, fluffy snowflakes whispering across his raven hair, the light from the porch swaying on its hook from the frigid wind, his big hands holding a bouquet of ketchup packets.

  He sighed and clucked his tongue at her with a saucy grin. “Are you still trying to tempt me with your luscious curves and wicked ways? I think I told you, young lady, and I stand firm, naked won’t work. What made you think half-naked would?”

  She barked a laugh as her brood hovered around her ankles, weaving between them in inquisition, and clung to the towel’s edges at her breasts. “You’re early. I don’t get dressed before seven,” she joked, even as she watched him try to avoid assessing her with his eyes.

  He held up his wrist and pointed to his watch. “Um, no. I’m on time. I’m always on time.”

  She let the door swing wide, inviting him in as she shivered before pointing to the microwave in her small white and dove-gray kitchen. “See what the microwave says, funny man? Six-fifteen. I still have forty-five minutes.”

  He dug his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and used his thumb to scroll the screen. “See what the calendar says? Someone forgot to change her clocks back in November.”

  Viv frowned, tucking a strand of her wet hair behind her ear. “Damn. I’m sorry. But I promise if you give me five minutes, it’ll be worth the wait.”

  Jagger held out the ketchup packet bouquet, shutting the door with the heel of his booted foot. “Better put these in water before they wilt. And five minutes is all you get. One minute more and I turn into a pumpkin.”

  It was at that moment when her brood decided Jagger was an interloper who needed a thorough investigation.

  The BSB Boys plus one weren’t shy. They were people cats with almost no hang-ups, ready and willing to sit in any lap available—and clearly, Jagger’s looked like a lap worth inspecting.

  The lot of them bum-rushed him, circling his feet until he knelt down and held the back of his hand out. Looking up at her, he asked with a devastatingly handsome smile, “How many do you have?”
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  “Six total—all rescues—all almost totally black because as you know in rescue, black cats are hard to place. Nick, Howie, AJ, Brian, Kevin, and JT.”

  Jagger chuckled and nodded. “Backstreet Boys and one NSYNC?”

  Viv fluttered her eyelashes at him as her furbabies decided Jagger was worthy, rubbing up against him and yowling their pleasure as he tried to stroke all of them. “You know the names of the Backstreet Boys? Be still my beating heart.”

  Rising, he stared down at her, still avoiding anything but her face—which almost made her swoon—and winced a sheepish grin. “Hang on to your heart. I have a confession. I interrogated—er, asked JC about you today while she trimmed my hair.”

  Her heart returned to its erratic pounding as she took the ketchup packet bouquet and set it on the counter, leaving only a few inches between them. “Did you get a haircut just for our date?”

  “No. I had split ends. They were hideous.”

  Laughter spilled from her throat as she found herself leaning in closer toward him, savoring his cologne, the sharp square of his jaw. “That was very sweet.”

  Jagger leaned in, too, his big presence soothing and sexy at the same time. “So you don’t mind that I asked her about you? It was just general stuff, like your favorite color, what you like to eat, if you’d send me packing if I didn’t get you the right brand of ketchup. Where I could find a scorpion. You know, nothing too personal.”

  Goose bumps skittered along her skin as his minty breath wafted over her face. “Nah. It was a smart thing to do. If you’d brought the wrong brand of ketchup, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  Just then, Kevin decided Jagger wasn’t paying the proper attention to him and launched himself at Jagger’s thigh. The scrape of claw meeting denim had Viv forgetting about the towel around her and reaching between them to extract Kevin.

  “Kevin! No!”

  But she stumbled on JT, who’d apparently decided to throw his back into this effort to get Jagger’s attention, and then she tripped on Howie, almost knocking him sideways.

  Jagger, reached for her just as she fell into him, his solid chest like a wall of bricks as they stumbled backward and fell to the floor in order to avoid hurting the cats.

  The BSB Boys and JT scattered, leaving only tufts of fur and Viv naked in Jagger’s arms.

  Lifting her head, she rose up on the palms of her hands and looked down into his deep brown eyes. “I’m naked.”

  Jagger popped his yummy lips and instantly dropped his arms to his sides. “It’s like you just can’t get it together, Vivienne Hathaway. Why is that?” he teased.

  Her nipples scraped against the fitted shirt he wore, creating a sweet friction she had to clench her teeth to contain, yet neither of them moved. “It must be all the talk of ketchup.”

  “Can I just say something?” he asked, his tone husky, his eyes still fixed on her face.

  “Really. What is there left to say? I’m naked.”

  “And I’m trying to remain a gentleman while you’re naked. But I gotta tell ya, the way you’re always throwing yourself at me like this is unnerving. How long’s a guy supposed to hold out before he cracks?”

  Her cheeks grew hot as a thrill shot up along her spine. “You feel like you’re going to crack?”

  Jagger cleared his throat. “I don’t want to mention the unmentionable because it’s unbecoming of a gentleman, but don’t you feel that part of me that feels like it’s going to crack?”

  Did she ever. He was hard everywhere. Ev-ery-where. And it was doing things to her she’d never had done before.

  Her laughter tinkled through the cottage as she sank deeper into his long length before she could catch herself. “I do. But I don’t mind if you don’t mind,” she managed to murmur while her head spun and her pulse raced.

  “That’s what all the girls say,” he grumbled in that deep, dripping-with-hot-chocolate-sauce way.

  “All of them? How many naked women have fallen on top of you after a full-on feline assault?”

  He scoffed, his chest rising against hers. “I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count.”

  “You’re a popular guy, huh?”

  “Senior prom queen and everything.”

  Her giggle was light and flirty, and she didn’t even care that she was naked anymore because their lips were now but a half-inch apart and his mouth was too busy mesmerizing her.

  “You know what, Vivienne Hathaway?”

  “What, Jagger Dubrov?”

  “I think if I don’t kiss you within the next couple of seconds, something really terrible is going to happen. I know it’s really soon in our budding relationship. I know it’s untoward. Nay, bold even. But I’m just sayin’ it could get ugly fast.”

  Viv made a pouty face, her body relaxing against his, relishing the long, muscled solidness. “I would never want anything terrible to happen to you. You brought me ketchup,” she whispered, lowering her head just a half inch more as he raised his.

  Their lips whispered across one another’s, creating an instant zing of heart-pounding anticipation deep in her belly. Viv inhaled all this man beneath her, all those scrumptious ridges and planes, the scent of his cologne, his warm breath on her face.

  She wet her lips, her tongue snaking outward, almost catching the soft pout of his mouth. Her pulse raced, her head grew dizzy, her nipples tightened, scraping against his shirt as Jagger’s fingers just barely touched her skin.

  Just as their mouths almost touched again, the ringing of Jagger’s cell phone in his jacket pocket made them both jump, making Viv’s muscles clench in disappointment.

  He ran a wide hand over her bare back and apologized on a ragged sigh. “Sorry, that’s my emergency number. I have to take this.”

  Viv rolled off him with more reluctance than she cared to admit and scrambled for the towel she’d lost in their fall. “No worries. You get that, I’ll just go finish getting dressed.”

  She wrapped the towel back around her and zipped toward her bedroom, closing the door, her breathing uneven, her limbs shaky.

  God, he was sex on a stick. She’d done nothing more than lie on top of the man—granted, she was naked, but still, she’d been more turned on than she could ever remember.

  AJ and Kevin circled her ankles while she rooted in her closet for something to wear. Still unclear about where they were going.

  “I’m on my way,” Jagger reassured from behind the door.

  Damn. He probably had an emergency he couldn’t ignore. Disappointment settled in, but he was a doctor, emergencies were part of the deal.

  Knuckles rapped against her bedroom door, reminding her to put some clothes on. “Viv? I’ve got an emergency. I have to go.”

  She swallowed hard, still trying to compose herself. “I totally understand. You go. I hope everything’s okay.”

  “Why don’t you come with? JC tells me you’re really good at soothing frightened animals with all the rescuing you did back in Hoboken. I’d really appreciate an extra pair of hands. Do you mind?”

  She grinned, jamming her legs into her favorite pair of jeans and reaching for a tie for her hair. “I’d love to,” she responded, throwing a sweater over her head and grabbing her boots.

  Viv popped the door open to find Jagger towering there, his eyes amused. “You sure you don’t mind? It’s not exactly the kind of stuff first dates are made of.”

  She scoffed at him, slipping past his bulk to grab her coat and gloves. “Are you kidding? I live for this. If you couldn’t tell, I love animals. All animals. I’m happiest when I’m with them.”

  Jagger stared at her for a moment, one that felt long but was likely only seconds. “I like you, Vivienne Hathaway,” he finally said, as though it stunned him to like her.

  She beamed from the inside out as she wrapped a warm scarf around her neck. “Good thing, too. It will ease the crushing blow when I confess you brought me the wrong brand of ketchup.”

  Jagger barked a laugh, o
pening the front door and making a sweeping motion with his hand for her to exit. “After you, Miss Persnickety.”

  Her laughter echoed into the dark night as she tromped through the falling snow toward Jagger’s van, her heart warm, despite the frigid air.

  Chapter 4

  Viv stroked the wiry gray hair of Mrs. Andersen’s Schnauzer, Leviticus, holding him as still as possible as Jagger inspected the large bite on his hindquarter.

  He looked up at her from across the sterile table in his van, his brown eyes full of concern.

  “It’s a pretty big mess, huh?” Viv remarked with her own brand of worry. She’d seen bites before, but never one as messy as this. Of course, she came from a city where there were no werewolves. “It tore up a good portion of his hindquarter.”

  Jagger nodded his head in agreement. “Damn right it’s a messy bite.”

  “I’m still unclear about shifter lingo, but can you smell anything on him? Like a scent from the attacker?”

  He shook his dark head. “Nothing—which is strange as hell. I don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “Not just the lack of scent thing, but this is the second time I’ve had a call like this. This afternoon it was the Browns’ little dog, Mookie. Whatever it was got ahold of his paw before he managed to get away. Nothing serious, mind you, but it was definitely nicked and swollen, and according to them, there aren’t any other dogs on the farms nearest them. It doesn’t mean a dog from somewhere else in Cedar Glen didn’t have a go at Mookie, but as tight as this community is, I have to doubt the pet owner wouldn’t offer their apologies to the Browns. Also, Max made it clear to me when I first arrived here in Cedar Glen, there were no hunts out of respect for Hector and his love of bunnies. So I have to wonder if it’s a shifter doing this, seeing as Max would see their heads roll. The fear of punishment should be pretty clear.”

  Viv stroked Leviticus’s head, soothing him to keep him still as Jagger examined him; the lights inside the van shining down on the patient’s small body were harsh and bright. Hector was adorable, and as nuts about all creatures great and small as Viv was.