“Fair enough" I gave him. "But you've got really nice shoes." He blinked, then cast a dubious glance at his boots. "They were in my closet." I snorted and plucked at the sleeves of his jacket. "Please you've been planning this outfit for a week.”

“I'm just warning you, I'm probably going to be a total hard-ass vamp."Mallory snorted and walked out of the kitchen, calling out, "Yeah, well, you've got a purple marshmallow on your chin, hard-ass vamp.”

“Was I not tempting enough?” I asked him. “Not classy enough?” I didn’t expect him to answer, but he did. And that was almost worse. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” He’d stood up and slipped his hands into his pockets. I met his gaze and saw the green fire in his eyes. “You’re perfect—beautiful, intelligent, intractable in a kind of . . . attractive way. Headstrong, but a good strategist. An amazing fighter.”

“Can you at least pretend to be professional today?”Lindsey stopped, glanced back at Luc. “You show me professional, and I’llshow you professional.”Luc snorted, but his expression was gleeful. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t knowprofessional if it bit you on the ass.”“I prefer my bites in other places.”“Is that an invitation?”“If only you were so lucky, cowboy.”“Lucky? Hooking up with me would be the luckiest day of your life, Blondie.”

“So you’re now an official member of Enclave Three. You weirdo.”I snorted. “I’m a weirdo? You’re a werewolf.”“I suggest you say that with respect, Parker.”“Or what?”“Or I’ll have to bite you.” His lips widened into a grin of heart-stopping proportions. I guessed itwould have been pretty effective on him in werewolf form, too.”

“Eventually, the room was cleared, and we stood there together, chests heaving, a spray of shifters and humans on the floor in front of us. We weren’t entirely undamaged—I’d taken a bruising shot to my right thigh, and Ethan had slices across his belly where he’d been caught with the edge of a bar of steel broken from someone’s office chair.But we were alive. We glanced over at each other. I was just about to speak, but before I could get out words, his hand was at the back of my head, his mouth pressing against mine. The intensely possessive kiss left me gasping for breath, but even as he pulled back, his fingers stayed knotted in the back of my hair.”

“You've got better boobs," I acknowledged. And just as we'd done each time we'd had this boobs-versus-legs conversation, we looked down at our chests. Ogled. Compared.”