He slanted his eyes my way. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise. Perhaps you should direct all that hostility toward the men who are slashing my tires with a sharp instrument.”

I jerked forward when he slammed the brakes at the red light and leaned over, getting right in my face. “And mayhap your impassive tone is what’s setting me off. So why don’t you drop some of that self-righteous attitude you carry around like you’re better than everyone else and just sit quiet for the rest of the ride? ’Preciate ya.”

His words cut me more than I allowed him to see. I feigned indifference and looked out the window while inside my heart constricted. I felt more devotion toward those I loved than he could ever fathom. Maybe I was too tough for some men to handle, but it was the only way to gain control in a world of dominant men. Wheeler had never proven himself to be anything but a man who held contempt for women, and he must have assumed because I was a dancer that I didn’t have a brain cell in my head.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked.

He slid on a pair of black shades. “Your place. I’ll have someone fix your tires and drive your car over.”

“Don’t you need my keys for that?”

He eased down in his seat, widening his legs a little. “Sweetheart, I’ve got friends with skilled hands.”

“That I don’t doubt.”

“Why is everything an innuendo with you?”

I chuckled softly. “I can’t help it. When someone is so uptight about sex, it just opens a door. Yours just happens to have a welcome mat in front of it.”

Wheeler’s cheeks flamed and I looked away in surprise. He really was uptight about sex. Sometimes I just liked to rile men up because they secretly enjoyed it, but now I was beginning to see the truth: Wheeler was sexually repressed. How curious coming from a wolf. I let my curiosity slide when we eased up to my apartment building.

“Stay here and keep the doors locked,” he said, tossing his sunglasses onto the dash. “Give me your keys, and I’ll make sure the slasher isn’t up there making himself a bologna sandwich.”

“All yours,” I said, dangling them in front of his face. One of the key rings caught his eye—a silver figure of a couple in a sexual position. He snatched them from me and stalked toward the apartment.

“Hmm. All that pent-up frustration,” I murmured, watching him climb the stairs. “This should be interesting indeed.”

Chapter 6

Wheeler scoped out the apartment and stepped back when a fluffy cat slinked around his legs. “Jesus. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

He glanced inside her bedroom, which was bereft of color. White curtains, white carpet, and a white bedspread. Naya must have thought she was Snow-Fucking-White. The red chair in the living room stood out like a wound, as if someone had tried to stab this room with judgment. Some people you could figure out by taking a glance around their house—seeing how tidy they kept it, the shitty art they hung on their walls, and how many mirrors they owned. Naya designed her apartment as if royal sheiks would be stopping in for coffee and a hookah. Lexi had mentioned the wild parties Naya threw, but he wondered how it was possible she didn’t have stains on her furniture. Perhaps she didn’t have the kind of parties he was used to.