“How ’bout you roll up your window and I won’t have to come over there and crush your skull?” Wheeler barked at them.

“Please, just ignore them.” I touched his arm, which extended in front of me and gripped the door.

Without thinking, I traced my index finger over a chain inked on his bicep that circled around but didn’t close. The final link was broken. Near it was a wolf. Tribal patterns and images created a visual display, and I noticed his right wrist had a thick band around it. My God, these were the sexiest things I’d ever seen.

His skin felt nice beneath my fingertips. Wheeler’s eyes slanted my way, and he was only a few inches from my face—so close I could smell him.

“You should tell me about these sometime,” I said, still outlining one of the tribal patterns with my finger. “I’d love to know why you chose to hide beneath all this ink.”

He suddenly wrenched away. “You think I’m hiding? This is me, inside and out.”

“You really want people to believe that, don’t you?”

Something flashed in his eyes before he looked down, but I caught it. Wheeler switched on the radio and cranked up the volume. “It doesn’t matter what the world believes—it’s what I believe.”

***

When we arrived at the club, Wheeler remained quiet, shadowing me as I surreptitiously made my way through the back door using an emergency key. I waved at one of the girls coming out of the restroom and suddenly felt a flurry of nerves causing my heart to speed up. When I approached Delgado’s office, I turned the brass knob and found it locked.

“Damn,” I whispered. “Why did I think it would be that simple? What was I thinking?”

Wheeler knelt down and pulled out a slim metal stick from his wallet. “Turn around, sweetheart. Use your body to hide me.”

I snorted. “My body isn’t big enough to hide all of you.”

He put the metal pin between his teeth and tucked his wallet in his back pocket. “If your ass were as big as your mouth, I’d have all the privacy a man could afford.”

“Well then,” I purred. “Since there’s not much to look at…” I turned my back on him and leaned my left shoulder against the wall, doing my best to keep him hidden. Of course, that meant my derrière was about two inches from his face. Call it my subtle way of sticking it to a wolf.

He released a ragged breath and I peered over my shoulder, watching him pick the lock with a shaky hand.

“Is this what they teach in wolf business school?” I asked conversationally. “You sure are a jack-of-all-trades.”

“You’d be surprised what a man in my position has had to do.”

“Hmm,” I moaned, shifting my hips. “I’m quite familiar with that position, and I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would surprise me.”

I squeaked when he poked my bottom with the tip of his sharp object.