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  The Wolf, The Curse and the Party

  Paranormal Protection Agency

  Mina Carter

  New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

  Copyright © 2012 by Mina Carter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Also by Mina Carter

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Please be able to help,” I muttered as I looked up at the sign over the door in front of me. It read ‘Paranormal Protection Agency’ and if you’d asked me six months ago if I’d be here knocking on their door needing help, I’d have told you to take more water with it. Now? I’d have the bottle from you quick as a flash and you could keep the damn water.

  “Jared, I know you were a cop but for fucks sake, when did ‘protect and serve’ become ‘protect and service’?”

  Since my name wasn’t Jared and I’d never been a cop, it was obviously someone else getting the dressing down. But I still stopped halfway through the door and considered doing an about-face to escape from the irate female voice.

  Yeah, a place that proclaimed itself as the ‘Paranormal Protection Agency’ was bound to be a little different, but that was a little far out, even for me.

  Given the current conversation going on further back in the officers, my timing was as much a SNAFU as my life. Staring down the business end of a nasty little curse my bastard of an ex had arranged after we split, and with an important function tonight, I was rapidly running out of options and that more sacred of commodities: time.

  Before I could turn around and beat a hasty retreat, a male voice issued from further within. Deep and rich, it sent a soul-deep shiver through my body right down to my curling toes. There’s nothing as sexy as a man’s voice, especially the deep, gravelly ones and this one had more gravel than a landscaped garden.

  “Sorry boss, but she was hot, and by that I mean haaaaawt. Besides, how will I satisfy my mate when I find her if I don’t take advantage of every learning experience now?”

  “Jared! She was a fucking German Shepherd!”

  WTF? A German Shepherd? What kind of place were these people running?

  “And I’m a wolf. Your point is?”

  The reply was so nonplussed that it caught my interest. With a sick sense of fascination I stepped through the door and let it close silently behind me.

  The office beyond was standard for small offices the world over. A cluster of desks sat under one of the windows while a lone plastic plant guarded the door. I checked. Yup. Scrunched up sticky notes in the pot indicated it had been used as target practise. Seemed normal so far. I shivered and ventured further into the lion’s den.

  “My point is you don’t screw the client’s pets! The last thing I need is for my best shifter to be banged up for…what the fuck would that be called anyway? It’s gotta be illegal.”

  I pursed my lips at the thought as I headed toward the back of the office. If both participants were technically animals, would the law give a damn? Long practise kept my mouth shut but it was a struggle. That had always been my problem: open mouth, insert foot. No apparent intervention of brain.

  “No screwing the client’s pets. Got it, boss.”

  There was a pause, and I reached out to knock on the half open door in front of me, but something warned me to wait.

  “Does that mean I’m okay to screw the client’s wives instead?”

  “Stone!”

  “Just checking the ground rules, boss.”

  I stopped at the near bellow of outrage, recognising a woman only just holding onto control in the face of total male provocation. Any woman who’d been married was more than familiar with the feeling and I felt a sense of kinship with her.

  “Out, just get out! Before I get Cal to kick your ass from here to kingdom come!”

  “Awww don’t be so mean, Iliona. You love me, you know you do!” A male laugh sounded, rich and silky, as the door was yanked open. Startled, I withdrew my hand and stepped back sharply, not wanting to get trampled by however many paranormals spilled through the opening.

  Just one man filled the frame, the width of his shoulders blocking the light from within. I was forced to look up, which was no great surprise. At five foot nothing in my bare feet, pretty much everyone was taller than I was. What did surprise me was the fact that I was in the presence of a god, or at least the movie version of one.

  Tall, dark and handsome didn’t cut it. Ice-blue eyes focused on me, zeroing in with the accuracy of a laser-sighting system. The ice warmed instantly, the blue flooding with heat as his gaze swept my body with a slow, assessing look.

  Tingles ran riot over my skin, covering each inch after his warm gaze moved on. I squirmed, clenching my thighs together, needing to do something, anything, to try and ease the sudden, savage ache between them.

  Heat swept over my cheeks. I forced myself to stand upright and look bored as I waited for him to look me in the eye again. Although short, my bust was big enough that the girls regularly held conversations with members of the opposite gender. So much so that I’d long since gotten past the whole clickey fingers ‘my eyes are up here, buddy’ thing. It got old, fast. These days I just waited for attention to return to my face. If it did, the guy was a keeper.

  To his credit, he looked up within seconds, the assessment swift but full of interest as he stalked toward me. I back-pedalled instinctively, the automatic desire to retain my personal space warring with the need to get all up close and cosy with the lean hard body under the simple t-shirt and rugged cargo pants. He didn’t give me an option, determination in his eyes as he easily backed me up to corral me in a corner.

  My shoulders hit the wall and I brought my hands up as an ineffective ward. The gasp that whispered around the silent office was mine, escaping from my throat as he walked right up to me until my hands rested against the solidness of his broad chest. I looked up, unable to turn away, unable to do anything as he dominated my world.

  “Fuck me.” He paused, eyes searching mine as though looking for the answer to a question that had been bothering him for years. What it was, I had no clue, but pleasure and satisfaction displaced the heat for a second. “Or marry me. Then I get to fuck you lots.”

  My hand moved on automatic, the loud crack of my palm contacting his cheek making me jump but he just grinned. Anger cancelled out any mortification I felt at the red mark over his face.

  “Watch your language, young man. Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?”

  The grin grew broader, a white flash of teeth in the semi-darkness of the office, as his hand slid around my waist. With my hand on that side occupied by pushing at his chest to stop him pinning me with his body weight, I was all out of ways to stop him.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to fuck my mother, or marry her. But I’d sacrifice myself on the altar of marriage for one lick of your creamy cunt.”

  I raised my free hand again but he was ready for me. His large hand wrapped around my wrist with a casual strength that stole my breath away and he clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth in disapproval.

  “Careful, sexy. All this rough stuff and I’ll think you’re trying to come onto me.”

  “Stone! Put her down!”

  The order from somewhere behind the wall of his broad shoulders made me jump. In the heat of the moment I’d forgotten where w
e were, and what I’d come here for in the first place, but the sound of my Casanova’s boss brought me down to earth with a bump.

  Stone didn’t move, just looked over his shoulder at his boss, who I still couldn’t see. “Whatever she wants.”

  I couldn’t help it. The snark just had to get out. Keeping it inside had to be unhealthy or something. If nothing else, I’d always been careful of my health. Shoving at the brick wall that was his chest, I lifted an eyebrow in my best ‘Oh really?’ expression.

  “And what if I want a bottom for my bisexual male lover?”

  He turned and looked down at me, the heat in his eyes reaching inferno level as the hand at my waist slid around my back. My pitiful pushing on his chest was no match for the strength in his muscled frame as he yanked me up against him. He was hard, aroused…the thick bar of his cock pressing against the soft swell of my belly. A belly that carried a little more padding than I was comfortable with.

  But there was no arguing with the heat in his eyes as he bent his head, his lips a hairsbreadth from mine as he whispered. “I’d get rid of your lover, then prove to you that you only need one man ever. Me.”

  “Stone, put her down, or else!” The order was barked and no nonsense. Slowly I was set back on my feet and my new admirer stepped back, hands raised as though someone had a gun trained on him. Perhaps they did. As he moved back, a small woman rushed into my line of sight, her expression swinging between pissed off and apologetic.

  “I am so sorry about Stone,” she assured me, casting him a furious glance as she got between us. “I’m Iliona, I run the agency. Please, come sit down and we can discuss why you’re here.”

  The two men behind her… I blinked, sure I was seeing double before I realised they were twins…stepped between Stone and us as she led me through into the office at the back. Abruptly I felt bereft. Even though he’d almost assaulted me, there was an aura of capability about him. Instinctively I knew that whatever he set out to do, he would succeed at.

  “It’s okay, I’m okay…honestly,” I assured her, smiling to put her at ease that I wasn’t going to sue the company over their wayward werewolf. I looked over; he was prowling like a caged dog behind the twins. I took a deep breath and looked at Iliona directly.

  “I need your best man for a…delicate assignment. Is he up to it?”

  She nodded, her expression firm. “He’s an ass but he’s the best I’ve got. Whatever you need, he’ll get it done.” She grinned suddenly. “Or I’ll have him neutered in the morning. With a blunt spoon.”

  “Shaken, not stirred. Yeah, right Eloise. You’re stirred in the freaking head.”

  Shaken was not the word. Even now, hours later, I was still unsteady on my feet after that near kiss in the PPA offices. Stone had turned out to be Jared Stone, one of the agency’s operatives, and a werewolf. A hot, sexy as hell werewolf with a hard, muscled body just made for…things I shouldn’t really be thinking about since he was…well, since I was paying him to escort me to the hospital’s charity ball tonight. Thinking about sex and money in the same sentence just didn’t sit well with me. There were words for things like that. Not nice ones.

  It was bad enough that I’d needed to book an escort in the first place. The admission that I couldn’t find a date, a human date, that was willing to take me. Thanks to Pete, the ass-wipe. It hadn’t taken me long into our relationship to work out that my ex was vindictive, but even I hadn’t guessed he’d stoop so low as to have a curse put on me.

  Nothing serious or life threatening. Just…things tended to happen to every guy I dated. James had been wonderful, great company over dinner with a fantastic sense of humour. He’d ended up with a three-week case of acne. Green and pink acne.

  Liam had taken me to the skating rink, holding me in his wonderful strong arms as he’d guided me on my unsteady way around. The next morning he could have played Pinocchio without resorting to prosthetics.

  Steve had spent three days squawking like a chicken.

  Nathan had developed a froglike desire for flies, with the tongue to match.

  Net result: No second dates and the word had spread like wildfire. I was, in a word, un-dateable, with the most important social event of the hospital calendar breathing down my neck. The event that my ex, Pete, would be at with his new girlfriend. His skinny, blonde new girlfriend. The one I couldn’t even call a bimbo because she was a doctor as well. A damn surgeon, no less. Pete would be smug, I just knew it.

  Bastard.

  Blowing a breath out and disturbing my bangs, I studied myself in the full length mirror and grimaced. I’d pulled out all the stops for tonight. I had on The Dress. The strappy black number with the spilt halfway up the thigh and a neckline that ensured the girls had a damn good view of the world. It was the va-va-voom dress that I only wore on those important dates where I wanted to move things on with a guy…or to balls where I wanted to make someone as jealous as fuck. It was designed to be fitted, but with the pounds I’d piled on in self-pity as I watched my chances of a decent date high-tail it out of the door after another buzzing snack, it was now skin-tight. The girls didn’t just have a good view; they were practically falling out to join the party.

  Great. Just fucking great.

  Wriggling again, I tried to pull the neckline up to something approaching respectable and wondered if I could get away with wearing something else. The wriggle became a dance as I sidled crab-wise to flick the closet door open, one hand still trying to readjust the girls in their satin confinement.

  One glance confirmed what I’d suspected; I was shit out of luck. I had everything from girls night in sloppy PJ’s right through to board meeting. Causal but fun date? Check. Long walks on the beach? Also check. ‘Just friends’ night out at the movies? Checkity, checkity, fucking check. Sexy but classy outfit that was sophisticated yet restrained, that held an unspoken aura of sex goddess? Not a fucking chance.

  The doorbell rang, the shrill demand filtering through the space between me and the front door with the insistence of a door to door salesman or possibly my witch of an ex-mother in law.

  Crap. Stone was here. Butterflies assaulted my stomach again as I bolted upright, slammed the door of the closet so hard it rattled in its frame and yanked the neckline of the dress up. In defiance it slid back down. Perhaps there was some duct tape in the ‘man box’ under the sink.

  I braved one last look in the mirror. At least the gods of hair were being gracious. For once my hair had behaved perfectly, the long dark waves swept up into an elegant pleat at the back of my head. My make-up, done by the girl at the salon as an impromptu treat to myself, was a work of art. Smoky dark eyes, with nude lips, it was an understated look that made the best of my features.

  I sighed as I turned for the door. At least I looked presentable from the neck up. Perhaps there would be a sack in the man-box that I could use to cover myself from neck down.

  The walk to the front door was short but took forever. All too soon I was standing before it, looking at the shadow of my paid-for date through the opaque glass. Fuck, he was huge. His tall frame blotted out the glow from the lamp on the street as he turned, no doubt checking the number on the wall by the door. Yeah, yeah…it was a small house, no doubt not what he was expecting, but I didn’t care. It was mine, bought and paid for.

  Anger over-rode the nerves and I yanked the door open to fix him with a glare.

  “You’re early.”

  He didn’t jump, or otherwise look startled by the abrupt greeting. Instead he turned, the blue eyes that had been stuck in my thoughts the colour of a warm tropical sea as he looked me over. Lingeringly.

  My thought processes stalled, my ability to think blown out of the water totally. If I’d thought he looked good earlier in casual clothes, then seeing him in a suit was something else. The short dark hair that had been mussed up before was styled, just. The tousled spikes made me itch to run my fingers through it, and he hadn’t shaved.

  Normally that and the fact he’d fo
rgone a tie, the top buttons of his shirt open, would have pissed me right off. Instead I was fascinated, struck-dumb as the desire…no, the need, to get closer and run my fingers across his jaw and see how it felt, surged hotly through my veins.

  “Fuck. Me.”

  His voice was a reverent whisper that fed my feminine ego, but the words broke me from my day-dream of following the parted v of his shirt and popping the buttons one by one. He looked disreputable and gorgeous but I wasn’t up for taking any crap tonight. Not after the dress disaster and with the distinct possibility of making a right twat of myself hanging over me.

  “Yeah. That went well for you last time, remember?”

  I grabbed the wayward neckline and yanked up again, stepping back and gesturing for him to come in as I did so.

  “I’m not ready yet. Give me five minutes and we can leave. Did your boss fill you in on the requirements for the evening?”

  He nodded as he followed me in, his gaze riveted on me. My skin tingled and I looked over my shoulder. Yeah, he was looking at my ass. Colour swept my cheeks, the attention making me squirm.

  “What’s the matter?” I couldn’t help asking. Did I have something on my nose? Or, even worse, between my teeth? Fuck. Panic sent the butterflies into meltdown as I turned to check out my reflection in the hall mirror. I didn’t complete the turn. Instead, a large hand clamped over my shoulder to spin me around like some sort of child’s toy. Before I could utter a word of protest I found myself pinned between the wall and a hard male body.

  The shiver hit me broadside, the feeling of solid male flipping a switch inside and triggering reactions that should have been illegal. His lips paused a hairsbreadth from mine, his blue eyes dark and full of heat. The amusement I remembered from earlier was gone, stripped away to reveal feral need. He held my gaze, not bothering to hide the lust in his eyes and I shivered again.