How to Flirt with A Naked Werewolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

likely to need them on her one-woman tear through the male population of Mississippi.
    “Is this some sort of screw-with-the-outsider scenario?” I asked Evie after Leonard Tremblay offered to show me “a good time.” Evie shook her head, and after Leonard departed with a good-natured grin, she warned me that his idea of a good time was firing up the home-rigged hot tub on his back porch. I was going to ask how one home-rigs a hot tub, but the look on Evie’s face told me I was better off not knowing.
    She smirked. “Oh, honey, you’re reasonably attractive and have all your teeth. You’re the hottest thing this town’s seen since Herb Thorpe got half-scrambled Cinemax on his satellite.”
    “I don’t see why the ‘reasonably’ was necessary, but thanks,” I muttered, sipping my Coke. “That must be why your waitress is staring daggers at me.”
    Lynette, the waitress/cleaning gal, was the girl-next-door type, if you happened to live next to a cathouse. She was probably pretty once, but chasing the next good time had aged her quickly. Her hair had been processed into an indeterminate shade of pale something. The too-bright lipstick was already starting to feather into the tiny networks of lines that spider-webbed out from her mouth. Her hip bones jutted sharply from under her fraying jeans. I would learn later that even in subzero temperatures, she wore midriff-baring tops under her parka . . . so she was a smart girl to boot.
    “Don’t mind Lynette,” Evie said, rolling her eyes. “She convinced herself a long time ago that she is always the hottest thing in the room, and she lives to prove it. It actually makes her a pretty great waitress. She knows how to go after the tips. But having every guy in the bar talk to you just to hear your accent must be annoying the hell out of her.”
    “Is that why they kept asking me to say ‘ice’?” I asked, a little irritated. I’d worked for years to downplay my accent, a mix of my mother’s faint Texas twang and my classmates’ slow Delta drawl. I thought I had it down to where I only “got Southern” when I was upset. I grumbled, “Y’all sound Canadian to me, by the way.”
    “Just enjoy it. It’s a little harmless flirting. You don’t have to worry about serious intentions until they start offering you meat.”
    I arched my eyebrow. “Is that some sort of gross double entendre?”
    Evie’s dark eyes twinkled. “No, actual meat. It’s sort of a tradition in Grundy, a macho provider thing. They want to show you that they can feather your nest, so to speak. It’s pretty Neanderthal of them but sweet at the same time. When a Grundy man offers you a rump roast, it’s the equivalent of asking you to go steady.”
    “Wow,” I said. “And on that note, please excuse me.”
    I hopped off the bar stool and was heading for the bathroom when my foot caught on an uneven floorboard and sent me pitching into the wall of man standing behind me. It felt as if my whole body had burst into flame. My cheek tingled where it had brushed against his chest. I could feel the heat from his steadying hands searing through the sleeves of my shirt.
    I exclaimed something like “Oof!” and looked up. It was the eyes that stunned me into silence—the same electric blue-green that had stared out at me from the woods the night before. I shook off the sleep-smeared memory and tried to smile politely.
    “Mo, meet Cooper Graham. Cooper, this is my new friend, Mo,” Evie said in a bemused voice.
    With a gulp, I swallowed the drool puddling in my mouth. You noticed the eyes right off the bat, wide and bottomless blue over sharp cheekbones, and a slim, long nose that had obviously been broken when he was young. His hair seemed both dark brown and black, not long enough for a ponytail but too long to keep under that faded maroon baseball cap he was wearing.
    Cooper was exactly the type of guy I would have sex with before the first date back home. Dark, rough, athletic. Here I