“Not a stripper, Dustin. I’m a cocktail waitress.”
“She said cock,” Emma said proudly.
When Beast sighed a tired sound, Kiera hid her smile by giving her attention to filling her plate. Those two didn’t need any encouragement.
“So you really don’t know how to pole dance?” Dustin sounded so disappointed.
“I can remember a fifteen drink order like it’s nothing, but nope. No pole training for me.” Kiera plopped a rack of ribs onto her plate and dished out some salad because she actually did like the stuff. “I did dance in one of those clear cages once at this fancy bar called Barky’s in a ritzy part of Chicago. I lived with three roommates at the time. We all worked there, and we had to ride the L every night to get there.”
“What’s the L?” Winter asked. She was leaning over the table with her cheek on her fist, attention riveted on Kiera like it was story time.
“It’s an elevated train that travels through the city. It was fun. That was the longest I stayed in one place. I liked my roommates.”
“And you liked dancing in clear cages,” Dustin said.
“I only did that on Thursday nights. The other nights I served drinks, and when I did dance, I was fully clothed.”
“Why did you move?” Kane asked.
“Uuuh…” How did she explain Justin? “Boy problem, and then the city didn’t feel as safe anymore. I just moved away from there a couple months ago. Been bouncing around a bit since, trying to figure out what to do next.”
“Perfect timing,” Kane said. “We have an RV with your name on it. Literally. Dustin, for whatever fucking reason, wrote your name in purple crayon on the wall like a toddler.”
“Bitches love purple.”
Kane slapped him upside the head so hard Dustin coughed out a piece of food.
Beast strode up the stairs in a blur and dropped his plate on the table. “I dare you to say bitch again.”
“Okay, clearly this is a cultural misunderstanding,” Dustin said, raising his hands in surrender. “I’m a wolf, and female dogs are called bitches. Don’t eat me.”
Kiera made her way to Beast and rested her hand on his back. To Dustin, she asked, “How are you still alive?”
“That’s still a mystery to most of us,” Rowan said around a bite of baked potato.
“These guys wouldn’t really kill me. They like to threaten, choke, and bite me, but at the end of the day, they love me.”
“I don’t,” Beast muttered, sitting down in an empty chair.
Logan raised his hand like he was in school. “Also don’t love you.”
“I tolerate you,” Kane said.
“You’re growing on me,” Winter said cheerfully. “I only want to claw you fifty percent of the time now.”
“I love you,” Emma said, clamping her teeth gently onto the werewolf’s shoulder.
Dustin ran his hand through his shoulder length hair, draped his arm around the back of his mate’s chair, and grinned like he’d shown them all. “See?”
Beast offered Kiera a dead-eyed look and a tired shake of his head before he shoved the seat next to him out from under the table for her.
“Thanks,” Kiera said breathlessly, flattered at his sweet gesture.
When she sat down, Beast dragged her chair closer to him. One fiery warning glance at Logan, who sat on her other side, and then Beast dug into his dinner.
Rowan was smiling big at her and Beast with giant, happy blue eyes. Emma and Dustin were now making out. Logan was snarling to himself as he ate, while Winter nuzzled her face against her mate’s arm like he wasn’t a growly psycho-person. Kane was staring at Kiera as if he expected her to bolt, and Beast was glaring at the salad on her plate with a suspicious grimace, like she might as well be eating bugs.
Kiera giggled. She couldn’t help it. These people were just as crazy as she’d assumed them to be when she’d been stalking them. But…she kind of liked them. Beast especially.
As the conversation ebbed and flowed, Beast relaxed beside her, and twice, he even brushed her leg with his and cast her a quick smile that gave her an immediate warm sensation between her thighs. For a man who didn’t like touch, he was warming up slowly to her. And for as little as she had needed touch in her own life, she got the biggest butterfly flutters in her stomach when Beast gave her even the slightest affection.
He liked her. She could tell by the things he did. He offered to refill her plate when she finished and immediately defended her choice of bottled water when Dustin tried to pressure her into taking a shot of tequila. He leaned back in his chair and fiddled with her hair almost absently while he listened to Dustin drone on about how he was going to make an obstacle course along the edge of the trailer park so he could prove he was some sort of ultimate ninja-shifter. She caught Beast watching her a couple dozen times, but he always looked away quick. And when everyone was clearing their plates to end the night, he stayed in his seat and gently rested his palm on her thigh as though she was fragile.
“Don’t go yet,” he said low. “I’m not ready.”
That admission drew another smile from her lips, and she scooted her chair closer to his.
“Cold?” he asked with a slight frown.
“A little. Dustin stole my jacket.”
“Dustin, put her stuff in her car,” Beast barked out.
“Fine, but I’m keeping the sparkly booty shorts for Emma,” Dustin said over his shoulder as he walked his mate across the dirt road toward a doublewide trailer.