Wolf in Gucci Loafers (Tales of the Harker Pack Book 2) Read online

  Wolf in Gucci Loafers

  Tales of the Harker Pack

  Tara Lain

  Tara Lain Books

  Published by

  Tara Lain Books

  www.taralain.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Wolf in Gucci Loafers

  © 2020 Tara Lain

  Cover Art

  By Lex Valentine

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Tara Lain Books

  1875 Dragon Fly Lane

  Ashland, OR. 97520

  Printed in the United States of America

  Blurb

  Socialite Lindsey Vanessen wants someone to love who will love him back — an impossibility for a gay, half-human, half-werewolf. Too aggressive for humans, too gay for wolves, and needing to protect the pack from human discovery, Lindsey tries to content himself with life as a successful businessman. But when someone starts kidnapping members of wealthy families, Lindsey meets tough cop Seth Zakowsy—the hunky embodiment of everything Lindsey wants but can't have.

  Seth has never been attracted to flamboyant men. But intrigue turns to lust when he discovers Lindsey’s biting, snarling passion more than matches his dominant side. It might mean a chance at love for a cop in black leather and a wolf in Gucci loafers.

  To my soul dog, Jolie, who inspired me to create a very stylish wolf!

  Note to Readers

  Hi! Thank you for reading Wolf in Gucci Loafers. You may know that this book is the all-time fave of a lot of readers, particularly for it’s very unique hero. I loved creating the wildly flamboyant Lindsey Vanessen who falls for his forbidden human alpha male. This book also introduces the world to Jazz, who goes on to become Jazz Vanessen and the star of his own series, Superordinary Society. I hope you love my wolves and all the adventures they get themselves into.

  Contents

  Blurb

  Note to Readers

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Meet Tara Lain

  Books by Tara Lain

  Keep Reading for an Excerpt from Winter’s Wolf

  Prologue

  The man pressed his body against the brick and licked his lips as the click of high heels on the sidewalk got closer. Oh yeah, man. Pretty one. Fun. Show the bitch she’s not all that. He peeked out. The blonde stared at her cell phone as she got closer to the alley where he hid. A quick glance. An old woman farther down the sidewalk, two men coming out of a bar across the street, arm in arm. Fucking fags. He should take them out when he finished with the bitch. He clutched the knife in his left hand.

  Closer. Closer. She stepped past the building into the opening to the alley. He lunged out with his right arm, grabbed her around the head and across the mouth, and pulled her off her stupid high heels. Her forward momentum drove him back a couple of feet but he didn’t lose balance. He slammed her body against the brick and pressed the tip of the knife against her throat. Her eyes widened above his hand. Yeah, be scared, bitch. “Keep your mouth closed or I’ll cut you good.”

  He slowly took his right hand away from her mouth. “Quiet, you got it?” He pressed the knife tip harder.

  She nodded frantically.

  He reached down and fumbled with her short skirt. “You want it, right, bitch? Walking around asking for it.”

  She started to whimper real quietly. Yeah, my favorite sound.

  He grabbed some kind of lacy thing and ripped—

  Shit! He flew off his feet when an arm like steel closed around his throat. A knife pressed into his neck. A voice, all quivery like some kind of fucking senior citizen, whispered in his ear, “So you like to play with knives, sonny?”

  The knifepoint pressed and he felt blood dripping down his neck. “Damn. Stop, stop!”

  The stupid bitch blonde just stood against the wall shaking her hands like helicopters. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

  The weird voice behind him said, “Don’t be afraid anymore. Call the police and tell them what happened. Tell them they can find the man who attacked you in this alley. Can you do that, dearie?”

  The stupid bitch just stared. Had to get this asshole off him. He tried to move, and the knife pressed so close to his windpipe, one half inch and he was gone. Shit!

  “You must say you’ll testify against him. We have to get him off the streets. Do you understand, dearie?”

  The bimbo nodded.

  “Call them right now. Tell them the alley is between Federal and Grand. Tell them he’ll be here.”

  The dumb bitch waved her hands like big drama. “Wh-where should I go?”

  “Do you know where the police station is? Two blocks from here?”

  Damn. Scare this bitch. “I’ll see you die if you—” He spun so fast his neck snapped hard. Holy shit. The old woman staring at him must be eighty. Gray hair, wrinkles, but really tall. “Who the—” A noise came out of her throat like some animal. An animal about to eat him! His heart beat so hard he knew he’d die. “What the fuck are you?”

  She smiled and bared yellow teeth. “Your undoing, sonny.”

  He hardly saw the fist before everything went black.

  Chapter One

  Lindsey stalked his attacker, his nostrils flaring at the smell of fear. Thrust to the arm with the epée, high outside parry by his attacker, riposte. He leaped back, parry, and thrust. Lunge and thrust, feint, lunge again, parry, thrust. On the run! Attack, attack!

  “Lindsey! Lindsey! Okay, stop, I give. You win. The student has bested the teacher.” From his position flat against the wall, Rolf laughed and held up his hands.

  Lindsey took a deep breath and shook his head to clear the buzz that pulsed through him whenever he faced violence—or sex. Great heavens, this was not the way to keep one’s fencing teacher happy. “God, darling, I’m so sorry.” He pulled off his mask. “I do get carried away, don’t I?”

  Big, blond, athletic Rolf pushed himself away from the wall, dropped his epée in the rack, grabbed a bottled water from the case, and flopped on one of the Nelson benches that lined the side of the home gym. He twisted the cap and drank, wiping sweat from his forehead with his other hand. “I swear you crack me up. I don’t know a more mild-mannered human than you. You’re a world-class fencer, I’ll give you that, but where does that vicious streak come in? Sometimes I’m not sure I’m safe.” He laughed again, but it sounded a little strained.

  Lindsey fanned himself with his lavender neck scarf. Rolf might sweat, but Lindsey only glowed. “It must be all my suppressed hostility at lack of gay civil rights, darling.” He didn’t me
ntion predatory instincts that went with his genes.

  Rolf leaned against the wall. “I’m sure that’s a serious problem for the son of the fourth wealthiest family on the eastern seaboard. Has someone refused your polo ponies access to the community feed trough?” He smirked.

  Lindsey narrowed his eyes, and Rolf had the good sense to pale. Lindsey cocked his head. “You wouldn’t know.”

  Rolf sat up straight. “Sorry. My mouth ran away with me. I don’t know, and I apologize. I’m sure being gay is tough no matter what your circumstances.”

  Lindsey took a breath and fluttered the scarf. Off the hook this time. “Ta, darling. Think nothing of it.”

  “Besides, you’ve got nothing on our grandma vigilante. Have you heard about her?” He sipped his water.

  Lindsey glanced at his manicured nails. “Something, I think.”

  “It’s all over the news. Some woman walks into the police station and says they’ll find this asshole rapist in this alley and some grandma saved her. The cops go where she says, and here’s this guy they’ve been trying to nail for months, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. The woman who I guess he planned to rape says the person who caught this guy was an old lady. Go figure.”

  Lindsey fluttered the scarf. “What is the world coming to when a self-respecting villain can’t ply his trade without interference from senior citizens?”

  Rolf stared at him for a second, realized he must be joking, and started to laugh, then sobered. “Seriously, between grandma the rapist catcher and the kidnapping, this town feels pretty comic-book weird lately.”

  “Lindsey.” His mother’s voice came from behind him.

  He turned. “Hello, Mother. You arrived just in time to save Rolf’s life.” He crossed to the door of the huge indoor gym and kissed her pretty, pink cheek.

  “Are you torturing Rolf again?”

  Rolf stood and tossed the empty water bottle. “Yes, ma’am, he is. But I’m going to tuck my tail between my legs and leave.”

  Interesting analogy.

  His mother peered around Lindsey at the fencing teacher. “Don’t let me run you off, Rolf. I just need Lindsey to start dressing. He has a hot date.”

  Lindsey rolled his eyes. “We’ll see how hot it is, but I do have a date.” He glanced at the Patek Philippe on his wrist. “Really, Mother, even I don’t need three hours to dress for an engagement.”

  She looked him up and down. “Since when?”

  Rolf laughed. “I’ll see myself out. Have a great date, Lindsey.”

  “Thank you, darling. Sorry about the assault.”

  Rolf kept laughing and walked out the gym door, which had a pathway that led to the circular drive and the parking lot. The separate entrance, one of three, kept sweaty people out of his mother’s entry hall. It also gave Lindsey an exit on those occasions when he preferred to keep his activities private—aka often.

  He racked the epée and came back to his mother. “Okay, love; tell me all about this perfect match you’ve set up for me.” They walked down the hall with its long, Turkish runners.

  “You know the Westerbergs, darling. Bruce has come home with his Harvard MBA to take his rightful place in the family business.”

  “So how old does that make him?”

  “Twenty-three, I think. Just a little younger than you. He graduated at the normal time, not with your superhuman impatience.”

  He’d just wanted out of school. One more full moon might have killed him. They got to his suite of rooms, and she stopped. “I so want to see you settled and happy.”

  “I know.”

  “I know Ga-Ga and Pop-Pop would love it if you were married before they die.”

  He crossed his arms. “Okay, reduce the drama, dear. Pop-Pop will be shagging corporate takeovers when I’m old and gray, and Ga-Ga will still head the best-dressed list.”

  “Life is uncertain. Look at your father.”

  He gazed at her steadily. “Which father do you mean exactly?”

  “Lindsey!” She stared at her very chic shoes. “You know full well I mean your father father. The person whose name you bear.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Very well. I guess uncertainty is appropriate in either case.”

  She crossed her arms tightly. “And with all these horrible kidnappings, I like to know you’re in safe places with nice people.”

  “Actually, one of the victims was at home, so I’m not sure the locations are that important.”

  Her eyes got huge. “Dear God, who would do such a thing? And the finest families.”

  Who indeed, but he didn’t want to scare her. “Point taken. I’ll stay very safe, and I’ll give Bruce Westerberg every chance to sweep me off my feet and solidify my uncertain future.”

  That prompted a smile. “You rascal.”

  “Always. Now let me get to my bubble bath.”

  He watched her walk away in her linen skirt, voile sweater, and second-best pearls. Hard to believe that genteel woman ever threw caution to the winds and drowned herself in one wild night of passion. The night that had produced him. No one knew he was a bastard except him and his mother. He’d been forced to ask her about his father because he was desperate, though he’d never told her why. Finally she’d confessed and saved his sanity. Maybe his life.

  He sighed, went into his sitting room, and closed the door behind him. The soft greens and mauve accents always soothed him. He padded across the velvety Chinese rug with its huge abstract flower of pink and green against a background of dove gray.

  Inside the enormous closet, he dumped his fencing costume.

  Whoops. A couple of curls of his gray wig stuck out from the clothing storage bag at the back of his closet. Damn, he needed to be more careful. The maids weren’t looking for clues, but they weren’t blind either. Now that Granny was famous, he needed to increase his security. He unzipped the bag, pushed in the wig, pulled the old suits to the front to cover the other clothing, and zipped it back up. Better.

  Naked, he walked through the side door that led to his bathroom, where the jetted tub dominated the room. Yes, it was so gauche, but it felt so good, especially when his cock needed some serious attention. Like when he didn’t have a boyfriend. As usual.

  He started the water and dropped in two bath bombs that smelled like jasmine. With a quick turn, he stared in the mirror. His perpetually slender body reflected back at him. No matter how strong he got, it never seemed to show. Oh yes, his muscles popped out here and there. A lovely twelve-pack, if he did say so himself. But so odd that he wasn’t bulkier. Oh well, he worked with what he had.

  With a twist of the leather tie, he unbound his hair and fluffed it out like a golden curtain that reached almost to his shoulders. Damned good thing he’d showed up blond. His so-called father had been blond, which added to everyone’s belief that Lindsey was really the scion of the Vanessen clan.

  He’d believed it too, until that terrible, amazing day when everything changed. Adolescents coped with lots of crap. Brain expansion, hormone overload, growth spurts. But waking up covered in fur wasn’t a subject in his prep school health class.

  Sighing, he dropped his hairbrush in the drawer.

  He would have run screaming to his mother—if he’d been able to scream. By the time he changed back, some piece of his brain had figured out that this new quirk in his development would not go over well at the country club. So he had hidden it. Still did.

  Moving over to the tub, he settled his long body in the hot water. Oh yes.

  God, he hated lying to his mother. About so many things. She desperately wanted him to settle down and be happy, but it wasn’t going to happen with Bruce Westerberg or anyone else.

  He laid his head back and draped a forearm across his eyes. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t picture the scene. Him gazing into the eyes of a man he loved and saying, “Honey, I’m a werewolf.”

  The phone rang. Nobody had this number except friends. He glanced and smiled. Speaking of werewolves. �
�Hello, darling.”

  Cole Harker’s soft, slightly hesitant voice barely went with the huge, superwolf that he was. “Hey, buddy. What’s up?”

  “I’m reclining in a bubble bath.”

  “How decadent. Are you coming to the Way Station when you get out of hot water?”

  “I’m never out of hot water, darling. No, actually I have a date.”

  “That sounds promising. Anyone I know?”

  “A blind date with the son of family friends brokered by my mother.”

  “A human?” A slight edge in his voice.

  Lindsey sighed. “Yes, of course, darling. What werewolf would date me?”

  “Hey, don’t give up hope. I got married.”

  “There’s only one Paris.”

  Cole laughed. “Is that a nice way of saying there’s only one weirdo gay half-panther exotic dancer around for a werewolf to marry?”

  “Of course not. I mean there’s only one incredibly sexy, totally supportive shifter available who happens to be gay.” He chuckled. “And all that other stuff too.”

  “Go easy on the human, buddy. Don’t have any dates on the full moon.” He laughed, but it was no joke.

  “I’m careful, Cole.”

  “I know you are. Hell, you spend more time around humans than any of us. You’re a credit to the pack in every way.”

  Lindsey popped some bubbles. “Yes, but no one wants their son to marry me.”

  “God, I’m sorry Lindsey. They’re changing. At least they don’t believe there’s no such thing as a gay werewolf anymore.”