Moves Like Jagger (Wolf Mates Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

curled into the fluffy red and white pillows she’d managed to somehow hide from the bank and their estate-sale hounds.
    Viv shook her head, pulling off the towel covering her hair and draping it on the antiqued white dresser. No feeling sorry for herself today. All that money didn’t define her. It just made her life easier.
    She could handle difficult. She would handle difficult. So she wasn’t rich anymore. So she couldn’t devote all of her time to rescuing animals anymore, but instead had to work a real job for a living. And so what if she’d given her parents what was left in her checking account to get them to Florida. Her mother’s sister, Evelyn, lived there and had welcomed them with open arms. Since her husband, Martin, died, Evelyn said she was lonely.
    They were safe and unscathed, and that was all that mattered. Out of harm’s way while she attempted to track down the bastard who’d stolen all their money.
    Hiram Abrahmowicz was going to rue the day she found him—wherever the hell he was. He hadn’t just been her parent’s accountant, he’d been hers, too. He’d sauntered off with the family fortune and was likely sunning himself on some island he’d bought with her parents’ hard-earned money.
    Still, she’d fared well. When JC had found out about her predicament, she’d driven to Hoboken like the cavalry, bringing her husband Max, his brother Derrick, and Derrick’s wife Martine. They’d scooped her up on the last day of the estate sale, wiped her tears, packed up what little she had left, herded the cats and driven her to Cedar Glen, where JC had demanded she stay in the adorable white cottage behind their house, rent free.
    To which Viv had vehemently opposed until Derrick offered her a job at the bar as a bartender. If she had few skills other than debutante and an unusable degree in the arts, she was, in fact, a killer bartender.
    She clenched her fists as Howie hopped up on the dresser and head-butted her, purring softly. Viv softened and scratched him under the chin, the only white spot on his entire body.
    “I know, I know, Snookums. This, too, shall pass, right? Our budget has nowhere to go but up, right?” Howie head-butted her in acknowledgment, resting his soft cheek against hers.
    AJ pawed at her calf, reminding her she had to move it along if she was going to be on time for Jagger.
    Viv inhaled a deep breath. Jagger . He was delicious and funny and sharp and enormous. The-size-of-a-mountain enormous, leaving her feeling small and delicate. Not something usually attributed to her and her curves, but it left her feeling sexy.
    She hadn’t been this excited about a date in a hundred years, and despite her poverty, she felt a little more hopeful today than she had yesterday.
    She had a job, a place to rest her head, a paycheck coming, and a date.
    Things were looking up.
    Nick rolled his round body at her feet, looking for tummy scratches, his wide green eyes hopeful. “Later, gator. Promise. Mommy needs to get her butt in gear. I only have an hour to get ready.” Giving Nick one last stroke with her toes, she turned to assess her sparsely filled closet.
    Gone were her fancy designer labels, replaced by some clothes she’d managed to sneak past the bank’s estate-sale people—a couple of pairs of jeans, and some T-shirts she used when she was on a rescue.
    Shit. She hadn’t given much thought about what she was going to wear on this date with Jagger. She didn’t even know where they were going.
    Lack of a cute outfit had never been a problem before, even though she preferred jeans. Scratching her head, she began digging through a black bag of clothes JC had dropped off earlier in the week.
    JC was miles taller than she was, but she could always roll the sleeves up on a sweater.
    The doorbell’s loud gong interrupted her search and had the cats scattering to investigate. Maybe it was JC with another one of her casseroles, or Max’s mother, Faith—who was the most