Moon Glamour by Aimee Easterling (books to read to be successful TXT) 📕

guard was reaching in his pocket now for a milk bone. He waved the doggie biscuit in front of my nose.

My stomach rumbled. Tank raised one furry eyebrow. So I’d skipped dinner. It wasn’t as amusing as Tank’s gaping grin suggested. I had a sudden impulse to bite off his tongue.

Or maybe that was an impulse to slide my tongue into his mouth and take what his body language suggested he was offering. I found myself sidling closer. One step, then another, as the guard gave my sister directions she didn’t need.

“I’m at the art museum downtown. The building has big columns out front. It’s really unmissable....”

“Oh, please.” Harper and I had rehearsed this part of her schtick together. “Princess takes her sense of direction after me. I’m really afraid I might miss the museum if you’re not outside waiting for me. And I do so want to pick up my darlings as soon as possible....”

One second before my furry flank rubbed up against his, Tank rose, stretched, and trotted up to the closed door of the museum. The milk bone wasn’t even in front of his nose now. He was terrible at subterfuge.

And...the security guard didn’t notice. Waving his ID against the sensor then pulling the door wide, he continued to soothe my sister. “I understand, ma’am. I’m taking the dogs inside now. How soon can you be here?”

“Five minutes. No, three minutes. I’ll stay on the line. Just, please, protect my fur babies!”

The milk bone descended back to nose level. From inside the guard room, Tank’s eyes twinkled.

He was in and I was out and this was my one chance to steal Marina’s bracer. The only reason not to enter? I didn’t trust Tank...and, even more, I didn’t trust my own reaction to him.

As if responding to my thoughts, Tank barked, a quick yip of impatience. “Come on, Princess,” the guard wheedled.

What could I do? I accepted the treat graciously and trotted inside.

Chapter 9

A glance around the room made this gig seem easier and easier...as long as Tank stayed out of my way. To start with, a bank of screens broadcasting camera data from inside the museum was fully visible without the need for human fingers to scroll through it. My own lupine face stared back at me from one image...but stepping a yard away from the computer terminal shielded me from view.

Well, that will be easily avoided.

Meanwhile, the door leading from the guard room to the rest of the museum had no swipe plate beside it. So I wouldn’t need to pretend to be dying of thirst in order to get through that barrier.

Scene surveyed, I settled myself in a perfect “Stay” position while Harper gave the illusion of prattling while actually following through on phase two of our plan. “Is Princess okay? I hope she doesn’t look agitated?”

“No, ma’am. Both of your dogs are very well behaved.”

That was Harper’s cue to get the guard outside as soon as possible. So she did, diving back into her concern about a supposedly faulty direction sense. “I suppose I should just get a PGS,” she said, purposefully mangling the acronym. “But I’m so concerned about the radiation damaging my poor doggies’ brains.”

“Don’t worry about it.” The guard patted me once, did the same for Tank who had sunk down beside me, then turned back to the outside door. “I’ll be waiting for you on the front steps. I’m wearing a blue uniform and....”

His voice was cut off by the only real barrier to entrance. I was inside the museum and the guard was outside. It was hard not to be smug.

Still, I waited fifteen seconds just in case the guard remembered something. Then I sidled backwards into the small camera-free zone beside the interior door and shimmered upward into humanity.

My hands were at my throat, pulling items out of the pouch I’d attached to the inside of my collar, when warmth pressed up against my bare back. “What are we doing?”

Ripples of awareness swam through me. Tank was there, behind me. Naked just like I was, our bare skin separated by nothing but air and not much of that. I swallowed.

His voice was irresistible. Even though I knew better, I angled my chin to see what he looked like without any clothes.

Muscles. Shadows. A hint of stubble on his jaw....

He wasn’t looking at me, though. Instead, his face was partially averted. As if my nakedness held no appeal.

Annoyed by my own focus on the immaterial—or, rather, the very material—I swiveled to face my un-asked-for companion head on. “We’re doing nothing,” I snapped back. “You’re pretending to be a good dog while I visit the museum for a couple of minutes. After that, we’re parting ways and will never see each other again.”

Tank totally ignored the part of my statement I’d intended to be incendiary. Instead, he straightened his neck until his face came back into view.

I felt the moment his gaze struck my nakedness. Heat flooded my body and I smelled a surge of awareness emanating from him as powerful as my own.

Okay. Not so uninterested then.

Still, his words were flat. “You’re stealing art from a museum.”

There’d been no overt judgment in his tone, but I responded as if there had been. Fighting was safer than dealing with this whatever spinning between our wolves and our bodies.

“I’m stealing art on loan to a museum. Art belonging to a rich guy. He won’t miss it and neither will the museum.” Because, yes, I’d double-checked the ownership issue. Harper’s needs aside, I didn’t willy-nilly deposit that check.

Tank leaned in a hair closer. His heat pressed up against my chest, my throat, my stomach. We were separated by a millimeter of air space. That distance suddenly felt like far too much.

Until his words slapped me. “When the museum’s insurance premiums go up, they’ll miss whatever you take.”

His business card, I remembered now, had been succinct yet edifying. Tank Morales. Attorney-at-Law. The profession explained why he jumped straight to