The pipes groaned and yanked Sid out of her wretched self-pity.

She stamped her foot. A trick taught to her by Larry Spector, her motivational coach cum mental and physical boot camp trainer.

Fight cerebral paralysis with physical activity.

When you’re depressed, get moving. Her actions jerky, she peeled the sodden garments from her chilled flesh, slid the door open, and tossed the clothes into the sink.

It had been over half a decade since she assumed control of her life. She’d clawed and scraped to become her own person, and by all the gods in the universe, she wasn’t ceding that power to anyone. Not even Brut Jurango.

“No more thinking about Brut Jurango.” Another Larry Spector tenet: vocalize your intentions and then act upon them. Sid nudged the door closed.

“I’m not a coward. No more knee-jerk reactions.”

No more being too terrified to pee.

She adjusted the water temperature, waited for the goose bumps to dissipate, and grabbed the shampoo. While she washed her hair and showered, Sid analyzed all that had happened in the last few weeks.

Davy vanished three weeks ago.

He and a buddy set out on a trip to Rosarito, a coastal Mexican town, to party yes, but also to check out a recently two-starred Michelin farm-to-table restaurant. Davy had both workaholic and OCD tendencies, and the long hours spent laboring over the tapas menu had left him overwrought and bone-weary. Sid suggested the weekend excursion, and she hadn’t been worried when Davy didn’t show up on Monday. Davy was a creature of impulse and his timeliness suffered constantly because of it.

When Davy didn’t contact her by Monday night, Sid phoned him only to have the call go to voice mail. She texted him repeatedly. By Tuesday she started to panic. The Grape Escape’s grand opening loomed, she had no chef, and worse, the boy-man she loved and considered a younger brother had disappeared.

“Where are you Davy?” Sid thunked her head on the tiles and turned off the shower. She had stayed sane since Davy vanished by not letting her mind wander to Davy being tortured or raped. “Lycus went to the East Coast. Why? Is what Davy’s involved in linked to our culinary school?”

The shower door slid open.

Sid froze. The steam blurred her vision. The bathroom exhaust fan went on overdrive and the thick mists cleared to reveal Brut Jurango, arms outstretched. A chocolate bath sheet hung tautly between his hands.

Her palms itched to yank into the instinctive cup-her-breasts defensive reaction. Instead, she glued her wrists to her sides. Didn’t attempt to hide her truculent outrage or her nudity. “What do you want?”

His mouth curved. “That’s been obvious from day one, Sidonie. You’ve been in the shower for nineteen minutes. I thought you might have drowned.”

Sid locked out her shaking knees. Brut’s wolfish grin mesmerized her. That dazzling brief beam sent her pulse into hopscotching fits and starts. He had a boyish smile. Who’d have guessed?

Unable to muster enough gray matter to compose a virulent retort, far less connect actual vocal cords, Sid didn’t resist when he flipped the towel to her back, see-sawed the soft cotton a few times across her shoulders and rear, and swaddled her in the warm terry. He tucked the ends together at her collarbone. Nosed her forehead and said, “I’ve been waiting outside that door for seventeen of those nineteen minutes.”

Mother Mary, he smelled incredible. She’d never been this close to him before today. His proximity proved intoxicating. Breathing in his musky aroma served to multiply the pace at which she pictured his naked body parts. He’d be cut with that V shape right at his hips and groin. His café latte complexion would be all over. No white lines. Did he masturbate on a regular basis?

“Hold that thought.”

What thought? His cocky attitude sparked her belligerence. “You can’t read my mind. You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

He fingered her ear. Smoothed a dripping curl off her cheek. “I can scent your desire. I can also smell your fear and worry. Know that when you speak aloud, even in an almost imperceptible whisper, I hear you.”

She whipped her head back. “No way. I don’t care if you have wolf and cat in you—”