Hungry Like the Wolf by Paige Tyler

Hungry Like the Wolf by Paige Tyler

The Dallas SWAT team is hiding one helluva secret...they're a pack of wolf shifters.

The team of elite sharpshooters is ultra-secretive--and also the darlings of Dallas.  This doesn't sit will with investigative journalist Mackenzie Stone.  They must be hiding something...and she's determined to find out what.  

Keeping Mac at a distance proves impossible for SWAT team commander Gage Dixon.  She's smart, sexy, and makes him feel alive for the first time in years.  But she's getting dangerously close to the truth--and perilously close to his heart.

I read the third entry in this series first and really enjoyed it.  I immediately looked up other titles at my library, downloaded the first book, and settled in to read.  While there were parts I definitely didn't love, overall, this was a solid read and an enjoyable way to spend an evening.  Mac is a reporter who is convinced something is off with the Dallas SWAT team...there just isn't any way that this group of elite cops can be as good as they are reputed to be.  She is sure there is something shady going on and she is going to be the one to uncover it.  When she observes something questionable at a hostage rescue, she thinks she might just be on to the clue that breaks open the whole mystery.

Gage is a werewolf.  He can smell lies and so he knows that Mac is asking to shadow him and his elite team for some reason other than a rumor that they are taking performance enhancing drugs.  He also knows that her smell is incredible and he is extremely attracted to her.  Gage worries that Mac might be flirting with him to find out more info but he can't quite seem to stay away from her.  At least if she is close, he can control what she sees, hears, and learns.  

Mac and Gage both find themselves responding to the other strongly while both realizing that they have many secrets between them.  As each of their secrets begins to unravel, their new relationship is placed under a lot of stress.  Added to this is a crime lord targeting Gage and his team.  As tensions rise, decisions are made that impact all involved and blow everything out of whack.  Watching Gage and Mac figure out how to put the pieces back together to try to not only mend their relationship but make it stronger than ever was enjoyable.  

My issues centered around Mac's job as a reporter.  Personally, journalist characters are not usually my favorite.  It almost always involves lying or omitting portions of the truth between characters, as happened in this book, and it makes me uncomfortable.  I don't know why these types of fibs bother me when so many others in books don't, but as I said, it is a personal quibble and I have learned to just go with it.  While Mac didn't bother me as much in this book as other characters have, there still was a niggle of discomfort watching Mac be so dishonest for so much of the storyline.  She and Gage both questioned their own and each other's motives trying to ask themselves if they were using each other for personal agendas.  While I think they were able to squeak by on technicalities, it didn't seem to be setting them up for a trustful, solid relationship for the future.  However, once everything was out in the open, the romance resolved itself in a way that I was able to believe in its chances for longevity.