Shelly Laurenston – Wolf with benefits

The eighth book in the Pride series, published March 26, 2013.
Genre: paranormal romance
Cover: I don’t like his eyes/face.



There's nothing like a good-ol'-boy wolf. And ace security expert Ricky Lee Reed serves, protects and seduces with all the right moves...
Sure, Toni Jean-Louis Parker has to be the responsible oldest sister to a crazy-brilliant clan of jackal siblings. But now she's cutting loose for some hot, sweaty, no-commitments fun - and the sexy, slow-talking, swift-moving predator assigned to keep her family safe is just the right thing to shapeshift her love life into overdrive. Trouble is, he's starting to get all obsessive wolf on her every time he looks in her direction...
Getting serious about anyone isn't in Ricky Lee Reed's plans. Hell, even now he doesn't really have a plan - outside of catching whomever is threatening this dangerously brilliant family. But the more he sees of Toni, the more he's howling for her. And whatever it takes to convince her that what they have is everything, well, this wily wolf is down for the sizzling chase...


I have read the previous book in this series, Bear meets girl, and really enjoyed that one. And when I read some reviews about this book, Wolf with Benefits, I knew I wanted to read this one as well. My best friend has been a fan of this series for years, and I just caved and borrowed them all from her. I finished this book in a day, while also watching the coronation ceremonies of our new King and Queen.

It is a fun series, with a great mix of shifter races. I have never read about jackals before, but I loved Toni very much. She is the oldest of 11 children, her mother and all of her 10 siblings are prodigies, meaning brilliant in their chosen thing. It also makes them very narcissistic and difficult to deal with. And that has been Toni’s job for way too long. It is about time she made a life for herself, instead of acting as a surrogate mother, agent, personal assistant and trouble-shooter for her siblings.
But when her mother decides they will stay in Manhattan for the summer, as she is really keen of getting a certain wild dog shifter as her own pupil (she is a violin virtuoso) Toni wants to find a job here in town. When her honorary uncle Ric (Ulrich Von Holtz) offers her a job, arranging all the travel arrangements for his all shifter ice hockey team the Carnivores, she is not sure she can handle the job. Ric and the trainer Cella “bare knuckles” Malone think she can, as they see how she handles their most dangerous team member Bo Novikov. Which comes very easy to Toni as she is used to OCD brilliant people.
When they want to send her to Russia though to negotiate with some bears about a match, she needs protection. Bears hate canines. And they send wolf shifter Ricky Lee Reed with her. Which he doesn’t mind in the least as he has had his eye on Toni ever since he met her the other day at the Ice Rink. He is very laid back for a wolf shifter, but is also good at his job as a security specialist. It will give them some time together without her crazy family around. They demand too much from Toni and really don’t like the fact that she is creating a life of her own. After all, their careers are so much more important, as they are all little geniuses. They need to have schedules and someone to remind them of it all, and make sure they get to their classes in time. So when Bo Novikov will take over for Toni, she is happy with that. After all, Bo knows the importance of schedules and appointment, and he will be able to keep her strange and dangerous siblings in line. And ofcourse, her best friend Livy will be staying with her family as well.

In Russia, the bears are only playing with her instead of really negotiating, and when a canine gets separation anxiety from her pack, that sure ain’t pretty. She totally destroys her hotelroom, and after that Ricky takes her out for a run. It calms her down, and one kind of exercise leads to another, and Ricky is very happy that he brought two boxes of condoms with him. A guy can always hope, can’t he?
Toni, with some help from Dee Ann, finally gets her other escort, Vic Barinov, to tell her how to deal with the bears.

Finally back home, dangerous things are happening to her family. Her psychopath sister Delilah is up to no good, and some full humans have broken into their home, searching for something. Livy has arranged for some additional security, but they have to find out what those humans are after, and how to stop them.


I enjoyed this book very much, the quirky and over the top characters, the secrets and the danger and the action. I really felt for Toni, having to deal with so many prima donna siblings, never getting a moment for herself. But Ricky Lee did not give up easily, and he was really intrigued by Toni. Not even her family could deter him. I loved how she trained her siblings to ask males who came on to her to ask: are you my daddy? That made me smile on the first page already.
Toni is good at her job, but she is used to dealing with full humans, and not with other shifters. So she really needs to get her backbone and her fighting spirit in the front line. With her job came an office, a secretary, a limousine with chauffeur, and an apartment in her boss’ hotel for her alone. Well, except for the wolf who fell in love with her big screen tv and did not want to leave. He did get them Chinese food though.
Ricky Lee is very easy to get along with, but underneath that Southern charm, he sure doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit. He doesn’t give up on something he wants, but he is also afraid of his mother and sister. His ex-girlfriend is trying to stir up trouble for him, but Livy takes care of that problem.

Then there is Livy, who is a very aggressive but small female, and what kind of shifter she is, is kept secret for a long time, and I was really dying to find out. Apparently, she is just what Dee-Ann needs for her police force.


I am really looking forward to going back to the beginning of this series, and discover the backgrounds of a lot of the shifters I met in this book. If you want lots of humor, great shifters, a great story and some hot love scenes thrown in, you really should try this series.

9 stars.

© 2013 Reviews by Aurian