Freakn' Cougar (11 page)

“Tell him I changed the plan.”

“Not about that, about, you know.” He lowered his voice to say in a conspiratorial whisper, “The fact we had sex.”

“Oh. That.” She paused. “Do we have to?”

“He’s going to smell it.”

“Shit. I don’t have time to get us both showered. Damn. Damn. Damn.”

Stu didn’t know whether he should be insulted or worried that she cared so much what Ricky thought.

He settled for smug, an expression he couldn’t help but wear when he saw Ricky at the bars to their cell, wearing a glower that practically melted everything in its path.

“Well, well, well. Look at what the cat dragged back.”

So much for hoping his sense of smell was on the fritz. His roommate knew, and he didn’t appear happy at all. This would make for an interesting evening. Here was to hoping his nose didn’t get rearranged too noticeably.

They couldn’t hide what they’d done. Stu practically burst out of his skin he was so damned pleased with himself, while Patricia wore the expression of the guilty.

Before she could tell him, Ricky faced the wall of his cell, palms against the cement surface as Patricia let Stu into the cell. The door slammed shut, and he heard the rattle as Stu’s manacles were removed. Ricky didn’t turn. He couldn’t without fearing he’d do or say something stupid, an increasing certainty as his anger simmered, the smell of sex invading his nostrils, both taunting and pissing him off.

She won’t give me an inch, won’t even let me try, but she’ll fuck the pup. Unfreakn’ believable.

What did the young wolf have that he didn’t? Ricky was bigger, stronger, an alpha to the wolf’s beta. And yet the cougar chose the wimp over him? Talk about a blow to his ego—and his heart.

“I’ve got to do my rounds. Stu, fill Ricky in on our new theory and why the change in plan. I’ll be back in a while.”

She took the coward’s route, striding quickly away. No matter. Ricky intended to get the facts, just not the ones involving the case. Whirling around, he couldn’t help but watch the swing of her heart-shaped ass as it swung out of sight before grabbing the wolf by the throat and slamming him against the wall.

“You nervy little bastard. You fucked my woman.”

Stu didn’t have the intelligence to deny it or apologize. Oh no. He made things worse. “Actually, she seduced me.”

Slam
. He rammed Stu against the wall, surely rattling what few brain cells he possessed. “She what?” Ricky practically roared.

“You heard me. One minute, I was minding my business doing research, and the next, she had her hands all over me, and we did it.”

“You claimed her.”

“Not exactly.”

Ricky sniffed, letting his refined olfactory senses fill in the blanks. “She didn’t let you come inside her.”

“No, it was my decision to pull out.”

Ricky dropped the wolf and arched a brow. “You did? Why?”

Rubbing at his throat, Stu rolled his shoulders. “Because she wasn’t ready.”

“Not ready? What kind of bullshit is that? She was ready enough to have sex with you.”

“Sex is a physical need. She needed to release some pent-up energy. I was handy. It could have just as easily been with you.”

But it wasn’t. Ricky scowled. “So she finally gave in to what her body is telling her? I still don’t get why you didn’t claim her.” Because Ricky would have. He burned for the cougar, wanted her so freakn’ bad it was driving him slowly mad.

“I didn’t do it because I could tell she was still working through some issues. The whole losing her mate thing still bugs her. She’s dealing with a lot of guilt right now.”

“Guilt? But why? The guy’s been dead for a few years. She’s allowed to care again.” To Ricky, it seemed very black and white. Her mate was dead. They weren’t. Life went on. He’d learned that at a young age. Those who wallowed in the past ended up miserable and alone. Why would she choose that path?

“A part of her knows what she’s feeling is normal and all right. And it’s not like she’s been celibate. From what I know, she’s dated since his death, but dating and fucking are a lot different than getting involved in another mating. For one thing, she’s probably scared of losing someone she loves again. It probably wasn’t an easy thing to come back from. Then there’s the whole betrayal factor.”

“Betrayal? The guy’s fucking dead. He wouldn’t expect her to be a nun for the rest of her life.”

“Of course not. But tell that to her heart. In allowing herself to care for someone else, she feels as if she’s betraying this Ryker guy. Having loved him deeply, she feels guilty that she might find happiness again.”

For a young guy, Stu seemed to understand the situation better than Ricky. Because if it were up to him, he’d just claim her and show her that life with him would make her happy. But, listening to Stu, he had to wonder if his heavy-
handed approach might make things worse. Much as it galled him, he asked for advice.
“So how do we deal with her and her issues?”

“Since when are we a ‘we’?”

A grimace creased his face. “Since it looks as if, like it or not, she wants us both.”

“Are you sure she wants you?” Stu taunted and almost lost his front teeth for it. Only the fear of Patricia’s wrath stayed Ricky’s fist.

The last thing he needed was for her to get pissed at him and more sympathetic in regards to the wolf. If the young pup could act the part of understanding suitor, then, by damn, so could he!

“She wants me. And, make no mistake, I will have her. I might not like the fact we’re going to share, but so long as it’s her choice, I’ll abide by it. But, trust me when I say, first sign she’s tired of you, I will dispose of you myself.”

“Speaking of dispose …” Stu neatly changed the subject and gave Ricky a recap of his discussion with Patricia. At the end of it all, Ricky was laughing.

“You think a woman’s killing shifters off? No fucking way.”

“Why not? Once drugged, it’s not as if the victims could put up a fight.”

“I’ll agree on that point, but come on? A woman? Do you know how rare female serial killers are?”

“Rare because they don’t happen often, or rare because they don’t get caught?” Stu countered.

“Do you always have to argue?”

“I prefer to call it debate. I was champion of it at my school.”

“Dork.”

“A dork who got pussy.”

There was that smug look again.
Ricky snapped.
Whether Patricia liked it or not, that taunt earned the wolf a punch to the face. It didn’t solve anything, but Ricky sure felt a whole lot better.

As it turned out, it wasn’t just a few corridors with malfunctioning cameras, but all of them. A system-wide glitch had taken all the cameras offline, leaving the guards blind. A technician had been called in to repair the problem, but he seemed to think it would be hours before he could resolve the issue.

In a sense it was a blessing in disguise for Patricia. It meant less chance of her actions going noticed as she forewent the pre-planned route of her rounds to check on the shifters in her care. As if the moon goddess herself were on her side, they were short-shifted. A large number of guards called in sick, citing some kind of stomach flu that struck fast and furious.

No surveillance. A skeleton crew of guards. Patricia didn’t believe in coincidences.
It’s like someone is setting the scene. A scene for murder.
But, this time, their perfectly plotted plan would fail, and their luck would run out because Patricia would catch them and bring them in to the council to pay for their crimes.

Because of safety concerns, a memo went out ordering the few guards who did show up to abstain from performing their usual rounds out of fear something would happen without anyone seeing and being able to come to their aid. The news was met with cheers. The evening staff split off to man certain key points in the prison. Behind their locked doors, they pulled out cards and cellphones and hunkered down for an evening of game play and social networking.

Patricia, however, didn’t have time to check out the latest YouTube video or pass level one hundred and forty-seven in Candy Crush—which was impossible. The knot in her gut said the killer would strike tonight. The question, though, was, who would the killer target?

Slipping away from her assigned guard post proved easy. New to the job, she’d not yet made an impression on those she worked with. She told the guy she was paired with she had orders to report to another location, and engrossed in his sexting with his girlfriend, he barely noticed when she left. She also doubted he’d double check to see if she made it safely.

Master key ring in her possession, courtesy of the shifter council who’d had a duplicate set created to aid her in her task, she made her way back to Ricky and Stu’s cell to check on them. She convinced herself that her first priority was to inform them of the state of the cameras and, at the same time, verify their safety.

What a load of bull. Stu already knew something was wonky with the surveillance system, which meant Ricky knew. As for their wellbeing, even she couldn’t deny that, as a pair, they stood the best chance of surviving an attack. So why did she choose them over the other possible victims? The real reason?

I’m worried about them.

The hairy truth almost gagged her. What if the killer went after them? What if Patricia wasn’t there to protect them? Stupid and irrational considering the guys were capable of looking after themselves, especially since they knew to watch for anything suspicious. Heck, she could practically picture Ricky scoffing at her instinct to guard. Even alone, that rough cat would land on his feet and probably not even lose one of his nine lives in the process.

What about Stu though? While a big guy, he possessed a bit of a naïve spirit when it came to women. Would he have what it took to take a female killer down? He seemed the type to hesitate out of misplaced chivalry, making him a prime target. She couldn’t let that happen.
I need to protect him from his darned gentlemanly morals.

That was if her theory about the killer being a woman panned out. The more she mulled it though, the more and more it made the most sense. Even before she brought Stu on board, she and the shifters’ council operatives had run through the personnel files of those employed at the prisons and done facial comparisons on employee rosters for the men. But one only had to see the ever-increasing death toll to realize someone kept eluding them. Who better than a benign woman whose stature or appearance would have those looking give her a pass because they’d assume ‘no way’?

Having been underestimated too many times to count in her career, Patricia wasn’t so quick to dismiss, hence why she justified her hurried pace to the cell of her undercover partners.

Good idea. Find our mates,
purred her cougar.
Mark them and keep them close.
More and more, her cat refused to stay silent, making her wishes known, if not quite verbally, then through emotion. And, tonight of all nights, with the moon pulling at her wilder side, the animal instinct she hid most of the time threatened to surface. What would happen if she lost hold of the leash she kept on her inner beast?

I’d probably wake up in the morning naked, fucked, and bitten.
A mating marriage under a full moon that would bind her to one or more men for life. Would that truly be so bad?

Yes! No. Maybe.

A frustrated snarl passed her lips. While a part of Patricia continued to defy this uncontrollable urge, a larger part, which grew day by day, hour by hour, wanted to give in. In a sense she already had when she seduced Stu.

Sweet Stu. Awkward and geeky on the outside, but an ardent lover and more understanding man than she would have given credit. Facing him again filled her stomach with girlish butterflies.

Then there was Ricky. Hot, domineering, and determined. Everything she avoided in a man.

If only I could somehow avoid him altogether.
Because she feared, despite her guilt over betraying Ryker’s memory, she wouldn’t be able to resist the next time Ricky cornered her.

A smart girl, intent on remaining single and true to her memories, would keep herself far away from the temptation they posed. Apparently, she wasn’t as smart as she liked to believe.

I should stay away. Face them later.

Coward. It wasn’t just guilt and fear over what she might do that made her question her choice to go see her partners. A part of her didn’t want to deal with the anger Ricky was sure to exude as he confronted her over her choice to seduce Stu, an anger she’d seen simmering before and run from, leaving Stu to face it alone.

Oops. Too late, it occurred to her that by taking the coward’s route she’d left Stu in a difficult spot. A possibly dangerous one. Ricky made no pretense about his jealousy. Would he act on it?

He better not have hurt Stu.
And if he had? What would she do? Punish Ricky? Hadn’t she already by not giving in to his overtures? By choosing the young wolf over him?

Why couldn’t she rewind the clock to a time before she’d met them? A time when all she worried about was who Emily Thorne would target next on
Revenge
?

Patricia didn’t need to announce her presence, not when whispers and catcalls followed her rapid steps along the dark corridor. Despite the late hour, not all the prisoners slept, and many tracked her progress with sly comments and invitations to make a prostitute blush.

She ignored them all. The knot in her gut urged her to hurry. Something was amiss. She didn’t realize she held her breath until she saw Ricky and Stu at the bars to their cell.

“What is it,
bebé
? You appear anxious.”

To her relief, Ricky met her with concern, not accusation. “I was worried about you.” The admission slipped out before she could stop it.

A soft chuckle rumbled, teasing along her skin, making it prickle. “We’re fine for the moment. But my cat’s restless.”

“My wolf is giving me a headache with his whining,” Stu grumbled. “I don’t know if it’s the full moon or something else, but he is really pushing to get out.”

So she wasn’t alone in sensing something amiss. “I think something’s about to happen. I need to check on the other two prisoners.”