The Cougar and the Wolf (2 page)

“I could be. Depends if you’re the man for the job…” She trailed off, looking up at him through those thick dark lashes and just like that Kyle was catapulted into a scene straight out of one of his fantasies. Lust hit him and woke his wolf in one soul-jarring hit. Heat rolled through his body, heading straight for his dick as she pursed her lips, tapping the lush ruby pout with the side of her expensive cell phone as she looked him up and down.

“Babe, I can be anything you want me to be.” He winked and resisted the urge to sweep her up in his arms and crush her lips under his there and then. Instead he fell back into default mode, hiding behind the easy charm he’d inherited from his werewolf father as he strode over to the hood of the yellow car. “Let’s take a look at her, shall we. Wanna pop the hood for me?”

Surprise shadowed her expression for a second but then she smiled, reaching inside the car. A metallic click later and the hood popped up. He grimaced as soon as he hauled the thing up. The smell alone was enough to tell him the car wasn’t going anywhere under its own power.

“So, what do you think?”

He looked over his arm at the sound of her voice to find her up close and personal, those amazing eyes pinning him to the spot. For a moment he lost the power of thought, let alone speech. All he could think about was seeing those eyes dark with passion, all that glorious red hair spread out around her head like a reverse halo as he slid into her. Long, slow, powerful strokes designed to take them both to heaven.

His cock jerked savagely, pressing hard against the inside of his jeans in protest at its denim confinement.

“The car, Mr…McLachlan?” She guessed after a pause.

“Roberts,” he corrected automatically, not daring to move in case she looked down and saw the state of his body. Fuck the heat, he should have worn a shirt today. “Kyle Roberts. Martyn’s my uncle.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Kri…”

“Krystal Kerr,” he answered for her, twisting to enfold the hand she held out in his pawlike grip, somehow managing to twist his body to the side so she didn’t catch onto the fact he had a hard-on like a steel fucking pole. His back screamed in protest but it was better than her thinking he was some kind of pervert.

“Kristen Mann,” she corrected him with a smile. “Krystal is a stage name.”

And just like that he felt a complete idiot.

“Oh, of course. Kristen. Nice name.”

Nice name? He groaned mentally.
Someone, please, kill me now.

She leaned against the car and shrugged, still watching him. “You’re forgiven. I don’t tell many people my real name.”

So why him? The question hung between them as he dropped the hood and clicked it shut. He opened his mouth to ask, then chickened out. “Sorry, sweetheart, this isn’t going to be a quick fix. I need to get this baby on the ramps and have a good look at her.”

“Oh dear.” Her breathy voice should be illegal, reaching out with insubstantial fingers and wrapping around his already aching cock. Teasing him with nothing more than her dulcet tones. “And I do so like a quickie.”

Kyle blinked, but couldn’t stop the heat flashing through his expression, changing his eyes. Without needing to see in a mirror, he felt his eyes shift, the quick flash of amber enough to clue in anyone who knew what they were looking for what lay under his human skin.

She smiled, a slow, dangerous expression as she slid her sunglasses down her nose and looked at him over them. He schooled the shudder of reaction that wanted to roll through his body.

“Well, well, well…are you hiding things from me, Mr. Roberts?”

She knew.

Shock held him still as he just looked at her, his jaw dropping until he was in danger of looking like a guppy. He’d expected the usual twenty questions, if she mentioned his eyes at all, but for her to know what he was rocked Kyle’s world.

“Sweetheart…” he started croakily, then stopped, forced to clear his throat. “I’d show you anything you wanted to see. Just ask the question.”

Silence stretched out between them. An eternity as he waited for her come-back while thoughts tumbled through his head. She couldn’t be flirting with him. Could she? Krystal Kerr was
the
Hollywood leading lady. For fuck’s sake, she belonged in the arms of some slick dude like Todd Stone, not a grubby lycan mechanic from Stratton. She had to be just playing with him.

Kyle hauled himself out of fantasy-land and smiled, pushing away from the car. “Let me just get this darlin’ buckled up, then I can drop you off where-ever you’re needin’ to be.”

Kyle Roberts was a werewolf.

He was also sex on freaking legs. Great legs. Attached to a great ass. Kristen knew she’d been in happy-happy land checking it out as she watched him load her sad, broken car onto his big, powerful truck. She shivered, seeing the parallels between herself and the little yellow car. It wasn’t PC, girl-power or whatever crap title they were tagging onto it these days, but she’d give anything for a big, physically powerful guy to take care of her for a while.

Which led her right back to watching Kyle Roberts. He moved with a grace and fluidity she’d seen amongst dancers on set, but his frame was way bigger. Men that tall were usually ungainly, as though they struggled to interact with the world around them. Not Kyle. He moved as though he was the centre of the universe and everything revolved around him in an intricate dance. A sense of rightness added allure to every movement as he ratcheted the holding straps over her car tight, almost sending her ovaries into spontaneous combustion as the muscles stood out in high relief on his bare arms.

Early twenties…twenty five at the most.
Way
too young for her, she told herself as she nibbled her lip, but all she could think about was those strong arms wrapped around her. About peeling that tight t-shirt from what she could tell was a ripped body and running her hands over work-hardened muscles.

Wolves’ve got great stamina…they’re like superman in the sack.

Kelli’s voice, giggly and happy after her marriage to Stratton’s pack alpha last year, came back to haunt her and Kristen was forced to bite back her moan. A hard body built for loving and stamina to boot. She could put up with the wet dog smell, if the problem ever arose. She was way more interested in something else rising though.

“Ms. Mann?” Kyle’s gravelly voice was almost a growl as he looked up from what he was doing, his blue eyes stained with amber. She held her breath, watching the struggle there as he carried on, his words strained but polite. “I’m almost done here. You wanna get in the cab for me?”

Cab. With him. Stamina of superman.

Her sex-starved brain latched onto the three thoughts and held on like a pitbull. Nodding, she turned on her heel and headed for the front of the truck, but before she could clamber up, he was there, his big hands wrapped around her waist as he lifted her easily into the cab. Murmuring her thanks, she had to give him credit. His hands didn’t linger, nor did he make the sort of crass comment she might have expected from any other guy. But then, she had been surrounded by creeps like Todd Stone for the last month, so her expectations were a little skewed.

She settled onto the utilitarian bench seat, the thin padding a passing nod to some kind of luxury, and flipped the shade down quickly as he walked around the front of the truck. Checking her reflection she wrinkled her nose. Her makeup, subtle and barely there, hadn’t migrated with the heat so that was a bonus, but her hair was edging out of sexy and tousled territory and right into untamed mess. She sighed, flipping the shade up as he opened the door and hauled himself into the driver’s seat. It would have to do. At least she wasn’t at the bag over the head stage. Yet.

The drive back into town was quick, a charged silence falling between the two of them as she searched for something to say. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. Her life was built on networking and the ability to communicate, and she’d spent countless hours mostly naked simulating sex with the world’s hottest actors yet here she was, struggling to start a conversation with the first seriously hot ‘real’ guy she’d met for years.

His big hands moved on the wheel, firm and controlling as he finally swung the truck into place by the garage she dimly remembered. She’d spent most of her childhood in nearby Stratton but trips to Katy, nicknamed ‘bear country’ because of its resident bear-pack, had been few and far between.

“So…how’s a werewolf end up working in a bear town?”

She found her voice as he cut the engine, debating going for sultry but deciding against it. She was at least ten years older than he was and he probably had her safely categorised as ‘older woman’. Nothing more pathetic than mutton dressed as lamb. No, bad analogy with a werewolf. She didn’t want him to eat her, unless it was in the
oh yeah baby, fuck me now
sort of way.

Forearms crossed casually over the steering wheel, he looked at her through long strands of dirty-blond hair. The amber of his wolf had receded to a ring of fire around his pupil that fascinated her. Did that mean he was just a little bit wolfy? Dark and dominating rather than charming as he had been when he arrived to pick her and the car up? Or was it a warning sign that he was more into the full-on bad kind of eating? Her breath caught suddenly as she realised that, despite her best friend being a werewolf, she didn’t actually know that much about them.

“Easy,” he grinned. “Mom’s a bear, dad’s a wolf. I work with my uncle Marty, he’s a bear too. And you don’t need to worry, I won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not worried.” She blinked, her frown broadcasting her confusion. “How did yo—”

“Fear is a sharp, obvious smell.” He tapped the side of his nose, a wicked little expression on his face.

Fuck.
Of course, Kelli had always been able to pick up when she was scared, especially when they’d snuck out at night…and known when she’d liked a boy. Could he…

“So,” she said suddenly, ignoring the rush of heat to her cheeks. “How does that work. Are you like half-bear, and half-wolf?”

His deep chuckle curled around her, reaching into parts that other men’s laughs missed. She nibbled her lip as her body responded, a rush of liquid heat dampening her panties. Trying to keep her movements natural, she pressed her thighs together and hoped like hell he couldn’t tell the effect he was having on her.

His eyes darkened, his gaze dropping for a second to her crotch. Fuck, she’d been caught out.

“Nope, just a wolf,” he replied as he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the door, holding her gaze with his. “Mom’s a non-shifter, and none of us kids have manifested as bear. I’m all wolf…” he reached out to loop a curl of her dyed hair, a deep rich scarlet, around his finger. “So better be careful, Red, or I might eat you all up.”

Oh God, yes please.

Before she could answer, he was gone, dropping to the ground out the driver’s door with a dull thud as his booted feet hit the dirt. She swallowed, trying to ease the fire roaring through her blood but before she could get anywhere close, her door opened and he was there.

Heat pulsed through her body as he encircled her waist with his big hands, and she bit her lip.

“God, don’t do that,” he begged, his voice hoarse as she mangled the plump flesh of her lower lip with her teeth. His gaze latched onto her mouth, the amber and blue all but swallowed in turn by dark heat.

“I can’t think straight…not with that and your scent—” he broke off with a groan, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they blazed with amber and she was caught. Pinned by the power and magnetism that radiated from him like the blast from a furnace. She wasn’t worried about him hurting her. Somehow she knew he wasn’t going to be into the bad kind of eating, no matter what manner of creature lurked beneath his human skin. It was that skin, the body of the human male below her, that she was interested in. More than interested in…fascinated by.

“Fuck, you smell fantastic,” he said, the edge of a growl in his voice.

He lifted her easily, his casual display of strength startling and turning her on all the more. She wasn’t a lightweight by any means. Not overweight, she was still curvier than most directors liked but she didn’t care. Any suggestion she go on a diet was met with a one-fingered reply. Kyle lifted her as if she weighed less than a wet kitten, holding her easily as he buried his nose against her stomach and breathed in.

A growl trickled from his lips, the sound heard more than felt through the thin fabric of her shirt. Her hands curled around his wrists as he slowly lowered her, sliding her down his solid body. She bit back her whimper as excitement sizzled through her veins at the contact. He was hard
all
the way down. Solid lines and plains of muscle that didn’t give as her curves pressed against him.

The whimper broke free as they came face to face, her feet still off the ground, and the rigid length of his cock pressed into her soft belly. He was hard there too, and huge. Thicker than an iron bar, he could easily double as a damn flagpole.
Jesus H Christ.
Would it even fit?

“You’re killing me here, Red.” He leaned down as he set her on her feet, his lips brushing against hers but not quite making contact. As though he were asking permission to kiss her…