The Cougar and the Wolf (5 page)

Jealousy exploded through him, feeding the rage that brought his wolf almost to the surface. Kyle stormed across the room, his anger swirling around him like a dark cape, the need to do violence, to tear his woman from the other man’s arms uppermost in his mind. Fuck being understanding. Fuck all that bullshit about her being her own person.

She was his, dammit.

He’d claimed her last night, with his body if not his bite. She had surrendered to him, shuddered in pleasure beneath him, wrapped around his cock. She’d screamed his fucking name as she came.
His
name, not Riley’s. Not any other wolf’s.

His.

As pack enforcer Riley wasn’t a wolf who could be crept up on easily, and this time proved no different. Before Kyle got within ten feet, he lifted his head, arms still around Kristen, to spear him with a direct look. His eyes were human, not the amber of his wolf, but Kyle didn’t care. Nor did he care that Riley was one of his oldest friends. The guy had his paws on Kyle’s woman and that was enough to have a warning growl spilling from his lips.

Amber burst through Riley’s eyes like the rising sun, his wolf called and evident, ready to leap from his human form within a second as he faced Kyle down. The woman in his arms must have registered the change in the air because she stiffened, her movements slowing from the beat of the music, and looked over her shoulder.

“Get your hands off her.
Now.
”

Riley lifted his chin, amber eyes sparkling in challenge as his lip curled. “Make me.”

The rest of the room was silent, all watching the standoff taking place in the middle of the dance floor. To his left, Kyle caught sight of Blake moving into position, the leather-clad bouncer looking grim. He should do, he was used to breaking up fights between the youngsters drunk on being allowed adult freedoms for the first time, but a fight between wolves like Kyle and Riley… It wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Not a problem.”

Before Kyle could move, the need to take up Riley’s challenge hammering through his veins like a drumbeat, Kristen whipped around. Shoving a spread hand into Riley’s broad chest, she shoved him back and pointed a warning finger at Kyle.

“Down boys. Or do I have to find a bucket of water to throw over you?” Her voice as light and musical but the look in her eyes was as hard as steel. She would as well, he just knew it.

Riley turned his head, careful to keep Kyle in his line of sight, the movement so stiff Kyle was surprised his neck didn’t creak.

“That’s for dogs fucking, sweet stuff. We’re wolves,” he ground out, violence shrouding him like a cape. “And I don’t plan on getting up close and personal with him.”

“Fucking, fighting.” She shrugged. “Wolves or not, you’re acting like a pair of strays squaring up over a scrap of a treat. Now either quit it, or let’s take this little pissing contest outside so these good people can enjoy their evening. Shall we?”

Kyle blinked, surprised as she started to hustle them both toward the door. Given what she did for a living, he’d have expected her to relish the limelight, but she seemed to be trying to avoid it.

“Yeah, Riley, you’re acting like a dog.”

The shot was cheap but he couldn’t resist it and Riley growled at him in response. Kristen, however, stopped so suddenly he bumped into her back and got a whiff of her perfume. Deep and floral, wrapped around a scent that was uniquely hers, it hit him on the gut level for two reasons. One, after last night it would forever be listed in his memory as the sexiest smell ever, and two, it bore absolutely no traces of his scent at all.

A growl tricked from his throat again. She’d showered his scent off, which meant a prolonged stay under the faucet. Or several trips. A male wolf’s scent was tenacious, undetectable to humans, but more than enough warning for another wolf. No wonder Riley had cottoned onto her.

“Shut up, spot,” she snapped over her shoulder, her gaze centring on the man in front of her. “Riley? Riley Copeland? Kelli’s brother? Shit…I didn’t recognise you. You’ve all grown up.”

Abruptly, she wrapped her arms around him, a bear hug Riley wasn’t expecting by the look of surprise that crossed his features. In a heartbeat, his anger dissipated and he returned her embrace. The look of pain and longing in his eyes the second before he closed them twisted Kyle’s heart. It took less than half a second for him to realise that Riley wasn’t interested in Kristen; the enforcer was still in too bad a place to take up with any woman.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s not
that
good looking.”

Jenna’s voice sounded behind him, and Kyle’s rage found another outlet. Turning, he found the little drama queen in the centre of her court of human friends; a regular occurrence of a weekend as she continued to make Riley’s life hell.

Despite the fact she claimed to hate what she was now, she seemed to take delight in lording it over her hangers-on, proving how much better and stronger than them she was. Like she got off on being the biggest fish in a little pond, but couldn’t hack being the little fish in the bigger pond of the pack.

“I suggest you leave, sweetheart.”

His words were a growl of warning, backed up by Blake Carlisle sliding into view on the other side of the group. The lean shifter didn’t growl, but his silent disapproval of the little crowd was deafening.

“Before someone takes exception to your smart mouth and shuts it for you.”

Faced with two pissed off shifters, both older and more powerful than she was, Jenna’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy on speed. Frustration and fear chased each other over her features before she gave up and stomped out of the bar with her entourage on her heels.

“Thanks, man. ‘Preciate it,” he nodded to Blake and turned around to find Kristen watching him, Riley nowhere to be seen.

“Heya babe…” As soon as the words left his lips, he knew neither they, nor any amount of charm, were going to work.

“Don’t you
babe
me,” she hissed, turning him and hustling him out of the side door to the bar and into the parking lot. The cooler air of summer over the turn into autumn hit him as the darkness wrapped around them, the light cut off as the door swung shut. The bulb above the small concrete veranda was out again, but he didn’t care as he swung around. He could see perfectly well in the darkness. But Kristen couldn’t and stumbled against him. Instantly, his predatory instincts snapped into play. She’d washed his scent off…

“What the
fuck
did you think you were playing at?” she hissed, her momentary disorientation gone as she glared at him. God, if he’d thought she was beautiful before, all that was blown away as she faced him with fire in her eyes. Rage crackled around her, even her hair alive with it. Lust speared through him, a line of fire straight down to his already hard cock as his brain replayed every erotic moment from last night. Anger returned as he recalled seeing her in Riley’s arms.

His. His. His.

Instead of answering, he moved in, pinning her between his hard body and the wall behind. His mouth crashed down, covering hers. Covering and claiming as he parted her lips with a hard sweep of his tongue, prising them apart and driving into the honeyed sweetness beyond with a desperation that surprised even him.

He was too far gone to care, a rumble of arousal and need welling up from the centre of his chest as she surrendered, then responded. Her small tongue darted out, sliding and stroking along his, then following where he led as he teased her. A chuckle echoed through him as she growled in frustration, wriggling to get closer, finding the human approximation of the sound as cute and sexy as hell.

Then she nipped his lip and all bets were off. Pleasure roared through his body at the slight sting, lust following it as she laved the small hurt with her tongue. Gasping, he broke away to press harder against her, loving the way her soft curves wrapped around the harder planes of his body.

His cock throbbed in time with the beat of his heart, the ache and need to be inside her driving him insane. Hand in the soft curls at the back of her neck, he dragged her head back, kissing along the exposed length of her neck as he used the other to drag her thigh up over his hip.

A groan—his or hers, he couldn’t tell—echoed softly through the darkness as he ground his pelvis against hers and the heated fragrance of her arousal blossomed on the air. She would be hot, and wet. Ready for him. He dropped his head to rest on her shoulder for a second, schooling the impulse to rip the clothes from Kristen’s nubile body and take her then and there.

“Christ, what have you done to me, Red?” he whispered on a ragged moan.

“Nothing,” she panted, hands in his hair as she pulled him up so his lips grazed hers. Her eyes crossed a little as she looked at him, another quirk he’d seen on-screen and found adorable but hadn’t expected the effect in the flesh would blow him away. “Yet… Your place? The office again?”

The small note of desperation in her voice fed his masculine ego. If the rocking motion of her hips against his was any indication, she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her. Then she bit her lip.

“I’m staying with Kelli Copel…ugh, Daniels, it’s Daniels now…so we can’t—”

“No, not there.”

He soothed her worries with another kiss, standing them upright and smoothing her clothes into some sort of order. There was no way he wanted to take her back to the Daniels place, not with the hot, frantic passion that surged between them. There was nothing better for cooling the ardour than knowing your pack alpha could hear and smell everything that was going on. No wonder she’d showered his scent off of her, Kelli must have warned her that Max would pull him in for questioning.

“C’mon. My place isn’t far. We’ll be alone there, I promise.”

Kyle made the short drive back to his place in record time. ‘His place’ was a misnomer. He 'rented' the floor above his parent’s garage, a small space big enough for a bedroom and a shower room but not much else. With two younger sisters and the main house packed to capacity, he'd moved into it at sixteen to give everyone more space and had never moved out. No need to when there was just him and besides, his mom's cooking was something he couldn't leave behind easily. If he was forced to fend for himself, he'd live off black coffee, Twinkies and chips. Not a good diet for a growing lad, even if his wolf physiology didn't give a shit what he ate. Wolves didn't put on weight, they just burned through any amount of fat and crap in their diet.

His tyres bit into the gravel as he pulled the truck to a stop on the drive outside the garage, spraying up a wave of small stones into the flowerbeds. They'd need cleaning up later if he didn't want a cuff around the ear from his garden-proud dad, but he didn't care as he yanked up the hand-brake and killed the engine. All he cared about was getting Kristen out the car and up the stairs into his room. He'd deal with everything else tomorrow.

Silence stretched taut between them, laden with promise as he got out and headed around to open her door. For a second he contemplated sliding across the hood but his wolf was too close to the surface, too needy. He'd probably end up on his ass on the ground, spitting dirt and gravel as he kissed goodbye to any chance of impressing Kristen this century.

The drive was empty, his parents out and his sisters god alone knew where. Another thing he didn't care about. As long as they weren't here, then he was happy. The last thing he wanted was to explain to two nosey pre-teens what the nice lady from the films was doing going up to his room. Then again, with the way playgrounds were these days, they probably knew more about sex than he did.

"In here?" Her voice was breathy and soft as he hustled her to the stairwell at the side of the garage and up into the darkness beyond.

"Yeah, just up here."

He tried and failed to keep the growl out of his voice as he took her hand and led her up the stairs. She stubbed her toe in the darkness, her muttered complaint easily heard. Swearing, he remembered that she didn't have a shifter’s night sight, and scooped her up into his arms. She settled against him, looping her arm around the back of his neck and he had to bite off another curse as the soft swell of her breast pressed against the solid muscle of his chest and her perfume wrapped around him again. She fit perfectly into his arms, as though she'd been made for him.

Dangerous thoughts, but he couldn't stop them. They tumbled madcap through his mind as he carried her easily up the stairs toward the door at the top, feeling every inch the conquering hero with his woman in his arms. Taking the last portion of the staircase two at a time, he startled a laugh out of her as she clung to his neck.

"Slow down, cowboy," she murmured, her lips brushing against the side of his throat as they reached the door. This time he didn't bother to stop the rumble of approval, somewhere between a growl and a purr even though he had no cat blood flowing through his veins whatsoever, letting it roll up and spill from his lips. Turning the key with a savage jerk, he shoved the door open and tumbled them both through it.

Her feet hit the floor but in the same second he pushed her back, corralling her in the darkness against the wall opposite as he slammed the door shut behind them with a booted foot.

"God, I thought we'd never get here."