The Cougar and the Wolf (8 page)

Instead he was tall and broad-shouldered, with a shock of dark hair and a beard covering most of his face. Kyle had been convinced as a kid that his uncle was always part shifted between man and bear. And as a kid he'd worried that he'd end up like Marty. Always alone, too bear for the humans, and too…grouchy for any of the bear females to take on as a mate.

But then Kyle had manifested as a wolf instead, part of the Stratton pack like his father, so his worries on that score had faded. Some of his bear heritage did show occasionally in a howl that could be more of a roar and, now he was older, a heavyset build to rival even the pack alpha and Riley, the pack enforcer.

He flicked a glance at the tumbler in his hand, swirling the dark amber fluid around until it sloshed against the sides, the ice clinking against the glass. "I dunno, I was planning on watching it until it curdled."

Marty nodded to Honey and a bottle appeared in front of him. He wrapped a paw-like hand around it and lifted it to his lips. The neck disappeared into the fuzz covering Marty's face as he took three long swallows, then sighed. "That hits the spot all right. Damn dust's been coating my throat all day."

He turned and speared Kyle with a direct look, his dark eyes sharp. "If it's impossible things you're after, then the office could do with freshening up. Some paint out in the back shed. You can watch it dry after if you're really pushed. Two birds with one stone."

Kyle snorted, took a large swallow, then sucked in a breath through his teeth as it burned all the way down to his stomach. Impossible was right. They'd been talking about painting the office for years, but the plans never got beyond talking about it and buying the paint. Which had sat in the shed ever since. Every time one of them put time aside to get the job done, something more important always came along.

"Yeah…I guess I could."

At least painting the office would keep him busy at nights, rather than going home and lying on the bed he and… He wrinkled his nose, not wanting to go down that train of thought. Kristen. He missed her so much it was a physical ache in his chest. Like someone had reached in and ripped his heart out while it was still beating, then stomped it into the ground, leaving him broken and bruised.

"Still struggling, huh?" Marty's voice was sympathetic as the bigger man reached out awkwardly and patted Kyle's arm. Kyle winced, the pat somewhere between bruising and bone-breaking. Marty was great with cars. People? Not so much.

"Yeah," he admitted heavily, then winced as Honey breezed past them, her scent reaching out and wrapping around them. She wore the same perfume as Kristen, so he'd been practically living here after work, waiting for that first hit and for a few seconds be transported back to last week. When everything was perfect.

"But what does it matter? I was just a distraction to her. No one important," he spat the slimy agent’s words out and glared at his drink again. If looks could kill, that whisky was deader than a steak.

Marty rumbled deep in his throat, a sound of contemplation. "Does that look like you were no one?"

A frown crawled over Kyle's face as he looked up, followed Marty's line of sight to the Television set in the corner of the bar. Normally it showed the local sports channel on loop, but right now the news was on. Cameras flashed as celebrities walked the red carpet. Kyle's attention started to skitter as Todd Stone stood beaming into the camera. Guy was way too good looking for his own good. How could Kyle compete with men like that—

His train of thought crashed to a stop, the cars piling up and coming off the tracks as the camera cut from Stone to an open limo door. A slender leg emerged as the cameras lit up the side of the white vehicle like a Fourth of July display, but he didn't need to see the woman's face to know who it was. He knew that leg. Knew how silky the skin was, had kissed his way up its length to the treasures hidden further up. He grit his teeth as his body reacted instantly to the memory, leaving him hard as a rock and totally pissed off that she could still affect him this way.

Then she stepped from the car and his anger skittered away. The black floor length gown clung to her like a second skin, the spilt up the side going halfway to heaven and revealing her leg to mid-thigh as she turned and smiled at the cameras. She'd lost weight and looked fantastic. Most would have seen just that, but he knew her. Could see the strain in her face, and the misery in her beautiful eyes. Instantly, he knew. She hadn't been on diet as the commentator was speculating. She hadn't started a new exercise regime.

Her heart was broken. Like his.

“She’s looked like that for weeks.”

Marty moved at his side. Held out a small scrap of paper with a number written on it. Kyle flicked a glance from it to his uncle's face.

"That agent left it. Said to call him when you'd calmed down."

* * *

People. Noise. Lights bright enough to blind stabbed through the blackened windows of the limo as the vehicle drew gracefully to a stop. Kristen looked through the glass, confident that those outside couldn’t see her and eyed the red carpet as it snaked up to the doorway, like a gladiator about to run the gauntlet. Once the sight had filled her with excitement. She—small town, trailer trash Kristen Mann—on that most revered of colours? Unthinkable. Now all it reminded her of was a slow trickle of blood as Hollywood drained the life from her like some over-sized, invisible leech.

“Don’t worry about a thing. Stone’s already inside, so you don’t have to deal with him.”

Xander droned on from the seat opposite, his fingers swift over the screen of his smart phone as he checked it before they went in. That was Xander all over. Always connected, like a spider with his fingers in all the pies. She ignored him and looked out of the window. The crowds were at least seven deep, held back from the scarlet expanse by plush velvet ropes, eager faces turned toward the car as they waited for the door to open.

All those people waiting for her and she didn’t want to go out there. Didn’t want to plaster the fake smile over her face and make small talk with people. Not fans, not the few friends she had here that would be at the after party, no one. She’d been that way since Xander had brought her back from Katy, all assurances that her low mood would pass. It hadn’t. If anything, it was getting worse. As if she was missing a part of herself somewhere. The most important part.

Kyle. She loved him. And she’d lost him.

Taking a deep breath she looked out into the crowd, her gaze searching until she found a face. A young girl, late teens, but so animated she stood out in the crowd like a flower with its petals open to the sun. Kristen didn’t know her, she was just a face amongst many, but she concentrated on it, wondering what the girl’s story was.

Being an actress wasn’t like other jobs. She couldn’t just call in sick and get someone else to take on her workload. These people, this young girl, had given up their time to come and see her. They’d arranged the trip, maybe taken time off work or arranged childcare to be here and she owed them a show. It was a huge responsibility and there was no way she was letting them down, even if all she wanted to do was to crawl into a hole and cry for a year.

“You look fantastic, darling. That dress and the weight loss…” Xander slid the cell into his pocket and gave her the thumbs up. She wanted to break it off and feed it to him, her disgust with him almost overwhelming common sense. “You’ll have them falling at your feet.”

She turned back to him, the slight movement sending the satin skirt of her dress sliding over her thighs. Without interest she glanced down at the Grecian style gown she’d chosen for this evening. Despite what Xander said, she looked like shit and she knew it. Since leaving Katy a few weeks ago, she’d lost so much weight that the designer, one of the young up and coming ones she liked to favour to boost their careers, had been forced to take it in before she left this evening.

She’d even felt a little guilty at the panic on the girl’s face, the first real emotion to penetrate since she’d watched Kyle speed away, chewing up dust on the road as he raced away from her. But she didn’t deserve to pay the price for Kristen fucking up, and her creation hanging from the actress’ frame like a sackcloth on a clothes horse would certainly trash any credibility she had as a designer.

“Oh come on, Krys. You’ve been in a sulk since I split up your little summer romance. Don’t you think it’s time to let it go so we can start making some money? If you’re still feeling that bad, let’s get you some arm-candy. Bound to be a few handsome actors at the after party. What do you say?”

She reached for her clutch, her hand skimming the soft, warm leather of the seat, and speared Xander with a look so cold that he actually blinked.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Xander. Once tonight is over, I never want to see or hear from you again. Understand?”

She didn’t wait for his answer, instead yanking the door release and stepping out of the limo. After so many years in the business alighting from a car was second nature. Unfolding herself gracefully, she set a foot on the carpet as camera flashes went off like a lightning storm. The slender heel on her sandal shifted a little under the plush pile of the carpet, the straps pulling against her ankle, but she automatically righted her footing and stood.

Plastering a bright smile on her face, she headed off up the red carpet without waiting for Xander to escort her. She didn’t need an escort, and the only man she wanted wouldn’t be caught dead on the red carpet. A photographer took half a step forward, camera raised so she paused for the photo, her practised smile hiding the emptiness and pain in the centre of her chest.

She didn’t want an actor to hang off her arm, riding her coat-tails to success. Someone who spent so much time pretending to be other people that they weren’t sure who they were themselves anymore. She wanted a rough and ready mechanic, a wolf who was so sure of his place in the world that he could be her anchor too. Her rock. Given an idea to latch onto, her mind conjured up the image of Kyle in a suit, his hair brushing his shoulders and that easy grin on his face—

The sudden silence behind her made her pause, a frown forming on her face as the crowd gasped collectively. She and Stone were the headline acts, and she knew Todd liked to be the first to arrive. Her lips pressed into a line. Someone was obviously late. Very late if they were arriving after her as it was well known that she preferred to arrive last.

The sound from the crowd changed, became an ‘oooh’ of feminine appreciation. The sort reserved for a sex god or something close to it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an older woman clutch at her chest and swoon dramatically, forcing the guy next to her to catch her before she hit the ground. Kristen blinked. They didn’t even use the dramatic swoon in films anymore, it was seen as so over the top and ludicrous, but this woman seemed to have practised it. Curiosity at the looks of awe on the female faces behind the ropes won out so she turned. And stopped dead.

At the end of the red carpet another limo was just pulling off. It wasn’t the car that caught her attention but rather the man who stood where it had been. He was looking down, his face obscured and for a moment she wondered who it was. Her gaze wandered over the broad shoulders and something fired within her, a very feminine appreciation for the way he filled out the smart suit uppermost in her mind. Then he moved, looked up and she gasped as she recognised him.

Kyle.

Her heart pounded, her hand creeping up to cover her throat as he started forward, his long strides eating up the distance between them. Unable to believe what she was seeing, she blinked and shook her head, trying to clear what was obviously a mirage. Could you get mirages outside of the desert? If not, it was a hallucination. The head shaking did nothing; her vision didn’t suddenly clear to leave the red carpet in front of her empty. Instead, he still walked toward her, large as life and twice as handsome, an expression on his face that she couldn’t read but that sent her heart skipping in her chest anyway.

Cameras clicked around them in a light show bright enough to rival any fireworks display as he reached her, standing so close that the heat of his body beat at her skin despite the clothes between them. She ached to reach out, to touch him, but couldn’t. The fear that this was a dream, that touching him would burst the bubble and she’d be left alone again, locked her in place. All she could do was stare up into his eyes like some love-sick calf, all the words she’d wanted to say over the last two weeks frozen in the back of her throat.

“Hey there, doll.”

His gaze roved over her face, as though drinking in her features and committing them to memory. Heat flared in his eyes, the amber of his wolf blazing through the blue as he reached out to slide a hand around her waist. She gasped as he yanked her flush up against him in a possessive movement, her hands splaying over the solid chest under the fine fabric.

“Hey yourself, handsome.”

Somehow she managed to muster her voice, but the soft sound that emerged was nowhere near her practised screen sex-kitten tone. It was way more toad than kitten, but the smile that quirked his lips told her that he didn’t care.

“You remember what I told you?”

She shook her head, her ability to respond…hell, even think, scrambled as he leaned in and whispered his lips over hers. Her body responded instantly, melting against the hard planes of his as he deepened the kiss. Camera flashes exploded around them in a perfect storm but she didn’t care. Didn’t care that the pictures would be splashed all over the news tomorrow, or the Internet in seconds. He was here, he’d come to find her and…