by Liza Street
“She can start moving rocks around next,” Jameson said. “Maybe dig a swimming pool.”
“You’re eeeeevil,” Gemma sang.
“Not particularly.”
“I don’t think you’d be trying to get her to leave if you didn’t have feelings for her,” Gemma continued. “Pants feelings.”
Jameson hesitated. Maybe he hadn’t heard Gemma correctly. “Pants…feelings?”
“Yep.”
Gemma was hilarious, and also totally wrong. At least that’s what he’d keep telling himself. “Forget it, guys. I gotta go. I have a lecture I need to prepare.”
Rex snorted. “You don’t teach until Tuesday, liar. You don’t need to prepare shit.”
Jameson huffed, stacked his empty shot glass onto Rex’s and Gemma’s, and left.
Seven
Nina spent most of Monday hauling rocks, courtesy of the alpha’s orders. The alpha who still hadn’t laid eyes on her since Friday night, when he’d taken a sip of her beer with that look in his eyes.
Whether or not he’d been flirting with her was debatable, but there was no denying what that look in his eyes had meant. That was a pants look. An “I wanna get in your pants” look. She’d seen them often, usually thrown across the room by various members of her pride. Hell, she’d seen a few directed at her, usually by skeevy Ben or Doug Channing. Once…once by Rafe.
Shut it down, she thought. That ship has sailed and not only has it sailed, but it has sunk. It has sunk deep down into the “mates for life with another woman” abyss.
Nina’s arms were sore from the physical labor. If she’d been human, she’d probably be crying right now and booking massages or at the very least gulping fistfuls of ibuprofen. As a shifter, she was gifted with speedy healing, a resistance to disease, and extrasensory powers.
And a sense of humor. Or wait, that wasn’t a shifter thing.
But she’d made a shitload of people laugh through her blog today, with her post on alphaholes. The post had been inspired by Jameson, of course.
The only thing bigger than the alphahole’s muscles is his ego, she’d written. And they loved her “nope monster” graphic. Her audience was eating this up. They wanted more updates, more details. More on the alphahole and all of his issues.
Backstory wound? someone had written in the comments. Surely he’s so gruff and unkind for a reason, and beneath all that is a heart of gold.
Heart of gold, Nina thought, sniffing. More like a heart of turds. He was mean.
Mean and sexy.
Shut up, brain.
She read through the comments and responded to the ones that asked questions or she thought she had a good response for. She was just thinking of starting a new post when her phone buzzed with a message from Fraze.
Miss you, babe.
Her stomach felt heavy all of a sudden. She shouldn’t have slept with him. She typed back, Hey, how are you?
Fraze: Good. Seems quieter here. Even V’s been too busy to hang out.
Nina: You hang out with Viviana? I didn’t think she spent time with anyone.
Fraze: We should have given her more of a chance.
Noises outside caught her attention. Quiet laughter, some of it, and crunching footsteps in the gravel. She peered through the window but couldn’t see anything. Quickly she typed, Gotta go. Miss you, Fraze, and set down her phone. Padding over to her door, she eased it open.
“Hello?”
“Shhh,” she heard someone say, but not to her. Then more snickering.
“What the hell?” she called. “Stop being dicks.”
She stomped out of the cabin. The best thing about being a mountain lion shifter was that when things went bump in the night, she didn’t have to cower like the lead heroines in slasher movies. Instead, she could confidently stroll out and kick ass.
Scrambling sounds came from the gravel next to her truck, and Nina rushed toward Phil. She caught a glimpse of light-colored hair that disappeared into the trees. It was tempting to shift and chase after them—she loved a good chase—but first she wanted to find out what they’d been doing.
She came around to the driver’s side of her truck.
Oh, Phil. Dismay spread through her. Spray-painted in a cruel, ugly orange were the words CAT IN HEAT.
So unfair. If people had a problem with Nina, they should talk to her. Or fight with her. Something. But taking it out on Phil? That was just plain wrong.
She tried to discern the scents, but the vandals had sprayed perfume, obviously trying to disguise themselves. Well, hell. Now she didn’t know who to beat up.
No, she wasn’t here to beat people up. She wasn’t here to “stir up trouble,” like the alpha thought. She just wanted a quiet place away from the Corona mountains so she could work on her blog, grow her audience (and maybe her paycheck if she was lucky), and then get the hell out of here so she could find the next cool place to stay.
She touched the paint. Still wet. Hurrying back to her cabin, she gathered rags and filled a plastic washtub with water. Then she rushed back out to her truck, wincing at the words again. Poor Phil.
CAT IN HEAT. What did it even mean? She wasn’t sending out sexy pheromones, she wasn’t doing freaking anything.
As she crouched near the driver’s side door where the words had been sprayed, she dipped a rag into the water and rubbed it over the paint. It smeared, but the word was still clear. Fucking assholes. She wiped the paint again. More smearing. She wanted to scream.
She leaned her forehead against a clean portion of the door, hoping the cold metal would shock her out of her temper. It wasn’t her place to seek retribution, but oh yes did she want it.
Eight
Jameson downshifted so that he could take the hill into camp a little slower. As eager as he was to get back to the Ring of Fire, he didn’t need to fishtail and slide into a tree. Maybe he should have stayed longer with Rex and Gemma, though, because at least at that dinky little bar there hadn’t been any temptation to rap on the door of Cabin 5 and have his way with the mountain lion shifter.
He shook his head, trying to block out the thoughts.
But there she was, outside, bent over the ground near her truck. Sick? She was leaning over a tub. Strange.
He killed the engine and climbed out, then took big strides toward her. His brain kept telling him this was a terrible idea, but the grizzly inside of him was practically tap-dancing in circles, crazy happy that he was finally going to talk to her, finally going to smell her. He’d be close enough to touch her, and watch her hazel eyes light up with surprise and then darken with lust.
He’d imagined it way too many times.
Stomping over, he said, “What are you doing?”
She stood up. “Cleaning my truck.”
Now that he looked, he could see orange paint splattered over the side. “What the hell is this?”
“You tell me, Mr. Alpha. Your clan did this. Or some of them, anyway. Seems they’re a little out of control.”
He scowled.
“Either that,” she said, “or they did this on your orders.”
“Hell, woman, you know I wouldn’t tell them to do that.”
“Really? Because you’ve been making me feel so welcome here?”
He sighed. “It’s not like that.”
“Really.” She put a hand on her hip, got a sassy little expression on her face. If he weren’t furious about her truck, he’d be laughing right now. She continued, “Then tell me what it is like, because from my standpoint, hauling trees and rocks around this place, it seems like you don’t want me around.”
He rubbed a hand through his hair. It bothered him that she didn’t know the truth—that she couldn’t know the truth. And it wasn’t just Asshole Jake and Erena and Carl. It was Jameson’s own out-of-control desire. His fear. He couldn’t tell her that. So he took a deep breath and said, “It’s more that I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Nina pursed her lips. “Save it. I don’t need to hear
that anymore. Just leave me in peace so I can try to get this paint off before it dries.”
“Hang on, I’ll help you.” He reached into the bucket, looking for another rag. Finding one, he wrung it out and started rubbing against the surface of her truck. The paint smeared, and he swore. “They’re gonna pay for this, okay? I don’t let my clan get away with this kind of shit.”
She scrubbed in silence.
He looked at her truck again. “What does it say, anyway?”
“Please don’t,” Nina said in a small voice.
“But—oh.” The outlines of the letters were faint, but he could just see them. His voice thudded out against his will. “Nobody really thinks that.”
“Look, I don’t care what they think,” she said. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having pants feelings—”
He laughed. “There it is again, that phrase. Pants feelings.”
She looked at him with an inquisitive expression on her face.
“What?” he asked.
“Where’d you hear about pants feelings?”
“Gemma. She said something about it…a little while ago.”
“Anyway, don’t worry about it,” Nina said. “Even if I were a cat in heat which I obviously am not, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I’m just pissed about Phil.”
Jameson raised his eyebrows. “Phil?”
“My truck.” Nina patted the hood.
“You gave your truck a masculine name?”
She rolled her eyes. “So?”
“So nothing. It’s just different. Anyway, let’s get Phil cleaned up.” Jameson wielded his rag once more.
The vandals had spread the words across the driver’s side door. He worked closely with Nina, scrubbing all that he could. The paint was stubborn, but a lot of it came off, too. He went to dip his rag into the bucket again, but he hit Nina’s head with his own.
“Ow,” she said, rubbing her forehead.
He dropped his rag and reached out to keep her from falling, but of course she had great balance, and instead he found himself with his hands resting lightly on her forearms, his mouth too close to hers. He leaned forward. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to press his lips to hers. He looked at her mouth, at her full lips.
Then he came to his senses and spun away. “I gotta go,” he said. “I’ll have the rest of your truck cleaned off as soon as I can. Tomorrow your job will be to spread some gravel around that area where you cleared trees, so I hope you’ve still got your muscles.”
She huffed. “If anything, my muscles are bigger than they were, after the tree clearing. I could probably kick your ass.”
He couldn’t keep the flirty words inside, and said, “If you were sticking around, we’d have to test that theory.”
Before she could respond, he marched into his cabin and slammed the door behind him.
He peered through the curtains. Nina was still washing her truck. He should be out there helping her. He wanted to be. But after another minute of pointless scrubbing, she dunked her rag in the bucket and hauled it away.
Oh, all the chances he was losing. They were like poems he refused to write down. Here, and then gone.
Nine
Had he almost kissed her? Nina dumped the filthy water, wrung out her rags, and returned to her cabin. She opened her laptop again, and her browser was still open to write up her blog post. She had to talk about this with someone. Laura was the obvious choice, but Nina was trying to keep her distance…even from her sister. The entire Corona Pride was off limits as much as she could make it.
Instead, she started writing about Jameson. The Kiss That Isn’t, she called the blog post. She couldn’t believe it. Her readers probably wouldn’t, either.
At the end of the post, which was short, she tacked on a review for one of her favorite urban fantasies, just a few lines about why people should give it a try. That way her blog wouldn’t be All Nina’s Drama, All the Time. That hadn’t been her goal, ever. Her goal was to share books with other like-minded readers. As her About Page said, she started the blog because nobody in her pride, or family, read romance, and she had so much to say about it. Justine would read the occasional romance if it was also a good sci-fi, but Nina—Nina loved all romance genres and subgenres. Romance was full of its tropes and challenges, and even when she hated it, she loved to hate it, making her feelings about romance into just another trope.
Super meta. She adored it.
As she read over the “Nina’s Life” portion of the post, she wondered if there was more to the alphahole than she’d previously thought.
If he’d kissed her, would she have pushed him away? Or would she have given in to her urges and danced the two-tongue tango?
She didn’t really know…but if she had to guess, she’d bet on tongues.
Maybe she was a cat in heat.
*
The next morning, she pulled herself out of bed. The sheets were finally starting to smell more like Nina and less like Gemma and Rex, which was good. It was weird to curl up at night in the scents of people she barely knew.
Nina realized with a start that until a few weeks ago, she’d barely left her territory, and she’d never been out on her own.
It felt…right. Free.
She should have left long ago.
After starting a pot of coffee, she padded over to the drafting table where her laptop waited. She fired it up and opened the internet browser, then went straight for her blog.
The comments had been coming in all night. People congratulating her, speculating on whether the alphahole was like one in a novel they’d recently read, citing romance novels with similar gruff, restrained characters. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Penny Reid’s Neanderthal Seeks Human. J. R. Ward’s Lover Awakened, and more.
Nina grinned. She had left her blood family, her pride, but she had another pride of her own, in the interwebz. It was fantastic.
She drank her coffee. Deciding to skip her shower because she’d likely get filthy from spreading gravel, she dressed. On the porch of her little cabin, she breathed the fresh morning air. Nobody was around, which was odd. Most mornings at least a few of the clan members were out on their porches, drinking coffee or growling at each other. Not even Margot was on her front stoop across the way with a teacup in one hand and her phone in the other.
On her way to the area where Jameson wanted her to spread gravel, Nina heard shouting. The shouting was coming from the Circle—that grouping of Ponderosa pines surrounding the cairn. Was someone in danger? She rushed forward, but came to an abrupt halt when she saw the clan assembled. Jameson wasn’t raising his voice, but Jake was.
“This is bullshit!” Jake yelled. He stood next to Erena, his eyes lifted insolently to Jameson.
A clan meeting. Nina wasn’t a clan member, so it made sense that she hadn’t been invited. Still, it stung a little bit. She’d felt like she hadn’t belonged in the Corona Pride, but here she really didn’t belong.
“We shouldn’t be fucking punished,” Jake spat. “It’s a joke on an outsider. She isn’t even one of us.”
Jameson stood close to the cairn. Jake and Erena stood before him, and the rest of the clan was scattered around. Jameson looked tired, like last night took a toll on him, too. His brown hair was mussed on one side like it wouldn’t commit to lying flat, and his bright blue eyes were blazing, but rimmed in dark circles.
“My word is law here,” Jameson said. “Unless you’re challenging me.”
Erena’s head was bent in obedience and after a long moment—seconds? Minutes?—Jake bowed his head, too.
“Very well,” Jameson said. “You’re both fined five hundred dollars, which is enough money to get her an entire new paint job if that’s what the damage warrants. Someone seeking sanctuary is entitled to our hospitality, not cruel jokes. I’m disappointed in how you’ve treated her, and I expect everyone to shape up, starting now.”
Nina hung back, not wanting to intrude on the meeting. Jameson…he was
an alpha, an alpha worth looking up to. He wasn’t hiding or shirking his responsibilities like she’d originally thought. He was here, present, taking charge, and making sure the clan operated smoothly.
So was it just her that he was hiding from?
She got her answer when his eyes met hers from across the Circle, and he closed his mouth, seemed to be gritting his teeth.
Finally he ground out the order, “Meeting over. Get out of here.”
The clan scattered. Nina wondered if he’d ended the meeting because of her, then she immediately dismissed the thought as too self-centered. But when he gave her another long look before spinning around and ripping into the forest, tearing off his shirt as he went, she started to think that yes, maybe it was her fault he was being so distant.
Did he hate her that much?
If this were the old Nina, the Nina before Rafe had broken her heart, she would have gone after this guy. Demanded answers.
The new Nina was a scaredy cat.
She headed off toward the newly cleared area to shovel gravel. Being a scaredy cat was better than nursing a broken heart, any day.
Ten
He looped around the perimeter of the territory, stalking through the woods, wanting to be with Nina. Fuck it all. He didn’t know how he was going to keep resisting the siren call of those hazel eyes, or the way her hair fell down her back in waves, all jumbled and wild. He bet she looked amazing right after a run, just shifted back to human, with dirt on her skin and leaves in her hair. He bet she looked like a poem in the woods.
He bet he needed to stop thinking about her this way before he snapped and made the mistake of kissing her. No doubt about it—it would be a mistake.
But how could it be a mistake? a voice inside of him asked. If they both wanted to be together, that would be a good thing, right?
It was time to go to work. Instead of watching her from the forest like he really wanted to do, he headed back to his cabin.
Halfway back, he smelled Jake before he saw him. Halting in place, he stared hard in Jake’s direction. “Well?” he said.
Jake stepped forward. “I have a grievance.”
