Hawk and the Cougar

by Tarah Scott

  A Total-E-Bound Publication

  www.total-e-bound.com

  Hawk and the Cougar

  ISBN #978-0-85715-908-3

  © Copyright Tarah Scott 2012

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh © Copyright March 2012

  Edited by Amy Parker

  Total-E-Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2012 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom.

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Total-e-burning and a sexometer of 2.

  This story contains 73 pages, additionally there is also a free excerpt at the end of the book containing 3 pages.

  HAWK AND THE COUGAR

  Tarah Scott

  She’s sure he’s too young for her—he knows she’s exactly what he needs. A case of mistaken identity sends them on a run for their lives through the Arizona desert, where their need for each other is all they have.

  Forty-four-year-old Liz Williams intends to put a stop to the affair between her daughter and her daughter’s archaeology professor.

  But she’s unprepared for the six-foot-three, thirty-two-year-old Native American man who turns out to be Professor Anthony Hawkins—and the men who are trying to kill him.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Stairmaster: Nautilus, Inc.

  Chevy: General Motors

  Suburban: General Motors

  Land Cruiser: Toyota Motor Corporation

  Toyota: Toyota Motor Corporation

  Subaru Forester: Fuji Heavy Industries

  Mack truck: Mack Trucks, Inc.

  Wall Street Journal: Dow Jones & Company

  Superman: DC Comics

  Chapter One

  Liz slid into the last empty desk in the middle of the back row of the tiered lecture hall at ArizonaStateUniversity. A low hum of conversation buzzed in the large room filled with university students nearly half her age. She hunched low in the seat. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, she blended in. Almost. She wanted to stay anonymous until the class had finished. She’d taken the dress code cue from her daughter who, despite being a genius, dressed like the teenager she was.

  Emma had graduated high school three years ahead of schedule and gone directly to college. She’d started her undergrad education this semester. The kid was a machine, which was why Liz had been relieved to learn she had finally become interested in a young man—until the conversation Liz had shamelessly eavesdropped on had taken a serious turn and she’d discovered the young man was Em’s bioarchaeology professor.

  “Good in bed?” Emma had laughed into the phone. “Oh yeah.”

  Liz’s shock had been compounded when Emma had told her friend that Professor Hawkins would be at the dig where she was headed in Monument Valley.

  For the thousandth time, Liz fretted that Emma had left home while she’d been on a conference call with Leland Industries’ Chicago clothing buyer. Darn the kid. Liz had tried reaching her without luck. Em was notorious for dropping her phone into her backpack and forgetting about it. Once she reached the mountains, there wouldn’t be a signal for hours, if at all.

  The door in the right-hand corner of the opposite wall opened, and the room quieted. Liz leaned to the right and peered down through the sea of bodies. She stilled at sight of the tall, broad-shouldered man entering the room. This couldn’t be Professor Anthony Hawkins PhD, the professor her daughter was having a relationship with. The picture on the university website had been taken on a dig. He’d stood in the distance, straw hat pulled low over his brow. His lean build had been obvious, but Liz had assumed the picture to be at least fifteen years old—maybe even older.

  This man looked like he belonged in a time long past when Native American spirits roamed the desert. Jet black hair framed an angular face bronzed by countless hours of sun. The crisp white shirt and tight button-fly jeans he wore belied the sense of the ancient, and emphasised the hard edge.

  Light glinted off his belt buckle where a spider web, lime green, Apache cabochon stone was set inside a sterling silver cable design buckle. Before Liz realised the impulse, her gaze dropped to the generous bulge that pressed against his button fly. She flushed and yanked her eyes upward, where they snagged on a broad chest defined beneath his shirt.

  He reached the desk and set the tan satchel he carried on top. He faced the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and began writing. The shirt went taut over muscled shoulders. His hair brushed the back of his collar, as if he’d waited just a little too long between haircuts. Liz’s mouth went dry. She could almost feel the silky strands between her fingers as she fisted his hair with each thrust of his cock inside her.

  The girl beside her released a low, but audible, “Ohhh.” Liz jarred from the erotic vision. She glanced around to see if anyone had caught her staring, but the students were intent on him. What had got into her? He had to be fourteen or fifteen years her junior—not the man she’d assumed Emma was looking for to replace the father who had walked out just after Em turned three.

  This man was no father figure. Liz understood the attraction. What woman would be impervious to over six feet of tanned muscle? She couldn’t deny his effect on her. But she was an adult, and understood her reaction to be sheer lust—just as he had to know better than to seduce his students.

  As if sensing her stare, he faced the class and swung his gaze directly onto her. Liz slid lower behind her desk. He took a small step to the left and made eye contact again. What was she doing? She wasn’t one of his young students to be intimidated. Despite the tremor that rippled through her, Liz kept her eyes locked with his, and straightened. His brows rose in…amusement? Before she could be sure, his attention shifted to a student in the second row from the front.

  “What are the four areas of investigation into cremated remains, as outlined by Charles Merbs?” he asked.

  The student murmured an answer Liz couldn’t hear over the thunder of her heart.

  Fifty-five minutes later, he ended the lecture, and everyone but Liz rose. She’d regained her composure. She would approach him reasonably. If he was stupid enough to risk his career over a seventeen-year-old kid, then he deserved everything she could dish out.

  Five students waited to talk to him, four of whom were female. He answered their questions in a hushed tone, his eyes on the papers he stacked and put into his satchel. His gaze didn’t so much as flick upward when the last young woman he spoke with leant forward just enough to offer an inviting view of her impressive cleavage. He only asked if she needed anything else. The girl finally left, casting a murderous glance Liz’s way as she passed her on the way to the door.

  The door closed behind the girl, and he said, “If
you’re going to give Reid his money’s worth, you’d better move your pretty ass. I have to be somewhere.”

  Liz froze. Reid? Money’s worth? Pretty ass?

  He picked up the satchel and headed for the door.

  She jumped from her seat. “Hey!”

  Liz hurried down the stairs. She reached the door as it clicked shut behind him and burst into the hallway. He was already halfway down the corridor. She sprinted after him. Thank you, Stairmaster. He reached the exit a second before she did, and she slipped through the opening as the door nearly closed.

  Liz started forward, then hesitated. Two streetlights stood at each end of the deserted parking lot, but shadows hung heavy. Her heart raced. She couldn’t let him go to Monument Valley without talking to him. She hurried forward and, seconds later, came up alongside him. His long strides forced her into a fast walk.

  “We need to talk.”

  He looked at her. “Talk? Come now, you don’t get paid to talk.”

  He stopped beside a beaten-up green Chevy truck. He reached through the driver’s side’s open window, pulled up the handle and opened the door.

  “Listen, I came here hoping you’d see reason,” she began.

  He tossed his case inside and started to get into the truck. Liz couldn’t believe it. He had no intention of giving her even five minutes. She seized the door, yanking it back so hard the old metal creaked. He stared for a long moment, then shoved the door closed. Before she realised his intent, he had her against the car, arms stretched out on both sides of her so that she was trapped against the metal. Her pulse jumped into overdrive.

  “You going to use that body to make me see reason?” His gaze raked down her length. “You’ll get a lot further than Jack and his sidekick The Beanstalk did.” He leaned so close his warm breath bathed her face. “Do you go all the way, sweetheart? Maybe even further? How much would that cost? My soul, maybe?”

  “Cost—what the hell is wrong with you?”

  His brow lifted as it had in the lecture hall. “Well, well, you have a spine,” he said, in a voice that said it wasn’t her spine he appreciated.

  Liz straightened. He didn’t move, and her breasts brushed his chest. Her nipples tightened. Surely, he couldn’t feel her reaction through her lace bra and his shirt? Even if he did miss the rock-hard nipples that brushed his chest, he couldn’t miss the hammering of her heart. A mental picture flashed of him towering over Emma as he was her, and the kid melting in his arms.

  Liz narrowed her eyes. “What university course does this fall under?” Surprise flicked across his face, and she couldn’t resist a smug smile. “What’s wrong? You don’t know how to educate a real woman?”

  “You want an education?” He leaned a hair’s breadth closer. Her nipples pressed into the steel of his chest. “I’d say so,” he added in a low voice.

  A warning bell went off in her head—too late. His arm shot around her and he yanked her against him. His mouth crashed down on hers, hot, moist, demanding. Liz seized his shoulders and shoved, but he crushed her against the car, his belt buckle digging into her stomach. She shoved harder, and he jerked back.

  She dragged in a breath, her flesh on fire where he’d gripped her arms. “You son of a bitch, I’ll have you thrown in jail.”

  He barked a laugh. “Oh, that’s rich. What will the charges read? ‘Local professor arrested for dishing out the same treatment he got’?”

  Liz poked at his chest. He backed up a step as if she’d jabbed him with a shotgun instead of her index finger. “It’ll read ‘attempted rape’, for starters.” She jabbed again, and advanced when he retreated another step. “Then I’ll pay a visit to”—another jab, another step back—“Dean Manning.”

  He seized her wrist. “Listen, lady, I’ve had about all of this I’m going to take. You tell Reid—”

  “All you’re going to take?” She pulled free. The guy was insane. What kind of man had Emma got involved with? “You’re finished.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that a threat?”

  Despite the quiver in her stomach, she gave him a disgusted look. “A promise.”

  He took the two steps to the driver’s side door, reached inside, and pulled the lever. “Make all the promises you want, but stay away from Manning. He’s got nothing to do with this. He can’t change my mind and he’s got no authority to override my decision. You tell Reid if he fucks with Manning, or anyone, he’ll have the Native American Commission down on his head before he can say ‘archaeological dig’.” He got into the truck.

  Liz stared. “What are you talking about?” Something was very wrong. “I don’t give a damn about the Native American Commission.”

  He turned on the engine. Headlights from a car entering the parking lot behind Liz cut across her legs and illuminated his face. Professor Anthony Hawkins. Anthony Hawkins. The name had conjured pictures of a lanky intellectual who didn’t have the slightest idea how to please a woman. This six feet of steel was anything but lanky, and his mouth alone would drive a woman wild. How much of Em’s body had that mouth already explored?

  “Stay away from Emma,” Liz warned.

  His brows snapped into a frown. “Emma?”

  “Stay away from her.”

  “Emma Williams?”

  Liz glanced over her shoulder at the approaching car. The black Suburban SUV made an unexpected swing in her direction. She jammed her eyes shut against the sudden intrusion of light.

  “Move!” Professor Hawkins shouted.

  Liz snapped her head around in time to see him leap from the truck. She whirled and faced the oncoming car. What felt like a brick wall crashed into her, and arms clamped around her like steel bands. They hit asphalt, her on top of him in unison with a deafening crash. Wheels screeched. Liz jerked her head up and gasped at the sight of the SUV backing up at full speed. The mammoth vehicle had rammed the Chevy!

  The professor jumped to his feet, pulling her up with him, and lunged for the truck. She dug her heels in. He whirled, hauled her over his shoulder, and fairly leapt the few feet to the truck. He tossed her onto the seat as the SUV made a turn toward them.

  “Move!” he shouted again, and she barely scooted over before he jumped in.

  The Suburban came straight at them. He started the truck and jammed it into gear.

  “What’s going on?” Liz demanded.

  “Hold on.” He popped the clutch.

  The Chevy shot backwards. Liz seized the dash to keep from flying forward, then braced herself when he hit the brakes and jammed into first gear. She dug a hand into the seat crevice in a frantic search for the seatbelt. Headlights filled the cab. She blinked against the glare of light as they raced forward, heading straight for the SUV.

  She gripped the arm rest with her free hand, still braced on the dash with the other. “Have you lost your mind?”

  He didn’t flinch. Liz scanned for witnesses, but saw no one else in the parking lot. She glanced at the professor. His eyes were straight ahead on the oncoming vehicle, body tense. He was going to do it. He was going to ram the SUV. She swung her gaze onto the speedometer. They were doing thirty-five. The SUV was fifty feet away. They would crash in seconds.

  “For God’s sake, pull off,” she pleaded.

  “They’ll pull out.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  Thirty feet.

  Forty miles per hour. Liz looked out of the passenger side window. Asphalt sped past in a blur of black. She had a better chance of surviving the impact with the ground than a head-on collision in a vehicle that didn’t have seatbelts, much less air bags.

  Twenty feet.

  She shoved open the door.

  “What the hell—”

  Tyres squealed and the truck veered right. She slammed into Professor Hawkins. His arm shot around her and he hugged her against him. Liz buried her face in his chest and clutched his shirt as they spun with the force of the empty truck bed. A hard jolt th
rew her forward, then yanked her back when he hit the brakes. He crushed her closer as they came to a jarring halt.

  Liz remained motionless, eyes jammed shut, fingers gripping his shirt so tight her nails bit into her palm.

  He twisted, his jaw brushing the top of her head as he looked over his shoulder. “Damn them.” He relaxed back in the seat. “You all right?”

  She inhaled a shaky breath and her senses, filled with the aroma of fresh soap, mingled with an earthy scent that reminded her of the desert. Strong fingers cupped her chin and tilted her face upward. He stared down at her. Her heart hammered and her body trembled like an eight-point-nine earthquake. She fought the urge to bury her head in his chest again and burst into tears. Liz dropped her gaze to his lips. His mouth lowered, then stopped a hair’s breadth from hers. She lifted her eyes to his, and his brow rose. She straightened as if suddenly freed from a Jack-in-the-box. He jerked back and she banged her head against the rear-view mirror. Dull pain radiated through her skull.

  “Careful,” he said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  Liz rubbed the back of her head. “I’ll hurt myself? You almost kill me, then tell me I’ll hurt myself? What kind of nut are you? What the hell was that all about? I’m adding attempted murder to the charge of rape.” She fingered the knot on her head.

  He reached for the key. “Who are you?”

  “The innocent act is getting old.”

  He turned the key. The engine whined. He pumped the gas and the motor kicked over. He shifted into gear and eased forward.

  “Where are we going?” She glanced back at the building and the door they had exited.

  “The door locks from the inside,” he said. “You can’t get back in that way.”

  “Just let me out here. I can walk to my car. I want to get as far away from you as possible.”