The Cougar and the Wolf

by Mina Carter

  “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.”

  Chapter Four

  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."

  He almost didn't recognise the rough pant as his own as he crowded her, her human eyes wide and dark. She moved her head, obviously trying to focus on him in the darkness, but without the enhanced senses of his kind she had no chance. For a moment he pitied her dull humanity, but not for long.

  She tilted her head, obviously able to make enough out in the dark room, and smiled as she moved against him. Lust surged, white hot pulses flooding his veins with each beat of his heart at the sight of the pale, slender column of her throat and the feel of the equally slender hand that pressed boldly against the front of his jeans, cupping and fondling the hard ridge of his erection right through the fabric.

  Just like that the tables turned. He swore again and his head dropped back as she took her time exploring him. The heat of her body beat at his and her scent wrapped around him, a snare tighter than any chain laced with silver. For all the superior strength granted by his werewolf blood, he was at her mercy. Making a small sound of approval, she traced the outline of his cock in his pants and it responded with a savage jerk. He wanted to be inside her. Now, yesterday. Sooner.

  "I'd make a comment about being pleased to see me, but I think that one's been done to death," she murmured, her lips brushing the skin of his throat as she pulled his shirt up and slid her hand beneath it.

  The touch of her small hand over his skin was heaven and hell at the same time. Barely contained under the surface, his wolf grunted and rolled as though it too was revelling in her touch. The creature was so close, Kyle was surprised she didn't yank her hand back and complain about fur poking through his skin.

  "Yeah."

  Dumb answer Kyle. But it was all he was capable of as she snapped open the top button of his jeans. Pulling his head back up, he watched her. Every expression on her face was clear to him as she popped another button, and another, then bit her lip as she slid her hand under the denim. He chuckled when she realised he wasn't wearing underwear and her eyes widened. God, she was so cute. And hot. Definitely hot. The chuckle trailed into a hiss as her fingers found his cock and wrapped around it, her skin feeling almost cool against the hot, steely length.

  "Fuck. Yeah baby, that feels so good.”

  He groaned as he rocked his hips and thrust against her gentle fingers and heat poured through him like molten metal. His hands found her hair, driving into the silken locks to hold her head still. Like the predator he was, he zeroed in, his lips covering hers in a blazing kiss that echoed the heat surging through his body. Hand still in his jeans, she stroked and he almost lost it as pleasure spiralled, tightening his balls and hardening his cock impossibly further. If he didn’t get inside her soon, he was in danger of shooting his load just at the ministrations of her clever fingers.

  A growl locked in the back of his throat, he backed her up against the wall and parted her lips with a hard sweep of his tongue. A demand for access and a claim all rolled into one. She'd washed his scent off, and that was unacceptable. She was his and he intended to make her admit it, even if he had to fuck her all night long.

  She whimpered, surrendering to him as his tongue thrust in to plunder the sweet depths of her mouth. He didn't just kiss her, he kissed her like his life depended on it. Which, right at this moment, it did. He needed to kiss her, taste her, claim her, more than he needed his next breath. Pushing his hips forward, he trapped her hand between them. Her fingers were still wrapped around his cock as he kissed her. Claiming her lips until her soft moans and whimpers, the feeling of her soft body against his, almost stole his ability to think.

  Growling again, the animalistic sounds beyond his control, he dragged his lips along her jaw and down her throat. This time he didn't nip, or play. He was too close to the edge to get his teeth anywhere near her. He needed her too much. Her scent in his nose and lungs, the perfume of her thick in the air around them, he needed to taste. To lick.

  He caught her free hand, pinning it against the wall as he yanked the strap of her camisole down one delicate shoulder. Desire clouded his mind as he dragged his lips along her silken skin. He growled again, unable to stop touching her, and ground his cock against her hand. "Oh god, Kyle."

  Her words were heard but not processed as his lips trailed down the soft swell of her breast. Frustration rolled through him as the fabric of the top stopped his progress. Pulling her away from the wall, he wrapped her in his embrace, bending her back over one strong arm as he pulled the fabric and the bra cup down to get at his objective. She gasped as her breast popped free, the nipple beading as it was exposed. He didn't give it a chance to finish, swooping in to capture it between his lips. With her soft moan for accompaniment, he flicked his tongue over the hardened nub, back and forth, back and forth, then pulled it into his mouth to suckle.
Her moan became a sharp cry of need as her legs buckled, making her let go of his cock to clutch at him for balance.

  "I got you, Red," he promised, lifting her bodily and turning for the bed to drop them on its surface. He wanted her so much that his seduction technique and any pretence at finesse had parted company long ago.

  As soon as her back hit the thankfully-made bed, he was on her. Whipping her top up over her head, he dealt with the bra with the practised ease of a man used to undressing a woman. It hit the floor somewhere in the darkness as he bent his head to kiss her breasts again, his lips paying attention to one as he rolled the nipple of the other between his fingers until she was gasping and squirming under him. Her need fed his as the sexual tension in the room reached fever pitch.

  Yanking off his shirt to join hers on the floor, he moved down her body. God, he loved women in denim, and the little skirt she wore was just right for the kind of loving he had in mind. His hands trembled as he swept them up her slender thighs, pushing the fabric up over her hips. She wore an itty-bitty lace thong underneath, the almost sheer fabric making him groan anew as he swept a glance over her. Spread out over his bed, she was a vision of decadent temptation. Her hair spread out like a fiery halo around her head, her lips were bee-stung and swollen from his kisses, and the nipples of her naked breasts glistened wetly where he'd sucked them. Then his gaze swept down and he nearly lost it at the sight before him.

  Her tiny skirt swamped her waist as he shouldered his way between her thighs, pulling the lace aside. Kyle swore under his breath as he caught sight of the most perfect pussy in existence. Her pink lips were swollen, her clit playing peekaboo between the wet folds. He couldn't resist. Big hands holding her thighs wide, he leaned in and licked from slit to clit. Her taste exploded on his tongue, like the sweetest ambrosia.

  She cried out as his tongue dragged against the little nub, wrapping around it before he pulled it into his mouth and sucked. Holding her rocking hips down with a spread hand on her stomach, he feasted on her pussy. Long licks and flicks over her clit before he pulled it into his mouth and suckled again. When she gasped and swore, he moved down to circle her cunt with his tongue, stabbing it deep within her tight channel, tongue fucking her before paying attention to her clit again.