A Cougar's Claim (Charmed in Vegas Book 7)

by Jennifer James

  Jase had never flaked out on her. Not once. But it appeared he’d not only let her down, he’d trussed her up and tied her to a tree for predators with blood smeared on her face.

  Rhiannon licked her lips, and took a steadying breath. The door in front of her wasn’t as intimidating as it had been thirty seconds ago. She could do this. She could knock. Easy stuff. Until she had confirmation Jase had screwed her over, she’d continue to think of him as her friend.

  But what if he had taken the money and run? What if he’d blown it on hookers and gambling? What then?

  No, no she refused to entertain that crazy train of thought.

  Hell, maybe he’d been kidnapped by Mancini and this whole thing about the money not being repaid was a set up and she wouldn’t have to punch him in the balls.

  Buzzing energy in the air around her intensified until it crested in a pleasant burn of sensation, bolstering her confidence.

  The man she needed was behind this damn door.

  Chapter Two

  Shaking his head, Kit focused on finding Jase.

  The cougar wanted to hunt her right now, forget his cousin, but he owed duty to his clan and his alpha. If Jase was in danger, having Rhiannon with him would call attention to her, place her in the line of fire as well. Plus, well, he didn’t have a clue where to start looking for her. The smells in this room didn’t belong to his mate aside from those lingering on the bits of cloth littering the bathroom floor.

  Vegas presented a challenge for anyone hoping to track by scent alone—the sheer volume of people inhabiting the city made following even a fresh trail almost impossible.

  He had to start with Jase and use his cousin to get him pointed in the right direction. This hotel had been the last place Jase had used a credit card, taking a room for three days.

  Rhiannon hadn’t been here. The scent markers she’d left on his clothing were the kind one found from repeated contact over a longer period of time.

  He skirted near the bed, searching for receipts, plastic shopping bags, anything that might give him a clue of where to look next.

  Sizzling heat thrummed in his veins, marched over his skin with every heartbeat. The rush of magic coated his aura in a million stinging bites and shoved his breath from his lungs.

  She was near.

  “Rhiannon?” He whispered her name into the empty room like a penitent’s prayer. Kit spun on his heel, expecting to see her lingering behind him.

  The humming bond buzzed again, more insistent this time, and he stalked toward the door.

  A tendril of scent reached him through the cracks around the door.

  God, he wanted her. Needed her. He had to have her.

  She was out there. Or he’d lost his damn mind and was hallucinating.

  Kit fisted both hands and sucked air through his nose.

  Morning rain. Pine forest. Honey.

  “Fuck. Fuck.” It was her. His mate. Crazed panic turned him inside out. Desire and need damn near swallowed him whole.

  The tap-tap-tap of a quick, sure knock rattled him into motion. Flinging the door open, he wrenched her off the floor and into his arms, claiming her mouth with feral intensity.

  He wanted to crawl inside her, wrap himself up in her, roll around in her scent and her energy.

  God, she tasted like home.

  ***

  Air rushed past her to fill the vacuum created as the door swung open. Huge, hard arms wound around her, one under her ass, the other diagonally across her back, and her feet left the ground. Long fingers slid over the nape of her neck and buried in her hair.

  “Ah!” She shrieked, an embarrassing, girly sound.

  Teeth caught her lower lip, and the man embracing her sucked the flesh into his mouth. He palmed her ass, shifting his hand so his middle finger caressed between her legs, pressed the seam of her pants up into her clit.

  For a few moments, she gave in, his kiss hypnotic, his touch a brand, and a compelling bond she hadn’t felt for years flaring to life and increasing the pleasure.

  She twisted her face away, craving the stranger’s kiss, his touch so much her hands shook. That meant continuing to kiss him was definitely a BFI—Bad Fucking Idea. “Whoa. Stop it. Stop right...what is that?”

  A full body quiver wormed through every muscle and heated her from the inside out. He smelled like....what was that? Burying her face in his neck, she nuzzled at his warm, tanned skin. Something welcoming and irresistible, but also wild, crisp, and edgy. Like coming home to warm chocolate chip cookies she couldn’t eat until she’d submitted to his every wicked, dirty, toe-curling command.

  Oh shit. What the hell was she doing? Now she was smelling him? Sniffing him?

  He groaned, his large, calloused hands flexing and squeezing. She squiggled in his grasp, doing a bob and weave to avoid him, but he caught her again with those damn lips. “Stop.” The fingers at the nape of her neck tightened enough to pinch, his voice low and deep and growly.

  A predator’s warning to hold still, to let him have what he wanted.

  God what a turn on.

  Dominant. Aggressive. Tantalizing.

  It was only a kiss.

  An innocent....

  He licked her throat from the indent at the base to her left ear, releasing a cross between a growl and a purr as he went.

  Hot as hell....

  Teeth with a tiny sharp edge left twin trails of prickling heat behind. Scraping her flesh. Leaving marks.

  Mmmm sexy as fuck....

  She couldn’t help it. She leaned in and basked in the caresses and licks and nips. This man wouldn’t be sweet and soft and timid. He’d take from her until she couldn’t see, until her legs were too tired to wind around his waist.

  It’d be so, so, so, good.

  She needed to rethink her bad boy shifter rules. Didn’t she?

  Aww fuck. No. No she didn’t.

  She loved bad fucking ideas and she totally adored completely stupid bad fucking ideas. And right now, this whole thing was the latter.

  “Put me down.” She scratched the nape of his neck just hard enough to give him a welt and kissed his stubble covered jaw. So she was giving conflicting messages. He’d started it. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Me.” He growled an octave lower and turned so her back pressed into the door frame. “You’re looking for me.”

  A husky laugh spilled from her lips. Oh, he was arrogant and cocky as hell. God, that sound. The way the growl resonated through her cells and made her toes curl. The sound reminded Rhiannon of Kit.

  A week of summer fun. And then that last night....

  “Stop. Right now.” The prickly rasp of stubble chafed her cheek, and she craned her neck. “I mean it. I totally—”

  Rhiannon cupped the side of his throat, his pulse the unsteady throb of a skipping record, holding him to the spot he sucked and nibbled.

  Holy crap this wasn’t going right. He just smelled incredible, and held her with the perfect amount of aggression and tenderness, like they had to be connected on a cellular level. Sparks of liquid fire slid through her blood with each kiss, each tiny bite, each involuntary sound he released against her flesh.

  She trapped his face in both palms and forced him back. She didn’t do this, didn’t make out with strangers in hotel hallways. This wasn’t okay. At least, not today it wasn’t. “Stop.”

  The shifter rubbed his forehead against her collar bone and shivered, still holding her hostage, his touch a scarlet brand on her flesh.

  Having had enough shifters as lovers to recognize a man straining to contain the animal within him, she kept quiet and waited, a crazy electrical charge humming in her solar plexus. A weird sloshing concoction of joy, arousal, despair, and fear all fought to explode from within and leave her in tiny pieces no larger than dust motes.

  He raised his head, and she stopped breathing.

  Those eyes. That ring of gold around the edge of the iris....

  A dime sized, deep brown, paw print shape
d birth mark marked the right side of his throat just below his ear lobe.

  Something thick, prickly, and wet lodged in her throat and made it hard to breathe.

  Him? What was he doing here? How? Why? What the hell was going on?

  Joy. Panic. Shock. Lust. So many feelings zinging around inside her, until she couldn’t draw breath, couldn’t feel her finger tips or her toes.

  She studied him, noted the changes—a slashing scar through one thick eyebrow, another horizontal line across the bottom of his square chin—that hadn’t been present the last time she saw him.

  The night he crushed her heart, and she still believed, part of her soul.

  “Your lips are thinner than they used to be.” Cold seeped from her chest, chased by heat, and her heart didn’t know if it should beat or seize up and let her die.

  “I—I’m—” Heavy muscles in his back and chest bunched up, relaxed, bunched up, relaxed. Deeper gold seeped into the edges of his irises.

  “Fuck you Kit.” Tears pricked her eyes.

  She’d imagined this a thousand—no, a million—times over, and nothing about this event was happening the way she’d thought it would.

  He hadn’t even apologized. In fact, he’d grabbed her and started making out with her. Got all handsy and shit and here she was moaning and grinding on him like she’d just drop her panties for him any second now.

  Crap. She wanted to drop her panties. What an asshole.

  The nerve. The fucking balls.

  “Kit Barrientos, put me down right now.”

  The tone of her command snapped into the air, and he went rigid.

  “No.”

  “No?” She wanted to punch him. Right in the face. Right after she punched herself, because his refusal warmed up that part of her that loved stupid, bad, fucking ideas.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She parroted his question. “Are you for real right now? You need me to spell that shit out for you?”

  The conflict of emotions playing out across his face might have amused her another time. Desire, anger, frustration, tenderness, fear, joy. Sighing in consternation, he stepped back and let her slide to the floor. Her knees wobbled, all the air around her gone stale.

  “I’m sorry.” Both hands remained clasped around her forearms.

  Arguing with him to get him to release her arms would only agitate him further, so she settled for a scowl and a healthy jab to his mid-section.

  Questions roiled up and around her, muffling the world and drowning out everything but the unsteady thump-thump of her heart and the whistle of breath across her teeth. It was really him.

  Kit. Her first love.

  He still knew how to stop the world with a kiss.

  They stared at each other. She didn’t know if she wanted to slap him or tackle him to the floor. The cougar slowly receded, his human eye color leaching back in to replace the cougar’s gold.

  He squinted and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The hem of his jeans was ragged and worn, little scraggly white bits of fabric fluffed around his heel like dandelion seeds. “I’m sorry I grabbed you like that. I thought...uh, actually, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Yeah, that makes it so much better. Asshole.” She hoisted her bag to her shoulder. Somehow it’d fallen to the floor and she hadn’t even noticed.

  “It was instinct.” He cleared his throat, cringed, and edged further away, the tips of his ears red. “I, ah, damn... I shouldn’t have picked you up like that.”

  “Right. You shouldn’t have.” Her hands clenched, aching to grab him, tow him toward her, and kiss him again until neither one of them could breathe, Rhiannon scowled and took a half-step back. Stupid instinct. The go-to excuse for Bad Fucking Idea shifters everywhere.

  Strained silence pregnant with shared memories and a decade of hurt crowded around and through them. The chime of the elevator arriving in the bay down the hall broke through the air and with it the spell-like quality of the moment.

  “So...what are you doing here?” Kit angled his lean, muscular frame in a way that blocked her view into the room.

  What the hell was he hiding? “I live here.”

  “In the hotel?”

  A startled laugh bubbled up and she almost snorted. “No. Vegas.”

  “Hmm.”

  Heat fizzled over her as he swept his gaze from the crown of her head to her feet. Kit licked his lips, and that pull deep inside her pulsed with renewed energy. Swaying toward him without conscious thought, the tight tips of her breasts collided with his lower chest.

  But then she recalled how he’d never tried to contact her. How he’d taken her innocence and destroyed all the fragile, incandescent hopes she’d shared with him. Hopes and dreams that had included him in her life. Screw him.

  “Look, I get it. We only knew each other a week, right? I mean, summer loves aren’t meant to last. It would have been nice if you hadn’t run away and left me in the truck alone, but we were just kids. All those voodoo dolls I made of you obviously didn’t work since you have all your hair and probably an eight pack under that shirt.”

  “Voodoo dolls?” The jerk smiled. He actually smiled and she had to fight the urge to smile back. “You care.”

  “I so do not care.” Rambling. She was rambling. But at least if she rambled, she wouldn’t cry in front of the man who’d pulverized her heart. “There’s no reason to be all weird about it now. It’s been like ten years or something. I don’t remember exactly because it was over so fast. Like, I’m not even sure how long ago it was because it was just so... Anyway, I’m sure you’ve gotten better at, ya know—” Rhiannon made a circle with her left fingers and poked her right index finger in and out of the space.

  The barest hint of color crept into his cheeks and the skin at the corner of his left eye twitched. “You’ve thought about me.”

  Rhiannon compressed her lips. She’d already embarrassed herself enough. He could smell the arousal still clinging to her like a second skin. “Only enough to try and curse you. It obviously never worked though.”

  “I’m sorry.” Kit’s nostrils flared. He reached toward her, hand palm up in supplication. “I am deeply, horribly sorry.”

  She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t take his hand. She wasn’t giving in that easily. “For what?”

  The hand fell to his side. “I know I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  Not sorry for what he’d done ten years ago. Sorry for kissing her just now when she hadn’t even known who he was.

  “That’s right. You kissed me. Not the other way around.” Pressing her advantage, she shoved him back with her palm. “You assaulted me. With your tongue. And you groped me. Just, you know, had your hands...and I’m not saying it didn’t feel good or whatever but it was totally not cool. Pretty damn rude actually. I have a show tomorrow night and if I have to cover up a big ass hickey on my neck you’ll be sorry.”

  He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Rhiannon—”

  “Shush. And don’t play with my hair. This is serious. I can’t get on stage all marked up like I’m someone’s woman, can I? It destroys the illusion.”

  Kit shoved his hands in his pockets. “What illusion?”

  “The illusion that they can have me. That I’m available.” Frustrated and out of sorts, she banged her head against the wall behind her.

  “You’re not.” Heavy hands closed over her hips and dragged her forward.

  “Pfft. Says who? You?” Hot, wet suction closed over her throat. Pressing her thighs together to try and decrease the ache building there, she allowed the pleasure of his touch to wash over her for a few moments. This was the worst idea in the history of ideas. Worse than that time she wore her kitty cat dance costume through a hotel lobby during a furry convention. “Kit, get off me right now, or I’m going to neuter you.”

  Palm flat to the wall next to her head, he rested his forehead against hers. She should shove him away. She was so...so...so damn mad and hurt and confused
and horny.

  “You can’t do this. I haven’t seen you in years. You can’t just grab me and kiss me and make me feel—” Ugh. Fuck this. “You’re an asshole.”

  “I know.” Cursing with his next heavy exhale, Kit toyed with her hair again. She slapped his hand away. “Tell me what to say. How I can fix this.”

  Anger simmered along with a dozen other conflicting emotions. How in the hell could he not know what to say? Sorry I took your virginity and ran away after I’d made you think I loved you would have been a decent start.

  “Unbelievable,” she muttered, and rolled her stare up to give him her best I-hope-your-balls-shrivel-up-and-fall-off glare.

  The ding of an arriving elevator caught her attention. A tall, waifish woman with hair the color of a sunset and the multifaceted gem-like eyes of a dragon shifter sauntered toward them in four inch spike stilettos, pausing to read room number plaques. Waving, Rhiannon forced a smile at the woman. She could use a friend right now, and spotting the dragon shifter felt like a mulligan tossed her way by the Fates. The whole kiss thing made sense now. Kit must have put in a call for some professional company and grabbed her by mistake.

  “This makes way more sense than you grabbing me randomly and thinking I’d want to make out.” She really hadn’t known him at all, had she? The guy she’d fallen for wouldn’t be in Vegas partying with his irresponsible, thieving cousin, and patronizing prostitutes. No, her Kit was a hard working home body who’d loved small town life in the mountains.

  “Hey, Inila, I think this is the room you’re looking for.” Rhiannon waved to the dragon shifter. Inila had two hobbies: having sex and making money.

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t grab you randomly.” Kit frowned.

  “Don’t lie.” Rhiannon turned her back on him to hug her friend. A few more minutes and she’d never have to see his sexy jerk ass again. A good thing too, because tears were gathering in her eyes and her throat felt funny. “Hey girl, I heard a rumor you applied to get a license to fly around the Grand Canyon for sightseeing trips. Is that true?”