The Cougar's Wish (Desert Guards)

by Holley Trent

  “You’re a terrible person,” he said.

  “That’s a lie. What’d I tell you about lies?”

  “Can you turn that voodoo off so I can have my head to myself for a while?”

  “Maybe I will at some point. Right now, though, you’ve got the cat in me way too curious. She wants to see what you’re all about, and maybe she’s a little pushy about it.”

  “Just the cat, huh? The lady doesn’t have anything to do with it?”

  She shrugged and pushed her fingers through the back of his hair. “Maybe a little something.”

  “And what does the lady want?”

  “The lady wants you to stop stalling.”

  She didn’t have to see his lips to know he’d worked them into a smirk.

  “How am I stalling? I thought we were just having a chat.”

  “That’s a lie. What I think you’re doing is waiting for me to be the aggressor so you can plead innocence later on.”

  He grunted. “Could be.”

  “I know so. Well, let me tell you something.” She ground roughly against him in a pay attention sort of way that made him tuck his thumbs beneath her hips and hold her off him a couple of inches. “I assure you that nothing you do to me is going to debauch me.”

  His eyes narrowed to dark slits. “Yeah? That sounds a hell of a lot like a challenge.”

  “Do you intend on taking it? Because if you’re not, this’ll go one of two ways. I’ll either roll off you and go shower before heading to the ranch ...”

  “Or ...”

  “Or the cat in me will think you’re the one who needs to be debauched, because maybe you need to be woken up a little.”

  “Craaaaazy kitty.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Which way is she leaning, do you think?”

  “She’s noncommittal right now. Waiting on impetus.”

  “Do I have a say in the matter?”

  “Of course you do. You’re not being held against your will. You can leave whenever you want.”

  That didn’t mean she wouldn’t follow him and needle him until he returned. She’d do what she had to do, even if that made her a stereotypical Cougar woman. She’d always thought women in the glaring needed to get their shit together when she heard stories of them stalking their mates, but now she understood it. Sometimes, they knew more than their mates. They had to make their mates understand what was best for them.

  “I want to leave right now,” he said.

  She ground her teeth and eased down his legs, taking his boxer shorts with her as she went. “So leave.”

  He scoffed and sat up, reaching for his shorts, but she had them past his ankles and onto the floor before he could grab them.

  She walked around the side of the bed and pressed her fists into the mattress, peering down at him. “You wouldn’t have gotten yourself into this situation if you’d just kissed me. Might as well lose the shirt now.”

  “I need it if I’m going to leave.”

  “Go ahead and leave, but you’re not leaving with the shirt.”

  “You’re thinkin’ I won’t walk out of this house naked as the day I was born and fashion myself some coverings as I make my way elsewhere. Well, you’re mistaken, buttercup.” He yanked off the shirt, tossed it at her, and stood. “I’m very creative when I have to be.” As she was barring access to his duffel bag, he went straight for the door.

  She growled and darted around him before he could get his hand on the knob.

  He was going to do it! She could tell he wasn’t lying. He was going to walk past her roommates and then outside with his cock swinging and probably wearing a smile on his smug face.

  He snorted. “You can’t tell me this is just about a kiss.”

  “Don’t mangle my words. I never said that. What I said was that I wouldn’t be chasing you if you’d just kissed me. I wasn’t exactly being subtle.”

  “Maybe I like being chased.”

  “I don’t think you do. I think you’d rather be nipping at my heels so that when you pin me down, you get to say, ‘I told you so.’”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Hmm. That doesn’t sound like me.”

  “Maybe that’s because when it comes to me, you don’t want to let yourself give in.”

  “Can we rewind here for a moment? ’Cause a couple of weeks ago, you were dying to get me out of your hair.”

  “Because you were being foisted on me. I don’t like that. I want to be allowed to make my own decisions.”

  “And you’ve decided to make me your toy. Do I get to decide anything?”

  She growled again. “Looks to me like you just decided to streak through the neighborhood naked as a jaybird.”

  “Given the composition of your neighborhood, I don’t think anyone would mind ... except you.” He pressed his hands to the door on either side of her head and pinned her in.

  Usually, she didn’t like being pinned in. The part of her that was cat liked having clear escape routes from every situation, but she’d more or less lured him into acting that way. She liked him close and bossy. Liked provoking him.

  She pressed her hands to his chest, not to push him away, but just to feel him. Memorize the planes and ridges of his torso. To make a connection through touch so she could understand him in the way Cougars did their mates—learn not only what made him tick, but what comforted him. What made him feel good.

  “You’ve got to look at this from my perspective.” His lips were close enough to her ear to tickle, to make the fine hairs on her neck stand on end, and reflexively, she rose onto her tiptoes to force that little bit of contact—his lips to the side of her face.

  He drew in a breath and worked his knee between her legs. “If Hannah were your age and the guy who was sniffing around her was a used-up Marine like me, I’d probably threaten to hurt him pretty bad and possibly follow through on it.”

  “Does it look like any of my brothers are getting in line to claw you up?”

  He seemed to have to think about it.

  “It’s not because they don’t suspect what’s going on,” she said. “They all know, and you know they know. It’s not even that they don’t care. It’s just that you’re not a threat.”

  “Yeah, that’s what every guy likes to hear from the lady he’s hanging around—that he’s not a threat.”

  Steven started to back away, but she grabbed him by the shaft, and he was smart enough to stay still.

  “Not a threat to me. That doesn’t mean they can’t and won’t start static with you about some other thing. Just not this. You see ... guys in the glaring don’t really want to be around ladies when we’re in heat.” She squeezed down to his head and pulled a hiss out of him that could have rivaled any of her own, and the overeager cat inside her was fairly shuddering with anticipation. Cat would have to wait, because Belle didn’t think she was going to get that stubborn asshole onto his back anytime soon—at least, not for recreational purposes.

  “We’re a little unstable,” she continued.

  He sucked in some air but, to his credit, didn’t utter a single damn word.

  “It’s easiest to stay out of our way so as not to run afoul of the animal that’s driving us. I’m sure if you complained loudly enough ...” She unhanded him only to drop to her knees, using the sides of his legs for support and keeping her gaze pinned on his curious one. “They might rescue you.”

  He pushed away from the door a bit to give her some space and she cupped him, feeling the weight of his sac in her palm and dragging the pad of her thumb lightly along the top of his shaft.

  “Do you need rescuing?”

  He pulled in a little more air and widened his stance. “I’ll let you know.” He thrust his hips forward and worked himself through the circle her fingers made.

  “I don’t think you do.”

  He wrapped his fist around her ponytail and chuckled as she drew him between her lips. “Be nice with the fang
s, Cruella.”

  She bobbed her eyebrows at him and pulled her gaze from his, ready to tackle the job at hand. “You never know. One day, you might begin to crave a bit of sting.”

  He tightened his grip on her hair and pushed more of him into her mouth, effectively silencing her. “Not on that part, babe.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  What Steven was enjoying was so wrong, but felt so damned good.

  I should back away.

  “Fuck, woman.”

  Belle hummed around him and, in spite of his earlier protests, mixed in a bit of scrape with her licks and sucks, and damned if he didn’t like it. He could get used to that, and the fact he wanted to was a problem.

  I should put my dick away and go home.

  Her grip on his backside was punishing, as was the one he had on her hair—so he didn’t think him bouncing was going to happen anytime soon. He’d have to let go of her first, and the caveman in him was all “nuh-uh—blow job happening here, man.”

  She wrapped one hand around the base of his shaft and started to squeeze as she sucked. His toes curled into the shag of the carpet, and his body pulled tight as a drumhead.

  It was one thing to rub one out in private using only his fertile imagination for stimulus, but there was no way in hell he was going to last when he had that woman touching him the way she was and so, so well.

  “Could have made it easier for me and put some clothes on,” he muttered and gave her ponytail a yank when she nicked him with a bit of fang.

  Apparently, that just spurred her on even more given the way she chuckled around him, so he yanked it again.

  Have mercy.

  “Kneeling down like that ...” he panted. “Put on some freakin’ clothes. T-shirt or something. So I don’t have to work so hard, to ... block out the sight.”

  It was a damned nice view. Her occasional glances up at him with that sassy dare in her eyes he was getting so used to. Her soft-form bra that was slipping a bit so he could see straight down into her cleavage. The rest of her long, taut body hard at work to torture him.

  Screw it.

  Nobody could fault him for it. It’d been too damn long, and most women probably liked when guys spared their jaws some work.

  He gave her hair one last tug, but only to pull himself out of her mouth. Putting his hand over his cock, he growled toward the ceiling and let the violent, nearly painful orgasm shatter his cool.

  Belle sat back on her heels and entwined her fingers atop her lap, looking up at him as if she were awaiting instruction.

  She looked positively serene, and hell—she deserved it. She did damn good work—a thought that he was smart enough to keep to himself.

  He leaned against the door to catch his breath and to wait for the little quaking aftershocks to pass.

  She passed her tongue over the points of her fangs, and they receded just like that.

  “You’re trying to kill me,” he whispered.

  “Of course I’m not. That would be in direct opposition to my biological imperative.”

  “Then you’re trying to blow my mind a little. Make me a useless lump who can’t say no to you.”

  She shrugged. “You could say no.”

  “Next time, I will.”

  “You don’t want to. I know you don’t, so why are you fighting me?”

  “Because I should say no.”

  And it wasn’t just because she was twenty—though he kept trying to convince himself that was what it was—but because he wasn’t ready for her.

  Not yet.

  Narrowing her eyes, she worked her jaw side to side and sat very still.

  “If what you say you can do is true, you know I’m being honest, Belle.”

  “We need to go to the ranch,” she said and stood quickly.

  “What?”

  She pulled open her closet door and grabbed a pair of jeans from its hanger. “We’ve got stuff to do there.”

  “There’s no reason for me to go there.”

  She grabbed a pinkish-orange T-shirt from the pile on one of the shelves and pulled it over her head. “There’s no one in the bathroom right now. I would have heard them.”

  “Okay, but did you hear me? Or are you only listening selectively now?”

  She grabbed her brush from the dresser and pulled the elastic from around her messy ponytail.

  “Belle.”

  “I need to do some ranch stuff for my mother.”

  “We were talking about—”

  Some of his ejaculate seeped between his clenched fingers, and he swore and yanked the door open.

  He padded down the hall, saluted Alex—who, seated at the kitchen table, was in full view of his shame—and then locked himself into the bathroom.

  “Fuck.”

  He got himself cleaned up and sat on the commode for a while, staring at the faux wood grain of the door and gathering his thoughts.

  She said he could say no. He could leave if he wanted to. So where was his get-up-and-go?

  He wanted to stick around and help, sure. He wanted to weave himself into that odd little community where people might have been weird, but they didn’t pretend not to be, either.

  He could fit in there. Get a job. Make friends. Keep an eye on Hannah and try to make up for the past twenty-nine years of strain she’d endured as a member of the Welch family.

  And be useful.

  He sputtered his lips.

  That he wasn’t so sure about.

  He was in a place where strange was normal and where it wouldn’t be so unusual for a god or a demon or a spirit to materialize in front of him. That would be the problem. When they did, he wouldn’t know how to act. He’d just freeze until someone made him move.

  Maybe he needed to be watched even more closely than Belle, and if he were really her mate as she claimed, she would be the obvious candidate for the chore.

  He couldn’t do that to her. She had enough bullshit to deal with as it was.

  He might have been her mate-mate, but maybe ... maybe she could pick someone else. She had her whole life ahead of her, so it was imperative she choose well.

  • • •

  “What’d you do with Steven?”

  Belle sensed that Sean was on approach before he’d even stepped foot into the stables and had already braced herself to being in his presence.

  His energy didn’t seem so offensive at the moment. He was either trying extra hard to keep it pulled tight against his body, or perhaps the mating hormones had Belle’s senses particularly scattered.

  She flipped pages on the clipboard she held and quickly double-checked that the ranch hands had completed all of their assigned tasks for the day. They occasionally slacked off when Mom was otherwise distracted, and she had been plenty distracted lately with the foster kids being there and all the mess going on with Belle and the hellmouth.

  Sighing, Belle mounted the clipboard on its hook and fired off a text message to her mother.

  They checked off everything, but I’m not convinced it was all done. I’ll take a look around in the morning.

  “Belle,” Sean said, nudging her to answer his question.

  “I heard you. I’m not sure where he is. I brought him here with me, but as soon as he got out of the car, he disappeared. Hannah probably knows where he went.”

  Sean shook his head. “She was the one who sent me looking for him. Folks want to talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  “About what you told Ellery.”

  “You mean what happened on the other side of the portal?”

  “Yeah. We can’t figure out what it means if we don’t have enough information. We have your side, but we need some information from him, too.”

  “I’ll find him.”

  Assuming he wants to be found.

  She’d been pissed that he’d taken off like that, because for some dumb reason she’d thought he’d hang out with her while she worked, but he’d bounced as if he couldn’t stand to be around her. />
  The cat part of her wanted to spit nails.

  “You sure about that?”

  “It’s not like he can get far,” she muttered. “I’d know it if he neared the edges of my mate radar.”

  “That’s scary as shit.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t blame me. Blame Lola. She’s the one who gave us that ability so we could keep track of you fools.”

  “Things were different back then. Of course a Cougar lady was going to try to stop her idiot mate from running off and getting himself lost in the jungle. She needed help being aware of what he was doing so she wouldn’t be distracted from her numerous other chores.”

  Belle gave the nearby filly’s nose a rub and gave Sean a long blink. “Chores, huh? I guess we modern Cougars don’t have many of those.”

  “Point proven.” He leaned against a nearby stall and entwined his fingers. “So, are you moving back to the ranch?”

  She ground her teeth and pushed back the quick no she wanted to give him just as a matter of course. Apparently, I’m maturing. “I’m giving it some serious thought. Lily, too.”

  “Yeah? I know Mom would appreciate the help. Lily gonna quit her job, or is she just coming to keep you company?”

  “I don’t need company.”

  “Right. You’ve got a squirrely mate.”

  Belle cut Sean a glare.

  He put up his hands. “Just sayin’.”

  “No need to rub it in my face. But yes, Lily would quit her job. It’s been a while since she’s gotten her hands dirty out here, but she’s smart. I don’t doubt she’ll get up to speed pretty quickly.” Belle laughed. “Faster than all those other knuckleheads out there.”

  “It’s not supposed to be easy.”

  “Huh?”

  Sean let out a breath and shoved his hands into the pocket of his jeans. “With Steven, I mean. It’s not supposed to be easy.”

  “Why does it seem to be like we’re picking up the tails of an argument we abandoned two weeks ago?”

  “Maybe we are. You yelled at me for not making things easy for Hannah, but it’s not supposed to be easy, is it? Has being up front with Steven made things better for you?”