A Cougar's Claim (Charmed in Vegas Book 7) (2 page)

She had to have them.

No. She had to stop trying to reform them. She had to stop fucking them on the first date. She had to stop dating them. Period.

Never, never, never again. No. More. Shifters.

Not as friends, definitely not as boyfriends, and if she even
thought
about hooking up with one for a quickie she’d strap herself into a chastity belt and swallow the key.

“Fuck,” she whispered on a heavy exhale. “Stay focused. He’s your best fucking friend in the world and he’s never done you wrong yet. Worst case scenario you take off and make a new life somewhere else. You’ve done it before. You can do it again. You’re a tough ass sexy bitch who survived getting to Vegas with fifty bucks in your pocket and sleeping in a truck without air conditioning. This ain’t shit.”

The pep talk wasn’t doing crap to settle the raging razor winged butterflies trying to rip a hole through her belly.

She stuck her hand in her bag and wrapped her fingers around cool, hard plastic.

The taser would be a last resort. Only if Jase tried to run, or convince her it wasn’t his fault and they should run away together, or that he had a doppelganger out there somewhere who’d taken the money meant to pay off a mob boss named Vince Mancini and gone on a bender at the poker tables with a werewolf show girl and Jase wasn’t the one to blame.

Jase could come up with some heavy duty crazy when he wanted to.

She shook her arms and legs, rolled her neck, wiped her sweat-slick right hand down her thigh, made a fist, and...wavered in front of the door with a shaking hand and dry mouth.

This room was going to be the right one. She could feel it, a pulse in the atmosphere tugging her along. Jase had to be here.

She should punch Jase right in the balls the second she saw him. She’d never imagined her best friend would betray her this way.

But this
was
Jase. Her irresponsible, fun as hell, unlikely best friend. He’d first hit her radar because he had the bad-boy-shifter fucked-up-but-sexy thing oozing out of his pores.

She’d learned the hard way about shifters. Jase was absolutely, positively, the last man any woman who wanted a real relationship should be after—so of course she’d barreled right after him like he had an orgasm vending machine in his pants.

Until their first kiss.

It was gross. Worse than making out with your brother after he’d eaten a shit sandwich. No one inside their circle of mutual acquaintances believed they weren’t fuck buddies, but neither one cared. Their friendship had helped them both—Rhiannon enjoyed playing the crazy jealous girlfriend once in a while to chase off chicks who thought Jase loved them because of some downright heinous mixture of alcohol and dirty talk. And Jase didn’t mind scaring off men who thought because she danced burlesque her body was some kind of public commodity.

Jase was also a Barrientos, cousin to one Kit Barrientos. The Kit, the guy she’d fooled herself into thinking was her one true love and soul mate back when she’d been young and stupid enough to listen to her heart instead of her head.

She almost laughed when she thought about how different Kit had been compared to all the other guys she’d dated. He’d been sweet, funny, quiet, and intense. No piercings, tattoos, five o’clock shadow, or holes in his clothes. Kit didn’t want people to see the wildness inside him, a wildness his cousin Jase expressed with abandon.

It wasn’t right, but she used Jase as a non-stalker way to get updates on Kit every now and then. Fucking embarrassing to be obsessing like some kind of crushing teenager over a guy from years ago that’d dropped her the second he popped her cherry.

For eight months she’d managed to hide her real last name from Jase. Why? God, she asked herself that at least once a week. She wasn’t hiding...not exactly. Hell, she didn’t even know if Kit had ever mentioned her to Jase or anyone else in his clan.

Whether he had or hadn’t, she didn’t want to know. Things were better this way.

She had a life and a career born from sheer grit and determination. Those early first years almost killed her. She couch surfed, worked multiple menial jobs, and grew a core of strength wrapped around a broken, aching heart. Cat Nip, curvalicious burlesque dancer and ballsy as hell lounge singer, was born the night she’d taken a drunken dare from some friends in the local wolf pack and hopped on the stage at The Howler for amateur night.

Now, it looked like she’d been fucked over again by a cougar shifter. Handing over a bag crammed with money to Jase took serious trust, but Rhiannon hadn’t doubted that he’d pay off Mancini for her for even a second. Despite all his other flaws, Jase took his promises seriously.

Except here she was, with a chorus of “I told you so’s” ringing in her ears, doing her damnedest to find him and the money. Every single penny she had to her name had gone into that damn duffle bag. Jase knew she didn’t have anything else, no other source of cash available to her. He’d hugged her, called her darlin’, and swore that he’d handle the transaction for her while she buried her mom.

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.

S
haking 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.

***

A
ir 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 shaped 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.