Bad Kitty (13 page)

Rafe collapsed next to her on the bed, the
tattered sheets a reminder of their loss of control. They both
fought for air as their heartbeats slowed to normal. He pulled her
tight to his chest and buried his nose in her hair. The urge to
bite and claim still rode him pretty hard but somehow, some way he
would find a way to resist a second time.

For the first time in his life he didn't
know what to do. The animal instincts he easily controlled on a
daily basis now rode him for a change. The wolf beckoned and if he
tried to ignore him for too long, all hell would break loose. So
much for letting go.

"Rafe?"

He turned and nuzzled her hair. "Mmm hmm,"
he responded.

"Do you have any food? I'm starving."

Chapter Seven

Rafe laughed. "Oh look, the pretty little
Kitty has worked up an appetite."

She punched him in the arm. "Smart ass. If
you don't want to feed me just say so." The shit-eating grin on her
face said it all.

He was certainly hungry but it wasn't for
food unless what was between her legs counted. Despite the
mind-blowing orgasm they'd just shared, he ached for more. His
appetite for sex with this woman could easily border on
insatiable.

But her needs came first and she'd barely
recovered from a life-threatening ordeal. Of course she needed
food. "Who am I to deny you anything that you need." He pressed a
quick kiss to her mouth and stood from the bed. "Simon is still
here so unfortunately you'll need these." He bent and picked up her
discarded clothes. As she grabbed them and immediately shoved her
legs into the pants and began tying the waist and rolling up the
pant legs, he couldn't keep quiet any longer. "I have to admit of
all the clothing choices the pack ladies brought by, I'm surprised
to see you chose a pair of my pants to wear."

She stared at him, a solemn look in her
eyes. "A few days ago I would have hated these. I would have wanted
the frilliest or skimpiest clothing I could find."

"And now?"

"I'm not the same person I
was a few days ago
,
now am I?" Her gaze shifted away from him.

His heart squeezed at the sadness in her
voice. He snagged her around the waist and tilted her head to face
him. "I didn't know you a few days ago so I couldn't comment on
that. But I'm growing damn fond of who you are now and if you want
to wear my pants every day that's fine by me. I will enjoy it twice
as much when I peel them off you."

Her mouth opened and closed like she'd
started to say something and changed her mind. "C'mon let's eat."
He grabbed his clothes and they finished dressing quickly before
heading toward the main area of the house. "I've got a fully
stocked kitchen so you name it and I'm sure we can figure something
out."

"Do you have any frozen pizza? That would
really hit the spot right now."

He turned to face her and froze as Kitty
slammed into his back. He grabbed her arm and kept her from
falling. "Did you really just ask for frozen pizza?"

She scrunched her face. "Well, yeah... It's
my favorite. It's easy, it tastes good and perfect for someone who
doesn't like to cook."

"You don't like to cook?"

"Nope. That female gene skipped right over
me. Although it's not for the lack of my father trying to force me
to learn. Thankfully, after about three dozen ruined meals, he gave
up. It's been takeout and frozen meals ever since."

He had a bad feeling that forcing her to
learn to cook was the least of her father's crimes. If she thought
she deserved what was done to her by those feline bitches it's
because she'd learned her bad behavior from the king of bastards.
Rafe pulled her against his chest and reveled in the heat and scent
of his mate.

"You're out of luck in the frozen anything
department in this house." Simon's words interrupted Rafe's train
of thought. "Rafe here fancies himself a chef and if anyone dared
to bring something less than natural and organic into his house,
he'd likely bite them."

Her head tilted up until their gazes met and
held. "Bite, huh?"

"Yes. Would you like a personal
demonstration?" He leaned forward and licked behind her ear before
scraping his teeth across the silky flesh.

"We don't have time for this. Have you
forgotten that you've been summoned?"

Simon was fast becoming a serious pain in
his ass. With great reluctance he pulled away from Kitty and turned
to his friend. "I think Burke can wait long enough for us to feed
our patient. She's had little more than fluids since she's arrived
and she's hungry." He was too. Starved actually, but it wasn't food
he needed. This scrappy, ready to fight or run woman had awakened
his sex drive and ramped it up to the tenth power.

"Well then, by all means feed her. But make
it quick. Burke's going to have both our heads on a roasting stick
at this rate."

Rafe looked at Kitty and rolled his eyes.
"You'll have to excuse Simon and his flair for the over dramatic. I
think that last female he had in his bed must have stolen his
balls."

"Yeah
,
fuck you, buddy." Simon glared
daggers at him and Rafe only laughed.

"Simon's not happy with
me. He's a lover
,
not a fighter."

"Yeah, and you blowing off Burke is going to
get both our asses kicked."

Rafe chose to ignore Simon's words and
pulled Kitty into the kitchen. "Maybe you only think you can't cook
because no one has ever taught you properly."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Why? Is it so
hard to believe that a woman wouldn't feel at home in a kitchen?
Are all your pack females running barefoot in their kitchens?"

Simon snorted. "Hardly. The men do most of
the cooking in the pack. We're short on females so they tend to be
busy doing other things."

Rafe glared daggers at his friend and willed
him to shut the hell up. He cupped Kitty's face to distract her
from Simon and his idiocy. "If you have no interest in cooking,
then that's cool. Just sometimes the right teacher makes all the
difference in the world." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"I'm starting to understand why you're still
single," she said with a smirk on her face.

Rafe clutched his heart. "Ouch."

She shrugged in response.

"Fine," he led her to one of the stools at
the bar and lifted her in place. "You can sit there and watch while
I whip something up." He turned and opened the refrigerator,
looking for the red sauce he'd made a couple of days ago. "This
should be just right now that it's had time to sit."

He pulled out pots and pans and disappeared
into the huge walk-in pantry he'd custom built when he designed his
new home. With all the ingredients he needed in hand, he returned
to the kitchen and set about making some amazing pasta. Frozen
pizza my ass.

"Once you get a taste of
his red sauce
,
I
doubt you'll ever again settle for anything frozen or
canned."

"Maybe," she offered. "Clearly I'm not a
gourmet."

"Maybe Rafe will change that about you. He
has that kind of influence on a person."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"The man has a gift for
all kinds of things. Cooking, negotiating, fighting. You name
it
,
he's good at
it. That's why he's about to become our next Alpha. He's destined
for greatness."

Rafe inwardly cringed at Simon's praise. If
he was all that then he would have thought to put a gag on Simon
before he let Kitty sit with him.

"You're going to be Alpha?" There was no
mistaking the alarm in her voice when she said it.

"It's not that big of a deal. Burke is my
uncle. He's ready to retire and he doesn't have any sons of his
own. I'm the oldest of my brothers so that makes me first in line.
Unless any of them want to fight me for it, which I don't see
happening." He placed the dry linguine into the pot of boiling
water and added a dash of olive oil. He had seven to eight minutes
to calm Kitty's fears before he could distract her with his
food.

"How many brothers do you have?"

"Just two. They should be back soon. They
were sent out to some neighboring packs to discuss uh—pack
relations." He didn't think she was ready to hear they were
actually trying to barter an arranged mating.

"I realize I don't know a
thing about pack politics, but I don't believe you that becoming
Alpha is no big deal. You can't— I mean
,
we can't— This is bad."

She didn't have to finish either of those
statements. He knew exactly what she meant. "You think because I'm
a wolf and you're a cougar that we can't—"

"Stop.
Please
,
just
don't say it. Even saying the words will damn us both."

"I think I'm going to get some fresh air and
make some phone calls. I have a few patients I need to check up
on." Finally Simon got with the program.

Neither of them said another word until the
front door closed behind his friend. He picked up Kitty's hand and
closed his fingers around it.

"Don't tell me you can't feel what's going
on between us. We both damn well understand our DNA."

"That doesn't mean we don't have any other
choices. I'm going to guess your pack wants you to mate with a
cougar about as much my clan would welcome a wolf."

Rafe turned her hand over and ran his thumb
across the small mark at her wrist. "If this is what your clan did
to you, then you have no need to go back there. Thanks to them you
almost died." Her breath hitched at his continued touch. Heat
spread like wildfire inside him because of it.

"And what about your pack? Are they going to
welcome me with open arms?"

"I honestly don't know."
He took a deep breath
,
letting her scent calm him. "Not everyone agrees with the old
fashioned beliefs that we should only mate with other wolves. Like
Simon said, our female numbers have dwindled and this might be
nature's way of fixing that."

She pulled her hand free. "I'm not your
savior, Rafe."

"But you are my mate."

This time she rolled her eyes at him. "Just
because every time you touch me my stomach rolls doesn't mean we
have to give in to this born mate nonsense. We are still human.
Some of us a little more than others."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He was
starting to feel some of his tightly held control slip away.

"Nothing, Rafe." She sighed. "The Alpha of
your pack deserves more than a damaged feline who struggles to hold
a shift," she whispered.

He stilled. Part of him wanted to wring her
neck for suggesting a few scars should make a difference to any man
worth his title, but the last part of her statement finally sunk
in.

"What do you mean you struggle to hold the
shift? You didn't tell us that the poison had gone beyond the
surface like that."

"It didn't. I've been like that for as long
as I can remember. I kept it a secret because I was afraid what my
father or my clan would do to me if they found out I was
defective."

"Defective?" Anger so hot rushed through
Rafe's body, nearly melting his brain. "That's ridiculous.
Differences don't make us defective. They make us individuals." The
notion that a father had hurt his child even emotionally with his
wild theories and insistence on all perfect offspring served as the
ideal reminder why he had to become the Alpha. It was time someone
took a stand against species purity once and for all.

Before he could argue the point, his
internal timer went off and he had to return to the stove. While
his mind processed all the things he needed to accomplish and how
much more effectively it could be done with Kitty by his side, he
drained the pasta, transferred it to a bowl and dished up a plate
for his mate.

"Here, try this. And then tell me if you
still crave your frozen pizza." He placed the dish in front of her
and stood back to watch. Already the tantalizing scents of Italian
herbs and garlic filled the room and he anxiously waited for her to
be blown away.

She twirled the pasta on her fork and then
lifted it to her mouth. Their eyes met and her mouth pursed to blow
on the steaming food. His body reacted immediately and the wolf
inside him whined. Again, the thoughts of what she could do with
that mouth flooded through him. She opened wide and slowly slid the
fork inside before wrapping her lips around the tines and sucking
the noodles free. Rafe gulped. All the blood in his body rushed to
his groin. She wasn't just eating his food, she was toying with
him.

"Mmm." Her eyes closed and her face
slackened. "This is really good."

Rafe sat mesmerized as he
watched her eat the entire plate of pasta. Between the licking of
her lips, the small satisfied moans, and the fact she was really
loving his food
,
it was difficult to stand still. The animal inside strained
at the leash Rafe had put him on, but the human urges weren't any
easier. He really liked her and it wasn't just about the mate
thing. Those scars didn't take anything away from her beauty. They
simply made her more real. Of course that didn't mean he wasn't
itching to hunt down the people who'd hurt her and mete out a
little wolf justice.

Between the rumors he'd heard about her and
what little she'd provided so far, he knew she came with quite a
past. Even better. There was no time like the present for her to
make a fresh start with him. Her background would give her the
backbone and means to be an Alpha's mate. The last thing he needed
was some society wolf who thought of nothing else but how to raise
her rank in the pack.