The Cougar's Bargain (27 page)

A sharp bark of laughter pulled his gaze up to the bar where a biker leaned over the top trying to grab at the flower December had attached to her hair.

She was standing far enough away that he couldn't reach, and though she seemed relatively calm while she jotted down orders on her pad, her smile was strained.

She could handle herself, though, and the bartender was nearby overseeing everything. He wouldn't let anything happen to his sister-in-law.

Sean looked down at his phone, sipped some more beer, and tapped out a message to Tito.

GOT A MINUTE?

When Tito wasn't taking care of glaring business or being antagonized by Lola about the things mothers usually harangued their sons about, he was a trucker—mostly transporting livestock to the processing facility. He could have been on the road at the moment.

SURE. AIN'T DOING NOTHING BUT STARING IN THE MIRROR AND APPRECIATING MYSELF.

“Oh, for the love of …” Sean took another long sip of the beer. Weak shit. Might as well have been water, but at least with it, he was guaranteed to not pull a Hannah. He didn't have anyone to carry him back to the motel and put him to sleep like he'd done for her. He hadn't minded doing it. She didn't fight him, and holding her felt good, even if it was just for practical purposes. It had made him feel like he had a purpose, at least for that short time, and he would never have known how charmingly nutty she was with her hard edge peeled away.

“Total weirdo,” he said quietly, and couldn't help but to smile.

More heckling erupted from the bar, and he looked up. December had moved farther down the line where it was harder to get away from the grasps, but the bartender stood right next to her, glowering down at the raucous customers. They didn't like turning away business so early in the day—it was hardly worth them being open—but if he had to, he'd turn them out and take the flack from the owner later.

Looking down at the phone again, Sean typed to Tito:

Everyone in the glaring thought she was so vicious. She was, sometimes, but it was getting harder for Sean to take it as anything but a defense mechanism. Still, he'd be remiss if he didn't believe she could turn on him at any minute. It was just a matter of time, really, once she firmly decided that she didn't need him.

Sean waited for the
Whaaaaaat?
or the
LOL
that would have been so typically Tito, but nothing came. Sean drained the rest of the beer in his mug and watched December disappear through the kitchen doors, presumably to put the orders in. The dipshits at the bar would simmer down a bit while she was away, and knowing December, she'd probably
stay
away for a while, just to get her wits about her.

Sean poured himself another mug of beer and straightened up at Tito's return of,

Sean waited for him to elaborate, but when the words didn't come quickly, he turned his attention back to his beer and to December who hightailed it past the bar holding a tray.

“Shit,” she whispered as she slipped Sean's food onto the tabletop.

He tipped his head minutely toward the bar and stared at the bikers' backs over the top of his mug. “Recognize them?”

“A few of them. This bar was on some kind of
best of Tucson
list last year and, right after it was published, the clientele changed a lot. We used to get mostly students this time of day who'd come in for the cheap BLTs and use our Wi-Fi while they studied.”

“Do those guys scare you?” His phone buzzed with an incoming text message. He turned his cell facedown and locked his stare on December. He waited for her to lie to him—to tell him it was no big deal like so many people who were in over their heads tended to do.

She sucked in some air and let out a strained laugh. “I'll be glad when they leave. They don't even tip. Hey, you want some ketchup or something? Anything to send me back to the kitchen for a while?”

“Hot sauce, maybe? See what you can find that has a coat of dust on it.”

“Thanks.” She hurried past the bar calling out, “Be right with you,” to the guys in leather as she pushed through the kitchen's double doors.

Sean turned his phone over.

Sean had noticed that. He'd always assumed it was because Tito was too busy, or that he liked playing the field too much. He was a renowned flirt. Everyone in town knew that, and no one really expected more of him. But there had to be a reason Tito was the way he was, and Sean thought he knew it. He
only
knew it because of what one of Ellery's brothers-in-law was—a demigod like Tito.

December returned with the ghost pepper sauce and pulled her pad out of her apron pocket. She cut her eyes toward the bar and cleared her throat. “Anything else?”

“Quit hoggin' the waitress,” A guy at the bar shouted.

Sean gave him a one-fingered salute and met his gaze straight on.
Fuck you, dude.
Not in the mood.

The biker turned his back to him, but Sean wasn't so stupid to think the exchange was over. That biker just needed one more reason—however small—to get out of his seat.

“I'm okay for the moment, but if you feel like you need a break, come on back and I'll think of something I want,” Sean said to December.

“Thanks.”

“Don't thank me for that.”

She returned to the bar, and Sean dropped his gaze to his phone again.

“Damn.” Sean had never known Tito to be lacking in confidence, and Sean had known him for most of his life. If a demigod thought he didn't have what it took to win a mere mortal's heart, what chance did Sean have, really?

“Fuckin' none.”

He took a long sip of his beer and chuckled as he picked up his cheeseburger. “Abso
fucking
lutely none.”

“You ain't gonna use the sauce, man?”

Sean peeled his gaze away from his USDA prime beef on a bun and looked at the same asshole he'd flicked off.

“You sent her to the kitchen for the sauce. Not gonna use it?”

Seriously?
“A guy can change his mind.” Sean took a bite, just to annoy the dude. The burger didn't need the sauce.

“I think you should use the sauce.”

“I think you should mind your own business. What's on my plate doesn't concern you.”

The biker turned on his stool and leaned as if he were threatening to stand.

Cute.
Sean took another bite of burger and glowered at him.

“It does concern me, 'cause I don't like to be kept waiting.”

“Maybe you should have pedaled your Big Wheel Racer trike up to a drive-through window, then.”

That retort made a couple of the bikers who'd been trying to mind their own business turn their heads.

“All right, folks, settle down, or I'm cutting you all off,” the bartender called out.

“I think you should take that back and apologize,” the biker said to Sean.

“I think you should have a seat, drink your fucking beer, and be happy the waitress you weren't going to tip didn't slap your stupid face,” Sean said.

“You gettin' real brave back in that corner, dude. Real mouthy and reckless.”

Sean had obviously been too focused on what was happening in his phone and at the bar to notice that Steven and Hannah had entered at some point. They paused next to the booth, trying to make heads or tails of the situation.

Great.

Sean took another sip of his beer and hoped the biker had had his fill of shit-talking. Sean really didn't want an audience if he had to fight, and especially not Hannah.

“Gettin' quiet now. Fuckin' punk needs to be taught a lesson.”

“You know what? Maybe you're the one who needs the lesson.”

“Sean.” There was a warning in Hannah's voice.

He ignored it and slid out of the booth.

The imbecile from the bar met him halfway in the middle of the room.

They were about evenly matched. Both a little over six feet tall. The biker probably had about thirty pounds on Sean, but Sean had big brothers who never pulled their punches. Outside of scuffling with Mason and Hank, Sean didn't lose fights. He couldn't be an alpha's son and lose fights. He'd be a laughingstock.

Just like with every other tussle he'd gotten into in the past dozen or so years, he pushed back all the distractions. The naysaying sounds from his own party, the scents that riled up his inner cat, the movements around him. All the mattered was the sneering shithead in front of him. And always, Sean let his opponent have the first swing. The thing about being a Cougar in a fight was that Sean could move before the guy even decided where his punch would land.

Hannah watched in stunned horror as Sean deflected blow after blow. His expression was unchanging as he stepped left, right, or backward and got out of the way of punches no human man would have been able to see coming. She could barely make sense of it herself, so she couldn't imagine what Steven thought he was seeing.

The biker seemed to be tiring himself out. He stopped and shook out his fist while Sean stood calmly in the aisle between the tables with his arms crossed over his chest.

The guy made some indiscreet pats of his vest as if searching for a weapon, and Hannah started making her way toward Sean. “Move, stupid!” she hissed.

Steven grabbed her by the back of the shirt and yanked her out of the way right as Sean seemed to wake up. It was as if something broke inside him. He took a few assertive steps toward the biker, started a left-handed punch that seemed slow to Hannah, but it made the biker turn his head away from it, just enough for Sean to hit him hard with his dominant hand.

The guy didn't stumble, and didn't sway. He just collapsed onto the floor, groaning once before his head lolled to the side and his hand slid off the knife handle he'd obviously been reaching for.

Steven let go of the back of her shirt, and Sean stayed where he was as the feet of the barstools squealed from being pushed back, and heavy, booted feet struck the floor.

“
Fuck
,” Steven said.

He tried to push Hannah behind him, but he wasn't
that
big, and she wasn't some delicate flower who'd faint at the sight of blood. She was a nurse, a sometimes-hunter as a kid, and now she had a big cat living inside her that had a vindictive streak as wide as the Mojave Desert. If those bikers thought they were going to rough up her mate, she had a trick for them. She was the only one allowed to rough him up.

She was at Sean's back by the time they'd squeezed through the tables. They'd tried to close in on them from every side they could, probably hoping to intimidate Sean and get him to flinch, but he didn't move a muscle. After he'd landed his punch, his expression went back to that blank that reminded her of a cat on a hunt who silently watched, who stood still for as long as he needed to so he wouldn't send his prey running.

She slid her hand under his shirt and pressed her palm to the searing skin on his back. His muscles rippled beneath her touch, his animal energy awake and active even if the body he wore at the moment didn't seem to be. She needed to make sure the cat inside him stayed where it was, because
someone
was going to have to make sure Hannah stayed in control. She didn't feel like she was. It scared her, and she didn't think Steven would be able to calm her beast.

“Sean.
Please
,” she whispered as the bikers stepped closer, taunting and jeering at them. She heard something about him letting the lady fight Sean's battles as if that was supposed to be some kind of insult. And yeah, if they got too close to either him
or
Steven, she planned to put a hurting on them so bad that Dr. Frankenstein wouldn't be able to put them back together.