The Cougar's Pawn (21 page)

She leaned her forearms onto her thighs and let Nick grab her hands.

“Dad didn’t have very far to go to snatch Mom. The Foyes lived on a neighboring property that got consolidated into this one when Mom inherited the ranch. Mom didn’t want to go home,” he said. “She’d always felt like she was a burden. Her parents had eight kids. She was second-oldest. A grown mouth to feed. With my dad, she felt needed. When she inherited the ranch, it was pretty rundown by then and no one else could afford it. She and my dad managed to keep it by cutting way back, but things were always tough. He continued to work wood when he wasn’t helping on the ranch, and that kept most of the accounts out of the red. Things got bad, though, in the few years before he died. Folks stopped buying custom furniture during the recession.”

“And you didn’t have a buffer.”

“Exactly. We’re trying to make sure that never happens again. He died five years ago. We’re just now getting to a place where we felt comfortable enough to spend money.”

“Feather your nests.”

He turned his hands over in concession. “Such that they are.”

“Waiting is smart sometimes.” The words were plain, but somehow enigmatic. As if she wanted to say something more but didn’t know what, or else she couldn’t speak in the words she really wanted to use.

He liked that she spoke plainly. It made her change in emotions easier to intuit, and at that moment, she was low.

“Hey.” He took one of her hands from Nick and squeezed it. “I think there’s chocolate ice cream in the freezer.”

She smiled, but it was a small one. Unenthusiastic.

“Not a chocolate ice cream fan?”

“I’m more of a pie person.”

“I don’t have any pie. Sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s too late, anyway. Nick needs to go to bed, and if I eat after nine, I tend to have nightmares about 50 percent of the time.”

“What do witches have nightmares about?”

She flinched as if by him asking, she’d found herself right in the middle of one.

He didn’t push.

He wanted to know, though, so he could fix whatever it was, but he hadn’t earned that trust yet. He wanted her to be able to tell him anything—to want to tell him
everything
—but he’d only just begun peeling back her layers. If he peeled too much or too quickly, she’d retreat.

He didn’t want that. An alpha needed his mate to trust him implicitly. The others would look to her—expect her to be heart and soul of the group they way his mother had once been. He couldn’t get her there with force or even wheedling. She had to come on her own, just like he couldn’t make her stay when it was time to choose.

He could only hope he’d done a good enough job convincing her that there was more for her with him than at the place she thought was home.

As Ellery lay awake in the dark, listening to the hiss of Nick’s humidifier over the monitor, Mason’s words played over and over again in her mind.
Mates who didn’t want to go home.

She didn’t quite know if
want
was the right word, but the statement weighed heavily on her all the same. It was something she’d chewed and chewed and still couldn’t digest. Something wasn’t clicking. Some repressed memory that would be the missing puzzle piece, but she couldn’t remember the context or the time period during which she’d gleaned it.

All she knew was that she wasn’t supposed to leave. Whether it was just her dejectedness—her unwillingness to keep trying to belong in a place where she had never been designed to—or the budding of actual affection for Mason, she couldn’t say. She needed to find out, though. The first one meant she’d given up: that she was hiding from thoughts and opinions that bothered her. That’d never been her style. With the second one, she’d have to give serious examination to her feelings. There was such a thing as falling too fast, even in her world where connections were often fated. Preordained …

Preordained.

She rolled onto her side and stared across the wide bed at Mason.

Just like a cat, he’d shaped himself around her in sleep, oblivious to her comfort or even discomfort. It hadn’t really been uncomfortable, just a bit stifling when she’d needed time and space to think. She’d gotten up to use the bathroom, and done some thinking while perched on the tub edge for a while. Then she’d gotten cold and returned to the bed. Mason had rolled onto his own side and hadn’t yet attempted to retrieve her.

Preordained
.

What she was searching for was there in the ether, if she could just remember what it was about.

She watched Mason’s lips twitch and nose wrinkle in sleep. Watched his hands clench into fists and release. She hadn’t wanted to share her nightmares with him, but she craved the knowledge of what unsettled him so in his rest. Her dreams weren’t scary so much as disconcerting. Phantoms bruising her self-esteem in her sleep the same way they did when she was awake. Eroding her confidence, convincing her there was something wrong with her when, in truth, there
wasn’t
. There never had been.

She was worth being loved as she was and not as her family would have her be. Gail had done it, after all. Found the man who’d made her bloom and fostered her growth in all ways, but more than that, she’d let him do that for her. She got out of her own way. Ellery needed to do the same. If not for Mason, than some other man who’d have her. Who would
want
her unashamedly.

That
was it.

Something Agatha had said a year ago drifted to the front of her memory as if like a leaf carried on wind.
“I don’t think you’ll be on the market for long,”
she’d said when Ellery lamented yet another of Claude’s eligible brothers being taken out of dating pool. Agatha had been elusive when Ellery asked what she meant. She hadn’t denied outright that she hadn’t had something up her sleeve. A woman like Agatha was used to pulling strings and getting things done, not just professionally, but outside of work, too. And Ellery was starting to suspect that one of the things Agatha had done was ensure her continued safety in one of the few ways she could—by matching her with someone who had power. Someone who had a need for what Ellery offered. Ellery knew Agatha spoke regularly to other gods and goddesses. She didn’t know which, but she’d bet good money that one of them had a special interest in the Cougars’ world.

“That sneak,” she muttered, and put her chin atop her folded hands. Agatha knew the rules and played the game masterfully.

She eased closer to Mason and skimmed her fingers along his stubbled jaw.

Why fight it? Why not see what could happen?

If it wouldn’t work, wouldn’t it be best to know now while she still had a chance to leave? It could be that they were completely incompatible just as she’d initially thought.

He moaned softly when her fingers swirled over the cleft over his lip. “Can’t sleep?”

“No.”

“Need some help?” He rolled her onto her back, pulled her against him, and shaped his body around hers. His arm closed over her waist and he nuzzled his face against her hair.

Protective. Comfortable.

Not what she wanted.

She wriggled against him. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Watch TV? Doubt there’s anything on.”

“No.”

“Hungry? We could have an early breakfast. Might wake Nick, though.”

“No, I’m not hungry. At least … ” With some effort, she rolled to face him. “Not for food.”

“You want blood?” He grinned with eyes closed. “I don’t think you have the fangs for it.”

She sighed. How could he joke at such a time? She couldn’t very well just ask straight-out for what she wanted, so she took it. She unerringly found his cock and squeezed it hard.

His eyes sprang open, and his hand wrapped around her wrist, gently removing her from him. “I thought I’d talked you out of rendering my boy parts useless.”

“I’m not casting spells, Mason. I want to have sex with you.”

“Why?”

Why?
What man asked why? Most men she’d ever heard of just
acted
. She sighed again. “Mutual pity fuck, if you still want it.”

He sat up and furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure how I should respond or if there’s even a right answer.”

“The right answer would be you taking off your clothes.” She reached for the bottom of the oversized shirt she’d borrowed from his drawer for sleeping to emphasize her resolve.

He didn’t move at all in the time it took her to remove the shirt. He sat very still, his hands gripping the sheets. His gaze locked on hers.

Obviously, he needed more incentive.

She wriggled off her socks and shucked her panties, tossing it all over the bedside. “There you go.”

His gaze moved lower, lingering for a few seconds at her chest and then falling to the shadowed niche between her legs. His Adam’s apple rose and fell, his swallow loud enough to hear.

“Did you change your mind about wanting me?”

“I’ve never once changed my mind about that.”

“Cold feet?”

“My performance won’t be an issue, I assure you.”

“Then what’s the problem, dirty red? Afraid to earn your nickname fair and square?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Only if you’re not going to phone it in. I can get boring sex anywhere. It may be a pity fuck, but there’s no reason for it to be dull.”

“I don’t think you understand what you’re asking.”

“Are you going to mansplain sex to me? I know exactly how it works and a little more than just
in theory
.”

He gave her a slow blink.

“Should I put my clothes back on? I warn you that if I do, you’re sleeping on the floor. I don’t take kindly to being scorned.”

“I’m not scorning you. I’m trying to get my mind right, but if I
really
gave you what you think you’re asking for, you’d be running for the hills. Given the circumstances, I’d really like to prevent that.”

Her turn to swallow hard. She rubbed her thighs together in response to the dull ache building low down.

He crawled closer to her, slow as a stalking cat, his amber gaze eerily phosphorescent in the dim light. “I’m giving you a chance to change your mind. You can lie down like a good girl and go back to sleep.”

“Nope.”

He stalked closer. “Then be content with nice, gentle lovemaking that’ll ensure you’ll still be able to sit tomorrow.”

“You talk a big game.”

“And I back it up every single time. I don’t get to stay Alpha by making idle threats.”

“Is that what it was? A threat?” She leaned back against the pillows and folded her arms over her chest. “I’m waiting.”

“You’re really trying me.”

“Get used to it,
Alpha
.” She said the word slowly, enunciating each syllable clearly. “No one ever said witches were easy to be with. We’re a pain in the ass even for other witches.”

“You’re definitely a pain in some things.” He grabbed her by the waist and yanked her down onto her back. “Still not ready for night-night?”

She grinned. Shook her head. “You going to put me to sleep?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll put you to sleep, all right.”

Mason didn’t know why Ellery was pushing him, but at the moment was having a hard time deciding whether or not he cared. He peeled off his shirt, removed his boxers, and straddled her hips.

She raised one daring eyebrow at him.

Nope. He didn’t care. If she thought she was getting off the hook with a slap and a tickle, she had another think coming. She’d wanted to see what was inside Pandora’s box, and he was going to give her a good, long look. He gripped his cock at the base, and stroked it down to the tip.

She watched, entranced.

He repeated the action, observing how her pupils followed his hand. How her breath caught as he squeezed to the end each time. He could probably hypnotize her like that. Put her to sleep and laugh about it in the morning.

Too late for that, though. She’d amped him up, and so now she was responsible for getting him off, one way or another. He’d been having a damn fine dream when she’d woken him, but being awake might turn out to be even better.

“You know, it dawns on me we haven’t even kissed yet.” He kept stroking.

She kept watching. “Mm-hmm.”

“Should we rectify that now, or are you unconcerned about the order of business?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Unconcerned. I see. That’s okay.” He released his cock only to unstraddle her. He nudged her legs apart and settled between them, draping them over his shoulders. “There are lots of places to kiss. This is as good a place to start as any.”

Her thighs tensed against his ears.

“Don’t get shy now, witchy one. Right now, you could be in blissful REM sleep dreaming about how good my ass looks both in jeans and out of them, but you’re not. If you didn’t want to be kept up half the night, you should have held your tongue. I won’t hold mine.”

He licked her. Just a tease, really, to remind her that he was down there.

Her spine bowed off the bed, but he held her hips down and licked her again before she’d even stopped writhing.

“I thought you didn’t like being licked. Damned shame, because you taste so good.” He parted her with his thumbs to improve his access and gave her swollen nub an experimental flick.

She gripped his hair and clamped those thighs around his head again. “Ahhh,
fuck
you.”

He chuckled. “You talk so pretty. Save some of that for our wedding day. I bet you’d pen some lovely vows.” He could just picture such an event. Him leaning in to tell her how beautiful she looked, and her standing up on tiptoes to tell him to go sit on a cactus and spin. And she’d smile in that coquette way and he’d want to rip her clothes off right there, onlookers be damned. Half the town had already seen him naked after shifting, anyway. No skin off his teeth.

He licked her again, from the bottom to the top of her slit to warm her up for his upcoming assault on that little bundle of nerves in her nub. He drew it between his lips, sucking unyieldingly even as her grip on his hair tightened and her feet came together at his back.