The Cougar's Pawn by Holley Trent Read Free Book Online

haven’t.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    “I can tell. You wouldn’t smell so nice if you were hung up on someone else. And … apparently I just said that out loud.”
    “Yeah, that was pretty dumb. I haven’t had a shower in two days. What you’re smelling is desert and campfire.”
    “It’s not that kind of smell.” His gaze fell to her lap, and he wore a grimace by the time he made it back up to her eyes.
    Cat eyes.
    She gulped.
    He returned his attention to the road.
    She crossed her arms and huffed. “Don’t go getting any ideas. I haven’t forgotten you’ve abducted me, which is not only immoral, but also illegal. I can’t help what I’m attracted to.”
    “So, you admit you’re attracted to me?”
    “The more important part of the statement I made was that you
abducted
me.”
    “It’s the Cougar way to take mates,” he said through clenched teeth.
    So now the guy thought she was his mate? She thumped her head a few times against her window and suppressed a laugh. There had to be something wrong with him. Seriously. Why would a man that good-looking need to abduct an out-of-towner when there were probably plenty of locals who’d happily volunteer?
    Because he was deranged. Obviously.
    “It wasn’t my idea.” He stole a quick glance away from the road. “You should know better than anyone that not everything that happens in our world is strictly by the rules. Trust me, I skirt around enough of them that I know how onerous they are. If it weren’t for my goddess’s interference, you’d still be in your tent right now, and I’d be at home balancing my checkbook or something.”
    “Oh, so your reluctance is supposed to make it okay? There’s always the option of saying no. It’s a word I exercise plenty. Sounds so pretty coming off my tongue, doesn’t it?
No.
Noooo
.”
    “Sure, I could say
no
, but I enjoy life too much to have my goddess punish me by forcing me to keep my cougar form for the rest of my life.”
    She stared at the dashboard as his words ordered and congealed in her mind, but they didn’t make any more sense than the pattern of dust streaks she was looking at. He had to be joking. Certainly, his patron goddess wouldn’t be so petty to her own Cougars. “That was hyperbole, right? You’re exaggerating.”
    “I can be pretty creative when I need to be, but even my imagination isn’t that good. I have to convince you to be my mate. If I fail at that, I’m stuck in my cat form until you come around.”
    “Nah.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and stared at her bobbing knees for a moment before her crazed laugh fell out. “That’s too twisted. You can’t seriously be telling me that it’s up to me, a stranger, to decide whether you end up cat or man.” She looked at him and waited for the laugh—the
just kidding
—but nothing came. Her stomach lurched.
    He kept his gaze on the road and his mouth firmly shut.
    “Oh, God. You’re not joking, are you?”
    “I wish it were a joke,” he said quietly. “Very little is funny about my life, and I doubt I’ll ever look back on this and laugh.”
    “That’s absolutely insane.” She scooted down in her seat and let out an exasperated huff. “Why does this stuff happen to me?”
    “I could ask myself the same question.”
    He certainly could. She cringed.
    He was right that so much of what happened in their little sliver of humanity was off the books. They did what they needed to survive, and sometimes those things didn’t always square up with laws and ordinances … or other people’s wills. She felt for him, but she couldn’t be his mate … but maybe someone else could be.
    “Hey, have you maybe considered just
asking
a woman to be your mate? That’d eliminate the kidnapping situation. Just sayin’.”
    “You want to be my mate?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “There you have it. That’s why we don’t do that.”
    “There’s a such thing called courtship.”
    “You want me to court you? Is