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

that all?”
    “No!” She stamped her foot. “I want you to send me home.” Besides, she didn’t think the dude would know courtship even if it bit him in his … exquisitely molded … muscular … She gave her forearms twin pinches, hoping the pain would chase away her licentious thoughts. It worked. She gave a silent cheer.
    “Can’t do that. As much as I would love to toss you onto the fastest thing headed east, I’m somewhat disinclined to do so now. The cougar part of my brain has decided it likes your scent.”
    “Well, that sounds lovely in a
Silence of the Lambs
kind of way. I’ll have you know there’s not much meat on me. Certainly not enough to enjoy with a nice Chianti.”
    His cheek twitched. She was pretty sure that was
practically
a smile. Maybe she could disarm him. Keep him amused long enough to get him to turn his back, and then she’d pull a Houdini. Or at least dial 9-1-1.
    “Like Mom said, I’m harmless unless I’m forced not to be. I’m not going to hurt you, and the cougar part of me isn’t going to let me rest if you’re out of my sight. At least, not until … ”
    He let the words trail off, and when he didn’t pick them up after a minute, she reached across the seat and nudged his arm. “You’ll let me out of your sight when?” There had to be some sort of escape clause to the mess.
    Prodding him was like pushing a telephone pole. Solid man. Nothing in excess, except his pride. Different from ego, and ego was something she knew well. She could sense it in auras, and alphas like him tended to have large ones. His was odd. Strong, but restrained. Tentative, maybe. She believed he didn’t want to hurt her. Things might be easier if he did. If he had just wanted to hurt her, she wouldn’t try so hard to make sense of him.
    “Never, if my goddess has anything to say about it,” he said finally.
    A half-answer, but she didn’t think pushing the issue any further would get her anywhere, so she didn’t. He had his mind set, and so did she. She was starting to dislike his goddess, and Lord knew the last thing she needed was more enemies.
    She could forgive him for what he’d done in the name of his goddess.
Really
, she could. He was a product of his world—his clan—and she was a product of hers. Some woman out there would make a suitable mate for a desert-dwelling cougar, but it wouldn’t be her.
    He’d done what he had to.
    So would she. Once she figured out what that was.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Mason pulled up the parking brake and killed the engine.
    Ellery was asleep with arms crossed and head pressed against the window. He hated to wake her because in sleep, she couldn’t snipe at him, but there was no way he’d be able to get Nick’s car seat in through the driver’s side. He couldn’t move the seat. One of these days, he’d need to get a new truck—one with a crew cab—but money had been so tight up until recently that a big purchase hadn’t been on his priority list.
    It was probably a good idea to let her sleep until after he fetched Nick. That way, she’d be less likely to run while he was tending to his errand. He’d have to teach her that running was pointless. He’d always find her. His cougar half wouldn’t let her get far.
    And his damned cougar half was the reason he had two weeks to get his shit together—to extract consent from a woman who’d threatened in no uncertain terms to render his balls useless. At that point, the cougar would take over and try to do the job himself. He would fail, of course, because human women didn’t tend to understand cat language very well. If she refused him, he’d be stuck as a fucking cougar for the rest of his life, however long that would be.
La Bella Dama
must have really been in a man-hating mood when she cursed the cougars with that particular caveat. Some of the guys in the glaring called her
La Bella Muerte
—Pretty Death—because, shit, sometimes death seemed like the better option than giving her what