ACougarsDesire

Marisa
Chenery

Book three in the Cougar Surrender series.

On the hunt for the man who’d tried to kill his uncle,
cougar shifter Jase runs into a little spitfire who throws him for a loop. She
doesn’t fall at his feet. But as his prey escapes, he realizes Katarina is a
different sort of prey he refuses to lose sight of.

Katarina is a loser magnet. Having resigned herself to never
finding Mr. Right, she reluctantly agrees to go out with Jase. He’s sexy as all
get out, and just the sort to hit it and run. But this man with the smoldering
eyes and made-for-sin body passes all her tests, and she finds herself letting
him in.

As one night of passion leads to so much more, Jase’s prey
comes back to claim what he left behind. And Katarina finds herself stuck in
the middle.

A
Romantica®
paranormal erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Jase knocked on the front door of the nondescript bungalow
in Anchorage where his cousin Blaise had sent him to hopefully get some good
information as to where Caleb could be. Caleb was a physician and cousin to
Blaise and his older brother Taylor, and on the run. He’d been treating Blaise
and Taylor’s father for an “illness” that had turned out to be Caleb poisoning
him. Jase had taken on the job of hunting him down to face his uncle, who was
the head of their cougar shifter family group.

He knocked again, louder than the time before. Blaise had
promised Jase his friend would be at home and expecting him. Finally, he heard
movement on the other side of the door.

It swung open and a large man filled the doorway. He had to
be at least six foot seven, topping Jase’s own height by six inches. His body
was heavily padded with muscle, which Jase hadn’t been expecting since Blaise
had called this guy a computer geek. He was a cougar shifter, but from another
local family group.

“Are you Jase?” the man asked as he peered at him closely.

“Yeah. And you must be Draven.”

Draven took a step back. “Come on inside. Blaise told me
what you were looking for. You brought some kind of computer device, right?”

Jase walked into the house and waited for Draven to shut the
door before he answered. He held up the tablet he carried. “Will this do?”

The other man nodded. “You’ll just need internet access.”

“I have mobile internet on it.”

“Good. Come on back to my office and I’ll get you what you
need.”

Jase followed Draven down the hallway to the back of the
house where an office was located. There was a large solid-wood desk with not
one but three flat-screen monitors sitting on it. Each one was twenty-two
inches in size. There was also a laptop on the very end. It was a computer
geek’s heaven.

Draven walked around the desk, then sat. He held out his
hand for Jase’s tablet, which he gave to him. Jase took a seat in the chair on
the other side of the work station and watched the larger man’s fingers fly
over the keyboard, which had been hidden away on a sliding shelf under the
desktop.

After a few seconds, Draven said while he continued to type,
“Blaise already gave me Caleb’s cell phone number. This program I’m going to
give you will track the signal each time he uses it. It’s not up to the minute,
but it won’t be so far from it that you won’t have a chance to catch him before
he runs if you move quickly enough. I do have to say he’s an idiot for not
ditching his cell. That’s the easiest way to track someone. Hopefully he makes
it easy on you to bring him to face the head of your family group.”

“Well, his stupidity just works out in my favor. I’m
surprised Blaise told you everything Caleb did to cause him to be on the run.”
Most family groups kept the goings-on from others.

Draven smiled. “Blaise knows he can trust me not to talk.
Just as I trust him to keep my business private. We have an understanding.”

Jase figured they did. For one thing, Draven looked like one
tough son of a bitch who wouldn’t mind using his fists, or claws, to show his
displeasure if someone crossed him. The man was huge for a cougar shifter. It
was the werewolves who normally grew as big as that.

“I bet,” he said as Draven plugged Jase’s tablet into his
computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard once more.

After he finished, Draven handed Jase his tablet. “You’re
all set. Just run the program when you want to see the last time and from where
Caleb used his cell phone. Usually I charge for this, but I owed Blaise one so
this is on the house.”

“Thanks.” Jase stood. “I guess I now know who to go to if I
need anything like this again.”

Drave gained his feet, then walked around his desk to Jase.
“I’m your man. Blaise told me how you and your brother Grady like to hit the
human bars and check the women out, and how now that Blaise is mated he doesn’t
join. I wouldn’t mind going out with you two sometime.”

Jase nodded. “Why not? You sure you want to take the flak
from your family group if you do end up going out with a human woman?”

As far as Jase knew, Taylor had been the very first of their
kind to have a human for a mate. A lot of the older, more traditional cougar
shifters looked down their noses at humans, thinking they were beneath them. He
didn’t think that way, nor did his brother Grady. And it wasn’t as if Taylor
had set out to look for one to mate.

All male cougar shifters were given a gold cougar head
pendant once they hit adolescence. Each one was made with a little bit of magic
embedded inside. Only a male’s mate would set it off, causing the cat’s ruby
eyes to glow. It was then the female’s choice to take his pendant from him and
put it around her own neck, thus causing the mating bond to form between them.
If she didn’t, the male ended up a mess, unable to eat or sleep. He would only
be able to think about one thing—sex. He would want to use it to bring his
would-be mate closer to him, to force her to see he was the one for her and to
take his necklace.

Draven chuckled. “I don’t give two shits what my family
group would think. I do whatever I want. I’m what you would consider the black
sheep. They leave me alone and I return the favor. It makes everyone happy.”

Jase wasn’t going to go there. Plus, it was none of his
business. “In that case, I have your number and I’ll be giving you a call
soon.”

“All right. I look forward to it.”

The big man walked Jase to the door after they shook hands.
Once outside, he headed for his sports car parked in the driveway. Now that he
had a tool to help him, he would begin his hunt. Hopefully Caleb was as dumb as
Draven said and would use his cell in the next little while.

* * * * *

It took a few hours, but his prey finally used his cell,
showing how well the computer program Draven had given him worked. Caleb’s
location was downtown in a part of the city where low-income properties could
be found. It made sense he would be there, because it wasn’t an area the doctor
would have been caught dead in before going on the run. Even though Caleb
wasn’t that old and set in his ways like many of the family elders, he still
felt humans were below cougar shifter standards. Not wanting his prey to give
him the slip, Jase wasted no time driving to the designated spot the computer
program had found.

Jase parked his car about a half block away from the
location. Since Caleb would recognize it, he didn’t want him seeing it before
Jase had a chance to get close. He walked down the street, looking at the
property numbers until he arrived at the address Draven’s program had come up
with.

The apartment building looked to have seen better days. It
was old and showed its age. It had a maximum of four floors, and didn’t even
have a secured entrance, so anyone could walk in off the street. It posed a bit
of a problem—Jase had no idea what floor Caleb would be on. The program didn’t
exactly give him an apartment number, just the main address.

He blew out a breath as he looked up at the building. The
only thing he could do was go and search each floor until he found Caleb’s
scent. It would take more time, and the chance of his prey giving him the slip
was high, but Jase couldn’t come up with any other way to do it.

With a silent curse, Jase walked up the four steps that led
to the main entrance. Inside, he started with the basement level. Not catching
Caleb’s scent there, he moved on to the next floor.

Having finished the third and still no trace of his prey,
Jase wondered if Caleb had already given him the slip. That would totally suck
if that ended up being the case and he’d wasted all that time for nothing.

On the fourth and final floor, Jase managed to pick up an
old scent trail. It was hard to detect, but it was there. He followed it down
the hallway, almost to the very end. He stood between the two doors that were
on either side of him. The trail led to both. Which one was the correct one was
the question.

Jase did a game of eeny meeny miney moe to pick the first
one to try. After one was selected, he stepped closer to the door, then sniffed
around it to see if he could detected a stronger trail. If he did, it would be
a sure sign Caleb was inside that apartment.

With hands on the wooden surface and his eyes shut, Jase was
taken by surprise when it was yanked open. He didn’t catch himself in time to
stop from falling face first in a heap across the threshold. Something hard
pressed into the center of his back and kept him from trying to gain his feet.

“Don’t move.”

The female voice came from above where he lay. Jase slowly
turned his head until he focused on a pair of feet directly in front of him.
They were clad in white sports socks and were much smaller than his.

The thing on his back jabbed him harder. “I said don’t move.
I’m not afraid to use this baseball bat on your head if I have to.”

So that’s what it was. “I’m not going to do anything to
warrant you to do that. If you’ll remove the bat, I’ll get up and be on my
way.”

“Not so fast. Why were you trying to break into my
apartment?”

“I wasn’t.”

“The hell you weren’t. I saw you through the peephole. It
looked as if you were trying to do something to the door.”

The woman, who sounded young, was human. There was no way he
could explain he was only trying to pick up a scent trail of another cougar
shifter. She’d think he was lying and more than likely use that bat of hers on
his head like a ball as threatened.

“I promise you I wasn’t trying to break in. I’m looking for
someone. I thought this was his apartment. I think he lives across the hall.”

“If that’s so, why didn’t you knock like a normal person?”

“I wanted to surprise him. Maybe you know him. His name is
Caleb.”

The woman was silent for a few seconds before she slowly
pulled the bat away. “I know him. He moved in across the hall the other day.”

Jase carefully stood, not making any sudden movements. He
didn’t trust that the bat wouldn’t still be aimed at his head. He lifted his
gaze to the woman who was in front of him. He sucked in a quiet breath as he
took in her face, which was gorgeous. She had shoulder-length brown hair and
eyes that were a light green. She was a small thing. He guessed she had to
stand around only five foot three. He towered over her.

“Then I’ll go knock on his door.” He slowly backed up,
keeping an eye on the bat she held at her side.

“I’ll watch you to make sure you do that.”

Jase spun around to hide the smile he couldn’t hold back. He
doubted she’d take it the right way. He couldn’t help it, though. She looked so
cute acting so tough. Actually, if he didn’t have to chase after Caleb, he
would have tried asking her out. She was the first human woman he found himself
really attracted to.

Instead of knocking, Jase tried turning the doorknob, which
ended up being locked. A sudden crash from inside the apartment had him taking
a step back before kicking the door in. He heard the woman behind him shout
something as he ran through the doorway.

It took him only a matter of seconds to find the window in
the living room open, along with the screen. The curtain in front of it hung
outside as if someone hadn’t taken the time to pull it away before going
through the space.

Jase hurried over and looked down. There was no fire escape.
It was a straight drop to the alley below, which was empty. A jump like that
wouldn’t do anything to a cougar shifter. Caleb must have heard Jase and the
woman and escaped when Jase had tried the door. As he continued to look out the
open window he felt a now familiar sensation of something hard poking into the
center of his back.

“I thought you were a friend of Caleb. Why did you kick in
his apartment door?”

“I do know him, but I never said I was his friend.” Jase
turned to face her. “He’s obviously gone. If you could tell me which apartment
is the superintendent’s I’ll go pay for the damage I did to the door.”

She pegged him with a hard stare. “That would be me. I don’t
think I’ve ever heard of a thief actually wanting to pay to fix what he’s
damaged before.”

“I told you. I’m not a thief.” When she poked him in the
stomach with the bat, he realized she might not let him just walk away without
some kind of explanation. “Look, my name is Jase. I’m looking for Caleb because
he isn’t a very nice man. He tried to kill my uncle. I want to bring him to
face the consequences of his crime.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No. I happened to get a lead on Caleb’s whereabouts and
thought to see if I could corner him myself. Since I told you my name, will you
tell me yours?”

She seemed to think it over, then said, “Katarina. If Caleb
did what you said he did, shouldn’t you have tipped the cops off as to where he
was? They have to be looking for him too if he tried to kill your uncle.”

Something else Jase couldn’t really explain. There were no
human police involved, and there never would be. It was a matter his family
group would handle. His uncle would be the one to decide Caleb’s fate.

“I didn’t want to take the chance of them showing up too
late, but it would seem I did anyway. And you can lower your bat. You don’t
have to worry about me jumping you.” He smiled. “Unless you want me to, that
is.”

Katarina narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t be trying to hit
on me to get out of paying for the door, would you?”

“Absolutely not.” Jase took a step closer. “In fact, I
really would like to take you out on a date.”

“You want to ask me out? Why?”

Jase was a little taken aback by Katarina’s question.
“Because I find you really attractive,” he said slowly.

“So in other words, you’d like to fuck me, and you figured
you’d better take me on a date first before you try to worm your way into my
bed.”