Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six)

CATS GOT YOUR TONGUE

SHIFTER SQUAD SIX

BY

ANYA
NOWLAN
 

A LITTLE TASTE…

“What do you want, Kelis? Tell us,” Grant said, his tone saccharine-sweet, but his eyes anything but.

“I…um…” she stuttered. Grim was behind her, his body so close they were almost touching, but not quite.

Though the cougars had her caught between them, they wouldn’t do anything to her unless she expressly said she wanted them to. And oh how she wanted them to!

“Say it,” Grim growled, his sexy voice making her almost mewl, desperate to push herself against him and Grant, to have both of them right now!

“I want both of you,” she said, and it came out a little breathless, a little wanting.

But that was how she felt, and she wasn’t going to back down from it now. Kelis could almost feel the grin that formed on Grim’s lips, same as it did on Grant’s, and her first sensation was Grim’s hot lips grazing along the length of her neck, his fingers pushing aside her long blonde locks. She dipped her head back and to the side, groaning as his touch set her on fire.

Grant’s hands slipped down her sides and stopped on her hips, his thumbs pressing against her soft stomach and making her arch her body in his direction. He dipped forward and when his lips met hers, Kelis thought she would truly lose her mind. The kiss was magnificent, deep and warm, calming and at the same time stoking that blaze that they’d set inside of her.

He parted from her lips far too fast, leaving her desperate for more, but Grim was there right away, pulling her face to his by capturing her chin between his fingers and turning her to face him. He kissed her too, and that kiss was completely different, passionate, hungry, raw. Their lips gnashed together, his teeth nipping at her lower lip, and she felt a cold lightning strike go through her, joining the much warmer one that Grant’s kiss had given her.

Copyright © 2016 Anya Nowlan

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cats Got Your Tongue

Shifter Squad Six

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of
Anya Nowlan
. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

Cover ©
Jack of Covers

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

A LITTLE TASTE…

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

CATS’ GOT YOUR TONGUE EXCERPT

WANT MORE?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

Kelis

Kelis was worn out to say the least. The holidays had been long and tiring and her family was jovial as usual, with “overbearing” being the better word to perhaps describe them. And lining up in the bustling Boston airport after New Year’s Eve was not something that was particularly enjoyable either.

She pinched the bridge of her nose slightly, rubbing the delicate skin as the announcement came over the intercom, announcing that her flight to San Francisco would be boarding soon.

Thank God. I can’t wait to get back in my own bed,
she thought mildly, stretching her legs out a little.

She got up, figuring that it would be smarter to get in line early and get into her seat with the hopes of passing out before the flight even took off the runway. She knew exactly what was waiting for her back in San Francisco. One day of rest and then back with her squad, fire drills and special operations training for the next mission. The fun life of a US Marine chopper pilot. But it was a life she had chosen for herself and as such, the physical weariness was simply something to lament, not to actually feel bad about.

Kelis Murdoch was on the taller side, five feet eight inches, with a curvy, toned body fit for an active-duty Marine, but still carrying some weight to her. It wouldn’t have worked for most other roles in her unit, but being a pilot, she got some leeway and frankly, after years of keeping herself in peak physical condition, she was a bit worn out by it all. Enough to have a few extra slices of cake during the holidays, at least.

It’s all Mom’s fault. She cooks so damn well,
Kelis thought with a grin, grabbing her heavy duffel and shuffling to the area that marked the start of the line.

A bored, sleepy-eyed looking woman stood there, looking through tickets as she waved people on board. Kelis could already see the big Boeing 747 that was going to take her home and she sighed with a modicum of relief. She loved her family dearly, but being from a big Irish clan—as her father called it—could get mighty tiring if she was stuck with them for nearly two weeks, constantly celebrating something or another.

In fact, she could still feel the makings of a hangover from two days ago, which was a particular feat in her mind. Only Irishmen in Boston could keep a party going that well!

Kelis handed her ticket to the woman with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, but she figured the girl wouldn’t mind either way. If there was one thing worse than trying to get on a plane after the holidays, then it had to be working at an airport during the very same time.

The stewardess swiped her ticket through the automated reader and was handing it back to Kelis when she froze for a moment, scowling at the screen in front of her.

“Something wrong?” Kelis asked, feeling dread pool in the pit of her stomach.

Please let me get home, please let me get home…

“Just a minute, ma’am,” the blonde stewardess spoke, not looking up from her screen.

She tapped a few buttons and then swiped the ticket again, after which she pursed her lips. Spinning the screen to face Kelis, the woman clicked her long nails next to a line on the screen that read:
Passenger upgraded to flight AR-459, ticket void.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, it looks like you have been transferred to another gate. It is leaving in ten minutes at gate 34F. You better hurry!”

“But I don’t understand! What’s going on?” Kelis said, confusion muddling her features. “I was supposed to be on this one, heading to San Francisco. I didn’t request a change.”

“I understand your worry, ma’am,” she said patiently, taking on that mask of a person who deals with difficult passengers on a daily basis and has developed certain tactics to cut the interactions down to a bare minimum. “And the system doesn’t tell me why the change has been made, simply that it has. But I assure you that the flight you’ve been assigned to is also heading for San Francisco and will in fact make it there twenty minutes faster. You can still catch it. I will telephone the gate for you.”

The stewardess was pointing down the long hall of gates and as Kelis looked up, she realized she was in terminal D.

“Shit,” she muttered, forgetting all about her good manners.

She secured her hold on the bag tighter and with one more querying look to the stewardess, set off in a dead run, weaving between other tired travelers as she ran toward the other terminal and gate.

If this is some kind of mistake, I’m going to be so pissed,
she thought in fury, knowing full well that she would simply nod and agree and make do with whatever was given to her.

She wasn’t confrontational by nature, not really. Perhaps it had been one of the reasons why she’d decided to join the military to begin with. She liked structure, had always done so, and found that her aspirations were best fostered in an environment that both pushed her to always be better, as well as gave her a set of rules to follow to achieve it.

But over the years, she’d gotten tougher. Missions all over the world did that to a woman, and though she was not particularly old yet—not even thirty—she thought she’d lived a full life already. It came with the territory, though. A Marine had to know how to grab life by the horns, because every mission could be their last. That was something that had been beaten into her pretty damn fast.

All of that, of course, was entirely unimportant when she found herself sprinting down long hallways in hopes of making a flight she wasn’t supposed to be on! When she finally made it to terminal F and down to the gates starting with 3, she was feeling slightly winded and grouchier than ever. She was tired and sore and a tiny bit hung over and all she had wanted was to get a nice glass of wine and conk out while the in-flight movie blared through her headphones.

The clock showed that there was three minutes until the assumed departure time of the flight when she stumbled into 34F, where a smiling stewardess was there to meet her. Her pretty blue eyes seemed to shine with worry and she took Kelis’s ticket wordlessly, her brows furrowing slightly in commiseration.

“We had the captain wait for you, ma’am. I am so sorry for the confusion. Please, come with me,” she spoke softly, leading Kelis down through the long walkway and into the plane.

“I still don’t know if I should be here,” Kelis said, straightening her back and brushing blonde locks of now-sweaty hair out of her face. “I was supposed to be on the other flight,” she tried to explain, but again it was met with general disinterest.

When Kelis stepped into the plane, she forgot all about her objections though. It too was a Boeing 747 but instead of being packed to the rafters with grouchy, bloated, and annoyed holiday travelers, this one seemed to only have big, strong, beefy men sitting around and chatting. The plane was maybe at half capacity.