Cougar's Conquest (3 page)

“Really?” She couldn’t help her amazed and incredulous tone. It sounded so wonderful.

It sounded much too good to be true.

“Really,” he said with a nod.

The smile on his face was a challenge. She knew that expression, boyish yet all man. She had seen him wear it when he’d dared her to come along with him to hike up that mountain near Denver on their first outing.

To enjoy the view that had been so similar to this.

To kiss him when they’d reached the summit.

And to join him in bed.

She couldn’t help it. She took a step toward him. Ran her fingers through the dark brown hair that was now so much shorter than when she’d known him.

A military cut?

He closed his eyes. “Don’t do that, Gwynn.” His tone rasped, as if she was torturing him.

She was torturing herself, too.

But so what? Would touching him tell her whether he was lying or telling the truth about his new purported military affiliation? This Alpha Force group? The astounding elixir he had described, and its effects?

Of course not.

And yet she didn’t release him. Instead, she threw her arms around him. Pressed her body against his, feeling his hard, muscular frame.

Feeling, down below, another kind of hardness, one she had never anticipated feeling again—at least not with Brett.

“Oh, Brett,” she whispered.

And then, suddenly yet as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if there had never been any secrets between them, any gaps of time, his mouth lowered onto hers in a kiss that made her gasp in recollection and pleasure.

Her mouth was every bit as sweet, as tantalizing, as he remembered. She played the same games with him, too, as if they had shared their last kiss only yesterday—the way her tongue teased and toyed with his. Her lips were both firm and inquisitive, challenging him to kiss her harder, deeper. Which he did.

As they kissed, he pressed himself against her. Wanting to touch her everywhere—and more. A lot more. And not via mere memories. Once again. Just once again.

Carefully, not wanting to frighten her off, he let his hands roam along her soft and sensuous body, over her back and down to her tight buttocks. He wanted to caress her, stroke her, above her clothes, beneath them, the way he had done so often before. She felt so much the same, and yet different. Slighter. Her sleekness was more angular now, as if she had lost weight. Was it because of what had happened between them?

He still found her sexy. Oh, yes. Even so, he pulled back just a little, worried about hurting her in her unexpected fragility.

That brief movement was enough to make her stop. To back away. She seemed breathless. Her dark eyes were luminous as she looked at him. She straightened her blue blouse as if she were a schoolmarm. Hell, she
was
a schoolmarm now.

Not the brilliant pharmaceutical lab technician he had known. He understood that, since she was hiding here, she’d had to change the entire focus of her career, her life, in a relatively short time. Well, he’d done so, too. The changes had been monumental for both of them. He loved what he was doing now. Did she?

“Guess we’re letting our memories get the better of us,” she said quietly, her smile tremulous.

But what he remembered most warmly now wasn’t just the first kiss they had shared at that similar overlook in the mountains. No, it was afterward, at the hotel, when they had been unable to resist…and the rest, then, had been history.

That was irrelevant now.

“Not really,” he said, attempting to sound indifferent. He had no intention of asking more about why she really hadn’t stayed around to talk to him, or what life had been like after she’d run away; what had made her lose weight; why she’d become even more defensive and delicate than she had been back then.

And she had been both.

But his goals now were too important to risk scaring her off. His hopes and desires had to be sublimated to needs much more critical than his—those of his new employer, Uncle Sam, and all the military stood for.

Hell, back then he’d never have anticipated where he’d now landed, thanks to Gwynn. And how much it would mean to him. But he had become so involved in research into shapeshifters—leading to his amazing discovery of the existence of the highly covert Alpha Force—that he had delayed coming for Gwynn until he had looked deeper into the secret unit and, fascinated, joined it.

“I admit, though, that kissing you again was fun,” he added when she said nothing. He smiled in a bland, nonconfrontational, not especially amused way. “So what do you think? Will you come with me to check out Alpha Force?”

“I…I’m not sure. I just don’t believe—”

“That I’m on the level? That the film I showed you is real?”

“That you’re actually in the military, for one thing,” she shot at him, looking him up and down.

He was wearing military camos of sorts, though far from official—a sleeveless muscle shirt and jeans, not fatigues. He’d worn his hair longer when they’d known each other, too, but those things clearly weren’t enough to convince her.

Which wasn’t surprising.

He had another method he’d intended to try, but if she didn’t believe him now, simply talking to his commanding officer wasn’t likely to do it for her, either; still, it might help.

And doing that would also have another benefit. Thinking about his new job, his fellow military members, his commanding officer and all of that certainly wouldn’t keep his sex drive revved up, not the way being in Gwynn’s presence again did.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’m in the military, all right. You of all people should recognize that.” He glanced down toward his jeans zipper, then back into her face. “Didn’t you notice how much I stood at attention just now, when we were close together?”

He’d wanted to shock her, amuse her, something. And he did get a reaction. One that really pleased him.

She looked at him with her dark, dark eyes clouded over with what appeared to be lust. She stared first at his face, and then downward enough that the body part he’d referred to was back at full attention again immediately.

He took a step toward her, ready to take her back into his arms, to see what happened next without exactly planning it.

He held out his arms, and she smiled.

Gwynn definitely wanted to hold Brett again. Tightly and immediately. That kiss—it had been so wonderful. So spectacular.

And feeling him against her a minute earlier had been incredible. Addictive. She wanted it again.

But before she got that close to him once more a couple of cars roared onto the blacktop paving and stopped near them. In moments, some kids darted from the cars toward the overlook railing, screaming and followed by two shouting women, probably their mothers.

As a schoolteacher, even of students a bit older, Gwynn knew she could handle this situation and make sure the kids came out of it safely, but she didn’t want to. Instead, she decided to let the stampeding parents take charge, which they did. The kids were herded to safety almost immediately.

When Brett shrugged then walked around to open the car door for her, she slid into the passenger seat without a word to the intruders.

“Let’s get out of here,” Brett said as he slipped into the driver’s side. His expression suggested as much frustration as she felt, but she found herself silently thanking the families for showing up just then. The situation before their arrival had been too much like the past. She wasn’t ready to relive it, no matter how tempting that might feel.

“Let’s go grab an early dinner,” Brett continued, shoving the key into the ignition. “Before we do, though, I want you to talk to my superior officer, Major Drew Connell. Maybe he’ll convince you to come see what Alpha Force is all about. He’s at the headquarters in Maryland so I don’t want to wait till too late to call although he’s expecting to hear from me.”

It was now almost eight o’clock in the East, since it was nearly five o’clock here in Southern California. Not too late after a day on which she’d taught school. She usually stayed for a while to grade papers or work on lesson plans. But an early dinner sounded good to Gwynn. Getting home later than anticipated always required an explanation to her family.

And no explanation ever satisfied them.

She shuddered at the thought of her useless attempts to apologize and explain herself when she had returned home last year after fleeing and staying away for a long time—yet not long enough…. She was still paying for that. Would be forever unless she developed a reasonable and permanent way to leave.

Gwynn said little as Brett drove along the winding mountain roads, forcing her thoughts away from the upcoming, inevitable confrontation if she dared to return home late.

She inhaled, enjoying Brett’s scent even more now, after their kiss. Her senses were those of a feline, not just a human, and she could tell that his sexual interest had been roused by their embrace.

She made no comment at all when he drove into the parking lot of the ritzy Lake Arrowhead Mountain Inn.

It did, after all, have a well-regarded restaurant.

The fact that it again triggered those memories she was working so hard to ignore… She cast them aside as best she could.

Brett pulled into a tight parking space, then grabbed a strange-looking phone out of the console between them. “This is a government-issue satellite phone,” he said. “It’s more secure than a regular cell.”

Which suggested again that what he was saying was real, not just an attempt to make up nonsensical stories to get back at her for fleeing.

He pressed a button, then spoke into the receiver. “Hi, Major. Yes, I’m with Gwynn…Macka.” She heard his hesitation over her name.

It wasn’t the one he’d known her under, and she suspected he was trying to rub that in. Or maybe not. Maybe it was truly an effort for him to remember what her name really was.

He talked for a few minutes, then handed the phone to her. “Here,” he said.

“Gwynn?” said a voice. It could have been anyone, not necessarily the military officer Brett had mentioned. Even recognizing that, she decided to act as if she believed all Brett had said, at least for now. The voice continued. “I’m Major Drew Connell, the commanding officer of Alpha Force. Brett told me he’s briefed you a bit about who we are and what we do.”

“That’s right,” she said noncommittally.

“He also said he has invited you to come and visit. Check out Alpha Force. Did he mention that one of our members is a shape-shifting lynx? Her name is Lieutenant Nella Reyes, and if you come here I’ll make sure she’s around for you to meet. We’ll also let you try out our elixir that permits shifting at times other than the full moon. Then we’ll see if it makes sense for you to enlist and join us. We could use a cougar in our group. You’d be the only one.”

A shapeshifting lynx? Gwynn had never met any shapeshifters besides her family. And to know of another feline. To actually meet her. Gwynn felt almost overwhelmed with excitement over the idea.

And to be able to test the elixir. To be able to change outside a full moon. Even keep more human awareness than usual while she shifted.

Excitement? Hell, she was suddenly ecstatic about the idea.

And yet she’d already been so worried even about coming home late tonight, dealing with her family over that.

To go away, even for a few days, over a weekend, to test whether Brett and this Drew Connell were for real. Not to mention Lieutenant Reyes—was that her name?—and the elixir.

How could she do that? And when?

Was Brett aware that tomorrow night was a full moon? Surely he was. What did he plan to do then, now that he had found her? Watch her shift?

She wasn’t about to allow that. Not again.

After talking just a short while longer, Gwynn handed Brett the phone. She looked both bemused and excited, an attractive and appealing combination.

“So…I know it wasn’t a real commitment to the major,” he said, “but you sounded fairly positive about going there and checking things out.”

“Yes,” she said. “I did.” She shook her head slightly, causing the knot of tawny hair at her neck to move sideways and back.

Was that a negative reaction, or just a touch of indecision? He decided to assume it was the latter and pretend he hadn’t noticed. While pondering, Brett fought the urge to reach over and pull out the pins that held her hair in place. To run his fingers through her soft, straight locks the way he used to.

Back then, the shade of her hair hadn’t reminded him of a gorgeous, sleek mountain lion. But then, he hadn’t known she was capable of shifting into one.

And why did a hint of her possible negativity turn him on so much now?

Or would anything Gwynn did now, positive or negative, turn him on, feed his desire to get her into bed again?

He wanted her. Badly. Shapeshifting cougar or not. Or maybe that knowledge even added to her appeal now.

But as great as the sex between them had been before, it wasn’t appropriate now—not even that one final time he now craved. He forcibly squashed all desire down inside him and tried to pretend it wasn’t there.

“I can start making arrangements for you right away,” he said instead, glad how neutral his tone sounded. “Can you do it this weekend?” Today was Wednesday. That should give him enough time to arrange a flight for both of them on an air force transport from one of the nearest bases, like Edwards just north of L.A.

He’d accompany her to Ft. Lukman, introduce her around, do what was necessary to give her a taste of Alpha Force. Then he would back off. At that point, he’d have accomplished all he intended to. It would remain up to his commanding officers to convince Gwynn to join, and for her to agree.

And if—when—she did, he would remain far away from her. He had other duties in Alpha Force besides recruitment, mostly making use of his information technology skills. He occasionally acted as an aide to some of the male shifters, since the process required that the shifter be naked at the time of the change, and then when he or she returned from animal form it was always initially in the nude, too.