The Cougar's Bargain (11 page)

She did admire it. She just hadn't let herself before then.

He closed his eyes and let out a ragged breath. “I need to shift.”

“No, you
want
to. But you shouldn't.”

“Why? I need to run.”

“If you shift, you might get stuck in your cat form. Run as you are.”

“Maybe I will,” he said on a sigh. He grated his teeth and circled his fingers around her forearm as well. Such a casual touch, but that little bit of voluntary contact seemed to bring down the heat a few degrees, at least in him. She was starting to feel pretty hot herself, but for other reasons … notably the “pitched tent” situation he had going on.

If he were aware of it, he didn't seem to care if
she
was.

It was perfectly natural for any man—as a medical professional, she knew that—but she couldn't recall it ever seeming so
personal
. She'd seen the man nude before and after he'd shape-shifted countless times, and none had seemed the slightest bit sexual. She'd had a clinical detachment to the way his body looked and what it could do.

But when she had to touch him—
look
at him as something other than an enemy—it was harder to be detached.

“I don't know how you're even upright,” he said without opening his eyes.

“The shittiness I feel is nothing in comparison to the background pain I had those couple of weeks after that scratch warped my DNA. So. Mind over matter, I guess.”

“Yeah, I know how that goes.”

“Use it to keep yourself from shifting, then. Mason will be pissed if you shift, and I don't need that drama in my life. I've got enough already.”

“Give me an hour and I'll go with you.”

“Don't.
Please
.” She drew her hand back and regretted it the moment she did. It was as if she'd turned off a generator before the power had reached every room of her inner house. His energy withdrew like a retreating wave.

Weird.
Neither Ellery nor Hannah had said anything about that.
Maybe it's not the same for them?

She stuffed her hands into her sweatshirt pockets to keep herself from touching him again. She didn't have time to experiment and to ponder “what if?” and she wondered what would happen to her if she let herself.

“If you want to go run, make sure you keep your phone on you. I don't think I'll be gone long. I don't want to try my luck with
Los Impostores
. I don't know enough about them, and I guess Lola didn't know what all to tell me.”

He ground the heels of his palms against his eyes and let out another breath. “All right. Don't do anything unnecessarily risky. Try not to get seen at all, if you can manage it. The longer you can go without people recognizing you, the better. If you're not back in two hours, I'm tracking you.”

“How?”

“I'm a born Cougar. I've got a very interesting skill set I don't have to use very often, but trust me—I'm good when I want to be.” Clearing his throat, he sat up, pulled the sheets up to his hips, and adjusted his crotch. He rubbed his eyes again, totally oblivious to his own touch, apparently, and Hannah took that as her cue to bounce.

Coward
, her inner cat whispered as Hannah stepped into her room, cheeks burning, to grab her backpack.

“Yep.”

Let him see you looking,
her inner voice said.
He's your mate. No one would care.

“He's not mine,” she said softly.

Sean was the kind of man who'd call her on it if she looked, and when he did, she didn't know what was going to fall out of her mouth in rebuttal. Anything but the truth, probably.

After a long run through a nearby park, Sean felt moderately less unhinged. His inner beast likely wouldn't be restful again until he'd had a chance to shift and run off the pent-up energy, but he understood that given the circumstances, transforming into his cat might create some logistical problems for their mission. He wasn't sure which part of his id would be in control, and if he couldn't shift back when he needed to, he'd be putting Hannah in a difficult situation. She didn't know Tucson, and he needed to watch her back.

Winded, he parked his ass on a bench and wriggled his phone out of his sweatpants pocket. He dialed Mason.

“How goes it?” his big brother asked.

“Went out for a run. Hannah went out snooping.”

“Alone?” Mason's voice was absolutely neutral, but knowing him as well as he did, Sean suspected that meant nothing. Mason had a way of querying people without actually saying all the words.

Sean rolled his eyes. “I didn't abandon her, okay? Yeah. She's alone. She said she'd be back in a couple of hours and that she was just getting the lay of the land.”

“No need to get cranky, I was just asking. Did you shift?”

“No. Want to, though.”

“Keep putting it off. From what I hear, the compulsion will eventually go away.”

“When
will
I be able to shift?”

“Dunno. I can ask Lola, but I suspect there's no easy answer. If you absolutely have to do it, wait until you get home, so at least we'll be around to chase you back if we need to.”

“I don't think it'll come to that.”

“So, I guess the fact that you're talking to me right now means Hannah didn't stab you in your sleep. Or
did
you sleep?”

“Yeah, I slept. She got drunk as hell last night. I doubted she'd be able to aim straight if she did intend to take me out.”

“The last time I got drunk as hell, I ended up with a son.”

“You don't need to worry about that. I was sober enough, and I can assure you there were no procreative activities happening in either of our rooms.”

“Two rooms?”

“Yep. I didn't feel like arguing for only one, and besides, why wouldn't we have two? We're not an item. We're just two Cougars in the same glaring working toward a common goal.”

“Uh-huh. I've got you on speakerphone, by the way. Ellery's giving you the side-eye.”

Sean closed his eyes and let his lips sputter.
For fuck's sake.
“Number one, shouldn't you be at work? And number two, why is the witch mad at me?”

Ellery cleared her throat. “We're in the truck running some errands. I have to head to North Carolina in a couple of hours. Based on the movement he demonstrated last month, my brother-in-law Claude thinks today might be the day we'll finally wake up the asshole ex-angel Gulielmus, and if he does wake, we need to make allowances for some supernatural unpredictability. We don't know what kind of event a hellmouth closing might be. It may be quiet, or it might be violent. So, I'm rounding up the witchy posse and getting them on deck for our angelic transport.”

“Well, shit, I hope it works.” They could stop sleeping in shifts if it did, and Lord knew Mason wasn't getting enough sleep with Nick around, anyway. “Now explain the side-eye.”

“I would have thought my glares would be more transparent to you Foyes by now.”

“Humor me. You have so many variants.”

“Fine. Are you really wiping your hands clean on trying to make something happen with Hannah?”

“What do you mean? Something
did
happen. She refused me for weeks, and then she got mauled by a Sheehan and turned into a Were-cougar. And then I got stuck in my cat form and spent about a month roaming the desert on four legs. The only reason I have a human voice box right now is probably because you guilted her into doing this. You think I'm stupid?”

Neither Mason nor Ellery responded.

“Yeah, I didn't think so.”

“You need to try, Sean,” Mason said. “Seriously. That's all I can say.”

“Why does it always have to be me who's the one making the effort? I'm sick of that shit, man.”

He'd gotten enough of that treatment growing up. It was always his own fault if he didn't get enough attention because he didn't
ask
for it, and he'd always wondered why he had to in the first place.

“And don't give me that
be the bigger person
crap. I tried the best I could to do all the right things, and all I got in return was derision. I get it.
Really,
I do. No-fuckin'-body wants to be kidnapped and have someone else's problems foisted onto them. If I were her, I'd probably act the exact same way.”

He pushed to his feet and started across the grassy area toward the sidewalk. He needed a shower before lunch or whatever they were going to do next. Perhaps Hannah had come up with a plan of action. Everything depended on what she found out.

“That's fine. I get it,” Ellery said. “But I'm going to tell you the same thing I'm going to tell her. Are you ready to hear it?”

“Let me have it, I guess.”

“Get your head out of your ass.”

“What?”

“Look, she's hard to figure out. Shit, after ten years of friendship, I'm not sure I've even figured her out completely, and maybe that's by design on her part. But the thing about Hannah is if you don't put demands on her—if you don't make assumptions—she's a lot less hostile.”

He'd noticed that when she was drunk. Her defenses were way down. If he'd been more of a jackass than he actually was, he might have taken advantage of that and made her spill all her secrets. That hadn't felt right to him. He wanted trust because it was earned, and not because it was stolen. He was tired of robbing her of things.

“Good to know. But why should I care? We've cut each other loose.”

“You're a fucking idiot,” Mason muttered.

“Tell me something new. You've been saying that for how many years now? Since one year before Dad died? Or two?” Sean waved at the car that had stopped for him to traverse the crosswalk and jogged across the street.

“Don't even go there, Sean. And this isn't about you being generally annoying and doing things like finishing off my beer without telling me. This is about your mate. Not some random chick who just happens to ring your bell. This is the woman our goddess said was your match. You're not going to get another one of those. So, are you really going to tell me you're going to be content with bumping elbows with her in the glaring on occasion? I think you underestimate the pull of your inner cougar.”

“I don't underestimate it at all. I know what the cougar wants.”

“And I imagine that doesn't include leaving the door open for Hannah to shack up with some other fool, right? Go ahead and let word get around that she's a free agent, and I guarantee you I'll be bailing you out of jail within a week.”

“I don't want anyone who doesn't want me back, Mason.”

“She's my friend and I don't spill her business,” Ellery said, “but stop assuming that things are hopeless just because she's closed a door. You boys flunked out of Courtship College, apparently, but try to remember some lessons from it. You don't have a deadline anymore. You've cheated the curse. Great. Hannah's not gonna be one of those chicks who spreads her legs just because she likes the taste of your energy and you smiled at her a certain way. If you want her, you're gonna have to go slow and steady.”

“Do you want her?” Mason asked.

Sean crossed the motel's back lot and found that Hannah's curtains were open and the light on.

“Well, do you?”

“I'll call you later.”

“Be like that, asshole. Listen, if I don't answer, leave a message. While Ell is gone, Hank and I are going to scatter. Tito's going with me to have a discussion with the Coyotes, and Hank's taking Darnell out to follow a lead on the Sheehans.”

“Shit, everything at once?”

“I don't see where we have a choice. The moment any one of them catches wind that we're being a little more aggressive about solving problems, they might change tactics. I want these issues nipped
now
, so if we have to do a slash and burn on glaring members we can't trust, we can do it soon and ride out the backlash for everything all at once. I just want to get things as normal as possible around here. It's been so long since we've had anything close, I think we've all forgotten what normal feels like.”

Sean couldn't argue with that. He gave his brother well wishes and ended the call.

Up in his room, he poked his head through the door to Hannah's room. She wasn't in there, but the bed was made, trashcan gone from the bedside, and the room was generally tidied, as was his. The maid had probably been in.

He glanced at the clock.
Nearly ten
. If she weren't back soon, he'd go out and find her, just as he'd said. For the moment, he'd give her the benefit of the doubt.

He needed the extra time to himself, anyway. Not only to shower, but to digest what Ellery had said. He had given up on the idea of being anything to Hannah except a glaring mate because he was tired of working so hard for scraps.

But he never wanted to be in a place where he could look back and think he could have done more. That was the place he'd been when his father had died, and by then, it was too late. He couldn't go back and try to have a better relationship with his father. He could only regret what he didn't do. Regrets were bitter pills that had to be swallowed again and again, and Sean didn't want any more of them.

Maybe Hannah would bruise his ego. Maybe even break his heart. But he would never regret trying to befriend her. At the moment, that seemed the best first step.

Hannah took her time walking back to the motel, dragging out the inevitable. Her parents had left an incredibly demoralizing birthday message in her voicemail while she'd been out snooping. It was so passive-aggressive, she knew it would become an obsession until she confronted them—asked what they meant by “Happy birthday, since it matters so much to you.” She was going to call. Tell them she was “back” in the States and that she'd gotten their message.