The Cougar's Trade (21 page)

Let me at her
, that animal said.
Let her touch. Let’s touch her back.

He craved it—both parts of him—and that made him feel entirely too needy. Too
desperate
, and he wasn’t so certain he wasn’t. He did need her, or at least his cougar half did. His cougar was unashamed of wanting her. Man-Hank still fixated on her shortcomings, because focusing on those stupid fucking things was easier than letting himself consider the possibilities. Possibilities had always only brought him disappointment in the end.

“Tell me the story.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and tucked her chin over them. She should have looked childish like that, but she didn’t. She just looked soft and…
touchable
. He resisted.

“Well, let’s see,” he said. “When I was fifteen, which would have put Mason at sixteen and I think Sean was thirteen at the time, Dad took us on a trip to see Bandelier—you know, where the ancient Pueblo people used to build their homes into rock walls. He was a geek about that kind of thing. Was always dragging us here and there from one national park to the next.”

“Then there’s no wonder you and your brothers found us so easily at Arches, I guess.”

He shrugged. “We knew the area. Lost count of how many times we’d been there. Anyway, we were at a pretty rustic campground. Basic tent camping, and it was the four of us in one tent.”

“Four man-sized Were-cougars in one tent?”

He chuckled. “It was a big tent, but still, yes, one tent. Couldn’t really get away from each other unless we wanted to sleep outside, and that’s not really something you want to do in places where the temperature may drop precipitously while you sleep.”

Her blue-gray gaze was so intent, her focus so fixed on him while he talked, he couldn’t help but feel like the only man in the universe at the moment. At least, the only one with any significance. It was easy to figure out why it was so easy for people to let their guard down around her. She was so fucking guileless.

He gave an experimental nudge to a short lock of her hair that curved against her forehead. It didn’t straighten. “Look at that,” he whispered, transfixed by the soft whorl. He nudged it again, then traced it with his index finger. “It does curl.”

Her turn to cringe. “If I do grow it out, I’ll probably have to wear a hat for the next six months.”

“Don’t trust Val to hold your hand through the transition?”

“I just don’t know what it’ll look like, but I’m excited at the prospect of being able to rake it into a ponytail and go.”

“I’ve always been averse to the word
ponytail
.”

She toyed tentatively with the ends of his hair, and he held his breath, afraid she’d notice she was doing it and pull away.

“Why?”

He let out the breath. “Uh, because of Belle, I guess. She had those pastel pony dolls when she was a kid. Used to style their hair in some seriously garish configurations, so now I can’t think
ponytail
without thinking of tinsel woven in, plastic barrettes, or oversized ribbons.”

Miles’s smile went from that sweet
I’m listening
curve to a sadistic
Thanks for the ideas, stupid
grin in about two seconds flat.

“What the fuck?” He leaned back a bit to get a better look of that beguiling face. He would have thought she had fangs and a sudden desire to use them for how hungry she suddenly looked.

“Hmm?”

“You want to put tinsel in my hair? I’d give you free rein to do a lot of things, but I might have to draw a line at being prettied up like a carousel pony.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Carousel
Cougar
.”

“Yeah, except no one’s riding me.”

“Is that an observation or a complaint?”

“Both.”
Shit.
Goddamn, the things that came out of his mouth when she got him started. He cleared his throat and waited for her to get her fill of fondling his hair. She didn’t.

He adapted, turning his body more toward hers to give her a better angle to torment him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had wanted to play with his hair. Pull it, sure, but play with it? Nope. Felt nice, but almost everything she did to him felt nice.

“Anyway, we were into the second night of our trip and Mason had…”

Miles reached to the other side of his hair. “It’s blonder at the ends.”

“Sun exposure. I—”

Her wrist passed right beneath his nose, a thrumming pulse point that magnified the feminine essence of her skin, and instinctively he pressed it to his lips. Kissed it, rubbed his cheek against it.

“Still trying to imprint on me?” she asked softly.

“No. I mean, yes.” Fuck that. The thought had barely crossed his mind at all in the past fifteen minutes. He just wanted to touch,
be
touched, and she was making it so damn hard to keep his hands to himself.

“Wouldn’t closer to my core be more logical?”

“You’re asking me to be logical?”

She braced a hand on his shoulder and swung a leg over his lap. She settled onto his thighs, her front facing his, and continued her curious examination of his hair. “Better?”

So much worse.
He closed his eyes and swallowed, hoping his sleeping cock didn’t invite itself to the get-together. If she moved half an inch closer…

She did.

“Goddammit.”

She went rigid against him. “Demon?”

“No.” He let out a slow breath and lifted her by the ass to set her back six inches. “But you can use that as a euphemism, if you want. At least it’d be creative.”

Her gaze sank lower. She wouldn’t be able to see anything. The bit of light coming off the lantern didn’t reach the gap between them.

“Finish your story,” she said, her hands now pressed against his chest, but moving downward.

“Um. I…” He swallowed again, his throat suddenly having gone very dry. “I ended up sleeping outside the tent because Dad had a snore that could wake the dead and—what are you doing?”

Her fingers curled inside his waistband. “You’re warm, and my hands are cold. Finish your story.”

He had some blankets in the truck. Somewhere. He could… He could
what?
Wrap her up in one like a little Cougar mate mummy and set her as far away from him as possible? Apparently, he really wasn’t so great at using logic at the moment, because if he had been, he would have been
encouraging
her to put her cold hands in his pants to disturb his sleeping demon. He freed his button, and she promptly pushed her hands around and down his backside. That put her belly right against his, her taut nipples through thin fabric enticing him. For her to not be especially forward, she was certainly the one in the driver’s seat at the moment. So to speak. He’d never been a
see what happens
kind of man. She had to understand cause and effect, being a nurse and all. If she rubbed him, he’d probably rub back. That was basic psychology—for both people and cats.

He slipped his hands beneath her shirt and glided them up to her ribs, pausing with his thumbs just beneath her breasts. He knew for certain
his
hands weren’t cold.

Sighing, she tucked her face against his neck.

So good. Stay right there
. “I was sleeping some distance away from the tent,” he continued, inching his hands upward. “In my cougar form, I mean. More resistant to cold that way, and didn’t need a sleeping bag. I just settled between a couple of rocks that blocked the wind and fell asleep within thirty seconds, probably.”

He swept his thumbs across her breasts, catching her nipples on the downstroke.

She moaned softly and squirmed atop his lap, grinding his erection under her crotch.

“Are you teasing me or provoking me?”

“Teases are women who demand attention they crave but don’t need. That’s never been my style.”

“You
want
me to touch you?”

“I don’t know what else I can do but to ask at this point. I usually don’t have to ask.”

“Damn, woman.” All he’d needed was the go-ahead. The needy cat in him had wanted to touch her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her a month ago, and here she was, straddling him and urging him on. He grabbed her shirt at the hem and tugged it over her head, immediately pressing her cooler flesh to his, not giving her a moment to notice the chill or think too much about what he’d done. He trained his lips on the sweet bend of her neck and kissed down her shoulder before raising her up to her knees to bring her breasts up high for his inspection. More tasting than inspecting, really.

Her soft mewls and tentative grip on his shoulders impelled him to lay her on her back. He eased down her shorts, paused to appreciate the delicate swatch of lacy nothingness she called panties before removing those, too. He let his hands wander up her legs and belly, his inner cat purring in expectation, but Hank wanted to savor the moment. To memorize her curves and swells, her smoothness. Catalog her body’s reactions to his touch so he could plan the next ones.

“So smooth,” he whispered, curling his fingers around one perfect calf.

She didn’t say anything, just nestled her other foot beside his knee, opening herself a bit to his gaze. An enticing distraction from his enjoyable exploration. Cat that he was, he moved on from his caress of her leg and settled between her thighs. He pushed his palms up the insides of her legs, and she pressed one foot to his chest, stopping him.

“Do you remember what we talked about earlier?”

He furrowed his brow. “What?”
Don’t fucking tell me she wants to talk Cougar politics right now.
That shit could wait for later. Or never. Just not now when he needed to touch.

She made a slow, ticklish line down to his open waistband with her big toe. “I told you I’d watch you. Did you think I was just blowing smoke?”

“To be honest, yes.”

She worked his pants down a bit farther, and he caught her ankle before her toes skimmed the head of his cock.

“I thought you wanted me to touch you.”

“You will.” She didn’t elaborate on the mysterious response, but propped herself up onto her forearms and skimmed her foot up his outer thigh, opening herself to him even more.

“You’re trying to kill me. To confuse me so bad I don’t notice you’re digging my grave.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Hank. We have a long time to get to know each other, so what’s a little delay? I thought cats liked playing with their food on occasion.”

“I’d love to play with my food. Seems you’re more interested in me playing with
myself
.”

“Would you indulge me?”

Her expression was so earnest, her voice so plaintive, that he didn’t really see where he could say no. He let down his jeans a few inches—just enough to free himself from the stifling constraints.

She sucked in some air. “You Cougars seem to have an aversion to underwear. Do you ever wear them?”

“Probably about as often as you wear bras.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

So cute.
And what was so wrong with cute? “Easier to shift when you’ve only got a few layers to shuck off.”
He took his cock in hand and gripped the base, catching her gaze, which was actually on his face, and not on his erection.

“Talk me through it,” she whispered.

“Seriously?”

“Tell me what you like.”

“I may need to disabuse you of the notion that I’m picky. A touch is a touch.”

“And a fuck’s a fuck?”

He shrugged. That had always been the case in his experience, anyway. One woman had always been about as good as any other as far as sex was concerned. Looking back on the experiences, he couldn’t think of very much about them that was memorable at all. Not the actions, not the actors. It was like most of the woodwork he’d done in the past decade or so. Shouldn’t he have been a bit more present? It was all one unenthusiastic blur.

The only things he had sharp memories of were working on his house, fighting off demons with his brothers, and…basically every move Miles had made in a month.

He set his gaze on Miles again—on her watchful curiosity. Her trusting compliance. She deserved better than him robotically going through the motions. She was worth him remembering touching her…and being touched back. He didn’t need simply to give her his participation. That was too easy. She needed his focus. Eyes, hands…heart.

Tightening his fingers around his shaft, he let out a breath. “Gentle touches, like this”—he skimmed his fingers along the bottom of his cock—“are nice. Especially when I’m tired or lazy.”

She nodded and fixed her stare on the fist he formed around his cock head. He knelt beside her to improve her view, thereby ruining the one he had of her. Probably a good thing. The sight of her would probably cause an embarrassingly fast undoing on his part. That definitely wasn’t the impression he wanted her to have of him—that he couldn’t take care of her that way because he was selfish, but wasn’t he? His patchy memory of past encounters indicated that he had been.

“More,” she said. He must have been too quiet.

“Uh. When I’m excited or angry or just…too fucking horny, I like more pressure.” He gave himself a firm tug and watched her sink white teeth into her bottom lip.

Up and down, up and down, his hand worked the tight flesh, and she watched as if taking detailed mental notes about cause and effect.
Squeeze here, and he’ll moan. Glide your fingers there, and he’ll hiss.

He closed his eyes on the mental imagery of her delicate fingers toying with his satiny head, of her tongue skimming over—

No, his imagination wasn’t that good. He pushed his eyelids open to find her pulling more and more of him into her mouth. Her tongue massaged the underside of his shaft and her teeth gently grazed the sensitive skin.

Fuck
.

“Miles…” Miles
what?
Miles stop? Or, Miles,
oh gods
, don’t stop?

Letting him fall from her mouth, she rolled that pale gaze up to him as if in a dare and slowly unclenched his fingers from his cock, cinching her own around him in their stead. “What about here?” She slipped the fingers of her free hand under his sac and swiped her thumb across the top.