The Cougar’s Unclaimed Mate
Jennifer James with Michelle Fox
She’d thought she was his mate, but instead of claiming her as his own, Kit Barrientos left her naked and alone in the woods.
Broken hearted, Rhiannon Delamatre rebuilt her life in Las Vegas as a BBW burlesque dancer. Too bad for her Kit’s in town and he’s screwing her over—again.
Thrust together in a hunt for Kit’s cousin, the connection between them still sparks with life. But Kit made it clear years ago he didn’t want her for anything more than a quickie, and Rhiannon’s sworn off bad boy shifters.
And she means it. Absolutely no sexy as hell, pierced, tattooed, no permanent address having, alpha males with a wild side.
So what if he saves her life a few times and when he growls her knees go weak?
He can keep his fangs and fur to himself.
***
Rhiannon’s father hated shifters—hated him—on sight. But Kit didn’t care about the blind prejudice of the man. He cared about Rhiannon, and would do anything to protect her.
So a little thing like having a twelve gauge shotgun waved in his face didn’t mean much.
Her family had come to town to broker a deal with a local cattle rancher and the first thing Kit noticed was the way her father herded his wife and daughter into the local pancake restaurant. Strangers might interpret the action as protective, but Kit recognized the behavior as controlling.
Rhiannon’s father’s posturing wouldn’t change anything. A shared glance and the taste of her scent on the breeze locked an unbreakable connection into place. The imperative inside him to take her as his mate increased with every passing hour.
Every time he saw her wanted to rip her clothes off and sink his teeth into the back of her neck.
He should leave her alone. Stay away. He was too young to leave the family home and couldn’t provide for her independently. Hell, he’d only known her a week and he doubted she’d want to run off with him to live as a shifter’s mate. She hadn’t grown up indoctrinated to his culture, and dragging her off from her family—even if her dad was a major asshole—wasn’t a good idea.
Rhiannon needed time to mature. So did he. His cougar acted on instinct, but Kit feared deep in his heart if he claimed her as his mate now the results would be disastrous. Cougars—wild and shifters—survived because they kept adapting to the world around them. Blending in. Changing.
He had to be patient. Disciplined.
***
Stealing the truck keys from her daddy’s pocket would most likely earn her the silent treatment and a lecture on the danger of being out “in the world without a man’s protection,” but Rhiannon didn’t care what her daddy thought.
He’d hide out on his ranch and never leave it for fear of having to interact with someone non-human. God forbid some “unholy creature” approach him. The way she saw things, all the various people and beings in the world only made it a more vibrant, wonderful place. When dinner discussions inevitably lead to psychological warfare she wasn’t equipped to fight, Rhiannon stopped contributing. Better to sit in silence than be assaulted with words.
Her daddy could drop the temperature in the room by fifteen degrees with nothing but the tightening of his jaw and a few sharp words about fallen women.
Sometimes late at night she fantasized about dancing on stage with nothing but sequins and a few feathers covering her nipples and butt. Man, that would burn his ass. Tuck Delamatre’s daughter on a stage flaunting herself half naked for a bunch of strange, horny men.
She’d dyed an inch wide streak in the underside of her hair a deep burgundy three weeks before. A tiny rebellion. Unless the sun hit the strands just right, no one could tell. Rhiannon loved the idea of having secret hair color her daddy didn’t know about. He’d call her wild and wicked and didn’t that give her a thrill all its own?
Her daddy hadn’t seen wild yet. She snorted out a belly laugh.
Just wait till she hooked up for good with Kit as a shifter’s mate. Oh, he wouldn’t know what hit him then. Somehow, being with Kit erased all the hateful words and confining restrictions her daddy heaped on her.
The second they’d rolled into town she’d gotten a tingle on her arms and a weird drop in her stomach like when she drove down hilly back roads so fast the truck shook.
Kit thought he saw her first, but that wasn’t true. She’d seen him strolling down the sidewalk with a confidence that screamed shifter. He’d turned his head to the left and that was it. The line of his profile might as well have struck her dead.
Tomorrow her mama and daddy would head back to Montana without her. Shifters mated for life, and there was no way Kit would refuse her. She’d pull out all the stops.
He’d mark her.
He had to.
***
Perched on the limb of an ancient evergreen with the scent of pine needles and sap in his nose, Kit observed the intersection below. They’d agreed to meet ten minutes from now at an old logging access road, but he’d given into his cougar’s urges and climbed this tree to watch for Rhiannon.
A silver pick-up slowed at the corner, oxidation turning the hood and tops of the fenders an ugly grey. Rhiannon messed with her hair, pulling curls free from her pony tail to drape around her face and lower jaw.
She’s our mate. His cougar stretched inside him, more vocal than ever since he’d met Rhiannon.
Kit’s stomach soured. What to do? She left tomorrow for home—only one state away. But it might as well be the moon. She’s human. I can’t—
She’s ours. Take her. Mark her.
The cougar didn’t care about things like mortgages or college or the fury of a disapproving father. If something threatened them, the cougar would resort to fangs and claws. If the cougar hungered, it hunted. Shelter could be found in the woods.
There were no good reasons his cougar could see to prevent them from taking their mate.
A belt squealed on the old truck’s engine and the brakes released a low grating noise. Rhiannon rolled forward through the stop sign, on her way to their secret meeting place.
He shouldn’t go. With his cougar yowling and close to out of control, if he didn’t want to ruin Rhiannon’s life he needed to leave her alone. Stand her up tonight, she’d be gone tomorrow, and he could beg for forgiveness later. Explain to her why he hadn’t come.
But Kit knew she felt the connection between them too, and wouldn’t want to hear his rational reasons for denying their mating. She had an impulsive, fearless streak he both admired and dreaded. Two days ago she’d jumped into a mountain stream and almost drowned when the shock of the water temperature hit.
A girl from Montana should have known better, but she’d been hot and sweaty and wanted to cool off.
No, he couldn’t stay away from her. Not tonight. Losing her tomorrow would be soon enough.
***
She slowed to navigate a turn and Kit leapt into the bed of the truck. Rhiannon slammed the brakes and twisted in the driver’s seat, a laugh on her lips and her eyes lit up.
“Kit! You scared the crap outta me.” She fumbled with the flimsy lock on the slider window behind her, her heart skipping beats. She shoved her right arm through the opening, gripped his shirt, and tugged. “Come ‘ere.”
The breeze had mussed his hair and a pine needle stuck to the collar of his shirt. “What have you been doing? Climbing trees again?”
“I like being in the woods.” He let her drag closer and stuck his head through the opening. “I thought PDA was out. What if your dad finds out you’ve been making out with a shifter?”
His tone was light, but he had a point. She’d been the one to insist on secrecy. The threat of her father’s rage kept her scared her into quiet submission or outright defiance tinged with fear most of her life.
Today she’d leave her daddy and his cruel grip on her heart behind.
She’d be fierce and strong. Growling under her breath, she slanted her mouth across his and bit his lip before releasing him.
A strange sound—almost a purr—slid from his lips as he smiled.
Did he see her love for him?
Kit pecked her on the lips once-twice-three times before she pushed him back.
“Hurry up and get in here.”
He couldn’t fit his shoulders through the tiny window, so he jumped out onto the road. Rhiannon leaned across the bench seat and flung the passenger door open for him.
“I missed you,” he slid over the cracked vinyl seat until they touched from shoulder to thigh.
“It’s been less than a day since you saw me.” She left her hand palm up on her thigh and he slid his fingers between hers.
The contact sent a shiver through them both and his jeans went tight over his lap. She tried not to stare, but had to take a peek or two. Blood rose to the surface of her cheeks and neck to match the burn in the tips of his ears.
“Maybe I’m obsessed.” He kissed her ear.
“Maybe I am too.” Blood pounded in her head, boom, boom, boom, and the cab of the truck crackled with tension.
Tonight was the night.
***
Kit knew he should have taken off instead of meeting her again. Even innocent contact challenged his control.
He’d keep his cougar in check and in a few years when he could take care of her, he’d complete the mating. Until then....
This was going to be damn near impossible.
“So I was thinking, uh, this summer maybe I could come back to visit. If you want me to.” Rhiannon kept her stare fixed on the road ahead, guiding the truck around ruts and chuck holes in the hard packed dirt surface.
Kit couldn’t tear his gaze away from the purplish bruise he spotted just under the collar of her shirt on the back of her neck. He traced the hickey with one finger. Goosebumps erupted under his touch. So close to being a mating bite.
Maybe his discipline was better than he thought.
Maybe his cougar was fucking with him and trying to see how far it could get before he lost his hold completely.
But...mmm, she tasted good...smelled like something he wanted to roll in to coat himself in the scent....
“Kit?”
Concentrate, idiot.
“I’d like it if you came to visit. Although I don’t know how your dad would handle that.” Kit let his anger and hopeless fury wash over him. “He hates shifters.”
The cougar snarled. Kill him.
If Kit had less control of his beast, he’d do just that. But Rhiannon would never forgive him if he hurt her father.
“I’m eighteen. I’ve got a few months of school left and then I can do whatever I want.” She hit the brakes and released his hand to put the vehicle in park. “I thought you’d want me to visit.”
God, he wanted so much more than just a visit. He wanted forever. But if he pushed her too soon, forced a mating on her before she was ready, they could end up like his cousin Janice and her mate Brent—stuck with each other forever, both of them miserable and hating the other.
“I do want you to visit. I want...” Kit couldn’t stand the dejected way she held her shoulders. He turned toward her, a thousand million things caught on his tongue. “You can stay with me until you’re ready to leave for college in the fall.”
“What if I don’t want to leave? What if I just want to stay with you forever?”
The cougar gloated.
“I thought you wanted to go to college. Don’t you want to experience life outside a cattle ranch? Get a degree and write a bunch of research papers?” He kept his tone light, his finger still circling the hickey.
If she went to college, she’d meet new people all right. Male people who’d be crawling over each other like a bunch of starving dogs after a prime piece of beef.
The cougar growled, low, too low for human ears. Rhiannon shivered and rubbed her arms, a petulant frown tugging at her mouth.
She scooted away from the steering wheel and crawled over him, one foot dangling. “I wanted to get away from my dad. College looked like a good way to do that so I applied.” Their noses touched. “But you’re something different to me. You’re like...something I didn’t know I was missing.”
Kit swallowed a joke about using college to troll for a husband and a rude statement about her father. Hope and honesty and vulnerability all surfaced in her eyes. Maybe she didn’t quite understand what they had between them, but she felt the connection.
He kissed her. A light brush of lips at first that grew into shared breaths and the brush and slide of their tongues against each other.
Hands that a few days ago had stayed on top of clothing slid beneath shirt hems and waistbands. She gripped his length through his jeans and he thrust his hips into her touch.
Rhiannon unfastened the button of her jeans and slid the zipper down. The deepening twilight would have hidden her face from the vision of a human man, but Kit’s heightened cougar senses allowed him to discern her dilated pupils and the scent of her arousal.
“Touch me Kit,” She guided his hand to the front of her panties and dragged her shirt over her head. “I want to be with you.”
She leaned into him and slipped her hand beneath his pants, her soft fingers tentative on his erection. Kit groaned. He reached for her but only managed to brush her curls with the tips of his fingers before the tightness of her jeans restricted his movement.
Her mouth moved over his throat and he cupped one large breast. Rhiannon squiggled on top of him and half fell to the floor. Kit lurched to catch her and kicked the driver’s window with the heel of his boot before cracking the back of his head on the passenger door.
“This isn’t working,” he groused. “Anyone who says they got pregnant in a car is a liar.”
Rhiannon laughed. “There’s a couple blankets behind the seat. Wanna get in the back?”
Kit ignored the small voice inside him that warned him once again to take off. To leave her before he did something he couldn’t take back.
He wanted her. He couldn’t take her as his mate tonight, but he could take her body and give his in return.
***
A few minutes later they stretched out on a couple old threadbare blankets in the lumpy bed of the pick-up. Rhiannon unclasped her bra and tossed it aside. She couldn’t make eye contact with Kit, but he didn’t notice.
All his focus zeroed in on her breasts. She squealed—actually squealed—when he pounced on her and fixated on licking, sucking, and biting every inch of her bare, silky skin.
Tiny gasps of pleasure left her lips with each exhale. She dug her nails into his back and grappled with his pants, unable to reach far enough to remove them.
Kit raised his hips and tore his jeans and boxers off. His dick seeped hot, sticky, pre-cum. He clasped her hand in his and guided her on how to stroke his cock.
Inarticulate groans rolled from his throat. The connection between them popped and fizzed, adding to her pleasure.
Kit moved lower to kiss her soft belly and the curve of her hip. Hooking her waistband in his fingers, he stripped her jeans and panties down over her hips and thighs.
She toed her sneakers off and Kit yanked her clothing over her feet. Dragging him forward until the head of his cock prodded between her legs and grazed her slick, aroused flesh, she trembled.
“Kit?” Soft and unsure, Rhiannon didn’t quite recognize her own voice.
He kissed along her lower jaw and rocked his hips forward to slide his cock along her. God, he bumped right across her entrance...so close.
“Kit.” She grabbed his hip. “I’ve never done this before.”
He swallowed hard and went still, body taut and frozen above her. His irises flashed green-gold.
“Me neither.” He let his weight rest on his left forearm. Kit replaced his cock with his fingers.
He pushed his forefinger inside her and she gripped his wrist, showing him how she liked to be touched. They moved together, her other hand wrapped around his thick length.
“I want you inside me.”
“Not yet.” He stretched her with a second finger and she winced. “I don’t want it to hurt.”
She rocked her hips. “It’ll be fine.”
Was he going to talk the whole time? Any other guy would have been humping her already.
He kissed his way down her chest to her belly and paused with his mouth above her pubic bone.
“What are you—”
Shock crashed over her. An impossible jolt of ecstasy spiraled through her in a whirlwind. Kit licked over and around her clit, his eyes raised to catalogue every reaction. He moved his fingers in and out, in and out, in and out, opening her wider.
Her innocence was being stripped away under his touch, and being replaced by an urgent driving force. Kit sucked hard on the bundle of nerves and the pleasure almost drowned her.
***
Not bad for a virgin. Kit nipped her inner thigh, unable to stop teasing her. He loved the way she jerked and twitched as her orgasm continued to trickle through her system. Thank God for older brothers and cousins who’d told him about their conquests and how to make sure a woman got as much out of sex as he did.
She was too tight, too small for him to shove his cock into her without helping her come first. Her taste lingered on his tongue, and her inner walls fluttered around his fingers.
“Are you still sure?” His cougar clamored inside, chuffing with excitement.
She cleared her throat. “Condom?”
He fumbled for his pants and fished the foil packet out of a pocket. He sheathed himself and moved to lay over her. Rhiannon twined her legs around him.
“You’re sure.” Kit caressed her thigh, the connection he’d been aware of since the first time they met a live and humming presence inside him.
“Yeah.” Spreading her legs wider, she rose to meet him in a kiss that rekindled the driving, relentless urge to bury himself inside her.
The cradle of her body accommodated his heavier, muscular weight. He held his cock and guided himself to her entrance. The head slid into her, and they both held their breath.
The tips of his fingers tingled, a sure warning his claws would erupt any moment. Rhiannon clasped his fingers. He dropped his forehead down to rest against hers.
“Okay?” he whispered.
“Okay. Yeah.”
Each rocking movement of his hips took him an increment deeper, her tight walls clenching around him. Rhiannon whimpered in discomfort, but when he tried to withdraw she dug her nails into his ass and wound one leg over his.
He’d never felt anything so overwhelming, so intense, so good in his life.
The sensation in his fingertips increased and his canines sharpened.
Mark her. Mate. Mate. Mate.
He had to claim her now. Make her his. Kit nuzzled the side of her throat, choking on her scent, electrified by the sizzling rope of energy slowing back and forth between them.
No. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Too young. It wasn’t right.
He panted, his cock inside her, their gazes locked.
Rhiannon rolled her hips, little impatient noises slipping past her lips.
“Stop. Just, hold still for a minute.” Kit retreated, the friction and heat taxing his grip on control. A careful thrust forward, and they moaned in tandem. Another slow withdraw, and he flexed his hips, somehow even deeper this time.
“I can’t—” Rhiannon bit his clavicle.
Orgasm tore through him. Stars burst behind his eyelids and sensation cascaded through every extremity. He crushed her to the blanket, his dick pulsing.
The cougar thrashed for freedom. Claws sprang from his finger tips and his canines fully transformed to their lethal, shifted length. He choked on a growl. Ringing filled his ears.
“Um...that was... did you?” Rhiannon stammered, her scent mixed with his driving him even further into madness.
Panic and adrenalin flooded his system. She was his mate, and she wasn’t safe with him. Not now. The cougar wouldn’t be satisfied unless he bit her.
He had her by the waist, ready to roll her over onto her stomach. Kit clamped his eyes shut and buried his face in his shoulder.
Bad move. She’d left her scent all over him.
“I...I...” He scuttled backward, leapt over the side of the truck, and tore off through the trees.
“Kit? Kit!” Rhiannon shouted. “Christopher. Where are you going?”
All he could do was run, tree branches snapping into his bare flesh, the piercing bite of stones digging into his feet. The cougar raged and shredded him from the inside, trying to force him to transformation for the first time since age twelve.
This wasn’t the right time to claim Rhiannon as his mate, but he knew by running from her this way, he’d never have another chance with her.
Her welfare mattered more than anything, and he wouldn’t take her as his mate when they were both too young. Above all, he had to protect her, even from himself.
A tear dribbled down his cheek and he collapsed to the forest floor, convulsing in agony as he resisted the change. Rhiannon—his mate—was out of his reach forever, but she’d have a chance to find someone else. Someone safe. Human. Someone with discipline.
Kit curled into ball on the forest floor, desperate and determined to stay away from her until he had authority over his cougar.
***
An hour later he hid in the canopy of bushes and foliage surrounding the pick-up where she waited with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Tears dripped off her chin.
Kit crouched deep in the subconscious of his animal form, unable to move closer to her and unwilling to leave her alone.
Rhiannon cleared her throat. She talked to herself, sniffling into the blanket. “I will never forgive you for this, Christopher Barrientos. Not ever. I thought you were the one. That we’d be together forever. Turns out you’re exactly like my daddy said you were.”
She hurt everywhere. Her back from the metal bed of the truck, her hips from spreading her legs wide, the swollen, stretched flesh between her legs.
Most of all, her heart. Her spirit. She’d believed she was a shifter’s mate. She’d even convinced herself he loved her just like she did him. Shifters never rejected a mate. They treasured them.
Now she had to go to the hotel and face her parents. Her daddy would be sure to have loads of choice things to say to and about her.
Rhiannon studied the star studded sky. She hadn’t been lying to Kit when she said she’d only applied to college to get away from her daddy. When she’d met him, her whole world spun on its axis and she’d realized she didn’t have to follow a traditional path.
The entire world was out there. She could do anything. Be anything.
Hell, she could get on the bus, go to Vegas, and pick up all the bad boy shifters she wanted. No one to stop her. She’d be a free woman soon.
She could dye her hair purple and dance on a stage. Shake her sexy curves in skimpy outfits.
Someday, Kit would roll into town and he’d see her and he’d remember this night and just what he left behind.
Did you know? The Charmed in Vegas newsletter is the place to keep up with the entire series (plus there will be freebies and special giveaways). Join now!