Night of the Cougar Read online

Dear God, don’t let him be dead, Jamie thought as she dropped to her knees beside him.

  Chapter Four

  His skin was as cold as the snow that covered goodly portions of his body, but a pulse beat beneath her fingertips as she pressed them to his neck. Weak and thready, but there.

  She hooked her hands beneath his armpits and pulled, trying to drag him indoors, into the growing heat of the room. But moving him was like trying to move a felled tree. His body was stiff and unresponsive. Deadweight, heavy, but she put her back and legs into it, dragging him away from the doors so she could secure them once again. Then, foot by agonizing foot, she tugged and jerked him across the floor until she had him in front of the fireplace.

  The last time she had started a fire on her own was in Girl Scouts, but like riding a bike, it soon came back to her. She wanted to jump with glee as the kindling flared to life and the logs above it caught fire.

  Heat quickly drifted out of the fireplace, but Jamie knew that would not be enough. She hurried down the hallway to the bathroom and grabbed an armful the towels then raced back to the living room.

  Kneeling beside Galen once again, she dried and rubbed down his body. He moaned then, as if in pain, but she pressed onward, pleased as color slowly crept back into his skin.

  With the fire and furnace now pumping out more heat, she lifted a comforter off a nearby couch and draped it over Galen, praying that all her efforts had been enough. But he didn’t rouse, and soon after her rubdown, his body began to tremble violently.

  Shared body heat.

  The words came to mind from some survival show she had seen on television. All she knew was that she couldn’t let Galen die.

  Ripping off her clothes, she covered his body with hers and pulled the comforter back over them. For good measure, she wrapped her arms around him and stroked him, pleased as his tremors fled. As warmth replaced the chill, a low rumble rolled through his body and he finally drew in a long breath, murmuring her name.

  “It’s me,” she said, and eased upward so she could see his face.

  His eyes fluttered open, displaying the gorgeous emerald color, along with something foreign. A flash of bright green, almost glowing, before another flutter revealed only the jewellike color she remembered.

  “Jamie,” he breathed again, almost like a prayer, and then he weakly lifted his hands to tenderly cradle her back.

  But his next words shocked her.

  “You’ve got to leave. It’s not safe here,” he said. He added almost sadly, “I’m not safe.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just rest,” she urged, splaying her hands on his chest.

  Inside him, Galen could feel the animal just waiting for night so it could emerge once more. She had to leave before then.

  “No, you have to go,” he said, and tried to rise, but couldn’t. He was too weak from a combination of that morning’s transformation and being trapped out in the cold and snow.

  “You have to rest,” she said, shifting her hands back and forth, warming him with her touch, reminding him of how long it had been since he’d felt a human touch.

  How long it had been since she had touched him. The memories of her roused a different kind of warmth inside of him.

  Jamie realized it as well. The comfort that had earlier filled her marvelous sky-blue eyes was replaced with the glittering heat of passion.

  He knew it was wrong. He could offer her little. The accident and mauling that had made him less than human had changed his life forever. Because of that accident he hadn’t returned any of her calls.

  But as she bent her head and brushed her lips against his, nothing had ever felt so right.

  He returned her kiss, reached up and cradled the back of her head in one big hand as they kissed over and over, exploring each other.

  Her lips were warm and mobile. Her hair so soft. Tickling him as it drifted forward against his face.

  He shuddered, but not from the cold. From the need to have her. The need to love her. To experience every nuance of what she was before he made her leave.

  He tightened his hold on her back and urged her upward until she was straddling his midsection with her legs and her breasts were just an inch from his lips.

  “Let me kiss you,” he said, wanting her sweet tits against his mouth.

  Jamie bent at the waist, answering his request.

  He did as he promised, kissing the peaked tip of each breast. Then he swept one hand around to knead the full flesh.

  She murmured her approval and implored him for more. “Kiss me again, Galen. Harder.”

  His balls tightened and his erection twitched between his legs as he thought of just how hard he wanted to take her. But his body was still not restored after his transformation and the exposure to the cold. So he would take his time and pleasure her until he was ready.

  He took one tight nubbin between his lips, sucking and licking it while caressing her other breast with his fingers. Her soft cry of pleasure pushed him on. Alternating from one breast to the other, he kissed and sucked and then bit, teething the tips until she trembled with desire.

  Jamie sifted her fingers through the snow-damp strands of his longish hair and held him to her, loving the feel of his mouth on her. She needed to feel him buried deep inside her, to celebrate the desire that still lived between them. She wanted to celebrate that he was alive and welcoming her.

  Never one to demur, she said, “I want to ride you, Galen.”

  He sucked in a breath, then the words burst from him with his exhalation. “I’d like that, ‘cause I’m not sure I could please you by myself.”

  She chuckled and shook her head even as she shifted down his body. “It’s not just by yourself, Galen. It’s always better when we’re both in it.”

  To prove her point, she took her time with her journey down his body, stopping to kiss his hard masculine nipples. Dropping a line of kisses down the center of his body until she was straddling his thighs and his cock lay before her, gigantically erect.

  She encircled him with her hand. He was incredibly hot. And smooth. She dragged her hand up and down the length of him. He groaned and as she met his gaze, she saw that his eyes had gone wide and dark with desire.

  “Do you like that, Galen?” she asked, although he didn’t have to say. She knew from the way he flexed his hips and gripped her thighs with his hands.

  She wrapped her second hand around him, stroking, dragging him ever closer to release, until he pleaded with her.

  “Suck me, Jamie. Put your mouth on me.”

  She did, kissing all around the head of his dick. Licking the first little drop of cum as it escaped him. Grazing her teeth along his sensitive head again before closing her mouth around him. She moved downward to take him in as deep as she could.

  He moaned and cradled the back of her head as she sucked him with her mouth, driving him to the edge, loving the tension in his body and the jerk of his dick in her mouth as he battled his release.

  “Now, Jamie. Please now,” he said, and with the gentle touch of his hands, he drew her upward until her center was poised above him.

  Resting her hands on his immense chest, she sank down slowly, holding her breath as his thick length filled her, grinding onto him until she had taken every inch of him deep into her. She stilled then, wanting to savor that sensation, thinking that the feeling was absolutely amazing and that her memory had not exaggerated the wonder of him, of his big body. So beautiful and masculine, she thought as she ran her hands up his chest to his broad shoulders, thick with muscle.

  She rode him, driving them both to release. She shifted her hips up and down as he caressed and suckled at her breasts until her breath was rasping in her chest and her body shook, on the edge.

  He must have sensed how close she was and what would send her over. He dipped one hand and eased it to her hip. Reaching down and across with his thumb, he settled it on her swollen clitoris. With gentle pressure, he raised her ever higher until she could no longer move and grou
nd down to drive him deep.

  He let out a breathy sigh against her breast and bit the tip.

  A wave of pleasure roared over her body and transferred itself to him as her muscles tightened and caressed his cock, dragging him over with her.

  She sucked in breath after breath, eyes closed as she waited for her body to calm. She savored the feel of him tucked inside, making them one.

  One, she thought, as she had a year earlier. From the moment she had met him, loved him, she had known they were meant to be one.

  With her release fading, she opened her eyes and finally noticed the new damage to his body: the slashes along his ribs and along his collarbone, the fine line and pinprick dots from stitches.

  She traced her fingers along that line, wincing as she imagined the pain the injury must have brought him.

  He cradled her cheek and said, “Don’t, Jamie. The pain is long gone.”

  “But you’re not, thankfully. You’re here and alive,” she said, and then blurted out, “and you didn’t return my calls.”

  Sadness crept into his gaze, darkening the emerald to almost black. “Let’s not talk about this now.”

  The crash of a log in the fireplace pulled her attention from him. The fire had eaten the wood greedily and now had to be fed.

  She reluctantly moved away from him, tossed several more logs onto the fire and then returned to his side, easing against him. Pleased when he wrapped his arm around her back and tucked her close, she rubbed her hand across his chest, relieved by the warmth there and the heavy, solid beat of his heart beneath her palm.

  “Rest, Galen. We’ll talk later.”

  “Later,” he echoed.

  Chapter Five

  Jamie woke alone.

  The fire had been freshly stoked and was filling the room with heat and the delicious smell of wood smoke. She sat up, holding the comforter to her body, and looked around.

  The shutters had been thrown open and bright winter light filled the room, but Galen was nowhere she could see.

  She rose and noticed that he had left his dark blue terry-cloth robe and slippers nearby. Since she couldn’t find her clothes anywhere, she eased on the slippers and the robe. She wrapped it tight around her and walked toward where she heard a repetitive thud and crack.

  Peering out at the large deck, she realized someone had cleared a path to the steps through nearly a foot of snow. Walking outside, she followed the path to the edge. With each step, the noise grew louder.

  At the railing, she looked down to find Galen about fifteen feet away, splitting logs with an immense ax that he hefted with ease. Up and over his head he picked up the ax and then drove it deep into the log. A sharp twist and the wood easily cracked in two. With another brisk move, he split those pieces in half with the same spare, economical motion.

  Beautiful, she thought again, admiring the play of muscles across his bare upper body as he worked. The snow around him glistened with the late morning sun. A chill nipped the air, but the sun was warm enough to start melting the snow off the branches of the pines surrounding the lodge.

  Jamie breathed in deep, loving the aroma of the evergreens and the icy clean mountain air.

  He must have heard her. He stopped and looked up, his eyes shadowed by fatigue and—if she was reading him right—concern.

  Hefting the ax in one hand, he grabbed the handles of a log carrier with the other and strode toward her. He carried the large load of wood as if it weighed nothing and walked up the steps. Carefully, he rested the ax against the deck railing and placed the log carrier down.

  As he did so, she noticed the tracks along the deck and down into the snow. Animal tracks. A big animal, she thought, noting the size of the paw prints and the depth of them.

  Galen tracked her gaze. She had seen the tracks. With Jamie’s intense sense of curiosity she would want an answer about the paw marks. Especially when she bent and held her hand over one, her eyes widening when she realized how small her hand seemed compared to the imprint.

  Galen strode toward her, bent and grasped her hand. He urged her upward and laid his hands on her waist. “It’s from a cougar.”

  Jamie shook her head in disbelief. “I didn’t think they got that big.” The suspicion in her gaze quickly turned to fear. “Is that what was chasing me last night? What was trying to get inside your home?”

  He inhaled deeply, trying to decide whether to tell her. Wondering if she would believe him if she did. But knowing Jamie, she wouldn’t leave unless he gave her a good reason and what better one than to reveal that he had become a monster. He held his breath, building his courage, before blurting out, “I was trying to get in.”

  “No way. It was an animal that chased me down. I heard it growling.”

  Galen cupped her face in his hands. “It was me, Jamie. I know it’s hard to believe. It was hard for me to believe when it first happened—”

  She laid her hand over his mouth, silencing him, wagging her head from side to side to deny what he was saying even as her eyes told him that she feared he was telling the truth.

  Bending, he kissed her tenderly, dropped his hands to her shoulders, cradled her close and held her for long minutes. She returned the embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her head against his bare chest.

  When she finally lifted her face to look up at him, she searched his features as if she expected to see something different and said, “How?”

  He walked her to the edge of the deck where, thanks to the elevation of the lodge, they had a view of the valley beneath them, a stretch of the logging road and, far in the distance, the village at the base of Cat’s Claw Mountain. Even though the sun was up, patches of low-lying fog blanketed some of the gullies and dips in the valley and the edges of the stream to the far right of his home.

  He raised his arm and pointed to the gap in the woods, which would normally be the dark scar of the logging road that ran past his home and up to the higher elevations of the nearby mountain. “I was driving up to the top, hoping to get some photos of the valley.”

  “Was that when you had your accident?” she asked, and laid her arm on his as it rested at her waist.

  “The road was slick, and I was going too fast to stop when something ran in front of me. I hit it. Hard, even though I was trying to avoid it.”

  “The news reports said you ran off the road and into a ditch.”

  “I did. Hit my head hard against the side window and the airbag punched me in the face.” He stopped, the memories coming back to him almost as if he was in that car. He had been dazed, and pain was radiating from his arm and collarbone. The spill of blood warmed the side of his face, the metallic scent of it rich in his nose. In his mouth, he tasted blood as well.

  “Galen? Are you okay?” Jamie asked, turning in his arms.

  “I need a drink,” he said, and ripped away from her, hurried inside to the bar tucked into one side of the large open space. He poured both of them glasses of Scotch and walked back to the couch in front of the fireplace. He waited for her to join him and when she did, he held out the glass, surprised when his hand shook.

  He took a big gulp, welcoming the burn as it traveled down his throat and landed in his stomach.

  “Galen, please tell me what happened.” She laid her glass on the table beside her and slipped to her knees before him, making it impossible for him not to see her. Not to read the love and concern in her expressive blue eyes.

  “I was hurt,” he began, and ran his free hand across the collarbone he had shattered in the crash. “But I was worried about what I had hit because, for a moment, I thought it had been a person.”

  “None of the reports said that there was anyone there,” she said, clearly having done her homework before coming here to see him.

  “There was nothing when the sheriff and EMTs arrived. The in-vehicle security system called them as soon as the accident sensors deployed.”

  “But you saw something.”

  Relief filled him whe
n he realized that she believed him. So far.

  “Like I said, I thought it might have been a person, but when I managed to drag myself out of the car, I saw a cougar. A big one. It was lying in the middle of the road, deathly still.”

  She made the connection quickly even though it was wrong. “The prints on the deck?”

  Yes, but not from the animal he had hit that fateful day.

  “I should have stayed in the car. Before I knew what was happening, the cougar got to its feet and stared at me. Its eyes were glowing this weird bright color.”

  “Cat’s eyes glow in the dark,” she offered.

  “It was daylight, Jamie. It wasn’t normal. The cougar wasn’t normal.”

  Jamie’s gaze drifted down to the pinkish scars along his ribs. “It did that to you.”

  He nodded and held out his arm, palm up, to display the other fresh scars along the inside of his forearm. “It raked its claws along my ribs and bit me, but then it dropped to the ground again. Its sides were heaving, and it was having trouble breathing.”

  “It was dying.” Jamie traced the scars on his forearm with her fingers, trying to soothe him.

  Nodding once more, he socked back another big gulp of the Scotch. “I think so. I crawled away from it, just in case, and then I passed out from the pain.”

  “And you think that made you…a were-cougar?” Jamie asked, certain that he believed it without hesitation. Not sure she could accept his words so easily.

  He shook his head and looked away, dragged his fingers through the already tousled strands of his longish strawberry-blond hair, clearly frustrated.

  She rose up on her knees, cradled his jaw and urged his face back until he was looking at her once again. “I know that you believe this, and I want to help.”

  “I’m not crazy, Jamie. It’s not safe for you to stay here tonight. But the road is impassable and with night coming so quickly at this time of year…”

  As his voice trailed off, she caressed his jaw gently. “I’m not hiking down the mountain, if that’s what you’re hinting at. I want to help you, Galen.”