by Celia Kyle
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Celia Kyle
Cover illustration by Kris Keller
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner Stokes
Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First Edition: November 2018
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ISBNs: 978-1-5387-4456-7 (mass market); 978-1-5387-4454-3 (ebook)
Printed in the United States of America
E3-20181010-DANF
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Also by Celia Kyle
Praise for Celia Kyle’s Shifter Rogues Series
About the Author
Newsletter
He gave her a teasing smirk.
He lifted her hand and brought it to his mouth. Then he gave her wrist one last caress with his thumb before replacing it with a soft kiss.
“I would never call a woman a trophy. A gift, perhaps, but never a trophy.” He spoke softly, his lips brushing her wrist. “Women aren’t meant to be fought and won. They should be seduced.”
Stella’s lips parted ever so slightly as she drew in a deep lungful of air. He knew her jaguar side would scent his desire for her.
“Is that what you’re doing? Seducing me?” She had been trying for snark, but the words came out as a breathy whisper.
“Yes, but if you have to ask, I must be doing it wrong.” He flashed her a grin and winked, releasing the building tension in the room, more out of self-preservation than anything. His cock was hard enough to hammer nails and his tiger side was ready to pounce. “So why don’t you let me try again?”
When life gives you lemons, you can always count on your best friends
to make you lemon margaritas. To my three besties—Flora, Jill, and Marina.
Thank you for being there to listen to my doubts, my fears, and
always having that margarita ready when I need it most.
Chapter One
Cole lifted the glass of champagne to his lips and pretended to take a sip. The sparkling Armand de Brignac Brut Gold was a cliché cake topper to the torturous night. He’d been served more of that champagne at more parties than he could count. The elite rich assholes needed to find a new “classic” drink.
Cole voted for Heineken, but his oldest brother said he was an “uncouth asshole who wouldn’t know the difference between hundred-year-old wine and shit wine out of a box if his life depended on it.”
Cole’s big bro wasn’t wrong.
Big bro also wouldn’t consider an evening surrounded by beautiful women in gowns that cost more than a Porsche cruel and unusual punishment. He’d enjoy being in a room lit by glittering chandeliers while background music provided by a string quartet filled the air. He’d revel in schmoozing with the other rich dicks and dancing with ladies who asked about his bank account first and his hobbies second.
Then there was the penguin suit Cole had been forced to wear.
Mmm…penguins. His inner tiger purred in the back of his mind, the feline licking its chops. The little shit. They were not going to think about hunting penguins. Especially since it wasn’t like he could sate his craving anytime soon. They were in South Carolina at a Southern plantation, not Antarctica.
The cat padded forward and nudged his mind, wanting to know if they could borrow his brother’s jet for a quick trip south.
Damn but it was tempting. Both halves of him—human and tiger—wanted out of this mansion. He hated being surrounded by people who’d rather turn his kind—shape-shifters—into fur rugs than friends.
Well, he’d rather blow up the mansion—and its inhabitants—than spend another moment in their company. His inner tiger purred at the idea of destroying every bit of wood, drywall, and marble flooring. Then they’d go to Antarctica.
The damn beast had a one-track mind. Too bad his boss wouldn’t appreciate him screwing up the operation. His employer—Shifter Operations Command—frowned on unauthorized bombings.
Not that he normally cared, but he was the only one uniquely qualified to infiltrate this millionaire crowd. Blending in to get intel took priority over watching things burn. He mentally sighed. It’d been too damned long since he’d watched anything be destroyed in a wave of fire and concrete. He missed seeing the air clouded with smoke and powdered drywall.
Cole lowered his glass as two women wrapped in sequins and glittering jewels strolled near. Their gazes stroked him from head to toe, and his lips tilted up in a practiced panty-wetting smirk. He knew how to play the high-society ballroom games even if he hated every minute of his time among the rich.
The brunette licked her red-painted lips and gave him a look that said she’d give him a good time, while the blonde hung back. Not quite standoffish, but not inviting, either.
No bother. Cole was on the hunt—for information—and the brunette would be easy prey. He focused on the woman, giving her the full heat of his stare, and the warm scent of her arousal teased the air.
He tipped his head to the women. “Ladies, good evening.”
The brunette wetted her lips in an age-old attempt to tease him. The blonde’s mouth tipped up in a small smile, though it almost resembled a grimace. He could sympathize with her hatred of these affairs. He
returned the heat in the brunette’s stare, forcing himself to appear interested when all he wanted to do was toss them both through the nearest window. He wasn’t normally a guy to abuse women, but…they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if they knew he was a shifter.
Hell, everyone in the mansion would want to kill him. It was a Unified Humanity party, and that was the thing about the world’s largest anti-shifter organization—they wanted his kind dead.
“I don’t think we’ve met before, Mr.…?” The brunette’s voice trailed off in obvious question.
“Turner.” He pulled his lips into a welcoming smile. “Cole Turner.” Neither caught his James Bond impression. “And you lovely ladies are?”
He already knew the answer to his question. His SHOC team had done their homework, and Cole had memorized every file the team had prepared. He knew all about this deliciously deadly human woman.
The brunette held out her hand first. “Olivia Walters.”
He gently grasped her fingertips and brought her hand to his mouth, brushing a soft kiss to her knuckles. “It’s a pleasure.”
In more ways than one. She was beautiful to look at—even if her father was an evil monster. More importantly, she was the first step in getting close to said evil monster. It’d taken him four months of coming to blasted hoity-toity parties—rejoining the old-money class he hated—to finally get invited to a Walters gathering.
Cole released Olivia’s hand and turned to the blonde. She was pretty in an understated way, and her hand trembled as she held it out for his.
The daughter of the notorious Richard King—rich genius, shifter hater. And she was a nervous murderer. Interesting.
“Charlotte—”
Olivia nudged Charlotte away, the woman’s hand dropping from Cole’s before his lips had a chance to brush her skin. “Cole…” She purred his name. “Can I call you Cole?” Olivia didn’t wait for a response. “Are you associated with the Turner Group?”
Cole parted his lips and drew in the surrounding scents. His tiger padded forward even further, anxious to help so they could get the hell out of there. He tasted each flavor and easily identified them. Excitement. Anticipation. Arousal.
Gross.
“I am.” Unfortunately. He flashed her his most disarming grin and fought to suppress the churning in his gut. He hated his connections to the Turner Group, but they were undeniable and—right now—useful. “I’m the youngest of the Turners. My older brother is the president. The rest fall in line after him.”
Olivia giggled as if he’d said the most amusing thing in the world, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes. “And what do you do for the company?”
Cole winked at her. “I’m the independently wealthy black sheep of the family.”
Even if he had black and orange fur instead of wool.
“I’ve always enjoyed spending time with the naughty ones.” Olivia eased even closer, her large breasts brushing his arm.
“Olivia,” Charlotte broke in, and Olivia shot a glare at her friend. “Your father is looking for you.”
Olivia gave him a strained smile—Daddy’s little girl didn’t like being summoned by Papa. “I’d love to finish this conversation later. If you’re not here with anyone, perhaps we can find each other again. Somewhere a little more private.”
“The night is, happily, my own.” He winked, using the charm he’d perfected during his own family’s shindigs over the years. Parties Cole had attended before he’d decided a life of violence was better than one spent in the boardroom.
Olivia stepped closer, fingers skating down his lapel. Her touch left a trail of her scent on the fabric, and he decided he’d burn the damn thing rather than have it cleaned. Dry cleaning could only do so much, and removing the stench of evil mixed with a bit of Chanel No. 5 was beyond most cleaners.
“Excellent.” She ran her tongue along her lips. “I’ll see you later this evening, then.” With that, Olivia slowly turned away, giving him a nice view of the long line of her bare back and her heart-shaped ass. “Come along, Charlotte.”
He kept his gaze on the two women, watching Olivia slice through the crowd with practiced ease while Charlotte King scurried in her wake. A waiter drifted past, and Cole reached out, snagging another glass of champagne while leaving his empty one in its place.
He slowly made his way along the outer edge of the crowd and turned to face the wall, gaze on some overly expensive—probably priceless—piece of shitty artwork. His beast lent its help to amplify his hearing, making him even more sensitive to the world around him. He listened to the murmured conversations in his immediate vicinity before moving on. He drifted past one group after another—each little clique whispering gossip while plotting another’s downfall.
He hated the entire scene—trophy wives, pompous executives, and bratty daughters hunting for a rich husband. More than one sugar baby wannabe looked at Cole like he was rich-husband material.
Rich? Yes.
Husband? A mate, maybe. Someday. A day far from right now and only after he found someone exactly like…exactly like a woman who was already mated to one of Cole’s SHOC teammates, which made her off-limits.
Cole was an asshole, not a homewrecker. Even if he did feel a pull toward a certain cougar shifter.
Cole listened to the discussions with half an ear, gaze traveling over the people he neared. He knew everything there was to know about rich shifter families, but these guys were all human. He’d had to study up before the op began. He mentally went through the research, identifying the humans he came across.
The balding man in the corner had a net worth of forty million. The guy who’d had a little too much to drink and slurred every other word only had twenty-eight million in cash and assets. There was a woman in a skintight, midnight-blue dress with a net worth of fifty million. Her husband had died early in their marriage under suspicious circumstances. At the moment, Olivia’s father—James Walters—was closing in on her.
Walters needed money—a lot—and it was only a matter of time before the human realized Cole was the one to give it to him.
Olivia wandered up to her father, Charlotte on her tail, just before he reached the widow, and the two exchanged a few whispered words. When James Walters cut Cole a quick glance, Cole knew he was their topic of conversation.
Time to play hard to get. There was no sense in making this game easy on Walters. Rich men were used to having to pander to richer men. Cole’s net worth was at least triple of anyone else’s in the building.
He changed direction and carefully cut through the crowd, passing off easy smiles whenever someone looked his way. He lost himself among the suits and glittering dresses, allowing the humans to swallow him with their presence. He kept a sedate pace while he wove between people. He didn’t want attention for any reason other than the size of his bank account. His assets alone should draw the right kind of attention.
He definitely didn’t want stares because he made a fool of himself, but that was exactly what he did. He froze midstep in the center of the room—at least on the outside. In his mind, the tiger snatched control and forced his gaze to remain on the woman who’d captured his attention. The woman with hair the color of wildfire. The woman with curves he ached to trace with his palms. The woman whose pale skin reminded him of moonlight.
She turned her head, giving him a glimpse at her profile. He traced her face with his eyes—the delicate slope of her nose and the soft line of her jaw. He spied the fullness of her lips and wondered what it’d be like to taste her—explore her.
Cole remained her captive, unable to overpower the cat so they could continue the operation. It urged him to go to her, pull her into his arms and never release her. Beauty like that should be worshipped.
“Another glass, sir?” The intrusion tore him from fantasizing about the flame-haired beauty. The spell she’d woven around him shattered, and he looked to the waiter.
“No.” He shook his head. “Thank you.”
He st
epped around the server and returned to his wanderings, ignoring the occasional confused glance from guests who’d obviously seen him staring. They’d get over it. He had enough money that others were willing to overlook eccentricities.
He finally reached the other side of the room and turned and leaned against the cream-colored wall. He took another sip of champagne and forced himself to swallow. The shit was nasty. What he wouldn’t give for a beer.
Cole watched and waited. He’d stay put for a little while. Just long enough for James and Olivia to catch sight of him before he changed location once more. A game of cat and mouse. Or rather big cat and crunchy humans.
The tiger didn’t want to stay put. Instead, it wanted to hunt a specific female. He tried to remind the cat that they were at a Unified Humanity party and had a job to do. Besides, only UH members were at the party, which meant their redheaded vixen wasn’t a fan of shifters. Did the beast want to seduce a woman who would love to see their kind eliminated?
The beast hesitated, and Cole sensed the feline weighing its options when its choice should have been obvious.
Crazy cat.
He spied Olivia and James in his periphery, the father’s and daughter’s attention on him. He should push away from the wall, find a new location to wait for the duo. Except she demanded his attention once more.
The tempting woman cut through the crowd, a flash of deep red as she wove her way past guest after guest. With every step, more of her was revealed—sparkling green eyes, those lush lips, the soft glow of her cheeks. Then there were her curves. The curves taunted him, the bodice of her dress snug over her large breasts to her nipped-in waist before flowing over the plump line of her ass.
And now she was close—so close he could almost reach out and touch her. The hem of her gown ghosted over his shoes, and her delicate scent teased his nose.
She was gorgeous.
She was tempting.
She was…Cole drew in a deep breath, savoring her natural flavors…a shifter?
Chapter Two
Stella’s attention drifted across the ballroom, and she handed out polite smiles anytime one of the guests happened to glance her way. The humans didn’t meet her gaze that often. One sweeping glance was all it took for them to decide she wasn’t worth their time. Which was all the better for her since she had a bomb in her boobs and a destination in mind.