by Marie Harte
One more connection and four hours later, standing outside the Miami terminal in the humid light of day, Joy couldn’t wait to slide under the covers of her bed again. The plane ride had seemed to last an eternity. She’d been taunted by Quince’s delicious scent the whole way. It didn’t help that Mr. Sexy had picked up the attention of first a flirty flight attendant and then a pretty passenger at the baggage terminal.
Ellis Minor picked them up in a large blue SUV. After stowing their luggage, he slid behind the driver’s seat. A decent enough guy who’d always treated her with respect, he cast Quince a sidelong glance and grinned. Pleading exhaustion, she decided to let them talk up front while she did her best to crash in the backseat. But she wasn’t so tired that she missed the shock on Ellis’s face before she entered the vehicle.
Quince let out a growl.
She shut the door behind her and buckled in. “Something wrong?” she asked as Ellis pulled away from the curb.
“N-nothing.” He coughed and wouldn’t meet her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Just happy to see you both back in one piece. I thought for sure Quince would have come back a broken shell of a man. Everyone knows better than to screw with the Bermins.”
Silence descended, and she caught Ellis’s innocent remark about screwing, realizing the double entendre. Quince would no doubt pick up on it. She didn’t have to see him to know he’d be smiling right about now.
“Shut up, Quince.”
He snorted. Ellis coughed again but couldn’t smother the grin caught by the rearview.
Ignoring the flush on her cheeks, she closed her eyes and feigned sleep. But she couldn’t stop thinking about all she’d heard since leaving Cougar Falls.
What she’d learned on the plane had surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. Lex had been a devious jerk, but she hadn’t realized why he’d been so firmly entrenched in the pride. For a long time, she’d thought Quince’s claim that he’d done his best to stop the egomaniac a half-assed excuse for not trying harder. Kill Lex, save the pride. Miles wanted to take Lex out himself, but he’d had his sisters to protect, and he took his role as head of the household seriously.
But if Lex had seized control of the pride’s finances…
The pride lived as individual families scattered around the Everglades, though most had settled in and around Miami. Like their animal namesakes, the Florida cats liked their space. To a degree. Their social structure kept them tight, spending weekends, holidays, and usually their free time partying together, either at the pride estate or in the swamps at the House. Running on all fours, seeing the world through a panther’s perspective, absorbing the unique scents of the world as a cat—nothing beat it.
She could understand the group in Cougar Falls. They lived among their own kind, protected by that magical totem that kept non-Shifters out. They could shift whenever they wanted and run free without fear of capture. But they were so closed off.
Joy loved the sun and the sand, and living out in the real world. She had to keep sharp, constantly aware of the true humans and possible Hunters around her. The attention to detail and need to play pretend-human appeased her cat, though. It was like playing with prey. She considered anyone not her friend or her kind a potential enemy. It kept her instincts sharp. Sharper than the Chastells’, at any rate.
Smug in her confidence as a feline, she wished she had as much assurance about her feminine traits. Oh, she knew she was cute. But in a family of gorgeous and talented people, cute didn’t cut it. Stacey was a knockout. Amy and Melissa could do anything with poise and perfection and had their share of admirers. Heck, before she’d left, she’d caught a few wolves talking about dying for a date with one of the Bermin twins. And Miles, of course, could do no wrong. Or so everyone else seemed to think. Personally, she thought her rich, handsome, charming brother needed to unwind. His beef with Quince was starting to look a lot less based on fact and more on emotion.
They’d been so close once. Growing up, he and Quince had been inseparable. Bad news for Joy, because she’d been crushing on Quince something fierce, and he’d never noticed her—just one of Miles’s little sisters. She’d done her best to ignore the attraction until it faded to a gentle admiration. Miles had become so busy with business the last few years, he was at home as much as he was gone. And Quince had become integral to the workings in the pride. It made sense they’d drifted apart.
Then Michael had disappeared, his two previously unknown sons had arrived to take over the pride, and everything had gone to hell. Factions of bullies rose up out of nowhere. The money started to disappear into limos for Lex, all-night orgies and expensive properties they didn’t need. Females’ rights disappeared, and “might makes right” became the pride’s new motto.
Fast forward five months, and she was supposed to believe life had changed because Quince, with Michael’s blessing, had assumed command.
She wanted badly to trust what he’d told her. All the rumors, the beatings and the thievery she’d heard that Quince had been a part of—all a ruse? Yet she couldn’t deny that her recent time spent at home, while dodging Quince in between trips back to Cougar Falls, had shown her that life indeed had returned to a normal state. Kind of.
The females still bristled if told to do anything. The males still wandered around on guard, snarling at each other while expecting the women to roll over and do whatever they wanted. No, come to think of it, they’d always been like that. Miami cats tended to be very good looking, and they took grooming to an all new level.
She sighed against the seat, wishing she could understand why her cat had never seen Quince as a threat. Because he wanted her? Because he had a fortitude her feline could respect?
And could she really forget that amazing sex with the big guy? Good Lord, but she’d seen stars with him. So generous, so wonderful. Even now she might be pregnant… Her cat purred with satisfaction, but Joy panicked. She was too young to have babies, not when she hadn’t yet made her mark as a Bermin.
So she didn’t have terrific design ideas. She couldn’t sew that well, and she had no head for business. She did like to have fun, and she’d been toying with some concepts for the junior market. Young women who wanted to be sexy, not slutty. A concept Stacey wouldn’t understand, she thought with a sneer.
Her sister had nothing to complain about. She was beautiful, with a great guy at her side, and had the admiration of everyone around her. No one had ever tried to single her out to get at one of her sisters. Or asked where her coloring came from in a family full of blondes. Or what exactly she contributed to the design business. But Joy had dealt with men using her to get at Stacey and even Miles for years. She was the only black-haired girl among golden siblings. And though she wanted to be a part of the family business, she didn’t think she had it in her to be great, merely good.
Now Quince supposedly wanted to date her. She’d wanted him forever, and he’d never seen her. But maybe, because Stacey had mated and her sisters had moved to Cougar Falls, she was the only one available. Might he be using her to get into Miles’s good graces?
She believed Quince hadn’t liked Lex. Reviewing how many times he’d warned her and tried to help her and her family stay safe from Lex’s men, she didn’t think he’d been in league with Lex. Not really.
But a guy like Quince, now head of the pride, could have any female he wanted. He’d always been handsome, so women had never been his problem. He said he wanted her. Well, he’d had her. Now she’d see if he meant it about dating her, or if he had another agenda. She might not be business savvy, but she was the top predator in her family. Of that she had no doubt. If Quince thought he could use her to further some goal of his, he had another think coming.
Right upside the head.
Chapter Four
“If you don’t get out of my face in the next two seconds, I’m going to rip your claws out one by one,” Quince snarled at Leonard Silas, a whiny, ungrateful sycophant wanting more than his share. As usual.
L
eonard took an immediate leap back, then turned and raced from the room, muttering under his breath as he did.
“Ah, Quince? Maybe not the best approach,” Jace cautioned.
“Fuck that. The asshole is still trying to steal from the pride. Bad enough when he was sucking up to Lex. He doesn’t bring in what everyone else does, he doesn’t get more than his fair share.” The little creep wanted the new apartment complex in South Beach. Like Quince didn’t know the asshole would take kickbacks and skim rent off the top.
“Sure, right.” Ellis and Jace exchanged a glance.
Oliver, a CPA with a brain like a calculator, took a step inside the office, took a good look at Quince, then turned around and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
“What?” Quince growled. “Who’s next?” He normally disliked the open office time on Wednesday afternoons, when the pride could bring him their concerns and requests for assistance. But lately it seemed no one wanted their due, just more than they needed. How the hell could he get the pride back to running smoothly if the same selfish dickheads wasted his time on trivial matters? “And why the hell aren’t you two dealing with this shit instead of me?” he asked Ellis and Jace, who continued to stare at him in concern.
“See, we’re thinking you need a break,” Jace said.
“I need to get us back on track. Where’s Dana with the spreadsheets? I need to see how our real estate assets are sitting. Is Rain out there?”
Ellis shook his head and spoke calmly, slowly. “Rain is probably in his office handling the stuff you gave him to work on last night. And Dana and Willow are with Joy, remember?”
He glared at Ellis. “I’m not senile. I just forgot.” Not that it should be any great surprise Joy wasn’t around.
Jace snorted.
“You have something to say?” he asked, more than ready to tear someone apart. Quince wanted to hunt something down and kill it. For the past week, he’d seen Joy sparingly while she watched him from a distance. She’d spent time with his lieutenants and Dana and Willow touring the pride, seeing it from the inside out, gauging the politics and dithering that normally soaked up all his free time.
So much for the grand seduction he’d had planned. The woman continued to steer clear of him, even sitting ten feet away at last night’s dinner in the estate commons where he and his council took meals.
“Joy has been asking questions and listening to everything we tell her,” Ellis said.
“Yeah. And?”
“And I get the impression she’s still not too sure of you,” Jace answered. “I thought you had this handled.”
By handled, Jace meant securing the woman’s attention. The pride leader was expected to take a mate. Michael’s had died years ago during his tenure as leader, so he’d been excused. Now that Quince had returned and the pride seemed in order, there’d been noise about having a more stable influence in charge. Namely, a pride leader with a female by his side.
On the one hand, not having a mate would solve his problems. He didn’t want to be in charge. But not having a suitable replacement nixed that idea. He’d step down in a heartbeat if a better candidate appeared. Instead, he had Lex’s groupies and sniveling idiots like Leonard who wanted the position. And none of his lieutenants had asked for the job. No, all the smart ones knew how thankless and time-consuming being pride leader actually was.
Yet, needing a mate gave Quince the perfect opportunity to approach Joy. He’d intended for her to realize how wrong she’d been about him and Lex. See how stellar a job he was doing, then be seduced by his manly prowess in bed. He knew he could thrill her body, but the stubborn woman had eluded him to such an extent he wondered if she even remembered their lovemaking. Or had it just been incredible in his mind?
He snarled, experiencing a deep need to turn feline and rake the palm trees in the courtyard once more, as he’d done last night.
“Easy there, oh great pride leader.” Trust Jace not to back down when he should. “I’m just saying maybe you need to step it up a notch. You need a mate, and the one you apparently want isn’t around enough to get things started.”
“I thought you’d nailed it.” Ellis’s eyes grew large when Quince stood from behind the desk and advanced on him. “Nailed it. Nailed it, Quince, not her.”
Jace laughed until Quince swung a vicious glance his way.
“I caught your scent on her when I picked you guys up from the airport,” Ellis explained. “She had the mating scent on her. But it’s faded. Are you keeping her or what?”
Quince dragged his hand through his hair. “The woman is running me ragged. I told her I wanted her to be an important part of the pride, and she’s taking this new position of Female Liaison to heart. I can’t get her to stop moving long enough to mate her.”
Jace shook his head. His blue eyes looked sad. “Dude. Come on, Quince. Use your head. Trick her into some alone time. Take her out to the House.”
The pride’s meeting place in the Glades was a hidden gem. A huge house off the grid, solar-powered and large enough to accommodate all the pride at once, the wooden structure had enough niceties that close to a hundred cats could mill around and laze to their hearts’ content. Just forty minutes away, but once out in the pine forest, it felt like another world entirely. The pines, salt marshes, canals and flat land all around were resplendent with wildlife and vegetation. God, he needed to run.
“Take her out to the House?” he asked on a huff. “When? Every five seconds around here someone has a new problem. Then the Rochert deal went bust, and I spent two days patching that.”
“Which is holding, by the way.” Ellis gave him a thumbs up. “So Jace and I think you should take Joy away. The House is a perfect escape. We’ll put the word out to everyone to steer clear of it for a few days for maintenance issues. Between Jace, Dana, Willow, Rain, Oliver and I, we’ll hold down the fort. You go work your magic.” Ellis wiggled his brows.
Quince sighed. “I get within scent of her, and she’s gone. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s fast.”
Jace shook his head. “What dumbass meant but didn’t say—”
“Hey!”
“—was that she’s a Bermin. Joy’s too smart to fall for ‘nice’. Tie her up, kidnap her, whatever it takes. But you need to do something about fixing your unmated status pronto or you stand to lose the pride.”
“Shit. I know that. But I don’t want…”
“What?”
He didn’t want to mate Joy to grab the pride. He wanted the woman to come to him because she couldn’t do without him. Except she wouldn’t let herself talk to him, let alone make love to him again. It just figured she’d be a pain in the ass about everything.
He groaned. “Damn. Fine. Just watch things for me tomorrow. Joy and I will be busy as of tonight. But not a word, I’m telling you. The woman hears and sees all. It’s a little scary.”
“Yeah, she’s a sharp one.” Ellis nodded. “Come on, Jace. Let’s get his schedule to Willow so she can reroute meetings.”
“Okay. And I’ll take the northern run. Got a few felines I need to double-check.”
“Right. I’ll grab the immediate coast. We’ll put Oliver and Rain on as leads.”
They left discussing pride business, and he knew they’d take care of things in his absence. Quince loved the guys. After Miles had immersed himself in work, Ellis, Jace, Rain and he had found common ground working for Michael. Watching over the pride, fixing problems, reporting any and all issues. They’d grown tight, so when Michael had gone missing, they’d known something was wrong.
While Quince had gone undercover acting like Lex’s trusted lieutenant, the guys had publicly snubbed him while secretly keeping him in the loop about goings-on in the pride. They’d helped protect the weaker members while he did his best to smother Lex’s efforts when it came to those who fought back against him.
Because they’d had his back and supported him taking over the pride, many of the others had accepted his retur
n. Then too, with Dana, Willow and Oliver’s help spreading the word about what had really happened with Lex—as well as recovering nearly fifty million dollars in pride funds—he’d found himself welcomed back wholeheartedly…except for Lex’s friends.
Ayers, Watson and a handful of others continued to raise discontent. He had to stop fucking around and take a mate. As distasteful as he found the notion of running the pride forever, he believed in sacrificing his wants for the good of the many. Besides, he wanted Joy like he needed his next breath. Time to stop letting her lead him by his nose and show her who was in charge.
Hell, what did he have to lose? He’d told her the truth about the past and thought she believed him. But maybe she didn’t realize how serious he was about dating—claiming—her. They’d had sex only once. He needed to reaffirm how much he desired her, and no time like the present.
Quince waited to pounce until later that night. He drove to Joy’s house, a nice place in Pinecrest. Quiet, suburban and upscale enough that she didn’t need to worry about an onslaught of break-ins. He parked in her driveway and walked to the front door as if he belonged there.
Before he had a chance to knock, she opened the door and peeked her head out, frowning. “Quince?”
“Good. You remember my name,” he drawled, wishing the woman would smile at him once in a while.
“What are you doing here? Slumming?” She smirked.
Considering he’d taken over Michael’s five-million-dollar spread in Palmetto Bay, her neighborhood could technically be considered a step down. But the house he resided in currently housed a dozen cats. The property was on a private compound nearly six acres large, offering plenty of room for cats to roam under secluded trees and behind a secured gate. Yet it had never felt less like a home without Michael…or someone special to share it with.
Keeping to the plan, he lowered his voice. “I need to pull the SUV into your garage. There’s something I need to show you.”