McKenzie, Cooper - The Cop's Mate [Sequel to The Billionaire's Lady] (Siren Publishing Classic)
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Sequel to The Billionaire’s Lady
The Cop’s Mate
Matt Brady has come to town to rescue his sister from a crazy billionaire. Instead, he finds the woman he’s been looking for all his life: his mate, a spoiled shape-shifter who’s attacked his sister twice. But he soon learns she’s not at all what he thought.
All Leigh Kincaid-Thorne wants is a mate of her own. Her desperation has turned her into a vengeful witch. When her mate steps in after the pack’s new queen bee puts her down, she knows she’s in trouble. Not only is Matt the enforcer for his own pack, he is a Dominant male and determined to break her of her of her spoiled princess ways.
After recognizing him, all Leigh can say is, “Yes, Sir.”
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifters
Length: 20,704 words
THE COP’S MATE
Sequel to The Billionaire’s Lady
Cooper McKenzie
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
THE COP’S MATE
Copyright © 2011 by Cooper McKenzie
E-book ISBN: 1-61034-211-9
First E-book Publication: January 2011
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of The Cop’s Mate by Cooper McKenzie from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Cooper McKenzie’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. McKenzie’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
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DEDICATION
To all those who begged for Matt’s story. A special thanks to Angel for putting up with my insanity. And to my favorite fireman for his encouragement.
THE COP’S MATE
Sequel to The Billionaire’s Lady
Cooper McKenzie
Copyright © 2011
Chapter 1
Matt Brady sniffed the air and his cock immediately stiffened and begged for him to find the woman who belonged to the arousing scent. He was glad he wore close-fitting underwear which kept his erection from tenting out the front of his pants. If he’d worn the boxers he normally preferred, the whole room would easily tell he was aroused and in need. That would garner him even more attention from the unmated females who were attending the pack meeting.
Searching for the source of the delicious scent, he tracked it to the beautiful woman with long tawny brown hair who had just walked away from his sister and her mate. She wore a slinky, crimson dress that left more of her exposed than it covered. The dress clung to her curves like a second skin, proving that while she might be wearing something under it, whatever else she wore wasn’t much.
His mate. He had finally found his mate. After hitting forty, he had decided he was not meant to mate. For the last five years, Matt had tried to resign himself to being alone for the rest of his life, but knew there had to be a woman somewhere in the world meant only for him, if only he knew where to look.
But here he was, eighteen hundred miles from his Santa Fe home and the woman the Fates had chosen for him had just walked into the living room. Sniffing the air for her lingering scent, he licked his lips while his nose twitched just before he sneezed. The spicy perfume she wore nearly overpowered her natural essence. Taking a deep breath, the tart, tangy and yet also sweet combination of sugar and lemon pie filled his lungs. Yep, the woman who had just hit on his sister’s mate was indeed his woman.
From across the room, she glanced back at him over her shoulder. He met her pale green eyes with a half smile. His cock throbbed as her eyes widened. She then turned away and hurried toward a group of women her age who, Adam had shared when they’d arrived earlier, were all unmated and eager to find their other halves.
Only after he fought down the urge to grab the woman in red, throw her to the ground, and mate her right there in the middle of the foyer did he turn to Margot Brady Jackson, his adopted sister.
“Who is that?” He nodded in the direction of his mate.
Margot wrinkled her nose as she’d smelled something bad. “That is Leigh Kincaid-Thorne. She’s the spoiled bitch who tried to kill me last week. I would recommend you stay far away from her.”
Leigh Kincaid-Thorne. Matt savored the name as she moved from the knot of young women to a group of men old enough to be her father. He watched her smile and flirt with each man, going so far as to touch one man’s sleeve and hug another. She kept her back to him, as if trying to ignore him and their connection. Did she not understand the Fates meant for them to be together? Destiny had brought them to this place and she needed to acknowledge him as her mate.
He growled low in his throat at her brazen actions. The sound earned him a sharp look from Adam, who was alpha of the Twin Rivers pack and his host while he was in New Bern, North Carolina, making sure Margot was safe and happy with this man who’d claimed her as his mate.
“I’m not sure that will be possible,” he said, though he didn’t elaborate further. “I’m getting a drink. Can I bring you anything?”
“White wine, please. And can you bring Adam a beer?”
Matt nodded and headed to the bar, hoping that by putting a l
ittle distance between them he could get himself under control. Otherwise, he would tackle her and claim her in the middle of the living room, not caring that Adam’s pack was in the room and watching his every move. That would not make a good impression on anyone, though the mated shifters present would certainly understand and sympathize with him.
Seeing the bartender was swamped with a line of people waiting for drinks, Matt didn’t hesitate to step behind the bar and lend a hand. Before joining the Santa Fe Police Department, he had been a bartender while he went to college for his degree in criminal justice. Working together it only took a few minutes to clear the crowd.
“Thanks, man,” the bartender said as Matt poured a glass of white wine and opened two bottles of beer.
“No problem,” he said with a shrug as he stepped from behind the bar and headed to the living room to find Adam and Margot.
After delivering their drinks, he found himself a piece of wall to hold up while he indulged in a few minutes of people watching. He had never been comfortable in crowds, which was why he refused his last three promotions. He liked being a patrol officer. He spent his days alone in a car traveling around town keeping the population safe.
It suited his personality and shape shifter need to help those in trouble while stopping those acting foolish. It was a job that he liked and was good at as evidenced by the number of awards he’d received for various acts of bravery or selflessness. He didn’t like the awards and attention he got for simply doing his job, but the department heaped praise on those who they felt deserved it. Matt just wished they’d pick on someone else and let him do his job without all the hoopla.
This trip had been the first vacation he’d taken in two years. His original thought was that he would have to de-brainwash his sister of whatever hold the billionaire she’d met just days ago had over her. It was bad enough she had lost her job, but to meet and move in with the man the same day and then let him take over her life was beyond his understanding.
That was until he had met Adam Thomasson and smelled shape shifter. When Adam confirmed his dual nature and that, as shocking as it was, Margot was his mate, Matt relaxed.
At least he had until the beautiful woman in the barely there red dress crossed his path. Now he understood Fate had brought him to New Bern, North Carolina, for an entirely different reason. He was not here to rescue Margot from another of the sticky situations she seemed to get into on a regular basis. He was here to claim his own life mate.
He sipped at his bottle of beer as he watched the woman in red work the room. She flirted with men of all ages, mated or not, while occasionally shooting nasty looks in Margot’s direction. As some of the other unmated females surrounded him to vie for his attention, he was polite, but distant. He would be claiming Leigh Kincaid-Thorne before the evening ended and didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. He only had to hold tight to his fast shredding patience at her behavior in the meantime.
* * * *
Leigh didn’t want to be there. She wanted to be home reading or playing with her new vibrator. Maybe it would help her forget that the man she had been chasing after for three years was now mated to a woman older than himself.
The two glasses of wine she’d drunk before leaving her parents’ house in the hopes of keeping herself from making a scene were not working. Neither was the glass she had quickly worked her way through since arriving. Instead, the wine loosened her tongue to the point that when several of the unmated females began to gossip about Margot Jackson, Leigh found herself unable to stop herself from sounding off as well.
“What does Adam think he’s doing by claiming her? There’s no way I’ll bow down before that human bitch, mate of the alpha or not.”
The others made noises of agreement, and she found herself going further. She boldly questioned Adam’s judgment and whether he should even be alpha if his mental state made him choose her as his mate. It was like she was outside her body watching as she carried on and on, ignoring the fact that the others had backed away and were looking at someone behind her.
“Leigh Kincaid-Thorne, I don’t know what high and mighty finishing school taught you that being a trash-talking bitch was appropriate behavior for a lady, but I suggest your parents should sue them.”
Leigh whirled to find Adam’s little human mate standing right behind her. She backed up two steps when she saw the anger in her expression and fire in her eyes. This woman was furious and obviously at the end of her rope if she was going to challenge a shape shifter in a room full of them.
“Yes, I am your alpha’s mate. If that makes me something special, so be it. I don’t even care that you’re talking bad about me, but I will not have you talking so negatively about Adam, especially while standing under his roof. In some societies, that would be called treason and is punishable by death. Here, in my home, it’s just stupid.”
The alcohol combined with the embarrassment at being caught gossiping by the subject of that gossip embarrassed Leigh into losing control. She growled low in her throat and felt herself beginning to shift. The wolf overpowered her human side, pushing her rational mind aside as it responded.
“You may be queen bitch now, but it will only be a matter of time before Adam comes to his senses and realizes he needs a shifter as his mate. Then you’ll find yourself dead. Until then, if you want me to bow to you then you’d better earn that show of respect.”
In the next second, her wolf overwhelmed her and she finished the shift only to find herself tangled up in the overly sexual dress her mother had forced her into wearing. Somehow her mother had got it in her head that if Leigh dressed as provocatively as she could she would more likely find her mate. She didn’t understand that Leigh didn’t care about mating. She just wanted to get the hell out of her parents’ house.
Only her parents clung to the traditions of the Old South. An unmarried female lived at home until her wedding day. She was allowed to work in the family business, but even at thirty-five, they refused to allow her to move into an apartment and live on her own. Which was part of the reason for her insanity over Adam not claiming her and instead mating with that woman.
Before she could shake off the silk, Margot kicked her, catching her just behind the shoulder and knocking her to the ground.
Before Leigh could scramble to her feet, Margot fell on top of her, holding her body down with her own while trying to avoid Leigh’s teeth and claws as the wolf tried to regain her footing. The woman worked one arm around Leigh’s neck and lifted her head so she couldn’t move. Then Margot leaned in and bit her ear hard.
The pain cut through her wolf’s hazy thinking. Leigh stopped fighting the woman’s hold and began to squeal from the pain.
“What the hell?” she heard Adam say before he talked to the woman lying on top of her. “It’s okay, baby. You’ve proved your point.”
It took a few more seconds before the pain in Leigh’s ear eased slightly. As the woman moved off of her, another man laid a heavy leg across her ribs, right where Margot kicked her. When she whined with the pain, he wrapped his hand around her muzzle and held her head down against the floor.
That’s when she smelled it. A dark, smoky pine scent that reached to her heart and squeezed. Her mate. The man, whoever he was, was her mate.
“Please, let me up,” she whined, wiggling to get even closer to the man kneeling over her.
“Calm down, little one. I’ll let you up in a minute,” the man said as he stroked his free hand down her back. She arched into his touch, wanting to get closer to him.
When attention turned from their corner of the room, he allowed her to stand but kept a hand knotted in the scruff of her neck. He draped her dress over her back and turned her to the empty room just a few feet away.
“Shift back and get dressed,” he ordered softly, swatting her none too gently on the ass to encourage her to move.
Suddenly Leigh couldn’t think of anything but meeting her mate face to face for the first time. Once alone, it
took a few minutes to shift back and then straighten out her dress and make sure she pulled it back on right side out.
When she heard Adam’s announcement and the applause, the residual effects of the wine challenged her more sensible side. She stalked into the room, pushing her way through the crowd until she stood face to face with Margot and Adam. “I don’t know about the rest of the females, but I refuse to acknowledge a human as my queen bitch,” she announced with a growl as her wolf pushed against the restraints she’d placed on it.
Looking behind her she found the other women were looking at the floor, or at the ceiling or anywhere they could to avoid looking at her. In fact, no one met her gaze as they all took a step back. Only one man moved closer until he stood just behind her left shoulder, but she didn’t look at him.
The scent of him wrapped around her, drowning out everything else in the room, including the perfume her mother had insisted she wear that evening. A perfume she hated like the rest of the public persona her mother insisted she maintain.
Margot looked at her mate. “Can she do that?”
Adam turned fierce turquoise eyes on her. His disapproval made her wish once again that she had ignored the summons to the pack gathering and stayed home with her sex toys.
“Leigh, you were just put down by your queen, or is your memory really that short? Margot is my mate, and you will pay her the respect due the alpha’s mate or you can find yourself a new pack that will take you in.” Then his gaze shifted to the crowd behind her. “And that goes for anyone else who thinks a human should not be your alpha’s mate.”