He tried to figure out why she was mad with him, other than the obvious fact he was holding her captive.
Because he had been flirting with Taya?
Or because he had left her alone all night?
It struck him that she thought he had been out all night with Taya.
And that she was jealous.
He was starting to wonder whether she really had a fiancé, or whether she had made him up to spite Storm because he had rejected her.
And he was starting to wonder why the fuck her jealous outburst pleased him so damn much.
He plunged the coffee, poured her a mug and turned and presented it to her with a flourish and a bow. “Is there anything else ma’am would like?”
“I’d like out of here.” She rose from the couch and snatched the coffee from him, her blue-grey eyes flashing fire at him.
The way she planted her free hand on her left hip made her breasts jut out in her green t-shirt, luring his eyes to them. He resisted and kept them locked on hers.
“You had a shot,” he muttered and almost smiled when her eyes widened. “I might have forgotten to lock the door last night.”
Those stormy eyes narrowed. “Obviously, you find it hard to think with your big head when the little one is demanding attention.”
Ouch. Questioning his self-control now?
She was one to talk. He hadn’t missed the fact she had checked him out, long and slow, drinking in every inch of him when he had been naked. Just as he hadn’t missed the way her breath had hitched, and desire had flared in her eyes when she had been close to him.
Or how she wanted to kiss him.
Which was hell for him.
She couldn’t have just remained aloof and cold towards him, could she? She had to go show him some interest, enough to spark his own and bring it to the fore, allowing it to slip its leash enough to have him considering kissing her.
Gods, he had wanted to kiss her.
“My big head thinks just fine, Little Bird.” He took a step towards her. “The little one is more about the doing than the thinking.”
“From what I’ve heard, you’re purely about the action. Chasing tail obviously makes you forget you have a prisoner. I’ll remember that next time.” The bite in her soft voice, the way it snapped at him, had him narrowing his eyes on her and trying to see whether it was all for show, or whether his disappearing act all night had truly riled her.
What was it to him if it had?
She was just a prisoner, more than likely worked for his enemy, and as soon as he found out everything he wanted to know, she would be out of his life.
Storm pushed past her, slumped onto the couch, and kicked his feet up. He closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and sighed as he sank into the cushions.
Gabriella moved a step away from him, towards the door.
“Don’t even think about it. I’m tired, and I’m cranky, and you don’t want to get on my bad side,” he growled without looking at her and tried to relax.
She didn’t help.
“Oh, did you wear yourself out being a man-whore?” She moved another step away from him, but since she only went to the kitchen, he didn’t bother moving, just tracked her with his senses.
Which said she was more than angry.
She was furious.
If anyone should be furious, it was him. He huffed. “I’m not a man-whore.”
“I heard you talking to that Flint fellow… about tapping the women. It’s disgusting.” Her eyes landed on him, and her sharp tone lashed at him. “Is that what this place is? Some sort of filthy retreat for shifters like you to indulge your base urges?”
Storm sprang to his feet, whipping to face her. “You want to see my base urges, Little Bird? They’re not pretty, and they certainly don’t involve fucking.”
She looked as if she might shrink away, but then she slammed her mug down with surprising force on the counter and squared up to him, her chin tipping up as her blue-grey eyes flashed. “You’re going to fight me? Come on then. I’m not afraid of you.”
She was, but he gave her credit for not showing it. He had to use his senses to feel it in her.
She sucked down a breath and took a fierce step towards him. “Why don’t you just get it over with and kill me? That’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? That’s why you won’t let me speak to Ivy. It doesn’t matter what I say to you, because you’ve made up your mind about me.”
For the first time since he had dragged her into his cabin, tears filled her eyes, and he saw the fear she had locked inside her in them.
She spun away from him and bent her head, and gods, a chill went through him as he stared at her, as the weight of her pain pressed down on him and birthed a need to go to her, to reassure her that he wasn’t going to do anything like that.
He planted his boots to the floor instead, and murmured, “You just have to talk, Little Bird. Silence is getting you nowhere.”
“What’s the point in talking to you? You’ve already made up your mind,” she croaked and cleared her throat.
Anger he could handle, waterworks he could not.
He took a step towards her before he realised what he was doing and stopped, but he couldn’t keep from saying, “Gabriella.”
Her small shoulders tensed and she drew down a shuddering breath. “What?”
He scrubbed a hand over his hair, because he wasn’t sure what he had meant to say to her. He wasn’t sure of anything as he stood there staring at her trembling shoulders, feeling her pain going through him, cleaving him open.
“Can you just leave again?” she whispered, and he could feel she meant that, wanted it more than she wanted him near her.
That stung a little.
He wasn’t going to examine why.
“Not going to happen,” he said and wasn’t surprised when she rounded on him, fury in her bloodshot eyes again.
“Leave,” she snapped and he shook his head. She was behind him in the next second, hands on his back, shoving him towards the door. “Get out.”
“It’s my cabin.” He exerted a sliver of his strength, and it was enough to make it impossible for her to move him.
She was strong for a human, clearly worked out, but even a female cougar couldn’t move him when he put his mind to it.
“Fine.” The heat of her hands disappeared from his back and she stormed around the couch, heading for the door. “I’ll leave then.”
“I don’t fucking think so.” He blocked her path before she could reach the door, folded his arms across his chest and shook his head.
It didn’t deter her.
She shoved her hands against her curvy hips and stared him down, her soft pink lips settling in a mulish line.
He much preferred this feisty and furious female to the one who had been crying a moment ago.
“Take me to Ivy,” she snapped. “I want to be with Ivy and Rath. I’m sure they wouldn’t treat me like this.”
The thought of Rath treating her kindly, being near her and taking care of her, really grinded Storm’s gears and he ended up growling at her, turning and locking the door, and shoving the key in his pocket. No fucking way she was going to Rath.
Gabriella’s blue-grey eyes widened, and then they narrowed as they lifted from the door to him, something flared in them, and she turned her back on him.
Fight over?
He had expected her to give him at least a few more rounds.
He had expected her to get him fired up again, push him to the edge as she had before and then attempt to lure him into kissing her.
His own eyes widened as it hit him that he had wanted it.
Still wanted it.
Instead of her soft warm lips on his, he got the cold shoulder. She moved around the cabin, fixing herself another coffee and leafing through his collection of worn paperbacks, diligently ignoring him.
Which grated more than the thought of her with Rath and Ivy.
Gods, he needed some air.
He unlocked the door, opened it and shut it behind him. The relief was immediate, the crisp fresh air in his lungs cooling the fever burning deep in his bones, the insane need to kiss her.
A human.
One who was probably his enemy.
She flew at the door as he locked it, scowled at him through the glass and banged her palms on the wooden panels. “You can’t keep me prisoner!”
“I made it pretty clear I can… and I will until you answer my questions… honestly.” He waved the key at her, feeling like a jerk as she looked at it and then at him, her pale eyebrows furrowing.
“I’ll talk… but not to you. I want to speak with Ivy.” With that, she turned her back on him and sank onto the couch.
Refused to look at him for the ten minutes he stood on the deck, which really fucking riled him.
He added cold shoulder treatment to the things he couldn’t deal with when it came to women, turned on his heel and strode towards his brother’s cabin at the top of the clearing.
Maybe it was time he called in the cavalry.
Ivy was on the deck of Rath’s cabin, sipping coffee and admiring the view, her camera in her lap, ready in case anything of interest showed up.
As he approached, Rath poked his head out of the open door and said, “I can feel your anger a mile off.”
“Ready to admit defeat?” Ivy set her mug down and looked across at him, her hazel eyes tracking him as he rounded the deck of the cabin that was smaller than Storm’s own one, but had a huge glass pane that covered the top triangular section of the gable end, where the loft bedroom was.
Maybe he should have put in a loft bedroom when he had been building his.
It had better views than his cabin too, but then he wasn’t going to complain. He only visited once every few years, when his brother pressed him to come home, so he had no need of a nice view. Rath lived at Cougar Creek year round, taking care of the cabins and the land for everyone.
Storm wasn’t sure how his brother did it.
It would drive him insane.
A little like Gabriella.
Storm threw his hands up. “I admit defeat.”
Ivy grinned at that.
“You haven’t gotten anything out of her?” Rath stepped onto the deck, wearing only a loose pair of faded jeans that rode low on his hips.
His dark brown hair was damp too, and Storm hadn’t failed to miss that Ivy’s chestnut hair hung in wet waves around her shoulders. Conserving water by sharing a bath?
Or maybe just enjoying their newly-mated status.
As much as he didn’t like humans, he liked Ivy, and he valued a fated mate just as much as the next cougar. She was good for his brother and he was happy the idiot hadn’t completely fucked things up and driven her away.
He shook his head. “Other than the fact she has a fiancé, no. She won’t tell me anything about him though and I want to know who he is.”
Purely because he wanted to protect the pride and worried the male might be a member of Archangel like her brother. It had nothing to do with the jealousy that ran rampant in his blood whenever he thought about the male possessing Gabriella.
“It’s news to me, but I can ask her about him.” Ivy moved her camera off her lap and sat up in the wooden chair, gathered her hair and tied it back. “I’ll do my best to get her to talk… I’m sure she’ll speak to me.”
“I want to be there.” Storm folded his arms across his chest, and frowned when Ivy shook her head, causing her chestnut ponytail to sway across the shoulders of her merlot t-shirt.
“You’re a little intimidating, Storm… and I heard you shouting at her from here. I think the whole creek heard.”
Great. Just great. That was the last thing he needed.
“She isn’t exactly cooperative,” he bit out in his defence.
Rath smirked. “Takes someone who is uncooperative to know one.”
He shot his older brother daggers for that one.
“Ivy goes in alone.” Rath held his hand up before Storm could protest. “Gabriella is more likely to talk if she’s alone with Ivy, feeling secure and safe.”
Insinuating that Little Bird didn’t feel safe and secure around him. Low blow.
He let his brother off when he continued.
“We will wait on the deck.”
That, Storm could go along with, because Gabriella would think she was safe to talk with Ivy with the windows and door closed, that their conversation would be private.
When Storm would be able to hear every damned word she said.
CHAPTER 5
The door opened and Gabi turned towards it as she rose from the couch, a barb on the tip of her tongue, ready to launch at the man.
Ivy stood in the doorway.
Gabi couldn’t stop herself from flying at her, hurling her arms around her neck and hugging her, relief sweeping her across the room in a heartbeat. It washed through her in strong waves that stole her strength as Ivy wrapped her arms around her waist and squeezed her tight.
“It’s okay,” Ivy murmured against her shoulder. “No one is going to hurt you.”
Gabi lifted wary eyes to the two men on the deck—the pig and his brunet brother, the one who had been injured.
The one who had killed Alexander.
No trace of remorse coloured his grey eyes as he looked at her.
That made it hard for her to believe Ivy. She had the feeling that if they didn’t like what she had to say, if they didn’t believe her, then she was destined for the same future as her half-brother.
“You know what they are, right?” Gabi whispered as she released Ivy and backed into the cabin, away from the two men.
Ivy nodded. “I know.”
And it was clear she wasn’t afraid of them, not as Gabi was. Because the one called Rath was something to Ivy?
Ivy glanced at the two men and closed the door in their faces. They exchanged a look and turned their backs on the cabin, and started talking to each other, their words muffled through the wood and the glass.
“Just you and me now.” Ivy led her to the couch, and Gabi slumped onto it, feeling bone-deep tired as all her strength suddenly drained from her, seeing Ivy, a familiar face, one that was gentle and kind, stealing it away.
“I can’t believe you know what they are and you’re not afraid of them.” She looked across at Ivy as the brunette sat beside her, her deep red t-shirt a contrast to her charcoal trousers.
Gabi’s own clothes had definitely been a gift from Ivy, one she would thank her for later, after she had said everything rushing to the front of her mind and the tip of her tongue.
Ivy glanced over her shoulder at the door. “They’re not so bad once you get used to them.”
Gabi shook her head at that. “Maybe Rath… although he…”
Ivy placed a hand on her knee and squeezed it gently. “I’m sorry about what happened. Alexander… well, he shouldn’t have come here.”
“I know.” She averted her gaze, fixing it back on the fire, watching the flames as she always did whenever her thoughts were weighing her down, pressing heavily on her heart. “If I had known what he intended to do… God, Ivy… I would have stopped him… somehow.”
Her words seemed to please Ivy, and she found herself relaxing, and hoping that Ivy could convince the brothers to believe that she wasn’t a threat to them.
“He doesn’t believe me, you know?” Gabi flicked a glance at the man through the glass of the door, pinning her blue-grey eyes briefly on the back of his sandy hair.
He shoved his fingers through it and said something to his brother, his face a dark mask. What were they talking about?
Her?
“Rath?” Ivy looked over her shoulder again. “Or Storm?”
Storm?
“Is that his name?” she bit out, unable to keep the venom from her tone as her glance became a glare. “It suits him. It’s as if his parents knew he was going to grow into a vicious pig.”
Ivy turned wide hazel eye
s on her. “He hasn’t even told you his name?”
She sighed when Gabi shook her head.
Reached across and squeezed Gabi’s knee again.
“I’m sorry, Gabi. I tried to convince him to let me speak with you sooner, but… stubbornness sort of runs in their blood. If I had known he hadn’t even told you his damned name, I would have told Rath to kick his ass.”
Ivy said the last sentence louder, probably loud enough that her man heard it. Gabi looked at Rath and found him grinning at Storm as Storm glared at him, a fierce edge to his now-gold eyes that dared his brother to try.
Gabi shrank a little further away from the door and kept her voice low so the two men wouldn’t be able to hear her.
“What’s his problem with humans?” She risked a glance at Storm, but he was chatting animatedly with his brother again, all trace of anger gone from his handsome face.
“Their family were attacked by Archangel almost forty years ago now and their parents were killed, and as far as I know, Storm was badly injured,” Ivy whispered and leaned closer. “I think maybe his problem with our kind runs the course of a different river though, if you get what I mean.”
Ivy tapped her chest.
It would make sense.
A woman had burned Storm, and now he hated all human women. Her included.
But the way he had looked at her. She wasn’t blind. He wanted her.
As fiercely as she wanted him.
Which was a problem.
“His attitude towards women needs improvement,” she muttered.
Ivy smiled. “Their temperament runs in their blood too I’m afraid. Rath was equally as prickly when I first arrived.”
Gabi doubted Storm was going to become anything but prickly though, which was fine with her.
She locked her gaze on Ivy and ignored him as he glanced over his broad shoulders at her. The quicker she told Ivy everything, the quicker she was getting out of here, back to her life.
Captured by her Cougar (Cougar Creek Mates Shifter Romance Series Book 2) Page 4