Cougar Wants [Cougarlicious] (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

Sure, she looked younger than her age, was still in great shape, and had a personality that other people sometimes found childish. She had also maintained an innocent air that her ex-husband had often chided her about, especially in light of the work she now did.

“Whatever it takes. My biggest challenge will be actually meeting someone. Sometimes working at home in my pajamas isn’t all the glory that it could be.”

For the first time since they had started this conversation, Kimber wondered if maybe she should back off from what she was proposing.

Stacy reached out and patted her hand. “Don’t worry, someone will pop into your life when you least expect it. Just keep your eyes open, keep the faith, and continue putting together those kick
-
ass covers.”

Kimber’s art had shifted once her divorce had been finalized. While she continued working her own art
,
the bulk of her income came from being a cover artist for several erotic romance e-book publishers.

“So, for our next weekend
,
we bring our young lovers with us. Since we’re going to Kimber’s
,
maybe we can rent a beach house with lots of bedrooms and lots of privacy
,
” Gwen said, looking excited by the prospect of this new challenge.

Kimber and Stacy nodded in agreement before finishing off their drinks. Then they decided they had had enough of being ignored in the Houston bar, so they headed back to Stacy’s house and the hot tub in her backyard.

“Arrrgh! I hate money!” Kimber screamed as she threw the pen in her hand across the room.

It had been three and a half months since her return from Houston
, and after working on the household budget for the last hour,
she was in need of another weekend away from her life. Not that she could afford it,
but it was a nice thought.

She had been squeaking by financially for months, but last week
,
she’d had to replace all four tires so her car would pass inspection. The unexpected expense had eaten up her pitiful savings as well as a big bite from her monthly budget. Even if she gave up eating
,
there was no way she could make the budget come out even.

“Okay, girl, so what are you going to do about it?” she asked aloud.

She refused to ask her parents for money and did not want Gwen or Stacy to know
how
deep her financial troubles had grown over the last year.

“Real job or…what?” she continued.

After standing up and stretching, she wandered through the house looking at her possessions with a critical eye. Was there anything she could part with that would bring in enough money to keep her floating for another month without giving her sleepless nights of guilt?

Books filled shelves but they were hardly collector’s material. The few nicked and dinged antique collectibles she owned were family heirlooms
,
and if her mother found out she sold them
,
Kimber would not have to worry about paying the bills because she would be dead.

Walking through the rest of the house, she stopped at the room she jokingly called the guest
room. It was the size of a nice walk-in closet in a modern house
,
but sixty-some odd years ago when her house had been built
,
it had been considered a bedroom.

She looked around at the packing boxes piled around the rooms. Boxes
were
still full even after living
t
here for two years. Sighing
,
she had to admit that no one would pay rent for a closet.

Stepping to the end of the hall, she looked into each of the other bedrooms as well. Her bedroom was the second largest room while her office slash studio filled the largest. Walking into the office, she admitted she might be able to rent out this room. But how much would a renter pay for a bedroom when they would have to share a bathroom?

“And how are you going to fit all this into the guest
room?” she asked as she looked from the shelves of books and supplies for her art.

Her gaze then moved to her desk with the computer she used for her work and then the tilt table that was more of a bulletin board than a drawing table. There was just too much stuff to move this into the guest room.

“So, you move your bedroom in here and the office into the bedroom. It’s not like anything exciting has happened in the bedroom since you moved it.”

Just thinking of all that needed to be done before someone could move in made her tired. Walking back down the hall to the dining table where she had left the bills, checkbook, and budget, she sighed again, feeling overwhelmed. Renting out a room was a solution to her money crisis, but would it actually pan out before the electricity and water were cut off?

And how was she to do all this moving by herself in a timely manner when she still had work to do?

“One thing at a time,” she murmured as her stomach grumbled.

Looking at the clock, she realized the day had slipped away from her. Thankfully
,
she had gotten an early start on the cover work due that day. She had finished them and sent them off before turning her attention to the budget issues. Friday was pizza night
,
and though she could not afford it, she refused to go without her weekly fix.

Picking up the phone, she dialed the pizza parlor’s number quickly. When a voice answered, she placed her normal Friday night order of a thin crust pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, and extra cheese. The only change was that she ordered an extra-large instead of a medium. If stress eating didn’t get to her, she could freeze half to keep for next week.

Once assured her dinner would arrive within the next thirty minutes, Kimber turned her attention back to the matter of renting a room. She rifled through a stack of papers on her desk and found a piece of white cardboard, which was free of the doodles she did when thinking or talking on the phone. Using several wide-tipped pens, she drew a colorful and artistic “For Rent” sign with her phone number printed underneath.

It took a few minutes to find a plastic sleeve to keep her sign pretty and a few more to find a nail and hammer so she could post her sign. Stepping out of the front door, she looked around the small covered porch for the best place to hang her sign.

Deciding the post would be the most visible from the street, she positioned it, holding it in place with the nail. She heard a car pull into the driveway
,
and
she
glanced over her shoulder. The pickup truck had no lighted sign on the roof, but she was not expecting anyone else.

Dinner had arrived.

Lifting the hammer, she decided to finish hanging the sign before dealing with the pizza delivery guy. Bringing it down, she missed the nail and slammed her thumb instead.

“Oh, shit, damn, damn, damn, ouch,” she cried out as pain flashed through her thumb and all the way up to her elbow.

She dropped the sign, nail, and hammer. Barely a second later, her big toe screamed with an identical pain as the hammerhead landed on it.

“Having trouble?”
a
deep voice behind her asked. He sounded amused at her pain.

“Duh,” she replied sarcastically.

Looking over her shoulder through the tears that filled her eyes, Kimber felt her heart pause for several beats before it began to pound. This was not Aaron, the normal pizza delivery guy, who had shown up every week for the past six months. Aaron was barely out of high school, short, pimply, and about twenty pounds overweight.

No, this was a man, but he looked to be no older than thirty. Maybe. At five foot seven, she was not a short woman
,
but even standing on the second step leading to the porch
,
she had to look up at him. Looking into his eyes, she found herself trapped in their lightness that seemed to twinkle as he met her gaze. She could not tell if they were a blue or green, but they seemed to offset his shaggy
,
light
-
brown hair to perfection.

He had a tanned, craggy, strong-boned face that made her fingers itch for paper and
a
pencil to sketch, or her camera to capture every nuance of the amusement she saw in his expression.

Dropping her curious gaze, she took in broad shoulders, flat abs, and a body sculptured by the gods. He wore the same uniform Aaron wore, a red T-shirt with the Petey’s Pizza logo emblazed on the front. With the shirt, he wore faded blue jeans that hung loose on his long-legged, narrow-hipped frame, and a pair of scuffed work boots that looked like he actually did work of some kind in them.

The pain in her thumb and toe eased as her libido woke up and screamed
Whoohoo!
at her. This was the kind of man she wanted—both in her studio and in her bed. She could just imagine the sculpted body his clothes currently hid from her.

Lifting her gaze to his face again, she found his amusement had given way to concern. Had she missed something as she had done the mental striptease? “Did you say something?”

She fought an urge to trip off the steps and fall into his arms. She wondered if he would sacrifice her pizza to catch her or allow her to fall to the sidewalk.

“Just asked if you needed some help.” His voice flowed over her like a hot shower, sending a shiver of need through her that settled between her legs.

“Think you can drive a nail without smashing your thumb?” She bent a
nd
picked up the hammer and sign then looked around the steps for the nail. It must have fallen into the bushes beside the steps because she did not see it anywhere. “I don’t want Petey to sue me for abusing one of his employees.”

The left corner of his lip raised in the sexiest half
smile she had seen in a long time. “I think I can handle it,” he said confidently.

She handed him the hammer and the sign then dug the money for the pizza out of her pocket and handed it to him as well. “I’ll get you another nail.”

“Here, take this with you,” he said, handing over the pizza box.

* * * *

Tate Pierce waited until the woman, whose name was Jordan
,
though he did not know if that was her first or last name, disappeared into the house before adjusting his hard cock. It complained painfully loud of being cramped in his close
-
fitting briefs. For the first time since his early teen years, he had grown hard and aroused just from talking with a woman.

He knew instinctively she was not just any woman. His body recognized her as his mate.

By quick appraisal, she appeared average, but something about her pulled at him. Her brown hair fell in straight lines past the peaks of her impressive breasts. Her dark eyes sparked some kind of recognition in them every time they met his though she could only hold eye contact for a few seconds at a time before looking away. When her eyes dropped down to check out the rest of his body, it was as if she was physically touching him instead of just looking. Her too-big T-shirt and baggy sweats hinted at a full-breasted, curvy woman. Just the kind he liked.

As a cougar shape
-
shifter, he had always known he would recognize his mate immediately but never expected to find her while delivering her dinner. And with his sense of smell tainted by hours of breathing
spicy
pizza
s
, he could not be sure if she really was his mate, or if his cock was just telling him it had been a while since he’d had a woman in his bed.

He took several deep breaths to calm and distract himself, but thoughts of stripping them both naked and taking her any
way he could in the next five minutes consumed him. He saw himself bending her over the porch railing to keep them hidden behind the overgrown bushes that hid most of the porch. Glancing at the porch swing
,
he could see her riding him accompanied by the squeaking of the chain. Then there was always the missionary position on the porch floor. All were viable options
,
though the neighbors might disturb them if she was a screamer
,
so maybe they should take this in the house.

His cock throbbed with his heartbeat as the mental images flashed through his mind. Not sure how to proceed, he saw a hot shower and long hand-to-cock session in his very near future. With a sigh, he read the paper he was about to hang, trying to distract himself in any way possible.

“Room for rent,” he read aloud. Lifting his gaze to the small house, he raised one eyebrow in skepticism. “Wonder how big a room it is.”

Just the day before
,
Leo, his landlord
and
roommate, had informed him that he needed to find a new place to stay so he could move his girlfriend in. Since Leo’s name was on the lease and all the utilities, Tate had no real options. He was happy for his friend to be taking his three-year relationship to the next level but was not sure how he was going to find a new place to live while working his ass off at three jobs. Taking several deep breaths, he tried to clear his nasal passages so he could breathe clearly.