Making the Grade (17 page)

She laughed. “Yes. And for being so mean to you.”

“Because I didn’t deserve it. I’m the perfect man. You have to say it.”

“Ugh. Really?” She kissed him again, and the teasing quality turned carnal in a heartbeat. “How about if I prove my devotion instead, Sir?”

Fuck.
“What did you have in mind?”

She turned from him and bent over the bed, waving her ass at him. “I’m wet for you, Sir.”

“Hell. You’re going to embarrass me. If I last two seconds in you, it’ll be a miracle.”

“But I owe you. I was a bad girl. I need to be punished.”

“That’s true.” He whipped his shirt off and unbuttoned his pants, getting naked in seconds. It had been a long week without her. He closed the distance between them and palmed her ass. “You feel so good.”

“Please, Sir. Fill your naughty slave.”

“I’m gonna come deep, real soon.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He groaned and traced her smooth flesh. When he put his hands between her legs, they came back wet. She hadn’t been kidding.

“You missed me, didn’t you?”

“So much. I love you, Brian.”

“I love you too, Faith.” He parted her cheeks and angled under her, sliding inside her hot pussy. “You’ve been a bad girl. You do need to be disciplined.”

She caught her breath as he rammed deep, then fucked her with force.

She gasped and cried out as he pounded inside her.

“All in you, baby,” he promised and reached under her to finger her clit. “Touch yourself. Come when I do.”

He let her go when her finger replaced his. Then he couldn’t think anymore. Could only feel as he found heaven in the only woman who mattered. The woman he loved.

He exploded on a groan, coming so hard he saw stars. Aware of her cry and how she tightened around him, he let her draw him deeper, both his body and his heart in tune with hers.

After he withdrew, he ordered her to remain still.

“That’s a good girl. Let that come slide down your leg. I want to see me all over you.”

“All over, Sir. My ass and my mouth are pretty empty too.”

He groaned. “I need a few minutes to recover, you little witch.” He yanked her to stand and turned her in his arms for a deep, gratifying kiss.

“You have all the time you need, Sir.” She winked. “You have forever.”

“I do?”

“Yes.” Faith swallowed hard. “Will you…will you let me move in with you?”

He beamed. “That could be arranged. For a price.”

“Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

“Promise?”

“For you, anything.”

He gave her the ring after Hailey’s party. They hadn’t wanted to spoil Hailey’s big moment, so she and Brian had agreed to wait.

When she returned from the wild night with her friends, she found Brian waiting for her in their bedroom.

He wasn’t alone.

“Rex? What are you doing here?”

Rex grinned. “I’m told you’ve been a bad girl. I’m here to watch you get your punishment.” He sat back in the chair near the bed, prepared to stay. “Well, Brian? Get to it. I’m thinking your fiancée needs a spanking.”

Brian chuckled at Faith’s look of shock. “What? You didn’t think we’d close the door on those fantasies of yours, did you? Now get that ass over here and strip, slave. Master brought home a guest for his entertainment.”

“Yes, Sir.”

She grinned, and as she undressed, she kissed him. “I love you.”

“And I love you. Because you’re worth it.”

About the Author

Caffeine addict, boy referee, and romance aficionado, USA Today bestselling author Marie Harte is a confessed bibliophile and devotee of action movies. Whether hiking in Central Oregon, biking around town, or hanging at the local tea shop, she’s constantly plotting to give everyone a happily ever after. Visit
www.marieharte.com
and fall in love.

Look for these titles by Marie Harte

Now Available:

A Scorching Seduction

Cougar Falls

Rachel’s Totem

In Plain Sight

Foxy Lady

Outfoxed

A Matter of Pride

Right Wolf, Right Time

By the Tail

Prey & Prejudice

Ethereal Foes

The Dragons’ Demon

Duncan’s Descent

Westlake Enterprises

To Hunt a Sainte

Storming His Heart

Love in Electric Blue

Wicked Warrens

Enjoying the Show

Closing the Deal

Raising the Bar

She’ll take his heart—one bite at a time.

Prey & Prejudice

© 2013 Marie Harte

Cougar Falls, Book 8

Now that the political nightmare over leadership is over, Miles Berman can’t wait to settle back in Miami and focus on his million-dollar businesses. Problem is, everyone somehow thinks
he’s
the new pride leader—a position he doesn’t want. At. All.

Worse, Zoe Castille has roared into town, hell-bent on rattling more than a few cages.
She
wants control of the pride, which includes Miles at her beck and call. But Miles doesn’t bow to anyone. Not even a woman whose painted-on denims turn his brain clear off.
 

No one plays Zoe, in or out of the bedroom, but she’s confident she can show the arrogant playboy who’s boss. He wears clothes with labels she can’t pronounce, has women flaunting themselves at him, and grates on her last nerve. Yet she can’t stop thinking about him.

She soon realizes that to get what she wants, she might have to give in a little. Then Miles shows her the pleasures of relinquishing control.

Warning: The final battle. One cat to rule them all…or at least, one tiny bikini to rule them all. Beware felines in the Miami heat, and never trust a raptor to do a panther’s job.
 

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Prey & Prejudice:

Zoe stretched out, rolling her shoulders and easing her joints as she dragged her claws down a thick Gumbo-limbo tree. Pleased to add her scent to the myriad smells of cat around the area, she yawned and trotted over the roots and vines crawling over the ground.

God, it had been so long since she’d been home. Africa was wonderful—if you could overlook the snotty attitude of the bigger cats. Mountain lions weren’t the same as African lions, and the big bastards had been pretty clear on reminding her of their differences. The females in particular could be pretty haughty. But Zoe hadn’t cared, too busy learning how they interacted. Watching the females handle the males, seeing how they fought by using their claws and jaws to do maximum damage.

As a Florida
panther
—not cougar, mountain lion or puma, thank you very much—she had powerful legs. She used bursts of speed and her natural strength to take down much larger prey. Though she couldn’t roar like the bigger cats, she could hiss, screech and growl. Sounds she found threatening enough in combination with her lethal brawling skills.

Of course, taunting males with her fine body and distracting them while she categorized weaknesses came in handy too. She snorted and ignored a gator that snapped at her before it slid back into the water. Men thought mostly with their dicks. Unfortunate, but true. While they stared at her breasts and her ass, she studied them, looking for vulnerabilities.

Taking over for Quince wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, not from him at least. Like the South American and Asian cats she’d met, the Miami pride would balk at female leadership. But the African lions had proven that strong female rule could prevail. It helped that the male lions had been too lazy to do too much infighting. Typical.

She trotted down a familiar path she hadn’t taken in years. The pride kept the trails out here cleared, then wove paths into the dirt by familiar panther feet.

She yawned again, jet lag setting in, and decided to take a nap while the sun beat down on her and the wind kissed her fur. Trotting around the bend, she looked for the large fallen cypress that led to a larger mass of trees, only to find the dead tree gone. In its place, however, she noted a grassy plot overlooking part of the marsh.

The sun illuminated the area, spotlighting perfection. She purred with pleasure and walked to the tiny clearing. After circling and testing the area with her paws and claws, she curled into a ball under the sun and basked in its warmth.

She let herself go and felt more rested and at home than she’d been in a very long time. She dreamed about running with tigers, battling lions and making love to a jaguar who knew how to use his tongue for maximum pleasure. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against the grass, the blessed scent of earth calming her further.

A cool breeze ruffled the warm September air, and she sniffed again, still more asleep than awake and trying to catch a tantalizing smell in the air. Warm, musky… Male?

She blinked and raised her head, only to find herself staring at a huge golden panther. He was bigger than most, a good eight feet from the tip of his nose to his tail. And by the look of him, he had to weigh close to two hundred pounds. A mountain of a mountain lion, she thought with whimsy.

“Who are you?”
he asked, his question full of authority.

“I might ask the same.”
She rose slowly and stretched, conscious he had yet to blink. She sat and began grooming, not concerned in the slightest that he might make a move she couldn’t counter.

“Not from around here. I’ve met everyone else. You’re new.”
He walked right up to her, ignoring her subtle warnings—the swish of her tail and narrowing eyes. Then, to add insult to injury, he shoved his nose at her and sniffed.

“Excuse me?”
Rude, even for Miami cat standards.

He rumbled from deep in his chest, and she was again taken by the beauty of his golden coat. Many panthers had shades of red or gray in their fur, but this cat looked impossibly blond. Very, very handsome, and he had the mien of a cat who knew it.

“You smell good.”
He licked her cheek…without asking.
“Taste good too.”

“Who the hell are you?”
she growled, one heartbeat away from gouging some good manners into his forehead.

The obnoxious male stepped back and sat on his haunches, resembling a sphinx with his knowing gaze and shit-eating grin.
“Yeah, you smell sweet. Welcome home.
Candace
.”

Only one cat had ever had the nerve to call her by her hated given name. She still had a bone to pick with her mother for giving her that moniker.
“Miles Bermin. I should have known.”

Trust Miles to walk right up to an unknown cat like he was king of the castle. But God. He sure had filled out in the last seventeen years. His animal spirit glowed in the gorgeous panther—the definition of strength and power wrapped up in a feline frame. His eyes could have been fragments of jade, so light and cool as they regarded her. So shiny and pretty.

“Well, well. Little Candy’s come back. Welcome home.”

“You call me Candy once more, and I’ll rip your tail off,”
she said with a smile. To emphasize her point, she walked around him with her claws out, and grazed his flank with a sharp nail, hard enough to draw blood. It just figured the first cat to give her any crap would turn out to be Miles Bermin.

He tensed but didn’t otherwise move. Nor did he turn his head to follow her.
“Oh yeah. You still have bite. Well,
Zoe
, what the hell are you doing home? Back for a visit, I presume?”

“Um, I live here?”
She circled and sat facing him, nose to nose, assuming the same pose he did. It gave her a rush to see his intense focus on her, because she hadn’t mistaken his interest. He watched her the way a male studied a potential sexual partner. She recognized the scent of lust in the air.

“You
used
to live here. Last we heard, you and Esmie were floating around the world, decimating clans and prides one continent at a time.”

She grinned.
“There is that. Mama is a real hell-raiser.”

“And then there’s you.”
He opened his mouth, taking her scent deeper as he tasted her on the air. She found the gesture incredibly arousing.

“What about me?”

“You liked to stir things even as a kid. And you’re no longer a juvenile.”

“Nope.”
She studied him, wondering how he’d take the truth.
“I’m back for good.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. Me and Mama would have come back sooner, but we had work to do. Then Quince warned us to keep away until he dealt with Lex. Now we’re back, and I’m ready to take over.”