Claimed by her Cougar Page 7

  Wait, he wasn’t the easiest person to deal with?

  He frowned at her for that one. He wanted to see how she would have behaved if she had been in his shoes, if he had been the one to come crashing into her territory, and her life, when she already had enough problems to deal with, and triggered a need in her that showed no sign of going away, was only getting stronger the more time she spent with him.

  “You don’t look so sure now.” Her smile faded and she lowered her camera.

  He caught the flare of disappointment in her hazel eyes.

  But it wasn’t the thought of upsetting her that had him shrugging it off and saying, “Not at all. Another night is fine.”

  It was the thought of her walking and camping overnight to reach her car.

  It was the thought that she might meet a cougar on the path when she was alone.

  Gods, that disturbed him, had him on the verge of growling.

  He needed to stay here tonight and wait for his brother to arrive tomorrow. As soon as he showed up, Rath could walk her back to her car and ensure she made it there safely.

  He stared down at her as she checked her pictures again, her smile dazzling, her eyes shining with the happiness he could feel in her.

  “Breakfast first, and then you’re on helper duty again.” He drank in the smile she turned on him, the way she looked at him as if nothing would make her happier than spending the day with him again, working with him, and wanted more.

  Grew greedy with a need to have all her smiles to himself.

  A gentle breeze swept around her, blowing strands of her hair across her cheek as she looked back down at her camera, her eyes on the screen again.

  Rath absently lifted his hand and reached out to her, and paused on the verge of brushing those rogue strands of chestnut back behind her ear.

  He lowered his hand to his side before she noticed and steeled himself, piecing together a wall around his heart that he knew wouldn’t protect him, or stop the pain that beat inside him as he thought about tomorrow.

  He would escort her to her car, protecting her from his kin and the wildlife.

  He just wasn’t sure he would be able to convince himself to let her go when he got her there.

  CHAPTER 8

  Ivy was about ready for another hot bath. She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead and sat back on her heels to admire her work on the deck of the riverside cabin. Rath came out of the door behind her, his boots appearing in view to her left as he stopped beside her.

  She tilted her head back and looked up at him.

  His steel grey eyes darted over her work as he wiped his hands on a dirty cloth, the muscles in his forearms rippling beneath his golden skin. He had ditched his fleece at some point and had pulled up the sleeves of his black long-sleeved t-shirt that hugged his figure, revealing everything to her.

  Damn guy had the body of a god hidden beneath that garment.

  His gaze drifted to her. “Good work.”

  It was?

  She looked at the planks she had drilled into place and pursed her lips. It did look good to her. She had never picked up a power tool or done anything remotely DIY in her life, but it wasn’t as hard as it had always looked.

  Although, she was going to leave the roofing to Rath, and repairing stoves definitely fell under his jurisdiction too.

  He pushed the dirty cloth into the front right pocket of his dark jeans, tugging her focus down to his strong hands and legs that went on forever.

  “Is it beer o’clock?” Ivy gripped the railing to her right and pushed onto her feet before he caught her staring, stooped and picked up the drill and set it down in the case on the small metal table.

  She snapped it shut and looked at Rath.

  His eyes zipped from her backside up to her face, and she swore there was a little more gold in them.

  Maybe she wasn’t the only one with a staring problem.

  A flush of heat swept over her skin at the thought he had been looking at her, stoking the fire she had fought a few times over the past day and bringing it back to inferno level. Apparently, the sight of Rath hard at work doing manual labour was a major turn on and one she hadn’t been able to deny, no matter how many times she had reminded herself she had sworn off men.

  There had just been something alluring and magnetic about him as he had worked on the roof, hammer in one hand and nails held between his flattened lips, his handsome face fixed in a frown as he had focused on the repairs, oblivious to her staring. His muscles had rippled and danced so beautifully with every blow of the hammer, every flex of his body as he reached for another shingle and positioned it, and she had been caught up in him whenever she had taken a break.

  He hadn’t helped matters when he had shown her how to use the drill to fix the planks to the deck, his body crowding hers as he instructed her on the correct way to hold it and how to change the bits so she could go from drilling to screwing. She had burned fiercely from the feel of his front against her side, his arms encircling her and making her deeply aware of how big he was, how strong his body was beneath his clothing, and how good he smelled.

  She had been a wreck for the first few planks he had handed to her after he had cut them to size, and had only managed to recover after he had headed inside to continue work on the stove, leaving her alone to deal with the deck.

  When he looked off to his right, towards the river, she did too, and her eyes widened when she saw the sun was almost below the horizon. She hadn’t noticed it was getting that late, had been convinced it was early afternoon still.

  She picked up her camera from the table, switched it on, and flicked through the images to find the ones she had taken of the male black bear that had wandered through the area while she had been working on the cabin with Rath.

  Her eyebrows rose at the time on the screen. Hell, she had thought the bear had visited before noon, but it had been closer to three.

  She smiled at the photographs, a satisfied hum buzzing in her veins at the shots she had gotten of the male bear, capturing him drinking at the river and then chasing something in the water.

  She couldn’t wait for tomorrow and the chance the mother bear might bring her cubs back. She had asked Rath more times than she could count about whether he thought they would, and every time he had half-smiled and said he was sure of it, that it wasn’t the first time he had seen them pass along the river in the morning.

  Rath moved past her, stealing her attention, pulling it to him as he tidied up the deck, tossing tools back into a grey holdall that had seen better days. One of the screwdrivers he placed in the bag poked out of a rip in the side, and he scowled at it, his dark eyebrows dipping low as he prodded the tip to push it back inside.

  When he was done, she slung the strap of her camera around her neck and picked up the drill case.

  “Beer time.” The way his eyes lit up said he was looking forward to opening a cold one and kicking back on the deck to enjoy what was left of the sunset.

  She glanced at it and decided she was going to follow suit. She would have that bath she badly wanted after she had savoured the beauty of the sunset and had seen the stars emerge.

  When she looked back at Rath, he was staring across the clearing, his handsome face etched in dark lines and his eyebrows knitted hard above his grey-gold eyes.

  Ivy followed his gaze and frowned as her eyes landed on a beautiful raven-haired woman in her twenties walking towards them, an older woman who had to be her mother beside her. While the older woman wore dark green hiking trousers and a thick black jacket, the younger woman wore tight blue jeans that hugged her thighs and the swell of her hips, and a sapphire jumper that accentuated her curvy waist and breasts. Her obsidian waves bounced around her shoulders with each confident step and brushed her rounded cheeks, and she lifted her hand and delicately swept them from her face, revealing dark pink lips and bright grey eyes.

  Ivy looked back at Rath, and the way he continued to stare at the woman roused som
ething inside her.

  Something she didn’t like.

  She looked down at herself, at her charcoal trousers and her merlot t-shirt that revealed curves far more sumptuous than the ones on the black-haired woman. Who was she kidding? Of course Rath would look at the younger, more beautiful woman like he wanted her.

  Hadn’t he done the same thing to her?

  Traded up.

  “I have to deal with this.” Rath’s deep voice didn’t warm her as it swept over her this time.

  It left her cold.

  She didn’t look at him, just stepped off the deck and started walking, because she wasn’t sure she could bear seeing him looking at the beauty with eyes dark with desire, and she certainly wasn’t going to stick around to hear what they had to say to each other.

  She kept her head down as she passed the two women.

  “Rath,” the older woman said, a note of warmth in her tone, but also a hint of something akin to a demand. “Have you considered our proposition? Ember would like to know whether she can expect you to take care of her.”

  Heat burned Ivy’s heart, and she slowed her step, her blood on fire and breath lodged in her throat as those words registered, the meaning behind them clear, and she waited to hear his response.

  “It’s good to see you again. Your cabin is ready.” Not a denial. Not a yes, either, but it wasn’t a denial.

  And that stung.

  Ivy doubled her pace, hurrying away from him now, not wanting to hear anything else, because she couldn’t take it. She had been an idiot. Again. She had stupidly let herself get caught up in her time here, had let herself get caught up in Rath, had sunk into this world and been swept up in it.

  It was all make-believe.

  She didn’t belong here, and tomorrow she would be gone, and she would never see Rath again.

  Tomorrow couldn’t come quickly enough.

  She dumped the drill on the deck of his cabin, bent and wrestled with her laces on her boots, a frustrated growl slipping from her lips when they refused to cooperate. She huffed and her face screwed up as she kicked at them, shoving them off her feet, and left them scattered on the deck, not giving a damn.

  She stormed into his cabin, grabbed her backpack and sank onto the couch. She opened his laptop, switched it on, and pulled the memory card from her camera while she waited for it to boot up. Thankfully, her adapter was in the zipped compartment on the underside of the lid of her bag, so she didn’t have to tear her entire pack apart to find it.

  Her fingers shook as she shoved the memory card into the device, and then put it into the USB port on his laptop. She brought up a browser, and opened her email, sifted through a few of them but found nothing interesting. She started a new email and typed in a name.

  Alexander Lord.

  The bastard.

  Tears threatened to fill her eyes but she dashed them away, refused to let everything get to her. She was stronger than this.

  She flexed her fingers and stared at the screen, heart pounding as she considered what she was doing. She hated him, but he had money, far too much of it, and she needed some if she was going to move on.

  She hammered out a quick message to him, dispensed with the formalities and got straight to the point, telling him that she had shots of black bears and wanted to go in search of spirit bears next, but staying at their location would be expensive and she would need to work with a guide or two who knew the bears and the area.

  She attached a few of her photographs of the black bears, sure they would convince him to send funds to her bank account. He had been supporting her for a few years now, funding her trips to photograph wildlife. She wasn’t the only one he supported.

  Around a year ago, she had met the other wildlife photographers he funded at a grand gala.

  And had made the biggest mistake of her life.

  It was all the champagne’s fault.

  And Alexander’s too.

  She clicked send and refused to regret asking him for money when he had been a bastard to her. He owed her.

  He owed her for screwing her, leaving her in the dead of night and then acting as if nothing had happened when she had contacted him.

  She leaned over, rested her elbows on her knees and clutched her head, pushing her fingers through her dark hair.

  That ache in her chest grew fiercer, stealing her breath, and she sniffed, held back the tears and tried to purge the pain, tried to let it go even when she knew it wouldn’t, not while her head was full of Rath with that woman.

  One her mother wanted him to be involved with.

  “There you are.” Rath’s tone lost all warmth as he stopped in the doorway. “What are you up to?”

  She scrubbed her eyes, her actions small so he wouldn’t notice, and looked at his laptop. “Emailing a few shots to one of my sponsors. I need money so I can move location.”

  He moved into the room, and cold swept over her as he grabbed his computer and she caught the darkness in his eyes, the twist to his expression that said he wasn’t happy about that.

  Her emailing her sponsor some pictures, or her leaving?

  She stood and tried to take the laptop from him. “You can’t snoop in my emails.”

  He turned a thunderous glare on her. “I can when you’re emailing people photographs of my land.”

  That glare only darkened as he returned it to the screen and clicked, clicked, and clicked.

  His irises turned stormy grey, the corners of his mouth twisting downwards as his jaw tensed and his eyebrows dipped low.

  “I said no pictures of the cabins. I said just the river and the bears.” He spun the laptop to face her and barked, “You want to explain this to me?”

  Ivy tensed, her heart lodging in her throat, hammering there as she stared at the screen, at the image of the river and the mother bear with her cubs, and realised that in the corner of it, one of the cabins was visible.

  “I didn’t… I wouldn’t… I didn’t notice.” She lifted her eyes to his, but the darkness in them left her cold, the rigid line of his jaw telling her that her excuses weren’t going to fly.

  She backed off a step, her pulse pounding faster as his eyes turned more gold than grey, and her fight or flight instinct kicked in.

  Telling her to run.

  The savage twist to his expression as he closed in on her didn’t help, only made her want to bolt.

  “What do you know about this guy you sent the photographs to?” he snapped and towered over her, a wall of muscle that exuded the rage she could see in his eyes and hear in his voice. “You sent him pictures without my permission… pictures that show a cabin and the peaks… those fucking peaks can easily be used to identify this location!”

  Ivy flinched and leaned back, curled into herself as she tilted her head away from him, tears lining her lashes as she closed her eyes.

  Her voice came out small and weak, uncertain. “He’s just my sponsor. He funds my work, and other wildlife photographers too.”

  “That’s not telling me what I want to hear, Ivy. I want to know who the fuck he is and I want to know now. Is he a hunter?”

  “No!” She whipped her head up and glared at him. “He’s just a man with too much money and he gets tax breaks by funding us. That’s all. He has galleries where he displays our works, runs benefits and fundraisers using them to show endangered species in need of help.”

  “Sounds like a fucking saint.” He waggled the laptop at her, his face only darkening. “But even saints can have another agenda, Ivy. How well do you really know him?”

  Not as well as she had thought, that was for sure, but she wasn’t going to tell Rath that.

  “You’re being unreasonable.” She shoved past him, heading for the door, her temper at boiling point as she remembered how he had treated her when she had arrived on his land, a reminder she had badly needed to clear her head and her heart of any misplaced feelings for him. “Not everyone is a hunter, Rath… but then I don’t think you’ll ever understand tha
t. You think everyone is out to get you… or at least almost everyone. I guess some people are welcome here.”

  “Where are you going?” he growled. “We’re not done here.”

  “We’re done.” She lashed the words at him with all the anger, all the hurt she held inside her, but refused to turn on him like she wanted, because she wasn’t strong enough to look at him right now, not without wavering.

  She had made her decision.

  Tomorrow, she was leaving, and she would never see him again.

  She stepped out into the rising darkness before he could say another word, shoved her feet into her boots and didn’t bother with the laces as she hit the grass, striding down it towards the river, her blood on fire and her heart thundering as anger swirled with hurt, mixed with bitter disappointment and a hell of a lot of self-reproach.

  Ivy swiped at her tears, cursing them as they fell, cursing herself with them.

  Fuck, she had been such an idiot again, getting swept up in someone.

  She blew out her breath and sucked down another as she wrestled with her out of control feelings.

  Part of her screamed to leave now, to grab her camera and backpack and just start walking away from Rath, but she shut out the tempting words, listening to the voice of reason instead.

  The one that said heading out in the darkness while her head and her emotions were all over the place was a sure-fire way of running straight into trouble.

  She slammed into something near the river.

  Something warm and muscular, and big.

  She tipped her head up as she stepped back.

  Moonlight turned the immense man’s eyes silver as he stared down at her and threaded his softly spiked sandy hair with white highlights.

  “Sorry.” She scrubbed the heel of her right hand across her cheeks and went to step around him.

  “What are you doing here?” He caught her arm, his grip gentle.

  His voice wasn’t. It had a hard note that made her think of Rath, and how he had questioned her when she had first arrived on his property.