Free Jaguar's Kiss (Lone Pine Pride) by Vivi Andrews

if sanity hadn’t abandoned him long ago. The second he saw Lila Fallon.
    He tracked her scent through the house and out the front door, locking it behind him. She stood beside the Land Rover, her back to him, staring at the ground, everything in her posture rejecting him, rejecting this place.
    He could talk until he was blue in the face, but she wouldn’t hear him. She would always pick duty. And he would have to go.

Chapter Seven
    Lila was stalking her best friend.
    She hadn’t seen Patch in almost a week—which made sense if she was going through her heat. She was probably hiding out as much as possible, but Lila had been patient and given her space for as long as she could manage. She needed advice. Someone to screw her head on straight because she was quietly losing her mind.
    For the last week she’d played the part of good little fiancée, meeting up with Roman for regular “dates” which still hadn’t progressed beyond the excruciatingly awkward stage.
    Her mother was determined to begin wedding preparations and though Lila had managed to come up with excuses to postpone each of her mother’s many attempts to take her wedding dress shopping, she hadn’t been able to avoid the repeated lectures on responsibility and duty and the overwhelming importance of pride stability during times of crisis.
    The pride depended on the solidarity of its primary couple. The pride depended on tradition in times of uncertainty. The pride depended on her.
    So she’d avoided Santiago like the plague, taking long indirect routes through the main compound so she didn’t have to be anywhere near the apartment complex where he was staying.
    Her just friends plan had backfired. She couldn’t see him now without thinking of a dozen questions she didn’t want to answer, about his amazing home, how it had been saturated in his scent and she’d just wanted to stay there and wallow in it for the rest of her life—and about the kiss that refused to leave the back of her mind, rising up at the most inconvenient moments to taunt her.
    And then, perversely, she’d find herself annoyed that she was able to avoid him. That he hadn’t tracked her down for another attempt. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Some distance? For him to stop pushing? So why was she so disappointed when he let her stay away? Why did she constantly find herself fantasizing about him cornering her, sweeping her up and changing her mind with a kiss? She couldn’t have him. So why did she still want him to want her even as she dodged him?
    She was a mess. And Patch, the one person she wanted to see, hadn’t been anywhere to be found. She wouldn’t even take Lila’s calls.
    So Lila was tracking her.
    She prowled through the main compound, visiting all Patch’s old haunts, but the cougar was nowhere to be seen, the buildings crowded with the pride’s bulging population. It wasn’t until Lila started north on the same path she and Patch had taken after the All Pride meeting that she caught the first hint of a scent trail. She followed it, her steps moving faster as it grew stronger until she was jogging as it veered into the forest.
    She found Patch up in a tree, her sleek cougar form draped over a sturdy branch. Her tail twitched, but she made no move to come down, not even opening her eyes at Lila’s approach.
    Lila had never been much of a climber, and even if she had been, she needed to talk, which they couldn’t do if she shifted and climbed up there after Patch. So she stood below and tipped her head up.
    “You’ve been avoiding me,” she accused lightly. “I realize you probably want to get away from all the activity at the pride, and I know I’m a high maintenance pain in the ass, but you’re stuck with me so you might as well come down and talk to me. I’m not going anywhere.”
    The cougar opened her eyes at that, blinking sleepily, but still not moving.
    “Patch? You okay?” Lila called up.
    Patch shifted at that, reaching behind her