Free The Cougar's Bargain by Holley Trent Page A

questionably sanitary, and the skilled nurse in her screamed out
Nope!
, but Hannah figured it couldn’t hurt to put her Cougar immune system to the test. She needed something to do with her hands besides cracking her knuckles, anyway.
    “It was just an oversight,” Sean said.
    “Because she was so stinkin’ excited to see you, right? In my experience, people only get that peppy when they think they’re gonna get some.”
    A dry scoff escaped his parted lips and one of those deep red eyebrows flew up. “Because I’m such a whore that I’d scout for ass right in front of you, right?”
    “That’s the reputation you have.”
    He rolled his eyes and pulled the peas closer to him.
    “So you
know
about that reputation. I don’t hear you arguing it.”
    “Sure, I know about it. And I imagine that with you bobbing around town in the few weeks I was stalking the desert as a cat, you learned all kinds of shit about me.”
    “I did.” She’d started to wonder if there wasn’t a woman in her age group in the entire town who hadn’t fucked a Foye. The accounts of Sean’s and Hank’s conquests were probably exaggerated, but there had to be some truth to them.
    “I’m sure you’ll tell me all about what I’ve allegedly done or haven’t done when you’re feeling
extra
sassy, but I’ll let you off the hook on this one.”
    Hannah groaned and pointed to her fangs. “How do I fix this? I usually have to wait for them to go back in on their own, but that’s never been when I’m out like this.”
    “Uh.” Sean cringed and raked a hand through his helmet-flattened hair. “That’s usually more of Mason’s gig. I don’t push energy around the way he does.”
    “Try anyway!” she hissed.
    “Um …” He put his fingers over her lips and there was an odd prickle that numbed her skin and then warmed her face.
    She found herself leaning into his hand, trying to increase the contact, but then December returned and set Hannah’s beer in front of her.
    Oh God
. Hannah dragged her tongue over her teeth of now-normal lengths and willed the burning of her cheeks to recede. Fortunately, Sean wasn’t looking at her, anyway. He was looking at December.
    December bit her lip and narrowed her eyes at Sean. “So … are you driving?”
    “Walking.”
    “Well,
whoosh
!
Here’s one for you, too.” She left him the other beer she’d held and sashayed away, singing along to the Nikki Minaj remix the DJ was spinning.
    Sean put an elbow on the bar top, propped the side of his head against his fist, and smirked at Hannah.
    It registered vaguely in Hannah’s convoluted head that she should say something, but her mind was a swirling cyclone of
kill, murder, kill!,
and
he hates me,
and
maybe I can set up a match.com account for him
, and
why doesn’t he smile at me like he did her?
    She was so confused.
    Freakin’ Lola
.
    Drinking was easier than talking, and certainly easier than
thinking
critically, so she took a long slug of beer and let the burn straighten her spine as it went down.
    Sean leaned in and whispered, “She’s got an unrequited crush on Tito and has been begging me to hook them up for two years.”
    “Huh?” Hannah set down her beer and stared at his smirking face until the words made sense. That took a while. She kept getting distracted by the components that made up that face. She wouldn’t have called him pretty. His features were too masculine, and like his brothers, he was way too lazy about getting a close shave, but he definitely had that something-something that could make mouths water.
    Hannah’s mouth certainly was, but that might have been due to the exceptional beer.
    Yeah right.
    “You know,
Tito
?” Sean made a
Come on, you can do it
flick of his wrist.
    Oh.
“Really? Tito?”
    The glaring lieutenant was a big, fluffy teddy bear of a man. He was good-humored and kind, and just happened to be Lola’s son. He had to be five hundred years old, if he were a day.
    Sean nodded.