Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different) by Teresa Noelle Roberts

stop, not even after Jack drove his nails into her hips and snarled his inarticulate pleasure into the sudden stillness.
    He carried her to the bed, laid her down with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the rough sex, crawled in beside her.
    He traced his finger around the scar on her shoulder, still smeared with dried blood from where it had opened earlier. “Bullet?” he asked quietly.
    “Line of duty,” she responded.
    “Most of my fighting’s been in cougar form. The scars don’t carry over.”
    “I know.” She nodded gravely. “I remember examining you for scars… No, that was a dream.” Her brain was curiously fuzzy. None of the sharp pain that preceded an episode, but something felt odd, and it wasn’t just post-amazing-sex warm fuzzies.
    “You dreamed me too?”
    “Yes.”
    “Very explicit dreams?”
    “Hell, yeah.” She grinned lazily. “For about two weeks, as soon as I knew I had to come here.”
    “I knew you had this scar. Knew how you got it. Know that you and your partner reached the shooter too late to stop a multiple murder.”
    There was only one thing to say to that. “Shit.”
    “Yeah. Shit. Because you know what the dreams failed to mention?” He picked up her right hand. “This fucking ring. The one I managed to look right though. You’re engaged?”
    Memories of Phil flooded her. Her stomach heaved. “Was engaged. Phil’s dead. He was killed almost five months ago—carjacking. I should have been with him, and I wasn’t, and it haunts me constantly. But I swear I forgot him when you touched me. I could only think about you.” She held her breath. It sounded so lame, and yet it was true.
    “I saw the ring.” The bitter edge on Jack’s voice could have cut her, but she knew it wasn’t directed at her. At himself, and maybe at something else, but not at her. “I should have asked questions, found out if you were engaged or if it had been your mom’s ring or something harmless. Instead, I grabbed you and didn’t let go. That’s not like me. And I bet this isn’t like you.”
    “Even if I was ready for a relationship or a fling or whatever, I don’t normally fuck people I just met. Flirt, sure. Fuck, no.”
    Jack rolled out of bed. “We’re being manipulated, pushed together. Spontaneous is one thing, but this was crazy. Usually I say a few sweet, sexy things before I screw someone senseless.”
    “Crazy fun, but crazy. I honestly forgot Phil. How could I…”
    “Magic.” He ducked and grabbed the blanket he’d abandoned on the floor. “Maybe someone wants us to be together, no matter what we think about it. Grand-mère’s eager for me to settle down, and I’m sure she’d love you to stay in Couguar-Caché. Or it could be something much worse. If those creatures were loups-garous, they were sorcerers, and if there are more of their sorcerer friends out there…”
    “They could be fucking with our heads,” she finished. “But why?”
    “I don’t know, but we have to be careful.” His eyes were very dark, and, even wrapped in the ridiculous blanket, he looked like a warrior crossed with a great cat. “If we’re being pushed together with good intentions, because Grand-mère thinks we’d suit, it’s still fucked up. I think you’re hot and I don’t think whatever just threw us into bed would have worked as well if you weren’t at least a little attracted to me.”
    “Definitely attracted,” she confessed, “but not ready to do anything about it. It was a big step to look at you and admit I liked what I saw.”
    “That’s the problem. Maybe we’d have gotten together eventually, but it has to be our choice. And if it’s not being done with love, Powers only know what kind of trouble it could lead to.”
    “We should keep away from each other.”
    “That’s the problem. We can’t. Except for me, and your grandfather, who won’t teach, and Rafe, who’s not ready to teach, the other shamans here are healers, and that’s not your