Cougar Bait Read online

  It didn’t matter though, Keller told himself. It wasn’t like he was in love with Samantha Becker. He just admired her beauty and her brains, that was all. He was only there to protect her in case things got dangerous—a life-debt was nothing to be taken lightly, after all. After her visit to Sin City was over, he would see her safely on to a plane, and then go back to his own life and forget all about her.

  Really he would.

  Just then, a man on the end of the front row looked at his watch, got up quietly, and vacated his seat. Seeing his chance to get a closer look, Keller slipped from the shadows and went to take the empty chair.

  * * *

  “ . . . so you see, if you treat the liver like a . . .” Samantha’s voice trailed to a stop as she saw an impossibly tall, muscular figure making its way from the shadows at the back of the auditorium right up to the front row.

  Could that actually be Keller? But how could he have recovered so quickly? He’d said that Shifters were fast healers, but this was ridiculous. He’d had multiple broken bones, traumatic injuries to his internal organs, not to mention a lacerated liver, just like the topic of her lecture. Yet here he was, dressed in an expensive gray three-piece suit, which looked like it cost more than her car, with his thick brown hair in an immaculate club at the back of his neck and his pale, silver-green eyes fixed intently on her as she tried to speak. He looked like he’d never been ill a day in his life—not like a man who was only twenty-four hours out of a lifesaving surgery.

  Samantha couldn’t believe it.

  Looking up at her, Keller made a little go on gesture with one hand.

  “Um,” she said, realizing that she’d stopped talking in the middle of her lecture. Some of the audience was getting restless, whispering among themselves, no doubt wondering why their lecturer had suddenly gone silent.

  “As I was saying,” Samantha said loudly, trying to gather her thoughts and ignore those pale green eyes trained on her from the front row. “The liver is . . .”

  Somehow she managed to finish the speech, although half the time she didn’t know what she was saying. Though she tried not to let it, Keller’s silent, intense gaze rattled her . . . which in turn, pissed her off. How dare he interfere in her life this way? How dare he leave the hospital and follow her to Vegas, book her into a massively expensive room, and then plunk himself down in the front row in the middle of her lecture just to bother her?

  By the time the lecture was over, she was ready to wring his muscular neck. To the sound of applause, she marched off the stage and straight down to the front row where he was still sitting, apparently at ease, with one long leg crossed over the other.

  “Keller!” she exclaimed, glaring at him. He was lounging in the chair with catlike grace, looking up at her, though not far, since he was so tall. “What do you think you’re doing here?” she demanded.

  “Here in Vegas or here in your lecture?” he murmured, looking not in the least perturbed. “It was very good, by the way. I can tell you know your subject inside and out.” He patted his own muscular torso under the sleek, silver-gray suit jacket. “But then, I would have known that without hearing you speak, your actions being even more eloquent than your words.”

  “Why you—” Samantha began but just then a familiar voice boomed in her ear.

  “Samantha Becker? Little Sammie Becker?”

  Turning, she saw it was her mentor, Dr. Bloomsburg, the head of trauma surgery at Mount Sinai hospital where Samantha had done her fellowship. A barrel-chested bear of a man, Bloomsburg had a long white beard and a booming laugh that had caused his residents to nickname him, “Santa.”

  “Dr. Bloomsburg!” she gasped as he caught her up in a bear hug that squeezed all the breath out of her lungs.

  “Sammie!” Bloomsburg was the only person besides her twin, Sadie, who was allowed to call her that. He squeezed her again before setting her back on her feet, his round, red face beaming. “I’m so glad to see you! That was an excellent lecture you gave!”

  “Yes, our little Sammie is quite a speaker, isn’t she?”

  Turning her head, Samantha saw that Keller was on his feet and looming over her protectively. There was a watchful look in his leaf-green eyes, as though he thought her old mentor might be trouble.

  “And you are?” Bloomsburg asked, looking up at him with a slight frown on his jolly face.

  “A former patient of Sammie’s,” Keller said smoothly, holding out his hand. “Liam Keller.”

  “Liam Keller?” Bloomsburg took his hand eagerly while Samantha watched, fuming. “The Liam Keller of Keller Biotech and Robotics?”

  “The same.” Keller smiled, and Samantha found herself doing a double take.

  “Keller Biotech?” she asked, frowning. “Are you really—?”

  “Did you think the name was just a coincidence?” Keller gave her a cat-that-got-the-cream smile.

  “But you . . . but I . . . but you’re the mayor of Cougarville—you own a bar, not a biotech company!” Samantha stammered, shaking her head.

  “Actually, I own both.” Keller gave her a smug, irritating smile. “And while I am acting mayor of the town, it’s not really a job that requires much attention. Cougarville pretty much runs itself. The same can’t be said, however, of Keller Biotech and Robotics.”

  Samantha stared at him. Now she understood how Keller could afford to pay ten thousand dollars a night for a hotel room without thinking twice—doubtless that was spare change to him. His company was one of the largest tech firms in the country, and he was one of the richest men in the world.

  And one of the smartest, whispered a little voice in her brain. From the articles she’d read, Keller wasn’t just involved in the business part of his company; he also had a hand in the science aspect of it as well. Though she didn’t want to let it, her new knowledge cast Keller in a whole new light. He went from big, muscular meathead who could turn into a giant prehistoric cougar, to big, muscular genius who could turn into a giant prehistoric cougar.

  Samantha had always thought smart was sexy—give her the captain of the chess team over the captain of the football team any day, and she would be happy. But the fact was, you didn’t often see the captain of the chess team’s brain in the captain of the football team’s body. Was Keller really the whole package? A big, hard-bodied guy with an actual brain?

  Doesn’t matter if he is, she lectured herself sternly. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s still fourteen years younger than you! Or that he’s interfering in your life.

  “So Mr. Keller, you say that little Sammie here treated you? You were her patient?” Bloomsburg’s booming voice cut into her racing thoughts.

  “I was,” Keller looked down at her seriously. “I was injured—trampled by a buck, actually. Occupational hazard when you live so close to the forest, as I do in my native North Carolina.”

  “Trampled, hmm?” Bloomsburg’s bushy white eyebrows rose. “Now there’s an injury you don’t see every day.”

  “I was almost dead,” Keller went on, his deep voice throbbing with sincerity. “I was broken and bleeding at her feet. No one else would have dared to touch me.”

  “Because of the severity of your injuries, you mean?” Bloomsburg asked.

  “Exactly.” But Keller was looking her in the eye as he spoke, and Samantha knew he was talking about the way she’d approached him in his Cougar form, even knowing he might be dangerous. “She put her hands on me and healed me,” he told Bloomsburg, still looking intently at Samantha. “She touched me . . . and I was hers.”

  “Keller!” Samantha protested. For some reason the way he was looking at her and the soft intensity of his words made her heart pound and her cheeks feel hot and flushed.

  “It’s true, Samantha,” he murmured, holding her eyes with his. “You healed me . . . you own me.”

  “Well, well—it seems you’re considerably more than just Sammie’s patient now.” Bloomsburg boomed his jolly Santa laugh.

  “I’m her wil