Already Freakn' Mated Read Online Free Page B

it too mildly.
    “No more buts,” she snarled, eyes narrowed and her claws extending as her cat rose to the surface. “I need something, Sheng. I can’t live like this. Can’t go on caging my other half. I want to tear my skin off. Gouge the walls. Kill something to stop this horrible ache inside. My cat is going mental. I need that gym. So stop imagining problems that don’t exist and call the guy everyone keeps recommending. Or I swear, dangerous or not, I’m going to strip naked in the yard, shift and run until the sun comes up. Maybe even chase that stupid neighbor’s tea poodle.” Yappy little critter. Worse, a shifter owned the dumb thing. What carnivore named its snack?
    “He won’t come back.” Sheng stated it with a little too much pleasure.
    Men and their pride. Her lip curled. “Oh yes, he will, because you’re going to apologize.”
    “Am not.”
    Jiao planted her hands on her hips. “Are too.”
    “Forget it. Not happening.”
    And that quickly, she snapped. Her body twisted and reshaped as she leapt at Sheng, her nightgown fluttering to the floor. Taken by surprise, she hit Sheng hard and took him down. He recovered quickly, his own cat springing forth until they tussled on the floor in a snarling, spitting, furry tangle.
    Hair flew – probably in a direct beeline to that stupid velvet covered chair. Claws raked – and turned the maple hardwood floors into a distressed version. Teeth tugged, not hard enough to cause true damage, but she got her point across. Despite Sheng’s larger size, Jiao used her annoyance and his inability to harm her against him. While she didn’t manage to pin him, she did get her sharp teeth around his tail. Or as she well knew, his personal Achilles tendon.
    He yowled.
    She growled and shook her prize.
    He tugged lightly hoping to get free.
    Her teeth sank in deeper.
    Beaten, he lay down on the floor and sighed, his spotted fur rippling.
    Releasing his tail, she pranced around the room in victory. I won! Sheng would call. And she’d get to see the handyman again. In person. Not in her dreams or fantasies – and probably wearing more clothes than she’d imagined him in. A shame. But hey, at least if Sheng finally hired him, she’d get her gym. But that came second on the pleasure scale as far as her cat was concerned.
    Excitement made her race around the room. She couldn’t wait to see if Chris still affected her. If what she’d sensed with him before would happen again, or if was an anomaly. If he did make her cat, mind, and body, go haywire again, then what? She’d deal with that hurdle when she encountered it, whether Sheng approved or not.
    I didn’t escape one cage to live in another. It was time to stop hiding from the world. Time to let herself live – and maybe even love.

Chapter Four
    On four feet he chased the scent. Sweet . E xotic . I t promised so many things. Fun things. Naked and sweaty things.
    Chris never quite got a glimpse of t he one he followed , but she also did nothing to hide her trail. The minx! She wanted him to catch her . Taunted his canine side to hunt her feline one.
    E ager to end the teasing pursuit, he quickened his pace , leaping through the foliage, taking care to move as soundlessly as possible through the fallen leaves . He didn’t quite succeed , t he crinkle of his passage loud in the still night.
    She moved much more quietly, slinking and springing with a grace only cat s could manage , t he sign s of her passage seen only in the tremble of branches and the foliage that still cl u ng stubbornly to almost barren branches . Even without the faint physical evidence, he would have tracked her by scent alone. Despite the incongruity of a wolf lusting after a feline, her delectable aroma called him.
    Trotting out into a clearing, a very empty clearing, Chris whipped his head from side to side, muzzle held high as he sniff ed the air. Where had she gone? As if washed away by a heavy rain, the perfume he followed