Jaguar's Kiss (Lone Pine Pride) Read Online Free PDF

on, Patch giving her silence for several minutes, until Lila couldn’t take the quiet anymore.
    “Sorry,” Lila murmured. “That was juvenile.”
    “You’re allowed to be upset. And you know I won’t tell anyone.”
    “I shouldn’t be upset,” Lila growled. “I’m just so annoyed with myself that I’m not excited. I’m supposed to be thrilled, damn it. This is what I’ve been waiting for all my life, isn’t it? For years I’ve been complaining that I’m going to be the oldest virgin in the world because none of the other members of the pride will so much as kiss me lest they offend Roman by getting their scent on me. I’m finally going to have someone who is obliged to sleep with me—” Obliged to sleep with me . That didn’t sound so good.
    “You could always have gone the human route.”
    “And always have to worry about whether or not I’m going to lose control and shift during sex? No, thank you. Just kissing humans is weird enough. They smell so…weird.”
    “They don’t smell weird. You’re just a lion elitist. Admit it.”
    “Lions smell right,” Lila argued.
    Patch tipped her head back, her nostrils flaring. “Speaking of lions smelling right, is that Roman?”
    Lila inhaled the wind in her face and the distinctive leonine musk it carried. Shit . Roman was the last person in the world she wanted to see right now. Tipsy and far too honest was not the best way to face the man who was going to be her husband. What the hell was he doing out here?
    They couldn’t see or hear him yet, but the scent was strong enough that they should soon. Escape. She had to escape.
    The bucket in Patch’s hand looked like salvation.
    “Oh, would you look at that, we’re out of beer. What kind of fiancée would I be if I couldn’t offer him one? I’ll run back and grab another bucket.”
    “Lila?” Patch wasn’t an idiot. She’d obviously picked up on Lila’s irrational panic at the idea of seeing her husband-to-be. “Do you want me to—?”
    “No! No, I’ve got this. We’re good. You guys just, you know, talk or whatever and I’ll be right back with some more brewskies. Lickety split.”
    Patch had always been the more athletic of the two of them, but there was one way in which she’d never been able to compete with Lila. The lioness was fast when she wanted to be. And tonight she wanted to be.
    Lila ran.

Chapter Four
    Maybe she was a coward after all. There really wasn’t any other explanation for the fact that she was fleeing from her fiancé. Lila slowed to a walk, stumbling a little as the alcohol sloshed through her bloodstream. She was almost back to where she’d shattered the beer bottle. She was really having a bang up night. Temper tantrums, running away—
    The thought evaporated as she saw the figure standing in the darkness next to the fence post with her hair ribbon tied around it, staring out over the elk enclosure. For a second she was terrified Roman had circled around them and she would have to face him after all, then she realized the form didn’t have the bulk to be the future Alpha. No, this shadow was all sleek strength, dark hair, and the smoky scent of a jaguar teasing her as the wind shifted.
    Santiago.
    Oh mercy. She wasn’t prepared to deal with him any more than she had been to face Roman with that hops-induced honesty in her bloodstream. But it was either talk to him, turn back and face Roman, or march on past, pretending not to notice him there—which would be just another cowardly, childish move in a night that had already proven her pathetic.
    She refused to be a coward in front of him.
    Lila marched over to the fence, trying to sway her hips but fairly certain her va-va-voom was more than a little alcohol impaired. “What are you doing here?”
    He turned his head, looking at her for the first time, though he had to know who she was the second she came into range. In answer, he lifted his own bottle for her to see—tequila—and she saw he had the end