Page 33 of Claiming Her Cougar
Mallory’s cheeks flush a pretty pink, and she covers her face with her hands.
“You can see them?I hate them.It’s the curse of being a redhead.”
“Shut up.They’re adorable.Freckles have always been my weakness, ever since Amy Looper in fourth grade.Yours are cuter than hers, by the way.”
“Seriously?Freckles do it for you?”she asks skeptically.
“Well, I enjoy trying to discover all the spots, other than the face, there may be freckles.”I speak with a slow, suggestive drawl and give an eyebrow wiggle for good measure.
“Liam…” A warning.
“What?”I flash a wicked grin.
“No flirting.”
“It’s kinda my default setting.”
“Well, go back to the factory then.No flirting.”
I think about that.Can I interact with Mallory without flirting?Yeah, I’m a naturally flirtatious man, but I don’t flirt with Teagan.She doesn’t inspire those kinds of feelings in me.She’d probably punch me or turn me into a toad if I did.Not that I’m attracted to everyone I flirt with.Sometimes I do it to be funny or to give them a boost.But I want to flirt with Mallory because I am attracted to her.I don’t want to make her uncomfortable though.That’s an asshole thing to do.
“Okay, no flirting.So just normal friend-type stuff like I’d do with Teagan and Jake?”
“Yeah, or like with Daphne,” she suggests.
“Oh, I flirt with Daphne.Always have.It drives Logan crazy.I take credit for them finally getting together.”I take a sip of the bottle of water I grabbed from the mini fridge when I entered the room.“I’m going to be the godfather to their baby.”
“Baby?”Mallory gasps.“They’re having a baby?Oh, my goodness, that’s so exciting!Wow!”
“Whoa, cool your jets there, Red,” I caution.“No babies yet as far as I know, but when they have them, I called dibs on godfather for the first one.”
“Red?Really?That’s the best you could do?”
“I can’t call you sweetheart or honey, so had to think of something on the fly.I guess I should have gone with Sparky?”
She laughs.“Sparky?Where did that come from?”
I laugh too.“I don’t know.It just came to me.You’re kind of spunky.Made me think of a spark plug, so…Sparky.”
“I like that.I’ve never had a fun nickname.It’s either been Mal or something like Runt or Norm.”
“Norm?Like the guy from that old showCheers?”
“Norm, like normal.It wasn’t a compliment.Because I can’t shift, I’m normal.I hate that one especially.”
“I can’t believe your family treats you like that.That’s horrible.”I want to kick some asses on her behalf.
“It’s my extended family—cousins and their friends.My immediate family isn’t intentionally cruel like that.They’re insensitive sometimes, but it’s more from cluelessness than cruelty.I imagine it’s like if a baby shifter was born into a human family.They love them and care for them the best they can, but they don’t understand the shifter side because they haven’t experienced it.”It’s her turn to take a sip from her mug.It’s black and says “Perfectly Imperfect” in pink script on it.It suits her.“Their humanness, for lack of a better word, has been filtered through the lens of being a shifter.I think if they weren’t all wolves, if it was a mixed family like yours, it wouldn’t be as bad.If you were human and not a cougar shifter, it wouldn’t be considered something akin to a disability.It’s something you got from your mom.Me being human is because something went wrong genetically.”
Someone scores, and I’m not even sure which team because we haven’t been watching the game.We’ve been focused on each other in the waning seconds of the first period.
How to ask this tactfully… “Did they do tests, or is it just assumed that you can’t shift because you haven’t shifted?”
“Liam, I’m twenty-six years old.If I haven’t shifted yet, I’m not going to shift.I didn’t decide not to shift.I’ve tried!I can’t do it.There’s something wrong with me.”
My heart twists, seeing her knuckles whiten as she grips her mug.Her beautiful green eyes go distant.She’s hurting, and all I want to do is make it better for her.
“Mallory Carter, there isn’t a damn thing wrong with you.You are exactly how you are meant to be.Look at your mug, you aren’t perfectly imperfect, you’re perfectly perfect.”
