The Cougar Chronicles 2 Read online

  The Cougar Chronicles

  Courtney Cole

  Lakehouse Press, Inc.

  Contents

  Copyright

  The Cougar Chronicles 2

  1. Devil, thy name is Sara

  2. If you’re sexy and you know it

  3. Age is just a number, sometimes, an OLD number

  4. God’s penis, and other important questions

  5. What the eff is an Apa?

  6. God, I love penis pictures

  7. Keeping it in the family

  8. Because you’ve gotta have goals

  9. Cowgirl, let’s be hoochies

  10. Just a girl, riding a penis…

  11. Now is the perfect time to remember Colby…

  12. Lord have Mercy

  13. I have a penis on my…what?

  14. I vow to love, honor and cherish you, and get in trouble for the rest of my life

  15. Oh, yes, I did

  16. So he’s faster than me

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Courtney Cole

  Copyright © 2016 by Courtney Cole

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The Cougar Chronicles 2

  by Courtney Cole

  EPISODE TWO:

  SARA

  One

  Devil, thy name is Sara

  “I hate you,” my best friend mutters. I can hear her teeth gnash together all the way from California.

  “Don’t grit your teeth,” I tell her casually. “You’re going to whittle them into fangs.” Covering the mouth of the phone, I look up at the drive-through cashier. “Make sure my dressing is on the side, please.”

  The girl nods and I return my attention to Alli.

  “You love me and you know it,” I remind her. “As your Maid of Honor, I’m planning you the most kickass bachelorette party that Vegas has ever seen. And I’m helping you with the wedding details. Don’t even try to argue. You know where that gets you.”

  Alli sighs, a long, shuddering noise that makes me smile. She always gives in to me, and she knows it.

  “When are you arriving?” she asks wearily. “I’ve got to meet with the caterers and the cake people… and I got your email. I’m absolutely not having the groom’s cake shaped like a penis. No arguments, no way.”

  I let that one slide for now, and check my watch. It’s only twelve thirty. “I’ve just got to head home and finish packing, and your place is only an hour away. So…”

  “So you’ll be here by nightfall?” Alli teases. Because she knows it’ll take that long to pack all of my shoes.

  “No, smarty-wench, I’ll be there by four at the latest. I’m bringing you lots of fun stuff.”

  I glance into my back-seat where boxes filled with lingerie and adult toys are stacked.

  “You’ll love it,” I add.

  Alli sighs again. “Is any of it legal?”

  “Does it matter?” I shoot back. “Gotta go, I’ve got shit to pack.”

  I toss my phone on my seat and push the button that lowers the top to my sassy red Mercedes convertible. It was my birthday gift to myself this year. After all, a girl only turns thirty-five for the first time once, right?

  Next year, for my second thirty-fifth birthday, I’m thinking of getting a crotch rocket. Because my crotch deserves a rocket. And also, because I look fabulous in leather pants. I’m still thinking about what I’ll do for my third thirty-fifth birthday.

  I zip through traffic, eating my salad while I drive, and by the time I pull into my cobblestone driveway, I’m ready to hit the ground running. I drop my salad container in the trash on the way past, and barge into my house, ready to pack and roll.

  I’m unprepared for the naked man sitting on my sofa.

  I take that back. He’s not completely naked. He’s wearing a bowtie.

  “Chazz,” I sigh, as I walk past the handsome young man. “How many times have I told you… we’re done. I don’t need your services anymore.”

  Hiring him had been fun last year, but honestly, I’m over it. I don’t need to hire a male escort anymore. I’m on to other wild things.

  Chazz looks at me doubtfully, one handsome eyebrow raised. “Oh, really? Then who’s going to put their fingers in your a...”

  “Not you,” I interrupt firmly. “It was very nice of you to want to continue seeing me free of charge, but I’m changing my ways, Chazz. I’m only going to date relationship material from now on. No more young flings.”

  “I’m twenty-four,” he points out, and his washboard abs flex with his words. I’m pretty sure he’s doing it on purpose. Any minute now I feel sure he’s going to start twitching his nipples.

  “I’m thirty-five,” I tell him, and I can’t look at his abdomen. I can’t. I don’t want to lose my resolve. “I mean it, Chazz,” I tell him warningly as he inches toward me, his body long and hard.

  Glancing down, I see his body isn’t all that’s long and hard.

  “How can you be hard already?” I demand incredulously.

  He grins, mischief in his eyes. “I’m twenty-four.”

  He pins me against the breakfast nook, and the granite is cold against my back. Chazz, however, is hot against my front. His skin is warm and firm and smooth, and suddenly, my mouth waters.

  “I like your hair,” he tells me smoothly, is voice like honey, his eyes like a wolf.

  “I grew out my pixie cut,” I tell him needlessly, running my fingers through my sleek bob.

  “Red suits you,” he tells me. “It’s wild and fiery, just like you.”

  He picks up my hand and puts it against his abs, and Lord have Mercy, they’re just as hard as they look, just as hard as I remember.

  “Chazz,” I say, but my words are limp now, like a dishrag or a noodle. Because I know I’m giving in. Who wouldn’t? The man’s abs don’t stop.

  “Yes?” he grins, and pulls me to him, and kisses me with abandon, the way a twenty-four year old kisses… full of passion, because the world hasn’t tramped him down yet.

  “Oh, fuck it,” I give in and sweep everything off the counter with one toned arm. I don’t work my ass off at CrossFit every week for nothing.

  “That’s what I thought,” he says knowingly as he lifts me up. “You fit me just right, baby.”

  “You know not to call me baby,” I say against his lips. “It’s demeaning.”

  “Oh, I’m going to demean you,” he says knowingly, and he flips me around and bends me over and puts his finger just where I like it. “And you’ll love it.”

  I hate it when he’s right.

  Two

  If you’re sexy and you know it

  “Ok, change of plans,” I say into the phone four hours later. My temples are damp and I smell like raunchy sex.

  Alli waits knowingly on the other end.

  “I’m just now leaving my house.”

  “Chazz was there, wasn’t he?” Alli demands. “I can hear the orgasm in your voice.”

  “God, I don’t know why he’s so obsessed with me,” I complain as I turn onto the highway. Alli laughs, hard.

  “You keep having mind-blowing sex with him, that’s why.”

  “I can’t help it,” I mutter as the wind blows my sweaty hair dry. “Have you seen his abs?”

  “You swore to yourself that you were going to settle down,” Alli reminds me. “You were going to date men your own age, men who are marriage material.”

  “But men my age are boring,” I whine. “All they want to do
is sit in cigar bars or watch football on TV. I want someone who wants to go play it themselves, or wants to skydive, or salsa dance in Cuba.”

  “You’re ridiculous.” Alli has no sympathy. “So you’ll be here at… midnight?”

  “Nope,” I correct her. “I’ll be there by eight. I’m driving Lolita. She likes to go fast, just like me.”

  “You’re still ridiculous,” Alli sighs. “Don’t kill yourself on the way here. I need you.”

  “You need what’s in my backseat, too.”

  “I’m scared,” she all but whimpers. I grin.

  “You should be.”

  I cackle and hang up, turn the music loud, and let the Las Vegas landscape blur into the distance as I head for Alli’s California home. We’ll plan everything there, and then head back to Vegas for the bachelorette party, then back to her winery for the ceremony.

  “I don’t know why she moved to California anyway,” I grumble to myself. But I do. She moved because she and her fiancée bought into a winery and who wouldn’t want to run a winery? I’d personally drink myself out of business, but that’s neither here nor there.

  The night swallows up my car and before I know it, a scant four hours later, I’m pulling up to my best friend’s house.

  Mansion.

  House.

  Mansion.

  I can’t decide which it is as I walk to the door.

  “Is this a house or a mansion?” I demand when Alli’s fiancée answers the door. Alex, who is dressed in pajama pants and no shirt, grins.

  “Neither. I think it’s a chateau.”

  “Nice abs,” I tell him as I breeze past, and he chuckles as he grabs my bag.

  “Alli Cat?” he calls up the stairs. “Sara is here.”

  My BFF squeals from upstairs and comes bounding down. With her long lean legs, she looks like a gazelle as she jumps into my arms.

  “Hey, bitch,” I greet her, hugging the stuffing out of her. “That was a long ride.”

  Alli wrinkles her nose. “You smell like Chazz and sex. You’ve got to shower. Then come down and we’ll drink wine under the stars.”

  “Are we going to get naked in the hot-tub like old times?” I ask that for Alex’s benefit, and he laughs, his white teeth flashing in the light. He wasn’t there the night Alli and I passed out in her hot-tub naked, but he’s heard the stories.

  “Go ahead,” he tells me. “You won’t catch me arguing.”

  I snicker. “I know you’d only be looking at Alli, you sick monogamist.”

  “You should try it some time” he advises. “You might like it.”

  “Or I might be bored silly.”

  He shrugs. “Either way. Come outside when you’re clean.”

  “I’ll never be clean.” I waggle my eyebrows and spank his ass lightly as I pass. They both roll their eyes.

  “It’s like you’re one person now,” I complain loudly as I head up the stairs. “God.”

  But I love them both and they know it. If ever two people were meant to be together, it’s them. It’s sickening. I sort of throw up a little in my mouth at the mere thought of monogamy, but I handle it by the time I reach my room.

  Their guest bathroom is quaint and beautiful, and I stand beneath the hot water for quite a while, letting the miles wash away. Traces of my red hair coloring, which I just had retouched yesterday, swirl the drain too. That’s ok. No one needs to know that my fire engine red hair isn’t real.

  Haha. I like fooling myself.

  It’s startlingly red. Everyone knows it’s not real. That’s fine.

  It matches my lipstick and my car.

  And my personality. And my favorite high heels.

  The list could go on forever.

  I’m just a red kind of girl.

  When I’m finished washing, I throw on a pair of old ratty shorts and a t-shirt, and without doing my hair or makeup, I head downstairs to find Alex and Alli.

  Because wine.

  “Hey!” I call out, because no one seems to be anywhere. “Alli! Alex!”

  No one answers.

  I call again, and no one answers.

  Well, screw that then.

  I need wine.

  I find my way into the kitchen, and as a real estate agent, the Realtor of the Year in the Greater Las Vegas area for three years running, I can’t help but admire it. Stone columns, exposed brick, glistening granite, massive counter space. I give a low whistle and head through the hallway behind it to the wine cellar.

  It’s encased in stone and worthy of a winery’s wine cellar. Wine bottles line the walls from floor to ceiling. I browse them and choose two. Reds, of course.

  It’s my color.

  I’ve got a bottle in each hand when I’m rounding the corner into the kitchen, my hair dripping wet and my face as clean as the day I was born, when I run smack dab into the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.

  Three

  Age is just a number, sometimes, an OLD number

  The blue eyes blink just as I collide into the super hard chest attached to them.

  “Oof,” I expel an unladylike sound as I smash into him. With deft hands, Blue-Eyes catches the wine bottles in my hands.

  I didn’t even realize I’d dropped them.

  Don’t judge. With eyes like that looking at me, I’m surprised I didn’t automatically drop my panties, too. Never fear- there’s still time.

  “Hello,” he says, staring at me curiously. For a second, I think he’s staring because he doesn’t know me. Then I feel my wet hair drip onto my shoulders and I remember that I look like I’m homeless.

  God.

  “I…uh… I’m supposed to be here,” I blurt like an idiot.

  Blue-Eyes raises a dark eye brow and what is he?? Greek?? Lord have mercy. My uterus flutters, then claws at the inside of my belly, trying to get to this guy.

  Down, girl.

  “Are you?” he asks casually, perfectly unflustered, as though he’s used to seeing ragged wet women all the time.

  Gah, he’s gorgeous. Roman nose, dark eyes, perfect chiseled chin. What the hell is Alli doing with this guy in her house? He’s a hellava lot of competition for Alex. Holy shit.

  “How old are you?” I ask without thinking. Blue-Eyes pauses.

  “Most people ask for my name first,” he says easily. “It’s Sam, by the way.”

  “Sam? Plain ol’ Sam?” God, what’s wrong with my tongue? Why is it talking?

  He smiles. “Plain ol’ Sam. What were you expecting?”

  Something exotic, like Damien, or Dante, or Devin.

  “I don’t know,” I lie. “I’m Sara.”

  “Plain ol’ Sara?” he asks, and amusement twinkles in his blue eyes.

  I blush now, and god, I haven’t blushed in a million years. Who is this alien creature that can reduce me to flushing?

  “I might look light plain ‘ol Sara right now,” I tell him. “But normally I don’t. Trust me. I’m usually a bombshell.”

  He laughs. “I can see that. Tell me, Plain ‘ol Sara, why are you in Alli and Alex’s wine cellar?”

  This annoys me because who is he to question me? I stick my chest out.

  “Who are you?” I demand. “I’m Alli’s best friend.”

  “Ohhhh. You’re that Sara.”

  There’s a tone in his voice I don’t recognize and I’m not sure that it’s good. I peer at him through wet mascara-less eyelashes.

  “What Sara? Which one have you been talking to -- Alli or Alex?”

  He grins, a wide smile that lights up his entire gorgeous face. Holy ball-sack. My ovaries twitch to get out.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  I stare at him, waiting, because obviously, yes, I would like to know.

  I tap my foot.

  He grins.

  “You should wear shoes down here, especially if you’re wet. You could fall.”

  “Oh, I’m not wet,” I tell him indignantly. “You’d know if I was.”

  He laughs at that, a loud fu
ll laugh that does make my ovaries stand up and salute him. Fucking traitorous ovaries. God.

  “Well, you appear to be all that they promised and then some,” he chuckles. “And by the way, I’m here because I’m the winery foreman. I work for Alli and Alex. You’ll be seeing more of me this week.”

  He turns and leaves, and his shoulders are as broad as the door, and his waist is slim, and the muscles on his biceps… holy shit, the muscles are a breed of species of their own.

  But he’s gone, and Alli’s been holding out on me.

  “Alli!” I screech like a banshee and she comes running, scrambling down the stone steps like she thinks I’ve broken a leg, or worse, a high heel.

  “You’ve been holding out on me!” I accuse her with my sternest expression. She skids to a halt, assessing me for damage, then eyes me curiously.

  “What?”

  Her long dark hair is looped into a bun on top of her head, and she’s wearing the most elegant linen shorts. She manages to look refined and relaxed at the same time and she’s living in a Chateau.

  “I’ve decided I hate you,” I tell her. “The past twenty years mean nothing to me now.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Why were you screaming? Spider?”

  “No. I was screaming because of an alien creature named Sam. You didn’t tell me about him.”

  She stares at me now, and there’s a knowing expression in her eyes, and she pauses.

  “I didn’t tell you on purpose,” she finally admits. “Sam is off-limits, Sar. I respect him, and you’d chew him up and spit him out. He’s a good guy, not your play-thing.”

  She’s stern and I’m speechless.

  “What?” I stutter, and I attempt to shoot daggers with my eyes. “I can’t even.. I can’t believe you’d think that of me.”

  Alli’s look is droll. “Let’s talk about your past conquests, shall we? There was Erik only a month ago. He was such a nice accountant, and had a Porsche, and treated you like a queen, and you broke up with him via text because he wouldn’t sky-dive with you. There was Duke right before that, and he was a Park Ranger, and…”