Page 53 of Curvy Nanny for the Cougar
“What seems to be the problem now?”
I scrub a hand down my face.
“The problem? She lives here now. She's great with Alex. Sweet. Smart. Incredible with kids. But she avoids me like I’m patient zero in a Demon flu outbreak.”
He tsks dramatically.
“Oh no, not avoidance! The deadliest of mating rituals. Have you tried grunting at her from behind a bush? That seems to be all the rage with the badgers lately.”
I glare.
“This isn’t funny, Uncle Uzzi. My Cougar is losing his damn mind. He wants her claimed. Marked. Mated. Hell, so do I.”
“Then claim her! You’re a grown man with opposable thumbs. What’s the hold-up?”
“She’s human,” I hiss. “She doesn’t know anything about our world. About Shifters. About fated mates. She thinks I’m just some moody single dad with anger issues and a caffeine addiction.”
“Well, you are, but that’s beside the point.”
I roll my eyes.
He’s not wrong. But still.
“You don’t get it. I love her. And I want her. So damn badly. I just?—”
“I do get it. What I don’t get is how you can argue interdimensional property law with a Vampire tribunal but can’t form a single coherent sentence to the woman you’re cosmically bound to.”
“That’s different! There are rules in court. Structure. Precedent. There’s no precedent for this.”
“Oh, boo-hoo,” Uzzi says, rotating upside down just to be annoying. “You’re a litigator, boy. Use your words! Preferably ones with fewer syllables than ‘amicable custody settlement,’ and more emotion than a tax form.”
I groan. “It’s not that easy.”
“It is that easy. You're just afraid. She scares you.”
“She doesn’t scare me,” I snap, a little too fast.
He arches a weirdly spectral brow.
“She should. Humans like her are rare. Not just fated—formidable. Your souls clicked into place like a wand to a wand holster. You don’t walk away from that.”
“I’m not trying to walk away!” I pace. “But I can’t just dump magic and mating bonds and Cougar instincts on her. She’s not ready.”
“Darling,” Uzzi sighs, now gently spinning in a circle like a bored mobile. “She’s already in your home. She’s already halfway into your life. She survived a week with a five-year-old Shifter who eats like a teenage werewolf and does karate kicks in his sleep. That woman’s stronger than she looks.”
I run a hand through my hair. “So what do I do?”
Uzzi winks. “Tell her the truth. With your big grown-up lawyer words.”
“I swear to all the freaking gods, if you make one more joke about lawyers?—”
“Would I ever?” he gasps, clutching his floating spectral pearls. “Please. I have the utmost respect for your profession. So noble. So wordy. So emotionally constipated. And yet so necessary, liebling, seriously! I respect you, and you need to respect that I know my job as well as yours. If she is your fated one, then by all means, tell her.”
I open my mouth to tell him exactly where he can file his sarcasm and his shitty advice when?—
Knock. Knock. Click.
The door opens.
