The Tiger's Tale

  The Tiger’s Tale

  Nara Malone

  Never quite fitting in, Marie has always struggled with her identity. Adam has shown her just how sensual she can be, but despite this awakening she still doesn’t feel complete. That’s because she’s not. Orphaned at birth and raised by humans, practical Marie has no idea of her dual heritage as tiger and woman, or the role she must play to save her species.

  When Adam discovers that his alluring girlfriend is not only a Pantherian tiger but carries unique genetic traits that could save their species, he asks Ean to join them as the third partner in the traditional Pantherian mating triad. With the future of the species at stake, the sexy shifters have only one week to convince her that not only is she a tiger, but she must mate with both men to save the Pantherians from extinction.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  The Tiger’s Tale

  ISBN 9781419927126

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  The Tiger’s Tale Copyright © 2010 Nara Malone

  Edited by Grace Bradley

  Cover art by Dar Albert

  Electronic book publication March 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  The Tiger’s Tale

  Nara Malone

  Dedication

  To my first and most dedicated fan. Miss you, Daddy.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in the work of fiction:

  Aveo: General Motors Corporation

  Doctors Without Borders: Bureau International de Medicins Sans Frontieres Incorporated Association

  iPhone: Apple Inc.

  Legos: Lego Juris A/S Corporation

  Mustang: Ford Motor Company

  Chapter One

  The five hundred pound Bengal paced the lab’s length, covering the distance between window and door in four strides, bumping against work tables and file cabinets when he turned. His rigid tail sliced the air like a rudder, straight, stiff, save for the agitated twitch at the tip.

  Ean paced. Ean twitched. Adam tapped.

  The steady click of his mouse marked passing minutes like a clock, reminding Adam how little time he had to waste and how far he had to go. The screen flickered as, one by one, pages of DNA diagrams displayed.

  The effect on the tiger was like a dripping faucet.

  Pushed to his limit, Ean padded up to Adam. Yellow eyes blazed. Nostrils flared. A soft growl rumbled in his chest.

  “I’m sorry! We can’t lie to her, Ean,” Adam said.

  With a huff, Ean sat back on his haunches. Paws bigger than Adam’s head swiped the air.

  “We can’t deceive her about something that will alter all of our lives so completely.”

  Sickle-like claws sheathed and unsheathed. Teeth gnashed. That great tongue flicked out, then coiled in like a whip.

  Adam ignored him.

  Tap. Tap.

  Twitch. Twitch.

  Ean rose to as much of his ten-foot length as possible in the cramped quarters. His head nearly scraped the rafters. With a shimmer and ripple in the air around him, he shifted from full-grown tiger to six feet and two hundred pounds of agitated, naked man. He turned away and stomped across the room.

  “Stop that clicking or you’ll be eating that mouse.”

  Adam ignored the threat. This situation demanded logic, not belligerence and bluster.

  Ean shook a tousled mane of hair, a subtle blend of all the tiger’s colors—red and gold and brown. He growled at the tangled clothes he’d kicked under the chair in his pacing. “If you tell Marie the truth, she’ll bolt,” Ean rumbled. “You said as much yourself.”

  Tension sparked the air around Ean. He snapped the wrinkles from his pants and yanked them on. His eyes had gone back to the shifter’s mix of blue and gold, a swirl of color as hypnotic in the man as the black-slitted gold had been in the tiger. Temper still blazed in them.

  “You can’t let this one chance for what she most wants slip away from her.”

  And yet, Marie’s desire would have to be courted. Even with the existence of a species and their bloodlines resting on her compliance, Ean would not force her any more than Adam would.

  But wasn’t deception a form of force?

  Ean threw himself into a chair. Charts that mapped their destiny fluttered briefly in response to the mental anxiety pulsing like an aura around him.

  “Easy,” Adam cautioned. “She may not know her nature but she’s all that we are and she’ll pick up your tension if you don’t get yourself under control.”

  Ean huffed and picked up the scattered charts. Thin white sheets quivered in his hands.

  Adam leaned back in his chair, studying the code. His finger tapped away, flipping through screens. The codes weren’t going to change any more than the indicators on the fertility charts Ean had in his hands.

  “Six days left,” Ean mumbled. The tension around him dimmed as he leaned back, settling into thought, tapping one finger against his lips. Desperation flushed Ean’s face and Adam knew it wouldn’t be a full minute before he erupted again.

  It was fifteen mouse clicks.

  “If we don’t convince her now, it’s another seven years before she cycles again. It’s too close to her transition. If not now, it might be never.”

  “For bonding we need trust, Ean.”

  Trust took time. Adam trusted Ean with the most precious thing to come into his life. And that was why Adam had sought Ean. That was why he sent out his call to a friend secluded in a remote corner of India. That was why time had gotten away from them. Now there was too little left to gain the trust they needed from Marie before time ran out altogether.

  Adam pushed the mouse aside. His fingers curved around a picture at the corner of his desk instead. He stroked the smooth wood frame with his finger. He’d snapped that picture of her by the river. She’d been perched on a rock, her head tipped back, lost in the music and mood of the water. The lens had captured her surprise when he appeared, a wide-eyed softness laced with sorrow. Had she been wishing even then for the child she believed she could never have? He ran his finger over her coppery curls, traced the lush lines of her figure and wished he could banish the sadness from those haunted blue eyes.

  He set the picture carefully in its place next to the computer monitor. Marie looked at him from the frame; their future looked out from the computer screen, mapped in black and white. All that remained was a choice. Which path?

  He pushed back from the desk, back from the computer, back from the situation that trapped the three
of them. He rose and went to the window, massaging the kink in his neck. Outside the leaves fell in sporadic waves. Another week and they would be gone and so would his chance to give her the child her arms ached to hold.

  “I would do anything to give her this,” he said.”But how do I make love to her with a lie poisoning what should be precious?”

  “I’m not saying lie, Adam.” He heard the chair scrape and could feel Ean moving behind him.”I’m saying don’t give her every little detail up front.”

  He stood beside Adam and they both gazed at the brilliant blaze of autumn. Ean’s tone softened, coaxed.”We tell her enough to gain cooperation. She doesn’t need details until after she conceives.”

  Adam started to turn away and paused where the light cast a reflection of the two of them standing together. How could they soften the intimidation factor their combined presence created? Adam didn’t have Ean’s bulk, but he was just as tall. His hair jet black, his eyes the quicksilver of a shifter who had matured to the magus level.

  Maturity didn’t equal wisdom in all things and in this instance he couldn’t find objectivity. He wondered if Ean had. Ean’s eyes held conviction that Adam’s heart couldn’t find.

  Was this, after all, his choice to make?

  “We’ll see how well the two of you get on,” he said.

  * * * * *

  The red maple showered color outside the panel of windows that rose from the edge of the tub to the ceiling. Despite the chill and lazy autumn rain, Marie left a window open. Enveloped by the heavy warmth of her bath, she welcomed the crisp rain-scented breeze against her face. Steam curled above the water in tantalizing tendrils the way mists curled between the trunks of oaks and maples along the riverbank.

  She heard the soft tick of the door latch and felt Adam’s presence, a solid ordered presence, all emotions kept tidy and sorted. Nothing messy about Adam’s moods. She smiled. She loved to muss him up, use him up, leave him rumpled with a crooked smile. But the truth was, he usually rumpled her. It started with the sound of his voice. It came to her now, slid down her spine easing out tension, like the soft liquid murmur of water rolling over rock.

  “Mine,” he said. Staking a claim, primitive, stark, hot.

  Yes, she was and she needed to hear it, to know he wasn’t trying to hand her off to someone else.

  “Have you changed your mind about sharing me?”

  There was something dark and exotic about the way he moved. He approached with a sleek, fluid grace. Her eyes savored him the way her tongue savored chocolate. The tip of her tongue slid wistfully between her moist lips.

  He sat on the tub’s edge. He stirred the water gently with a finger, skimming the surface and then up along the length of her arm. She shivered as if a current moved through her.

  “Don’t think of it as me giving you away, or slicing off a share of you for someone else to sample.” He leaned in. The spark in those quicksilver eyes made her chest tight and sucked the oxygen from her lungs. She couldn’t string two words together into a thought when he looked at her that way. His lips touched hers and she felt a familiar pull, a craving. Her lips parted. Her tongue had to taste him, had to feel the stroke of his tongue warm and thick against her own. She whimpered when he drew back.

  “This is not division, love, it’s multiplication. I’m not giving you to Ean,” he explained. “I’m giving Ean to you. Together we multiply your pleasure.”

  Marie sank deeper into the water until it lapped at the lobes of her ears and dampened the tendrils of hair that had escaped the pins.

  “Well, when you put it that way.” She tried to sound light and worldly. It came out sounding lost and squeaky.

  Restless, she shifted and mounds of bubbles undulated, glittering cells popping a soft protest. She closed her eyes, let the heat seep into her doubts, soften the wall of worry that held her stiff and aloof. It wasn’t easy to sink into the reality of actually following directions she’d never dared imagine, or the challenge of doing things so totally beyond her vision of herself.

  But when she looked at herself through Adam’s eyes she saw someone different, someone braver and bolder. Adam’s faith in her held her fast. Ninety percent of her wanted to run away. But the ten percent of her that didn’t proved stronger. That willful, wanton part. That part lifted her from the water to step into the towel he held for her.

  At first, he simply hugged her, folded in the warmth of a heated towel. Then his nose nuzzled her neck. She listened to his deep breath, felt him inhale her scent.

  “I like this new bubble bath. Vanilla spice.” He tucked the towel under her arms and fastened it between her breasts. His fingers skimmed up her bare arms and settled to massage her shoulders.”I chose it to relax you.”

  “It did.”

  “Did it?” His fingers found a particularly tight spot.

  “A little,” she amended.

  He urged her forward to stand in front of the sink. Candles in crystal bowls added atmosphere; tiny flames flickered, sending diamond-shaped lights and shadows dancing seductively down the walls. Adam’s chin rested lightly atop her head. Their reflections shimmered in the long mirror above the sink. His eyes sparkled with pleasure as he opened the towel, exploring her with his fingers and his eyes. Then he bent his head to lick a water droplet on her shoulder, his dark hair a sharp contrast to her ivory skin. A light nip followed his tongue’s caress. “You’ll be fine,” he promised, looking up to meet her eyes.

  Marie tried to smile but the result looked more like a grimace. He chuckled, one hand drifting down to stroke her naked mound.

  “In the beginning you didn’t like this idea.” His fingers stroked over satin skin shaved smooth to welcome her lover’s tongue. Her breath drew in sharply and her eyelids drooped. She arched her back and pressed toward his soft stroke. Her thighs parted more as he turned her to liquid fire. She remembered the first time she’d felt his breath whisper over her bare pussy. The flick of his tongue right at the edge, teasing and driving her mindless before sending her into orgasm with no more than his breath on her throbbing clit.

  She let herself consider having two lovers, one warm tongue licking her bare lips while a cock thrust inside her. She made a humming, almost purring sound in her throat and his finger stroked over her clit where it peeked between the pink flushed lips, dew-soaked and ready. Maybe, she thought. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that Ean was a stranger. That he wasn’t special to her. Maybe to feel the pleasure two men could give would be enough.

  Adam lifted his fingers, fragrant with the scent of her need. He stroked her bottom lip with a sticky finger and smiled when her tongue flicked out to taste. “You’ve learned to enjoy so many things you never imagined.”

  She could only nod. Lust flushed her skin, scattered her inhibitions. Pressing her bare bottom against his trousers, she trapped his thick cock under the cloth between her cheeks. She rose on her toes and slid back down, relishing the feel of the fabric against her skin and the rigid shaft sliding along the cleft of her bottom. She saw that flash in his eyes, control pushed to the edge, and licked her lips.

  He stepped back. She could hear the slow, careful release of breath. “You hold tight to that thought,” he said, reaching around her for the hairbrush and then dropping it.

  “I’ve got it,” she said, bending over instead of stooping, knowing exactly where his eyes would be drawn. She straightened slowly and turned to hand it to him. Was that sheen on his forehead perspiration?

  He turned her back around. “As I was saying, you’ll feel the same about what I’m asking today.” He plucked pins from her hair and tossed them on the counter. “Ean needs this, needs us.” Adam kissed the top of her head. “He needs you.”

  Marie shook her hair free. “He’s here now?” Red curls tumbled down to tickle the middle of her back.

  “He’s making lunch. We’re going to help him prepare dessert.” Adam attempted to tame her hair with the brush.

  “You said you had shared lovers with
Ean before?”

  “I said Ean had invited me to join him in pleasuring someone special to him.”

  “His wife?”

  “They weren’t married at the time.”

  Marie chewed her lip. She had wanted to ask her next question since Adam had first brought up this idea. She knew she was treading on delicate territory. “How did she die, Adam?”

  His hands went still in her hair. “The Asian Tsunami.”

  She heard his slow, measured exhale.

  She tried not to think of the news video she’d seen. She didn’t ask for details that would make the horror any more real in her mind. “Are you sure Ean is ready for this?”

  Adam pulled the brush through her hair with strokes so hard her head jerked back with each one. She knew he wasn’t aware and kept her discomfort to herself.

  “He’s prowled the Himalayas and camped in caves long enough. Maybe at first he needed something that stark to make him feel anything but the grief. Dark caves and ice packs aren’t what he needs now. Now he needs to remember how bright and warm life can be.”

  A little worry nagged at Marie. There was more to this story. She couldn’t bring herself to press Adam. She shivered.

  Adam put down the brush and smoothed his hands over her hair. “Trust me?”

  She nodded, afraid her voice might give away her remaining doubts.

  Could an afternoon of lovemaking, something string-free and safe, without expectations, ease Ean back into life again? She didn’t know, but her heart ached for this man she’d never met. Maybe she could overlook her own inhibitions for his sake. Adam finished and tucked a fresh towel around her.

  She turned to face him, rose on her toes to kiss the furrows of his frown. “What should I wear to lunch?”

  His smile came back. “What you have on will do nicely.”