Craving More (2 page)

Drifting in and out of
sleep, she was beginning to think she just might stay outside for the night
when a shift in the breeze brought a faintly familiar scent to her attention;
the same spicy musk that teased her senses earlier on the hill.

Jumping to her feet, she
turned her head in the direction of the smell. A rustling of leaves followed by
the unmistakable snap of a twig had her body tensing, ready to attack. Seconds
later a huge, formidable tiger stepped out of the woods and halted in the
shadows.

Corrine could just make
out his head tilting back, sniffing the air before slowly dropping it back
down. The tiger prowled toward her, eyes fixed on her frozen form. His gate was
fluid and powerful. Hunky Cupcake Guy popped into her head before she quickly
shook it away.

Oh shit! What the hell!
- Her human-side panicked screaming they should run.
The tiger-side refused to budge. This was her territory and she was determined
to defend it.

Standing her ground
Corrine repeated his action of sniffing the air. Musk permeated from the tiger,
washing over her in small waves. The aroma so strong it made her dizzy. This
was no female tiger –
of
that
she was sure.

Stepping off the rocks,
Corrine took the time to study the imposing male. He was by far the largest
she’d ever seen. Standing at least four and a half feet tall he was a head and
a half taller than her own three feet and looked to outweigh her by at least
two hundred pounds.

His coat was rusty-brown
with either dark brown or black stripes. It was hard to tell in the lack of
light. His yellow eyes, which bordered on amber, gleamed back at her, while his
tail swished behind him in a relaxed hypnotic rhythm.

The rational human in her
ran through escape routes. She could remain in tiger form, diving back into the
lake to head to the other side. Stay right where she was to defend herself and
her land. Or shift to her human form then run off screaming like a mad woman
and pray he left her alone. The last wasn’t really an option. She wasn’t afraid
of the tiger and would never actually run off like a lunatic, it would just
ignite his instinct to hunt down his prey. Plus there was the fact her human
form wouldn’t be able to withstand an attack from the tiger if he decided he
wanted a midnight snack. Hell, he was so big he’d knock her out just bumping
her casually.

Keeping her eyes on the
tiger, she tried to think of the last time she came in contact with another
shifter in tiger form.

The only incident that
came to mind was two years ago, if not longer. Her brother brought his then
girlfriend, Bitsy, for a visit. Damn, she hated that scrawny bitch as a human
and
tiger. The memory of that ill-fated
visit took hold of Corrine’s thoughts blocking out everything around her.

Bitsy the Bitch attacked
MJ while out for a run when they got separated from the group. All because
Bitsy could see how much MJ adored Sam and she wouldn’t stand for a Liger
stealing his affections away.

Bitsy
was a Purist and thought like the rest
,
hybrids should be destroyed
. Thankfully MJ
survived the attack.
The wounds on her ribs healing within
days.
Her delicate feelings, however, never seemed to recover.

Corrine shook the memory
away surprised to find the male much closer than before. Coming to a stop in a
shaft of moonlight fifteen feet away, he sat, head cocked to the side, giving
off an air that he was thinking. A silent hooray whispered across her thoughts
followed by a bit of alarm. If he were going to attack then he would have
already. Again, she wondered why he was there. Shifting her weight to her back
legs she was ready to spring forward if he made the wrong move.

She’d lived in the house
for years and never had this problem before. Shifters were common in the
world,
hell her neighbor was a panther. A
very
popular male panther but even he
didn’t cross over into her territory. What had she done that made this male
think he could step onto her land?

Could it be the man from
the shop? She knew he was a shifter, the unique pheromones their kind gave off
alerted her of that fact, but why would he be here? All of his interest seemed
to be focused on Kacie, not that she blamed him. As much as she hated to admit
it, the woman was smart, sexy and a damn good friend. If she swung for the
other team, hell, she’d probably hit on Kacie too.

Oh god! What if he wants to get his groove on in
shifter form? No freaking way! That isn’t going to happen
.

One thing Corrine would
not do is hook up with another shifter as a tiger. That was too close to mating
and she had no designs on that happening any time soon.

Relaxing her pose as much
as possible, she stood staring at him, waiting for him to make a move. As
minutes ticked by, she decided she’d had enough. Keeping an eye on the male,
she moved to jump back in the water. He stood abruptly, chuffing at her, the
low snorting sound attempting to assert his friendliness.

As Corrine worked to stand
her ground, the male tiger shifted, leaving Hunky Cupcake Guy gloriously naked
in front of her. It was a wet dream come true until the shock of seeing him
quite literally in the flesh had her rear end thudding to the ground. The man
was even more stunning in the buff than he was clothed.

The woman in her finally
surfaced from her panicked state and went right into horny slut mode. She
wanted to grab him and pounce, relieving the sexual need that had pressed on
her the past couple of weeks. The cat in her disagreed, she wanted the other
tiger to come back out. Now that her tiger was convinced she wasn’t being
threatened, she too wanted to frolic and flirt.

Corrine huffed out a
breath, gaining control of her senses, struggling to put a lid on both sides of
her as much as possible. Her mother always told her the woman was Corrine’s
dominant side, that she would win a battle of wills if it ever came down to it.

“Hello,” he said. His
deep, smooth voice reached across caressing her ears. They flicked in response.
“Remember me? Been seeing you the past couple of weeks, trying to get you to
talk to me.” He chuckled like it was a bit of a joke.

He made it sound like she
didn’t want to talk to him when the opposite was true. He tied her in knots and
she didn’t know how to overcome it.

“I’m not here to harm you.
Just thought maybe if you weren’t working, you’d be able to open that pretty
little mouth of yours and we could get to know each other.” He held up his
hands in a placating manner. Apparently not caring he was standing in front of
her naked, and totally comfortable with letting it all hang out.

Her eyes drifted to his
crotch.
Dear god the man is perfectly
proportioned.

His voice had her raising
her eyes to his face again. “Would you mind shifting? I’ve never been a fan of
talking to a tiger while naked for obvious reasons.” He motioned toward his
crotch and she tried her damnedest not to look again but couldn’t help it. The
human-side was just too strong to resist.

“A swipe in the wrong
direction and our fun would be over before it even began.” A warm chuckle
tumbled out of him.

Inside, the woman giggled
at his cocky joke, pun intended. Outside, the tiger took control, gazing up the
man’s body. Inspecting every facet.

He had to know what she
was doing. Dropping his hands to his side, he shifted his weight from foot to
the other, the muscles in his thighs bunching and flexing before relaxing
again. His thick penis lay flaccid against his inner thigh, providing a
tempting treat for her inner vixen. The things she wanted to do to him to make
him hard flitted around in her head. She could only imagine how large he would
be fully erect, no doubt tapping his belly.

Scanning up his washboard
abs and firm, bulging pecs, she landed on the broadest shoulders she’d seen to
date. Even the tiger in her appreciated his beautiful human form, chuffing low
in approval. She recognized a worthy mate in whatever form he took.

No matter how good-looking
he was though, she was
not
shifting
in front of him. He was too beautiful and she…well she was just average. Looking
at his face she snarled, baring her teeth in a no-nonsense manner before
shaking her head.

His brow furrowed as a
scowl formed on his handsome face. Propping his balled up fists on his hips, he
widened his stance. He looked like the most delicious, intimidating barrier she
had ever seen.

“No Corrine. You don’t get
to run away. I’ve wanted to talk to you since the first day I walked into your
shop, but I was never able to get you alone, to put you at ease, loosen up that
tongue of yours. I watched every time as you tensed up, then clammed up. At
first I didn’t think you were interested but then I saw the heat in your eyes.
Your nostrils would flare when I would get close; I knew you were interested
and
turned-on. I could smell your
arousal over all of those sugary treats. Damn if it didn’t make me try even
harder but you stiffened up more and more.”
 

“I figured the only way I
could get you to relax and talk to me was to come to your place after hours.
See if I could take you out for a coffee or something, but when I got here it
was later than I thought. There was no way I could turn around and head home
though. Not before I saw you”

Sure, buddy.
Corrine inched a little closer to the edge of the water. The guy was
starting to make her question his sanity. Why track her down in the woods? Why
didn’t he just come up and ask her out or something? And why did he spend all
of his time flirting with Kacie? Did she interpret their interactions wrong?
There was really only one way to find out but she didn’t know if she had the
guts to do it.

Moving a fraction more
towards the lake she figured she could make the leap and be halfway across
before he knew what happened. She looked out at the water then back to him.

“Stop! Don’t go.” He
sounded panicked, the words rushing from his mouth. “Please. I swear my
intentions are good. My name is Jett. I actually know your brother Sam. We
played college ball together. Hell, we even shared an apartment for a while.
Surely he’s mentioned me before.”

Corrine hesitated, waiting
for him to go on. Her brother rarely talked about people he went to college
with and she was positive he never mentioned another shifter.

Well, that wasn’t entirely
true. He could have and there was a good chance she didn’t remember. Her eyes
tended to glaze over and her brain went on hiatus when he started talking
football, his favorite subject on the planet, and if anything came after that
she wouldn’t know it.

“Back in our college days
people called me Murph.” He stuck his hand out to introduce himself then drew
it back.

Corrine wracked her brain
searching for a memory. A flash of a conversation flitted by, something about a
Murph and some crazy diva. It had nothing to do with her and was preempted by
‘my football buddy’ so she tuned out the rest. She had no way of knowing if he
was the same guy or if he was telling the truth unless she called Sam. If he
would just come back tomorrow when Sam got here all of this could be easily
cleared up. Now if she could just tell him that without shifting.

The longer Corrine stood
in tiger form staring at Jett, the more ridiculous she felt. The minutes seemed
to grind to a halt. She didn’t know how long she sat battling with her
naturally cautious self. Making up her mind really shouldn’t be this difficult.
She panted over the man every day for the past two weeks and had erotic filled
dreams every night.

Jett took a few tentative
steps forward. Oddly, the earlier panic she felt receded, morphing into comfort
the closer he got. “I’d really like to talk.” The sincerity in his voice hit
her square in the heart. Pushing her into decision mode.

He would have been able to
overpower her within minutes of showing up if he wanted. Imposing his will and
want on her. Instead, he took his time, gentled her with his voice, and his
gestures. There was no way he meant harm. She instinctively knew that in her
heart, still, a part of her resisted.

She had to be the dumbest
female on the planet to get naked in front of a stranger who didn’t feel like a
stranger, with no one around to rescue her if she needed it. The fact her tiger
didn’t feel threatened and was actually calm and content went a long way to
easing her concerns. It didn’t help that his scent was driving both sides of
her crazy.

It tempted her to go
against her reserved nature, to throw caution to the wind and do something
wild, be someone wild. A shiver worked its way through her—ending at her
tail. Her decision was made. It was time to do the unexpected. It was her one
weekend off and she was going to enjoy it in a very delicious way.

Heaving a sigh she shifted
in a matter of seconds. Rising to her feet she clasped her hands in front of
her; arms pressing against her breasts, hands in front of her pussy. Protecting
her body as much as possible. Nervous excitement raced through her.