Timothy

A Total-E-Bound Publication

www.total-e-bound.com

Timothy

ISBN # 978-0-85715-965-6

©Copyright Bailey Bradford2012

Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2012

Edited by Claire Siemaszkiewicz

Total-E-Bound Publishing

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.

Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

Published in 2012 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom.

Warning:

This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a
heat rating
of
Total-e-melting
and a
sexometer
of
3.

This story contains 151 pages, additionally there is also a
free excerpt
at the end of the book containing 7 pages.

Leopard’s Spots

TIMOTHY

Bailey Bradford

Book three in the Leopard’s Spots Series

Tim Trujillo is about to learn a whole lot more than a few facts about his heritage as a snow leopard shifter.

All Dr Tim Trujillo had in mind when he took the position with the Snow Leopard Conservation Programme in Mongolia was to see if he could learn anything about his heritage. Snow leopard shifters sure weren’t native to Colorado, his home state, and though his family was learning more about shifters in general as various cousins found their mates, Tim wanted to know more about where his kind came from, and what made them the way they were.

He hadn’t counted on destiny intervening in the form of one very fine snow leopard shifter. Otto Marquat is a native to the Land of the Blue Sky, as Mongolia was sometimes called. But there in a country so far from his own, Tim finds more than his heritage. He finds adventure, cruelty, friendship, pain—and love so strong and unbreakable it will turn his world inside out.

Dedication

Because you’re stronger than you think you are.

Trademarks Acknowledgement

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

Mulan: Walt Disney Pictures

Taser: Taser International Inc.

American Museum of Natural History: American Museum of Natural History

McDonald’s: McDonald’s Corporation

Burger King: Burger King Corporation

Google: Google Inc.

Fleshlight: ILF LLC

Tonka: Hasbro

I’m Sexy and I Know It
: LMFAO

Chapter One

Some people were vivacious, full of energy and fairly bouncing with it. They had an inner glow, the kind you could see in their eyes, in the mischievous curve of their smile. You just knew they’d be a lot of fun to hang out with, and usually, they were—but they could also get on your very last nerve and make you want to throttle them.

Tim Trujillo was experiencing just such an urge towards his best friend Dane Calderon—
Dr
Dane Calderon, not that anyone would guess the man held a PhD in Zoology. In fact, with his short stature and youthful features, no one would think Dane had graduated from high school yet. He sure didn’t act like it.

“…I still can’t believe we’re really here!” Dane rose up onto his toes and put a hand to his forehead, shading his eyes as he looked around. “I have to say, I thought Mongolia was all, I dunno, like it was in
Mulan
.” Dane stopped and frowned at Tim. “Wait. Was the movie set in Mongolia, or were the invaders Mongolian?”

Tim was
not
one of those effervescent people on the best of days. Added to that, he was utterly exhausted from flying halfway around the world then riding in the shittiest vehicle ever—although it was much better than walking or riding a horse, thank you very much. He was definitely not a chatty man.

What he was, was a mix of man and feline, a snow leopard shifter who had to keep his dual nature hidden from most people. He apparently hadn’t got the playful kitty gene some of his shifter relatives had, either. Bubbly wasn’t a word that would ever be used to describe Tim Trujillo.

Or perky, or particularly mild-mannered. If it’d been anyone besides Dane blathering on about a cartoon, Tim probably would have told them to get their head out of their ass and get a life.

But it was Dane, and Tim never could stand to see the guy unhappy. Dane had perfected the hurt-puppy look and even Tim, grumpy as he could be, wasn’t immune to it. He didn’t like it knowing he was so easily manipulated though, so Tim just grunted and shrugged.

Dane huffed and smacked his arm. “Right, I should have known. You probably never even saw the movie, did you?”

Tim racked his brain until he found a tendril of a memory, a hint of the movie plot he’d seen or heard about somewhere or another. He’d probably overheard parts of the movie when one of his siblings watched it because Tim just wasn’t into stuff like that. “Why would I? It was a cartoon.”

Dane scrunched his features into a horrified expression and clucked his tongue. “Oh, Tim, what a sad, sad childhood you must have had. I can just see you now, holed up in your bedroom, posters of Einstein and Jack Hanna all over the walls, hunched over at your desk with your nose in some thousand-page text book. Poor kid.”

It irked him because Dane wasn’t too far off base. Tim glared at his friend, who remained unfazed about pissing Tim off. “No Einstein, he was creepy looking. Jack Hanna was kind of hot, though.” Honestly, Tim still thought the man was cuddly-cute. Not that he’d admit so even if his life depended on it.

“And I liked it in my room. It was the only place I could escape my brother and sisters.” As the oldest of four kids, it’d seemed to Tim there was always a sibling wanting to follow him around. Usually he hadn’t minded, but it’d sucked when he had wanted to read or have any kind of alone time.

Dane sighed wistfully and resumed looking around. “I wish I’d had a brother or a sister.”

“I can lend you Isaiah or Renna or Stephanie any time you want to borrow them—when we’re back in the US,” Tim tacked on. No way would he want to hear his sibs whining about being in the middle of bumfuck nowhere for weeks.

“Right. I might take you up on the sibling borrowing sometime.” Dane stretched up onto his tip toes again and gave a low whistle. “Mmm-mm, sex on a stick at three o’clock. Damn!”

Despite his snarky mood, Tim wasn’t going to miss the opportunity for eye candy if he could help it. He seriously doubted he’d be getting any action in Mongolia, as there were no gay nightclubs, no cruising, no anything in the way of finding a potential hook up in the town they were in. Or anywhere he knew of, from what he’d read online. Mongolia was not a hotbed of sexual delights for anyone, as far as he could tell.

Which was part of the reason Tim would try not to be as obvious as Dane, who was practically panting. Then he spotted the guy Dane had to be talking about, a tall, thickly muscled man with short black hair and golden skin. Dark sunglasses covered the man’s eyes, which only served to emphasise his full, dark pink lips and slightly crooked nose, but it worked well on his face with those blade-sharp cheekbones and the square chin.

“God, I want him to fuck me,” Dane muttered. He made a whimpering sound, one Tim had heard before, back when he’d been the one to drive Dane to arousal. Back before they’d figured out they’d kill each other if they didn’t keep their relationship on the friends-only level. They simply squabbled too much to be happy together, and frankly, Tim hadn’t been particularly blown away by the sex. “Damn. I can’t tell if he’s gay or straight.”

Tim kept his groaning to an internal level. Dane and his much-vaunted gaydar weren’t very accurate. One of these days, its inaccuracy was going to get Dane hurt. “Well, I’m not going to go up and ask him for you, so don’t even try to nag me into doing it. Last time I did,” the only time he’d done it since Tim learned fast, “I nearly got my head knocked off my neck. And the guy over there looks like he could drop me without breaking a sweat.” Tim would love it, too, if it didn’t hurt much. The big stranger looked like just the sort of man Tim wanted to feel pinning him down and fucking him senseless.

But he wasn’t senseless, he was tired, hungry and anxious to get on with his work. Work was, after all, the reason he was here. Dane, too, which, it wouldn’t hurt to remind his drooling friend of. It was a huge coup to be accepted into the Snow Leopard Conservation Programme. The SLCP was the major driving force behind protecting endangered cats, and there were a lot of applicants who had been rejected for the programme.

Tim elbowed Dane, earning him an evil glare. “Come on. I need a shower and so do you. And quit looking at the pretty man. The last thing either of us needs is to wind up beat to hell in some Mongolian alley or…or whatever they do to someone who pisses them off here.”

“Spoilsport,” Dane muttered, but it was just for show and Tim knew it by the way his friend turned away from the object of his admiration. “Fine. If we get absolutely desperate enough, we can beat each other off or blow each other, whatever.”

Tim stumbled over—he looked down—okay, he stumbled over air, apparently, but Dane was talking shit, pure and simple. “Why in the hell would we want to do something we already tried and decided didn’t work for us? You said yourself, the sex we had together wasn’t much of a big deal.”

Dane looked at him like he was an idiot. “It wasn’t. It was good, but I want great. Fireworks and orgasms, the kind guaranteed to leave me unconscious. But I can’t suck my own dick, and friends lend each other a hand—”

Tim waved off the rest of Dane’s sentence. “Don’t even try those skeezy lines with me. Take up yoga. I’m sure you can learn flexibility, and with a dick the size of yours, you shouldn’t have to bend too much to suck it.” Damned guy was hung like a bull. Tim had been glad Dane was strictly a bottom when they’d been together, or at least, that’s what he’d told himself.

“You’re a jerk,” Dane groused, “but yeah, I do have a great dick.”

Whereas I am just a dick
. At least sometimes he was, like when he was worn out, stressed, and in a country Tim had hoped would maybe feel like home. It didn’t. He just felt like an outsider, something he was used to in a way, except for when he was around his family. Probably to be expected, considering what he was, and the necessity to keep it secret.

Dane chattered on beside him while Tim cast occasional glances towards the stranger in what he hoped was an unobtrusive manner. He wondered what the man was doing, and if he was aware of Tim’s appreciative observation.