She clenched as his beard rasped against her too sensitive nipples. He bit her again, gentler, but no less possessive. He suckled hard, pulling pleasure from the turgid tip until she arched her body upward, begging for more.
She slid her fingers into his hair, holding him fast. The pleasure was becoming pain, insistent and demanding. Deep in her mind, the warrior within her shouted at her to resist, but he chose that exact moment to thrust and the world came apart again.
It was mindless, this need to possess and be possessed.
He carried her boneless form to the pool and plunged them both into the icy water. She clung to him as he bathed them both, obeying when he urged her to the shore.
“Hold the rocks,” his command compelled her, but she was already reaching out to grasp them. He refused to let her explore, to touch him as his hands stroked the fever in her body. He held her hips as his cock drove into her, every stroke wringing more pleasure from her and his second mark took the back of her neck.
This wasn’t the man. This was the tiger.
And she came apart for him.
Anthony stretched alongside her, one hand resting possessively on her hip. He admired the mark on her breast and the faint shadow of the one he left on the back of her neck. Mine. Fierceness swept through him—fierceness and a sense of belonging he hadn’t experienced in too long.
“What are you thinking about?” The soft question surprised him. He thought her asleep.
“You.” It was like coming up for fresh air. “I was drowning before I met you.”
She rolled onto her back and looked up at him. A quizzical little frown wrinkled her brows. “You’re a cat…you have your Pride. How could you be drowning?”
He waited for the shame to crawl through him. “My Pride is here…all around us. All I have left.”
“But they aren’t weres…” Curling an arm behind her head, she studied him.
“No, they aren’t.” A hint of regret coated the back of his throat, but the shame didn’t assault him. “I asked you for a truth, now I’ll give you one, if you wish.”
“That’s a loaded offer.” She trailed her fingers across his stomach. He allowed the caress, the cat settling. The stomach was a vulnerable area, too vulnerable to allow casual contact with an outsider.
But for his mate? For his mate, he would bare his throat. She should know his shame.
“It’s merely a truth. Are you really not curious?” He rolled onto his side and braced his head on his hand. He enjoyed watching her. So many thoughts collided behind the murky forest of her eyes. He wanted to delve into their secrets until he knew her as well as himself.
“Curiosity is for cats.” She protested too swiftly.
“Very well.” He settled down, burying his face into her hair. Inhaling her scent, he sighed. The silence stretched between them. She fidgeted, but he feigned relaxation.
“Really?” she asked in a burst of sound.
“Hmm?” He traced a circle around one reddened, swollen nipple. It was fat and full from his attention.
“You’re not going to tell me now?”
Smiling against her neck, he gave a little shrug. “You weren’t curious.”
She growled and he found himself on his back with her straddling his hips. “I didn’t say I wasn’t curious. I said curiosity is for cats. You’re a cat.”
“So you do want me to tell you?” Amusement filled him. Frustration flickered in her eyes and she bared her teeth. The gods were kind to provide him with such a powerful mate.
She pinched him. “Yes.”
Running his hands up and down her thighs, he laughed. “Say please.”
Her eyes widened, irritation flashing across her expression. Her mouth opened, but instead of the rebuke he could see boiling through her, she merely said, “Please.” And scowled.
“Sorry, princess,” he soothed, rising up to cradle her against him. “I couldn’t resist.” Tweaking his mate was only fun when she enjoyed it too.
Her stiff shoulders relaxed. “I do want to know, Anthony. If you’ll tell me. Why aren’t you in a Pride with other weres?”
“My father led our Pride for many seasons, he was a fine warrior, and a cunning leader. He died when I was sixteen…a car accident of all things.” Anthony shook his head. His father met so many challenges during his reign, invaders, wars and a world speeding headlong into a technological age. He adapted and thrived. “He was decapitated.” An injury no tiger could recover from.
“I’m sorry.” She wrapped her arms around him, offering comfort. Cats thrived on touch and Anthony was no different. He pulled her closer, sealing her body to his. The contact kept him grounded.
“It was a difficult time, made more so by my belief that as my father’s eldest son, I should be Alpha.” An assumption many in the Pride shared. Many, but by no means all. “My mother didn’t want me to make the claim, she asked me to let it go. To let others…to let the older males sort it out. True leadership can be found anywhere, and I was still untested and unblooded in battle.”
Her lips pressed against his shoulder, the lightest of kisses. It eased the sting he knew to be coming. The telling of it once eluded him, but his soul quieted, ready to unbind the wound in his soul.
“I didn’t listen. I wanted to be my father’s heir, I wanted to be as admired and as fierce as he. I wanted to know that when I walked in the room, all eyes would turn toward me and that they’d listen when I spoke.” Arrogance and pride were his chosen poisons. “I threw my name into the ring. Only a handful sought the mantle of leadership. But no sooner did I announce my claim than my uncle announced his.”
His father’s brother never indicated any interest until that moment. Old resentments surfaced and Anthony ran his hands up and down her back, in part to remind himself where he was and in part to soothe.
“What happened?” It didn’t matter that the answer was obvious, she gave him the grace of explaining it.
“Many of the contenders withdrew when my uncle announced. He was—is still—well respected within the Pride. He is not an evil man, just…an ambitious one. Only one contender did not withdraw.”
Her quiet sigh was nearly his undoing.
“I thought I would lose face and he was my uncle, not the rightful heir. I was younger, stronger, faster. He was past fifty, I had to have the advantage.”
His Amazon leaned back until their gazes met. “Youth and skill?”
“Unfortunately, neither proved as much of an advantage as I would have liked. My uncle ordered me to stand down, I refused. He ordered me a second time…and I attacked him. My pride cost me my Pride.” His jaw flexed, she eased his loneliness, but the echo of it remained.
“But losing…losing would have just meant he led, not you.” She understood Pride politics.
Pleased, he kissed her gently. “Yes. But I wouldn’t bow to him. I refused to acquiesce the fight. He could have killed me, but out of love for my mother I think, he settled for banishing me.”
“But you were young.” She scowled. “Too young to just be thrown out.”
He expected disgust or at the very least disappointment. “I was old enough to challenge him and old enough to believe it was my right to lead. I think…I think they all hoped I would come crawling back. But if I wasn’t strong enough to take my proper place, I refused to beg for it. So I was alone in the world…and it isn’t a friendly place. I found Nalini in a zoo in Bucharest. I stole her…and I wanted to return her to the mountains, but she wouldn’t leave me. One by one, I found the others…”
“And you started your own traveling circus.” Rose shook her head.
“We’re hardly a circus.” He nipped her lower lip. “They are my Pride now. I couldn’t win the one I was born to, so I built my own. So now, you know my shame.”