Idiots. If the Collar Tiger had been wearing was fake, and still he’d stopped himself from killing Walker and the assassin, not to mention Ethan, then obviously Tiger didn’t need the damn thing.
It wasn’t the Collar keeping Tiger careful when he held the cubs or careful with Carly. It was Tiger.
She ran her fingers around the healing line where the fake Collar had been. Tiger looked into Carly’s eyes, the wanting in him stark.
Carly popped the button of his jeans. Tiger growled low in his throat, bunched her dress in his hands, and skimmed it off over her head. Carly sped his zipper down, finding behind it silky red boxers with black hearts on them.
Carly pushed his jeans down his hips, laughing. “Where did you get those?”
“Glory. From Elizabeth’s store.” Tiger kissed her again, letting her laugh against his mouth. “Connor said it was a joke, but I didn’t have anything else to wear.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Tiger loved her laughter. This woman could find the joy in anything. She shook delightfully as Tiger kissed her. “I’ll try to find you some with tiger stripes,” she said. “Or maybe paw prints.”
As she went on laughing, the warmth of the mate bond again filled Tiger’s heart.
At the same time, another pang of loss reached out and gripped him. Connor and Kim had laughed so hard when Glory brought Tiger the gift of the underwear, and even Dylan had looked amused. They’d included Tiger in their family, he realized, in their jokes, even if he didn’t understand them. For a fleeting moment, he’d belonged. Now he had to leave that behind, as well as Carly.
The mate of his heart. Tiger needed her more with every breath.
Maybe her crazy plan to run away with him would work. Maybe they could hole up together in a Mexican beach town and live out their lives.
But Tiger had seen the flash of sorrow in Carly’s eyes when he’d said Carly would have to leave her family behind. She loved them. She had ties here, in this house where she was so comfortable.
Tiger would have to say good-bye to her. But not now. Now he would feast on her, imbibing all she had to give so he could savor the memory when he was away. He’d leave her behind so she could be safe, but he’d leave something else as well. His cub, a part of himself, for her.
Tiger snaked his hand beneath the elastic of her panties and jerked them from her bottom, pushing them down her legs to fall on the floor. While Carly ran her hands down his bare back, nibbling his bottom lip, he pushed down his jeans and then the boxers, letting them pool around his ankles.
He still wore his motorcycle boots, but so what? He didn’t have time to sit down and pull everything off. Better traction on the floor anyway.
Tiger lifted Carly’s hips and settled her on the edge of the counter, winding her legs around him. Her eyes widened and she started to protest, her hands on his chest, but Tiger also knew he would never make it upstairs with her. Maybe to the kitchen table, maybe all the way to the stairs if they ran, but he needed Carly now.
He opened her with his hand, finding her hot and wet with wanting, then he slid inside her, inch by slow inch. It killed him to go slowly, but Carly was still getting used to him, and the last thing in the world Tiger wanted to do was hurt her.
Carly made a soft sound of pleasure, her eyes half closing. She was tight, gripping, and Tiger’s thoughts became incoherent. All he knew was Carly, her heat, her body pliant in his arms, the threads of the mate bond that stretched from his heart to hers.
Those threads could never be severed. No matter how far Tiger went from her, the bonds would be there, invisible, magic, unbreakable.
Carly cried out, and Tiger slid the rest of the way into her. She rocked back, and Tiger lifted her hips, steadying her on his hardness. She was slick, taking him yet squeezing him, and Tiger lost himself in nothing but sensation.
His hips moved, starting the back-and-forth rhythm that felt so incredible. Carly held on to his wrists, her green gaze locked to him, her body rocking with his. She cried his name, the sound of it echoing in the large room, wrapping around him like the magic of the mate bond.
Here was where he needed to be, inside this woman, where all was beauty and wildness. And home.
Tiger thrust into her, filling her all the way, Carly’s eyes widening. She pulled him to her with her feet in their high-heeled shoes on his buttocks, this sex raw and fierce. Tiger loved it—he loved her.
Need you. Love you. Tiger began the rhythm again, faster, faster, the slapping sound as they came together exciting. Carly dug her fingers into his wrists, her spike heels pressing his backside.
Tiger shouted her name, white-hot fire pouring through him. The rightness of being with his mate, and feeling like this, made him know that this was the most precious moment he might ever have for the rest of his life.
Under him Carly pulsed and rocked, her pleasure consuming her. She laughed wildly as she found her release, coming up to wrap her arms around him and hold on to him.
Together, entwined, mated. Tiger gathered him to her, both of them breathless, and kissed her in the sweetness of afterglow.
Walker stood in front of the desk of his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Sheldon, and was glad Sheldon wasn’t a Shifter. Walker was good at keeping his body language neutral, but Shifters could read even the minutest twitch of a finger.
“And now I hear the Shifter is missing,” Sheldon was saying. “What the hell happened?”
Sheldon’s voice was quiet and cold. The command of the Special Forces attachment to the Shifter Bureau was pretty much a shit assignment. Sheldon, though, was ruthless enough to turn it into something he could use for promotion, for a bigger command. Sheldon had ambition.
Walker’s assignment as XO in the unit probably meant he’d been sidelined, but he didn’t care. He’d seen too much in his life, done too much, and had too much anger in him. Sitting on the sidelines for a while was what he needed. And now he had to sit back and watch his commanding officer show his true dickhead colors.
“I want that Shifter found, locked into the facility, and tested every which way,” Sheldon said. “If he resists, and you have to drag in his corpse, do it. The researchers will harvest what they need from him. But I want the Shifter.”
Walker listened without changing expression. When Sheldon moved back to his desk, done with his diatribe, Walker cleared his throat.
“Respectfully, sir.”
Sheldon looked up abruptly, his eyes so cold they burned. “Captain? I’d be interested to hear your opinion.”
The words were a hard sneer. Walker held on to his purpose, though the LTC’s eyes could make even senior officers decide they needed to walk another direction instead of have to pass him.
“With respect, sir, the mission is to find out all we can about why this Shifter was singled out, what research was carried out on him, and if that research or the Shifter himself can be used to help our troops in the field. Not to kill him.”
“Is it?” Sheldon asked. He gave Walker a full minute of his obey-me-or-die stare. “Let me explain something, Danielson. That Shifter could hold secrets that could save our troops, our army, and our missions overseas. You know that—you’ve read the research. Our mission, yours and mine, is to get that Shifter back and extract everything we can from him. Your mission is to bring him to me. By any means possible. Dead or alive.”