“Were you shy?” he asked.
“Yes. And... the local males—those my age—made fun of me.”
“What?” he demanded, rigid under her. “Why the hells would they do that?”
“Because of someone like you,” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to her hair. “Tell me, please.”
“A singer visited our town, during the summer solstice celebration. I... idolized him, like many of the other girls. So when I saw him in the ale garden, I went to ask him if I could have my vid taken with him. He made fun of me, in front of everyone. He called me a plump little pussy who should chase my own tail till I grew up and slimmed down. Everyone laughed and laughed. And the others my age didn’t let me forget it.”
“Oh, quark,” he gritted. “I’d like to slash his face open, and then bust his jaw.”
“I learned later that he had a problem with illegals. He was under the influence that day. Also, his performance was terrible.”
Chaz chuckled. “I’ll bet.” Then he felt a sick punch of guilt. “But, sweetheart, I could have been that guy. Being a celebrity carries a high responsibility, and it was one that I didn’t want to pick up for a time after I became famous.”
He frowned at the foliage overhead. “Ironic, that I cleaned up my own behavior, and that’s when Mixi’s lies hit the holovids.”
She popped up onto her elbow, her tail lashing uneasily behind her. “Chaz... Charlie. I have never forgiven myself for falling for my cousin’s story. I was so stupid.”
He slipped an arm behind his head and smiled up at her. “Yeah, you were gullible. But, it’s definitely time to let it go, sweetheart. Because even though you weren’t right about that, I did other things I was never held accountable for, because of my fame.”
“But you weren’t cruel to your fans, to females, surely,” she said slowly, searching his gaze with her own.
“I hope not,” he said. “But there was a period of time that’s sort of a blur, if you know what I mean. Before my folks and an older musician snapped me out of it. So it’s possible. Illegals and alcohol overuse can have a very crappy effect on behavior.”
“But I allowed another celebrity’s behavior to influence the way I saw you,” she said, her tail lashing faster. “That was also very wrong.”
He shrugged. “Probably explains why your alley-bred cousin chose you to get back at me. She knew you’d believe her.”
She nodded. “Are you certain you forgive me for that?”
He cupped her face in his hand. “Absolutely. If you can forgive me for siccing my lawyers on you, and allowing you to be driven from your home. I’m so sorry for that, Roxie. And I will make it up to you.”
Her lashes swept down, and her tongue darted out to lick her lower lip. “Really? I can think of a way.”
And just like that he was aroused again. “Anything, my Rouge. Anything, anytime, anywhere. I’m your Tyger.”
Later, when they floated in the pool, their hands clasped, Chaz asked, his voice quiet, “So, what did you think of my song?”
“I loved it,” she said, turning over in the water to look at him in surprise. “But you must know how good it is.”
Strangely, he flushed, a wash of red over his chiseled cheekbones. “Thanks. But I meant, what did you think of the lyrics?”
“I loved them too,” she said, a wistful feeling washing through her. She looked away, watching her claws draw little arrows through the water. If only she were really the woman he’d sung that for.
“Rouge,” he said, his voice smoky. Water swirled as he moved to face her. He tipped her face gently up to his, and she caught her breath at the light in his eyes. “I wrote that song last night. After we parted. After I was such a pile of canine crap to you… I couldn’t sleep. I spent hours thinking, and regretting, and wishing I could go back and redo that last hour with you.”
Something delicate began to unfurl in her chest, something with fluttering wings. It felt like hope. “You did? Really?”
His face contracted, and he tipped his forehead to hers, his hands tightening on her head, cradling it. “Oh, God, yes. I need to explain why I did it. It’s still my fault, but...” He explained his talk with his agent, and the shock of finding out who she really was. “You’ve changed—a
lot. I didn’t recognize that plump little crusader with fire in her eyes. Finding out my sweet, fiery shift mate was the same female... I was blind-sided. And like the idiot male I am, I roared without thinking first.
“So you won’t really take the holovid public?” she asked.
He reared back, looking at her as if she’d clawed him. “No! I would never do that to you—or any female.”
She showed her fangs, flexing her claws, her tail lashing in the water behind her. “Well, you threatened to. How was I to know?”
His gaze softened, and he pulled her close again, reaching behind her to stroke her tail, and let it wrap around his hand. It felt like a sexual caress, and just like that she wanted more, she wanted him under her. “You couldn’t have known, you’re right. But now, do you think you can trust me enough to know I’d never hurt you like that—not on purpose? I’m not saying I won’t lose my temper and say things I regret, because I have a temper, but I’ll never act on it.”
She mrrowled, and lifted her legs to curl them around his lean hips, his cock trapped between them. “I might trust you...if you let me have you again.”
He backed toward the lip of the pool, carrying her with him. “Like I said, Tygress mine--any way you want it. If it’s mine, you can have it.”
“Oh, the part I want is definitely yours,” she purred, and attacked him.
He fell onto his back beside the pool, grinning up at her as she pounced on him. Then she slid down over his cock, taking him deep inside her, and he groaned. “Oh, yes-ss. So good, I could die a happy tyger, right now.”
She bent over him, and licked the corner of his mouth, then nuzzled his ear as she began to ride him. “I won’t kill you... I need you alive.”
“Oh, I’m definitely alive,” he told her, his hands coming up to grip her ass and squeeze as he bucked up under her. “I’ve never felt this alive, my Rouge. Not even on stage in front of billions of fans.”
This time, as she lay purring with satisfaction on his chest, she heard music begin to swell in the background. She opened her eyes, and listened. Chaz was singing the star ballad again, this time without Lorena McKitt.
He turned his head to her ear, and wrapped his arms around her. “Listen well, my Rouge. I wrote this for you—for us.”
With his heartbeat in one ear, she listened to the beautiful song with the other. When it was over, she gave him a look full of wonder, her heart swelling until she felt that if she let go of him, she might well float away.
“Charlie... do you really mean it?” she whispered.
He smiled up at her, his tyger eyes full of tenderness. “Yes, my Rouge, my Roxie. I mean every word. I know we don’t know each other well, but I want us together, so we have time to learn everything about each other. I want to know your favorite food, your favorite color, your best memory and your worst. I want to dress you in silk every day, and take you everywhere you’ve dreamed of going. I want to take you home to Bryght, and show you off—make everyone know you belong there as much as anyone. And that they should treat you with the honor you deserve.”
Roxie let out a sob, and collapsed on him, hiding her face in his throat. “Oh, Charlie.”
He wrapped his arms around her again, and she felt him stiffen inside her once again. “Is that a yes, at least for now?”
She couldn’t help herself, she had to move on him, riding him. The Tyger that miraculously seemed to want to belong to her.
She started to purr. “Does this feel like a yes?”
He groaned. “Feels like a Tygress yes—and that’s the best kind.”
Epilogue
A month later, Chaz and Roxie attended a gala in Rawr City, for one of Chaz' favori
te charities, funding scholarships for youth.
Chaz stood chatting to a group of board members. Roxie had slipped away to get a fresh glass of champagne to quell her nerves. Chaz was blasé about mingling with the fabulously wealthy and ruthless, but she wasn't—except for him, of course.
However, she used the skills she'd gained working on Quantum to finesse her way through encounters with his public. If she could maintain a serene façade when being scolded by a Pangaean princess, she could do so when facing the paps, the fans and scariest of all, his family.
The Crawfurs turned out to be friendly, down-to-planet Tygers who welcomed her with open hearts, so that part was fabulous.
The paparazzi and jealous female fans, not so much.
Tonight, the crowd was upscale—no paps allowed, and the fans were the polite sort. Rumor had it the magnate Logan Stark might even make an appearance, as one of the foundation donors.
Meanwhile, the champagne was delicious, delicate and dry with just a hint of sweetness on the tongue.
She and Chaz (or Charlie, as she preferred to call him) had been back on Bryght for a month, and they were now a recognized couple. Roxie adored her new life with him, but she was itching to do some more writing. They'd talked about her collaborating with his mother on a holovid about his life and career, with carefully edited family vids included, along with a retrospective of his songs.
Charlie wanted them to wait until he and Roxie had cubs. He still thought it hilarious that she'd tricked the paps into thinking she and he were expecting. He wanted to make that a reality, and told her whenever she was ready, he was.
Roxie sighed as she watched him laughing with his board members. Rationally, she knew her Tyger was not perfect… but he came entirely close enough to perfection to make her happy.
"Well, well, if it isn't my little cousin," drawled a familiar, grating voice behind Roxie. "I see you actually got Chaz to go on a date with you. How'd you work that?"
Roxie looked over her shoulder at the slim, platinum blonde in a glittering evening gown that revealed more than it covered. Iridium and diamonds dripped from her ears, throat and hands. She was flanked by two other women, both smirking as if in anticipation.
There went the neighborhood.
"Hello, Mixi," Roxie said. "You're looking very... glittery."
"Of course," Mixi said. "I married a financier, the owner of a very important diamond import company. I'm sure you've heard of Mawrus Gems."
While Mixi preened, Roxie looked at her own reflection in the mirrors behind the bar, and smiled as well. What the heck, this encounter wasn't nearly as fraught with tension as she'd imagined it would be. It seemed she no longer truly cared what Mixi, or anyone else from Rawr City thought of her.
And she had the satisfaction of knowing that tonight, not only had she changed and grown inside since Mixi last saw her, she was happy. And it helped that she looked her best, in an emerald lii silk gown that was held up by forces unseen. The strapless top highlighted her breasts, then nipped in around her waist before flaring over her full hips to brush the toes of her matching sandals.
Created and fitted to her by the famed Serpentian designer Taara Raavel, the gown was the prettiest she'd ever owned. Since she and Taara had instantly taken to each other, there would be many more ensembles to follow. Charlie had insisted.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, the way Charlie liked it. Smoky eye-makeup highlighted her brown eyes, and her lips were wet and red... also the way Charlie liked them.
She turned away from the mirror, and moved to side-step around Mixi. But the other woman blocked her move, casting an assessing look over Roxie from head to toe.
"Well," Mixi said. "Looks like you found another decent job, anyway. Hope you didn't have too much trouble?" She batted her lashes at Roxie in faux sympathy. Her friends tittered into their drinks. "Although I'm sure you got that gown in a consignment shop. Probably third-paw by now, hmm?"
Roxie sighed. All right, they could do this now if Mixi insisted.
She looked her cousin in the eye. "Mixi, after you used me to humiliate Chaz, like the ruthless, amoral bitch that you are, things were indeed tough for me. I had to leave Bryght, and take a job working PR on a cruise ship."
The blonde's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't you call me names, Roxie Fellura. Everyone knows what a pathetic loser you are. It's not my fault you rushed off and published everything I told you—in confidence."
Roxie ignored this, as if Mixi hadn't spoken. "But, luckily for me, it was the very ship Chaz had chosen for a relaxing getaway. We met, and mrrowl, that was all it took."
"Oh, right, like I'm supposed to believe you're with him now," Mixi huffed, rolling her eyes. Her friends laughed again, more loudly.
"Oh, you don't have to believe me," Roxie said, smiling at the man who had approached as they spoke, and now stood behind Mixi and her friends, accompanied by an older man with silver hair and a forbidding frown on his face. "But maybe you'll believe my fiancé."
"Your—oh, that's rich," Mixi cried, her voice shrill, her eyes alight in anticipation. "What do you think, ladies? Do we believe her—or is our little journalist making up stories again? You and Chaz, engaged! Ha, ha, ha!" She laughed loudly.
But her friends had already sidled a few steps away, as if to divorce themselves from her physically. They were also staring, eyes wide, lips parted. It was a look Roxie had learned to recognize, and live with whenever she went out in public with her fiancé.
She shook her head at him, and waited for him to smile ruefully and shrug as if to say, what could he do? Women loved him.
But this time, he didn't smile back. In fact, he looked ready to murder someone. He looked like a lethally beautiful Tyger in a tux.
Without a word, he moved gracefully to Roxie's side, and slid his arm around her bare shoulders, facing Mixi, and the older man who had moved to her side. He leaned close to Roxie and brushed a kiss on her temple. "Tyger-lily," he said in his velvet voice. "You didn't show your cousin my gift to you? I thought I'd fucked all the shyness out of you by now."
Then, while Mixi gaped at them both, he gathered a handful of Roxie's long curls and drew them aside from her throat.
Enjoying herself more than she had since they got out of their hotel bed to dress for this event, Roxie lifted one hand to her throat, and touched the huge emerald hanging from her emerald and topaz betrothal collar. It matched the ring he'd slipped on her finger as she dressed, and the bracelets.
"You're right," Roxie said, tipping her head back to smile up into his beautiful, beloved face. "After all, it isn't every day a girl can say she's been collared by Charlie Crawfur."
His eyes lit with humor at their private joke, even as he gave her a smoldering look and brushed his nose over hers, in haling her scent. "And it isn't every day a Tyger collars a wild female in spider-lace."
She purred, and he gave her a wink before lifting his head to face her cousin, who still stood frozen like a glittery statue, locked in disbelief.
"Now, I believe you owe Roxie a long overdue apology," Chaz said.
"And you owe Chaz one too," Roxie said, glaring at Mixi. "Since a lot of his fans believed your nasty lies."
Mixi sneered at them both. "I'm not the one who spread it all over the planet-wide holovids, now, am I?"
"I've already apologized to him for being such a gullible idiot," Roxie said. "But you acted out of sheer spite."
"Too bad. I'm not sorry," Mixi drained her champagne glass. "And you can't make me say I am."
Roxie shook her head, disgusted but unsurprised by this lack of maturity from her cousin. But the older man at Mixi's side moved, grasping the blonde's arm. "You will say it," he said. "And now." Ah, this must be Mr. Mawrus.
Mixi flinched, then gave him a piteous look. "But Merwin, he—he behaved cruelly to me. I was devastated."
Her husband gave her a dry look, causing her to flush and drop her gaze. "And then you met me, and you got over it. Now give yo
ur apology and we'll go."
Mixi stamped her foot. "No, I won't. Why should I?"
"Because," her husband said through his teeth. "You've just admitted in front of witnesses that you purposely defamed his character to the entire galaxy. And because Mr. Crawfur has just purchased my company, which means that until I retire in a few months, I now work for him."
Mixi gasped, and her eyes darted to and fro. Roxie watched cynically, knowing the manipulative bitch was trying to figure out the best way out of the quicksand she'd landed herself in. Her cousin didn't disappoint. She gasped again, and burst into loud sobs, melting against her husband's tuxedoed chest. "Oh, Merwin, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause trouble for you, my darling. I'm so sorry."
"And with that, we're good to go," Roxie said, giving Chaz a push to the side. "So nice to meet you, er, Merwin."
Chaz obligingly moved with her, saying a quiet goodbye to the other man before walking through the crowd with Roxie tucked at his side. As they walked, the other party-goers looked quickly away.
"That was good enough for you?" Chaz asked her. "I thought you'd want her to grovel some more. She ruined your career, not mine."
She shook her head, her own face flushed. "Judging by the way everyone was staring at all of us, I think your point was made. And I did swallow her story without fact-checking, which even cub journalists know is crucial."
"All right," he said. Then he snickered.
"What's funny?"
He winced, still snickering. "Poor Merwin. He has to go home with that bitch."
"Oh, so true. Poor guy indeed." She shuddered.
Her fiancé gave her a smoldering look that made her forget the other couple entirely.
"Whereas I get to take you home, and work on my project."
"What project is that?"
"The one where I fuck you so hard, and in so many ways, that you forget to be shy."
Roxie gave a quiet mewl of excitement. "Oh, that project. My favorite."
He patted her bottom as they exited the ballroom. "I know. It's my second favorite, right after my project to convince you to let me get you pregnant."
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