Mail Order Tiger Bride Wars: A Scorchingly Hot BBW Shifter Romance (7 page)

17

Ellen stared at the newly found artifact.

It was a bracelet. And what an unusual bracelet it was. It was made of ivory, and it had delicate carvings of half-men, half-goats on it.

She was at the bottom of the excavated pit.
She felt like a real archeologist, with her arms and legs covered with dirt up to the elbows and knees. It was a warm day, and sweat beaded her dusty brow. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she had never felt happier.

“What do you think?” Cole asked her.
He was just as sweaty and dirty, but she thought he had never looked more roguish.

“It’s beautiful,” she said in awe.
“I mean . . . it’s beautiful for its time, which I suppose is ancient. Not that the concept of beauty is ancient, I mean . . . I mean it’s beautiful even it was hanging off the rack of a contemporary gift shop.”

She caught him smiling.

“Uh, I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are.”

She blushed. “I’m trying not to do it that often, but I’ve been doing it all my life. Like when I’m nervous. Like now. Not that I’m nervous around you . . . or maybe I am . . . ”

Ohhhhh
!

He was smiling more broadly than ever.
“You don’t have to stop doing it. It’s cute . . . and I like it.”

OK, now her cheeks were really hot.

He held up the bracelet in the sun. “This specimen is almost intact. I’ll have to have it carbon-dated. But it’s the second artifact we’ve found on this site.” His eyes sparkled. “You know what it means, don’t you?”

“Um . . .
that you have found two artifacts so far?”

“This means
that I’m right.”

“Like in . . .
everything?”

His excitement was actually contagious. If she could figure out what he was trying to say.

“I’m mostly right,” he said, “but not in everything. I will reserve that for the domain of my father, who is definitely right
all
of the time. No . . . it means that I’m inching towards being right about my theory.”

She had heard a lot about his theory this past week, but she still let him continue.

“You
see, my research into arcane shifter lore – contributed mostly by the Annals of Jupiter, which is kind of like the Dead Sea Scrolls for shifter history – tells me that there was truly a shifter community here. They might have lived here for a while. Left some jewelry and decoration items, certainly. That’s why we have to dig deeper. Find pottery, latrines and stuff.”

His eyes were dancing again like
a kid at Christmas.

“Latrines are good.”
She smiled, her heart warming up. He was so fun to watch when he was immersed in his work.

For the past week
, she had been helping him work. Well, ‘helping’ was very technical, and she certainly hoped she was ‘helping’ by contributing to the digging, though she suspected she showered more sand onto her co-diggers than the growing pile outside the pit.

Still, it was one extra shovel, and she felt real proud that her arms hurt at the end of every day. OK . . . arms,
back, shoulders, chest, thighs . . .

When she wasn’t digging, she was reading up on ancient shifter civilizations and what to look out for in archeology.
She wasn’t doing it because this was her husband-to-be. In fact, he didn’t even broach the subject of marriage since.

Maybe he had forgotten about it.

But this time, she told herself sternly that it wasn’t going to affect her. She was just going to go with the flow.

Yeah, baby! I’m a
paper boat on a river!

She was much happier this way.
There were no expectations because she didn’t allow herself to have any expectations. And when you weren’t expecting anything from Cole Devereaux, he could be real fun.

He was absolutely taken by his work, for starters. She could tell the passion he had for it by the way he spoke.

He told her, “I must have been a kid of around four or five. My parents took me to Chesapeake Bay one summer. I was digging behind the bungalow we rented, and I found an arrowhead.”

“That must have been real exciting
to a kid.”

“It was to me.
I also found a used condom next to it, but the arrowhead was the most exciting thing I’ve ever found. From then on, I went digging everywhere. I dug in my backyard. I dug in the neighbors’ backyard. Like a gopher, I wasn’t too popular. But I found lots of stuff. Coins. Shards of pottery. Arrowheads.

“
I kept them all in my little ‘museum’. Most kids had a playroom. I converted mine to a museum of artifacts and made little labels for everything I had, including full Wikipedia explanations for what they were and where they were found. I actually charged my friends an entrance fee for my museum.”

“Really?
And did they pay up?”

“
Only when I threw in some enlarged photos of boobs.”

“Do you still have that museum?”

“Sadly, my parents moved to a penthouse, and they didn’t want me to bring all that junk, as they called it. So I rented a storage place and I’ve kept everything there since.” He smiled. “Maybe I’ll show it to you one day.”

One day? So there was a
‘one day’ future with her in it?

She smiled happily back.

No expectations.

No regrets
.

That was going to be her motto from now on.

*

At meal times, they dined together or with the men. The food was simple. Between her improved eating habits and the hard shoveling, she found her clothes getting loose.
Pity I don’t have a weighing scale along. I must have lost weight
.

But she wasn’t even obsessed about her weight anymore,
even though she was losing more and more millimeters off her waistline.

That night, the moon was particularly sharp.
The air was cooler than normal, and there was a tingle in the wind which brought out the color in her cheeks. She felt more energetic than she had in a long time. She wondered if part of it was because she had shed the burden of her toxic sister.

After a simple dinner of corn mush and
beans with the digging team, Cole said, “Do you want to take a walk?”

“Sure. But isn’t it going to get
, like, really dark?”

“Not with the moon this way.” He grinned. “Since when did we ever have to worry about it being dark?”

She knew what he meant, but she didn’t have his tiger senses. She was really diluted down the bloodlines, and she suspected her senses were not very different from a normal human’s.

“
Uh, should I bring a flashlight?”

His eyes crinkled with amusement.
“You’re afraid you’d trip.”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Uh
. . . no. I mean, I’m not sure I wouldn’t trip . . . not that I’m not sure I wouldn’t need a flashlight. Uh . . . ” Now she was getting all confused.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a straight face. “I’ll make sure
you don’t trip.”

“Technically, I’m not sure how anyone can make sure I don’t trip unless they put me in a
harness. And that would be embarrassing because I would be, like, a horse.”

“
Sssh, trust me, OK? Ellen?”

He put a finger to her lips.
The gesture was so intimate – the most intimate he had ever been with her – that she was shell-shocked. He removed the finger, but the feel of it was still imprinted upon her lips.

She looked into his sparkling brown eyes, and felt warm all over, right down to her toes.

18

Nevertheless, she got her sturdy boots and her Maglite flashlight and her water flask, which she put in a backpack. When Cole saw her, he was thunderstruck.

“I don’t think we’re going on a siege here,” he drawled.

“You never know if we trip and get stuck in a bear cave,” she said sheepishly.

He grinned. “
There are no bears here, but come on.”

They trekked through the jungle. It was dark, as she knew it would be
, and so she shone the flashlight in front of her like a waving beacon. The air was redolent with freshness and moist leafy smells. Crickets chirped in the undergrowth, and small animals scuttled here and there, above and below, causing twigs and leaves to rustle.

T
his wasn’t the type of woods she was used to. This was a serious tropical jungle – the kind with snakes and dangerous beasts and even more dangerous insects. The trees here were very dense, and she was convinced that eyes watched her from everywhere, waiting for the moment to strike.

“You’re a real city girl, aren’t you?”

She almost tripped over a root, but he caught her and steadied her. His hand was very warm, and she held on to it for a tad longer than she was expected to.

“Do you want me to hold your hand while we walk?” he asked.
She could catch the tone of sly amusement in his voice.

As much as she wanted him to hold her hand, she puffed up her chest and said, “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

“Great.” He let go of her hand.

She immediately regretted her rashness.

They walked for about twenty minutes into the jungle before he stopped. He raised his head in the air.

“Why? What’s the matter?” she whispered. “Do you sense an elephant coming?”

“There are no elephants in this area. I’m just making sure we’re as far away from camp and other humans as possible.”

“Why?”

A frisson of anticipation ran down her spine. (Or was it a spider?)

He faced her. “
You’re too removed from your roots and it’s time you return to them. Now don’t be alarmed. I’m going to take off my clothes.”

She was stunned.

Um, did he know she was a virgin? (Well, half-virgin.) Did he mean that she was too removed from her
procreative
roots?

He started to take off his clothes. Off came his
shoes and socks, and then his T-shirt and jeans. She was too transfixed by all this to realize that her flashlight was shining directly on every inch of his lean and trim body. His arms were well-defined and huge, thanks to his years of shoveling dirt in digs like this one. His chest was muscled with just a sprinkling of light-colored hair on it.

And his cock.
Her mouth went dry. Of course, she had seen him naked before in the shower, but the sight of his cock still made her throat congeal. It was semi-erect, and the thatch of pubic hair above it clearly accentuated its thick rod. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. What did it mean? That he was excited? Semi-excited?

Uh, why was he taking his clothes off again?

He said, “I’m going to transform. Don’t be frightened. I won’t hurt you.”

She blinked
.

“Transform?”

Suddenly, all she could think of was ‘The Transformers’.

H
e shrank and crouched on all fours. Then it dawned upon her what he was doing. Of course! Somewhere in her distant past, she had done this before. His bones completely reformed themselves. His face elongated and his nose became a snout. Orange and black fur sprouted from his fair skin.

It an instant, a
magnificent tiger stood before her. She could feel the heat and power radiating off him. His eyes were brown, and she could feel Cole within the beast – the same amusement and intelligence and keen regard for his environment. He stared at her, and she stared back. The flashlight trembled in her hand.

He metamorphosed back
into his human body. This time, the transformation was even faster.

He stood back up.

“See? That was easy, wasn’t it?” he said.

A lump bolted to her throat.

“You want to me shift,” she said.

“Yes. I’m right here with you. Nothing will go wrong.”

“B-but . . . it’s been a long time.”

“I know.”

“But you know why I don’t shift. I did tell you, right?”

“
That was last week’s news. This week, you’re a new person.”

Yes, she was.

But still –

She looked down at her flashlight and boots.
City girl
. Had she really changed all that much?

“You won’t be a fat tiger,” he said
meaningfully. “And even if you were, I won’t care.” The sincerity shone on his face.

He doesn’t care.
If he doesn’t, why should I care?

Bit it would mean . . . stripping down in front of him.

He saw her mortified face and understood.

“I won’t look while you undress,” he assured her. He made a big show about turning around one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. “See? I will
walk behind this tree. Promise I won’t peek.”

He walked, and she could admire
the movements of his naked and firm buttocks as he went behind the nearest tree.

My, but he was sexy!

Did he know how sexy he
was? (Of course he knew it.)

Her cheeks suddenly flamed. He expected her to undress right here, just like he did. And
he expected her to transform at will.

But that’s what you do. You’re a shifter.

What if I can’t remember how to do it?

Her heart was beating very quickly, but she desperately wanted to do this. This was the start of a new her.

No regrets
.

She undid the buttons on her blouse. She fumbled, feeling self-conscious.
Don’t
. She shrugged off her shirt and her boots. Then her jeans. Her bra came off next, getting caught in the crook of her elbow. Her huge breasts sprung free.

He still didn’t move from behind the tree.

“You OK?” he called.

“
Just peachy.”

She took a deep breath. She could do this. She stepped out of her panties.

There. She was totally naked. Now she was supposed to do what came naturally. Uh . . . how did it go again? It used to be easy as a kid. Well, not that easy. Maybe like riding a bike. Or learning how to skate.

How did it go again?

“Have you done it yet?” he called.

“No.”

“Need my help?”

“No!” She was naked.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to transform.

Ummmmmmm
.

It was such a strain. She willed her bones to
mould and change, fixing the image of a tiger in her mind’s eye. She clenched her fists.

It wasn’t happening.

“You OK?” he asked again.

Her eyes snapped open.
“I . . . don’t remember how to do it.”

“Mind if I
help?”

But I’m naked!

You’re a shifter! You’re not supposed to be conscious about it in front of another shifter!

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
And cringed as he exited from behind the tree.
He’s going to think I’m awful, awful, awful
.

Then she remembered what he said.
You can’t control how people will perceive you or how they think about you, but you can certainly control how you feel about it
.

He reappeared, and he was smiling as he took her body in.
Fat, fat, fat!

“You’re beautiful,” he said reverently.

She was incredulous. She studied his face as he came closer. There was truth in his expression and a light was shining in his eyes.

He stood before her and locked eyes with her. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about.
You are beautiful, every inch of you, and I mean it.”

His hand came up and gently touched her cheek.
His touch was so soft, so pliant.

“My beautiful bride,
” he added.

“Does that mean you want to go through with the wedding?” she whispered.

“Yes. Definitely.” He leaned down and kissed her lips.

It began slowly at first, this kiss. This
pleasurable merging of pressure points as he molded his lips against hers. Then he put a little tongue into the kiss, parting her lips, inserting it into her hot mouth. Her own tongue froze. His hands went around her waist, and then her back. His callused palms slid across her smooth skin.

His mouth opened and worked her lips in a
harder, more urgent kiss. He kissed her like he needed her, like she was beautiful to him. His hands rubbed her back – up and down – pressing her body closer to his, until her breasts were squished against the bottom part of his chest, and her nipples were compressed against the hard planes of his torso.

When their mouths parted, she was out of breath.

“Wow,” he said.

She couldn’t say anything. She could just stare at him mutely.

“Want to do it again?”

He didn’t wait for her to reply, but engulfed her in another kiss instead.
This one was even harder than the last, with even more tongue. This time, she could feel his erection prodding her belly – a testament that he found her truly desirable.

Her heart soared.

Then he said, “Do you want to have sex with me?”

She was scared. She was elated. She was a dozen different feelings all compressed in her fragile little heart, which was beating so painfully against her bruised ribs, desperate to be opened up to him.

“Yes,” she whispered.

She was afraid to disappoint him.

He seemed to sense this.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Like shifting, it will all come naturally to you.”