“No,” she said breathlessly, pulling away.

Tiger’s eyes opened, flooding with confusion and also pain. Pain?

“I mean, not here.” Carly pressed her hand to his cheek. “Not in Ethan’s . . .”

Then again, why not? Ethan had been happy to screw someone else in the kitchen where Carly had cooked, where Yvette and Armand had once prepared Ethan one of their exquisite meals. She shuddered even thinking about it.

Carly started to pull Tiger back down to her. Why not wrap her legs around this gorgeous man, give herself the best sex of her life in Ethan’s oversized dressing room? Oversized like his ego, compensating for a lack of size elsewhere.

“Because I don’t want it to be about him,” Carly finished.

Tiger’s brows drew down. “Don’t want what to be about who?”

“You and me.” Carly looked into his interesting eyes. “I want you and me to be about you and me. Not a rebound, not revenge, not about Ethan.”

“Why would it be?”

The question was genuine. She realized that to Tiger, in this moment, Ethan didn’t exist, wasn’t important. What a great way to look at the world.

Carly smiled and caressed his cheek. “I like the way you think. But I don’t want a reminder of him. All right? I want this to happen somewhere . . . special.”

Tiger slid his hand from between her legs, heady friction, to rest on her belly. “Special.”

“Special.” Carly kissed his lips again. “Like a romantic hotel room, or in my house with the lights low and the music on, after we’ve had some fine wine.”

From the look on his face, Tiger had no idea what she was talking about. He didn’t know how to kiss, he’d never put together sex with a rose-petal-strewn bed and a good vintage. And yet, being in Ethan’s dressing room, half-naked with Tiger while he touched her all over, was by far the most sensual encounter she’d ever had.

“You never brought a girl flowers and candy?” Carly nuzzled his cheek as he’d nuzzled her. Nice. The bristles of his whiskers tickled her nose, his skin warm.

“They threw my mate in to me, and took her away when we were done.”

The grating words made Carly jerk upright. The pain was back in Tiger’s golden eyes, the bewilderment of trying to follow Carly’s teasing words mixing with bad things from his past.

“What?” Threw her in and took her away? What was he talking about? “Who’s they?”

“The people who kept me in the cage, until Iona let me out.”

Tiger’s words were stark, matching his bleak look. “Who the hell kept you in a cage?” Carly tasted rage. What had happened to him?

“The researchers who made me.”

“Researchers?” Like Dr. Brennan, the slimy anthropologist? With his bodyguard backup?

Was that what they wanted? To put Shifters like Tiger and Ellison with his cowboy hat into cages?

“Well, I don’t know who Iona is, but I’m glad she let you go,” Carly said. “Good for her.”

“She took me out, and Liam brought me here, to his Shiftertown. Liam’s trying to teach me to be normal.”

The ironic twist on the last word caught at her. “What’s normal?” Carly asked with half a laugh. “Ethan is considered normal. And he’s a total bastard.” She cupped Tiger’s face, losing her smile. “Don’t be normal, Tiger. Promise me?”

Tiger closed a light hand around Carly’s wrist. He gave her the intense look again, as though he were trying to read every thought inside her, as though he were looking for something to hold on to.

Carly rose on tiptoe and kissed him again, loving his warmth, the amazing power of him. Tiger’s golden eyes half closed as he nuzzled while she kissed, nipped while she licked. Wanting snaked through her, hotter than ever.

The door creaked open and someone cleared his throat.

“Sorry to interrupt y’all.” Ellison’s over-the-top Texas accent preceded him inside. “But Ethan passed out a little bit ago. Maybe I was holding his wrist too hard? Should be careful about that. Unfortunately, he’s coming around, and he’s back to wanting to call the cops. I say we get while the getting’s good.”

Carly started to turn away, to follow Ellison, but Tiger stepped to her, not letting her move. He studied her in his slow way, as though memorizing her and every detail of this moment.

Finally, Tiger caressed her wrist with his thumb and eased back, releasing her. He never looked away.

Heart thumping, Carly grabbed up all her clothes and stuffed them into a tote bag, sliding into a pair of shorts so she’d be decent enough to drive. Though Ellison had again turned his back, Tiger watched her, the heated look that roved her body making Carly want to hurry up and find that romantic hotel room.

* * *

“I’ll drive,” Ellison said, taking away the keys Carly had brought out from her purse.

Tiger liked the arrangement. Before Carly could walk around to the front passenger door, Tiger wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into the backseat with him.

Ellison didn’t wait for them to straighten themselves out. He gunned the car as soon as the doors closed, heading away from the cloying house and back to the fresh but humid air of Austin.

Tiger didn’t like Ethan’s smell on the clothes Carly had insisted on bringing with her, including the ones she wore. But he could always build a bonfire when they got back to Shiftertown—Shifters liked bonfires—and burn them all. Andrea could lend Carly some clothes for now. The two women looked to be about the same build, as far as Tiger could tell. Kim was too short; Shifter women like Glory, far too tall.