Carly traced lazy circles across his chest, her fingers finding and tugging at his flat nipple. “I only met you a few days ago. And now I can’t imagine how I got through my life before you were in it.”

Tiger unlaced his hand and pressed it between Carly’s br**sts. “You feel the mate bond. It’s strong between us.”

His hand was warm, her heart beating faster beneath it. “I don’t know what a mate bond is. Or a mate-claim, or what the sun and moon have to do with any of it. I only know that my world turned upside down when I met you. And I’m glad it did.”

Tiger stroked between her br**sts with light fingertips, then drew them out, as though following patterns in the air only he could see.

“I’m glad we did it on the counter,” she said. “Kind of exorcized it.”

Tiger’s brows furrowed. “Hmm?”

“You know, because that’s where I caught Ethan.” Ethan seemed insignificant and far away now. “But from now on when I think about doing it on a kitchen counter, I’ll remember how amazing it was with you.”

“Good.” Tiger’s voice held a hint of a growl. “You should only think of me.”

“Conceited.” Carly smiled as she leaned down and kissed his lips. Tiger’s return kiss was gentle but tinged with heat.

He was getting better at kissing, learning to use lips and tongue to draw out sensual pleasure. Tiger hadn’t liked to stop kissing her, even to shed the rest of his clothes before carrying her up here.

More kissing as they entered the bedroom, and Tiger laid her down and climbed back inside her. He’d loved her again until she thought she’d pass out from the intensity of it, and even now, he didn’t look tired.

Carly loved it, but she’d also known, when he’d looked down into her eyes, that he was saying good-bye.

Carly looked down at him now and touched his cheek. “Don’t leave without me,” she said softly. “I just found you, Tiger. I’m not ready to let you go.”

He took on his stubborn look. “It’s safer if you stay.”

“Screw safer.” Carly sat up, her hair tumbling forward. “I told you, I chased safety because I thought it would make up for what my dad did to us. But it doesn’t. It just means your life goes nowhere. And anyway, I don’t believe anymore that there’s any such thing as safety. I fooled myself into believing it, that’s all.”

He looked at her as though not paying attention to a word she said. “I can move faster without you.”

“That’s probably true. But you don’t know where to go, or how to live as a human. You’ll give yourself away as soon as you try to buy food or find a car or a place to sleep. And if anyone sees you change into a Tiger—sheesh. Every hunter will be after you with a shotgun. Sure, you can throw bullets out of your body, but I bet too many blasts, and you’re dead.”

“Cutting off my head would probably work too,” Tiger said, face straight.

“It’s not funny. You need me, and you know it.”

Tiger again moved his fingertips through the air, his eyes on what he touched, whatever it was. “I need to protect you. I didn’t protect my mate before, or my cub.”

“From what you’ve told me, you didn’t have a chance. The researchers locked you away from them and wouldn’t let you see them. Well, I don’t want to be kept away from you.”

Tiger’s face went hard. “You have so much here. Your family. All that will be gone if you run away with me.”

“I understand the risks,” Carly said angrily.

“I think you don’t.”

Carly’s retort cut off as she heard the noise of a car below, then the slamming of doors.

Tiger was off the bed in a single second, moving to the window without a sound. He kept to the shadows, looking out.

“It is not the soldiers for the Bureau,” he said in a low voice. “Or Shifters.”

Carly heard voices now, shrill and laughing, and her heart sank. “Shit, what are they doing home already? They’re supposed to be gone until next week. And, crap, we left our clothes downstairs.”

She scrambled off the bed, throwing open the closet to grab for the spare T-shirts and jeans she left here. Tiger was out of luck though.

“Stay here,” Carly said to him. “I’ll talk my way out of this somehow. We can sneak you downstairs and out later.”

Tiger remained by the window, hidden to all below. Carly thought he looked wistful somehow, as he watched her sisters as they jabbered in their shrill voices, their mother answering as loudly.

Carly hurried down the stairs in her bare feet. The staircase spilled out into the wide foyer that was open to the kitchen. She hit the bottom step, ready to dash in and grab all the clothes, when her sisters and mother walked in through the back door, hands full of boxes, bags, clothes on hangers.

“Carly?” Althea, her oldest sister, said in surprise. “I hope that’s not your piece-of-crap car in the garage. I almost slammed into it.”

“Never mind about the car,” Zoë, the second oldest, said. She grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter and used it to lift the red boxers covered with black hearts from the kitchen floor. “Whose are these? Carly, you bad, bad girl.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Put those down. It’s not what you think.”

“No?” Zoë raised her brows at Carly over the underwear. “I think it’s a pair of men’s sexy underwear on our kitchen floor. Or were you playing dress-up? And you didn’t invite us?”