Catch a Falling Tyger

by C J Cade

  "You're right," she agreed. "You're absolutely right. So many others would do this. So, go get one of them." She waved her hand toward the main doors into the office. "Hells, get two or three!"

  Unfortunately, she waved her hand that held the silk. The movement wafted his scent to her again, and her voice trailed into another rowl of longing as she buried her nose in the silk, inhaling so deeply she felt dizzy. Dizzy with longing. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had sex. And she'd certainly never had it with anyone who smelled this good.

  "But you're perfect," Ives protested. "He likes the curvy ones. 'Course he likes the slender ones too."

  "Oh, for nebula's sake," the CEO snapped. "Just get her sig-print and get her out of here. I've other things to do than pimp for Ch—"

  "Thank you, sir," Burl interrupted him hastily. "No names, no names. We're almost out of your way."

  Before Roxie quite knew what had happened, her free hand was pressed to a small gel-screen, and she was led from the room. She sank onto the air-pillowed seat of the transit car, barely hearing the dulcet AI voice that cooed, "Welcome aboard. What exciting L.S. Quantum location do you wish to visit?"

  "Central lifts," Burl said.

  "Central lifts. Shuttle deck. Enjoy the trip."

  "Eh," Ives muttered. "Plan to enjoy the trip back down to the casinos a lot more."

  "Yep," Burl agreed. "Deliver this kitty, and we're off duty for the next few days. What will we find to do with ourselves?"

  "Dare say we'll think of something, Burl."

  "I believe you're right, Ives. My moon is next to rise, so I'm gonna find me a shift-mate of my own."

  "As will I," Ives said with satisfaction. "And although our suites are a good bit smaller than his, I reckon we can have a fine time."

  At the central lifts, Roxie was propelled, still in her daze of lust, through standard looking lift doors. The three walked the solid, brick-red path into a what seemed like an ordinary lift, encircled by a hand-rail.

  "Please take hold," another sweet, disembodied voice advised. "Once the lift is in operation, handholds will not be visible. What deck, please?"

  "Z deck," Burl said.

  "Z deck. We are lifting."

  Around them the walls, floor, everything faded to nothing, and they began to rise. Usually Roxie did not care for the feeling of being suspended in mid-air. But today, she felt free as an avian, gliding upward on warm currents of sensual anticipation.

  "I do not like these fancy quarking lifts," Burl muttered, clutching the invisible railing with both meaty paws.

  "They do make your innards feel a bit black-holish," Ives agreed. "Nearly there, though."

  Their upward movement halted, and the lift reappeared around them.

  "Z deck. Enjoy your stay."

  The path to the opening lift doors was the pale silvery hue of platinum this time. As they stepped out into a foyer with pale walls and glow lamps, the two males relaxed visibly.

  Burl patted Roxie on the shoulder. "All right, puss, this is where we leave you. Go on in there and have a quarking great time."

  "I think you mean a fucking great time," Ives said cheerfully.

  He hurried to open the ornate door, and Roxie drifted through it, toward the source of the beguiling scent drifting out to her delicate olfactory senses.

  The rich, delicious scent of the male she craved.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Wait!" Roxie said, stopping inside the suite's open doors. "I don't even know his name."

  Burl chuckled. "You can call him... Charlie."

  Then the door closed on her escorts, leaving her standing by herself, bathed in the golden spotlight of glow lamps clustered around the doorway.

  She felt like a performer thrust onto a stage, unable to see her audience. Afloat in a sea of shadows. Yearning to dance, but having no partner.

  But she was not really alone.

  She could feel an invisible current emanating from the male somewhere in the shadows, just outside her vision. Prowling like the deadly predator he now was, in his shift.

  A growl sounded from the jungle foliage, a sound that would chill the blood of any other female. But to Roxie, already under the thrall of his pheromones, it was a mating call, a command.

  Her body responding with a shiver of pleasure and need, she gave an answering call, a soft rowl of need. It vibrated in her throat like a caress.

  Then he prowled out into the light, and she could do nothing but gape.

  He was magnificent. A male Tyger in the glory of his prime. Not much taller than she, but quintessentially male, with broad shoulders, lean torso and muscled arms and legs. His humanoid body was enhanced by his Tyger mating shift.

  His handsome, aquiline face, with slanting eyes and prominent brow, cheekbones, was now catlike in intensity and character. His pupils had narrowed and crystallized like those of a big cat, and his nose was slightly flattened, nostrils flared, lips narrowed and curved. He was man, and yet Tyger, as if he had donned a beautiful, translucent mask.

  The hair on his head was dark, nearly black. It hung around his head and shoulders in tousled, glossy waves, as if he'd been running his hands through it, or clawing it out of his face.

  And now it was joined from head to toe in a fine golden dusting of hair that swirled sleekly over his pale, golden skin, accentuating every lean muscle.

  It curled more thickly on his chest, and trailed down over his abdomen toward his groin.

  He wore not a stitch of clothing. And from between his narrow hips rose an erect cock so impressive that Roxie could do nothing but mewl with appreciation.

  His gaze fixed on hers, he snarled, a deep, guttural sound of command, his narrow lips drawing back to reveal lethal incisors. His hands, flexing at his sides, bore short, curving claws.

  Obeying instincts old as time, she dropped to her knees and bent her head in submission. She mrrowled again her song of feline lust.

  He prowled toward her. Her heart pounding, her mind a fizz with breathless anticipation, she watched as his feet and lower legs, bare except their dusting of hair, stopped before her. Her heart thumped so hard she felt faint, or maybe that was his scent, she wasn't sure of anything except that she wanted him desperately. She inhaled and gave a purring moan of longing for him.

  He sniffed her, a long inhalation that stirred her neat hair-do and raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck, sending a delicious shiver through her. But then he grunted with displeasure, and Roxie froze. If he found her scent unpleasing, he would reject her.

  He spoke for the first time, his voice a deep snarl of rough velvet.

  "Your clothing reeks of other beings. Take it off."

  "Um—now?" she yelped.

  He snarled again. Roxie shuddered with a potent mix of alarm and desire.

  "Do you accept me?" he demanded, his breath hot on the back of her neck. "Will you mate with me?"

  "Yes. Just mating, though," she told him. "So don't be thinking you and your friends will be getting any perks out of me for the rest of your voyage. And—and you're not paying me, either. I'm not a prostitute."

  Oh, no, she had to stop blurting—she sounded like an idiot. His pheromones were messing with her brain in more ways than one.

  He snarled again. "Does this suite look as if I need any perks? You don't want my credits, fine. You'll get nothing from me but my cock."

  "Fine then." They understood each other. Just sex, that's all this was. Nothing more.

  "You accept me as mate for the rising of my moons?"

  She nodded, then stilled cautiously when he snarled again.

  "Then you'll be naked before me."

  And with that, he hooked his claws in the back collar of her jacket and yanked, slicing it from top to bottom.

  Another slash and her sleeveless top was gone.

  He pushed at the fabric, and Roxie shrugged the ripped tops off her shoulders, letting them fall from her arms to the lush pearl carpeting beneath her.

&nbs
p; "I changed my mind," she told him. "You're definitely paying for the uniform."

  She let out another squeak as her snug pants suddenly parted in the back.

  "Wait," she protested. "I'll get them off—just wait."

  She might want him more than her next breath, but she did not want to lose her spider-lace bra and panties.

  Even if he could well afford to replace them, this set was special.

  Rising onto her knees, she pushed down her pants and then rolled to a sitting position to pull them down, and kick her shoes off.

  But that was all she got done. He crouched before her, watching her. And now she could see all of him. And oh, Tygress, if she'd thought he was gorgeous across the room...this close he was lethally hot. His dark hair was too long and untidy, but it looked glossy and soft as lii silk, and his lightly furred skin would be plush satin against hers. And his mouth wide and sensually curved... yum.

  And his scent filled her senses, rich and musky, making her pussy clench, her mouth water, and her fingers long to hold him, pet him, squeeze and fondle every inch of him. Starting with his cock, which bobbed between his muscled thighs, suffused with arousal, a clear drop beaded on the end.

  He took himself in hand, stroking his cock with complete unselfconsciousness as he looked her over. His nostrils flared, his jaw flexing.

  "I scent your readiness for me," he said. "You've been with no other males recently, that's good."

  As the flaring of his pupils said he liked the way she looked in the red, translucent spider-lace. Roxie straightened her back, letting her breasts jut out at him as she braced her hands on the floor beside her hips.

  He made a low sound, a growl or maybe a chuckle. "I like the panties. You'll wear them for me while you're here. Now get them off."

  "Maybe, if you ask nicely." She might want to leap on him, but that didn't mean he could be rude.

  This time he definitely snarled, and his dark eyes narrowed dangerously. "Females. I am on the edge of madness, and you want me to use pretty words?"

  "Yes. So work on that." With a huff of annoyance, Roxie hooked her thumbs in the panties and rocked to get them off her hips, then pulled them carefully down her legs.

  Then she gasped as he surged over her, depositing her on her back on the carpet and kneeing her legs apart. "I'm going to fuck you until you scream," he growled. "Wrap your long legs around me and hold on. How's that for nice?"

  Since he was the most gorgeous, virile male she'd ever had over her, and since he felt just as incredible, all furred muscle and surging male between her legs, already stroking the broad head of his cock into her wet folds, Roxie didn't argue.

  "That works." She spread her hands on his chest and shivered with excitement and need—and yes, fear. He might be the most enticing male she'd ever seen or scented, and she might be dizzy and compliant under the influence of his pheromones, but he was a still a stranger.

  Her words trailed into a high mewl of shocked pleasure as he flexed his lean hips and thrust deep inside her...so deep she could focus on nothing but the way he felt, heat and power wrapped in satin flesh, filling her to the utmost.

  He wrapped one arm around her back, held her in place, and began to move in a fast, hard rhythm.

  His cock raked delicate nerve endings and hit that special place deep inside her every single time, sending her spiraling swiftly upward and then leaping joyously over the lip and into free space. Pleasure imploding inside her, she fell, locked with him in a dance as old as Tyger time.

  With a fierce cry of catlike triumph that echoed through the quiet suite, he stiffened in her arms and followed her over. Then he collapsed on her, a hot, furred weight of solid muscle and satisfied male, his breath long slow purrs in her ear, .

  Roxie luxuriated in sheer satiation for a few moments. She'd never... ever... known sex could be that cataclysmic. Her body was lax and pleasure-drugged, her mind humming with satisfaction and glee.

  But then various facts made themselves known. He was heavy, his arm kept her back arched at an uncomfortable angle, the floor was hard underneath her even with the carpeting, and his seed was leaking from her and dripping down her thighs, tickling her skin. Also, though Tygers in shift did not perspire, he was as hot as a furry furnace.

  She pulled her arms from around him and shoved at his shoulders, wriggling under him. "Could you let go of me?"

  He grunted, then lifted his head enough to look down at her, and she gave a shiver of excitement at the sheer male beauty of his shifted face, and the glitter of Tyger eyes from the shadows of his tangled hair.

  As her pussy squeezed around his shaft, he smirked, his lip lifting enough to reveal one of his gleaming fangs.

  "Let you go? No," he told her. "But we can fuck in a different position this time."

  Holding onto her, he rolled to his back, taking her with him.

  With a gasp of shock and pleasure, Roxie found herself astride him. She pushed herself up, her hands on his chest, and moved to lift off of his cock. But his hands closed on her bare ass, squeezing the firm globes, and his blunt claws dug into her skin. The slight sting made her pussy contract again, and he growled his pleasure, his cock growing bigger and harder again.

  "Yes-ss," he said. "Ride the tyger. I need more—now."

  If ever there was a command more guaranteed to make a Tygress want to tease and torment, this was it. Roxie tossed her hair back and gave him a sultry look, stroking the silky, furred plain of his chest and squeezing his shaft again with her inner walls. "Say please."

  He snarled, and this time her body contracted with sheer excitement, her breath freezing in her throat as he knifed slowly to a sitting position under her. His glittering gaze held hers until she was still, then traveled down over her face, her throat, to her bare breasts.

  Tipping his head to one side, he put out his tongue—longer, rougher in shift—and licked her erect nipple. Then he closed his teeth around the tip and carefully bit her. Every nerve in Roxie's body zinged, and she let out a choked cry as the sting shot straight down through her to where she was impaled on his cock.

  He licked her again, and squeezed her ass, his claws digging in again. "Ride," he commanded, and licked her other nipple.

  In the implacable grasp of a Tyger male in shift, Roxie obeyed. And somehow the nip of pain enhanced the pleasure, sending her flying even higher this time.

  He thrust up hard inside her and let out another roar of completion, then fell back on the carpet, breathing hard, eyes closed to slits, nostrils flared, a steady purr rumbling from his chest.

  Her body and mind a haze of repletion, Roxie wanted to collapse on top of him and nuzzle him in thanks, wallowing in his scent and heat like tyger-nip.

  But then she remembered where they were, and the fact that she didn't really know who he was, and she lifted off of him instead, his cock sliding out of her along with a hot flood of his seed.

  "Where're you going?" he complained.

  She looked down at him, a sprawled length of beautiful, sated male. Even relaxed, his cock was big, lying canted over his groin at an angle, glistening with their combined wetness. Her pussy gave a little squeeze of longing for him.

  "To wash," she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

  He chuckled lazily. "Tyger kittens, so fastidious."

  "Tyger males, so full of themselves," she shot back, and rose with as much grace as she could, her thighs twinging from their pummeling.

  He smirked, his gaze taking her in from head to bare toes, and wet thighs. "Seems you're the one full of me."

  With a huff of annoyance, she turned and stalked away, with as much dignity as a naked female could who's just been royally fucked—twice.

  She could feel his hot gaze on her bare body with every step.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Wait," he called after her. "What's your name?"

  She froze in mid-step.

  Her name? She couldn't give him her real name.

  Bryght was a small planet, and
he might well remember the cub reporter who ran afoul of their planet's premier celebrity.

  On the other hand, her last name was a fairly common one on Bryght. The Fellura clan was huge, and growing.

  "Rouge," she said, tossing her hair again, and giving him a look over her shoulder. "You can call me Rouge... Charlie." Which she doubted was his real name, either. No one was named Charlie anymore. It was a first century name if she'd ever heard one.

  He stared at her, his face unreadable. "You know my name?"

  She shrugged. "Your assistants told me. First names are fine, I don't need to know more."

  And neither did he. She'd been with other males a few times since she joined the ranks of Quantum employees, but never a Tyger like him. And she likely never would again, so she meant to enjoy this interlude for what it was worth.

  Then both of them would walk away, sexually sated, likely never to see each other again. Until and unless she found a way to go home to Bryght again, her notoriety faded, if not forgotten.

  He relaxed visibly, then grinned as he held up her panties, the filmy red lace hooked on one claw.

  "All right, Rouge. I've nothing against a female calling herself after her panty color." He lifted the panties to his face and inhaled, then gave her a wicked look from under his lashes, purring loudly. "As long as you continue to give me access to what was in them. Don't go far, I'll want you again soon."

  Her face burning, torn between the urge to giggle and snarl, Roxie turned and hurried away. Tygress, the man was as annoying as he was sexy. His words sent her pussy, and her mind, clenching with anticipation. Everything she'd heard about mating with a Tyger in shift was true... and then some.

  As long as she remembered it would last only until his moons waned, she'd come out of this with her body sated, and her heart whole.

  Just because he was a gorgeous, virile male who fucked like a legend come to life and had the teasing smile of a naughty angel, who behaved as if he couldn't get enough of her, it was just his mating shift. After it was over, whoever he was, he'd likely shrug and turn away from her.