by Zoe Chant
Jack sighed, and walked them both over to the huge bed. He laid Toni down on the coverlet, staring sadly into her eyes. “This is going to be a problem. I’m going to have to start thinking more carefully about my jokes.”
***
They lay on the bed together, sweat cooling on their entwined bodies. Toni had never felt so contented – so safe. The world, for the first time in a long time, seemed to offer adventure rather than worry and frustration. And it was no longer something that she would have to face alone.
She stared up at Jack’s face, blissful and contented in repose. But his eyes were bright, a gleaming gold in the darkened room. “I know what you’re thinking,” she teased.
He looked down at her and she almost lost herself again in those deep, hot pools. “Well?” he prompted her after a minute. “You were saying…?”
Ah. Maybe not almost, then. She blushed. “Well, I know what you’re thinking now, now. But a minute ago—”
“Five minutes ago—”
Toni laughed indignantly and rolled on top of her lover, pinning his arms to the mattress with her knees. “A minute ago, you were thinking – this is a happy ending. The happiest ending.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Weren’t you thinking the same thing?”
“No. And what’s more, you’re wrong.” She leant down, her breasts brushing against his broad chest, her face only inches from his. “This isn’t the end of anything. It’s the beginning. The beginning of us. Of happiness, of adventures – of our life together.”
“Together. I like the sound of that,” Jack murmured, his eyelids flickering against Toni’s cheek. “Almost as much as I love you.”
With that settled, they both thought very hard about what the best way to commemorate this new beginning might be. And after they had decided the best way to mark the occasion – and marked it a few more times – they fell asleep.
Outside the window, a silvery new moon cast its light over Jack and Toni’s forest, and the world in which they would spend their lives together. Not a perfect world, not a safe one – but a world they could face, together.
***
A note from Zoe Chant
Thank you for buying my book! I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to be emailed when I release my next book, please click here to be added to my mailing list.
Please click on the title to write a review of Trusting the Tiger. I love hearing what my readers think! It helps me decide what to write next.
Page down to read a special sneak preview of Hollywood Tiger.
The cover of Trusting the Tiger was designed by Olivia Grey.
More Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant
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Target: BillionBear. A BBW artist + an amnesiac bear shifter + a mysterious murder plot = an explosive blockbuster romance!
Guarding His Honey. A BBW in danger + the hot bear shifter who'll do anything to protect her + a dangerous fight with the mafia = one thrilling romance!
In the Billionbear’s Den. A stressed-out BBW in need of a break + a sexy billionaire bear shifter in need of a mate to share his home + the remote woodland house he built himself = one steamy romance!
The Bear With No Name. A BBW park ranger + a sexy bear shifter with amnesia + a town that needs their help = one unforgettable romance!
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Hollywood Tiger
By Zoe Chant
Special Sneak Preview
Ho-ly shit.
In all his years of investigative reporting, Dennis O’Keefe had never been part of a sting. Until now. But nobody had told him that it would be boring and irritating by turns, spending a lot of time with an asshole like Jerome Haskell and his muscle, big blond Hank, while pretending to swallow these bozos’ bullshit.
By today he was really hating this job—until the hotte
st distraction in North America began shimmying her way toward him, hips damn-near humming in the wind.
The room was full of attractive women, and he’d been trying to stave off boredom by looking at every one. He really liked women, all sizes and colors and types. But after that one in the slinky black dress had walked into the bar, the others could have turned into crows and flapped away for all he noticed.
He couldn’t stop watching her. It was like somebody had dug down into his brain and yanked out his oldest wet dreams: she had thick, tightly curly hair the color of chocolate clouding around her face. Her halter top molded a magnificent pair of breasts and the rest of her dress slithered over hips generously curved enough to make a dead man sit up and sing.
And she was shaking those hips. Right. At. Him.
As he tried to swallow past the balloon animal that had suddenly taken up residence in his throat, she gave those incredible hips a double roll and a flick—badoom!—that sent fire shooting from his eyeballs down to the boys in his suddenly tight pants.
He sat back in his chair, sucking in a breath to cool off. But she just kept coming, rolling and shimmying until he’d swear smoke was rising off her. Or maybe it was steaming out his ears.
What was she up to?
Hank was still dancing with one of the skinny women partying hearty across the room. Dennis sent a quick look at Haskell, who seemed criminally oblivious to those clashing beads and dancing tassels, as he leaned in to talk at the sour-faced woman Haskell had introduced as just ‘Patrice.’
Was Patrice part of the scam? Or how about the amazing belly dancer? But Dennis hadn’t been asked to do anything about Haskell’s minions, male or female. His job was to play Daniel Moore, a rich dork eager to invest his millions in a major motion picture.
But first he was going to enjoy every moment of the show. Another reason to despise Haskell—didn’t the bastard have enough taste to acknowledge real art when it was gyrating so awesomely right in front of him?
Dennis shifted, glad the table cloth hid his lower half as he tried to ease the tightness growing down south. He watched as the belly dancer kept gallantly dancing and twirling around Haskell. Dennis wished he could say, “Don’t waste your talents on that prick—the only thing he appreciates is dollar signs.” The guy didn’t even seem to be trying all that hard to get traction with Patrice, judging by the way she sat there, her drink untouched, her lips clamped tight.
With a clatter of beads and a mesmerizing swing and sway of those tassels dipping down low in front, the belly dancer circled back around Haskell the other way. Dennis felt his tiger wake up inside him as the tassels brushed gently over her black silk-covered mound. Wow. She was sexier fully clothed than the nearly-naked super-skinny pole dancers that Haskell had insisted on them watching the night previous, when they’d met in East Hollywood for their previous investment meeting.
Dennis sipped his drink, mentally stuffing the tiger back down deep inside. But then he nearly inhaled the ice cubes when she twirled, the skirt flaring, affording a glimpse of curvy, dimpled thighs.
He crossed his legs the other way, trying to keep Willie and the boys from ripping out of his pants like some Marvel comic guy.
The song ended. Just as well. Another minute and he’d be tent-poling the table.
“I gotta see to something, Danny,” Haskell said to Dennis, flashing a lot of dental whitening at him in a big, fake smile. “Have another drink. On me.” He must have seen the annoyance that Dennis was trying to hide because more teeth showed. “Trust me, I’ll make it worth your time. And it won’t take long.”
“No,” the scowling Patrice said below her breath. “It won’t.”
Haskell didn’t react—he might not have heard, or he didn’t bother to listen as he held out his hand and the rigid-shouldered woman walked away with him.
Dennis signaled to the waiter, and in a spirit of petty revenge, ordered the most expensive Scotch on the list. The clusterfuck that was this sting could be rescued if he could watch the mystery woman in the sexy black halter dress. Even his tiger liked that idea, and Dennis had to grin.
Except where was she? He leaned forward and looked more carefully at the party women. Definitely AWOL. Maybe she had to make a pit stop. Sure was getting to be a long one. She couldn’t have wrapped it up for the night?
Well, shit. The sharpness of the disappointment surprised him. It was this case. He longed for it to be over and done with, so he could move on.
If she didn’t return by the time he finished his drink, he may as well retreat to that expensive room Haskell had rented for him and report in.
* * *
So it was Plan B after all.
Just as well. Mindy didn’t like the way Red Hot had watched her while she danced around the couple who hadn’t exchanged Word One before they got up to leave.
No. Check that.
She’d liked the way Red watched her too much. Way, way, too much. It was those feline eyes of his, so light a brown they looked pale gold, almost yellow. Those dimples, that mouth, smiling with such ready enjoyment that she’d had this flash fantasy of dancing alone for him, peeling off her clothes, then his, one by one. That tawny hair with golden sun streaks and a dark red undercoat . . . she wanted to bury her fingers in it. She wanted to . . .
Stop that! The Cheater was on the move.
Time to follow. She pulled off her scarf, slipped the beads back over the branch, and dropped the tasseled cloth back onto her table.
The Cheater and Patrice were out of sight by then, but Mindy had done her homework, and knew where Haskell’s suite was. Summer Dress and her friends were getting up to dance as those left behind ordered another round.
In the general movement Mindy slipped out of the bar, and away.
She walked sedately toward the stairway with its back exit. She let herself out, and breathed the fresh summer-warm air of the resort’s inner garden, the trees and shrubs dark except where they’d been draped or wound with strings of tiny twinkling lights.
Haskell’s suit opened directly into the garden. Of course the French doors were locked up tight, the curtains pulled—which was just what she wanted.
She looked both ways, then backed into a thick bunch of ferns that effectively screened her on all sides. With practiced ease she slipped off the dress, which rolled into a tight little ball that she fitted into her soft purse. She pulled out her recorder, and flicked it on. She left the purse and her sandals lying on the moss as she stood up naked. She clenched her fists, scrunched up her face, did that thing somewhere against her spine . . .
And opened her eyes much closer to the ground, her hands turned into dainty little paws, her body covered in tight, close, chocolate-covered curls. A fascinating world of heady scents surrounded her:
She was now a poodle.
A toy poodle, though she hadn’t been toy-sized as a person since she was about three. She didn’t know where the rest of her went, and there was no one to ask, and not sound crazy. She remembered all too well the whispers about her “crazy” Great-Granny.
As always, it took a few moments for her eyesight to adjust to the blur of darkness and her nose to sort the thousands of new scents. Delicately she picked up the recorder in her jaws. With her heightened hearing, she could pick out Haskell and the woman inside the room.
She walked quietly up to the door then sat, like a dog of manners and pedigree, as she set the recorder down, and carefully nudged it with her muzzle directly against the glass the way her step-brother’s tech friend had explained.
“ . . . the problem?” Haskell demanded. “I told you I had an investor to entertain, but the rest of the weekend is just you and me, like I promised.”
“’What’s the problem?’” Patrice repeated, her voice rising. “You’re asking me what’s the problem? You’re married. You’re fucking-A married!”
“What gave you that idea?” Haskell said.
“Somebody—at first I thought it was you—sent me a cute little e-m
ail, saying surprise—”
Ah, you got it, Mindy thought, smiling a doggy smile.
“—I got a surprise all right! The link went straight to your wife’s Facebook.”
You clicked it, Mindy thought in satisfaction. She did always try to warn the Cheatees, if she thought they weren’t aware of the truth.
You know,” the soon-to-be-ex mistress’s voice rose to a fine crescendo of sarcasm. “Your wife? Courtney Winterhaldon Haskell? Does good works all over Hollywood. Married to Jerome Haskell. With a big picture of the two of you at your third anniversary a month ago. Two weeks after you introduced yourself to me as Henry Jerome, and told me you were single.”
“Look, babe, there’s a perfectly good reason why I use an alias—if you knew how the paparazzi harass me every time I turn around—”
“Every time you cheat on your wife?”
“Babe, I’m practically single. It’s over—all but signing the papers. I haven’t touched her in years! Who would? She’s old—lied to me about her age. Total witch, wants everything but the shorts I stand up in—I have to fight for my rights! I’ll buy you a—”
“How stupid do you think I am?”
Mindy carefully picked up the recorder in her jaws and carried it back into the ferns. There she shifted back to her human shape, remaining on hands and knees until the dizziness passed. Then she listened briefly to the recorder. Babe, like I told you, it’s over—
Okay, that much had worked. Then, to make double sure, she pulled out her cell and checked the camera, though she was confident that she’d gotten at least a couple good shots of Haskell with Patrice.
But when she scrolled through, to her horror she discovered that not one of them was any good—dancers obscured either one or the other, or both, and in the one clear shot of Patrice, Haskell was bent away, only a shoulder visible. He could have been anyone. Meanwhile she had about twenty-five shots of Red Hot.
Inside her, the poodle practically wiggled with joy, and she held her breath to keep her dog from popping out again. She groaned, disgusted with herself. All of a sudden, acting like a teenager with her first crush—on a job?
