Both Tygers lost their smiles. Ives shook his head gravely. "Can't do it. He leads an extremely busy lifestyle, traveling and such. He's already postponed this shift three times."
"Three times?" Every Tyger knew that was dangerous. Once was fine, sanctioned by every medic on Bryght. Twice was safe, if strict protocols were followed. Three .. no.
Burl nodded emphatically. "Exactly. He couldn't afford to wait. And now… without a shift-mate—well, he could be in deep trouble. You gotta help him out."
"Wait—what? Me?" Fury, molten hot as lava on the surface of a new planet, coursed through Roxie's veins. It wasn't her fault these Tygers were too mouse-brained to predict this would happen to their employer if he toyed with his health, and then boarded a cruise ship when his mating moons were ascendant.
She drew herself up, planted her hand on Ives' shoulder and shoved him away from her. She gave a hiss of warning that any Tygean knew meant violence was imminent.
"I am not a prostitute! Not for any being—I don't care who he is, or how wealthy or powerful. And you can't make me—none of you can."
She'd already been forced to make a massive detour from her chosen career in journalism to take this job. No matter what, she refused to sink so low as to sell her body. If others wished to, that was their business. Way too intimate for her.
And since this was a free Federation vessel, they truly couldn't make her do any such thing.
That is, until Ives pulled a trick so treacherous, so unfair, so completely under-handed that he deserved to freeze in the coldest, deepest level of the 7th hell.
With lightning swiftness, he drew a piece of cloth from his pocket and waved it under her nose.
"You sure about that, pussy-cat?" he crooned.
A delicious, beguiling scent wafted from the cloth. Roxie froze, her eyes nearly crossed as she peered down her nose at it.
Unable to help herself, she reached up and grabbed the cloth from Ives' hand. It was a lii silk handkerchief, soft as a sigh. And it was imbued with the musky, spicy pheromones of a male Tyger in mating shift. Something to which an unmated Tygress was incredibly susceptible.
Burying her nose in the scrap of cream-hued silk, Roxie drew in a deep breath. She shivered with longing, wishing it was the skin of the Tyger male himself--whoever he was. Oh, great God beyond, he smelled absolutely delicious. She wanted him now. She wanted to sniff and lick and bite him all over. She wanted to give him a tonguing he'd never forget. Then she'd...
No, wait! What was happening here?
"No," she said, but her voice emerged as a low, rasping purr. It was followed by a needy mrrowl of desire.
She fought to throw the scrap of lii silk back at Ives, but her hand wouldn't seem to let go of it. In fact, her hand fisted around it so tightly her nails dug into her own palm.
"No-oo," she groaned, disbelief, horror and animal lust warring inside her.
"Ah," Ives breathed. "Burl, I do believe we have a match. Our Tyger kitty is taking to his scent like a dose of fresh Tyger-nip."
"Excellent," Burl replied. "Let's introduce the happy couple."
"Wait, wait," Ives held up a hand. "There is the little matter of the non-disclosure clause."
Non-disclosure clause? If their mysterious boss required one of those for a mating shift partner, that was very, very bad.
Roxie forced herself to take a step back. Fighting the craving that soaked her system, she shook her head. "No! No, that's it, I'm definitely not going near your mysterious boss, no matter how good he smells. No Tyger is going to claw me and get away with it."
Ives shook his head and Burl grimaced. "No, no, puss. He's not into violence. No more than any other Tyger in shift, that is. No, this is, uh..." He scratched his head.
"Let's put it this way," Ives put in. "You know him—you know his face, that is. You know his, uh, his roar, his purr, his mrrowl."
"He's a celebrity?" Roxie took another step back, her nose wrinkling in revulsion. "Oh, no, now I really want nothing to do with him. No celebrities, whatsoever."
They gaped at her. "Whaddya mean, no celebrities?" Burl demanded. "Why, every female—and plenty of males—between the ages of puberty and senility would give their fangs to be with this guy."
Everyone except her. She'd had her celebrity exposure, and gotten burned—so badly she still hadn't recovered. So badly her pride might never allow her to return home to Bryght.
"You're right," she agreed. "You're absolutely right. So many other beings would do this. You should go get one of them." She waved her hand toward the main doors into the office. "Hells, get two or three!"
Unfortunately, she waved the hand holding the silk hanky. The movement wafted his scent to her again, and her voice trailed into another mrrowl of longing as she buried her nose in the silk, inhaling so deeply she felt dizzy. 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. Musky, salty-sweet and utterly scrumptious.
Her nipples were hard and aching, her pussy was contracting emptily, and her mouth watered. Her knees were weak.
"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, waving his hand. "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 LS 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." The two Tygers grinned at each other.
"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. "My lunar sequence is at its height right after yours. And although our suites are a good bit smaller than his, I reckon we can still have a fine time."
"Don't we always?" The two chuckled together.
The ebb and flow of the moons of Bryght held sway on the very DNA of Tygeans, which meant that at any given time, a portion of the male and female populations of breeding age were cycling through their mating shifts. They accepted this, even looked forward eagerly to their turn. Sex was good at any time, but during a shift, it was explosive, consuming. And the stamina and appetite of shifted Tygers and Tygresses meant they were in high demand as lovers.
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," the AI cooed. "Enjoy your stay."
The path through the 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. They snickered.
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.
Three
"Wait!" Roxie stopped inside the suite's open doors. "I—I don't even know his name."
Burl chuckled again. "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 alone.
Somewhere in the shadows, just outside her vision, prowled a male Tyger in shift. Dangerous, on the edge of control, nearly feral with lust.
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 mrrowl 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 body, 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 own song of feline lust.
He prowled closer. Her heart pounding, her mind a fizz with breathless anticipation, she watched as his feet and lower legs, bare except their dusting of fine fur, 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.
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 squeaked.
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 for mating, though," she told him, because enticing or no, he was a celebrity of some kind. She didn't recognize him, but that didn’t mean anything, as his mien was dramatically changed. "So don't be thinking you'll 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."
And now it was time to close her mouth—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.
She wasn't as experienced as most Tygresses her age—public shame had that effect on a female's dating life—but she'd been with a shifted male before, a young male at college. She knew he needed her body more than her mind or heart. And she knew she'd be well-rewarded for submitting to him…in sexual satisfaction of her own.
"You accept me as mate for the rising of my moons?"
"Yes." 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.
"I changed my mind," she muttered. "You're definitely paying for that."
She let out another squeak as her snug tights 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 bra and panties. Even if he could well afford to replace them, this set was special.
Rising onto her knees, she pushed down her tights 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. "So 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, his golden gaze burning into hers, and since he felt just as incredible, all furred muscle and surging male between her thighs, already
stroking the broad head of his cock into her wet folds, Roxie didn't argue.
"Th-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, though, 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 began to make 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 still 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 alarm and 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.
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