Serengeti Sunrise: Serengeti Shifters, Book 4

by Vivi Andrews

  Zoe’s snort cut him off. “God, Tyler, that isn’t it. You think I feel bad for killing that bastard? He was trying to shoot us. Put us down like animals. I’d kill him again in a heartbeat—and I’m sorry if I’m a little too bloodthirsty for you, but I figured you of all people would understand why I had to do it.”

  “Of course, I—Zoe—if not that, why are you…?”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I was the damsel in distress,” she muttered toward her feet. “I expected you to save me. Yeah, I got over it and kicked some ass, but there was this moment when I just waited for you. I can’t be that person, Tyler. I don’t like that part of me. The part that wanted to just sit back and let you rescue me. It feels too much like I’m losing who I am, if I become that girl.” She looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time during her speech. “I can’t be with you.”

  “It isn’t weakness to rely on someone else, Zoe,” he said, approaching her, needing to touch her, feeling that if he could just get his hands on her, she wouldn’t be able to slip out of his life like smoke on the wind. “I’ve spent my entire life protecting everyone around me, doing it all myself, being the rock. You were the first person I depended on. I wouldn’t have let you watch my back if you were weak.” Close enough to touch her now, he gently brushed a hand across her jaw, cupping it. “I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t a warrior.”

  She started to speak, but he could see on her face it was going to be denial, so he spoke over her, willing her to believe him. “I thought we made a pretty good team. You kept me from getting myself shot a second time. Turns out having someone to watch your back isn’t such a bad thing. So who’s gonna do that if you leave me?”

  “I know you, Tyler. I don’t want to be another obligation, another person for you to protect.”

  “You won’t be,” he vowed. “It isn’t easy for me to let you put yourself at risk, but I don’t ever want to hurt you or hold you back. I’m going to fuck up sometimes. I’m going to try to protect you, no matter what, but I’ll try to listen when you tell me I’m being a complete dipshit. And those obligations…” Tyler shook his head, trying to find the right words, unused to pouring his heart out. He swallowed thickly and tried again, not caring if the words were pretty as long as they were true. “My siblings are my life.”

  “And you deserve a life of your own—”

  “No, let me finish. My life wouldn’t be anything without my obligations. Without Ava and Michael and Caleb and Kane. They make it… They give my days reason and happiness. And you…my life would be empty without you, Zoe. I need you. I love you. Could you please say something and stop looking at me like that?”

  Her lips quirked in a small smile, but he couldn’t celebrate yet. The smile was too sad. “I don’t want to stay here and raise a bunch of cubs.”

  “I don’t want that either. Maybe kids. Someday down the road. But I want to leave Three Rocks too. Just you and me.”

  She was already shaking her head. “You know you won’t abandon your siblings, Tyler. It isn’t in you to walk away from your responsibilities.”

  “They’re grown now. And I won’t be abandoning anyone. Landon will need an ambassador to go to the other prides and packs, warn them about the Organization, make a plan for the future. Hell, maybe even talk about coming out to the humans.” He grinned. “I seem to remember someone thought that was a good idea.”

  Zoe’s expressive face had stilled, a thoughtful light kindling in her eyes. “Ambassador?”

  Tyler brushed his thumb over the fullness of her lower lip, marking his place. “We need to band together, all the shifters, if we’re going to have any chance of survival, but not all the prides are going to come easily. A trusted, persuasive emissary to travel around the world, acting on behalf of our families and our people… It would have to be a pair. So there’s always someone there to watch out for you…”

  Tyler bent and pressed a soft kiss onto Zoe’s lips.

  “It’s okay to rely on me, Zoe. I will always be here for you.” He kissed her again, longer this time, lingering in the warmth of her mouth. “It’s okay to need me,” he whispered against her lips. “I need you right back.” He kissed her a third time, deep and drugging, putting everything he felt, everything he hoped for into each caress. “It’s okay to love me…”

  “I do.”

  He dared put his arms around her. “Just don’t leave me.”

  “I can’t. I won’t,” she promised, tugging him down for another kiss, fiercer and more passionate than the last. That single vow lit a fuse in his soul, sending him up like a firecracker exploding in the sky. When she finally pulled back, they were both breathless, clinging to one another to stay upright. They stood in front of the garage, in full view of anyone who cared to walk by, but Tyler couldn’t care less.

  Zoe was his. Finally, irrevocably, perfectly his.

  About damn time.

  About the Author

  Vivi Andrews lives in Alaska when she isn’t indulging her travel addiction. She’s currently hard at work on her next paranormal romance. For more about her books or the exploits of a nomadic author, please visit her website at www.viviandrews.com or stop by her blog at viviandrews.blogspot.com. Vivi also loves to hear from readers and invites you to email her at vivi@viviandrews.com.

  Look for these titles by Vivi Andrews

  Now Available:

  Karmic Consultants

  The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant

  The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story

  The Sexorcist

  The Naked Detective

  Serengeti Shifters

  Serengeti Heat

  Serengeti Storm

  Serengeti Lightning

  What happens in Atlantic City…changes everything.

  The Naked Detective

  © 2010 Vivi Andrews

  Karmic Consultants, Book 4

  The “gift” that makes Ciara Liung the FBI’s prized secret weapon makes her existence more like a curse. Unable to bear human contact, she lives as a hermit, immersing herself in the water that gives her peace and amplifies her power.

  Her new FBI handler, though, only believes what he can see. The problem? Her gift—the ability to psychically locate stolen jewels—only works in the nude.

  Special Agent Nathan Smith can’t believe he’s expected to babysit some psychic finder. Psychic…right. An undercover op gone wrong may have left him a desk jockey—and Ciara’s charms are more distracting than he cares to admit—but he’s a field agent at heart. She’s working some kind of angle. It’s just a matter of time before he unravels it.

  Sent to Atlantic City to recover a ruby necklace for Monaco’s royal family, both finder and Fed are pushed outside their comfort zones, and discover more than they ever believed possible. And when a trap is sprung, they realize they stand to lose much more than a sparkly stone…

  Warning: This book contains gambling, go-go dancers, public indecency, and every brand of trouble a troubled psychic can get into in America’s Playground.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for The Naked Detective:

  Ciara was standing in the stall, pulling her dress over her head, when she realized Nate had actually let her out of his sight. He hadn’t swept the bathroom to make sure there weren’t other exits or frisked her for a hidden cell phone. He’d just let her walk in here without so much as a second glance.

  In the four days she’d known him, that was unprecedented.

  Could Nate Smith actually believe her?

  Ciara came out of the bathroom to find Nate leaning against a slot machine as he waited. He looked utterly relaxed, as if there hadn’t been even a flicker of doubt in his mind that she would return to him. Trust. It seemed to have burst open between them impossibly fast.

  She didn’t know when she had started trusting him, a moment ago, a day ago, maybe a part of her had started trusting him the moment he rang her doorbell. But his trust of her seemed to hinge on that moment in the tan
k. Sure, she’d done it so he would believe her, but now she was suspicious of that instant faith.

  Nate levered himself away from the slots. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” He started to reach for her hand again, then snatched his hand back. His eyes scanned her from her flip-flop bedecked toes all the way up to her still-damp hair, as if checking for war wounds.

  Ciara rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. Better than fine. I’m—” Again words failed. This feeling, it was too much. “Come on. We’ve got a necklace to find.”

  She grabbed his hand and dragged him behind her toward the street exit. Ciara felt like laughing, though she didn’t know why.

  She wore his jacket over her dress—the shawl a casualty of her dunking—but as soon as they stepped out of the air-conditioning of the casino, she shrugged it off. The sun hit the skin of her arms and felt delicious. For once she was outside, surrounded by people and not worried about being brushed against.

  Though maybe she should be worried. What if it was only Nate she could touch?

  He hailed a taxi and ushered her into the backseat, careful as he had been all week not to touch her skin.

  “The Borgata, please,” she told the driver.

  Nate climbed in after her. “No,” he said, “let’s go back to the hotel. You can rest—”

  “The Borgata,” she repeated, more firmly. No more invalid treatment. No more hiding.

  There were a million things she’d never done. Too many things. A wild excitement pulsed through her veins. A thousand possibilities.

  She could eat in a restaurant, dance in a club, go to a movie in a crowded theater where the schmuck next to her would steal her armrest. She could fly on a plane. Go to Egypt or Bermuda or Taiwan. She didn’t know why she should want to go to Taiwan unless she was picking up a few sweatshop workers, but the fact that she could changed everything. It changed her.

  Nate wedged himself against the car door, as far away from her as he could get without leaping into oncoming traffic.

  “What are you doing way over there?”

  “Recovering from the heart attack you gave me on the pier,” he snapped. “And trying to figure out how to talk you into going back to the hotel and leaving the jewel thieves to the professionals.”

  “I thought I was a suspect,” she purred, scooting across the bench seat toward him. “Don’t you want my confession?”

  He leaned away, pressing into the door. “You aren’t a crook. I believe you. Now back off, before you give yourself another seizure.”

  Ciara kept her eyes locked on his, slowly shaking her head. “Nate, for the first time in the last decade, I can touch someone without feeling like someone dropped a cherry bomb into my brain. Do you honestly think I’m not going to take advantage of this for every second it lasts?” She reached out and laid her fingers along his jaw. She listened and the touch sang through her, a perfect pitch ringing sweetly, deep inside her rib cage.

  She slid her fingers down, drawing them along the column of his throat, listening as the note shifted with his every breath. Her eyes fixed on his mouth, the delicious masculine curve of it.

  Ten years. She hadn’t been kissed in ten years.

  “Nate,” she whispered. Her upper body leaned forward of its own volition, closing the distance between them. She wet her lips.

  “This is a bad idea. I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think. It’s overrated.” Ciara’s eyelids lowered, but she watched him through her lashes, not wanting to miss a single detail of the kiss. She brushed her lips ever so softly over his, a fleeting whisper of a touch. His breath was warm on her lips. His stubble grazed her fingertips, the tantalizing spice of his aftershave teasing her nose. Ciara pressed a closed-mouth kiss full on his mouth and a chord struck in her soul. She placed one hand over his heart, feeling his strength through the thin cloth of his shirt. She wanted bare flesh under her fingers. She wanted to bathe in touch, skin to skin.

  Nate kept his mouth closed, his head back. He was frozen against the door, as if afraid to touch her.

  Or as if he didn’t want her touch.

  Ciara drew back. Her eyes flew wide to find him watching her, his gaze steady and concerned.

  “You don’t—” She hesitated. Crap. With her luck, he was probably gay. Just because he seemed like a big strong macho man and gaped at her naked girly bits whenever the opportunity presented itself didn’t mean he wasn’t batting for the other team. “You aren’t—” She couldn’t very well ask him what his sexual orientation was five seconds after she planted one on him.

  God, her people skills sucked. That’s what happened when you lived in a freaking bubble for a decade and learned all of your social skills from the television and internet. Had she missed some signal?

  He watched her. God, the way he watched her. It made her feel like she was edible, sweet and sinful, and he was hungry for some decadent indulgence. Would a gay man look at her like that?

  But if he wasn’t gay, what the hell was he doing cowering beside the door like she was molesting him against his will. His body was eerily still, but his eyes raced over her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, an odd urgency running under the words.

  Was she okay? She kissed him. He didn’t kiss her back. And now he was concerned that…what?

  “That didn’t hurt you?” His voice was rough.

  Ciara blinked, the pieces suddenly jolting into place. Of course. Mr. All-American was concerned for her well-being. His moral fortitude prevented him from enjoying a kiss if it might be hurting her. Damn moral fortitude. Why couldn’t he just take advantage of her like a normal man?

  “I’m fine,” she assured him in a rush. “Great, actually. It feels amazing.”

  “Good.”

  Before she had time to react to that guttural growl, his hands were on her arms. He hauled her forward across his lap. His mouth crashed down on hers, urging her to open for him, and a symphony exploded inside her. Ciara threw her arms around his neck and held on tight. She parted her lips and his tongue slipped between them, a whip of heat unfurling in her stomach with each flick.

  She didn’t remember kisses like this. She remembered the fumbling, groping, wide-open-mouthed attempts of her adolescence, before her curse hit. This was unlike any of those. This was skill and persuasion, seduction and heat. As a fiery concerto radiated out from her soul, a clenching warmth rose up from her toes, tingling along every nerve. Nate’s hands chased those tingles and multiplied them, tracing her curves through the thin barrier of her clothes.

  He raised his head. His eyes searched hers as they clung together, both breathing rapidly. “Ciara?”

  “More, Nate,” she whispered. “Please, touch me more.”

  He groaned and crushed her to him, instantly obeying. His mouth slanted down on hers and she fell into sensation.

  He’s no one’s hero. She’s no one’s pawn. And now they’re caught in the crossfire…

  Deadlock

  © 2011 Moira Rogers

  Southern Arcana, Book 3

  Abandoned by her wolf shifter father and raised by her human psychic mother, Carmen Mendoza can’t deny she’s different. She craves things most women shy away from—and she has a trail of shapeshifting ex-boyfriends to prove it.

  Working at a clinic for supernatural creatures, she’s escaped the notice of her father’s legacy-obsessed family. Until they need a pawn in their bid for power. Snared by a vicious spell designed to wake her inner wolf, Carmen’s only hope is to trust the one man strong enough to soothe her darkest instincts.

  Alec Jacobson was once the heir apparent to the wolves’ ruling elite, until he walked away to marry the woman he loved. She paid with her life. Now he lives as a rebel, a black-sheep alpha who protects the supernatural residents of New Orleans from the wolves’ barbaric class system. Too bad he can’t protect himself from his need for Carmen.

  Yet staking his claim on his enemy’s niece will turn his city into a battleground. Unless he can find a way
to stop breaking the rules—and start making them.

  Warning: This book contains a renegade alpha wolf, a smart empathic doctor, very dirty sex with psychic safe-words, the occasional dominance game in and out of the bedroom, and a group of supernatural citizens ready to take on the corrupt leaders of their world.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Deadlock:

  Carmen slowed and spun, walking backwards. “How long have you lived here?”

  “This house?” He slowed too, to a casual amble. “Bought it…oh, nine or ten years back.”

  “And do you do this often?”

  “Run? Or chase women through the woods?”

  “That’s chivalrous of you, to keep pretending you’re the one doing the chasing here.”

  One eyebrow quirked up. “You’re right. If I were really chasing you, you’d be under me already.”

  “Now there’s a thought.” She had to get used to the blatant, idle flirtation. She couldn’t get aroused every time he said something like that, or she’d be perpetually horny—and frustrated. “I meant your obvious role as protector and mentor. Do you have a lot of new wolves beating down your door?”

  “A few,” he acknowledged with that infuriating little smile. “Someone has to take care of them, and I’m good at it.”

  And he needed it. She might never hear the admission from his lips, but she felt it plainly. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. You’re going to trip and break your neck if you keep walking backwards on this path.”

  She stopped. “I was trying not to be rude.”

  He jerked his chin toward the path. “Quarter mile, maybe a little more. There’s a nice clearing. I’ll give you a ten-second head start.”