Page 34 of Easy, Tiger

Her scent surrounds me, and I chase it to the curve of her throat, my teeth scraping the flutter of her pulse there. "You wanted this. Tell me you wanted this."

"Wanted you for weeks." The confession releases as a broken, half-moan. "Since before I knew what I was looking at."

The words undo something in my chest. Her hands scrunch into my shirt, tugging me insistently toward the floor instead of the wall. She forgoes waiting for me to ask where she wants me, making her preference perfectly clear as she pulls me down with her.

Bridging the short distance to the quilt I keep folded by the stove for winter nights, I lay her down before following her onto it, and this time when I sink into her, she takes the lead, rolling us until she's astride my hips, her curls falling loose around both our faces. She braces her palms flat on my chest and rides me slow at first, finding her own rhythm, gauging my face like she's reading every reaction the same way she analyzes a hawk's wingspan.

"Good?" she asks, breathless, half a laugh in it.

"So good I can barely think." Gripping her hips, I guide, letting her set the pace until neither of us can stand to go slow anymore. "Your turn to take what you want."

She does, chasing her own pleasure with a single-minded passion I recognize from watching her sketch, until her rhythm breaks apart entirely and she collapses forward, burying her face against my shoulder, hips still moving, desperate now.

"I've got you." Flipping us both in one motion, I lay her back against the quilt and drive deeper, chasing the same edge she's chasing. "Come apart for me, Halsey."

Her cry rings off the exposed rafters, raw and perfect. With my fingers in her curls, I remain captivated by her expression, letting the weight of the moment sink in. "Right here," I tell her, voice wrecked. "I'm right here with you."

Her breath shudders. "Don't stop. Please, don't stop."

Bracing her hips, I give her everything I have left, and when she breaks, it drags me over with her. Her cry is uneven and glorious, and I fill her in waves that leave us both gasping, tangled together on the quilt with sawdust caught in her hair and my heartbeat slamming against her palm.

We lie tangled in the hushed aftermath, her fingers finding my shoulder again like it's already become a habit.

I lick salt from her temple. The mating bond hums under my skin, low and content.

We remain tangled together on the quilt a while longer before repositioning ourselves so my back rests against the workbench leg. Halsey curls into my lap, her cheek pressed to my chest, where my heartbeat hammers from exertion. Her fingers create lazy patterns across my ribs, each touch sending aftershocks through muscles humming with satisfaction.

"Your pulse is insane." She tilts her head up, eyes bright with mischief. "Should I be concerned about your cardiovascular health, old man?"

"Thirty-five isn't old." I brush curls from her damp forehead. "Besides, you're the one who demanded I stop being gentle."

"No complaints here." Her laugh vibrates against my collarbone. "Though I think you owe me a new shirt."

I glance at the scattered buttons littering the floor around us. "Fair point."

She wiggles in my arms, nuzzling deeper into the crook of my shoulder. A new, electric current hums through the workshop, charged with something far beyond the dust of wood and varnish. The mating bond thrums contentedly under my skin, recognizing its other half in the woman breathing softly against me.

"I never thought I'd feel this again." Her voice softens to barely above a whisper. "Safe, I mean. After everything that happened, I convinced myself I was better off alone."

She's trusting me with something real, handing me her vulnerability with complete trust, and I'm sitting on the biggest secret of my life. The words crowd my throat—I'm not entirely human. The tiger you saved was me. We're fated mates.

"Halsey—"

"I know it's probably too soon to say things like that. But being with you feels different, bringing an untethered kind of ease, like I can finally stop peering over my shoulder."

Something in the way she says it stops me cold. She feels safe with me because she believes I'm only a carpenter. Not someone who shifts into a six-hundred-and-fifty-pound predator under the full moon.

"You don't have to look over your shoulder here." The promise tastes bitter with its incomplete truth.

"Because of you." Her fingers find mine, threading together. "You make me believe I can have a normal life again."

Nothing about what we are is normal, and the longer I wait to tell her, the worse the betrayal will feel when she discovers the truth.

"We should probably get dressed." I rub the base of my neck, the moment unanticipatedly heavy. "Before someone wonders why the shop light is on this late."

She stretches against me like a satisfied cat. "Practical as always."

Helping her to her feet, we both wince as we survey the destruction. Tools knocked from their hooks and sawdust clinging to every surface, including our skin.