Enjoy this excerpt from TAMING HER TIGER (Tiger Shifters 9)
Chapter One
Amy Donovan hurried up the wooden stairs to the fifth floor
of the Brooklyn art studio, out of breath and trying not to panic about being
late. Damned weekend subways. She cleared the huge, rolling steel doors and
stepped into the brightly lit, high-ceilinged loft, winter sun pouring in from
the wall of windows opposite her. The gray sunlight was augmented by the
overhead lights, reflecting off the scuffed pale wood floors and bright white
walls.
She sighed in relief when she saw the open session hadn’t
started yet.
The familiar smells of the art studio—paint, solvent,
charcoal, paper, and canvas—filled Amy with that sense of belonging, settling
into her bones. The familiarity helped slow her racing, panicky heartbeat as
she made her way across the room to a free space. Easels, chairs, and tables
were already arranged in a rough semi-circle around a central model platform,
the piles of pillows in the middle of the platform were draped in neutral, tan
sheets. A dozen artists, the monitor, and the model coordinator all hovered
around the room. A few people stood in small groups, chatting and drinking
take-away cups of coffee and tea. Others were already at chairs or easels,
setting out their materials or flicking through their sketch books.
She waved at acquaintances and other studio members as she
wove past a section of seats to her easel. This was the final long-pose session
of a four-week cycle, her last opportunity to have the figure model in front of
her while she finished her oil painting.
Thoughts of said model scattered her focus and she nearly
tripped over someone’s bag. Apologizing, she hurried to her spot, pushing the
momentary lapse aside. She was a professional; this was a professional setting.
She refused to entertain the strong feelings and longings she’d experienced
when Ethan Gupta had first taken the dais three weeks ago.
It hadn’t exactly been a sexual reaction, though that was
part of it. She’d done so many life drawing sessions over the years, she didn’t
really view the nude models that way—she saw lines, shadows, proportion,
perspective, angles, and light contrasts. Or at least she had before Ethan.
But her reaction to him had been a lot more than just the
sexual punch of seeing a man as beautifully masculine and perfect as Ethan was
in real life. It was more stunned shock, a realization that she was staring at
an actual muse. Her brain had exploded with images, colors, a longing to
capture…something. Him.
She didn’t believe in muses, exactly. Not in the mythical
sense of the word. She knew a good figure model could inspire and energize her
and her art. She’d had the experience on numerous occasions. But with Ethan,
everything was different. More instant, more overwhelming, more…vivid.
That first time, she’d even sensed him before he’d come into
the room, as if he projected an aura of creative inspiration she could feel
along the length of her spine without having to look at him. The fact that she
could sense him now, even though she couldn’t see him, even though she knew the
feeling was just a figment of her imagination, left her edgy and anxious.
After that first three-hour session, she found herself
counting the days until the next one, and the one after that. Yet a part of her
also dreaded each session, dreaded that sense of being overwhelmed and awed.
The sense that her skills would never be good enough to capture the purity of
the inspiration he offered.
Settling into the area she’d used for the last three
sessions, she focused on putting out her supplies, collecting her canvas from
one of the storage lockers provided to regular members, organizing her brushes,
setting up her palette, studying her progress on her painting, determining
where she needed to make adjustments and what she’d need to do to get the work
done today…
One of her dearest friends, Reese Jordan, sat down next to
her in a place already set up and ready for the session to start. Reese was a
superbly talented sketch artist, oil painter, and sometimes sculptor. He was
also the person who’d originally directed Amy to this studio and encouraged her
to become a member. They’d known each other since Amy had come back to the art
world two years earlier, and now she couldn’t imagine her life without him. At
forty-three, Reese tended to treat her like a little sister, and he’d become
the big brother as well as the art mentor Amy had never had.
He kissed her cheek. “I thought you were going to miss the
class.”
“Subways,” she growled, making him grin.
On her other side, Devine, artist, gallery manager, and
another of Amy’s good friends, settled into her station, rubbing Amy’s arm by
way of hello. Despite being in her mid-thirties, Devine was ageless, with
flawless, smooth skin, hair that changed colors and cut frequently—that week it
was a beautiful pale lavender shaped to imitate a 1950s flip—and blue eyes she
accented with perfectly penciled black liner drawn to make her eyes look tilted
and cat-like. She’d confided to Amy once that her ever-changing look was
designed to appeal to her clients because they expected artists to be eccentric
and “artsy.” Devine ran a gallery in Soho that catered to art collectors of the
rich-but-not-very-knowledgeable type. She could sell sand in the desert and ice
in the arctic.
And for reasons Amy had never figured out, Devine kept
encouraging Amy to take her art more seriously, turn it into an actual career.
Despite Amy’s insistence that it wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Her refusal to
accept the possibility of art as a career had never deterred Devine from
nagging her about it.
Before Amy could say more than hello, the shuffling,
shifting sounds of people settling into their seats distracted her. She looked
past Devine…in time to see Ethan step out of the bathroom at the rear of the
studio, near the storage lockers and slop sinks. He’d changed out of his street
clothes and into his simple dark blue robe, a color that did fantastic things
to his wavy dark hair and eyes. He paused at the back of the room to chat with
the coordinator and monitor, smiling and relaxed.
Amy caught herself staring, her gaze drawn to the perfect
shape of his mouth, the solid line of his jaw, the way his hair curled around
his ear. She blinked a few times, trying in vain to look away. She felt like
such a fool, such a cliché, becoming obsessed with a model. But once he came
into the room, she had trouble concentrating on anything else. To her
embarrassment, he glanced up and caught her staring. His soft smile and nod of
greeting only humiliated her more. She nodded back and turned to face her
canvas, heat crawling along her skin and making her scalp prickle. He wasn’t on
the dais yet. He wasn’t hers to study. He was a skilled human being who
deserved her respect and admiration—not her obsessive ogling.
“He’s magnetic, isn’t he?” Reese leaned closer and said. “I
can’t stop watching him either.”
His voice was quiet, but Amy still looked around to see who
might overhear them.
“He’s just so damned good at holding these long poses and
still being…present, isn’t he?” Devine said. “It’s like watching performance
art every time he hits the platform.”
“I keep forgetting I’m supposed to draw and not just stare,”
Reese said, chuckling. “If I don’t sell this piece, the world has no taste
whatsoever.”
Amy smiled at that. Reese’s oil paintings and charcoal
sketches were displayed in galleries across Manhattan and Brooklyn. He was one
of the most gifted artists she’d ever encountered, and his work sold regularly
even in the competitive New York market.
“The world doesn’t have taste, darling,” Devine said.
“That’s why I have a job.”
Reese snorted. “And we’re all very grateful for the job you
do.”
Devine nodded at Amy’s unfinished painting. “That’ll be
worthy of sale, too, when you’re done.”
Amy stared at the canvas, at the way Ethan occupied the
scene she’d built around him, the long, muscled lines of his body draped across
the pillows like an ancient god. “Maybe,” she said noncommittally. More than
her resistance to considering art as a profession, the thought of parting with
this particular painting actually caused something tight and painful to collect
in her chest.
The final shuffling and noise of preparation settled and
silence descended around the room as Ethan stepped up to the platform and
dropped his robe.
*
Ethan settled onto the pillows, using the tape set down by
the moderator after the last session to resume the exact position he’d held for
the last month. The pose was comfortable, his upper body resting against the
piled pillows, one knee bent and one arm resting on that knee. He could recline
like this for the thirty-minute period without it hurting too much and without
drifting off to sleep.
He concentrated on his own body, putting himself in exactly
the same angles as the weeks before. Keeping his mind off the beautiful artist
just to his right.
Amy Donovan.
She caused him more difficulty than he’d ever had during a
life drawing class. Usually, he let his mind drift into a zone that embodied
the pose, managing to remain present without focusing on any of the artists
around him. But an awareness of Amy
kept him on edge the entire time. He’d been hyper attuned to her for the last
four weeks, and it was all he could do to keep his body from showing just how
much he wanted her.
After seeing her, catching her scent at the first session,
he’d very nearly backed out of this job. It wouldn’t have done his reputation
in the art world any good, but for the sake of self-preservation, he’d almost
made the sacrifice. Only a keen sense of wanting to finish what he’d started
kept him coming back. That and sheer, stubborn pride.
By the end of the first session, he’d managed to convince
himself that his reaction was just because Amy bore a resemblance to a woman
Ethan didn’t want to remember. The thick dark hair, the blue eyes, the pale
skin were superficially the same as Siya’s. Amy’s hair was curly where Siya’s
had been straight. Amy was a little taller and curvier than Siya. But the
similarities in appearance were hard to ignore. And they made a great excuse
for dismissing his reaction to Amy. Nothing he had to worry about. He’d be over
that superficial attraction by the time he saw her again.
Unfortunately, when he’d shown up for the second session,
he’d had to admit he wasn’t just struck by Amy’s beauty. She drew him the way a magnet pulled metal.
He found himself overly focused on her, aware of where she was even when he
couldn’t see her, conscious of the subtle shifts in her scent—honeysuckle and
art studio and woman. A combination that set his blood on fire.
He’d had a very similar reaction to Siya. And that was the
real danger.
He hadn’t had that kind of reaction to any other woman
before or since—until Amy. It felt a little like obsession, impossible to
control, overwhelming and consuming. Like being around Amy was as necessary as
his next breath. He hated that feeling more than just about anything he’d ever
experienced before. The same kind of preoccupation with Siya had almost gotten
him killed. He could not do that
again. He’d come to New York to escape the memory of Siya and what she’d done
to him. He’d refused to have anything to do with the tiger shifter world,
outside of his immediate family, after that.
Amy was human, which should have made her safe. But she
called to his tiger so strongly it reminded him of being around a tigress.
Which meant he should avoid Amy Donovan at all costs.
And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to cancel the remaining
two sessions. He was a professional, it was just once a week for a few hours,
and for the most part, Amy seemed intent on avoiding him. He assured himself
all of that would make it easier, and he wouldn’t have to sacrifice his
reputation just to avoid a human woman who didn’t seem particularly interested
in interacting with him anyway.
Unfortunately, his keen sense of smell picked up her
attraction, the spice of desire in her scent, the way it enhanced the womanly
musk that was part of her essence. He wanted to disregard that flavor, to
pretend he didn’t know she wanted him, too. She never showed any signs of
acting on the chemistry and lust. He didn’t have to act on those feelings
either.
But his tiger saw her resistance to her own desire as a
challenge—a challenge that was impossible to ignore. So hard he’d found himself
walking past her during each break at the third session, making excuses to
exchange small talk with her, to pass a comment on the progress of her
painting. Despite his efforts to resist, he still pulled in her scent, holding
his breath to keep the flavors on his tongue as long as possible, savoring the
complexity. And more often than he cared to admit, his mind wandered to more
erotic thoughts, musings that had been invading his dreams during the
intervening week. What her skin might taste like, feel like, what she’d look
like stripped out of the loose jeans and t-shirt she always wore to the studio,
what she’d look like in the throes of orgasm…
Those thoughts during a nude session were not good. The entire room would notice
his erection, which wasn’t exactly the look he was going for with this pose. It
happened to male models sometimes, and artists generally ignored it. But as a
tiger shifter, Ethan rarely noticed being nude and never had trouble
controlling his body while he was. He’d spent his life taking his clothes off
in front of other shifters so he could let his tiger out. Unlike most humans,
Ethan was as comfortable without clothes as he was with them.
Except with Amy Donovan in the room.
Even now, during what was thankfully the last session of the
four-week cycle, it took a concerted effort on his part not to let his
awareness of Amy show. The room was mostly silent except for the sounds of
brushes lapping over canvas and pencils scraping across paper, or the
occasional groan of a seat as someone adjusted their position. His pose kept
his focus on a point in the room where the steel frame around one window butted
up against the white wall, so he only caught glimpses of Amy from the corner of
his eye. If he didn’t focus on it, her scent blended in with all the other
smells in the large, open space, just one more part of the complex essence of
an art studio.
But even without trying, he still ended up parsing her scent
out from the more complicated background. And her lust was there, tamped down
by her concentration but still there, heady and rich…and tempting.
If it wasn’t so quiet in the room, he might have groaned out
loud.
This was the last session, he reminded himself. After this,
he wouldn’t see her again, and he’d go back to living his life without this
preoccupation. He couldn’t afford to lose his heart and soul to a woman again.
In fact, he wasn’t sure how much he had left to lose after the damage Siya had
done. Amy called to that part of him, and he just couldn’t give in to the
desire and risk any more pain. So lust or no lust, Amy Donovan was off limits.
At the first break, he donned his robe and made a circuit of
the room, stretching and loosening muscles that had gotten stiff over the last
half hour. Some of the artists stopped him to make small talk. One or two gave
him their cards, offering the possibility of future work. He managed to keep
his distance from Amy, but only barely. His tiger kept urging him to walk past
her, test her reaction to him, see if he could make her desire overcome her
focus on her painting…
His focus on keeping Amy at a distance while still being
utterly aware of her was his excuse for missing the feel of another tiger
shifter nearby.
He frowned and glanced at the huge windows. What the hell
was another tiger doing in this area?
Settling back onto the dais, Ethan opened his senses to that
other shifter, trying to get a sense of who it was.
There were two other males in the city. When Ethan had moved
here, they’d met to set up territorial boundaries which would allow them to
remain neighbors without conflict. Of necessity, they did occasionally have to
move through each other’s territories, but those incursions were overlooked if
they didn’t last long or happen too frequently. Ethan specifically chose
modelling jobs that avoided the other males’ territories—usually in places that
were neutral. His freelance work as a tax accountant rarely brought him into
contact with the others either.
He’d never sensed one of the other New York males nearby
during his previous sessions here, but he supposed it wasn’t out of the
question for one to have come into Brooklyn for personal reasons. This was
neutral ground, so there was no reason for one of the other males to avoid the
area. And being New York, tiger shifters from other places did make their way
into and through the city on business, travel, or just as tourists. But this
area of Brooklyn wasn’t on the typical tourist routes, and it was a Sunday
afternoon, so there shouldn’t be a lot of reason for a tiger to be here for
business.
Despite his senses being fully open, the other shifter
remained just at the edges of his awareness, too far to give Ethan much
information. He couldn’t even be sure if the tiger was male or female. He kept
his attention on the shifter throughout the next half-hour period, and the
tiger remained in the same place the entire time—maybe eating at a local
restaurant?
When the break was called, Ethan blinked in surprise. He
hadn’t even noticed his wrist on his bent knee falling asleep. He rose, slipped
into his robe, and wandered close to the big windows in his circuit to stretch
his muscles. Glancing outside in hopes of catching sight of the other tiger
didn’t help. Whoever it was, they weren’t in plain sight from the studio.
With his mind on the mysterious shifter, Ethan didn’t
realize he’d wandered close to Amy until her scent hit him hard. He fought off
a scowl when he noticed he’d stopped just behind her. She didn’t glance back at
him, but she did sit a little straighter on her chair.
Cursing his unconscious pull to her, he made an effort to
look at her painting so he could pass a comment as an excuse for why he was
just standing there.
For a long moment, he stared at the painting, unable to
actually form a coherent word. When he could speak, he said, very quietly,
“That’s magnificent. You’re amazing.”
Pleasure and surprise filled her honeysuckle scent with
citrus and a touch of vanilla. He edged closer, unable to resist her, wishing
there weren’t so many people in the room watching this exchange.
Wishing he could back away before he lost his mind completely.
“Thank you,” she murmured. She glanced over her shoulder,
smiling shyly at him, her blue eyes sparking with pleasure through the fringe
of her long lashes.
The sexy look combined with the husky sound of her voice hit
him hard, right in the gut and lower. His blood pounded, his breathing sped. In
that moment, he was extremely glad to have his robe on because his body reacted
instantly. He took a half step closer to her when she faced her painting again,
raising a hand to test the texture of her hair before he realized what he was
doing. He snatched his hand back and with a grunt, he spun away from her and
stalked to the farthest end of the studio.
Damn but she was dangerous. Without even trying. Even the
puzzle of a strange tiger in the area couldn’t fully distract him.
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to give in to this lust,
and to hell with the consequences.
He sighed when his tiger growled in his head—in approval.
TAMING HER TIGER -- Out Now!
