A Hollywood Shifters' Christmas: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant Page B

much scrubbed since then.
    She sighed. “Very homey,” she said, turning her smile up at him. “JP and Jan are super nice, but this feels comfortable. Not sure I’d feel comfortable in a house where people are trying to organize a wedding.”
    “Yeah,” Dennis said, leading the way to his room. “My dad, who calls it like he sees it, says he hates to stay anywhere he can’t fart without causing a national incident, unless he’s under orders.”
    Mindy giggled, then said, “I’d like to meet him.”
    “I think the two of you would get along like a house on fire,” Dennis said, realizing it was so.
    Mindy set her suitcase inside his door, and he watched her take in the plain room, with a few old movie posters he’d left up, the ancient computer-LP-speaker system he and JP had kludged together, the battered dresser that had belonged to his grandparents. “I love imagining a young Menace in here,” she said, turning to him.
    “I love imagining Mindy naked in here, right now,” he growled, sliding his arms around her.
    He slid his fingers along her ribs and thumbed her nipples through her dress, circling the nubs. He loved how responsive she was—and had just enough time to think how hot he found it—before she attacked him with fierce, wine-tasting kisses.
    He kissed her back, each taking command and then surrendering. He sensed how keyed-up she had been, and realized how important this whole meeting was to her, how much she wanted to fit in.
    She was so sophisticated about some things, like the way she’d researched yachts and arranged to buy one, then handled all the difficulties of foreign ports and finding places to stay and all the hassles that often took him an entire day. She did it in an hour and made it look easy—and it wasn’t merely her money.
    He took pleasure in undressing her, taking it slow as if it were the first time, pausing to touch, and caress, and kiss and nip each beautiful curve as it appeared. When her eyes actually rolled in her head, he growled deep in his chest, and threw her on the bed to ravish her slowly, until her hair was sweaty, her eager nipples were a blushing red from his attentions, and she whimpered with utter abandon as he took possession of her core first with lips, tongue, and teeth, and then ramming himself in to the hilt, just the way she liked it.
    Oh yeah, he thought triumphantly as he rode her hard, and she clenched around him, her nails digging into his back, this was going to take all night.
     
    * * *
     
    Mindy got up the next day pleasantly sore. They’d enjoyed wild sex not once but several times during the night, which was exactly what she’d craved most, because her mind had been spinning too much to let her sleep. As she leaned against the shower wall, hot water streaming down her, she felt boneless, all the worry and anxiousness drained out of her.
    She thought about the impending wedding, which led right back to the familiar track she’d kept herself busy in hopes of avoiding: marriage.
    She and Dennis hadn’t discussed it since she’d told him emphatically that she didn’t believe in it, offering her family as proof. The subject had come up once or twice since, but mostly as jokes, largely about her family’s spectacular lack of success.
    But as she’d tried to be a good guest the night before, watching her hosts and Mick and Shelley carefully for social clues, the thing that distracted her the most were the little signs of a bonded pair.
    She had only seen that kind of sign once in her life—with her great-grandmother. She’d been a little kid then, unobservant as kids are, or rather uncomprehending, but she kept getting memory flashes as she watched the subtle signs between Mick and Shelley, Jan and JP. No more than flicks of glances, a tip of the head, the touch of a finger, and they seemed to read each other’s minds.
    Mick had known when Shelley’s dinner seemed to disagree with her, though Shelley didn’t say a thing. Jan had