Shelly Laurenston: Here Kitty, Kitty!

He pulled back from her, releasing her wrists. Nik reached up with one hand and easily untied the leather strings holding up her top, pulling it down so he had easy access to her breasts. He sucked one into his mouth and Angie moaned, leaning back into the couch. He played with it for awhile and turned his attention to the other. Once he got both of her nipples good and hard, he looked up at her. “I love you, Angelina. I think since the moment I saw you in that airport. I love that you’re ornery and rude and take absolutely no shit. I love that you make my baby sister smile and that you think my daddy’s charmin’. I love how you look that split second before you come and the way you say my name when I’m inside you. I love everything about you and can’t imagine a second of my life without you.”

Angelina shook her head. “Thump. Thump. Thump.”

He still had no idea why the woman kept saying that. And to be honest, he wasn’t about to ask. She might tell him and it would probably freak him out.

Instead he tunneled his fingers through her hair, getting a firm hold and eliciting a delicious moan from those gorgeous lips. No. He’d never get enough of this woman. She was entirely too insane.

“You know, sugar, that party will be goin’ on for hours and I’ve already locked the door.” He ran his tongue along the underside of her jaw while making sure he rubbed his arms against her bare breasts. “There’s all sorts of things I could do to that sweet body of yours on this big ’ol couch.”

She groaned. “Then do it, hillbilly.”

“Not good enough.” He nipped the flesh at her collar bone, and kissed her hard. “I want you to tell me what you want, Angelina,” he whispered against her lips. “I wanna hear you say it.”

She brushed his hair out of his face, her hand settling on his jaw. Her eyes, filled with absolute love and trust, stared down at him. Then she smiled.

“Touch me, Nik.”

“I blame you for this, little sister.”

“I was trying to be helpful.”

“Oh, you were helpful all right. I’ve got bare-chested, overall-wearing hillbillies on my goddamn front porch because of you.” A porch Zach never even wanted. “I thought I’d only have to deal with one. But for some unknown reason his brothers keep coming.”

His sister cleared her throat. “That probably has nothing to do with me.”

“Oh, you are so full of shit.”

She laughed. “You still sound happy, though.”

“They’ve pulled out banjos. Exactly how happy can I be?”

“You can’t bullshit me, Zacharias. I can hear it in your voice. You’re happy whether you wanna be or not.”

“Whatever. So when are you coming back to the den?”

“Um…ya know. Soon…I guess.”

Zach watched his least favorite Pack member, the one who broke his baby sister’s heart, head out on his Harley. Zach didn’t like most people, but there were very few he actively hated.

“I could kill him, ya know. If you want me to.”

“Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

“Well, you’re going to have to come home sometime. You’re going to be an aunt in a few more months.”

“How are you doing with that anyway?”

“He would be better off breeding with the right hand of Satan.”

“Damn, Zach,” Nessa chuckled. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“You’ll see…when you come home.”

“If you’re ordering me home—”

“I wouldn’t do that. I know you need time. Take it. But at some point, you’re going to have to face him.” Zach pushed himself off the bike he leaned against, heading toward the house. “And when you do, I’ll be here for you.”

“Thanks, big brother. That means a lot to me.”

“Good. And you’ll get rid of the hillbillies, right?”

“You may be on your own with that one.”

“Selfish bitch.”

“Back atcha, mighty bro.”

Zach walked up the stairs of the newly installed porch. He looked at Aleksei Vorislav. “You wanna talk to my sister?”

The man’s face lit up as he held his hand out. “Yeah!”

“Oh.” Zach flipped his phone closed. “She just hung up.”

Alek’s eyes narrowed and Zach glared back. He didn’t like the two of them being friends when his sister was in college, and he definitely didn’t like the fact that the man now wouldn’t leave.

Alek reached into the front of his overalls and pulled out his cell. He punched one number and waited, staring up at Zach. “Hey, Nessa darlin’! How y’all doin’?”

Zach growled low, debating whether Angie could ever forgive him for killing her brother-in-law—probably not. He looked at Ban. “Seen Sara?”

“Not since they came back from huntin’ a little while ago.”

“Thanks.” Zach walked into his house, stopping briefly to look into the living room. Miki, at least six months pregnant now, lay comfortably between Conall’s legs, the big man’s body cushioning her from the hard arm of the couch. His long arms looped around her, his big hands resting on her stomach.

“We are not naming any child of mine Eunice!”

“I think it’s a lovely name.” Miki smiled. “There’s something so 1946 about it.”

“Why don’t we tack a big sign on her ass that says ‘my parents hated me so please feel free to mock’.”

“No need to get tense. I have a list of other names.”

“Such as?”

“Cerulean Blue.”

Zach shook his head. He knew the vicious psychopath was just fucking with the man. Last he heard from Sara, they—yes, they —had all decided to name the future Víga-Feilan, Kendrick. Ricki for short. Which Zach knew Conall would be more than happy with. Of course, the evil wench seemed to be having way too much fun torturing his friend to bother telling him that yet.

As Conall let go with a volley of curses, while at the same time tickling Miki’s neck so she hysterically began to laugh, Zach headed back toward the kitchen. He found it empty, so he went out to the back porch.

The porch now surrounding his house was at the insistence of his mate. She’d asked him about it once. He said no. Yet the construction guys showed up the very next day.

Zach stood at his backdoor, staring at what now lay across said porch. This keeps getting worse.

He stared down at the seven-hundred-pound tiger sprawled across the wood. Big tiger head resting on enormous paws. Of course Zach had a tiger on his back porch. Why wouldn’t he? This is what you get when you mate with a nut .

Sprawled face-down on top of the tiger’s back, a beautiful sleeping woman wearing ridiculously expensive four-inch-heeled shoes, denim cut-off short-shorts, and a subtle platinum band on the third finger of her left hand…and not much else.

Gold eyes looked up at him.

He glanced around. “Sara,” he whispered so as not to wake Angie.

The hillbilly motioned toward the kennels with that enormous fucking tiger-head.

He should have known. While the workmen built the porch, they also put together a wickedly nice kennel. Why? Because Sara felt Roscoe needed a girlfriend and she didn’t want to keep them all in the house.

That stupid dog now had six girlfriends.

Zach came around the corner to find his mate stretched belly-down across the grass. Normally he’d get a hard-on as soon as he saw her, but he became distracted. Distracted by the orange-and-black-striped fur ball in her hands. Since all shifters were born as human and didn’t shift until much older, what she held in her hands could only be one thing…

“Woman, is that a tiger cub?”

Sara cringed, then looked at him over her shoulder. “Oh, you’re home early.”

“No I’m not. Answer me.”