Tigers Like It Hot Read online

  Who knew shape shifters exist and they adore curvy, full-figured women?

  When Jessi decides to leave her home town for the second time, she and her best friend Kelly devise a plan. They’ve researched six different towns, they’ve drawn the orders of their visits from a hat and they’re determined to stick to the new path they’ve set out for themselves.

  When Gareth and Mac set out in search of a mate, they didn’t expect company in the form of two unwanted tag-along friends, and they certainly didn’t expect their sort of well-laid plans to grind to a screeching halt in a town they had never even heard of before.

  How did they all end up in the town dubbed Halloween town for the week when none of them had even planned to stop there for anything more than lunch?

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  Tigers Like It Hot

  Copyright © 2014 Tianna Xander

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-0097-2

  Cover art by Carmen Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  Tigers Like It Hot

  Caspian Cascade 1

  By

  Tianna Xander

  Chapter One

  “That’s it! I’ve had it.” Jessi snarled as she stalked into the apartment she shared with her best friend, Kelly. “I’ve had it. I am so out of here. Just watch how fast I’m outta here. Your head will spin.”

  Throwing her purse on the couch, she stomped to the coat closet and pulled her suitcases out. One by one, she dragged them into her room and hefted them up onto the bed. After hoisting the last one up, she unzipped them and started pulling her dresser drawers out, which she unceremoniously dumped into the open bags.

  “What’s the matter?” Kelly leaned against the door frame, her arms crossed, a little crease between her brows. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m leaving. That’s what I’m doing.” Jessi waved her hand above her head. “I’ve had it up to here with Billy’s innuendo and Bobby’s pawing. Let them find some other girl to torment. I’m not taking it anymore.”

  Tears burned her eyes as she thought about leaving home again. It wasn’t the town she would miss. It was Kelly who would fill her thoughts as she drove away, leaving this town in the dust for the last time. At least she wouldn’t leave Kelly penniless. She’d managed to invest her way into a sizable bank account over the years. While she had a larger bank account than Kelly’s, it wasn’t much larger. The money she’d saved and invested for them both over the time she’d lived and worked in the city, if they continued to invest it wisely, would last the rest of their lives.

  “I should have known that I could never come home.” She dashed the tears away with the back of her hand. “Why can’t those jerks just leave me alone?”

  For whatever reason, the people in town, mainly the guys she grew up with, wouldn’t forget her wild youth. They reminded Kelly of it constantly. What had made her think that she would be any different?

  Every person in town was guilty of doing something they weren’t proud of doing when they were younger. Yet, they constantly reminded her that she wasn’t perfect, and she wasn’t wife material. She and Kelly were good enough to screw any man in town—not that they would do that anymore—but they drew the line at a one-night-stand. Apparently, the men in town had never made it into the modern world. They still held their women to different standards. Jessi hated that.

  So what that she’d had low self-esteem when she was younger? What difference did it make that she had done the very thing that every man in town had done at one time or another in their adolescence.

  “I just can’t take it anymore.” Jessi shook her head and sighed. A year was already too long to put up with that crap. “This time when I leave, I’m never coming back here.”

  Jessi stared at the clothes haphazardly piled in her bags. Her shoulders drooped at the thought of losing her best friend, yet again. She turned to Kelly. “I’ll miss you.” Her voice cracked as she barely kept herself from bawling. She felt like she did fifteen years ago, all over again.

  “No you won’t.”

  “What do you mean, I won’t miss you? Of course, I will! You’re my best friend.” Did Kelly think she didn’t really care?

  “You won’t miss me because…” Kelly paused, then grinned. “I’m going with you this time. If you think I’m going to let you leave me here again, you’re out of your cotton pickin’ mind.”

  “B-but why would you leave your home, too?”

  Kelly tilted her head and stared at her with a frown. “Do you think those asshats treat me any differently than they treat you?” She shook her head. “I’m sick to death of it, too.” She sat up, clapped her hands together and grinned. “I say we get the hell out of this little Podunk town and find a place where we can really live!” She headed for the doorway, presumably to go pack. “When does our adventure begin?”

  Chapter Two

  “It’s time.” Gareth glanced up at his companion and triad mate as he stood in the doorway to their office. He indicated the chair in front of his desk and shrugged when the other man didn’t take a seat. “If we want to go to as many parties as we can, we should get busy making plans. All Hallows Eve is almost upon us, and the ability to walk amongst the humans passes with it.”

  Mackenzie stared at him for a moment. “Are you even sure it’s a good idea? I know the prince got lucky and found a human for a mate, but he did so in a shifter-friendly town. You’re talking about traveling the countryside, crashing Halloween parties, for chrissakes.” He crossed, leaned against the doorjamb, and shook his head. “If you ask me, it’s just asking for trouble. Humans are hotheaded and unpredictable. We should continue to limit our contact with them.” He raised a brow. “You haven’t forgotten that they attempted to hunt us to extinction.”

  Gareth met Mac’s gaze. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. Let me ask you this. Would you rather spend your life here, alone, with me as your only companion?” He snorted and leaned over to give Mac’s tail a pointed glare. “I don’t know about you, Mac, but I’m sick and damned tired of staring at your ugly mug over the breakfast table every fuckin’ morning. I’d love to have a woman whom we could both stare at, instead. Don’t you think it’s time we went out and found ourselves a mate? After all, one sure as hell isn’t going to be hiking her way into the Cascade any time soon.”

  No one could get into the cascade without a clan shaman to open the gate. It wasn’t like that town, Paradise, where their prince had found his mate. It was impossible for an outsider to open the bridge to the cascade.

  “Well…” Mac paused, scratched his head, and sighed. “I guess if it worked for Corbin and Vince, it couldn’t hurt to give it a try.” His tone was reluctan
t, but at least he seemed to be coming around.

  “Of course it can’t hurt. What hurts is spending lifetimes alone. I’m sick of it, and as much as I don’t feel as though I want mindless sex, I want a mate, our mate.”

  At this point in Gareth’s life, only a mate would do. He was in his prime breeding years, and he’d be damned if he’d just go out and impregnate any woman, just because she had a vagina and a womb.

  He wanted a mate. What’s more, he needed a mate. He was fast reaching a point in his life where his people went sterile if they didn’t have a mate. Their people had thought it was a way to keep them from impregnating humans if they decided to fuck anything that moved. That time was fast approaching as well.

  Right now, Gareth couldn’t stand the idea of mindless sex. In a few years, that would be all he would want. In six or seven years, he would fuck a moose if he thought he could get away with it. That was the last thing he wanted. It wasn’t only wrong, it was disgusting even to think about.

  As long as he had viable sperm, sex with a female who wasn’t his mate would never satisfy the hunger deep inside him. He didn’t know how their prince had felt before finding his mate, but Gareth knew his tiger felt caged. Until he mated, he was unable to satisfy the animal part of him in any way. Even when he shifted and they roamed the cascade forest, the beast felt caged. It wouldn’t be truly free until he had his mate. Mac had to feel the same no matter what he claimed.

  “So…where and when are we going?” Mac sat down, crossed his arms and propped his feet up on Gareth’s desk.

  “I’m not sure.” Gareth frowned, reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a map. “I thought perhaps we could take a page out of Corbin’s book and leave it to chance.”

  “How do you suppose we do that?” Mac leaned back further into the chair, making himself comfortable. “I don’t think they have a lot of single human women hanging around Paradise.”

  “Probably not. That would be too easy.” Standing, Gareth unfolded the map and tacked it to the wall on the other side of the room. Striding back to his desk, he picked up six numbered darts and handed three to Mac as he abandoned his seat. “I say we throw the darts and visit the towns nearest where they land.”

  “And if this doesn’t work?”

  “If it doesn’t work, we can still hit New Orleans during Mardi Gras and try our luck there. What do you think?” Gareth asked as he lifted his hand, aimed and let the first dart fly.

  Mac followed suit with his first throw. “I think it’s a plan. It’s not much of a plan, but it’s still a plan.”

  “Don’t complain.” Gareth practically snarled at him. “It’s the only damned idea we’ve got.”

  Chapter Three

  “I think I like this town,” Kelly said as she looked around the restaurant. Neither of them had been able to stop staring at the costumed wait staff since they walked into the place. “It’s great to see that even the businesses in town are getting into the Halloween spirit.” She waggled her brows at the hostess who had dressed up as a ghost. “Get it? Spirit? Ha ha!” She grinned and took a sip of her water.

  Jessi glanced down at the map they had marked. “Well…” She bit her lip. “Our first town is still six hours away.”

  The bell over the door jangled and caught her attention. A group of teenagers walked in. The boys looked miserable in jeans and t-shirts, wearing glitter make-up on their exposed body parts, while their similarly costumed girlfriends hung adoringly on their arms. Jessi suppressed a grin and shook her head.

  “We could stay here.” Kelly gave the costumes a wistful glance. “Who knew they could be so cool about Halloween here?”

  Apparently, the town had a week-long All-Hallows festival. It was great, but Jessi didn’t want to deviate from their plan.

  “What about our plan? We picked six different cities to check out. We drew the order of our visits out of a hat. Why did we even bother to research the places if we’re going to just stop in the first place we think is cool?”

  They didn’t even know anything about the town past the fact that they obviously loved Halloween here.

  “Heck, Kelly, we haven’t researched this place. We’d never even heard of it before today.”

  “I know.” Kelly sighed. “It just looks so fun here.”

  “Maybe, once we get settled, we can come back and spend a few days here. We can even bring costumes with us.”

  “Maybe…” Kelly leaned across the table to look at the map. “How far did you say we were from the first place?”

  “Six hours.” She shrugged. “Who knows? The next place might be just as fun.”

  The bell on the door jangled again and Jessi looked up just in time to see two men stride through the door. They were tall. So tall, in fact, that they’d had to bend to pass through the doorway into the diner.

  “How tall would you say the entrance door is?” she asked Kelly.

  “About six-and-a-half, maybe seven-feet. Why?” Kelly frowned at her expression for a few seconds before she turned toward the door. “Holy cats! Those two are tall.”

  What drew Jessi’s attention was their choice of costume. Both wore make-up that transformed their faces into a half-human, half-tiger mix. Both had short, black hair, one shot through with gold highlights, the other a silvery white. Each of them sported a mechanical tail that looked so realistic, Jessi had a difficult time keeping her hands to herself as they walked by.

  The one with the white highlights paused for a few seconds on their way past Jessi’s booth. Light blue eyes glittered down at her as he let his gaze wander down to her feet and back up to her face. The entire encounter couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

  Her stomach clenched and butterflies took flight in her middle as she met his gaze. Jessi had one weakness these days. Men who liked to Cos-play as cat boys.

  These two were anything but boys. Broad shoulders tapered down to rock-hard abs, narrow hips and powerful-looking thighs. They looked nothing like the type of men she usually saw at Cos-play conventions.

  Shaking her head, Jessi reminded herself that she wasn’t at a convention. This was a costumed festival the town had every year.

  “Would you look at that?” Kelly interrupted her thoughts with a low whistle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cat boy quite like those two.”

  “Me either.” Jessi let her gaze follow the two men. It might be rude to stare, but she was sure their lack of costumes marked them as strangers in town. At least they had some excuse for their rudeness.

  The bell over the door jingled yet again and they both turned to look. Who else could walk into this diner and top what they had already seen?

  “I’m telling you, Jess, we need to stay here, at least for a few days.” Kelly practically drooled as two new guys walked in. Both sported partial cat faces like the first two, and they both also had tails. One, however, wore a costume glove shaped like a tiger paw complete with retractable claws.

  “They’re serious about their costumes here, that’s for sure.” Jessi leaned back when the waitress brought their lunch.

  “If you need anything else, just give me a holler.” The woman smiled at them before turning to face the four men who had just rocked Jessi and Kelly’s world just by existing.

  Jessi glanced down, picked up her sandwich and took a small bite before turning sideways in her seat to better watch the four men.

  The first two who had arrived didn’t look happy to see the second pair. They glowered at the new men as they sat down at the table next to them.

  Deep brown hair hung down to their shoulders. Both sets of eyes, one gray, the other a deep blue turned her way, and her face heated. Jess was embarrassed that they’d caught her staring until she realized that they weren’t looking at her. They were looking at Kelly.

  “You know,” Kelly said after swallowing her first bite. “Maybe we should leave.” She glanced back at the four men and sighed. “That’s way too much test
osterone for us, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve settled down. A lot. Threesomes just aren’t my thing anymore.”

  “Mine either,” Jessi agreed. Liar, a little voice inside her claimed. You both still crave it. That why neither of you have ever married.

  Jessi ignored that pesky voice inside her head. It wasn’t true. She had settled down. She had a higher sense of self-worth now and no one would convince her that she was less of a woman because her waist and thighs were thicker than most. In fact, she was more of a woman, literally, and if the men of the world didn’t like it, they could kiss her ever-widening ass.

  Chapter Four

  Mac glowered at Gareth. “What are they doing here?” He canted his head toward the two men at the table next to them.

  “Who knows?” Gareth shrugged. “Ask them. You’ll no doubt get a better answer.”

  A growl rumbled low in his throat. “The blonde is our mate.” Mac narrowed his eyes at the other two men, who sat staring at the table where his and Gareth’s mate sat eating what smelled like a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

  “I noticed that. Do you think my sense of smell is lacking?” Gareth made a show of checking the menu. “She also has a friend, which means that we cannot reveal ourselves at the moment.”

  Mac sighed. He hated that Gareth was right. They couldn’t take a chance at exposing their kind to the world unless they wanted to become guinea pigs for the world’s governments. The world thought their animal side extinct. It was better to keep it that way.

  Mac turned to the other two men, his upper lip curling in a silent snarl. “What are you two doing here?” They’d better not be following us, he said to Gareth through their mental bond. Though I’ll bet they are.