Prologue

Jake allowed his more savage side a moment of dominion in the love play, kissing Deme hard and brutally and fast, nipping at her lips, and then in a wet, hot path all the way down to her neck, where he teased the pulse that beat rapidly under his lips. He growled, deep and loud in his throat, bit her once more, harder this time, then melted down into her. Her hands brushed through his hair, holding his head to her shoulder for a moment as he gasped to regain control. Then he rose back up, returning to her mouth and ravishing gently this time, almost like an apology for his roughness and hunger.

Demetria didn’t mind—there were times when Jake subconsciously became the creature. It was just part of who he was, born and bred. She would be worried if the tiger didn’t slip past his control some of the time.

He chuckled suddenly, on an outgoing breath.

She moved her head around some, so she could see his eyes. “What’s funny?”

“I just now heard it.”

“Heard what?”

He looked at her eyes, stared at her, and even in the darkness, with the darkness, he could see the golden flecks in the light green irises. He could make out every freckle all the way from one side of her cheek, across her nose and down the other cheek. When he was younger, he would have thought freckles on a grown woman would have looked childish. He didn’t think that now. Now, he thought those dark little spots against her lighter skin were beautiful, and uniquely her.

“Every time we make love, I always hear your voice in my head. Remember, way back when, that one night not long after my brother stabbed me? You thought I’d passed out again from the pain and said, ‘Someday, Jake, you’ll make a magnificent tiger, and an even more exquisite lover.’ But I heard you.”

Deme pushed up and rolled toward him, pushing his back into their bed. She let her hair curtain them into their own private world of mingling breath and beautiful eyes. She toyed with his lower lip. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

He smiled as she bit his lip and pulled on it, then came back and kissed him oh-so-tenderly. “I donno. Am I?”

She laughed quietly with a wicked smile. “Would you have me purring like a kitten if you weren’t?”

He smiled back. “Point taken.”

Then he yawned, and she took that as an indication for sleep, snuggling in beside him on her side, lined up along his long, hard body. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer, flushing her breasts against the side of his torso, making her nipples hard all over again.

They drifted off to sleep like that, sharing each other’s body heat, damp and sated from love. Deme slept peacefully, but Jake’s mind roamed, turning back the clock to a time and place he didn’t allow himself to think too much of. It was a time wrought with betrayal and pain, and even though it had been when he and Deme had formed their formidable love, it hurt him to remember everything attached with their beginning. But there, in his own bed, he was at the mercy of his mind and his memories, and had little choice.