Free Trusting the Tiger: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant Page A

She lay with her head and shoulder on his chest, staring up at the clear blue sky.
    “I just…” she began softly, and Jack felt the sharp pang of self-doubt come through his connection to her. “I wish I knew what it was about him that got me so freaked out. I’ve been thinking about it, and he didn’t actually do anything that … bad?”
    “I saw how much he scared you,” Jack said simply. “That’s bad enough for me.”
    “And if you hadn’t been there? How would it have sounded if I’d only told you about it afterward? Oh, there was this guy, and he terrified me more than anyone else has in my life, because he … what, came up and introduced himself? Stood a little too close, like every garden-variety letch?” She threw up her hands. “And just to add the cherry on top of the crazy cake, I could then tell you about how his tablet – thing – bit me, only, oh, yeah, there’s no proof of that anymore either.” Toni flexed her unblemished fingers in the sunlight.
    “Well, I was there. I saw what he was like. And if saying his tablet bit you is crazy, then I’m crazy too. I saw your fingers after you picked it up. It looked as though you’d tried to pick up a red-hot poker.” Jack caught Toni’s hand and drew it to his lips, gently kissing her fingertips. “I guess you’re a fast healer.”
    “Hmm. Maybe. What a way to find it out, though.”
    “You didn’t know?”
    Toni shrugged, her shoulders rolling enjoyably over the planes of Jack’s chest. “My – my folks have always been, well, fast healers. My plan has always been to just never get injured in the first place.” Her voice was growing drowsy. “I guess … I guess I was scared. I didn’t want to find out that I couldn’t heal as fast as Ellie, or Mom and Dad. Didn’t want it to be something else that made me different…”
    Her voice trailed off.
    Jack’s heart was racing. Fast healing? He might not know much about shifters, but he knew that fast healing was something all shifters shared. Even before he’d first shifted into his tiger form, he’d healed quickly, scrapes and bruises disappearing within a day, if not hours. So if Toni – if her family—
    “Toni,” he said quietly, then stopped, tongue-tied. How could he even start to phrase the question?
    Then he realized the choice had been taken out of his hands. Toni’s eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling. She had fallen asleep.
    Jack shook his head. This was probably for the best. His mind was connecting dots that weren’t there.
    With a sigh, he closed his eyes and fell asleep, cradling her in his arms.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    TONI
     
     
    Toni couldn’t keep the smile off her face. She had woken from an incredible dream – and into an even better one. She and Jack spent the afternoon in lazy, intimate happiness, sharing the picnic and the champagne, and slipping in and out of the pool with its shimmering waterfall.
    Not to mention all the … exercise. They had made love again and again, slowly, as though they had all the time in the world. But with the sun falling over the treetops, both of them had realized it was time to leave. Jack had ‘helped’ Toni back into her clothes, kissing every inch of her skin before he covered it up.
    Even now, Toni felt as though she was floating a foot above the path rather than pacing along it. Golden shafts of light pierced the green canopy above them, lending a warm glow to the path and the ferns and flowers at its sides. The whole forest seemed to be under a spell of beauty and calmness.
    Even now, even just walking together along the gravel path, Toni could barely keep her hands off Jack. They were walking with a little space between them, a teasing gap that just begged to be crossed. Toni reached out and, without looking, her questing fingers met Jack’s. He lifted her hand and nuzzled the underside of her wrist.
    They had just reached the end of the track when she heard it. Not a word, nothing said aloud – only a