Tinker experienced his orgasm as Tia felt it, deep inside her body.
Exquisite, to know it from Tia’s viewpoint as well as his own. He became the depth of her passion in the images, words, and sensations she shared.
Experienced the lush heat, the fullness, the desire, and even the regret. In the midst of climax, with Tinker’s cock filling her, his arms holding her, his seed pulsing into her warm and welcoming pussy, Tia thought of Luc.
Missed Luc. Wished he were here with them. Wished Luc was the one loving her. Loving Tinker. Filling her sex or her mouth or even her ass. No matter. Tinker knew her thoughts and knew Tia wanted her mate.
As she should.
Would a woman ever think of him that way? Would he ever know the deep, soul-searing link of a bonded mate?
Not with this woman, no matter how much he cared for her.
Tinker slowly lowered Tia to the bed, both of them drawing deep, gasping breaths of air into oxygen-starved lungs.
Tinker kissed Tia’s cheek, stroked her hair back from her face, and smiled down at her while he struggled for control of his breathing. Finally, when he felt he could speak without gasping for air, he kissed her again. It was time to let go of regrets, to think of other things. To think of the adventure that lay ahead.
He wished he knew how to plan for the unpredictable. Impossible. He’d figure this trip out one step at a time. Until he came face-to-face with his ultimate goal, he’d have to wing it.
Tinker flopped down on the bed beside Tia and turned so he could watch her face. “I’m going to need a ride to SFO. Can you take me to the airport in a couple hours?”
Tia nodded. Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath. Her thoughts were now her own, gently yet firmly blocked. “Yeah. No problem.”
Tinker sat up, but Tia stopped him with a gentle hold on his forearm. He looked down at her fingers, their bronze color still many shades lighter than his own dark skin, and thought how beautiful her fingers were, how much he liked the contrast of their skin, her deep bronze to his dark chocolate.
Her softness to his hard, muscled body. Her feminine yet forceful spirit to his Chanku male soul. Tinker covered Tia’s hand with his, pushed those pointless thoughts from his mind, and glanced into her beautiful amber eyes. “What?”
“I’m…I…” She sighed and glanced away, the thought she hadn’t shared left unspoken. “Do you know how long you’ll be gone? Did Luc tell you anything at all? Did he find out anything?”
Tinker shook his head. “Not much more than we talked about. It’s a wolf sanctuary, privately owned and funded, yet licensed by the federal government. It’s in northern Colorado, up in the Rockies, though I understand the elevation isn’t too high. I’ll be looking for Baylor Quinn’s sister. Her name’s Lisa, unless she’s changed it. We know that Bay’s Chanku. So is his other sister Tala. It’s a given that Lisa is as well. I need to find her, convince her to take the supplement and hope it works. Then we’ll take it from there.”
Tia slanted him a coquettish glance. “Oh, I can guess where you’ll take it. Far, fast, and very, very deep.”
Tinker shrugged his shoulders, but he grinned. “One can only hope. It’s going to be weird, approaching a stranger who is definitely Chanku…and knowing she hasn’t got a clue. I’ll be honest and admit I’m going after her hoping she’ll be the one, that she’ll end up as my mate. Face it, sweetie. There are so few women among us. We have to take our future into our own hands, or someone else might do it for us.”
Tia nodded, her smile fading. “I know. I want you to find someone of your very own. It’s just…” She looked away again. Tinker grabbed her chin with his fingertips, turned her back, and was surprised to see tears on her cheeks. She sighed and covered Tinker’s hand with hers. “Things will never be the same again. I feel it, and I worry about you.”
“Sweetie, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Everything will be okay, and I’ll be home before you know it. Hopefully with someone else for you to pick on.” He kissed Tia, then stood up. He had to put distance between them before he said or did something stupid. She was Luc’s. Tia would always be Luc’s, no matter how often she shared Tinker’s bed. She loved Tinker. He had no doubt of that, but she had chosen Luc as her mate. Loved Luc on a level far beyond any feelings she held for Tinker. It might have been confusing, had they still been human.
Among the Chanku, it was the way of the pack. Thank goodness Luc knew and was cool with the relationship Tinker had with Tia. Tinker sighed. Of course, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe it made things too comfortable, all that much more difficult for Tinker to move on, to find his own mate, his own life.
Tia grabbed his hand and stretched her fingers over his knuckles, as if comparing their color differences. She looked down at their linked hands, not into his eyes as she normally would. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do when you find her? What you’ll say? It’s not like you can just introduce yourself and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m a shapeshifter and I turn into a wolf.’ She’d think you were nuts. You have to have some kind of plan.”
Tinker laughed. “Actually, I don’t. I’m just going to wing it with this one. I need to see what she’s like, get a feel for how she’ll deal with everything she’s going to find out about herself.”
Tia laughed. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, haven’t got a detailed plan of action. That is so not you!” She squeezed his fingers, then dropped his hand and stepped back. “I’ll miss you, Tinker. A lot. So will Luc.” She pouted, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. She looked like a pissed-off six-year-old.
He grinned. This he could deal with. “Good. You deserve to miss me after the way you manhandled me just now. A man should have some say in the matter of sex. Don’t you think?”
“No way. Not when he steals my batteries. You take my toys, I get to play with yours.” Tia ran her fingers lightly along his cock. Her slightest touch brought it back to life.
“Looks like you don’t need batteries. This sucker’s under his own power.” Laughing harder, Tia jerked her hand back, jumped off the bed, and headed for the bathroom, wriggling her hips with a lot more sway than usual. “Next time, I’m gonna hide my batteries and you’ll just have to deal with the dark.”
Later, Tinker thought of Tia’s quip as his plane crossed over the Sierra Nevadas, headed for Colorado. Deal with the dark. Sometimes he felt as if he spent every waking moment dealing with the dark. His own darkness, both figuratively and literally. He’d never had it easy, a black man with his convoluted background, living in a white world.
Once again he wondered what his life would have been like if his mother hadn’t abandoned him. She would have carried the Chanku genes, whoever she was. Carried them, but never brought that part of herself to life, other than through the birth of her son. For all he knew, she was still alive. Tinker often wondered if he had siblings anywhere, other young Chanku men or women, living lives of quiet, or not so silent, desperation…but that was neither here nor there.
What would have happened if the foster family who raised him had been black instead of white? They’d loved him unconditionally and done their best, but they were a typical suburban, white, middle-class family. When they died in a car accident the year Tinker turned fifteen, he’d been thrust headfirst, unprepared, back into both the foster care system and
