The Tiger's Secret Baby (3 page)

At last, with a last, long, deep swallow, I held myself pressed up against his body, nostrils flaring as I struggled to breathe. I looked up at him with innocent eyes, studying his almost orgasmic face, his eyelids shut and his mouth slightly open. We were in sync to the point that I knew he was coming close to the edge, and if I worked him much harder he would be forced to release on me early, which neither of us wanted just yet.

When I thought he'd had his fill of my tight hot throat, and when I could contain him no more, I slid slowly, slowly, slowly back along him, spitting him fully back out, his delectable cock now covered in my fluids. He smiled down at me as I struggled to regain my breath, and once I'd managed to I smiled back at him, knowing that we were both ready for the moment of truth.

I sprawled out across the ground, onto my hands and knees, my body in position for him. I spread my legs wide, looking over my shoulder at him, and he mounted me from behind like an animal. His striped tan skin pressed down against me, the two of us grinding together in our sweaty intensity, and he ran warm, wet kisses along my neck as he aligned his genitals with my own down below.

I felt the engorged, sticky tip of his erection begin to push through the opening of my unpenetrated vagina. I moaned, as he began to push himself inside me, stretching me out, causing me to tremble with pleasure as inch by inch of his long, veiny immensity came slipping into my body like a train into a station. And at last, at long, long last, he touched down inside me, filling me to the brim, and leaving me so filled to capacity that I thought my chest might burst.

He leaned in, kissing me a few more times on the neck, and whispered into my ear, his breath warm and soothing, asking me if I was alright. I was, more than alright, simply stunned with the ecstasy of sensation, and needing, more than anything in that moment, for him to keep going.

He slowly pulled his way back out of me, then dipped back inside once again. In, out, in, out he pushed and pulled, gradually building up speed. Faster and faster, harder and deeper, thrusting intensely now, slamming his entire body into me, and our wet bodies slapping fervently together, echoing out into the night. His tip digging deeper and deeper inside me, his shaft pounding me like there was no tomorrow. I screamed loudly, the sound filling up the empty black forest, my fingers twisting around massive clumps of the undergrowth for support, every inch of my body seeming to seize up with pleasure as he drilled away at my flesh.

“Oh God, oh God, oh yes, yes, fuck, FUCK!”

It seemed to go on practically forever- my head spinning, my nerves on fire, every bit of me tingling, and the beauty of our entwined forms rivaling just about anything I could think of. And at last, with a final, devastating force, he hurled himself inside me one final time, holding himself steadily in place. Holding, holding, holding, filling me up with delight. Then he began to ejaculate wildly into me, filling me with pulse after pulse of his hot, thick, sticky semen. It inundated my floral folds in its abundance, slipping free from my body and dripping into the leaves, scorching the ground. And at last, I began to cum once more, an orgasm like none I'd ever before experienced tearing through me in waves. My spine arched up into him, my buttocks clenched, and I held my breath, holding, holding, holding, until the sensations became entirely too much for me.

At last, I let out a tremendous gasp, the pleasure subsiding, and he pulled himself out of me. I nearly collapsed to the ground once he'd extricated himself, but he promptly swept me up into his arms, pulling my body into himself, and running his kisses along me, continuing to ravish me wildly in the brilliant, lovely haze of the afterglow.

“If a love like ours is wrong, then I don't want to be right,” he whispered in my ear, right before he began to nibble on it, and then run his kisses up and down along my neck.

It was a cheesy enough line, sure, but in that moment it seemed like precisely the thing I needed to be told.

That first night in his arms was about as close to heaven as just about anything I could imagine.

That first sordid rendezvous with Vincent in the woods was far from the last we would indulge in together. It had taken several weeks of secret meetings to convince ourselves that what we planned to do wasn't wrong, but once we'd finally taken that sweet, splendid plunge, it was as though the two of us became positively insatiable for one another.

For about three weeks, the two of us engaged in hot, passionate sex every single night we met, though we had to be careful to coordinate these meetings in such a way so as not to arouse suspicion from those around us. As splendid as it was every single time, the long, steamy nights together always left us completely exhausted the next day, and we couldn't allow ourselves to be found out and our happiness brought to a swift and abrupt end.

Yet no one seemed to notice what was going on right in front of their faces. It was like the humans, I suppose, not noticing that shifters lived and breathed and walked among their very streets. I don't think anyone even considered the possibility that a panther shifter should fall in love with a tiger, and therefore any potential danger posed by such a mix was all but impossible as far as the men and women around us were concerned.

It was their loss, I thought, not to know how splendid and rewarding such a union could be.

I felt, for all intents and purposes, as though I was in heaven every time I was around Vincent.

He whispered into my ear late at night, and made me feel like the luckiest woman in the universe to have him, in every imaginable way.

And when I laid there beneath the trees, safe in his arms, it felt as though nothing in the world could possibly harm me.

And that was when I found out I was pregnant.

It caught me completely off guard, and left my head spinning, the anxiety of such a realization welling up around me on all sides. I had no idea what the hell I was going to do.

I kept hoping, despite my own rational instincts, that maybe it would have been a mistake. That I'd misread my own body's signals, and that in a week or two I would discover that it had all been a big mistake. I remained silent all the while, hoping that was the case, and not wanting to commit myself to the uncertain fate that I inwardly knew awaited me.

I sat at the dinner table at night while my parents continued to say all manner of horrible things about tiger shifters, demonizing, basically the father of my child, and even cutting much closer at times by calling mixed-breed shifter babies “abominations.” My guts continued to twist and I found myself continually clutching my stomach where the baby was growing, and I ended up largely zoning out whenever my father went on paranoid rants about how lion shifters, who generally lived elsewhere throughout the country, had been taking over small towns and setting panther shifters as their targets. I considered it just another one of those things he believed passionately would happen, but that never really would, and that therefore posed no tangible threat to me whatsoever.

The only concern I had was for the child I feared was growing inside me, and for the life I may or may not have ahead of me with Vincent.

After so long in denial, I could no longer avoid facing the facts.

*******

“I'm pregnant,” I told my lover, my eyes on the ground one night as I braced myself for his reaction.

“Oh my God, that's... That's...” he'd begun to say, but I could tell he had no clue as to what the hell he could say about the fact. His eyes went to my stomach, and I think he realized how obvious it would have been from the looks of me had he even been thinking to look for it.

Now, the choice lay ahead of us of what the hell we were going to do about it all.  We would have to leave, we knew... We couldn't stay here, and let our futures, nor that of our child, be decided by a bunch of hateful, prejudiced individuals.

But the timing would have to be just right. We needed to leave before it became too obvious to those around me that I was expecting, yet we needed to save up enough money ahead of time so that, once our time came to disappear, we wouldn't be left high and dry, without a penny to our names.

It seemed to me we were pushing things dangerously close. I kept swelling and swelling, to the point that it was growing harder and harder to hide from those around me, and I knew that any day now, our cover would be blown, and it would be too late to escape.

And then it happened, at perhaps the least opportune of times...

The atmosphere at the dinner table seemed to be tense with some unspoken angst, and my little sister kept looking around wide eyed, alert, but perhaps the least frightened of any of us. I was about to take a bite of my dinner with trembling hands, one hand on my stomach as it seemed to be routinely these days, when suddenly Dad's hand was on my plate. He pulled it away from under me, making something inside me drop, like I knew immediately that the moment of truth had arrived.

“Maybe you should cut back a little bit tonight, don't you think? You seem to be putting on a little bit of weight there...”

I swallowed, but my throat was dry. “I... I...” I said, trying to think of what to say, but I was sweating now, and my brain felt jammed to a stop.

He stared at me for a long time, then his eyes narrowed, a disgusted expression bleeding across his features. “I knew it... How big of a goddamn fool do you take me for? You think I don't know what you're trying to hide?”

“I... I...” Now tears were beginning to well up.

“Who is he, then? The man you've been going out to see, and who's responsible, for- for this?!” he asked, waving an irate hand at my swelling womb, like it was a personal insult to his dignity.

“His... His name is Vincent,” I said, sobbing, feeling that resistance was futile at this point.

Immediately, my father's eyes widened. It was even worse than he'd expected it to be.

“A tiger shifter... Of all the goddamn...! You spread your legs for a piece of filth like... Oh, damn it! When I get my hands on that son of a bitch, I'll-” He was shouting wildly now, irate, making my head throb with every snarling word he spoke. I never had the chance to find out what he would do when he got his hands on Vincent, however, as just then his tirade against the father of my child was interrupted by a loud, rumbling crash.

All of us froze, momentarily welcoming the distraction, but then fearing for our lives only a few seconds later. There was a series of bursts and shouts, screams coming from outside, making our blood grow cold.

I put my hand to my stomach, and silently prayed.

The lion invasion my father had forecasted was unfolding all around us. Through the window, we could see snarling, maned beasts tackling considerably smaller panthers, snapping their vicious jaws in their faces, slashing paws across their fur, mayhem ensuing as far as the eye can see. Our brothers and sisters were being driven relentlessly from their homes, cast into the streets, and left fleeing, running for their lives, despite their best efforts of resistance.

It was all over now...

My father, having waited years for the moment that the hatred against our kind came to a boiling point, shifted and ran to join in the battle, snarling and roaring, fighting for his bottomless pride as much as he did for his family. There were women among the fighters as well, but my mother and I remained inside for the sake of my little sister and the baby developing in my womb.

We prayed for our father's safe return, for some miracle to come down from the skies and save us, but most of all I think I feared being separated from Vincent forever, driven away, the two of us never to be seen again.

I began to cry, in spite of my own best efforts to resist emotion, and the hours rolled by with increasing violence and mayhem.

Things weren't looking good for us.

Our brethren fought valiantly, bringing their all to the battle and striving to preserve our survival, but it was an uphill battle from the start. We were vastly outnumbered, and by a species far more physically imposing and full of mass than our own.

This seemed unquestionably like the end... I envisioned my father murdered, my mother, sister, and I taken away any minute now, with nothing we could do to stop it from happening.

And then the miracle I'd been desperately hoping for came flashing quite improbably to life.

We couldn't believe our eyes at first. In fact, it took us several second glances to ensure that we simply weren't imagining it, but sure enough, it was as real as the four walls around us, and it filled us all with a sense of levity that words can't describe.

An absolute army of tiger shifters had come bursting onto the scene, and despite their once brutal enmity toward our kind, it was the lions that they now targeted, snarling and tearing at their pelts, fighting side by side with the panthers and coming in swarms to the aid of my people.

It was a fair fight now, and the tigers, for all their old hatred toward my kind, seemed as adamant to see the invaders gone as were my own people.

It took me quite some time to figure out just what the change was that had occurred, but it all seemed clear and self-evident to me at the sight of one particular tiger I'd gotten to know quite well, charging into battle.

Vincent paid a single glance into the window, the two of us making eye contact for a fraction of a second. Then he thundered onward roaring as he and two panthers tackled a massive lion, digging their teeth into the thing, and making it think twice about its failed decision to bring a massive paw down onto the head of a cub who'd stumbled its way into the battle.

For the next couple of hours, I kept feeling myself knotting up internally with anxiety, certain that Vincent would meet his end over the course of the battle- yet such fears quickly proved themselves to be unfounded.

Now, the tables had turned. With a united front, our side had outnumbered and overpowered the invading lions, and before long they were sent retreating, scrambling off with their tails between their legs, so to speak, and leaving us in peace.