Serengeti Sunrise

Chapter Eight

Tyler couldn’t sleep.

The lithe lioness curled against his side consumed his thoughts, keeping him awake even though it had to be nearing five in the morning. His body felt heavy and dull even as his mind buzzed like a hornets’ nest.

He shouldn’t have come here tonight. It was the final nail in the coffin of his unfettered lifestyle. But even knowing that, he couldn’t regret it. He wouldn’t have traded the last twenty-four hours for anything, but that didn’t mean he was ready to surrender just yet.

He’d had twenty years of responsibility. Twenty years envisioning the day he would walk off the pride lands with no one depending on him but himself.

Ava and Michael had been so tiny when their father left and their mother withered into a shell of herself. They’d needed him so badly. Kane had gone from being a bright, quick-to-laugh kid to a quiet, solemn teen almost overnight. Caleb had always been more withdrawn, always so self-reliant. Shana, obnoxious as the rest of the world found her, had kept Caleb from pulling too deeply into his own reserve, but he’d still looked to Tyler for guidance. For strength. They all looked to him. So he’d learned to be the man they needed him to be.

When Kane’s sexual preference had become apparent, Tyler had kicked the shit out of anyone who dared suggest he ought to be sent off as a nomad, as some prides liked to do with their so-called deviants. When Ava was picked on for her diminutive size, he made sure anyone who touched her knew they were taking on the entire Minor clan. And when the bastard Alpha who’d ruled before Landon had threatened to geld Michael to help him control his erratic shifting, Tyler had promised to repeat the procedure on the Alpha himself if he dared touch his baby brother.

For twenty years he’d been their champion. His responsibility for them had defined him, but now they didn’t need him anymore.

Ava, for all her diminutive size, had learned diplomacy and developed a quiet strength of character that had won her the love and respect of the Alpha himself. No one would ever dare harm her again.

Caleb and Shana had finally managed to find the middle ground in the constant battle that had been their decades-long, on-again-off-again affair. Recently, his most reticent brother seemed happy in a way Tyler had never seen him before.

Michael, too, had found love and a sense of peace—though he still couldn’t contain his shifting. Logical, pragmatic Mara was the last person Tyler would have expected an impulsive, willful soul like Michael to love, but she grounded him in a way Tyler had never been able to do, no matter how he’d tried to help.

Independent Kane had carved out his own happiness. Under Landon’s rule, Kane and his partner Tom weren’t just grudgingly tolerated, they were actively accepted by the rest of the pride. With Tom, Kane’s laughter had returned, lightening his solemnity.

And now…Zoe. It was a romantic epidemic.

But he wasn’t ready to join the ranks of happily-ever-afters.

She was his—that question had been decided already. If tonight had proved anything, it was that Zoe was inevitable.

Just another example of the universe yanking choice out of his life.

He needed a little time to come to terms with tying himself to her forever. And it would be forever. No strings just wasn’t going to happen.

Tyler rolled silently out of bed, the lion’s instinctive need to stay with her warring with his all-too-human wariness of commitment. Wariness won.

Finding his clothing in the dark seemed an impossible task, so Tyler shifted to his feline form, the feel of his fur a comfort to his restless thoughts, though the senseless circles of his reservations chasing one another around his mind were no quieter in this form.

He padded quietly to the door and nosed it open, batting it shut behind him with the flat of his paw, the well-oiled hinges never making a sound. He leapt off the porch, concentrating on the bunch and spring of his muscles and the feel of the earth beneath his paws as he landed. He wove through the compound, paws silent on the dusty ground. The garage loomed unlit in the darkness, a black box against the starry sky.

He’d locked it behind him earlier and his keys were back with his clothes, but he’d left his “back door” open. He circled the building to the rear where the loft window was open wide, high above the ground.

Gathering himself, Tyler crouched and sprang to the roof of the nearby parts shed. The corrugated metal rang dully like a muted tuning fork even though he tried to land softly. From there he leapt into the oak tree that shaded the area, timber groaning and creaking ominously under his weight. Lions were among the heaviest cats and the high branches bowed and cracked as he ran lightly across them and launched himself across the space to the open window.

He tucked his body tight, trying for an aerodynamic grace that his bulky cat form naturally lacked. His front legs and shoulders made it through the open window, but the ledge caught him hard on the ribs and his back paws scrabbled against the exterior siding for purchase. He muscled his hindquarters through the window and flopped onto his belly on the cement floor of the loft, panting softly.

Not the best secret entrance, but the height of the window discouraged the cubs from trying it.

Tyler shifted back to a form with opposable thumbs and pulled on the spare coveralls he kept stashed in the loft. His bare feet were silent on the metal stairs leading down to the garage bay.

The world made more sense when he was elbow-deep in engine parts.

The shop had always been his refuge. He could take something run down and cast aside and bring it back to life. He could keep everything moving smoothly, all the pieces interacting together just as they should. There was justice in that, satisfaction and worth.

Tyler knelt next to the engine he was rebuilding, and his brain fell into silence as he concentrated on his task.

The other side of the bed was empty and cool when Zoe woke. With the first few rays of dawn streaming in through her window, her fears of the night before seemed ridiculous.

They’d had sex. Nothing earth shattering in that. For the life of her she couldn’t think why she’d been so paranoid. Why she’d been so stupidly convinced they wouldn’t be able to keep things no strings.

Zoe rolled out of bed and grabbed a pair of jeans and her snug Bigger in Texas T-shirt, propelled by the urge to talk to Tyler. She wanted to smooth thing over with him and make sure they were still on the same page. Make sure he hadn’t read anything—accurately—into her awkwardness the night before.

She hurried down her porch steps, following the scent trail Tyler had left. She was so tuned to his scent, she probably could have found him even after a rainfall, but the morning was dry and hot, the sun already gearing up for an early summer scorcher, and his scent remained fresh.

She wove between the buildings, grateful there was no one about this early to see her. The garage bays were all closed when she arrived, the main door locked, but his scent circled the building before disappearing and there wasn’t another trail leaving. He had to be in there.

“Tyler?” Zoe called, tapping on the metal door. She smoothed her palms over her hips and fidgeted, agitation bubbling up inside her.

This was stupid. For all she knew he was sleeping in there. She’d seen a cot in the loft. That didn’t explain why he would have gone to the garage rather than back to his own place…unless he was trying to avoid her. He’d expect her to check his place first, wouldn’t he? Was he hiding from her?

Zoe hated this insecurity. She felt like such a girl. She reminded herself that she was here only to make sure he knew they were still no strings.

Which, now that she thought about it, was a really freaking stupid reason to be here. Dammit. What had she been thinking?

She took a step back, pivoting on her heel, when the door creaked open behind her. “Zoe?”

Shit. She turned back, a fake smile plastered on her face. “Tyler. Hey.”

“Were you looking for me?”

Yes, because I was being a total freaking moron. “Yeah, I…” Shit. She needed a reason to be looking for him. What the hell kind of reason could she make up?

“Is this about the clothes?” he asked. “I was going to come back for them. I just needed to work on some stuff.”

For the first time, Zoe noticed he was wearing a pair of greasy grey coveralls open to the waist rather than the clothes he’d worn to her place. She hadn’t even noticed that he’d left them behind. She latched onto his excuse eagerly. “Yeah. Your clothes. But you look like, you know, you found some.”

And damn if the man didn’t look edible in the uniform of his trade. The shapeless coveralls seemed to accentuate the breadth of his shoulders and the large, capable size of his hands. Hands that had been all over her body only hours ago.

“You wanna come in? I’m about done here.”

Did she want to come in? Why did that question seem like the Riddle of the Sphinx? This was a casual visit, right? She wasn’t asking for strings if she accepted his invitation to go into the garage. The garage where they’d hooked up only yesterday—but also where they had first discussed the no-strings plan. There wasn’t anything hidden in his invitation. He was a guy, for fuck’s sake. They didn’t see the minefields in conversations that chicks planted there. They could still talk without having it complicate their sexual relationship, couldn’t they?

“Zoe?”

Oh, Jesus. She’d been standing there gaping at him. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll come in.”

Tyler opened the door wider and she slipped past him, reminded of when she’d let him into her place only hours earlier. But if she hadn’t put her mark on her house, the garage was all Tyler. His scent saturated every surface, but even more than that, the neat efficiency and small, personalized touches made it a space that was uniquely him.

“How long have you been the pride mechanic?” she heard herself asking, even though she’d sworn she would keep things light and impersonal.

“Seventeen years.” Tyler wandered over to a sturdy table where a mass of unidentifiable metal cluttered the surface. She trailed along behind, careful not to touch anything.

“You never met Tobias,” Tyler commented as he picked up a piece and adjusted it in some mysterious way. “Cranky bastard. He was my mentor, taught me everything he knew about cars and then sent me to trade schools to learn more. He used to run the garage, even when he could barely lift a wrench anymore, but he retired when I was eighteen and handed it all over to me. He died…I guess it was five years ago now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He was eighty-six years old and he died with the help of a box of Viagra.” Tyler grinned fondly. “I wouldn’t be too sorry.”

“Eighteen’s pretty young to be responsible for keeping the whole pride in wheels.”

He grimaced. “One thing I’m used to, it’s responsibility. You deal with it. No one else is going to.”

Zoe shoved her hands in her pockets, knowing she shouldn’t ask the next question if she wanted to keep them impersonal, but driven by a need to know. “Ava said you pretty much raised her and your brothers.”

Tyler grunted. “No one else was going to,” he repeated, but something cold had crept into his voice. “Our father left and our mother was useless.”

“My sire was banished too.” Zoe scuffed her toe over an old oil stain on the cement floor. “I don’t really remember him.” She’d been raised more as part of the pride litter than by her actual parents, but with Landon as her partner in crime she hadn’t felt bruised by the lack.

“Our father wasn’t banished. He left,” Tyler said harshly. “Just decided he didn’t want his responsibilities anymore and walked away. Headed for greener pastures.”

Zoe struggled for something to say that wouldn’t sound patronizing. He would be proud of you? Because how could he not be? Tyler was an amazing man. He was tempered steel tested by a lifetime of burdens. He was the man every father hoped his son would be, but she didn’t think saying that would help. She didn’t want to imply that Tyler needed his father’s approval. He was better than that.

And besides, who was she to talk? She avoided responsibilities like the plague and she was an old hand at greener pastures. She knew better than most that they were almost never green.

Arriving in a new pride wasn’t easy as a nomad. She and Landon had visited their share in their years of wandering before they’d come to Three Rocks.

Zoe cleared her throat self-consciously. “Can I ask you something?”

Tyler shrugged consent, his focus centered on the parts in his hands.

“That first day, when Landon and I arrived here at Three Rocks. The old Alpha Leonus and his thug Kato tried to gang up on Landon, but you didn’t let them. I would have fought with him. I remember how surprised I was when I didn’t even have to shift. But Leonus was even more surprised than I was when you stepped in, like you’d never interfered before. I’ve always wondered why you didn’t. And why, that day, you did.”

Tyler’s hands stilled on the engine components. “Why do you ask?”

Because that was the moment I started falling in love with you.

She shook her head, in denial of the thought. This wasn’t love. She wouldn’t let it be. She hadn’t needed a hero then, but having him step in with his armor shining had linked them somehow.

“I have a theory about why you didn’t,” she said. “Landon’s always had big sweeping ideas of changing the whole world, but you strike me as more focused. Ava… Michael… You only fight personal battles. I think Leonus was betting on you not lifting a finger for a stranger, but for some reason that wasn’t a good bet.” Zoe wet her lips, unaccountably nervous. “I guess I was just wondering if that reason had anything to do with me.”

She was able to ask only because he wasn’t looking at her. When he raised his eyes to hers, the words turned to sawdust in her mouth.

“Doesn’t that make me less noble? If I wasn’t doing it for the justice of it, but only to get laid?” Tyler slowly advanced on her, and Zoe found her feet retreating without any direction from her brain.

“But you didn’t get laid. If you were only doing it so I’d feel indebted to you, why didn’t you ever come to collect?”

“Isn’t that what I did last night?”

“You waited over a year to claim your prize? I don’t think so.” Her back bumped against an SUV with the side paneling shredded by some lion’s claws.

Tyler kept advancing until his chest brushed hers, using his superior height to loom over her in that way that never failed to make her internal organs melt like butter.

“Why, Tyler?”

He bowed his head and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply next to her ear and then whispering the words into it. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.” He rested his hands on the SUV on either side of her so his forearms brushed the sides of her waist. “I’ve had this compulsion to protect you since the second you walked through that gate.”

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

“I need to. You belong to me, Zoe. And you drive me mad when you put yourself at risk. I thought I could control it. I thought if I didn’t give in to it that I would stop wanting to claim you, but it never worked.”

Her breathing accelerated, fueled by the mix of arousal and panic his words inspired. “I don’t want a protector.”

“Tough,” he growled against her ear, his body leaning into hers until she could feel his strength pressing her back into the door panel. “We don’t always get what we want. I wanted to be free of my obligations and leave here for good, but I stopped thinking that way the second I realized you were mine to protect.”

“You can’t have it both ways,” she said, her argument slightly less effective due to the breathy gasps that were all she could manage with his hands sneaking under her shirt to her braless breasts beneath. “You can’t be both the big, strong protector and the no-strings lover. It doesn’t work that way.”

He lifted her, guiding her legs around his hips and pinning her hard against the SUV. “We both know no strings was never an option.”

His mouth slammed down on hers, driving any protest she might have made out of her mind. He consumed her with the kiss. He shrugged out of his coveralls, and Zoe lowered her legs long enough to help the stiff cloth drop to his ankles. As he kicked it off, she quickly stripped out of her own jeans and T-shirt. Then he fell back on her in a hungry frenzy. His hands were filthy with engine grease, but Zoe didn’t care. She wanted them on her everywhere, smearing tracks of dark grease across her skin.

Tyler was forceful, commanding. He spun her away from the side door and bent her over the table he’d been working at earlier, her ass raised like a gift. He nudged her feet wider and stroked a calloused hand over the curve of her buttocks as Zoe gripped the table for balance. She felt his thick cock probing at her entrance, impossibly hot like all the heat in his body was being redirected there, and then he plunged inside and she screamed raggedly as sensation ratcheted to an unbearable pitch, her cries echoing hollowly in the garage bay.

He drove into her again and again, hard enough that the heavy table began scraping across the floor with each pounding thrust. Zoe held on tight, aware of nothing but the knot of pleasure building in her blood. Tyler reached around and found the heart of the knot, rotating a single finger on her clit. The knot unraveled like a slingshot, flinging her into the stratosphere as her climax shook her body, and Tyler rammed into her one last time, holding tight and deep as he came hard inside her.

As she floated back to her body, Zoe concentrated on the sound of their uneven breathing. Everything else was too big, too much to contemplate.

Whatever this thing was between them, it had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.