To Lie With Lions: A BBW Shifter Romance (Wolf Rock Shifters Book 4) (2 page)

“What kind is she? Of animal, I mean,” said
Nash, ignoring his parents’ talk. It had never made him comfortable to associate either of them with the concept of nudity. In his mind he’d been immaculately conceived, and that was where things had to remain, tidily clean and innocent. He didn’t need to be traumatized by the image of the two slightly wrinkled shifters going at it.

“It’s so interesting,” said his mother, leaning forward over the table. “They say she’s a white tiger. A white tiger! Can you imagine it? So exotic.”

“So she
is
a princess,” said Nash. “Probably needs more maintenance than a ’95 Ford.”

“Don’t judge,” said Mrs. Richardson. “She could be a very lovely young lady.”

“Or she could be a royal pain in my ass.”

“Well, I certainly hope she is
,” his mother replied. “That’s a woman’s job, you know. Otherwise your testosterone-driven lives would be far too simple, not to mention dull, and you’d all get lazy, complacent and stupid. Our job is to kick those asses of yours into gear. And you should be damn grateful that we do.”

“I hardly think…” began her husband.

“There, there, dear. Stop talking,” she said, smiling. “You should know better by now than to have opinions.”

Her husband wisely closed his mouth.

Nash
headed back outside after breakfast to prepare the horses for the ride. It was early yet, and he was still growing accustomed to being up and about with the sun. It seemed in the mountains like a waste of daylight to sleep through dawn.

The lion within him wanted to
find a ray of warm light, lie down and curl up into a fur-coated ball as the sun rose in the sky, but the man who had all the breeding of a cowboy wanted nothing more than to get atop a saddle and glide through the snowy ridges, taking in the scenery and the air.

The young woman who was
to show up would arrive around ten a.m., which Nash regarded as luxurious and lazy on her part. But most people and most shifters didn’t share his love of the early morning. It wasn’t at all uncommon for them to want to be outdoors, and in fact many of those who lived in and around Wolf Rock resided in dens and sometimes even caves carved into rock faces. Most of these were fitted with electricity; even cable TV, often; after all, they weren’t an entirely primitive species. Simply put, the common denominator among them was a love of nature, if not one of rising with the sun.

But
Nash pictured the young woman who would be joining him as someone who no doubt lived in a large, luxurious house with a canopy bed and satin sheets. She would probably be served breakfast in that bed while her hired man down at the ranch groomed her mount for her, then show up at the last minute and expect her horse to be wearing bows and bells, and to smell of Chanel Number Five. He knew the type. Rich father, spoiled daughter.

The
Richardson family, while by no means wealthy, owned twelve horses and several hundred acres of land. Most of the herd were quarter horses, who were strong and fit enough to deal with the rocky climbs through the mountains. Nash always snorted when he saw Tennessee Walking Horses and precious, delicate Morgans, whose bones looked too brittle, the horses too vain, for anything strenuous, let alone carrying a large lion shifter through mountainous terrain. He was more of the quarter horse ilk himself: densely packed, muscular and strong. As such he felt a strong bond with them, and could sense that they were more comfortable with him than they were with the tourists who came through on occasion. Often they were dressed stupidly in skirts and heels and wondering why Nash wanted to sedate their mounts before the rides.

He never did, of course;
he was more tempted to give the riders themselves horse tranquilizers and leave them lying on the floor of the barn.

Nash
strolled through the stable and approached his favourite of the family’s herd, a chestnut called Flak Jacket, who was so called for his ability to resist attacks. When he was a yearling he’d been jumped by a bear and he’d managed not only to kick it into a state of unconsciousness but to get away pretty well unscathed. He reminded Nash of himself.

“Hey there, boy,” said
the young man, laying a warm hand on the horse’s wooly coat. His fingers carved out a series of shallow streams between the thick hair, which disappeared without a trace when he removed them.

The horse eyed him, seemingly unfazed by the contact.

“We’re going to head out today. You ready for it?”

As if in response, Flak let out a low whinny.

“Yeah, I figured you were.”

Nash
settled on a mare called Daisy for the female guest who was to arrive. She was docile as her name suggested, and cow-like in her seemingly indifferent demeanour. Unlikely, at any rate, to throw the daughter of a rich, important businessman to the ground, unless the woman did something really stupid. And if she did, thought Nash, she deserved a good solid face-plant.

  
He was slowly grooming Daisy, whose hair was filled with the dry dust that gathers in the winter coats of horses, when a voice behind him asked, “Is she for me?”

Nash
turned. A young woman stood before him in tall leather boots, tight jeans and a quilted white jacket which was cinched at the waist.

“Excuse me?” he replie
d, thrown by her presence. It was not yet nine a.m.

“I’m sorry; I know I’m early. I just couldn’t wait to get out here.”

“You’re…”

“Cecile.” She removed one of her gloves to shake his hand.

“Nash.”

Her grip was firm, which he respected. He found himself looking into her eyes
, confused by his own state of nervousness. They were a cold blue so light as to nearly be white; the colour of ice on a glacier. Their pupils were ringed with a delicate light brown circle.

Had
Nash seen her on the street, given her outfit and the fact that her makeup looked perfectly done, he would have made the assumption that she was a diva of some sort. She was far too beautiful to want to hang around in barns.

“Do you mind if we go out a little early?” she asked.

“No, not at all,” he said. “I’m just surprised. I thought…”

“You thought I’d be late and inconsiderate,” she
said, tying her long, sleek black hair back into a ponytail. Nash took a moment to study her face now, which was intriguing. Lovely, but unusual. The light eyes were surrounded by black lashes and accentuated by well-groomed, thick eyebrows. Her skin was ivory-coloured. But there was something in her facial structure which looked Asian, and the combination of elements was stunning.

Nash found himself at a loss for words. He wasn’t a chatty person to begin with but in the moment he was simply unable to come up with anything to say. It was almost as though all his blood had migrated away from his brain and was seeking refuge between his legs.

“It’s all right,” Cecile was saying. “That’s what most people assume of you when you’re Conrad Malcolm’s daughter.”

“Your father is Conrad
Malcolm?” he asked. Nash had heard of the man; he was a billionaire mogul known for his ruthlessness, his cunning and his lack of interest in anyone but himself. He’d never heard, though, that the man was a shifter. It seemed that his focus in life lay elsewhere. Some kept their animal sides hidden from the public eye, and Nash supposed that Malcolm was no exception to this behaviour.

Th
e lion shifter felt almost sorry for a man who would deny his abilities, however. To Nash they were a strength, and while he would never have claimed superiority to a human, he didn’t envy them the dull simplicity of their lives. A shifter was filled with powers that humans could never understand.

“Yes, unfortunately
he is my father,” said Cecile. “Or fortunately, depending on how you look at it.”

“I mean, I haven’t met him or anything.
I haven’t really been around here for the last few years.”

“
Well, we only just moved here, really. My dad is an…interesting man. Unapproachable, like a lot of men who care more about money than people. Add to that the tiger inside him and you have someone who’s somewhat terrifying. Though I’d say lately that he’s forgotten his shifter roots. It’s been a long time since any evidence of the tiger’s shown up.”

“Ah,” said
Nash, who felt slightly uncomfortable with her candid talk. “I can’t imagine losing your animal. Unless something traumatic happened, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, my mother died a long time ago. I don’t think that helped. He was a different man back when she was alive.”

“I’m sorry,” said Nash quietly.

“No, I’m s
orry,” said Cecile, who let out a shallow laugh. “Sometimes I resent him for the way people perceive me. I forget that he’s human and then someone like you reminds me.”

“It’s okay.”

“Here, let me do that,” she said, taking the curry comb from Nash, who’d stopped grooming the mare. Cecile began to brush Daisy, carefully combing the small knots out of her tail as she went. Nash watched her, his eyes moving up and down her body as though he had no control over them whatsoever. What was going on with him? He couldn’t speak and his body was behaving like it had never come upon a woman before.

I sure would like
to come upon this one,
he thought, chastising himself afterwards for his own dirty mind.

Stop it,
he told himself.
Breathe. She’s just a girl.

Her shape was a familiar one, common to most of the women in Wolf Rock. It was one that
Nash had missed while away at school. College
girls, since he was convinced that they weren’t yet
women
, were often stick-thin and wiry, the sorts who read fashion magazines and wondered why they didn’t look like the mass of airbrushed models they always saw despite their lack of meat. Cecile had curves, and it was her round backside that Nash noticed first, as she bent to deal with one particularly stubborn knot. Its ripe roundness caused a visceral reaction in him, to the extent that he let out a chuckle at his own expense. He felt himself salivate a little, as though she were a piece of fruit to bite into.

“What’s going on?” asked Cecile, dropping the tail and looking up at him.

“Nothing. Just…watching you. I suppose it’s not common to have clients do their own grooming.”

“I like getting my hands dirty,” she said, and winked at him
, smiling.

“So you’re
a shifter,” he asked. “A tiger, like your father.”

“Yeah. And you,” she said as she grabbed a pick a
nd lifted Daisy’s back left hoof to clean, “are a big strong lion, or so your parents tell me.”

“I am.”

“I don’t know a lot of lions. I come from a long line of tigers. Back in the day they used to refer to ours as something like ‘spirit animals,’ but of course my ancestors knew better. It was more that the animal was the essence of the soul.”

“A white tiger
. I’ve never met one. I guess this makes you my first.”

“I’m pleased to be popping your white tiger cherry, Nash
,” she said, the hoof between her thighs as she dug out a few tightly-packed stones and dried earth. Nash found himself envying that hoof.

***

As they groomed the horses, Nash and Cecile took their time in the stable, talking. Neither seemed in a rush to head out.

“I spent a lot of my childhood around horses,” the tiger shifter told Nash. “Only when my father moved here, to the mountains, did it stop. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you have horses? Don’t all rich people?”

Cecile punched him lightly in the arm. “You really do have a lot of pre-conceived notions about the wealthy, don’t you? Anyhow, I suppose you’re right. My dad came out here and did the nouveau-riche thing. He bought a fancy chalet. I was hoping for a ranch. He hired designers to ‘class it up,’ which seems to mean that he spent a fortune on decorators to buy incredibly expensive ‘rustic’ furniture.”

“That sounds sort of awful,” said Nash.

“It sort of is. I mean, it’s undeniably beautiful, the chalet, but more like a mansion, really, and it’s sterile. Not homey; not warm. That’s one reason I found this place and
…you.” She looked into his eyes now, and he thought that he perceived a change in tone with the word “you.”

“I have a fantasy,” continued Cecile, “that involves a place that’s undisturbed by wealth.”

“You’ve come to the right ranch then,” laughed Nash. “You won’t find any wealth here.”

“Exce
llent. It seems to me that material possessions and wealth are very human things. When my mom died, my sister was ten, and I was in my early teens. That’s when my father seemed to, I don’t know, forsake the tiger inside him. He became more human each day.” Cecile was brushing Daisy gently again, absent-mindedly allowing the soft bristles to massage the mare, who seemed perfectly happy about it. “He became more materialistic and greedy as time went on. Not to mention thick-headed and stubborn as anything.”