Page 9 of Tiger By the Tail

It was nearly noon when the lift pinged, announcing more visitors. I still wasn’t through with the million pictures they wanted of the first three outfits.

I couldn’t check who it was, but I felt eyes watch me. Ainsley insisted on seeing the session through to the end. They directed me here and there, and had me take off a hoodie.

“Someone’s been working out,” Ainsley said with a smirk, cocking their heavily pencilled eyebrows at me. They were married but that didn’t stop them from teasing and flirting as they worked.

“Can’t afford not to.” I patted my stomach and winked back at them. A tiny chuckle reached my ears, and I turnedto see Kat leaning against a concrete pillar, looking stunning as ever. “Too fond of maple glazed donuts,” I added, quivering my lip at her.

Chapter Four

Kat

Goodness, Roy is such a babe.

I’d arrived a few minutes early to get a feel for the situation, and had been greeted with a scene straight out of a movie.

The shoot was in a huge industrial loft flooded with natural light, exposed concrete all around. To the side, a little make-up and dressing room had been erected, and I could see four large racks with clothes clearly made for big boys.

A Kraken lounged in a chair, an expression of utmost boredom on his face, and oblivious to just how closely he was being watched by a gorgeous human man. His entire humanoid upper body was covered in the most intricate tattoos I had ever seen; big pieces, smaller ones, a spider web spanning around his arms, bits of poems and quotes, faces, animals. The skin peeking out between the blacklines was deep blue, just like his eyes under heavy black eyebrows. He had fairly human looking arms, with tiny suction cups covering his fingers. His lower half of him was thick black and blue tentacles that swirled and moved continually. Catching myself staring, I quickly forced my eyes away and assessed the rest of the room.

The other model had to be an Orc. He was tall and muscular, with bottle green skin and long soft brown hair; he was killing it in his charcoal grey suit and tie.

They were both attractive, but no one topped the Tigris charming the damn camera out of its knickers. He wasn’t so much as flirting with it as using it, commanding it, and I was mesmerised.

Roy was intense. Even from across the loft, he got me all worked up. The photographer had just asked him to remove his hoodie, and I’d seen the pictures of him in a flimsy tank top at our gym, but my God.

Nothing could ever have prepared me for his allure. The contrast of deep black stripes on his orange fur, changing to cream on his neck and chest, the outline of his piercing embedded in his hard nipple clearly visible under his white ribbed tank top, had me staring.

But no photo in the world could have shown the twist of muscle, the twitch of sinew in his arms and chest. Every tiny movement created a ripple under his plushy coat. I didn’t care if the make-up guy, the Kraken, or the Orc saw me devour the beefy beast of a tiger with my eyes.

He cracked a joke, patting the ripped slope of his stomach and I couldn’t help but laugh. If there was anyone who needed to be less worried about his looks, it was that gorgeous specimen.

“Too fond of maple glazed donuts,” I heard him tell the photographer, but he looked over at me as he said it. The smirk on his lips melted my insides into a puddle.

Oh no.

He came over to me after another couple of minutes of the photographer clicking away. Without hesitating, he threw an arm around me.

“Hey.” My voice sounded way too breathy.

“Good to see you again, Kat,” Roy purred next to my ear, as he pressed me to his broad, half naked chest. “You’re saving me. I’ve had a couple of hundred thousand pictures taken, and I’m starving.”

Same here, tiger boy. Wanna eat me?

“Want me to pick something up for you?”

A deep chuckle shook his broad chest as he released me. “Nah. Our sales manager is on the way here. She and Declan are going to pick up sushi for all of us. You like sushi?”

“Yeah, I love it. But it’s not necessary, I–”

“I insist.” He held my gaze for another long moment, before someone spoke behind us.

“Roy? Neda’s on the phone, she needs your orders.”

I flinched and turned around to see the massive green Orc holding out a sleek phone and a leaflet from a sushi restaurant to him.

Roy took both, greeted his sales manager, and turned to me. “What would you like, Kat?”

I grabbed the leaflet and perused it for a moment. “Uhm, avocado maki, and a tiger roll. I love those, they’re delicious,” I sighed.