Page 6 of Deadly Tiger's Single Dad Crush

Is this too fast?

This can’t be real.

He’s just playing with me because I watch his kids and I’m young and naive. No, I mean, he doesn’t have to be manipulative here. He’s not necessarily toying with my emotions or anything. He just took what I offered freely, and what I offered was (I hate saying it like this but I have to face reality) young pussy with no commitment.

My smile slips away. Now I’m feeling so much more than horny and I’ve screwed things up.

“Hey, Sam? Samantha?”

I jump out of my own head and look to see Daniel looking at me with a tender smile. “You were pretty far away.”

“I guess I’m a little tired.”

He stands up and takes my plate and sets it on the coffee table. “Then, let’s get you to bed.”

He offers a hand and I take it. Then, he pulls me to him, kisses me softly and leads me away.

We go to his room again, though, and we don’t just go to sleep. Our lovemaking this time is slow and soft and exploratory. We take our time to discover the small things and this time, the orgasm is softer but deeper. This time, I feel something beyond the physical hunger for him.

This time my heart feels the power of being with this man.

Chapter Five

Daniel

From what I understand, most shifters have an instant transition. I don’t mean physically. Every shift transitions instantly when it comes to physical. Of course, shifters are revealing themselves on an intermittent basis that we don’t know about. Shifters don’t know, I mean. Like Dragons. We’ve only known about them during my lifetime. A few years ago, antelope revealed themselves. I mean African antelopes, not the pronghorns of North America.

Anyway, most shifters evidently have an instant mental transition. For tigers, it doesn’t necessarily work that way. Perhaps because we’re already measured in our approach, we ease into the sensory changes. Tigers perceive the world primarily?through sight, of course, and our vision is even better than the natural tigers. The naturals have excellent night vision, acute hearing, and a good sense of smell.

This allows them to navigate their environment effectively in low-light conditions. Natural tigers are great nocturnal hunters. They detect movement and can actually hunt prey throughsight and sound. Often their world appears as a mix of shapes and motions instead of detailed colors. This is all due to their adapted eye structure for hunting in the dark. It has to do with their forward-facing eyes providing depth perception for precise stalking and pouncing.?

Tiger shifters make them seem blind and uncoordinated by comparison. The naturals are killing machines pretty close to unmatched in nature. Natural tigers possess a combination of strength, stealth, speed, and predatory instincts. I think tigers are the most lethal of all apex predators. Of course, I’m biased. It’s true, though. I’d venture to say that other than some groups of people on the Indian subcontinent, most human beings have no idea just how big tigers are.

In the wild, male tigers are often six hundred and fifty pounds. The largest possible lions top out at five hundred pounds. My tiger is more than fourteen hundred pounds. Nobody really knows why shifter animals are so much bigger than their natural counterparts but we are. In any case, when you shift, you have to look at the world from the perspective of an entirely different anatomy. The point of all this is that the process of transitioning from human perception to tiger perception takes some time.

I can shift and go right to killing if necessary but if I’m just going to walk around or explore, there’s a slow and interesting transition process involved. I don’t lose my humanity when I shift, at least not from a mental standpoint. Most shifters give up some of the intellectual clarity and become driven far more by instinct.

Wolves really let the wolf take over and it’s not safe for them to live near livestock for that reason. Perfectly rational in human form, they may run by a group of sheep and be utterly unable to keep themselves from killing. Bears don’t have the aggression problem but when they shift, they’re always temptedto just remain a bear forever. Lions claim they have no instinct effect when they shift. That wouldn’t surprise me because they’re boring administrators all the time anyway. As for dragons, they think of the human as their animal form so who knows?

In my experience, I have additional sensory inputs but I still process those inputs with the same mind that processes any of my other sensory inputs. Just because I can see in the dark doesn’t mean I process that sight with the mind of a cat. It’s hard to be objective, though. Every shifter tends to believe himself superior to other shifter types.

It just so happens in the case of tigers that we’re right.

Right now, I’m standing in the woods at the back of my property, enjoying the coolness of the evening. Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I should say that I’m standing on all fours because I’ve already shifted. A lot of shifters don’t like to shift so close to home, but I have my boys most of the time and I don’t like going too out of range.

It’s fairly quiet where I live anyway. Our neighbors are few and far between out here. So, it’s all good.

I circle the property. I cut a line through the brush and undergrowth. This area had a lot of appeal for me when I first saw it six years ago. It was overgrown and the seller was having trouble unloading it because of that. For most people, it isn’t appealing to look at a property that would take so much work to clear and clean.

For me, it was exactly what I needed.My home and my backyard are immaculately and perfectly arranged. Immediately next to it, is wilderness. I own the wilderness part. At least, a shell corporation I own owns the wilderness part.

I hit the fence line and start heading along it clockwise. I settle into the feel of my tiger body, and slowly my senses sharpen. Tigers don’t normally patrol their territory. Usually, they just head out every so often and remark it with urine orglandular secretions. I don’t follow the same pattern every night that I shift, but tonight I figure it’ll be good to roam a bit wider.

And no, I’m not planning on marking anything with urine.

As I pad along, my thoughts touch on Samantha. I think she’s wonderful, but am I really being fair with her. Thinking of having a relationship with a single dad is a big ask, but a single tiger shifter dad? That feels like a nearly impossible task.I say task and not ask because she doesn’t even know I’m a tiger.

My first wife was human, too, so I know they can adjust and be happy, but I was just a single guy then. No kids, no extra commitments. And Bridget wasn’t entirely unacquainted with the world of shifters. She’d dated one briefly before meeting me.I think of Samantha. She seems so young sometimes, so naive. That may sound a little condescending, but it’s how it feels sometimes.

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