Taming the Tiger (BBW/Shifter Mail Order Bride Romance) (Mail-Order Mates Book 4)

Taming the Tiger

Lola Kidd

Copyright 2015 by Lola Kidd

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. No part of this work may be copied or reproduced without the express consent of the author.

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About this Book

Gwen Johnson is losing her mind. She’s watched three of her friends find love with the help of LK Brides. But her profile goes unmatched in the database. Gwen’s ready to leave Sunset Falls and find the love of her life. If only she’d be matched already!

Dominic Cates knows Gwen is the love of his life and his mate. Too bad she doesn’t believe it. They have a history and Gwen won’t give him another chance after he’s already hurt her once. Can the tiger convince the stubborn tigress that he’s changed? Find out in book four of the Mail-Order Mates series.

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

A Note from Lola

Other Books by Lola Kidd

One

Gwen Johnson sat in her office looking at pictures. She had taken them during the bridal shower for her friend Amy Franklin. She wasn’t the official photographer for the party, but she liked snapping a few shots of her own. She pulled a few she liked and saved them in her “Frank and Amy” folder.

She was compiling a collection of photographs so she could make a scrapbook. Gwen was going to give Frank and Amy a book of their love when they had their first child. It wouldn’t be long before Amy was pregnant with her and Frank’s first cub. That’s how it always happened with shifters.
First comes marriage and then comes baby in a baby carriage.
Sometimes the couples couldn’t even make it to the marriage ceremony and the baby came first. Shifters were fertile and loved having families.

It was Gwen’s curse. She was dying to start a family of her own and her biological clock was beating her over the head. It wasn’t like she wasn’t trying. Gwen had signed up with the same company that had helped her friends find mates, Lovely and Kind Brides. She was even working with the same magical agent who had found all of Sunset Falls’ brides. There had been three LK weddings in the last five months. There was even going to be an LK cub in the spring. It was sickeningly bittersweet to watch all her friends find true love and settle down while she sat alone.

Gwen had been signed up with Olivia at LK Brides since the first mail-order bride came to town. In five months, she’d gotten exactly zero matches. No one even came close. She’d called Olivia and begged to know if there had been anyone even close. She would take an eighty percent match! She didn’t need a perfect match. Olivia had talked her off the ledge that night (and many times since) and assured her that she would find a mate. It might take some time but it would be worth the wait.

In her head, Gwen knew this. Logically, she couldn’t get matched until her perfect man signed up for the service…if he ever did. That was Gwen’s biggest fear. Maybe the guy she was meant to be with wouldn’t sign up for the service. She’d be stuck dating for another five or, God forbid, ten years until her mate came along.

She couldn’t stand it! Gwen was no prude. She had dated her fair share of men in Sunset Falls, but none of them were right for her. Not for lack of trying. She’d thought she’d come close and given her heart away a few times and had been burned. She wasn’t falling for that again. That’s why she knew she had to be patient and give the agency a chance.

That didn’t stop her from getting horny as all get out. That was her problem tonight. Going through the Frank and Amy pictures, she got to the wedding pictures. She hadn’t been careful when she was taking shots. In vivid color the smiling face of Dominic Cates stared at her. His green eyes mocked her as she tried to hurry past and ignore what she saw. It didn’t matter. The flame was already lit.

Sitting home alone in the middle of the night, seeing a picture of Dom was the kiss of death for Gwen. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. Gwen took her phone and put it in the living room and tried to find a way to cool down. She looked up recipes for baking bread. Watched photography tutorials on the web. None of it worked. She couldn’t get Dom out of her head.

Gwen glanced at her phone. It was only eleven o’clock on a Saturday night. Dom didn’t work on Sundays and she worked the evening shift. They wouldn’t be bothered all night. She cursed herself. She should have taken Amy and Molly up on their girls’ night invitation. She’d rescheduled for the next week. She’d thought she could get the scrapbook together and clean her house before she had to work nights all week. She would need the recharge next Saturday after a long work week.

At the time it had made sense. She hadn’t foreseen how bored and horny she was going to get. Waiting for a mate was hard! It wouldn’t hurt if she called Dom for one more night of fun. She’d send him a little text and see if he was game. If he was even alone. Bastard. He was hot as hell but Gwen knew he was no good.

She hit send on the text before she could think about it too much. She was being good while waiting to get matched. The last time she had gone on a date there were Easter decorations up. She’d been doing a dating fast and when she signed up with LK Brides, she’d just extended the fast. It had been going good until all the happy couples started popping up all over town. Her social calendar had filled up fast with weddings and parties. Which meant seeing Dom more and more.

All she needed was one fix and she’d be set for another few months. Her mouth watered thinking of Dom’s hard abs and broad shoulders. He was one gorgeous tiger.

She didn’t have to wait long before she got a text back. Dom invited her over for a “cup of coffee.” Gwen didn’t need to be asked twice. She kicked off her slippers and ran upstairs to change. She had just the perfect outfit for a late night call on her old flame. Just because they were exes didn’t mean they couldn’t have a little no-strings fun.

***

Dom ran around his house in a blur. Gwen was going to be over in thirty minutes and his place was a pigsty. He had a maid who came in three times a week and cleaned up. She kept his place tidy and smelling nice. Only, he’d given her the last few days of the year off for the holidays. She was going to come over tomorrow and get his place clean. That wasn’t going to get rid of the pizza boxes and dirty laundry before Gwen came over.

He did his best to get laundry picked up, the dishes washed, and crumbs off the coffee table where he was eating his meals. The place looked presentable but he turned down the lights and lit a few candles anyway. It looked romantic and it would hide any of the mess he’d missed.

Dom had known Gwen was going to call him for another night of fun. It had been more than a year since they’d hooked up last. He knew she hadn’t been on any dates lately, either. She attended all the weddings alone or in the company of an old friend, guys he knew she wouldn’t date if it was a nuclear winter. They’d been to a few weddings and holiday parties over the last few months. Dom knew he looked great in a suit and Gwen had been eyeing him when she thought he wasn’t looking.

He had wanted to call her himself or ask her to be his date to one of the weddings, but that would have been a mistake. Since arriving in Sunset Falls eight years ago, he’d known Gwen Johnson was his mate. In his heart, he knew he’d been called to Sunset Falls to find her. She didn’t share his sentiment. He had been young and dumb when they first met and had broken her heart. Big mistake. After that first screw-up, he’d had to lie low.

Gwen was a lifelong resident of the town and had many friends. None of the men in town had taken kindly to how he had treated her. If he wanted to make any friends, he knew he had to leave her alone. If they were going to get together, it was going to have to be her decision. And she kept coming back for more after their short-lived relationship. Dom pushed all the right buttons to make her a repeat customer. Once he’d figured out that she was his mate, he’d known it was only a short time before Gwen realized it too.

But that never happened, much to Dom’s chagrin. She kept coming back to ride him like a wildcat, but every time she was gone by morning. They’d never even had a cup of coffee together. He had no idea what her problem was, but it was becoming ridiculous. They’d been doing the secret “friends with benefits” thing for so long, he didn’t even know where to start broaching the subject of having a relationship.

She didn’t want that. At least not with him. It was driving Dominic insane. His mate was RIGHT THERE. He could jog to her house in less than ten minutes. But she wanted nothing to do with him beyond sex. It wasn’t like he’d done anything remarkably terrible to her seven years earlier. He’d been a young, dumb kid. You couldn’t blame a thirty-year-old man for what he’d done in college. And Dom might as well have been a college kid when he got to Sunset Falls.

He’d been aloof and distant and played the field. He was the new hotshot lawyer in town and his bed was never cold. If he’d known then how important Gwen was to his life, he wouldn’t have made the mistake. He shook his head. That was the past. He had to work for the future now.

Headlights shone across his driveway and Dom went to wait by the door. When he heard Gwen step onto the porch, he opened the door and leaned against the frame. “Good evening, Ms. Johnson. Can I help you?”

Gwen was wearing a long black trench coat with the belt tied tightly at the waist. Her long strawberry blonde locks were piled on top of her head with some tendrils cascading down. Dom could just make out her curves under the coat thanks to the belt. Gwen had the best body in all of Sunset Falls. She was leggy and shaped like an hourglass.

“I don’t know,” she said coyly. “Can you help me?”

She pulled the top of the coat open just a little and Dom swallowed hard. White lace peeked out from under the coat. Just a little, but Dom knew exactly what she had on under there. He remembered the lacy piece well. He’d picked it out himself, inadvertently. Gwen had found his stash of porn when they were dating and had watched it all. Very embarrassing for Dom. The next night, she had turned up in lingerie strikingly similar to something that’d been worn by one of the girls in the video. She’d told him that if he wanted to fantasize about a woman, it had better be her. It had been the start of one of the best weeks of Dom’s life.

“I think I have what you’re looking for inside,” Dom said. His voice was steady, but inside his tiger was losing its mind. Poor Gwen didn’t know what she was getting herself into. Dom’s tiger wanted her and he wasn’t going to hold the beast back tonight. He was going to give it to Gwen with everything he had. There was no way she was going to walk away before morning this time. Dom was going to wear her out until she begged him to quit. Then, he’d let her sleep like a baby. This time she wasn’t going to sneak out. He was sure of it.

Two

Dom growled. “Inside. Now.”

Gwen could smell lust rolling off her old flame. She smirked before walking inside, her tits jiggling. Dom’s eyes had been drawn to the small bit of cleavage exposed under the coat. That was one of her favorite things about Dom. She always knew how much he wanted her. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d walk across an ocean of broken glass to spend a night with her. His desire made her feel like a powerful queen.

As much as he wanted her, Dom never groveled for her attention. She hated when a man scraped and lowered himself. Some women might have found it attractive, but not Gwen. She liked manly men who gave her some space. Clingy, emotional men who chased her did little for her.

She knew she was smoking hot. It didn’t matter how much weight she gained or if she was taller than 90% of the women in town. She had learned how to rock her bigger frame a long time ago. She might not be every man’s cup of tea, but there were more than a few who loved how she looked. It was so frustrating when a man thought she was out of his league and had no confidence in himself. She preferred it when a man acknowledged she was hot but still kept his cool around her.

She surveyed Dom’s place as he closed the door behind her. The place looked much more presentable than it had been when they were dating. It was especially romantic tonight. There were candles lit around the room and the lights were dimmed. He’d set the mood perfectly for the night.