TIGER SPEED DATING
LIZZIE LYNN LEE
Summary
Romance author Abigail Collins has an epic writer’s block following a breakup with her boyfriend. She decides to stay at her grandpa’s cabin in Cub’s Cove to nurse her broken heart while working on her new novel. But she can’t write romantic scenes when all she can think about is how to strangle the main male character seven ways to Sunday for his lying, cheating, bast—okay, she’s stuck. Big time. Uh-oh. Seeing her in a rut, her best friends, Tiffany and Carmen, drag her to a local speed-dating event to get her out of her funk.
Tiger shifter Michael Kage chooses Cub’s Cove for his self-imposed exile, away from his clan’s dangerous, back-stabbing politics. Even though he enjoys the new town, one thing in his life is still missing: he yearns for a mate. So when he hears the local bar is hosting a speed-dating event, he’s the first in line to buy a ticket.
That night, just as Michael thinks the speed-dating event is a bust, he sees a gorgeous woman: a curvaceous goddess with silken hair and beautiful, sad eyes. He knows he has found his mate. But before he even has the chance to learn her name, they switch to other partners. Head over heels for having met his perfect woman, Michael has to find his Cinderella because that unforgettable woman holds the missing part of his heart.
First Edition 2016
©Copyright Lizzie Lynn Lee November 2016
Cover Art by (Lizzie Lynn Lee) ©Copyright (November/2016)
Edited by Amy Black
Proofread by Cassie Hess Dean
Galley Proofread by Lisa Bing
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
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SPECIAL PREVIEW: WICKED AS HE COMES
Chapter One
Santino wasn’t having any of it. His rugged hands pinned Claire by the shoulders and held her up against the wall, and then. . . and then. . .
Wait, can hands be rugged or is calloused a much better fit?
Argh!
Abigail Collins tore her hands away from the keyboard and groaned in disbelief. Fuck, fuckety fuck. The flow wasn’t right. She’d rewritten the same scene at least five different times, and each time it came out just . . . wrong. The book was never going to be finished if she kept up like this, and she had deadlines to meet and fans to please.
What was the matter with her? She never had writer’s block like this before. Plot bunnies and colorful characters in her mind always burst their way out easily onto paper like a broken dam. It was annoying that now she had brain constipation.
With a desperate sigh, Abby leaned back in her chair and stared at the old wooden ceiling overhead. Water damage had discolored the planks years ago, and she remembered staring at the same dark splotches during her childhood. She had the desk and chair in the same spot. The only difference back then was that she doodled and wrote for fun. She had a fertile imagination even as a child, especially curious about sex and what went on behind closed doors at night. She wrote her own story and illustrated it as an outlet and never showed it to anybody. Not even to her grandpa. That would be too embarrassing. She was often consumed in her own world to escape reality, daydreaming about princes who swept princesses off their feet, rogue pirates with tender hearts, brave knights who fought dragons to save their damsels in distress. She lived in a fantasy realm where unicorns shot rainbow lasers from their asses and everybody lived happily ever after.
But now she couldn’t run away from her problems anymore. She wasn’t the little kid she used to be, carefree and unaffected by the world and its expectations. Coming out to the old family cabin in Cub's Cove had been a good idea, but a change of scenery wasn’t going to cure her of her woes.
And it certainly wasn’t going to cure her of her heartache.
How was she supposed to write a romance novel when her own love life was in shambles?
Claire’s back hit the wall, but Santino cradled her head with his palm before she made contact. Their noses were close. The touch of Santino’s hand was . . .
Wait, why noses? Would faces be a better fit in this situation?
Useless, useless. Abby scrunched up her nose and shook her head. It wasn’t working, and it wasn’t going to work until she fixed the three-month ache in her chest.
Santino . . . Uhm . . .
Santino kissed Claire’s soft lips. Nah, too predictable.
Santino caressed Claire’s neck and down to the valley of her breasts. Ugh. Santino’s kind of a pervert.
Santino chocked on gum he was chewing and couldn’t breathe.
Santino accidentally stepped on a banana peel, lost his balance and crashed onto the floor spectacularly.
San—
The knock at the front door startled her, and Abby jumped up from her chair with a gasp. Since her grandfather had died, the cabin in Cub's Cove was empty most of the time. No one should have known she was there. She’d only come to try to break herself out of her funk, after all.
Abby crept over to her window and peered down. Her bedroom windows faced the front of the house, giving her a clear view of the front door below.
Even from above, Abby recognized the two women waiting for her to answer.
“Oh my God.” Abby’s fingers tightened at the sill, and then she pushed back from the windows and grinned. “No way!”
In seconds, she was out of her old, dusty bedroom and on her way down the stairs. Abby opened the front door right in time to catch Tiffany with her fist raised and ready to knock again.
“Tiffany!” Abby squealed. She grinned from ear to ear. “Carmen!”
Tiffany hitched one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows and shot Abby a look. “Seriously? You’re still in your pajamas at this time of day?”
Abby opened her mouth to reply, but found no words. Instead, she looked down at herself. There was no way she could argue that the pink pajamas with white polka dots and the cute, baggy, graphic T-shirt she wore were street clothes.
“I, um, well…”
It was after two in the afternoon, and while she hadn’t been expecting company, she knew that she had no reason not to be dressed. Working from home meant that she could stay in her pajamas all day if she wanted, but Abby was usually more in charge of her life than that. The breakup had done more than affect her writing. What was the point of getting dolled up if nobody appreciated it anyway?
“Good thing we’re here to stage an intervention.” Carmen laughed, and the two of them flounced through the door and entered the house like they owned the place.
In some small way, Abby thought, they kind of did.
Tiffany and Carmen had been her best friends all through ch
ildhood. Every summer, when Abby and her brother had come to Cub's Cove to spend their vacation with their grandfather, Tiffany and Carmen were waiting for her arrival. The three of them spent their time exploring the woods and wandering the town, talking about boys and laughing about the stuff only best friends found funny. With all of the in-jokes they’d made over the years, Abby was pretty sure that they could have entire conversations in a code that no one would understand.
“Intervention?” Abby closed the door and turned to face them. Tiffany had her hands on her hips, and Carmen was laughing coquettishly. “What do you mean, intervention?”
“Oh, you know. Three months with no call after you break up with Tyler, and then we spot your car out front of the house? Yeah, we know you’re still not over that scumbag. So we’re here to help you out of your rut,” said Tiffany. She narrowed her eyes critically and looked Abby over again. “Good thing, too, if you’re still in your pajamas at two in the afternoon.”
“We’re going to get you fixed up, girl,” Carmen promised with a wink.
Both of her friends looked beautiful. It had been years since Abby had come back to Cub's Cove, but Tiffany and Carmen looked no worse for it. Skinny, tall, and fashionable, they were everything Abby wasn’t. Never had her weight bothered her before, but after what Tyler had done…
Standing there beside Tiffany and Carmen, she felt inferior. Hopeless.
For as much as Abby wrote about timeless, heart-stopping romance, it felt like she’d never experience one. Girls like her were never swept off their feet by gallant, handsome princes. But girls like Tiffany and Carmen?
And her old best friend, Kate? Even snakes like Kate got their happy endings. That snake was the one who snatched Tyler behind her back.
“So, first things first,” Tiffany said brightly. “You need some light.”
“Mm hm.” Carmen had already moved to the window. Abby had all the curtains drawn. “Here’s some sunshine to brighten your mood!”
With a dramatic tug, Carmen yanked the curtains open and light streamed through. Abby shielded her face with her arms and recoiled with a hiss. “The light! It burns. It buuurns!”
“What are you, a vampire? Told you we should have brought our garlic and our crosses.” Tiffany grinned at Carmen.
“Does this vampire sparkle?” quipped Carmen.
All three of them laughed. They were die-hard Twilight fans when the books were at the peak of their popularity.
Whoa. How long had it been since she’d laughed? Abby dropped her arms and shook her head in disbelief at herself even as she laughed. It was good that Tiffany and Carmen had stopped by. She needed their company more than they knew.
“I missed you, Abby,” Tiffany said. She closed the distance between them and drew Abby into a hug.
Carmen, not wanting to be left out, hurried over and hugged the both of them. “Group hug!”
Abby sniffled and held back tears. “I’ve missed you guys, too.”
“We’re going to make it all better,” Carmen promised. Their hug broke, but the three of them remained standing close. “You can’t punish yourself forever, you know. Staying hung up on a guy who’s as low as Tyler isn’t healthy. That’s why we’ve come up with a plan to cheer you up now that you’re back in town.”
“A plan?” Abby wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
For as long as they’d been friends, a plan always meant some harebrained scheme that didn’t always work, but was always a lot of fun. The problem was, Abby wasn’t sure she wanted to do anything too extreme. Getting out of the house felt like a lot of effort.
“Just hear us out.” Tiffany lifted a finger, urging Abby to wait. “You have to at least listen. That’s the rule, right?”
“Right.” Abby shook her head and leaned back against the door. This was getting worse by the second. “I’m listening.”
Tiffany and Carmen exchanged glances and grins, and Abby knew she was in for trouble.
“Well,” Carmen said, then trailed off.
“Tyler cheated on you. Three months ago. You’re still young,” Tiffany continued.
Abby was getting sick of hearing about it. “I know. We talked about this on the phone already.”
“Right, but now it’s time to do something about it,” Carmen insisted. “You’ve had time to get over him, and it’s not going to be hard to find someone to replace him, so that’s what we’re going to do tonight.”
“W-what?” Abby narrowed her eyes and set her lips.
“We’re going to go to the speed-dating event at The Stripe tonight,” Tiffany announced with flourish, grinning wide. “What do you think? Am I a genius or what?” The light from the window caught in her blonde hair and made it shine like gold. The Stripe was Cub's Cove’s bar. The three of them had been there from time to time, on the rare occasion that Abby was in town. “You and I are going to participate, and our happily married bestie, Carmen, is going to be the designated driver so we can have all the good times we need to have as the designated drinkers.”
“But we’re hoping that maybe I won’t have to drive either of you home,” said Carmen.
Abby looked between the two of them, unsure of what to say. Tiffany had been single for a couple years after having suffered from the tragic loss of her fiancé in an accident. Was she really ready to move on just to help Abby out?
“Tiffy—”
“I’m ready,” Tiffany said. “And if I’m ready after losing a good guy like Derek, then I know you have to be ready after ditching a loser like Tyler. So let’s go together. Let’s have a good time!”
“I don’t know. Speed-dating sounds like pain in the ass.” Abby remained skeptical about tonight’s chosen event. “Is that when you cram a bunch of singles in a room and you get just a few minutes to talk to your dates in rotation? It’s ridiculous. You can’t really know someone that way.”
Tiffany pouted and planted her hands on her hips. Again. “You have a better idea? Or would you rather mope all day and night in this gloomy, depressing cabin?”
“I wasn’t just moping, I’ll have you know. I work, too. In case you don’t remember, I’m a writer. I write books. Books with words. A lot of them,” Abby got defensive. Weak. Her excuse was freakin’ lame.
“Uh-oh. And how’s that going so far?”
Abby deflated instantly. “Okay, I’m pathetic. I know. You don’t have to rub it in. Geez.”
“Listen to this, the best medicine for a broken heart is new love. In order to get new love, you gotta get out and find it. It’s not like hot guys are going to magically land on your lap and ask you for a date if you’re holed up in this place. Remember that song ‘It’s Raining Men?’ It lies. If there’s no pain, no hot guys are gained.” Tiffany crossed her arms and set her jaw in determination, like she was preparing to go into battle. “So we’re both going to find love tonight at The Stripe, whether you’re ready or not.”
Abby sighed and covered her eyes with her hands, but she knew she couldn’t argue. Tiffany had the upper hand. Her friend could be very persuasive if she had set her mind on something. “Oh brother.”
“So let’s see what clothes you brought.” Carmen grinned. “’Cuz the two of us will be damned if you’re going out in your pink, polka-dot pajamas.”
“I thought pajamas were the new LBD,” said Abby wryly.
Carmen arched her eyebrow. “At church bingo, maybe. Girl, if you’re going to enchant an eligible bachelor in a pub, you have to go all out. Come on. Show us some spirit.”
“All right, all right. I’m coming with you.”
Chapter Two
“Everyone’s looking at us.”
“Good. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?” Michael grinned. “Not that there’s anyone here just yet.”
The Stripe was largely empty this early in the evening. The only establishment in Cub’s Cove that served cheap booze to the locals actually qualified as a dive bar. The place was dim although that night it was brighter
than usual. Maybe because of the speed-dating night. In order to cheer up the place, the event organizer tried to be cutesy by decorating it with glittered cutout hearts, streamers, and balloons.
Michael cringed a little. You’d think some kid was having a birthday party in here.
He saw some regulars rooted on the wooden stools butting up against the high counter, nursing their beers with eyes glued up to a flat-screen TV mounted on the ceiling. The game was playing. Broncos versus Raiders. The volume was muted, and instead, the bartender put on some awful elevator music. Great. Michael started regretting having to pay for the tickets.
The speed-dating event wasn’t set to begin for another hour, and the bar food wasn’t good enough as a rule to attract many early patrons. Jason had insisted they come early anyway in order to get a seat, but Michael didn’t see much of a point.
In a small town like Cub's Cove, there weren’t going to be big crowds, even on a night with a special event.
“Not the good kind of looking,” Jason muttered. “The suspicious kind of looking. Maybe we shouldn’t have come.”
“Says the guy who’s been bitching and moaning about his love life for the past two years,” said Michael.
They sat at a table toward the back of the bar. The chairs were old and a little unstable, but Michael wasn’t expecting much more from a place like The Stripe. With its rickety tables and eclectic decor, it was very much like the rest of Cub’s Cove—mishmash and worn down, rustic but full of characters. To Michael, it was a small town, but Jason had told him several times that Cub’s Cove was a sprawling metropolis compared to Jason’s hometown of Helmswood. The place must be far out in the boonies.
“Bitching and moaning doesn’t mean I automatically want to come to speed-dating,” Jason shot back.
“You were the one who suggested it!”
“Yeah, well, maybe in a place where we wouldn’t get stared down like we’re visiting from Mars.”
Tiger Speed Dating: BBW Paranormal Weretiger Romance Page 1
