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