Tiger Lily - May Dawson Page 0,8

reading the story of a princess who, judging from the back cover, finds herself torn between her duty to her kingdom and the sexy, forbidden men she falls in love with.

I flipped to the end to make sure there was a happy ending. I knew it was a romance, but what if I’d picked up some terrible love story where, I don’t know, someone dies, or they all die, or she has to choose in the end?

Then I went back to reading from the beginning. She met a panty-dropping hot shifter—well, those guys could be total dicks, I wished her luck—but I grew more and more invested. I kept ‘spooning’ ice cream into my mouth, but sometimes I was so focused on the page that I missed.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a hot alpha guy who pinned me up against the wall and ravaged my throat with his kisses… Sure, I’d claw the head off any man who thought he could order me around. But maybe, just maybe, I’d like to be taken care of for once.

With Brad, I was always on my own. Once he let a door slam in my face as he walked in before me, then snickered something about feminism. Man, I realized in retrospect I really should have chewed his arm off before I left Scarborough.

But this hunky shifter was determined to love and protect his queen… even if she thinks she’d rather be alone…except for when she’s distracted by his chiseled body and charming smirks. I heaved a sigh. In reality, I didn’t think I’d ever met a guy who smirked without me wanting to slap him across the face.

But the guy in this book is lovingly bossy on one page, threatening to spank her ass if she keeps putting herself in danger, and then on the next page is kneeling in front of her, tender and loving. He presses kisses to her body, looks up at her face with worshipful eyes. He treats her like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever found…and then he fucks her like he’s trying to break her. But she doesn’t, of course—she just has orgasms. Many, many orgasms.

I cranked down the window. It was getting hot in the car without air conditioning.

Anyway, that was why when the tow truck pulled up, I was reading a romance novel and scooping up rocky road ice cream with a credit card.

Look, I might not win any awards for dignity—because ice cream had gotten all over my mouth too—but I should definitely win one for ingenuity.

Then Blake Averill, my childhood-crush-slash-nemesis, got out of the truck.

Amber eyes.

Dark hair.

Broad shoulders.

Tall, lean frame.

I practically threw the ice cream across the car and frantically scrubbed my hand over my mouth, trying to get rid of the ice cream residue.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, universe,” I muttered. “Bad things are supposed to come in threes. This is five. Five!”

My car breaking down was four and that was ridiculous enough, but coming face-to-face with Blake was definitely five.

When I looked like this, I thought maybe seeing Blake should count as six and seven too.

Reluctantly, I got out of my car.

Blake stopped dead when he saw me, his eyes widening. “Lily?”

“Hi, Blake.” Why was he looking at me like that? I couldn’t read his expression. “So you have… a towing company?”

“And a garage to go with it.” He stood up straighter when he said it, as if he weren’t already tall enough. “We’ll get your car fixed up. What’s wrong with it?”

“If I knew, I’d fix it.”

“I like your confidence.” He winked at me, and another girl might’ve said that he had a sexy wink, but he always drove me out of my damn mind. “Well, we’ll figure it out. Let me get it all hooked up.”

“Great. Thanks.” I walked away from him, into the sunshine. My heart was racing, which made no sense.

I wandered along the sidewalk as he hooked up my car, trying to convince myself that I was cool, I was calm, I was a real grown woman who could handle my childhood crush.

I had to ride with Blake back to the garage. But it would be fine, I could get through some small talk about him and his two ‘brothers’ and how they’d come back to Silver Springs and then it would all be over and I could eat my ice cream on the couch.

I came back just as he was hosting the car up on the back of the