Chosen Mate: Lion Shifter Romance (Cybermates Book 5), Candace Ayers [big screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

As the ice cold foam shot out across his sunbaked stomach, Patton startled hard. His arms flailed, his chair tipped. He did a tuck-and-roll ending in crouch position, eyes glowing, ready to shift and go to battle...until his brain registered it me doubled over, clutching my middle, and laughing hysterically.

“Hilarious. Fucking hilarious, pussycat!” He grabbed a towel and dried himself. “You come to start a brawl?”

I sniffled and set the beer down to shift. Hell, I was game for a brawl. It had been too long since I’d had a good knock down drag out.

He held his hands in front of him. “Wait! We can’t. Not on the boat. The repairs to Castaway after the last time we tussled ate a chunk of my savings. Mariah will have my balls sitting on a shelf, floating in a jar of formaldehyde, if it happens again.”

“Ha! I seem to remember you ribbing Jake about this very thing not too long ago. Now who’s pussywhipped?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve since seen the error of my previous ways.” Patton reached for a beer and slumped back into his deck chair just as his phone buzzed. He picked it up, grinned like a kid on Christmas morning, and his fingers flew over the keyboard as he shot off a reply text.

I took a swig of my beer and leaned on the rail staring out at the marina for several minutes.

Patton looked up. Something got you down?

I grunted and shrugged. “Brittany’s having a shit fit, issuing ultimatums.”

Patton scratched his head. “Brittany? I thought her name was Ashley.”

“That’s the other one.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Dissention in the harem? The player’s player has trouble in paradise. More women, more problems I guess. Eh, loverboy?”

While Patton grinned like my life was a rom-com, I just rolled my eyes. Jake and Patton seemed to think I was a player. They really had no clue.

“I’ll never understand how that works man. Don’t they get jealous?”

“Of what? Our matings are emotionless. We all grew up accepting our way as the norm.”

“Hold up. Emotionless? What does that mean exactly?”

“It means those goo-goo eyes you make every time you so much as think about Mariah aren’t in our wheelhouse. Despite the fact that I’m labeled with every manwhore nickname you and Jake can come up with, I’m not one. I have females, yes, but believe it or not, I never had much choice in the matter. It’s the lion shifter way, and it’s what has been expected of me since the doctor slapped my ass and said, ‘It’s a boy.’”

“You’re shittin’ me.” He scratched his head. “How come you never told me this before?”

“I told you we don’t have mates.”

“Yeah…right, you did.”

Truth was, I had seen a lion form a mate bond once. It had been one sided and devastating for the one who bonded to a mate unable to reciprocate the feelings—absolutely devastating.

I shrugged. “Have you ever known me to date anyone but a lioness?”

He took a swig of his beer. ‘There’s a name for that, man. Species prejudice.”

I snorted a laugh. “Naw, it’s not that at all. No other species could handle our lifestyle. Can you imagine what Mariah would say if you told her you were required to have at least two more wives?”

Patton spit out his beer and started cough-laughing. “She’d hang my testicles from her rearview mirror like a pair of fuzzy dice. Not that I would ever want anyone else. My leggy mahogany goddess is all I need or want.”

I sighed and plopped down on the deck chair next to his. “Dude, you don’t know how lucky you are.”

“Hell yeah I do.” His grin stretched from ear to ear. “Luckiest man alive.” He picked up his cell phone again, laughed aloud at what he read on the screen, and tapped out another text—to Mariah, no doubt.

“Tell your better half I said hello.”

Patton just nodded.

“Why aren’t you at work, today?”

Patton tossed his phone on his lap, sighed, and folded his arms behind his head.

“I’m on vacation.”

“Again? Didn’t you just have a vacation last month?”

“Why are you here again?”

Shaking my head, I chugged the rest of my beer before getting up to go. “I was killing time before my meeting, but I’ll let you get back to your afternoon nap, Grandma. Talk at you later.”

Patton waved without looking up. He’d already gone back to texting and grinning like a lovesick fool.

Ever since the conversation with Brittany and Ashley, starting a Pride had been weighing heavily on my mind. Procreation was considered a requirement in our community, and at 34, most male lion shifters my age already had several wives and a handful of cubs.

I released a heavy sigh. A sourness churned my gut.

It was time to suck it up and do my duty. Make it official. Take Brittany and Ashley as my first and second wives.

I’d let them know tonight, as soon as I returned to Miami.

5

Elin

Five minutes ago, I would have sworn I’d sunk as low as humanly possible in regard to my love life, or lack thereof. I was outfitted in full Klingon battle gear for a blind date at a local Trekkie convention with Jim Bob Cooter, a forty-year-old hog shifter whose gropy hands were attracted to my chest like my breasts had their own gravitational pull. That was rock bottom, right?

Couldn’t get much lower, right?

Wrong.

Apparently I also had a subbasement level built of pathetic desperation, because I was now running from Porky Pervert like my life depended on it. (This was at least partly Parker’s fault.)

I ducked into Latte Love mere seconds before Jim Bob rounded the corner.

Hide. Hide.

Scanning the coffee shop, I was about to bee-line it to the bathroom, when a frazzled looking mom balancing a baby on her hip and wrangling a brood of pint-sized rug rats blocked the entrance. Crap. There was no way I could get around them quickly without inflicting casualties.

Plan B…plan B… C’mon Elin, formulate.

The place was so full of potted