Mail Order Tiger Bride Wars: A Scorchingly Hot BBW Shifter Romance Read Free Page B

around the world! Cruises down the Nile! (OK, he didn’t say that, but she could totally envision it.) Hobnobbing with the statues in Easter Island! This was the life she (daren’t) dreamt of.
    And more importantly, he was outlining a future. Their future together!
    She was so bowled over that she almost forgot to click on the attachment he sent. His photo. And so she did.
    Her eyes popped out. Was he for real?
    He was gorgeous! Nice wavy brown hair which curled around his forehead. Piercing blue eyes which crinkled with amusement. A nice tight body beneath the T-shirt he wore. A five o’ clock shadow around his firm jaw. He could easily grace the cover of GQ or Esquire .
    No! her instincts told her. He couldn’t be real. Men like that didn’t advertise for wives. Women threw themselves at the feet of men who resembled that photo.
    But maybe it was because of his work! Maybe it was as he said – he traveled greatly and he didn’t have time to socialize. Maybe it was because he was a tiger shifter and tigers were rare. It was the only way he could find a wife south of Kentucky!
    Maybe, maybe, maybe.
    She found herself sitting down. Her ice-cream was melting and she couldn’t move.
    With trepidation, she hit ‘Reply’.
    Oh wait, maybe she should hold out. After all, men didn’t like women who were too easy.
     

4
     
    The reply came sooner than Cole expected. His sat phone went ‘ding’. He had programmed it to alert him when he received an email on his personal account. And there it was – a full six hours after he had sent the email.
    His mouth turned up with amusement. He knew the photo would do the trick. Not that he had to do Photoshop or anything. That was him in the flesh. He knew he looked good and that it brought in the hot babes – which was great for sex when he wanted it, of course.
    But it wasn’t that great when they formed emotional attachments to him. That was why he usually did one night stands, or why he broke it off before it got too deep. And not deep in a good, physical way.
    He read the email Ellen sent him.
    Ellen Moss .
    He mouthed the syllables.
    Mrs. Ellen Devereaux.
    His father would be pleased.
    Should he ask for a picture? Nah. No time. He’d take her – lock, stock and barrel. She was real interested, he could tell.
    He read through her email and picked out certain phrases that indicated her interest to go further:
    I love travelling. It is always my dream to travel around the world.
    I’m looking for someone to share my dreams with.
    I have always been interested in archeology since I saw ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’.
    He grinned. It was time to tempt her with a first class ticket.
    He would write it off as a necessary business expense.

5
     
    Ellen could not believe the first class ticket attachment she received in her email. She supposed in the olden days (maybe five years ago), first class air tickets would have come in an embossed envelope with her name written in gilded letters. But an email PDF attachment was as good as any. She’d take it. Hell, she’d seize it by the ears and run off with it.
    The ticket was to New York. And then there was a connection to Paris.
    Paris!
    And then there was a connection to Brazzaville, the capital of Congo.
    Congo!
    Even the entire PDF was an exclamation mark!
    She couldn’t believe that she was really going!
    And of course, there was that little thing about telling Terry.
     
    *
     
    “You what?” Terry’s eyes bulged out of her head.
    It was almost comical. Ellen had never seen eyes do that before. Well, maybe once when Terry found out that she had hives on her pussy after using a new spermidical cream.
    “I’m going to Africa. Congo, more like. That’s in Africa, just in case you didn’t know.”
    Terry didn’t know a lot of things, like what constituted the colors of a rainbow – unless it was on her manicure color chart – so it was better to be safe.
    Terry gaped.
    “But you barely know