Free Her Purrfect Match (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Paranormal Dating Agency Book 3) by Milly Taiden

complained of neck pains. Once she’d found out the reason he was getting neck pains was due to peeping on her neighbor through her bathroom window, the massages were dead.
    “What about your family?” he asked. “How do they feel about you searching for a mate via the PDA?”
    Her leg muscles tensed at the mention of her family. Her mother didn’t know. Heck, she’d love to keep her mother unaware for say twenty years before she told her. Especially if they went through with the whole having babies idea. If Gray changed his mind at any point, she didn’t want to hear about how she’d let another man get away.
    “My mother doesn’t know. She feels very strongly that I push men away.” Lyss still didn’t understand how telling her exes she wouldn’t tolerate cheating and lying was pushing them away.
    She glanced up from where he massaged her feet, to his face.
    “Do you think she will mind when she finds out? We are agreeing to possible offspring here.”
    “Since she’s not the one having the babies and I don’t live in her house and haven’t for a long time, I don’t really care what she thinks.”
    So maybe that came out a little harsh, but she was tired of listening to other people try to run her life. Her mother didn’t have a man. Didn’t want a man. And somehow knew better than Lyss on what she should be doing to keep a man. All her advice revolved around Lyss sucking up the stupid shit men did and letting it slide. Not happening.
     

EIGHT
     
    Gray left Alyssa alone for the first time in three days. He didn’t like it. The tiger inside pressed at his skin, searching for a shift, in agitation.
    “She’s fine. Try and focus on what we’re doing,” Stripes said.
    “She’s alone.”
    “Tynder is with her. She’s far from alone. If she can ever get him to shut up then we might owe her big time.”
    “She’s great, isn’t she?” he said with a smile.
    “She’s fantastic. I’m not sure what she did to make you so receptive lately.”
    He frowned. “What do you mean?”
    Stripes chuckled. “You have never done more than grunt a word or two. You don’t hold long conversations and you don’t like people. But for the past few days you’ve been talking, interacting and communicating more than you have in the past ten years.”
    He didn’t realize he’d changed so much since Alyssa’s arrival. He didn’t know what to think. Her company brought out a new side of him. He enjoyed talking to her. She was funny and smart.
    Her addiction for reality TV still puzzled him, but he laughed whenever she watched something and yelled at the TV like the characters on the show could hear her.
    “Do you see anything?” Stripes asked, his gaze focused on the ground.
    They’d been searching for anything to show that intruders had come near his home. “No, nothing.”
    “This doesn’t mean they won’t come back.”
    Stripes was right. Eli and Lucas had made it known they wanted him out of the way. One or both wanted the pride and the only way to get it was to get rid of Gray.
    “She needs to go home,” he said, once again thinking of Alyssa.
    Stripes whistled low. “How are you going to handle her being gone?”
    He wasn’t. “I’m going with her.”
    Stripes laughed. “I had a feeling that would be your answer. You’ve got it bad. If I didn’t know better I’d say you’re in love.”
    His chest compressed. Love? Nonsense. He’d recognized his mate and needed to protect her. Wanting to spend his time with her did not mean he was in love. Her smile flashed through his mind. He loved when she smiled. It made him happy to know there was joy in her life.
    That still didn’t mean he was in love. Grayson Green did not do love. Gray knew that since he’d been a kid. It had been drilled into him first by his family and then by the military. Love was an emotion that could destroy a person.
    “I don’t do love.” He said the words more to himself than Stripes. He didn’t need love. He had