Alpha werewolf, Grayson Beckett, thinks money can buy anything—including a wife. But when he joins Love Bites, a dating agency for supernaturals, finding a mate proves harder than he thought.
To help her boss, dating agency coach, Jamie Osborne, reluctantly agrees to go on a date with Grayson. After all, she’d dumped her cheating fiancé at the altar, she could handle an arrogant werewolf, right?
Tensions run high, but the date goes better than Jamie expected when Grayson turns out to be a doting dad with a tragic past.
But can the alpha win her trust and melt her heart?
DATING A WEREWOLF
Love Bites: A Dating Agency for Paranormals, #2
Abbey MacMunn
Published by Tirgearr Publishing
Author Copyright 2020 Abbey MacMunn
Cover Art: Cora Graphics (www.coragraphics.it)
Editor: Lucy Felthouse
Proofreader: Jessica Corra
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This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Amanda Morgan, Bel, and Iesha Carson.
DATING A WEREWOLF
Love Bites: A Dating Agency for Paranormals, #2
Abbey MacMunn
Chapter One
“Oh my God, I look like an Oompa Loompa!” Jamie grabbed the hand mirror and raced towards the window, hoping the natural light would make her foundation appear less orange. It didn’t.
“I could try to tone it down a bit, I suppose,” Willow offered, her shoulders sinking.
Jamie cringed. Sometimes her mouth ran away with her. “No, it’s fine. Maybe it will blend in more when it settles.”
Willow sat on her lounge floor, surrounded by a pile of expensive makeup and beauty products; a perk of her friend being a famous beauty blogger. “I doubt it, but thanks for letting me experiment. It’s supposed to be their palest foundation, too. I won’t be endorsing it on my YouTube channel, that’s for certain.”
She rubbed at her cheeks, but Willow had applied the foundation so expertly it didn’t even smudge. “Remind me again why I agreed to be your guinea pig?”
“Because you have fantastic skin and beautiful big eyes; the perfect canvas.” She grinned, then added, “And I promised to make you one of my special mojitos.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Jamie joked. “I’m going to need at least three mojitos.” She returned to Willow and scanned the pile of beauty boxes. “Haven’t you got anything there to take this muck off? There’s not one foundation that will ever match my alabaster skin. I should have been born a vampire.”
“I thought you preferred werewolves?” She referred to Twilight. Willow hated it but Jamie had a thing for the films years ago—she still had a sweatshirt with Team Jacob on it.
“I did, back then.” Her friend had no idea they existed for real, not that Jamie had ever met one. A witch and a warlock, yes, but a powerful werewolf, no.
“Maybe a bit of highlighter would help?” Willow picked up a makeup brush and went to dust Jamie’s cheeks.
Jamie leaned back to avoid more torture, laughing. “Leave me alone! I’m good with pale and interesting, thanks.” She preferred the natural look.
Her friend shook her head. “There’s no hope for you, is there?”
“Nope.”
Jamie’s Chihuahua yapped as though to agree.
Her phone rang. She fished it out from her hoodie pocket and looked at the screen. “It’s my boss.” A witch; one of the good ones. “Sorry, I’ll have to answer.”
Willow stood. “I’ll go make that mojito.”
“Three drinks, remember?” Jamie answered her phone. “Hi, Harper. Is everything okay?”
“Hello, Jamie. No, it’s not. I’ve just had a phone call from a new client.”
“It’s my day off,” she reminded.
Her boss didn’t appear to hear her protest. “He could be really good for business. I wouldn’t normally ask, but…”
She did ask, all the time, above and beyond her normal employee duties, and Jamie always obliged. That was the trouble with working from home, she never really had a day off.
“Ask what, boss?”
“His name is Grayson Beckett.” Harper paused.
“Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“I guess not. I thought you would with your connections, that’s all.”
“I don’t move in those circles anymore.” Her reply came out curter than she’d intended. Having a privileged upbringing was not all it was cracked up to be.
“Anyway, he’s a werewolf; an alpha too,” Harper continued. “You can handle a were, can’t you?”
Jamie checked Willow was out of earshot. Her friend and neighbour knew she worked as an online chat coach for a dating agency, but she didn’t know it was a specific website for supernatural beings.
“Yes, I can handle a werewolf,” she whispered. Thanks to her mum marrying a warlock—her dear dad barely cold in the grave—she was no stranger to the supernatural world most humans were unaware of.
“Mr Beckett tried to sign up online last night, while you were on the chatline, but he said he couldn’t fathom how to work it. Claims he’s a bit of a technophobe.”
She pressed her lips together. Signing up to Love Bites dating agency was hardly rocket science, but it was part of her job description to help new clients through the process. Dumb, overgrown dog.
“Although I find that hard to believe since he’s super-rich and CEO of several companies.”
Jamie wasn’t impressed by money, but if he owned businesses, maybe this Grayson Beckett guy wasn’t such a dumb dog after all. “Can’t Zarya help him? She’s on today.”
“No, he specifically asked for you.”
The vagueness in Harper’s tone made Jamie sit up. “Why would he ask for me?”
“He wants you to go to his house to help him sign up. I’m sorry, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“We don’t offer personal visits.”
“He’s paying ten times the normal subscription fee,” her boss told her. “He’s insisting you come today, within the hour. I would have gone myself, but there’s no way I can get there from London, and he lives not too far from you.”
She already hated the guy. Just because he was rich didn’t mean he could always get what he wanted by flashing his cash. “I can’t just drop everything, Harper.”
“Please, Jamie. This could bring in a lot of new clients. Think of all those eligible, testosterone-filled werewolves from his pack that might be looking for a mate too.” Another pause down the line. “I’d pay you more if I thought you needed the money, but this would really help me out.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. She always was a sucker for helping people. “Okay, I’ll meet this Mr Beckett dork and show him the ropes, but this has to be a one-off, okay?
”
“You’re a star, Jamie, thank you. I’ll text you his address. And be nice!”
“I’m always nice.” Except when someone wronged her; like when she’d walked in on her fiancé and her bridesmaid having sex on her wedding day. She said goodbye to Harper and switched off her phone.
Willow returned, two glasses in her hands.
“Sorry, the mojitos will have to wait. I have to go to a client’s house to help him sign up to the dating agency.”
“I thought it was an online thing?” said Willow.
“It is, but the douche bag can’t work out how to do it, apparently.”
Her phone tinged with a text message. The werewolf’s address. Beckett Hall: she’d heard of it, but she didn’t know the country mansion was owned by an arrogant alpha were. She checked the time on her phone. It would take her at least thirty minutes to get there.
“I have to go.” She headed for the door. “I get the feeling this Grayson Beckett isn’t someone who likes to be kept waiting—he’s paying ten times the fee.”
Willow waggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, he’s rich? Sounds more alpha male than douche bag. Could be interesting.”
Jamie laughed at her innocent reference. If she knew what a real alpha was capable of, she wouldn’t be so keen. “Stop with your matchmaking, Willow, it’s not happening. You know I’m off the market for good.”
“You can’t let one cheating loser ruin the rest of your life, Jamie.” Willow sipped her drink. “It was five years ago.”
Yeah, five years, but she remembered her disastrous wedding day like it happened yesterday. There was no way she would ever trust another guy again. “He could be God’s gift for all I care. I’m going in a professional capacity.” She spoke to her Chihuahua. “Come on, Cujo, we have to go.”
“Wait, you can’t go looking like that.”
Jamie looked at her attire; jersey leggings with a hole in the seam and an oversized hoodie. “I suppose I should change but I’ll have to be quick.” She grabbed the mojito from Willow and swigged a mouthful. “Save the rest for me when I get back.”
“Jamie, wait…”
She didn’t hear her friend as she flew out the door and ran to her flat across the hall, Cujo yapping at her heels.
She sprinted through her exclusive apartment—an investment, along with other properties, paid for with some of her inheritance from Dad—and headed into the dressing room. She wasn’t short of clothes, but these days she preferred to wear more casual attire, like jeans, T-shirts, trackie bottoms and baggy sweatshirts, which suited her work-from-home lifestyle.
After yanking the hoodie over her head, Jamie tossed it on the floor and rummaged through the rack. She found what she had in mind.
An ice-blue fitted dress with capped sleeves. She slipped it over her head and then wriggled it down her hips at the same time as taking off her leggings.
The smart dress skimmed her slim frame perfectly, but its length stopped further up her thighs than she remembered. “What do you think, Cujo? Too short?”
Her cute dog tilted his head to one side.
The clock was ticking. It would have to do.
She slipped her feet into the highest shoes she could find; nude-coloured, which made her legs look longer than they were—and adding extra height to her five feet two-and-a-half-inch frame never went amiss.
Jamie grabbed a handbag and threw in her purse and car keys. As an afterthought, she retrieved the necklace her mum gave her—one of the few things she’d ever given her, although it was her warlock husband who’d insisted Jamie wear it. A crystal vial containing a spelled sleeping powder; powerful stuff that could knock out any magical creature for hours. After all, she was meeting an alpha werewolf; better safe than sorry.
Jamie scooped Cujo up and placed him gently into the bag too. She fetched her laptop from her bedroom, shoved it into its carry case and headed out of her apartment.
Luckily, the traffic out of town wasn’t too horrendous and she was soon on the main dual carriageway, heading into open countryside. She might make it within the hour, as Mr Beckett had unreasonably insisted, as long as she didn’t miss the turnoff, which was difficult to find according to Harper’s directions.
She muttered to herself, questioning her inability to say no to people when they needed her help, like being a guinea pig for Willow.
Jamie glanced in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes widened in horror.
In her haste, she’d forgotten her makeup session. She still looked like a flipping Oompa Loompa.
Her ten-year-old Fiesta swerved into the grass verge, forcing her to focus. Cujo stirred inside Jamie’s handbag but went back to sleep.
Too late to do anything about her orange foundation now, and it wasn’t as if she was worried what the douche bag werewolf thought of her. As long as she remained professional and did her job, who cared if she’d been Tangoed?
Passing a huge oak tree, she spotted the concealed entrance ahead, virtually invisible from the road, with overgrown hedgerows either side. She’d driven this dual carriageway hundreds of times and never noticed it, but then, she hadn’t been looking for it before today.
She slowed and turned left.
The single lane twisted through a wooded area for a mile or so. Potholes at every turn slowed her journey more, and her car’s suspension system took quite a battering. Poor Gloria did not sound pleased.
Jamie checked her watch. She was late.
At last, the lane opened into a gravelled courtyard. Nestled amongst mature oaks and elms sat an impressive country mansion. Turn of the century, by the looks of the architecture.
Jamie pulled up to the side of the building, grabbed her laptop case and handbag and leapt out of her car. Cujo woke and poked his head out of her handbag.
With her stilettos kicking up the gravel, she headed for the stone steps that led to a wide, seven feet high front door. It opened before she got there.
Jamie’s steps faltered.
A giant of a guy with long, shaggy hair the colour of ebony faced her, his massive frame making mincemeat of the doorway.
Holy crap! Jason Momoa eat your heart out.
He wore a faded black T-shirt that showed off biceps the size of melons and a chest built like a wall. Khaki combat trousers and walking boots completed his look, along with leather plaited bracelets and a silver ring depicting a skull.
Aren’t werewolves supposed to be allergic to silver?
Never mind. What was wrong with her? No man, werewolf or otherwise, had made her belly tingle for a long time—not that she was interested. Men were off the menu, and she was here on business. “Hello, I’m Jamie Osborne from Love Bites dating agency. I believe Mr Beckett is expecting me?”
“I am. You’re late,” came his rude reply, his deep voice gravelly and sexy, and… Stop it, Jamie.
Squaring her shoulders, she climbed the stone steps to his level. Although thankful she’d gone for the high heels, it didn’t help with the height difference. The guy towered above her like one of the age-old trees that surrounded his mansion.
His nostrils twitched as he sniffed the air. “You’re human?” He seemed genuinely surprised.
She offered her hand. “Yes, I am. And you’re a werewolf. Is that going to be a problem?”
Chapter Two
“No, it’s not a problem.” His tone suggested the opposite.
“Sorry I’m late, Mr Beckett,” Jamie continued. “If it wasn’t for all those potholes in the lane, I would have got here sooner.”
She bit her lip. Maybe that hadn’t been the best excuse, complaining about the state of what was probably a private road.
His jaw hardened. He didn’t shake her hand. “Not that it’s any of your business, Ms Osborne, but I don’t own the lane. Its state of disrepair does help to keep unwelcome visitors at bay though.”
She got the impression she was the unwelcome visitor, despite him insisting she came within the hour. Jamie dropped her hand, but she refused to be int
imidated by the gruff giant. “I can come back later if it’s not convenient, but it won’t take long. I’ll take you through the sign-up process on my laptop in no time.” She smiled sweetly. “It’s really not that difficult.” He might be built like a rhino, but he was still a dumb technophobe.
At that moment, a movement behind him caught her dog’s attention and before she knew what was happening, Cujo leapt out of her bag and ran between the guy’s legs, straight into his home.
Jamie slapped a palm to her cheek. “Cujo! Oh my God, I’m so sorry. He doesn’t usually leave my side.”
His surly attitude softened, and a hint of amusement glinted behind dreamy eyes the colour of mocha. Intriguing flecks of gold caught the afternoon sunlight like glitter.
“You named your Chihuahua Cujo?” His mouth curled into a smile.
“What’s wrong with that? Sorry, I need to find him.” She craned her neck to look around him.
He laughed, a deep rumble inside his chest that made her stomach tingle again.
“You’d better come in then.” He stood back to let her in. “Anything to do with the book of the same name?”
His frame still filled most of the space. As she side-shuffled past, standing as tall as she could, he put his hand on the open door, trapping her.
Heat radiated off his body. His scent surrounded her, earthy and masculine.
Her cheeks warmed. Crap, her face must look like a red and orange sunset now. She met his intense gaze. “Yes, but he’s not rabid, I promise.”
“I couldn’t tell by the way he shot through my legs.”
Did he have to mention legs? Hers were turning to jelly. “I thought it was funny, that’s all.”
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