Claimed by the Mountain Daddy (Mountain Daddy Matches #1)

Chapter 1

one

Marshall

"You're completely whipped." I stare at John across the poker table, watching him check his phone for the fifth time in ten minutes. "She's got you trained like one of those performing dogs at the fair."

John doesn't even bother denying it, just grins like the lovesick idiot he is. "Bunny made cookies for you assholes. They're in the kitchen if you want some."

Rex and Geoff abandon their cards immediately.

Traitors both of them. But I can't really blame them - Bunny's cookies are legitimately legendary.

The woman's turned John's sparse bachelor pad into something that smells like vanilla and has pink throw pillows on every available surface. It's disturbing to witness.

"Speaking of whipped," John says, shuffling cards with that annoying smirk of his, "you owe me, Le Croix."

"The hell I do."

"The bet. You lost fair and square. Time to pay up."

Right. The stupid bet about him keeping Bunny after their fake Valentine's date.

I'd been so certain he'd come to his senses within a week, realize the age gap and the lifestyle differences were too much.

Now they're practically married and she calls him "Daddy" in public without a hint of embarrassment.

"What do you want?" I pull out my wallet, but John waves me off with one hand.

"Not money. You're doing the library thing."

"What library thing?"

"Blind Date with a Book. It's some Valentine's event the library's running. You match with a book and a person based on an algorithm or some bullshit like that."

"Absolutely not. Find something else."

"You welching on a bet, Le Croix?" Rex calls from the kitchen, mouth full of cookie. "That's not very honorable for a military man."

I flip him off, but he's got a point. I don't welch on bets. Military honor and all that ingrained bullshit.

"Fine. When is this nightmare?"

"Tomorrow night. Seven PM. And wear something that doesn't scream 'I'll murder you in your sleep and enjoy it.'"

The next evening, I'm standing outside Darkmore Public Library feeling like a complete idiot. Paper hearts decorate the windows like some kind of Valentine's explosion. A hand-lettered sign reads: "Blind Date with a Book - Find Your Perfect Match!"

Christ.

Inside, an older woman at the front desk directs me to the back room where the event's being held. "Charlotte's running it tonight. She's our new assistant librarian. Sweet girl, bit shy, but she's done absolute wonders with our romance collection. You'll love her."

I follow hearts taped to the floor - seriously, actual paper hearts like we're in elementary school - to a reading room that's been transformed into something straight out of one of those romance novels my sister used to read.

Soft lighting, comfortable chairs arranged in intimate clusters, books wrapped in brown paper with cryptic descriptions written in looping, feminine handwriting.

And standing on a rolling ladder, reaching for something on the top shelf, is a woman who makes me stop dead in my tracks.

She's wearing a pencil skirt that's hiked up from stretching, revealing the backs of her thighs.

Narrow waist flaring dramatically to generous hips and an ass the skirt is struggling valiantly to contain.

White blouse tucked in all professional, hair twisted up in a messy bun held precariously by a pencil.

She's muttering to herself, completely oblivious to my presence.

"Contemporary romance, historical, paranormal... Who requested these be sorted by 'steam level'? That's not even a real classification system in the Dewey Decimal—"

The book she's reaching for falls. Instinct has me moving before I think, catching it easily. I glance at the cover - "The Duke's Secret Bride" with some shirtless aristocrat on it. Standard historical romance fare.

"Interesting reading material for a librarian."

She squeaks like a startled mouse and wobbles dangerously on the ladder.

I steady it with one hand, looking up at her properly.

She's got the biggest brown eyes I've ever seen behind thick-rimmed glasses, and from this angle, I can fully appreciate how her narrow waist flares into those generous hips.

She's built like a perfect pear, all soft curves in exactly the right places for grabbing.

"I need to know the collection!" She's scrambling down now, face flushed crimson. "For recommendations! Reader's advisory is a very important part of library science and I can't properly suggest books to patrons if I haven't read them myself and understood the various subgenres and tropes and—"

"Come down before you hurt yourself." I use my command voice, the one that used to make military men jump to attention without question.

She immediately starts climbing down, then seems to realize she obeyed without thinking about it first. Interesting. When she bends to pick up another book that fell, that pencil skirt stretches dangerously across her ass. Made for grabbing, for spanking, for worship.

"I'm Marshall. Here for the book blind date thing."

"Oh! Yes! Of course! I'm Charlotte. Charlie.

Either is fine, really, whatever you prefer.

Or Miss Book, which is unfortunately my actual legal name and yes, I know, a librarian named Book, it's very on the nose and people joke about it constantly but I promise I didn't go into this profession just because of my surname even though it does seem—"

"Charlie." She stops rambling mid-sentence, her mouth snapping shut. "Where do I sign up?"

She leads me to a table covered with cards and wrapped books, her movements quick and efficient despite her obvious nervousness.

"You fill out your preferences on this card, then I match you with a book based on the algorithm I developed.

It's supposed to be fun and promote literacy and bring the community together for Valentine's Day and hopefully get people interested in reading more romance because it's such an underappreciated genre and—"

"Do you always talk this much when you're nervous?"

She blinks up at me, those brown eyes enormous behind her glasses. "How did you know I'm nervous?"

"You're fidgeting with your glasses. Adjusting them every three seconds even though they're not crooked."

"Well, that's very observant of you."

"Military training. Notice everything, trust nothing, survive everything."

"That sounds incredibly lonely," she says quietly, and something in her voice makes it sound less like an observation and more like genuine sympathy.

The comment catches me completely off guard. Most people say "thank you for your service" or some other hollow patriotic bullshit that doesn't mean anything. Not this little librarian with her romance novels and soft voice and apparently genuine concern for a stranger's emotional wellbeing.

I fill out the card, checking random preferences because I don't actually give a shit about any of this. Charlie takes it from me with both hands, studies it with adorable seriousness, her brow furrowed in concentration like she's decoding some kind of ancient text.

"Based on your answers, you should match with..." She sorts through the wrapped books. "This one. Definitely this one."

I unwrap it slowly, already knowing this is going to be ridiculous. It's another romance novel - "Her Daddy's Rules" by someone called Scarlett Flame. The title alone tells me exactly what kind of book this is.

"There's been a mistake."

"The algorithm doesn't lie!" She's immediately defensive of her system, which is actually kind of endearing in a nerdy, passionate way. "And your human match is..." She goes pale as she reads the card in her hand, her eyes widening. "Oh. Oh no."

"What's wrong?"

"It's... me. But that's wrong. That can't be right. I'm running the event, not participating in it. I shouldn't even be in the system. I don't know how—"

I look at the card she's holding with white-knuckled intensity. Look at the romance novel in my hand with "Daddy" right there in the goddamn title. Look at the way she's biting her lower lip nervously, worrying it between her teeth.

"Seems like the algorithm knows exactly what it's doing."

"This is really inappropriate and I should probably re-run the matching because there's clearly been some kind of error with the database and—"

"Seven PM tomorrow? We can read our matched books together. Isn't that the point of this thing?"

"I don't think that's a good idea because of the professional boundaries and—"

"Charlie." Command voice again, firm and brooking no argument. "Seven PM tomorrow."

She nods automatically, then looks annoyed at herself for nodding without thinking. "Fine. But it's just reading. Just books. Nothing else."

"Whatever you say, Miss Book."

I leave her there, flustered and adjusting her glasses unnecessarily. John's going to laugh his ass off when he hears about this.

I've got a date with a librarian who reads daddy dom romance and responds to authority like she's been waiting her whole life for someone to give her orders.

This should be very interesting.