The Lyon's Cub Caitlin (Lyon The Next Generation 1)

I never discussed her or what I was doing with my friends when they asked where I kept disappearing to in the afternoons, and by then I’d stopped listening to the others when they brought her up.

It was hard not pounding my fists in their faces when they talked about how hot she was and what they’d like to do to her, with her; but I didn’t want to give anything away, not yet, not until I’d made her mine. Then I’d stomp their asses into dust for talking shit.

I warned myself early on to keep watching her from afar, to hold off on making my approach. I knew I needed to give her time to grow up before making my move, but I was damned if I was going to let anyone else get there before me, so I kept her in my sights while secretly getting updates on her, on what she was up to. Mostly I wanted to know if she liked anyone, if I had any competition.

That’s how I learned that she was being bullied by this overgrown asshole who’d been left back so many times he could apply for a job as custodian. He wasn’t new to me; we’d crossed paths before but never got into it because he knew better.

I hated his guts just on principal alone and we didn’t hang in the same circles so there was never any need for us to be in each other’s face. He was known for picking on anyone he thought was weaker than him, and no one seemed willing to check him on his shit, not even the teachers who were supposed to. Until the day he went after her and I ended his reign.

I guess I have him to thank for our relationship getting off the ground much sooner than I’d had planned. It’s because of him that I’d come out of the shadows so to speak.

I’d been more than happy to wait, to watch and bide my time from the sidelines, but on that day she became mine whether she knew it or not and I’ve been glad ever since that I didn’t wait like I’d planned to or I would’ve missed so much.

We became an item within the first week of me coming to her rescue and she quickly became the best part of my childhood, the leading star in all of my fondest memories.

From the first words that we shared until now I never wanted anything more than to be close to her, to be the only one to bask in that special glow that emanates from her in spades. Her tinkling laugh still makes me sweat, and her eyes, those eyes that seem to look into my soul and see only the best of me, still haunt my dreams.

She has a strange effect on me, something I’d noticed from the start. It’s not something I can put into words, not so you’d understand. But with her, there was none of the usual teenage angst. I didn’t feel the need to be anyone but myself; didn’t have to do anything stupid to impress her, but it was more than that.

I didn’t feel the need to rush into anything. I enjoyed the wait and still do, because somehow always in the back of my mind, I knew that we’d grow old together. Just the thought of her not being mine is enough to make me physically ill.

That’s because my baby is one gorgeous angel; so beautiful that it’s sometimes hard to believe that she’s real. That anything that beautifully perfect inside and out could be of this world.

She’s blessed with a rare otherworldly beauty that drives other girls nuts and makes the male of the species stupid, ergo the bully who was trying to get her attention in his bumbling way, the fuck. But still it’s more than that; it’s who she is, unexplainable.

I’d heard the whispers about her long before the day I went looking for her. Because I’m older we didn’t move in the same circles, but that year she was all-the buzz at our school. Not only because she’d skipped a couple of grades because of her extreme intelligence, but there were whispers about her unnatural beauty as well.

It seems she’d caught the attention of everyone when she moved from middle school to high school a year early, but it was a whole year later when she hit puberty and started blossoming that the gossip mill in the locker room really kicked into high gear.

Suddenly she was all anyone could talk about. And the reason they did nothing more than talk was because of her dad’s reputation. Everyone was scared shitless to come at her for fear of word getting back to him. Except Brian apparently whose dad is as big a bully as he is and was the source of his bravado.