A Pair of Bears: Bear Shifter Menage Paranormal Romance (2 page)

“You don’t care about strangers seeing you naked,” she remarked.

Eli shook his head. “I’ve spent too much time in barracks and in the field, jammed in together with hundreds of other guys. There’s no privacy in the military. You get used to it.”

“What sort of military?”

“I’m—” A flicker of pain passed over his face. “I
was
a Navy SEAL. You know what that is?”

Paisley didn’t know a lot about them, but she’d heard that they were the best of the best. But she didn’t want to give away that she was impressed to the guy who’d captured her with a bath towel, so she plastered on an unimpressed look and said, “Some kind of Special Forces. But I’ll tell you what I don’t know about: werebears. And werecats. So I must have been bitten by a werecat when I was a baby? And you guys were bitten by bears?”

Jackson emerged from the bathroom as she spoke. Paisley had pegged him correctly, too: he wore a black suit with a blue silk tie, silver cufflinks, and polished shoes. She couldn’t help noticing how good he looked, with the tailored lines of the suit showing off his broad shoulders and slim hips. She also couldn’t help noticing that he, like Eli, still had a visible bulge in his pants.

“Neither of us were bitten,” Jackson said. “We were born bears. And we call ourselves bear shifters, not werebears. You’re a cat shifter. I’ve never heard of a baby getting bitten and turned— I wouldn’t think they’d be strong enough to survive that. So your mother wasn’t a shifter?”

Paisley shook her head. “She would have told me.  She always said I’d been born with a special, magical gift that I had to keep secret.  She had no idea why I was like that.”

“What about your father?” Eli asked.

“I never knew him,” Paisley replied. “He was a one-night stand Mom had in college, when she went to Burning Man. She never knew his last name and she didn’t get his number, so she had no way to tell him she’d gotten pregnant. But it was him, right? He was the werecat?”

“Cat shifter,” Jackson corrected, giving her that pained look she was so familiar with— the “Paisley, could you possibly be more tactless” look. “He must have been. So you grew up thinking you were the only one of your kind?”

“That must have been lonely,” Eli said unexpectedly.

Paisley bristled. She didn’t want to discuss her past or her private feelings with a pair of strange werebears who’d wrapped her up in a bath towel, no matter how hot they were.

“What do you want with me?” Paisley demanded. Once she began, everything she’d wondered about poured out. “You said you wanted to hire me— is that true? What for? How did you know I’d be here? Where’s the guy who’s supposed to be here? Do all you werebears know each other, or did you answer some ‘werebear seeks same’ ad? Do you know any other werecats? If you really do want to hire me, how much are you offering?”

She could have gone on, but Eli put up a hand. “Whoa. I think I’ve already lost track of the first couple questions.”

“I can start over,” Paisley offered.

“That’s okay,” Jackson said hastily. “I think this’ll make the most sense if we start from the beginning. I don’t know if all werebears— dammit, you’ve infected me— all
bear shifters
know each other, but a lot of us do. There are definitely other cat shifters, but I don’t know any personally. Eli and I grew up together in a little town in Maine. It’s got a couple families of bear shifters, and lots of forest for us to roam around in.”

“I don’t remember a time before I was best friends with Jackson,” Eli put in. “We’ve been buddies since we were five.”

“Three,” Jackson corrected him. “Then we graduated from high school, and we went our separate ways. Eli became a Navy SEAL, and I became—”

“A hacker,” said Eli.

Jackson elbowed him in the ribs. “An inventor. Hacking’s just a hobby. Anyway… Eli, do you want me to tell the next part?”

“No, it’s fine.” But from the grief and anger that tightened Eli’s jaw, Paisley realized that Jackson had been thinking it might be too painful a story to tell. She knew all about painful stories. “I can’t get into details. Most of our missions are classified. All I can tell you is that my team was issued new, lightweight body armor made by a company called SmartDefense. They told us it was state of the art, and would protect us much better than the older, heavier vests. There was an ambush, and one of my buddies, Ryan, was hit. The bullet went straight through his armor.”

Eli paused, his fists clenching. Jackson briefly rested his hand on Eli’s shoulder. Paisley also started to reach out, without even deciding to do it. Eli looked so sad, and she couldn’t help wanting to comfort him. Then she reminded herself that getting emotionally involved with people led to nothing but heartbreak. Paisley yanked back her hand, hoping neither man had noticed.

Jackson continued the story. “What Eli’s not going to tell you is that a bullet went through his armor too, when he ran into the line of fire to rescue his buddy. Eli made it. Ryan didn’t.”

Paisley remembered the puckered scar on Eli’s chest. If that was what it was from, he was lucky to have survived.

Eli went on, his voice roughened with emotion. “That was the end of my career as a SEAL. The bullet just barely missed my heart, and the surgeons couldn’t get it out. I can still do everything I used to do, but they wouldn’t clear me to go on any more missions.” 

Paisley could see what a blow that had been to him. Awkwardly, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Eli spoke as if her ordinary words had actually meant something to him. “Well, I reported that the new armor didn’t work. SmartDefense confiscated our vests for ‘testing.’ They sent back a report that Ryan and I had messed with our armor before the ambush, taking it apart to see how it was made, and we’d put it back together wrong. They said it worked perfectly if it was used as directed. So I took my medical discharge and went home, and I told Jackson about those fucking bulletproof vests that don’t stop bullets.”

The bitterness in his voice spoke to Paisley’s heart. Without meaning to, she heard herself saying, “That’s like what happened to my mom. Her car had a defective air bag. The company knew that sometimes the air bags exploded instead of inflating. But it was rare, so they didn’t do a recall. My mom got in a fender-bender, and her air bag blew up. A piece of metal hit her in the neck— killed her instantly. The only person who ever loved me
died
because some executive didn’t want to lose money on a recall.”

To her surprise, Eli and Jackson looked at her as if they understood. She’d always thought no one could possibly understand.

“We know,” said Eli.

Paisley froze. “What? How?”

Eli indicated Jackson. “Genius hacker here did some research.” 

Jackson’s smile was so bright that it lightened the atmosphere in the room. “I found a series of burglaries targeting the CEOs of companies that made dangerous, defective products, plus a handful of burglaries targeting con artists. Not to mention mysterious payments to the people they’d victimized. The earliest ones I could find targeted the company that had made the cars with the exploding airbags. I figured someone was playing Robin Hood.”

Paisley warily glanced from one man to the next. “So what if I am?”

“We have to expose SmartDefense,” Eli replied. “They’ve invested millions in developing that armor. And they were the low bidder for the Navy contract. Unless we can prove that the armor doesn’t work, it’ll be issued to the entire US Navy.”

Paisley stared at him, horrified. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” said Jackson. “The only way to stop them is to get hold of their product testing reports— the real ones, not the fake ones they showed the Navy. And some samples. We need to get into SmartDefense headquarters. And that means we need someone who can break into a building without anyone noticing.  I can hack their computers, but I’m not Spiderman.”

“I can kick in doors and knock out guards, but I’m not Spiderman either,” Eli said. “But you are.  We figured you were perfect for the job. But we wanted to see you in action, to see if you were really as good as we needed. So Jackson used his hacking skills to figure out who you’d picked as your next target, we planted the info that he was staying here, and you showed up, right on schedule.”

Paisley eyed them suspiciously. “Exactly what do you want me to do?”

“Break into SmartDefense, then let me and Jackson in,” Eli said. “He hacks the computers and gets the data, and I knock out the guards and steal some samples of the armor. You stick around in case we need you again, then we all get out.”

“We’re offering you five hundred thousand dollars for one night’s work,” Jackson said. When Paisley blinked in surprise, he added, “I’m a very successful inventor.”

Paisley thought it over. The money was good. If the men wanted to harm her or turn her into the police or blackmail her, they would have done so already. She normally worked alone, but she supposed she could manage to work with others, just this once. And it
was
a good cause.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

Jackson beamed. “Fantastic!”

Eli smiled. “Welcome to the team. I know we can count on you.”

Paisley tucked her towel firmly around her breasts, then started to stand. Each man offered her a hand up. As Paisley’s hands closed over theirs— Eli’s big and rough, Jackson’s long-fingered and smooth— a jolt went through her like an electric shock.

All three of them jumped. Paisley had never felt anything like the shock of that contact. It was a shot of adrenaline to the heart. It was a surge of desire so intense and overwhelming that she nearly ripped off her towel and threw herself at both men. And it was the undeniable conviction that all three of them were made for each other, like the interlocking pieces of a puzzle.

Jackson gasped.

“Whoa,” Eli muttered, rocking back.

“What was that?” Paisley asked.

Jackson and Eli exchanged glances. Paisley watched, unnerved, as their very different faces displayed the same emotions in turn: astonishment, realization, wry “wouldn’t you know it” amusement, and finally delight.

“You’re our mate,” Eli said.

“What?” Paisley was baffled. “What do you mean, mate?”

The men again looked at each other. Wariness crept into Eli’s blue eyes, and concern into Jackson’s brown ones.

“Don’t be scared,” Eli began, then frowned. “Shit, that’s a scary thing to say, right? Jackson, you explain.”

Jackson gave him a shove. “What, because I’m a harmless tech geek who couldn’t possibly scare anyone?”

“Exactly,” Eli said, smiling.

Paisley had no idea what was going on. All three of them were still holding hands. She knew she ought to let go, but she didn’t
want
to. She liked the warmth and strength of Eli’s and Jackson’s hands holding hers. It made her feel protected and loved.

I must be out of my mind
, she told herself.
These men are strangers. Why in the world would they protect me, let alone love me?

She wrenched her hands free. Immediately, she missed touching them. That was weird.

Strangers!
Paisley reminded herself. Strangers who’d set a trap for her, then grabbed her and practically smothered her in a bath towel.

Strangers whom she was dying to touch again. She was still trembling and hot from that inexplicable surge of desire. She shoved her hands under her thighs to stop herself from grabbing theirs again.

“Okay,” she said, turning to Jackson. “Explain.”

“So, just to start with, we’re not forcing you into anything,” Jackson began. “If you want to leave at any point, you can go.”

Quickly, Eli added, “Once we exchange numbers. We want to hire you no matter what, so don’t just leap out the window and vanish as soon as you hear Jackson’s explanation.”

Jackson sighed. “Eli, that’s also a scary thing to say.”

Paisley couldn’t help laughing at Eli’s put-upon expression. “Eli’s not that scary. Spit it out, whatever it is.”

“All shifters are born with a destined soulmate,” Jackson said. “They may never meet. But if they do, they’ll know the instant they touch each other.”

“A soulmate?” Paisley repeated incredulously. “Like, your true love?”

“That’s right,” Eli said. “Mates love each other for as long as they live. You know ‘till death do us part?’ Like that.”

Hearing those romantic words spoken so plainly by a tough guy like Eli made it feel real. At least, she believed that they believed it. And she’d sure felt
something
when they’d touched
.
But true love? Soulmates? Even if they did exist, Paisley wasn’t the sort of woman who’d have one.

She couldn’t believe it. She’d always been alone.  As far back as Paisley could remember, she’d known that she was the only one of her kind.

But she wasn’t. There were other people who could become animals. She was sitting right next to two of them. There were even other werecats!

A closed-off place in Paisley’s heart opened a crack. If she’d been wrong about being the world’s only werecat, maybe she’d been wrong about other things too. Maybe she
wasn’t
destined to be forever alone.