CHAPTER TEN

Marcella shut her room door and immediately headed toward her altar, of sorts, set up at the end of the dresser.

Soren, pushy bastard that he was, opened the door she’d closed on him and let out a frustrated breath. He muttered something in what was probably Romanian.

Rolling her eyes, she heeled off her shoes. “What do you want?”

“I was going to assist you in putting in your queries to Drea. I believe you said you wanted to sleep.”

“And I will.” Sighing, she pressed her palms to the edge of the dresser and closed her eyes. “Do you not trust me to be efficient in managing my time?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I—”

“You didn’t ask for assistance. Yes, I am aware of this. I choose to assist, however. I urge you to let me.”

“Will you be more insufferable tomorrow if I make you leave now?”

“Without a doubt.”

He was honest, which gave him one redeeming quality, at least.

She turned and leaned her ass against the dresser, folding her arms over her chest.

He passed his phone from one large hand to the other and watched her with the intensity of a referee calling an NBA game. His focus unsettled her. She was used to more laid-back men—men who didn’t like the frustration she caused them, and who gave her space with little provocation. No wonder she couldn’t handle him. She needed a different playbook.

“Okay.” She shrugged. “Fine. I’ll get my computer and will see if there’s a wireless Internet connection here.”

Finally, he looked elsewhere—to the computer she hadn’t taken out of its case since she’d arrived.

It was a three-year-old machine that looked brand new. Marcella didn’t use her laptop often when she was on the road, or even at home. She wasn’t one for keeping detailed notes about her cases or for relying on web searches to get background information. The information she needed was rarely available on public sites, but she could certainly see the benefits of working with people who had access to private databases.

“If there’s no Wi-Fi here,” he said, “I’ll tether my phone to your computer so you can have cellular Internet. The connection won’t be fast, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Always prepared, hmm?”

“Stay in the business as long as I have, and you’ll pick up plenty of tricks. Having Peter doing the same job means we can share news about resources with each other. We don’t compete.” He added in a murmur, “There are plenty of derelicts out there to pummel.”

“That sounds nice.” She set the computer on the peeling faux wood table beneath the air conditioner and stabbed the power button with her index finger. “I mean, having someone who knows what you do and being certain they’re not judging you. Not the pummeling part.”

“Maria doesn’t judge you.”

“True. She doesn’t. I keep waiting for her to, but she’s not going to, is she? I’m not used to having that sort of familial relationship yet.” She paused speaking so she could type in her startup password and then pulled a chair out from the table to sit. “I haven’t explained to her everything that I do, and she’s good at not asking questions I don’t want to answer yet. It’s not her who I fear will think badly of me, but the people who already have.”

“Who?”

She was glad her back was to him. She hated how harmless conversations turned personal far too quickly, and she wasn’t good at talking about those things. In her family, women held their cards close to their chests and didn’t seek solace from outsiders.

“Rely on yourself,” her grandmother had always told her. “No one else will get you.”

She’d been right, of course. She was always right. As Marcella had gotten older, though, she’d learned that there were nuances in “right.” Variables were different depending on location, on time, and…on person.

On a whim, she clicked the Wi-Fi bar at the top of her screen and, sure enough, there was an unsecured motel connection. All she needed to do to connect was type in her last name and room number.

“Well?” Soren asked.

She let out a breath and waited for her browser page to finish loading. Slow Internet was better than no Internet. “Just people at home,” she said. “Which is funny because we have a deep culture of non-mainstream religious and spiritual practices. I think that when people have legitimate gifts, others don’t know how to treat them. It’s easy to say you believe in something when the something is out of sight and out of mind, but when the thing is right in front of you…” She shook her head and navigated to webmail.

“You deserve respect.”

“What makes you think that? You don’t even know me.” She pushed the chair back. She’d left the contract Pamela had given her somewhere in the room. Like her grandmother, she had an unfortunate knack for setting things down after passing through a doorway and then not remembering where.

“Everyone deserves respect, at least until they do something to make you rescind it,” he said.

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Trust me. I’ve never been too slow in revoking my trust.”

“Interesting.” She found the papers. Soren was half sitting on them. Sighing, she wriggled them out from under his thigh.

“You could have simply asked,” he said.

“Faster to act.”

“And of course, if I’d done you a favor, you would have had to have said ‘thank you.’”

“I have no aversion to saying those words.”

“Even to me?” He raised a brow.

“You didn’t come in here to help me. You came in here to frustrate me and goad me.”

“I assure you, I’m here in a professional capacity.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “And perhaps to find out what you did with the other half of the sandwich. You didn’t let me finish.”

“You can’t seriously be hungry.”

“I’m a Bear.” He said the words as if there was some overarching certainty she should have absorbed.

She didn’t know where the sandwich was, either. Another thing she’d set down. Grimacing, she scratched the back of her head. “I… Maybe it’s in the SUV. I don’t remember taking the bag out. Why don’t you go get it?”

“If I go out, you’ll lock me out.”

She shrugged. “Yes, I most certainly will.”

“So, you go get it.”

“No.” She draped her jacket over the back of the armchair near the dresser and flipped the pages of the packet as she retreated to the table. She wanted Drea to check Pamela’s license information first, and then dig up whatever she could find on Kim, and then research the two addresses on the back page. She could do some cursory searching on her own, but nothing as deep as Drea could do.

She’d barely gotten her ass plopped onto the seat when Soren loomed behind her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Forcing a growl through her clenched teeth, she typed in the header information on the email. “Move, beast.”

“I’m hungry.”

“The problem seems to have a simple solution.”

“Either you get the sandwich, or you give me your key.”

“I’m not doing either.”

“Then you’ll come with me.”

“Also not doing that.” She started the message with Dear Drea, and then deleted that because the Shrews weren’t so concerned with formalities. She tried again with, Drea:

“Tell me you won’t lock me out,” he said.

“I won’t make that promise.”

Drea: please let me know if this format suits you—if you’d like all my queries in one message, or if I should send a separate email for each research item next time.

“She’s not picky,” he said. “After all, she’s mated to Peter, right? How much less picky could a person get?”

“Not being snarky at all—I believe Peter and Andrea both have what they need and deserve. And stop reading over my shoulder.”

“I could be halfway across the room right now with a sandwich in hand and my mouth shut around it.”

“Ugh.” She forced her seat back yet again and stomped to the door. “You’re supposed to be in your own room which isn’t even here. I should have tried harder to shake you off at the airport.”

“You’re my mate. I still would have found you eventually,” he said from the doorway. He pressed the unlock button on the key fob, and the SUV’s lights flashed in her eyes.

The sandwich box was on the floor in the back, as was her forgotten water bottle. She grabbed both and shut the door.

Soren let her back into the room, fortunately without making her squeeze past his big body. She thrust the sandwich at him and shooed him away. He’d be done in thirty seconds, probably, but that would be thirty seconds that she could use to think.

First item: Could you please check Georgia plate CRR-2938? It’s attached to a Buick Roadmaster driven by a woman named Pamela Monroe.

“Stuffy in here,” Soren murmured. “Old motel rooms seem to all have that in common.”

Marcella rolled her eyes, but leaned over to turn the air conditioner’s fan up to the next level.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said absently, typing some more.

Second item: Could you please check for biographical information about a child of Pamela named Kim? Surname unknown. (I don’t know specifically what I’m looking for. Asking a witch to explain bad feelings is like asking a philosopher explain existence.)

Not wanting Drea to think she was completely mental, she deleted the sentence in the parentheses.

“This is good. What kind of sauce is this?” Soren asked.

“I don’t know. Something with mayonnaise, I’m sure.”

“You should order the same tomorrow.”

“Why, so you can eat it for me? I’ll pass. Once was enough for me.”

“You can’t live on salad. I tell Maria that every time I see her.”

“I eat plenty of meat. Not the entire animal all at once, however.”

She typed:

See what you can pull up on her, and I’ll send follow-up questions once I know what I’m looking for.

 

Last: I have two addresses for you to research. I will fill Dana in on the background in a separate message and CC you. To suffice, for now, they were on a research study form signed by a local made-Bear.

She painstakingly copied the addresses into the message and checked them against the paper twice to make sure the information was all accounted for. She was still trying to internalize U.S. address conventions.

“I don’t think you’ve had enough calories today,” Soren said.

“Have you been counting for me?” she murmured. “That’s sweet of you.”

“Not counting. Observing. Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” And besides, he’d likely swallowed whole the thing she would have been eating, anyway. “I’ll be fine until breakfast.”

“Is tomorrow’s breakfast going to be the same as what you had for today’s breakfast?”

“My breakfast this morning was perfectly adequate.”

“Adequate for people who eat breakfast twice, perhaps.”

“Stop talking.”

“Stop starving.”

“If I had a knife, I’d throw it at you.”

“It’d never get close. My reflexes are too fast. However, if you’ve got witchy stuff to toss at me, I may not have defenses against those.”

She looked over her shoulder at him.

He shrugged. “Depends on what they are. I’m not convinced any non-physical thing you do to me will affect me, but you can try. What can you do?”

“I—”

She hissed and pounded her thighs with frustration. The words had been about to tumble out as if he were some chatty girlfriend she was used to telling all her secrets without a second thought. It was as though the lever that controlled her verbal filter had gotten stuck in the open position for a moment.

Giving her head a clearing shake, she turned back to her computer and finished the message to Drea.

As badly as she wanted to tell someone—anyone—what kind of oddity she was, the person couldn’t be him.

Her mother had never told her father the whole truth, either, and that was probably for the best. Women like them couldn’t keep lovers. How could they, when their men couldn’t keep their arms around them long enough to comfort them when they needed to be?

___

“What are you doing?” Soren was leaning over the back of Marcella’s chair again, but other than sighing loudly, she hadn’t complained. He considered that to be progress.

“I’m sending Dana an email recapping what we learned about the Bears here.”

“Normally, I call when I need to do a mid-job debriefing. I talk faster than I type.” He splayed a hand in front of her eyes. “Big fingers. Makes for clumsy typing. Good for other things, though.” He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She sighed. “Behave yourself. And calling would mean waiting for morning. This is efficient, and I can communicate more clearly.”

“She’s going to end up calling you for clarification, anyway.”

“Fine. And when Dana does…” Marcella’s words trailed off as her fingers sped even faster over the keys. She hit the return button a few times and then, at the bottom of the message, listed all of her phone numbers.

Soren fumbled at getting his phone out of his pocket to take a picture of the digits. She hit send before he could get the camera app open.

Damn it.

“And when she does…” Marcella turned and, obviously noting he was closer than she’d realized, leaned her torso back toward the table edge. “She’ll have a good starting point to refer to.”

He shrugged. “We’ll try your way, then.”

“Of course we’re going to do this my way. This is my investigation, or had you forgotten already?”

He hadn’t forgotten. He simply thought Marcella trying to exclude him was silly. Knowing what he knew about the decision-makers at Shrew & Company, he had full confidence that as long as the situation was somehow resolved, Marcella would get the job. Dana wouldn’t give a shit that Soren had interfered, nor would Sarah.

His stare slipped down to her loose neckline, and he let out a breath, trying to keep the bear in him from becoming distracted by the smooth brown flesh there. He closed his eyes, but cutting off one sense made others work harder. His nose was picking up the notes of fragrance in her hair, or…

Instinctively, he leaned downward, letting his skin steer him toward the warmth of her, stopping when he could feel the tickle of her breathing on the side of his neck.

Some sort of perfume.

She’d dabbed something onto her skin, and the fragrance was so subtle that what he was catching had probably been applied days before. Flowers of some sort. Powdery, but light and fresh.

“Soren,” she warned.

“What is that scent?”

“What scent?”

He opened his eyes so he would see where to point. He did more than pointing, though. He slid his fingertip along her collarbone, breath speeding, and heart racing as he did.

Touching her was a taboo pleasure, and he fully expected that at any moment, she’d smack his hand away, or swear at him, or something.

She did none of those things, though. She angled her chin downward, peering at his finger. “I’m not sure what you’re smelling.”

“Flowers and…powder, I think.”

Perhaps the scent was detergent, something in her clothes. Soren fisted a square of her shirt and brought his nose down to it.

“Soren.” She tried to swat his hand away.

“Mmm?” Not the shirt. The scent was on her flesh.

“You’re an odd duck. Stop sniffing me.”

“I’m going to go nuts if I can’t figure out what that is.”

“For goodness’ sake, here.” Sighing, she gripped the back of his head and pulled him forward, crushing his nose against the bend of her neck. “Get your fill.”

And he wanted to, but was struck dumb by the disconnect between her commanding tone and the tension in her body. She was stiff against him, hardly breathing. Barely tolerating him, really, but at the same time, her hormones were painting a different picture. They suggested excitement in addition to the apprehension—a tempered curiosity, perhaps.

Letting his fingers curl around the chair arms, he drew in a deep inhalation, ignoring the notes of the perfume she’d applied and concentrating more on the fragrance that was natural.

Warm blood and a sweetness he didn’t understand.

“What is that?” he whispered, pulling his nose up her neck, brazenly skimming his lips behind them. “What are you carrying in you?”

Being so near her, her swallow was bombastic and startling to his ear, but he didn’t shrink back for long.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“You’re not wearing anything, are you? That’s your scent.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it. I don’t smell the same things as you. And are you quite done?” She tried so hard to sound impatient, but her body betrayed her. Her muscles were relaxing, her posture becoming less rigid. Her heart was still beating in frantic staccatos, though.

“Tell me about you,” he said. “Tell me what sort of creature you are.”

“Go away, Soren.”

“Tell me your secrets.”

“You assume I have any to share.” Her fingertips worked over his scalp in a pattern that, at first, startled him into wondering if she were applying some sort of hex to him. Then he realized she wasn’t making a pattern at all, but rhythmic circles. Massaging without realizing she was.

He descended slowly onto his knees lest she pull her hand away. He didn’t want her to stop touching him so tenderly, and he wanted to know why she smelled the way she did. Having spent his adult life tracking supernatural oddities, he’d thought he’d discovered everything there was out there to find. She wasn’t just a witch. He knew witches. There was something else going on with her.

His breath staggered out as he put his head on her lap and slid his hands up her thighs in search of something to grip.

She stopped rubbing.

He turned his head toward her belly and peered up at her through the corner of his eye.

Her brow was still wrinkled with confusion, but her expression had, overall, softened. “Are…all shapeshifters so intrusive?”

“Depends. Put your hands in my hair again.”

“Depends on what?”

“Put your hands in my hair,” he repeated with urgency. “Touch me.”

“Even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t. You can do what you like, but I’m on the job right now.”

“What you do in your downtime is your business. You don’t have to include this in your official report to the Shrews.”

“What is the this you’re referencing?”

Her hands weren’t on him. They’d retreated to the arms of his chair, and the beast in him was frustrated that he’d have to beg for the smallest amount of petting. He reached up and relocated her hands from the arms to his head, and then settled the side of his face atop the seam between her legs once more.

“Soren… What is this?”

“This is you driving me wild. It’s a Bear being a Bear who’s been told not to act like one. Rub me.”

She rubbed, but he heard the catch of a snicker in her chest.

“This isn’t professional,” she said. “You’re a distraction.”

“I would have been less of one if you’d been kinder back in North Carolina. We wouldn’t have gotten to this point if you’d soothed me then.”

“So, you interfering in a job that’s very important to me is my fault? You’re barely giving me an inch of space to work.”

“You can’t stop me from interfering unless you chain me up and lock me away. You don’t get to run away from me.”

“You sound exactly like a menace.” Her fingertips toyed with the top of his ear, making tender swipes along the shell.

“I admit I’m a menace.”

“And you think I should be tolerant of that? That I should embrace bad behavior?”

He caught the hem of her shirt with his thumb and fidgeted with the fabric. “The behavior is simply part of the package. Like with any other commodity, if you don’t like the way a product behaves, fix it.”

“You make that sound easy.” Her strokes of his scalp became long, leisurely swipes. Her fingertips meandered along his hairline and across his eyebrows. “Every woman knows to stay away from the men who need fixing. My mother could tell you why.” Her fingers stopped. “And Maria’s, too, if she were alive.”

He didn’t know what to say in response to that. On the one hand, she shouldn’t have borne the responsibility of making him tolerable to be around. But on the other, there wasn’t any other woman he would let in to do the work. He’d had his fun—had played the field the way men his age were prone to do.

He didn’t know what he’d needed, much less what he’d wanted, but none of those women had been right.

Marcella was right for him, but if he couldn’t explain why or how, would she believe he wasn’t merely talking more shit?

He sighed.

Doubt it.