CHAPTER TWO

Soren Ursu waited until the Shrew had signed out her weapons and tucked them away before confronting her. For some reason, Sarah was always far more reasonable when she was strapped. Maybe her guns were like her security blankets.

“Why the fuck does she keep doing that?” he asked her.

“Doing what?” Sarah tossed her keys from hand to hand and then tilted her head toward the department’s side door.

He opened it for her. “You know what. Every time she sees me, she hauls ass to the nearest exit. That is, when she’s not sneering at me in that perfectly ineffective way.”

That frustration routine Marcella pulled might have worked on other men, but whether she cared to believe it or not, she was stuck with him. She’d imprinted on him when he’d been in the midst of mating fever, and the mania was irreversible.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t have chosen her without the Bear goddess’s pulling kismet’s stings. He would have, if circumstances were right, and not only because she had an ass the Earth should have been revolving around and lips he couldn’t stop imagining around a particular arrow-shaped part of him, but because she was fucking fierce.

Growly women turned him on.

“Ugh.” He dragged a hand through his greasy hair and followed Sarah across the parking lot. “Not gonna answer me?”

“No. I’m trying to put some space between you and me. Where the hell have you been? You smell like rotted fish.”

“The less you know, the better.”

“Not a gig for the Shrews?”

“No. For my father.” His father the “diplomat,” with his diplomatic duties being a convenient cover-up for the mercenary shit he’d made the family business.

“I thought you and Peter decided not to pick up any of your papa’s random-ass assignments after the last one went sideways on you.” She waggled her eyebrows and leaned against the driver’s door of the company SUV. “That’s what Tamara said, anyway, but maybe I heard her wrong. When she starts ranting we do our best to keep up. I was pretty sure I caught the gist, though.”

That sounded exactly like something his baby sister would say. Tamara was the kind of woman who could find something to say about pretty much anything, no matter how trifling. He and their brother Peter were used to her rocket-fueled spiels about everything and nothing, but even having known her for the better part of five years, the Shrews were still in the Tam learning curve.

“I’d prefer not to do any more jobs for my father, but this was an easy one, and he promised not to get in touch again for at least a month.”

“Don’t tell me you buy that line of bullshit.”

“Of course I don’t, but at least I’ll get to remind him of the broken promise. That’s almost as good as currency.”

“Opportunist.”

“Naturally. Where are you heading now?” The question he really wanted to ask was, Where did Marcella go? but Tamara had screamed at him to “Stop being so fucking creepy!”—whatever that meant—and he would try, to the best of his mated-Bear ability.

“Back to the office to debrief with Dana about Gene, and then I’m heading home for dinner.”

Soren crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the truck hood. “And…”

Sarah narrowed her eyes in warning. “With Marcella.”

“Ah.” He grinned. “What’s on the menu?”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I thought maybe I’d run to Peter’s and get a shower.”

Certainly, his brother wouldn’t mind sparing Soren some soap and a change of clothes. After all, he’d done plenty of unmentionable jobs for their father, too. He probably wouldn’t even ask questions.

Sarah twisted her lips to one side of her face and chewed on her inner cheek, staring at him.

“You could invite me,” he said.

She nodded slowly. “Yes, I could.”

“But?”

“I try to keep things from being awkward as much as I can.”

“Things would be a lot less awkward if you invited me over. We could clear the air, as the saying goes.”

“Uh-huh. Tam seems to think that you’re under the impression that by being in Marcella’s space for five minutes, you’ll will her over. You’re nice to look at and all, but come on, dude.”

“I’m an alpha Bear. I shouldn’t have to work so hard.”

She shrugged. “So prance your furry ass back to Romania and alpha up on some chick over there.”

“I could, but I want Marcella.”

“We can’t always have what we want.”

Soren scoffed.

“What’s that scoff for?”

“All of you—you, Dana, Astrid, hell, even Maria—you all behave as if your men didn’t nag you into compliance. They didn’t give up on pursuing you because they knew you were right for them. I feel the same way, and I know the Big Bear doesn’t make mistakes.”

Sarah sighed, likely at the mention of the mysterious Bear goddess. She didn’t show herself or even hint that she was around very often, but she had a knack for shaking things up at the exact right times. Her handiwork was evident all throughout the Ridge Bear group. There was an unusually high number of fated pairs.

“How is what I’m doing any different than what your Felipe did?” he asked, hoping to score an “A-ha” moment.

She blinked. “Felipe is charming.”

“Charming.” Soren’s voice dripped with incredulity. Damned Spaniards.

“Well, you asked. I mean, you and Peter do okay when you have to. You’re good at making folks comfortable and getting folks to like you when you’re on the job, but Marcella’s not a job.”

It was his turn to blink dumbly.

She narrowed her eyes. “Have you ever actually been in a relationship? If you have, Tamara’s never said so, and she talks about you guys all the time.”

“Of course I have.”

“Good. When?”

“I—ugh.” Grumbling, he stalked toward his truck.

He could certainly remember who his last girlfriend was, but he’d dated her long enough ago that he didn’t think Sarah would find her a credible reference.

While he’d had plenty of “encounters” in the past ten years, he’d been too busy for relationships and had been moving around far too much to consider them, anyway.

“Uh-huh,” Sarah called to him. “Well, dinner is paella. There should be plenty.”

He stopped. Paella sounded good. Sounded like a treat, actually, compared to what he’d been eating while working for the past week. Ravioli had a certain disgusting piquancy when eaten straight from the can.

“If you promise to behave yourself, I’ll actually open the door for you when you ring the bell,” she said.

He turned. “Define behave.”

Sarah counted off on her fingers. “No staring, no lewd jokes, no forcing your way into conversations she’s in, and last, give the woman some space.”

“How much space?”

Sarah made a waffling gesture with her hand before climbing into her truck. “Ten feet ought to suffice.”

“Surely, you jest.”

“Take the deal or leave it.”

He swore under his breath in Romanian and threw up his hands. “Fine.”

The deal didn’t matter. Soren would figure out a way to get close. He didn’t do so well in his business by following the letter of the law. Sarah was probably going to ban him from her household, but as long as he got under Marcella’s skin even a little bit, he’d consider the punishment worth the frustration.

___

Marcella speared the last bit of chorizo from her bowl only to drop her fork and slap a raptor-sized mosquito off her forearm. “Mean little wretches. Can’t ever seem to get away from them, no matter where I go.”

Astrid, who sat across from Marcella with her feet propped up on the fire pit’s bricks, canted her head toward the nearby fence corner. “Sarah and Felipe didn’t have any neighbors until recently. That was farmland six months ago.”

“And they built up a subdivision right next door?”

“Yup. The whole thing sprouted up in like, a year. There wasn’t a mosquito problem at all on this part of the property until those folks”—Astrid gestured toward the corner again—“installed a koi pond.”

“In that tiny little thumbnail of a backyard?”

“Yup. Aren’t even any fish inside. Neighborhood stray cats kept slapping them out. Felipe went over there and asked them to consider draining the pond since they don’t even have a pump installed, and they told him to fuck off. So, now you know the score.”

“Really? He’s going to leave it at that?” Growling, Marcella snatched a bloodsucker out of the air and crushed the bug inside her fist.

“Felipe? Nah. Not his style to let things slide. He and Fabian are a lot alike in some regards, and what Fabian would do is wait until I’m out of town and do his dirt when I’m not around to witness him.”

“Ah.” Marcella moved a little closer to the fire pit. She’d felt silly asking Felipe to light the damned thing, but the fire was the only reason the bugs hadn’t completely eaten her alive. Part of the reason the bugs were so aggressive was because of her ridiculous magic. Her affinity to water was a real detriment at times. “When the cat’s away, the mouse will play, I suppose.”

“We keep telling them they don’t need to pretend they don’t get angry on occasion. I think Fabian and Felipe believe if we actually see them exhibit emotions on that end of the mood spectrum now and then, we’d be less enamored of them.”

“Well?”

Astrid snorted and locked her gaze across the yard to the cluster of men standing around the cedar picnic table, and certainly at one male in particular. The Castillo twins had become much easier to tell apart in recent weeks. Being indiscernible had once been necessary when they’d worked in a circus and needed to confuse audiences, but now that they were out in the real world, they’d started to differentiate. Astrid’s husband, Fabian, had recently shorn his long blond hair down to the scalp over the ears. They were still hard to tell apart when he wore his hair down, but at the moment, he had his locks pulled up in a knot making them easy to distinguish.

As if Fabian sensed her watching, he started walking toward them in the corner.

Astrid waved him off. “No need to visit,” she shouted. “Can’t I look at you without you revving your engine?”

He shrugged and rejoined the cabal.

“Does he always do that?” Marcella asked.

“Yep. He dotes. I figured he’d get exhausted by my moods eventually, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of him losing endurance. The Castillos are good men.”

“Or maybe you’re a good wife.”

Astrid twined her fingers together atop her pregnant belly and had the temerity to blush.

“He adores you. Even I can tell, and I’m not usually so tuned into the sweet stuff. Why do you think you don’t deserve that?”

“You’ve gotta understand that the last guy I seriously dated was the one who enrolled me in the SHREW Study. I wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted to change me. He wanted to make me nicer, or whatever, to fit into his perfect mold of the sweet, submissive, Southern girlfriend. After him, I was justifiably wary, I think.”

“Same happened with Maria, right?”

Astrid nodded.

Marcella caught the occasional bout of girl talk with Maria, but in the past few weeks, Maria had been on the go a lot, and most of their conversations had been of the basic “getting to know you” variety. They shared tidbits about their close family and their routines. Their love lives hadn’t factored much into the mix, but Marcella had caught wind that Maria’s ex had been a dirty dog. He’d be fortunate if Marcella never encountered him. There were few things she couldn’t abide more than men who couldn’t handle independent women.

And apparently, just because she was thinking of men, a particular one leaning against the table sipping beer wouldn’t stop staring at her.

Marcella groaned and slouched low in her seat. “Who invited him?” she asked in a mutter.

“No one. That’s Soren for you. He tends to invite himself to things. And don’t look now, but he’s heading over.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Don’t panic. He doesn’t have his usual mercenary glint in his eyes, so maybe he’s just curious if we want drinks or something.”

“Is Sarah coming back to this seat?” Soren pointed to the chair Sarah had abandoned when she’d left to change Gabrielle’s diaper.

“If she does, I’m sure she’ll have no problem telling you to move,” Astrid said.

He grunted and sat, his gaze fixed on Marcella.

If she’d been a betting woman, she would have wagered that his eyes had been browner before. The light from the fire, perhaps, made them gleam moss green.

She averted her gaze and twiddled her thumbs. She was practicing being less rude, so she committed to waiting three minutes before getting up and leaving. There was no way in hell she could sit there with him looking at her in that interested way and have her be comfortable. Things always escalated, and she couldn’t have that. She couldn’t lead him on.

“Forget an important step while dressing?” Astrid asked, narrowing her eyes at Soren.

He looked down at the splayed plackets of his short-sleeved button-up patterned shirt, and ostensibly at the bare chest between them.

If Marcella would admit to looking at all, she’d also confess that his was a very nice chest. The man was built like a brick shithouse, and all that tattooed, muscled flesh begged touch, if only so she could make out what picture the ink made. She couldn’t tell from the amount the shirt hung open.

The fact that she realized that she couldn’t tell hinted that perhaps she’d already been staring for too long.

She closed her eyes.

“Spilled paella broth on the front. Rinsed the stain out of that and my undershirt, but the undershirt is still in the dryer. And before you tell me I eat like an animal…”

When he didn’t finish his statement, Marcella opened her eyes to see why.

She shouldn’t have.

He was staring at her and smirking. “I am one.”

“Yes, you are,” she muttered.

She stood, knocked a few wrinkles out of her shirt, and started toward the patio.

He followed.

Damn it.

“Have a hotter party to get to?” he asked.

“I’m going home to bed, not that it’s any of your concern.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that matter. I’m quite interested in whether or not you’re in bed, and who’s in bed with you.”

“Huh,” she mused as she slid the screen door open. A man as large as him would probably take up every inch of the bed in her temporary studio apartment. She’d have to sleep on top of him, if she wanted to be in bed at all.

That should seem like a worse idea.

The fact it didn’t was only because she’d been depriving herself of a certain kind of male attention for going on a year. She’d been too busy, and too wary to let another lover close so soon after nearly exposing what she was to the last one. That mistake could have ended in disaster.

She leaned around him and waved goodbye to her hosts.

He smelled like spice and earth, and she bet he tasted like sin.

“Need less sin in my life,” she muttered.

He followed her through the kitchen, past the living room, and out the front door. She’d left her borrowed car parked in the driveway, and fortunately, no one had blocked her in.

“Are you implying that sleeping is a sin or that I am?” he asked.

She stopped. Growled. Turned. “You don’t know how to hold your tongue, even a little bit, do you?”

“Hold it?” There was a troublesome twinkle in his eyes just before he stuck his long, broad tongue out and waggled it at her. “Where would you like me to hold it?”

“Where… Hold… What?” She scoffed and couldn’t help making the sound. Her body had a few reflexive responses cued up for whenever he was in her proximity. Scoffing. Snorting. Laughing. Eye-rolling. Automated visceral reactions that had usually warned most sane men off.

Soren wasn’t exactly a “man,” in the technical sense of the word. He was a beast, and she refused to be convinced otherwise. She wasn’t so sure about the “sane” part.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he said.

“T-tell anyone what?”

“That we fucked.”

Lord, help me.

“Who said we were going to?” she asked breathily.

Pull yourself together, woman.

He gave his head a patronizing shake. “You may not believe me, but I would have been more tolerable during the mating season.”

“Right. The sex-starved Were-bear thinks he could ever be tolerable. That’s rich.”

He grunted and folded his arms over his chest. “I would have talked less then. Used fewer words. Now you get to hear me make all sorts of vulgar suggestions.”

“I don’t have to hear you at all,” she said, happy that her resistance subroutine had finally reactivated. “Get the hell away from me.”

He gestured toward her car. “You could walk away. You stopped.”

She looked at her feet.

Yes. Stopped.

She cleared her throat and nervously lifted the thick dreadlock bundle off her sweaty neck. “If I walk away now, you’ll say I’m fleeing.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I say. We both know the truth.”

“Soren!” Sarah shouted out the front door. “What did I tell you?”

He kept his gaze on Marcella, who really should have started walking again, but instead, rocked back on her heels. “I forget. What did you say?”

“You should be half a backyard away from her.”

Marcella pushed up an eyebrow.

He blinked and grinned shamelessly, eyes sparkling with mischief. His irises were like dabs of highly pigmented paint overlapping on a palette and subtly striated with green and amber.

Hypnotizing, almost. She couldn’t stop staring.

Catching his grin in her periphery, she scoffed. Again, she couldn’t help it.

“Soren!” Sarah called again.

He took a single step back, but not before drawing in a long inhalation through his nose. “You smell delicious.”

She folded her arms over her chest and rocked on her heels again. In her experience, saying “Thank you,” would only lead to more compliments, and likely of an unwanted nature.

“Soren, if I have to cross this yard…”

He took one more step back. “You smell like you’d taste like honey.” That crooked smile adorned his face yet again. “Bears like honey.”

Thinking of that broad tongue of his, Marcella scoffed.

“Do I need to call Tamara?” Sarah shouted.

He looked over his shoulder and stared at the Shrew for a long moment. “No need.”

“So get moving. Or maybe I’ll turn the hose on you.”

“Why waste the water? Won’t change anything. It’s been in the sun all day. The water will come out hot at first, and you’d have a wet Bear in need of dry clothing. I thought you wanted me to keep my clothes on?”

“Spare me the peep show. I don’t fancy nudism like you shifters.”

“But I don’t mind being looked at.” He turned back to Marcella, still grinning. “Want to look at me?”

Yes.

She wanted to look at all of him, in fact, so she could prove that a guy with an ego as big as his had a laughably tiny cock. Unbidden, her gaze shifted downward.

“Want to know what I’m working with? I’ll be happy to show you. Examine me all you like.”

That invitation got her moving again. She took off at a quick clip toward her car and said, “You are a seriously brazen motherfucker, aren’t you?”

“Is that a yes? I won’t ask you to reciprocate. At least, not immediately. I do have some manners.”

“If you think I’m going to bare myself for your inspection, you better not hold your breath waiting.” She folded herself into the car and tugged the seatbelt across her body. He leaned against the front passenger door and looked in. She’d stupidly left the damned window down.

“I’d like that,” he said. “I like to look and touch. I like putting my fingers into things.”

She clamped her lips on the tiny yelp that had escaped from her lungs and would have crossed her legs at the knees if the steering wheel hadn’t been in the way. The dull throb settling at the junction of her thighs reminded her that she was an animal as much as he was, and he was an attractive animal who put off alpha vibes and could make her wet merely by pulling one corner of his lips up. Maybe pheromones were to blame, but the cavewoman part of her brain was reading him as a healthy, virile, potentially fertile mate. The modern human-enough part of her cautioned resistance.

She had to resist, or they’d both get hurt.

“Go away,” she said, nobly hiding the strain she felt.

“Shall I call you later?”

“What the hell for?”

“Soren!” Sarah shouted.

Grinning, he put his hands up and backed away. “I will try harder to resist you, draga mea.”

Marcella didn’t buy that for one minute.

She was a little glad he didn’t mean it. She didn’t want to be wanted, but at the same time, she would have been angrier if she’d been attracted to a man who didn’t want her back.

There was no denying that she was attracted to that animal.

She gave a few of her dreadlocks a hard tug of frustration.

“Damn him.”