Grizzly Perfection

by Becca Jameson

Nolan Osborn, his best friend for over a decade, was going to kill him.

  Finally, he turned to face his mate.

  She was staring at him, her cheeks flushed, her hands twisting around each other in her lap. Those gorgeous brown eyes were wide with shock. She swallowed. “I’m so confused.”

  He blew out a breath. “You and me both.” He lifted both hands to run them through his hair, not caring that he left it in disarray. Though perhaps he should care, since women had often told him he looked hotter that way.

  “Now what do we do?” she asked in her fucking sweet voice that went straight to his cock.

  He couldn’t tear his gaze off her. After avoiding her entirely from the moment he first saw her, now that no one was there to witness them, he couldn’t get enough of her. “I have no idea.”

  She looked like she might cry. When she released her lip, it started trembling.

  On instinct, he lifted his hand, intending to cup her cheek and soothe her.

  But she jerked back a few inches. “Don’t.”

  He pulled his hand back, nodding. “You’re right.” He tucked both hands under his thighs.

  Seconds ticked by. “Nolan’s waiting on me.” Her words were monotone, like that fact no longer interested her as much as it had ten minutes ago.

  “How long have you known him?”

  She closed her eyes slowly. “I’ve never even met him.”

  “What?” Reid’s voice hitched. His text conversation with Nolan had been brief. His phone conversation had also been short. Somehow Nolan had left that detail out. Reid had grasped the gist of the convoluted situation. Nolan was in witness protection. He’d met his mate. He wanted Reid to keep her safe. Apparently met was a loose term.

  “Last night.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “His parents had their homecoming party.”

  “Right, I was invited.”

  “Why didn’t you come?”

  “I just got off a long case. I was exhausted. I figured I would come by and see them sometime this week. I didn’t feel like making nice with a bunch of people.” Now he wondered what would have happened if he’d shown up. “Wait, I’m confused. Nolan didn’t come either?” How did the two of them know they were supposedly mates if they hadn’t met? Maybe this was a good sign. Maybe they were mistaken.

  “He came. He just didn’t come inside. He was with one of the officers on the case. He intended to stop by quickly, see his parents, and then leave. Instead, he scented me and didn’t come in.”

  Reid tried to process this information. “Did you scent him too?”

  “Yes.” The one word was breathy. She held his gaze.

  “Is it possible you were mistaken?” Please say yes.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He rubbed his brow with two fingers. “How… How did you feel?”

  Her voice dipped so low he almost couldn’t hear her. “Like this.”

  After shifting his body to face front, he stared out the window. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He didn’t bother to pull it out. If it was Nolan, he didn’t want to know what he had to say right now. If it was anyone else, they didn’t even rank on his short list today.

  He put the car back in drive and pulled out of the parking lot. They rode in silence for several minutes, both of them breathing so heavily it reverberated around the car. Stress. Anxiety. Confusion. He could feel waves of the same emotions coming off her to match his own.

  He drove away from the suburbs, heading toward the city. The police had chosen a hotel in the busy metropolitan area. With each passing mile, the buildings got taller, and Reid’s anxiety grew incrementally to match as if there were a correlation between the two. As he pulled into the hotel parking lot, his nervous tension doubled. What was he supposed to do? Leave her with his best friend? Fight for her? And more importantly, what did she want him to do?

  The last thing he wanted to do was alienate her by making the wrong choices. If he said the wrong thing, he could lose her. But what was the wrong thing? They’d exchanged so few words that he didn’t know enough about her personality to make a judgment call.

  He turned off the engine and faced her again.

  Damn, she was beautiful. Those deep brown eyes would melt any man. And her hair… He wanted to run his fingers through it. He wanted to wrap it in his fist and angle her head so he could take her mouth. The drive had been excruciating, and his dick was so hard from breathing in her pheromones for so long he wasn’t sure he could walk properly.

  She squirmed as he stared at her, his hand on the back of the seat, inches from touching her cheek. She was aroused too.

  He’d dated a lot of women in his life. Many were pretty, funny, cute, smart… None of them made him feel the way he’d felt since the moment he stepped into the Osborns’ home. This amazing woman and all that she was slammed into him like a punch to the gut.

  She was scared out of her mind. Her hands were shaking, and she kept wringing them in her lap.

  “I have to come up with you. I can’t let you go alone. It’s not safe.” He glanced around, remembering the reason he was with her in the first place. How stupid could he be? He needed to pay closer attention to their surroundings. Someone could have followed them. It wasn’t likely since Nolan’s client hadn’t been arrested yet, but Reid recognized the importance of keeping Adriana safe. His task had new meaning.

  “Should we tell him?” she asked.

  He’d asked himself that same question about a dozen times in the last ten minutes, and he had no answer. He needed to let her make that decision. “It’s up to you.”

  “Me?” Her voice squeaked. She glanced at her lap, her thick hair falling around her shoulders like a shroud. “My brain is racing. I can’t concentrate on any one thought. This is insane. Like a nightmare.”

  His heart seized. He hated how torn she must feel. Half of him wanted to grab her by the biceps, kiss the hell out of her, and turn around and drive to the other side of the country. But he wouldn’t do that to her. She needed to make this choice on her own. Whatever twisted game Fate was playing this morning, he would love to ring Her neck—if She were a tangible being.

  He needed to talk to someone, find out if this sort of thing happened to other grizzly shifters. He’d never heard of anyone meeting two mates and having to choose between them. Something was out of line in the Universe.

  “Do you think it’s because Nolan and I met last night but didn’t act on it?” Her head lifted, her eyes wide again as thoughts organized in her mind. “I mean maybe it’s unnatural for mates to meet and walk away. Maybe it leaves one or both of them vulnerable, like open, or available to another because they didn’t do what Fate intended.”

  He eased his hand forward and lifted a lock of her wavy hair, letting it run through his fingers. “That’s like saying there’s a vindictive God. I don’t think Fate operates that way. Not intentionally at least.”

  “Why me? What am I supposed to do? Choose?”

  “I don’t know, Adriana. I’m as confused as you are.”

  Suddenly, one of her hands jerked up to wrap around his at the side of her head. Her hair was still tangled between his fingers, but she pulled his palm to her cheek and tipped her head into his touch. Her eyes slid closed as she pressed firmly against him.

  He held his breath, luxuriating in the feel of her cheek. So smooth and soft. Her skin was several shades darker than his. He’d been born with jet black hair and a pale white complexion that did nothing but burn when he was exposed to the sun. Against her perfect features, the contrast was stark but made his cock jerk again.

  When she tipped her head farther and placed a gentle kiss against his palm, he had to hold back a groan. She released him to lift her face. “This is not fair. Someone’s going to get hurt. And I’m worried about your friendship.”

  He couldn’t argue with her logic. She was absolutely right. There was no way he and Nolan could come out of this intact. They had never fought in
all the years they’d known each other. They’d met at U of C thirteen years ago and been thick as thieves ever since. Other than the occasional disagreement during the years they’d shared an apartment, they’d been like brothers.

  Reid valued his friendship with Nolan above almost anything in the world. His own parents were older and lived on the other side of the country in Ottawa. He rarely saw them. He’d left home at eighteen to attend U of C and never returned except to visit on holidays.

  Nolan’s parents had treated Reid like their own son from day one. In recent years all of them had been busier with their own lives and spent less time together, but like families everywhere, they always came back together.

  This… This was going to ruin everything. Unless… “We won’t tell him.” He tugged his hand back and sat up straighter, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “It’s simple. He met you first. I’ll bow out. You two already had a connection. It should have been him. You’re right. I bet we never would have felt the connection at all if Nolan hadn’t driven off last night. The two of you would have completed the binding before I ever met you, and we never would have known about this.” He lifted a hand to wave it back and forth between them.

  Her face went white. “That’s a horrible plan. It’s not fair to you at all. And besides, I couldn’t keep a secret like that from my mate.” She shook her head. “No. Let’s go up to the room together and face this like civilized human beings.”

  He blew out a breath. “I’m not sure we are civilized right now, and we’re way more than human. That’s the entire problem.”

  “Okay, but do you have a better plan? You want to just drop me off with Nolan and drive away? How’s that going to work out for you?”

  It wasn’t. He would pull his hair out while she was in that confined space with his best friend. “Nolan’s going to kill me.” He reached for the handle of the door and opened it. A blast of cold air entered the car. It was an unusually chilly day for late fall. In fact, it felt like the dead of winter all the sudden. Was that the actual temperature? Or was it Nature’s way of chilling his heart?

  Chapter Five

  Adriana couldn’t seem to draw in a full breath. It felt like something was pressing on her chest, keeping her from getting enough oxygen. She unbuckled her seatbelt as Reid rounded the back of his SUV and twisted in her seat when he opened her door.

  He didn’t reach for her or take her hand, for which she was grateful. The one and only contact they’d had told her everything she needed to know. Reid was her mate. There was no doubt. The current that flowed between them when she set her cheek on his palm was palpable. She knew he felt it too.

  It had been a gamble, an impulse. Perhaps a horrible decision. But she’d needed to know. And now she did. As she followed him to the front door of the hotel, she pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders against the cold wind whistling between the buildings.

  Reid wasn’t even wearing a coat, and he didn’t appear to notice the cold. He wore black jeans and a tight black V-neck sweater that hugged his pecs to perfection. It should have been illegal.

  Maybe she and Nolan had it all wrong, and the moment he opened the door to his room, they would realize it had been a mistake. Was it possible Fate’s true plan was to put Adriana in Reid’s path, and She’d chosen this convoluted plot to align the stars?

  That seemed ludicrous. There were better ways. They could have run into each other in the grocery store or something. If Fate had that much power, She wouldn’t need to create a love triangle to get Her way.

  Reid said nothing as he led her toward the bay of elevators. The hotel was busy and accommodated a lot of guests. It was also one of the nicer hotels in downtown Calgary. Several stories high. The perfect place to hide out.

  When one of the six elevators opened, Reid set his hand on her lower back to guide her inside. Instinct. It warmed her that he was so polite. His mother raised him well. He opened doors and guided his dates around like a gentleman. And it was second nature. He didn’t even know he was doing it. The best kind of man.

  Was he hers?

  They rode in silence to the fifteenth floor. When the doors slid open, Reid reached out with a hand to ensure they didn’t close before she got off. Yep. Total gentleman. And then his hand was on her back again, the warmth seeping through all the layers of her coat, her cardigan, and her tee.

  “I should leave you here,” he stated as they approached the door. “You deserve to have some time alone with Nolan.”

  She shook her head. “Not fair to any of us. We’ll face this like adults, tell him everything, and see what happens.” She lifted her face to meet his gaze. His brow was furrowed. He was scared.

  She was too. “I won’t come between the two of you. If your friendship gets in the way, I step out. You have a history. I’m not part of that. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything happened to destroy your friendship.” She had no idea if she could follow through on her threat, but she needed to voice it at least.

  Every inch of her was secretly hoping when Nolan opened the door to his room, she would meet his gaze and they would both realize there had been a mistake.

  On that thought, she caught his scent in the air and drew it in deep. She was not going to get her wish. The door several yards in front of them on the right opened, and a man who could only be Nolan stepped halfway into the hall. His smile was wide. His eyes—an unusual shade of blue that reminded her of the ocean—danced with excitement.

  He didn’t even glance at Reid. Understandable.

  She had visualized meeting this man a thousand times last night. In none of those scenarios had she been half as nervous as she was now. She forced a warm smile but knew it didn’t reach her ears and wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Nolan either didn’t notice or ignored her reaction. He reached out a hand, cupped her face in the same way Reid had done in the car, and licked his lips. “Wow.”

  She swallowed over the lump in her throat, realizing he had no idea his world was about to be upended. She was the common denominator here. She could feel the pull toward both men, the one in front of her and the one at her side. They couldn’t feel the same draw between them.

  Freaky weird. And totally unfair.

  “Come in.” He released her to step back, holding the door open farther. Finally, his gaze moved from her to Reid. “I can’t thank you enough. Can you come in a second? I need to ask a huge favor of you.”

  A favor? Adriana stiffened. She definitely wanted Reid to come in, and Nolan had made that first task a lot easier, but what was this favor?

  Her plan had been to be the first to speak, to clear the air. But Nolan started talking so fast, she couldn’t stop him. He closed the door and pointed at the sitting area of what she now realized was a suite. “Have a seat,” he aimed at Reid.

  Meanwhile, he turned toward Adriana and reached for the sleeve of her coat. “Can I take your jacket?”

  The chill she’d been experiencing off and on since last night hadn’t gone away. She’d rather keep the coat on and wrap up in it tighter, but that would be incredibly weird and rude. So she unzipped the front and shrugged out of it while Nolan waited. She needed to get the upper hand in the conversation. “We need to talk, Nolan. There’s a problem.”

  He chuckled as he draped her coat over the back of one of the two kitchen chairs that flanked a small table. “Just one? Because by my count, we have about a dozen problems, and they keep growing the more I think.” There was a twinkle in his eye, and she hated knowing she was going to snuff it out in a few seconds.

  He was physically completely different from Reid. Where Reid was white with nearly black hair and green eyes, Nolan was blond with the same hair and eyes as his sister, Paige. His skin tone was almost as dark as hers, rare on someone naturally blond. He had the sexy good looks of a movie star. But the best part was he didn’t seem to know it.

  No one had taken a seat, and Adriana watched as Nolan slapped Reid’s shoulder and grinned like it wa
s Christmas morning. How long would he continue to look like that? Or even remain on speaking terms with his best friend?

  The two of them were close in height, though Reid might have been about an inch taller. Maybe six five. Adriana was kind of small for a grizzly shifter at five six, so they both towered over her in a way that sucked the air out of her lungs and made her take a step back.

  There was way too much testosterone in the suite, and if she thought being near one of them was potent, the combination of their scents was making her knees weak. How the hell was she supposed to choose between them? This was beyond insane.

  “It’s good to see you,” Nolan said to Reid. “You were on that last assignment for weeks.”

  Reid shot Adriana a glance. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt. She once again took in his tight black V-neck. His jeans were sinful too, fitting him to perfection.

  She realized she’d let her gaze roam down to his thighs and jerked her head back up, sliding from Reid to Nolan.

  Nolan’s body was turned slightly toward Reid, so she had a side view of his ass. His damn fine ass, also encased in jeans that molded to his butt so well her mouth watered. His shirt was an off-white button-up that was perfectly ironed and tucked into his jeans. Stylish. Perfect for a first date, which essentially this was. The look was even rounded out with loafers. She wondered if he’d dressed to impress her, or if there was a chance this was his usual lounging around on a Sunday afternoon attire. Not likely.

  “Yes. Thank God, it’s over. The woman I was working for was driving me crazy.” Reid opened his mouth as if he intended to continue, but he stopped himself, glanced at Adriana again, and then cleared his throat. “I should go. Let you two get to know each other.”

  “Reid…” She started to contradict his plan, but Nolan spoke over her.

  “Can you stay a minute? I was hoping to enlist your services further.”

  Reid narrowed his eyes.

  Adriana nearly choked. She had no idea what Nolan was going to say, but she needed to get his attention and put an end to this madness. “Nolan, we need to talk.”