Stranger Creatures 2: Bear's Edge
Page 2
She rubbed Grant’s arm. “It’s all right. We all have our bad days.” Shayla had only meant her touch to be a gesture of sympathy—of that Grant had no doubt—but to him… He ground his teeth against the instinct to move closer to her.
“Yeah, well, I just got dumped. Over breakfast.” And since it was confession time, he added, “At my favorite diner while eating my favorite meal.” He laughed. His attempt at humor sounded short and bitter. Did he still get points for trying? An A for effort, as his friend Sydney would say?
“Was it serious?” Shayla asked after they sat. She managed to guide Grant to the table and, with a flick of her hand, made his incoming colleagues walk right back out.
“No. Well, it wasn’t intended to be.” Grant hadn’t wanted Zoe to move in or anything, but she should have at least been properly sad about leaving him behind. Was he so easy to forget?
“You’re coming to lunch with me today.” She must have seen the look of panic he tried to erase, because she smiled. “We’ll bring Sydney too.”
Grant shook his head. “I think I’d rather just be alone for a little while.”
“I’m not taking no for an answer. Now is not the time to be alone with your thoughts. Who knows what else you might break?” She playfully swatted his arm.
“All right. Fine.” Grant finished setting up for the presentation on quarterly standing and new project viability, still in disbelief that Shayla had gotten him to sit down, talk, and agree to lunch with her and their friend Sydney. Sydney was one of the few people Grant had allowed himself to befriend since, well, since life had ended for him. Shayla’s presence had calmed Grant, and he’d agreed to lunch because he wanted to be near her. A little too much lately. He needed to dial that back some before he started fantasizing again about laying her out across his desk and eating her pussy.
Her, the bear said. She’s the one we need.
She’s my boss, he reminded the bear.
Don’t care, the bear growled. Grant groaned inwardly. The bear wasn’t very logical. Besides, shouldn’t Grant be thoroughly missing Zoe right then instead of just being pissed that he’d been so forgettable to her? He considered the option of becoming a lonely old hermit who sat on his front porch with a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey, talking to the sleepy dog at his feet. No, forget the dog. He didn’t want to get too attached to even the idea of it.
He finished his presentation, answered questions, tried to be patient with the two interns from business school, and went back to his office-cave to work on his part of a project. He stroked his beautiful polished-to-a-smooth-gleam cherrywood desk. The wood might feel cool under Shayla’s naked back, and if he laid her out there, he would take her hair down, so it spilled all around her. Next she’d let him take her clothes off, piece by piece, and kiss her bare skin, especially her breasts. She never wore anything too low-cut or revealing. Didn’t matter. His own imagination filled in the details.
He’d suck hard on her cherry-tipped nipples until she cried his name and begged for his cock. The desk was the perfect height to allow Grant to either kneel down and lick her pussy or pull Shayla’s ass to the very edge of the desk and push his iron hardness inside her plush, wet heat and take her just to the brink, over and over until she got so crazy for him she didn’t notice how forcefully he rammed into her and how tight he held her. His dick jumped at the thought, and Grant wrapped a fist around himself over his clothes and squeezed, in an attempt to ease the ache for a moment.
The fantasies about Shayla needed to stop. He couldn’t be rough with a woman he towered over by a foot. Also, he couldn’t date his boss. Grant was grateful for that technicality, because if Shayla wasn’t his boss, he’d be wanting something from her that he shouldn’t. And he didn’t need that kind of complication in his life. He had a feeling he’d go way too crazy over her, and she’d probably just feel sorry for him. Or if something terrible happened to her, Grant might lose his mind. He’d already lost Maya, the love of his life. The bear might not be able to help him stay sane if the unthinkable happened this time.
Grant was fucked-up, to be sure. He knew that, but after having lost in a senseless fire everybody he gave a shit about, he hadn’t been too interested in living or getting attached to anyone or anything. Greg and Aiden, bear-shifter brothers who’d happened to be nearby running a search-and-rescue mission for a missing hiker, had saved Grant from his injuries by initiating him into a bear shifter. Grant still kind of hated Greg for that.
He’d asked to die once he realized Brian, Freddy, Joe, and Maya had all been either killed by the fire or the explosion of propane tanks the groundskeeper had stored in the utility closet of their cabin. That weekend trip to Lost Arrowhead Campground had been the biggest mistake imaginable. Grant had left the place forever changed, the sole survivor of the tragic mess, and at first all he’d wanted to do was find a way to join his friends in the afterlife.
Thanks to the goddamn bear, Grant didn’t have a choice about whether he lived or died. Whether Grant stopped eating or took a bottle of pills—or worse—the bear took over and healed him and fed him. The bear had also made a wreck of Grant’s old apartment and had torn up the courtyard at the apartment complex on more than one occasion. Finally, Grant had decided if he couldn’t kill himself and the bear, he might as well make the bear more comfortable.
After a few months of searching, Grant had managed to find a job with a brand-new company in Great Oaks, Virginia, and he now took his fury of emotions out on the weight bench and kettlebells. Yeah, high-intensity classes lifting heavy weights, pushing truck tires, and performing endless running drills helped keep him from exploding and keep his shit together. For the most part, Grant lived his life and tried to stay out of other people’s. He didn’t need the drama or the anxiety. He had a job, and a house to work on, and that kept him plenty busy.
The home-improvements projects were his Zen. The sawing, the hammering, the measuring and sanding—it kept him focused, like a hellacious workout at the gym. Unlike Grant’s childhood home, the house he now lived in belonged to him, not to some fat, crooked-ass landlord with a comb-over. No one could take Grant’s home or trash it. Coming home to past-due notices and cigarette butts on the front porch was a not distant enough memory of why he’d worked his ass off in college and at the office to make sure it never happened again.
His big backyard that led to woods and a gushing stream full of fish was for the bear, with whom Grant had come to an understanding. Grant shifted into bear form and let the bear run free when the bear needed to, and the bear showed his appreciation for this by not ruining Grant’s house. Much. The bear loved camping trips with Aiden, Greg, and the other bear shifters of Bears’ Creek. Grant didn’t altogether hate those times. The urge to murder Greg had diminished over time. The stupid bear liked Greg, so Grant had learned not to give in to the occasional desire to slit Greg’s throat with a rusty knife. A guy had to compromise when a bear shifter shared space in his head.
As he closed out his computer files, his balls got tight and achy at the sound of Shayla’s voice in the hallway.
Come on, bear, stop making my dick hard over Shayla. Leave that whole scenario along. Not gonna happen.
Don’t ruin my fun, asshole.
Grant chose to ignore the bear’s reply. He greeted Shayla and Sydney, sitting in the lobby of Brass Cat waiting for him. Sydney would be a good buffer. She would keep Grant from feeling shy and awkward in front of Shayla, the way he’d kept getting lately. Soon he’d forget about his crush on Shayla and find someone to have some fun with for a while. Life would keep going. Time was all he needed.
Grant held up his keys to let the ladies know he would be driving. They would all fit in his extended-cab truck—even the bear could fit in Grant’s truck, although the bear had been warned not to sink his claws into the leather seats again, no matter how good it felt. Shayla and Sydney talked and joked with him as he drove down the road, and some of his pain and frustration eased. Two beautiful ladies
wanted to take him to lunch—even if it was out of pity. I can’t be that much of a loser.
Chapter Two
What is it about Grant? Looking at the man sitting across the table from her was no hardship; that was for damn sure. He had the tall, broad body of a heavyweight UFC fighter, but he never used his size to intimidate the people around him. She wanted to sweep his wavy, slightly shaggy dark hair out of his gorgeous deep-brown eyes. His dark hair and eyes complemented his bronze skin. He was hot, in a serious, dangerous kind of way. But in the two and a half years Grant had worked for her, Shayla had hardly learned anything about him.
The waitress at the popular nature-themed restaurant, the Greenhouse Effect, showed them to their table. The plants growing around all the walls and columns made the place look like a wild garden, and the smell of lavender and jasmine mixed with the delicious scents drifting from the kitchen. She tried not to drool, but breakfast seemed like eons ago. Shayla sat next to Sydney and across from Grant. A too-tall centerpiece of yellow-and-purple flowers blocked most of her view of him. Grant moved the centerpiece to the side and gave her a shy smile. His smile made her want answers, among other things.
She knew he was from New Jersey and had gone to school in Wisconsin before moving to Richmond, Virginia, to work with Brook’s Comprehensive, a huge company that did everything from urban development projects to financial management for celebrities and politicians.
“Why do you want to make such a big change from a large corporation to a simple start-up company?” she’d asked him in the interview.
“Honestly?” Grant had paused then, the question hanging.
Shayla had nodded. She’d take honesty over smooth-faced, calculated interview answers any day.
“I want to live somewhere I can have a house and some land. Maybe spend more time outside. Also, I want a job where I can do more than just run numbers for projects where I never see the outcome.”
The last part had seemed to come as a surprise to Grant. Maybe he hadn’t really known he wanted something more than a change of scenery until he had said it out loud.
His answer had been simple and honest instead of a long, drawn-out elaboration about the projected success of new companies in the area or an extensive list of projects he had helped to fruition. She could look at his résumé for all that stuff. Grant had wanted to be there, so she’d hired him. Simple as that—after a clean background check and drug screening, of course.
Grant the mystery man—a delicious mystery Shayla would like to unravel, piece by piece, layer by layer. Ah, but I can’t. I’m his boss. In a different lifetime, if we didn’t have the whole boss-employee obstacle going on… No harm in looking, though, just a little, since he sat so close. She promised herself to keep her thoughts G-rated—okay, maybe PG-13. Grant had a talent with numbers and paid attention to detail. Also, he was a little shy and standoffish to a lot of people when it came to anything other than work. Shayla wondered where he sometimes went in his head, because, every now and then, his smile wiped from his face, just for a second, before being replaced with one a little harder. None of my business, she reminded herself.
Shayla had really wanted to hug Grant that morning after seeing him look so frustrated but decided that it might be wiser and more appropriate to show him that there were a few people on his side. Watching him break things and try to be all strong and humorous about it made Shayla want to unravel the Grant mystery even more. It kind of hurt to watch Grant pretending to be fine, but all Shayla could offer him was lunch and good conversation. Hopefully Mr. Strong and Silent—Sydney called him that sometimes, although never to his face—knew Shayla and Sydney cared. Shayla cared. Because he’s a friend. Just a friend.
Grant raised his soda in a toast. “To things not being worse,” he announced with a rueful half smile. “And, uh”—he cleared his throat—“to good company.” He nodded at Sydney, and when he met Shayla’s gaze, he held it. In Grant’s dark eyes she saw hunger, wide-open desire, and about a million other things she couldn’t puzzle out. They both looked away. Grant looked at her that way sometimes, and Shayla did her best to ignore it. Grant might have a small crush on her, or he could have a thing for petite, small-breasted girls possessing a great fashion sense.
Sydney broke the silence. “To good food and even better friends.” She clinked Grant’s glass, and Shayla came back to reality and smiled, pretending she wasn’t experiencing several different kinds of inappropriate thoughts and feelings for a sexy, complicated man who was her employee and also her friend. She needed to remember that things could never go any further than a panty-melting look, and behave.
Her phone buzzed. Grateful for the distraction, she dug it out of her purse to see a text message and call-back number from that pest of a reporter back in Maryland. That pain in the ass wanted another interview with Shayla. Like once in the hospital and once for a “where are the survivors now” follow-up a few months later hadn’t been enough. May as well take care of this before it becomes twenty voice mails piled in my in-box.
“I’ll just be a moment,” she promised Sydney and Grant. If that harpy journalist wanted an interview, it would be her last one with Shayla, and it would cost the reporter. Big-time. She walked outside into the cold and wind.
Kendall Baron, obnoxious reporter, answered her phone rather quickly. No polite niceties, no how have you been?, no what’s new?, blah-blah-blah, for Baron—she cut to the chase.
“Listen, Ms. Patrick, I know you’ve done two interviews with me for SCA news in Maryland, but I’ve joined an entertainment news show, and I have a human-interest story on survivors of disasters that I’m trying to put together. You’d be a perfect fit for the story.”
“Can you tell me a little more about the piece? Because last time your questions went a little off on a tangent, what with you being way too convinced I must have had some type of top-secret life-saving surgery or—no, what was it?—that I survived the bombs because I’m a little more than just human?” Jeez. Shayla had some talents, for sure, but being indestructible wasn’t one of them.
“We’ll do the basics about the accident and how you’re adjusting to life afterward. Plus, there’s the shock-and-awe factor of how amazing it is to survive such a destructive act, so we’ll put together a computer reconstruction of the accident for the viewers. So a few questions, maybe thirty minutes of your time, is all I’m asking,” Baron assured her. “I want you for this story, Ms. Patrick. What’s your price?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“What? That’s—”
“I don’t want the money. I want the check donated directly to Hope and Healing, a charity that helps fund plastic surgery, prosthetic limbs, and burn treatments for disaster survivors around the world.”
“Fine. I’ll send proof of payment of two thousand dollars to Hope and Healing after the interview’s over.”
“My other condition is that this is the last time you contact me for an interview. Or for any reason in general.”
“You have my word. I’ll text you a couple of dates I have available in a minute, and you can just send me back which one works for you. I’ll even come to Brass Cat so you don’t have to travel.”
Baron didn’t seem like the most honorable woman, but Hope and Healing would get two grand, and Shayla wouldn’t be harassed to do any more interviews.
WHEN SHAYLA STEPPED outside to deal with a text that had her looking all kinds of irritated, Grant found himself under Sydney’s microscope. She asked him the same question she always asked him. “When are you gonna make a move?” Only this time, the girl wasn’t joking. “Next Saturday at the Saint Patrick’s Day Festival would be a good opportunity.”
He’d forgotten about agreeing to go to the festival with Sydney and her husband, Derrick. Sydney always invited Grant to different events, and like an idiot, he usually agreed.
“She’s my boss.” Didn’t Sydney and the bear get that? “That’s a pretty big obstacle. For Shayla and for me.”
“Shut up. I get it.”
More likely is that he would lose his shit for Shayla, and then, because life wasn’t warm and fuzzy with a guaranteed happy ending for all, she’d be gone, and Grant would be in a world of hurt and misery, so much worse than simply going all Hulk and breaking a door handle. The bear made a rude comment about Grant’s lack of balls. The bear would get over it. Grant wasn’t ready to fall down a rabbit hole and find himself crazy in love with an adorable, clever, gorgeous, smart, sweet woman who would probably get bored with his silent, antisocial behavior in about five minutes. She was his boss, and that made it all impossible anyway. The bear muttered something about Grant being dumb for a math geek.
I’d be an idiot to think I have a chance with her. We’re too different. Plus, she’s my fucking boss! He hoped the bear was listening.
Chapter Three
The Great Oaks Saint Patrick’s Day Festival had food kiosks from restaurants all over town, and Grant’s stomach rumbled. He’d been fixing his dishwasher all morning and forgotten about breakfast. Then, when Sydney reminded him Shayla would be joining their little group at the festival, Grant had been too caught up in his own head to remember to do stupid stuff like make a sandwich so he didn’t die of starvation. Chili and cornbread in a plastic container warmed Grant’s hands. Now he needed something sweet to go with it all. Brownies from Rose’s Bakery would do the trick. Grant ordered one for himself and one for Shayla. The girl behind the counter gave him a huge smile and topped his plate with extra whipped cream and strawberries and blueberries. Bear shifter bears ate a lot. Especially fruit.