Damaged Billionaire Daddy Bear: A Paranormal Romance (Exotic Pack Shifters Book 1)

by Leela Ash

  “You look so hot. I thought I would give you a little something to remember me by before you went into town. You know, in case some other guy approaches, you’ll remember you’re taken.”

  She started to laugh when she caught sight of his face and realized he was very serious. He bent her over his desk and proceeded to lick her pussy. The first brush of his tongue sent a spasm of pleasure through her. The second one made her body tingle from head to toe. The third one burst the dam and she came in grunting pleasure.

  He kept his mouth at her pussy, sucking and licking and coaxing until she was sure he had sucked every last drop of pussy juice in her body.

  When he had sucked her dry, he slapped her ass and sent her on her way.

  Theodore Cooper was a very bad man, Jessica thought, still grinning at his tactics as she made her way into town with Maria. Even now, just thinking of him had her in a tizzy of desire, which was probably what he meant when he said he didn’t want her thinking of anyone else.

  Maria kept giving her a shrewd sideways glance as they went, but Jessica couldn’t contain her smiles. The sky seemed bluer, the air crisper, and the birds chirpier.

  Face it, idiot, you’re in love, her subconscious informed her. She sighed in acknowledgement of what she already knew. She couldn’t lie to herself anymore. She loved Theodore. What was not to love? He was as different from Patrick as night from day. He didn’t shirk responsibilities, he loved kids, and he seemed to like her a lot. He couldn’t get enough of her; and while that could only indicate a healthy libido, it was as sure of a step up from Patrick’s cold approach to sex.

  They reached the mall and she followed Maria, trying as much as possible to learn what she could about getting supplies, but her thoughts were in a whirl and she was still absent-minded. She slammed into someone in one aisle and she started to apologize when she met the familiar eyes of Roy.

  He looked her over with something remarkably like contempt then pity crept into his eyes and he took her hand in his, “Come with me. I’ll show you something you do not know about that lover boy of yours.”

  She glared at him, “Leave Theodore alone.”

  “I see you don’t deny that he is your lover boy, which is just as well. His mark is all over you.”

  Jessica stared down at herself, “Mark?”

  Roy chuckled, “Just as I suspected. Do you think I hate him just to be hateful? Theodore Cooper and his kind are a blight on this town. He is not even human; he is an abomination. Have you ever asked yourself why he avoids the doctors and the cops? Or why he makes love to you as though he were ten men? Or why he has so many animals leave the rescue but you never see anyone coming to take them? Or why he got in a funk when you wanted to send some article to your publisher?”

  Jessica stepped back in alarm, “How did you know about that?”

  Roy scoffed, “This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone’s business. Why the hell do you think we dislike your Theodore?”

  He turned and walked away, leaving Jessica feeling as if she were standing in front of a yawning abyss of emptiness.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. Jessica’s happiness had been dimmed by Roy’s words, and try as she might, she couldn’t shake them. They had been the truth, every last one of them. She had noticed those things and more. She had noticed that, sometimes, animals came in but she never saw them leave and yet their receiving caves were empty. There were no reports of animal mortalities on Exotic Rescue since she came. What could be going on? Where were the animals being taken? And what about that part of the facility she had stumbled upon with wild animals in it? Did he have the necessary permits to house wild animals?

  She flopped onto her bed tiredly as soon as she reached home. She needed to get some much needed sleep, but more than anything, she needed to sneak out tonight and try to move around to find out what she could about Theodore and Exotic Rescue. Roy and a good number of the townspeople distrusted him.

  She dozed off and woke up two hours later. Her kids were at Theodore’s. They had insisted on sleeping over with Carla, and while she missed them, she decided there was no time like the present.

  She dragged herself out of bed and yanked off her work clothes. She pulled on a pair of shorts and sneakers and a small crop top. Then she walked out of the house and slipped night goggles into her shirt pocket.

  Unerringly, she crept toward the part of Exotic Rescue where she had seen the lion. Everywhere was silent, not even a single bird made a sound. The air was cool and crisp, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread and danger as though she were about to encounter something she wouldn’t like.

  Her eyes darted between the trees lining the pathway as though looking for hidden dangers. As she neared that part of the facility, she heard a high-pitched scream that could only have come from an animal. She froze in fear, her heart in her throat.

  Her hands clutched at her heart. If that was the noise the townspeople reported hearing at night in that facility, it was no wonder they regarded Theodore with more than a little suspicion.

  As she crept toward the facility, she noticed some reverberations in the earth exactly like she had felt that first night when she met Connor. She dashed toward the building and entered the house.

  Her scream started and died in her throat in horror. She saw a huge dragon flapping its wings as it shrieked and the men standing around it were all relaxed and laughing. She was still staring in disbelief when one of the men dashed forward and clapped the dragon on his shoulder. The man was Theodore, she realized in shock. As she stared, a puma was stretched out on a stretcher and as she watched, Theodore carried some syringes and began to inject them in the poor animal as it groaned in pain.

  Jessica started to gasp and then quickly covered her mouth with her hands. But Theodore seemed to have heard the sound; his head jerked in her direction and even from the distance, she could tell that the bright green color had changed to brown.

  “Jessica,” he called.

  She turned and fled.

  Theodore started after her when Connor changed back into his human form and grabbed his arm, “What the hell?”

  “It’s Jessica.”

  “I know exactly who she is,” Connor said.

  “Let go of me, man,” Theodore ordered.

  Connor tightened his grip, “Let her go. She saw us, which means she knows our secret. She’s a threat to you and to all of us. You already know she’s in cahoots with Roy.”

  “I don’t care if she’s in cahoots with the Grim Reaper, I love her,” he told him.

  Connor lifted his head. He was shocked. He managed to hold it in as he stared at Theodore.

  “I want to make her mine forever. I don’t care what she’s doing or who she’s doing it with. I want Jessica in my life. I need her. She completes me.”

  Connor searched his eyes some more. Whatever he saw there made him nod and step back. Then he said, “You’ve got it, Theodore. I’ll get her back for you.”

  Chapter 22

  As she ran, her breath was coming in harsh bursts. She kept looking over her shoulder but no one was coming after her.

  She ran until Theodore’s house came into view and then she entered the house and ran upstairs, screaming for her kids. Kal and Arizona came rushing toward her, “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  “We need to get out of here. Now!”

  Carla came out, rubbing her eyes too, “What’s wrong? Why are you yelling?”

  Jessica’s heart turned over when she saw the little girl. She had grown to love her like her own. It was just too bad that she was the daughter of a criminal. “It’s okay, love. Please go back to sleep,” Jessica whispered, pressing a kiss to the little girl’s head.

  Then she dashed out and managed to drag her kids into her car. She rushed home and grabbed her handbag before dashing back out to the car. She stopped short on the stairs; Connor was standing casually in front of the driver’s door, his bulk blocking it.

  “Get out of my way or I�
�m calling the cops,” she breathed harshly.

  He walked toward her, both hands raised in the classic sign of surrender. It wasn’t very reassuring because she was sure he could still knock her out with nothing but his hands.

  “Stay back.”

  “I just want to talk,” he told her, his tone more pacifying than she had ever heard it.

  “I don’t want to talk. I want to get out of here and forget you lot ever existed.” A thought seemed to cross her mind and she stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, “Please don’t kill me. My kids are in the car and I’m all they’ve got. Please, for their sake, don’t kill me.”

  Connor frowned in confusion, “Kill you? Lady, I would never hurt a fly.”

  He sounded so shocked it gave her pause. It had to be impossible to fake that level of consternation.

  She stared at him, “Who are you people? What government or organization do you work for?”

  He stared back at her, “You’re standing in it; Exotic Rescue.”

  Jessica looked around as though expecting someone to burst from the shadows. “You guys are hurting animals and using them for experiments. And you have the strangest animals. For a minute there, I actually thought I saw a … a─”

  “Dragon?” Connor asked with a grin as he looked over at her car. Her kids had fallen asleep in the backseat again.

  He faced her, “Don’t scream.”

  He shifted immediately into his dragon form and Jessica let out a blood-curdling scream.

  He changed back into his human form and she fell back several steps, her fearful eyes going to the car where her kids continued to sleep, oblivious to the danger they were all in.

  “Listen to me, Jess—”

  “What are you?” she cut in.

  “I’m a shifter. The dragon is my shifter form,” he answered.

  Her eyes were round with fright. “Why show me that?”

  “To help you understand. We aren’t hurting animals, we’re helping them. Most of those animals aren’t even really animals, they are shifters. That’s why Theodore set up Exotic Rescue, to protect animals.”

  “And you’re going to tell me all this and just let me go?” she asked.

  He sighed, “Theodore is in love with you.”

  She did a double take.

  “I know,” he agreed, reading her expression easily. “Coulda knocked me over with a feather, too, when I heard it. I mean, he usually has such sophisticated tastes.”

  She glared, forgetting to be scared, “What does that mean?”

  “I’ve known Theodore all my life and I’ve never heard him admit to needing anyone. Even when we watched that bastard, Atlas, kill our parents, he shed a few tears and then he got us all coordinated and on track. Theodore is the strongest person I know, but today, I saw him about to break just because he thought he had lost you. That was all I needed to come after you, despite what you and Roy have been up to.”

  She frowned, “Me and Roy?”

  He nodded, “Isn’t he your partner? Didn’t he send you here to spy on Theodore?”

  She frowned, “Roy? The guy saved me one time when my car broke down just outside of town and that was it.”

  Connor stared at her in surprise. Then he held out a hand, “Theodore has his secrets but he wants to share them with you. I stopped him from coming after you, and I came myself to ask you to give him a chance to explain. We were born this way; we didn’t ask to be. But humans, and other creatures, have hunted us for centuries for what we are. That’s why we always try to preserve our secret.”

  She started to respond when Theodore ran up, his eyes panicked. “Jessica, I can explain, I swear. It’s not what you think.”

  She looked at him and then at Connor. The other man gave her a small smile that transformed his face, and she stepped forward. She recalled that one night in Theodore’s arms when she had noticed the fur and he had lied about it.

  “Was I wrong? Was that fur on your hand that night? You’re a shifter, aren’t you?”

  Theodore threw Connor a miserable glance, then, without a word, he changed into his shifter bear form. Jessica stared up at him in wonder and amazement. Then he changed back to his human form.

  “I wanted to tell you. But you kept asking all these questions and I was scared. I wasn’t sure why Roy had sent you here.”

  “Roy never sent me here. I never even knew he existed until I got here,” she enunciated.

  He nodded, “Then I was right to trust you. I am a shifter, Jessica. I know you have a lot of questions. Shifters are real and I created this place as a safe haven for my kind.”

  She was still as a statue as she stared at him. He walked toward her and took her hands in his.

  “Jessica, please, I need you. I need you in my life. I cannot live without you.”

  Jessica felt as if she were drowning as she stared into his familiar green eyes. It really didn’t matter if he could change into a cat or a bear, she loved him and that wasn’t going to change any time soon.

  “So that lion I tested that day…?”

  He nodded, “A shifter. You’ll meet him soon. He’s recovered now.”

  “And Roy? Does he know you’re a shifter?”

  Theodore’s expression hardened and he looked at her, “I don’t know what he knows but I think he at least suspects. By the way, Connor and Michael were able to question those men who tried to take Carla. Roy sent them.”

  Jessica felt a reverberating anger in her chest and she realized she loved the little girl and her father completely.

  She laid a hand on his cheek, feeling the familiar texture of his skin. He turned his head and planted a soft kiss in the middle of her palm. She let the tension that had been curling through her release and she gave him the words, “I need you too, Theodore. When I wasn’t looking, you became very important to me.”

  His eyes gleamed with masculine triumph. “I love you, Jessica.”

  She nodded eagerly, “I love you too, Theodore.”

  He grabbed her against him and planted his lips firmly on hers, his tongue snaking out boldly to tangle with hers in a wildly possessive kiss.

  She heard Connor’s disgusted, “Oh, get a room.”

  With a grin, Jessica deepened the kiss, her hand clinging to his shoulders.

  Roy was furious as he slapped a hand against his forehead, “Do you mean to tell me that none of you had the presence of mind to take so much as a picture, despite having cameras with you?”

  His men exchanged worried glances and wisely stayed silent.

  “If you want pictures that badly, I’m here in person,” Theodore’s chilly voice announced, sweeping through the room. “Ready those cameras and take your best shot.”

  Roy sprang to his feet, unable to believe his eyes and ears. “How dare you come into my home?”

  Theodore gave him a bored look. “If you were going to continue to send your men to play cops and robbers on my premises, I thought I might as well oblige you with a picture.”

  Roy whipped out a pistol and made to shoot it. Before he could complete the motion, he was flat on his back, his head ringing as he stared up at the ceiling in confusion.

  “I didn’t bother coming with Connor and the rest because I can handle a weasel like you on my own. You think you can try to snatch Exotic Rescue away from me? Bring it on. You think you can take away anything else? Bring it on. But if I ever catch you near my family again, I’ll break every last fang you own.”

  He saw the surprise and alarm flare in Roy’s eyes. And he grinned, the grin was chilly and scary. “Yes, I know your dirty little secret, Roy Corning. You’re not the only one who can dig deep. The next time you put a toe out of line, I’ll be waiting to chop off that toe.”

  Then, without another word, Theodore strode from the room.

  Epilogue

  “Daddy, you did it! You got Mom to stay and marry you,” Carla chirped, patting her father’s hand.

  He grinned, “Thanks, Hyper.”

  She w
rinkled her nose at him and turned to grin at Jessica, “You should really decide on a better nickname for me or I’m gonna be Hyper for the rest of my life.”

  Jessica looked up with a grin and nodded. “You got it, Hyper.”

  It took a second for Carla to realize what she had done and she dissolved into laughter. “Fine. Be that way. Support him, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Arizona and Kal ran up, identical grins on their faces as they tumbled onto the picnic blanket. “This is a cool spot, Dad. I’m glad we came here for a picnic again,” Ari piped up.

  “When you and Mommy left for your honeymoon, Ari cried a lot,” Kal said.

  Arizona was indignant, “Only because you were being a meanie pants.”

  “I was not.”

  “Were too.”

  “Not.”

  “Were.”

  Jessica sighed as her gaze met her new husband’s over the heads of the arguing children, and she grinned, “Here we go again.”

  He sighed as he lifted Ari onto his shoulder and stood in one fluid motion. The movement surprised her, and she fell silent, enjoying the ride on her new father’s shoulders.

  Jessica beamed as she looked around at her new family. If anyone had told her that coming out here to work would result in all of this, she would have come sooner. She was so much happier and fulfilled, and she couldn’t be grateful enough for this second chance at love.

  With a grin, she laid back on the blanket and tucked her hands underneath her head as she let her thoughts wander. Life was good and it didn’t matter that Roy had made himself the wicked stepmother in her story. Together, she and Theodore were stronger. They would deal with life and its curves every day as they came.

  Thank you so much for reading the first story in the Exotic Pack series! We hope you loved it! If you did then we think you will love the Damaged Pack series!