Jumping the Bull
Page 1
Jumping the Bull
A FUC Academy Story
Jenn Burke
Copyright © 2020, Jenn Burke
Cover Art © 2020 Dreams2Media
Produced in Canada
An EveL Worlds Production : www.worlds.EveLanglais.com
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This story is a work of fiction and the characters, events and dialogue found within the story are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, either living or deceased, is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio recording, email and printing without permission in writing from the author.
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
Foreword
A note from Eve Langlais…
I’m beyond excited for the first m/m book to make an appearance in the F.U.C. world. I met Jenn Burke through our local romance writer group, and I’m tickled she’s chosen to participate. She’s written some fantastic sci-fi and paranormal stories so I just know you’re going to fall in love with her EveL World characters, Ben and Oliver. A bison and a whooping crane who are with tasked with a super secret mission.
Buckle in for suspense, intense heat, great humor and a house hippo? LOL
~Eve
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thank you so much to Eve for allowing me to play in her Furry United Coalition world. Writing this book was lots of fun, and you, my dear, are an absolute gem.
* * *
Thanks also to Jessica Ripley for all of her hard work coordinating everything. I have no idea how you kept it all straight. Huge kudos!
* * *
To my Monday night writing peeps—you know who you are—you always brighten my week. Thank you!
* * *
And a big thank you to my Ottawa Romance Writers buddies. You guys have given me a community that has enriched my writing life immensely.
* * *
Finally, thank you to my family for their continuing and unwavering support. I love you all.
~ Jenn
Introduction
Ben Beaufort, badass bison
* * *
Everyone who looks at Ben and sees his six-foot-plus, muscular build assumes he’s in construction. Or the military. Or something that requires brawn over brains. In truth, he’s a mild-mannered human resources professional—or at least he was, until he got laid off. Now he’s looking for a second career as a Furry United Coalition agent, to discover how truly badass he can be.
* * *
Oliver Zuraw, whoop-ass whooping crane
* * *
Oliver’s enjoying a second career too, from exotic dancer to the FUC Academy’s yoga instructor. Big, badass men like Ben are totally his type—but he’s sworn them off, because they’re never good news. Except Ben is defying all of Oliver’s preconceived notions and making him wonder if maybe this bison is just the right type of badass for him.
* * *
A simple undercover mission that turns out to be not so simple
* * *
When an undercover mission needs a bison shifter, Ben jumps at the chance to put his training to use. A twist of events forces Oliver and Ben to pretend to be married…which leads to an invitation to work for the bad guy on his bad guy ranch doing bad guy things. There’s no way they can pass up the opportunity to infiltrate the criminal operation.
* * *
Even if they’re a recruit and a civilian instructor who barely know what they’re doing.
* * *
And even if there’s only one bed waiting for them.
Does this premise and world seem familiar? That’s because it is based off the Eve Langlais Furry United Coalition. Eve Langlais has invited her author friends to come and play in her world. To find out more, visit Worlds.EveLanglais.com.
1
Ben Beaufort managed to turn the knob of his apartment door without dropping the box in his hands, then kicked it open with maybe a little more force than necessary. It popped back and slammed into the wall, and he grimaced at the crash.
“What the—” His sister, Diana, burst out of her room down the hall, then stopped and stared at him. “You’re home early.”
“Yep.” The word was short, abrupt, and he sighed. The sudden mess of his life wasn’t Didi’s fault.
“And with a box. Why do you have a box?” She came closer, and noticed what was in the box. “Oh my god, did you—”
“Get laid off?” He put the box on the floor next to the entryway table and turned his attention to the spot where the door had connected with the wall. Yep, that was a dent. Just a small one, since the spring thing had taken the brunt of the force, but something he’d have to fix before the super saw it. He closed the door and faced his sister. “I did indeed. They ‘restructured’ the HR department to make it more efficient and focused and blah blah blah.”
He didn’t protest when Didi enveloped him in her arms. She wasn’t small, by any means—in a crowd of women, she towered over them, being more than six feet tall and sharing the thick, solid build of her inner bison cow. It was times like this that he loved the fact that they’d chosen to live together when they moved off the ranch and into the city. Ben leaned into her embrace, revelling in it like he would a good wallow in soft dirt.
“You loved that job,” Didi said softly.
He nodded against the crook of her shoulder and neck. He really had. He’d been with InnovaTech for ten years. It was his home away from home. The foundation of his career. He’d worked at another, smaller company for his first couple of years out of university, but InnovaTech had been where he’d bloomed and come into his own as a human resources professional. His manager had been thrilled with his contributions, both in reducing the workload of their team with his innovative changes to their processes, to the fun events he’d suggested to raise the morale of all employees on a regular basis. Guess all that meant nothing. The executives didn’t care that he’d put his heart and soul into his job. That he’d cared for the people he worked with and for. He was just a number. An expendable, erasable number.
He sniffled.
“Aw, baby.” Didi squeezed him harder. “You know what you need?”
“A wallow?”
“Definitely. But tomorrow. Tonight, you need junk food and tequila.”
He lifted his head. “Margaritas?”
“All the margaritas you can drink. And we can brainstorm a plan for your future.”
It was the best, terrible idea. “Let’s do it.”
Ben didn’t even know what time it was. Only that it was dark, the room lit only by the glow of the muted TV and the lights from the kitchen, where the margarita mix lived. They’d decided not to go the frozen route—he hated brain freeze, and with the amount of alcohol he’d need to consume to get drunk, it would have just slowed him down.
He licked the salt off the rim as Didi gestured with her glass. “And then! This is crazy, you’re never going to believe it. Then Bob—”
“You said his name was Bill.”
“Bob, Bill, what the fuck ever.” Oh boy, Didi was drunk if she was dropping the F-bomb that casually. Their mother would ha
ve kittens if she heard. Ben giggled at that thought. Kittens.
“So Bob”—she stressed the name, as if by decree she could make him a Bob even if he wasn’t—“and fuckin’ Marly sneak out of the porta-potty together.”
“Ew!” Ben frowned as he tried to place the name. “Oh, wait, Marly? Your dick of a foreman?”
She leaned back, a triumphant smirk on her face, “One and the same. The one who keeps commenting on women needing to be in the kitchen instead of on the work site.”
“And they were fucking in a porta-potty?”
“I don’t even want to know,” Didi said, swinging her glass to the side. A few drops spilled out, but she didn’t seem to care. Neither did Ben, for that matter. “Marly’s hair was super messed up, though. Like someone had been pulling on it.”
“In a porta-potty?” Ben couldn’t even get his head around that. He didn’t know how big these guys were, but even average-sized human men would have trouble both fitting in one of the tiny closet-like toilets, wouldn’t they?
“I know! So gross.” Didi scrunched up her nose. “I’m not sure how I’m going to look them in the eye if I have to work with them again.”
“Oh, bullshit.” Ben chuckled. “You’re going to smirk at them and blow bubble gum in their faces while waggling your eyebrows.”
She giggled. “You know me so well.”
Of course he did. And the same was true of her and him. Him and her? Whatever. She knew him just as well. They were twins, after all. He held out a fist and she bumped it, and then they both made an explosion noise.
“Oh!” Didi bounced with the sudden exclamation, but took a sip of her drink before she continued. “I didn’t tell you. Jack—remember Jack?”
“The douchebag pig you dated?”
“He wasn’t a pig. He was a boar.”
“But a douchebag.”
“Yes, definitely a douchebag,” she agreed with a raising of her glass. “He finally found his balls and joined FUC like he said he was going to do.”
The Furry United Coalition was the organization that protected shifters from bad guys. It didn’t matter if the bad guys were humans or other shifters, FUC agents got in the way. At one point, a long time ago, Ben had thought about joining. He had the build and the strength, and was bull-headed enough—ha—to get through almost any situation. But being gay in a paramilitary organization just seemed like a bad idea, even if there were protections in place to guard against harassment. So he’d embraced the side of himself that was more into discussion and empathy and pushed away his tendency to charge into things head first, ramming whatever was in his way.
And look where that got him. Jobless in his prime. Having to start over, learn a brand new company, figure out how to fit in, try to make a place for himself. For however long he had there. Because who was to say he wouldn’t get laid off again? And again? HR was one of those departments that always got hit hard by cost-cutting, but Ben had thought himself safe at InnovaTech because of his performance.
But clearly performance meant dick all.
“They recruit him?” he asked.
“Nah. He applied online.”
“FUC takes applications online?” That didn’t seem very covert, but what did he know?
Didi shrugged. “Why? You interested?”
“Fuck yeah, I’m interested.” It was probably the tequila’s influence, but he suddenly felt excited. Hopeful. Maybe getting laid off was meant to be. Maybe it was a chance for him to really find himself.
He’d tried indulging the softer side of himself. Maybe it was time to explore the badass bull that lived inside his skin. If anyone had a problem with him being gay, they could find out how horny a bison bull could be.
Ben retrieved his laptop from his room while Didi refreshed their drinks. Together, they found the encrypted Furry United Coalition Newbie Academy website—okay, it took a text to Jack to get the URL and listening to Didi bitch about contacting him, but even she admitted it was all for a good cause. Ben lost count of the number of drinks he had while he filled out the questionnaire about his shifter animal, his health status, his work experience, and if he was willing to carry a firearm.
He might have put “hell yes” as the answer to that one. Enthusiasm couldn’t hurt, right?
He woke up with brightness streaming across his eyes, his cheek mashed into something hard and uncomfortable, and Didi shoving at his shoulder.
“Get it,” she whined.
“Get what?” He lifted his head and winced as his skin threatened to stay on whatever surface he’d fallen asleep on. His keyboard? Glancing at the screen, he saw a word processor document full of random letters and numbers. Five pages’ worth.
His head pounded as he tried to make sense of everything, and Didi poking his shoulder again didn’t help.
“Your phone,” she whimpered.
Oh. That was the sound he was hearing. He picked it up. Unknown caller. “Hello?”
“Mr. Beaufort?”
“Yes,” he said cautiously.
“Excellent. This is Kendra from the Furry United Coalition Newbie Academy.”
Ben pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a second before putting it back to his ear. “Jack? Is that you screwing with me?”
The caller on the other end cleared their throat. “My name is not Jack, Mr. Beaufort. I’m Kendra. Sorry, is this a bad time?”
Ben blinked. “Uh, no. No. I’m sorry, I—you’re calling from the academy?”
“FUCN’A.”
It took Ben a second to realize Kendra wasn’t agreeing enthusiastically but using the acronym of the organization. “I, uh, wasn’t expecting a call.”
“We received your application, Mr. Beaufort, and we’d like to schedule a security interview. When can you come in?”
Ben’s lips curved into a smile. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I can be there anytime.”
And that was how Ben Beaufort, bison, was recruited to FUCN’A.
2
Oliver Zuraw threw open the curtains of his third-floor instructor quarters at the Furry United Coalition Newbie Academy, his arms outstretched to welcome the bright rays of sunshine just starting to stream over the horizon.
“Goooooood morning!” he sang. He didn’t stop there, though—the beautiful sun deserved a thorough welcome. Even the thumping on the wall next to him couldn’t deter his salutation.
“For the love of god, Oliver,” Noah, the marksmanship instructor, moaned. “One morning without the screeching. Just one. Please.”
Screeching. Pfft. It wasn’t screeching—it was loud musical appreciation, and everyone should be getting up anyway. Sleeping in and getting off-schedule never helped anyone.
“Since you’re up, time for yoga!” Oliver gathered his long blonde hair into a messy bun, laughing at the exaggerated groan that reverberated through the wall. “Come on, you know you want to.”
“I really, really don’t.”
“Noah.” Oliver pulled on his yoga pants and T-shirt. “Didn’t you tell me just last week how enervated yoga at dawn makes you?”
“But—”
“‘Thanks for dragging me out of bed, Oliver.’” Oliver mimicked Noah’s deeper voice. “‘It really was worth it. You’re amazing, and I should remember that you’re always right.’”
“I never said that!”
“Close enough.”
It took some more cajoling, but eventually Noah stumbled out of his room and down to the basement gym with Oliver. It was early, but it was still odd to have the gym completely to themselves. The newest class of cadets would arrive this afternoon, and starting tomorrow, the gym would be crazy busy again. Oliver didn’t mind the noise that came with a crowd of new recruits, just like he didn’t mind the quiet of right now. You couldn’t appreciate one without the other.
He took Noah—poor, not-very-flexible Noah—through a relatively easy series of poses. Once they were done, his friend’s face was ros
y and his eyes sparkled, and Oliver smiled at the transformation from barely awake grump to a beaver shifter ready to take on the world.
Or at least the breakfast line in the cafeteria.
He smirked and raised a brow. “So?”
Noah stretched as he got to his feet. “Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“You were right. Asshole,” Noah grumbled, but the smile let Oliver know he wasn’t angry. “Let’s go get a coffee and some breakfast. I’m about to gnaw my arm off.”
They headed up to the cafeteria on the first floor, and Oliver froze at the sight of the mob of people milling about the foyer. The jolt of surprise almost triggered his very literal flight instinct—he had to fight down the urge to let his feathers out and fly away from the startling and unexpected noise.
“Damn, I guess they’ve moved up the time for the recruits to arrive,” Noah muttered.
Each class at FUCN’A was made up of only 18 recruits, but put 18 shifters and some family members into a small space and you got a whole cacophony of noise. Oliver let Noah drag him through the crowd, silently thankful for the other shifter’s hand on his elbow that kept him from giving in to the urge to shift and fly. They’d almost made it through the jam of people when someone suddenly stepped in front of Oliver. He stopped quickly and Noah’s hand slipped from his elbow.