by Jenn Burke
“Shoot! I’m sorry.”
Oliver looked up to make eye contact, which was a rarity. At six-two, he normally towered over everyone, but this man was a behemoth. He was well over six feet tall, and everything about him was broad. Broad face—topped with brown hair no longer than a millimeter or two, and a matching close-cropped beard—broad shoulders, broad chest, tiny waist, broad thighs.
Oliver wondered if his cock was just as broad…
Oh boy. Don’t go there. He was done with complicating his life with men. His job was fulfilling enough—and even better, predictable and undemanding. He liked teaching yoga to recruits. He liked being part of their growth. He wouldn’t go back to what he used to do for all the fish in the world.
“Hi,” the man said with the slightest glimmer of a smile. He held out a hand that was almost as big as Oliver’s head. “Ben Beaufort.”
Oliver stared stupidly at the meaty palm, wondering if it would be callused and rough, or smooth and gentle, or—
“There you are.” Noah grabbed Oliver’s elbow and dragged him away from Ben before Oliver could protest. “Let’s get out of this sea of people, okay? I’m getting the urge to gnaw on legs to bring some of them down.”
Oliver shook off the thoughts of Ben. “I don’t think Director Cooper would appreciate you treating recruits like trees in a forest, Mr. Beaver.”
“They shouldn’t grow them so tall, then,” Noah grumbled. “Come on. Coffee and food. If the recruits are here this early, you know what that means for us?”
Oh. Ugh. “Meet and greets.”
“Exactly. I’m not doing those without a ton of caffeine in my system.”
For once, Oliver was in complete agreement.
Ben was glad that today was focused solely on orientation. The FUCN’A facility was huge, but with a guide pointing out what amenities were on which floor, it became clear that it was well organized. That reduced some of his anxiety about getting lost. Really, it was pretty simple: the basement was for working out, with the gym, firearm range and pool; the first floor had the cafeteria and the student rec area; the second floor was for learning, with classrooms and labs; and the third floor was for sleeping. Outside was another rec area and firearm range. The delineation between activities and areas soothed Ben and made it a little easier to breathe.
It didn’t hurt that his roommate was a chatterbox and didn’t seem to require Ben to say anything.
“Dude, I am ridiculously excited.” Kellan grinned at the T-shirt he was folding. He was younger than Ben by at least ten years, his face still carrying a hint of baby fat. He had a similar build to Ben’s, but was shorter, so he looked even broader. He was a longhorn cattle shifter, but didn’t seem to care he was a cow in a class made up mostly of predators. “This is a dream, man. A real dream.”
“You always wanted to join FUC?” Ben tucked away his own clothes, folding them in the Marie Kondo way. That woman was a genius.
“Absolutely! Since I was a calf. My uncle was a FUC agent in Texas and whenever he visited, he had great stories. How about you?”
“Doesn’t every shifter kid dream about it?”
Kellan’s grin widened. “Yeah. But—don’t hate me—this isn’t your first rodeo, is it? What’d you do before?”
“Human resources for a tech company.”
“With a build like yours? You were a cubicle monkey? Seriously?” Kellan shook his head. “Glad you came to your senses.”
“Ha. Yeah.”
A call to gather in the auditorium interrupted their unpacking, and Ben and Kellan tromped downstairs with the rest of their class. The auditorium was large, easily able to accommodate their entire class with space left over. Ben stuck close to Kellan, and let him do the talking with the other recruits. He’d always been one to keep his own counsel as he settled into a new place—watching, learning, getting to know what expectations were.
A shrill whistle pierced the air and Ben jerked his eyes back toward the stage. An imposing woman stood there, her hands on her hips as she looked down her nose at the gathered recruits. “Listen up! I’m Irina, your class liaison. I’m going to introduce your instructors, and you’re going to sit there quietly, like good little pups and kits…and calves,” she added, with a nod at Ben and Kellan. “Got it?” Her eyes widened at the silence that greeted her question. “I said, got it?”
“Yes ma’am!” the class responded.
“That’s better. Okay, first up—Georgie Redding will be your vehicle operations and driving skills instructor.”
One by one, the instructors filed out onto stage. Ben was a little surprised at the breadth of skills they were expected to learn. He’d expected the typical cop-like stuff, such as the driving, investigating, threat assessment and firearms skills. But basic lab techniques? Computer science? That went beyond everything he’d anticipated.
And then all thoughts about class work flew out of his brain as that guy appeared on stage.
“Oliver Zuraw is a member of our physical fitness team. He specializes in yoga.”
Someone behind Ben snorted derisively.
Irina glared into the audience—straight at Ben. Oh shit. “Mr…Beaufort, is it? Do you have a problem with the concept of yoga?”
“I—it—” Ben swallowed. “No, ma’am.”
“Glad to hear it. Next up…”
Ben slumped into his chair. From behind him, someone whispered, “Sorry to put you on the spot like that, man. But yoga? Am I right?”
Ben grunted and the dude—whoever he was—moved away. Yeah, yoga wasn’t his thing, but that guy—Oliver—kinda was. Except now he probably thought Ben was a douchebag meathead. It was a label that had been attached to him frequently, due to his size and looks. Everyone expected a guy lacking in brains when they saw his muscles and build, and he hated it. It had been something he’d actively worked to change at InnovaTech…and now he was back to square one. Possibly with at least one instructor biased against him.
Wonderful. Just fucking wonderful.
3
FUCN’A was all about routine. Every morning started with someone screeching at dawn—Ben hadn’t thought there was a rooster shifter in the class, but maybe he was wrong. At any rate, it got everyone up for the day in time to hit the gym. They ran, they swam, they lifted weights, and the instructors promised that in the next few weeks, they’d add martial arts instruction to their daily routine.
After breakfast, they had classes. All the classes. Every day it seemed that Ben barely blinked and it was lunchtime, followed by more classes. It was a lot—almost too much, to be honest. But he found himself engaged in a way he’d never experienced in the HR world. He wasn’t just using his brain, but all of him…and it felt right.
On the first day of the second week, Ben gathered with the rest of the class on the outdoor obstacle course. The current head physical fitness instructor, Simon Falk, looked at them all as though they were little more than bugs. It had been a difficult thing to get used to, but Ben was finding it easier to shrug off the instructors’ attitudes. He knew it wasn’t personal—they needed to weed out the recruits that couldn’t take criticism and harsh input. The whole paramilitary thing. Ben thought they’d probably get better results with a little more gentleness, but then, he was coming at it from the civilian corporate world, where glares and harsh words would probably net the person a rebuke in their performance report instead of praise.
“All right, maggots. You see this course behind me? By the end of your tenure at FUCN’A, you’ll be expected to complete it in less than two minutes.”
Ben couldn’t help it—his eyebrows rose. The course was complex and intricate, with all sorts of challenges, from the traditional staggered tires on the ground, to climbing, to…hell, he didn’t even know what.
“Two minutes?” Kellan whispered beside him. “Is he kidding?”
Ben was glad he wasn’t the only one with doubts.
Falk stared at Kellan for a few seconds, making it clear that he knew he
’d been talking out of turn, but didn’t say anything. “This is your new nemesis. We’re going to attack it weekly until you know every section by heart. Until you fuckin’ dream about it. Because out there, in the real world, foot chases are rarely linear, on flat surfaces. Endurance is all well and good, but if you can’t adapt to your environment, you’re useless to FUC. Understood?”
The recruits had gotten used to responding by now, and let out a chorus of “Yes sir!”
“McKevitt, you’re up!”
Angela McKevitt was a lynx shifter, and if anyone could handle this course, Ben figured she could, with her feline agility and all. She didn’t seem to have a problem with the tires or the climbing, or even the balancing beam, but by the second round of climbing, it was clear she was out of gas. Falk yelled at her to keep going, but her arms gave out and she let go of the rope to collapse to the ground.
“You hurt, McKevitt?”
“No sir,” she shouted back, sounding winded.
“Good. Get off the field. I expect you to complete the course next week.”
Ben shifted nervously from foot to foot. Well, damn. If Angela couldn’t complete it, what chance did he have?
“Carter! You’re next!”
Ben shot Kellan a sympathetic look as his roommate stepped up to the starting line. Unlike Angela, Kellan barely made it up the first climbing obstacle. It wasn’t a graceful ascent by any means. He had to use brute force to lever himself up, and Ben could see his limbs shaking from exertion. But it was the balancing beam that did him in. He took two steps and tumbled to the thick bed of straw beneath it. He lifted a hand and shouted he was okay, and Falk told him to get off the field.
One by one, Ben watched his classmates attempt the course and fail. It was clearly impossible, and it made Ben wonder if this was another sort of test. In all of the classes they’d had so far, instructors had emphasized the idea of working smarter, not harder. Was that something they were expected to apply here? And if so, how?
“Beaufort!”
Ben swallowed as he approached the starting line. Work smarter, not harder. Smarter, not harder. I can do this.
“Go!”
Ben bolted off the starting line and embraced his bison self while still in human form. Bison didn’t dodge or climb or balance. They were the powerhouse battering rams of the animal world. They charged through. There was no point in trying to display agility he didn’t possess, not when he could obliterate the obstacles that stood in his way.
Work smarter, not harder.
He kicked the tires out of the way. He lowered his head and ran through the climbing wall, ignoring the gasps and shouts behind him. He used his bison’s strength to lift the balancing beam and toss it aside. He ripped the crawling portion’s wire out of the way and charged through the next climbing station. At the very end, he grabbed the climbing rope leading up to the bell you were supposed to ring when you finished, and yanked. The bell tumbled to the ground, clanging as it hit the hardened dirt.
Ben turned to find the entire class—and Oliver Zuraw—staring at him in stunned silence.
“What—what the hell was that?” Falk marched across the destroyed course, his face grower redder with every step. “Beaufort, what the hell was that?”
Oh shit. “I’m, uh…not very agile. Sir.”
“So you decided to wreck the course?”
“No sir. I thought—you know, work smarter.”
“Work smarter? Work smarter? Do you even know what that means? I’m going to guess you don’t, because this was the stupidest goddamned stunt I’ve ever witnessed in my years as instructor,” Falk fumed. “Are you going to smash through brick walls like you’re the Kool-Aid Man? Huh? Tear down fire escape ladders? Kick cars out of the way?”
Ben winced. “No?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s right. And do you know why?” Falk continued without waiting for an answer. “Because even if you could, it would give us all away. Instead of protecting shifters, you’d be exposing them. Maybe you need to rethink your presence here, Beaufort.”
“Simon, I’ll start him on a yoga routine.” Ben hadn’t noticed, but Oliver had stepped away from the rest of the crowd, easily making his way across the field of debris. “If he was confident in his agility, he wouldn’t have chosen this approach. Right?”
Even though he burned with embarrassment, Ben nodded. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to…you know, so I thought maybe this was a different sort of test…” His explanation didn’t do anything to reduce the redness of Falk’s face, so he let his voice trail off.
“Fine. He’s your responsibility, Zuraw. I don’t want to see him back here until you can assure me he’s not going to destroy my fucking course again.”
“It’s a deal,” Oliver said. He offered Ben a strained smile, and more embarrassment flooded through Ben.
It wasn’t bad enough that he’d made a fool of himself—he’d made one of the instructors feel as though he had to take pity on him and add more to his own plate. An instructor he found incredibly attractive…but was now too damned humiliated to even broach the idea of getting to know him better.
Fuck my life.
Oliver’s salutation to the sun the next morning was more muted than usual. He was totally distracted by the thought that in a few short minutes, he and Ben Beaufort would be alone together in the yoga room. Ben…who was exactly the type of guy Oliver would have loved to explore flexibility with, once upon a time. You know, in bed. Or against a wall. Or hell, over a table—he wasn’t picky.
But no. Not anymore. Oliver was done getting involved with guys who were all brawn, even if that body type worked for him—and boy, did it. He just hoped Ben was focused on the poses and wouldn’t notice that yoga pants really didn’t hide anything.
Too soon, Oliver was in the yoga room, watching Ben edge past the door. “Good morning,” Oliver called across the room.
Ben jerked, as though Oliver’s voice surprised him, then gave Oliver a small smile. “Hi. I mean, good morning.”
Oliver waved to the mat he’d set out for Ben, and Ben sat down, trying—and failing—to mimic how Oliver sat, with his legs crossed. Oh boy. This might be tougher than Oliver had anticipated.
Ben gave up, his legs not quite tucked together, and cleared his throat. “I, uh, wanted to thank you for doing this. You didn’t have to and I appreciate it.”
Oliver’s smile widened. “You might not be saying that after our class.”
Ben glanced down at his legs. “Heh. Yeah. Maybe not.”
“I thought your logic was…well, obviously not perfect, but I could see where you were coming from, yesterday.”
“Yeah?” There was a hopeful tone to Ben’s voice, as though he needed the reassurance that he wasn’t crazy. Oliver was happy to provide it.
“Sure. One of the things they want recruits to do is think outside of the box. You did that. I think Simon was more pissed off that you’d wrecked his course, not at your thinking.”
“But he was right—I’m not going to be smashing through walls in the real world, or pushing cars out of the way.”
“No, but you shouldn’t dismiss the creativity you used to solve the problem that faced you. You didn’t follow expectations, and that can be a good thing.” Oliver clapped his hands, signalling the end of that conversation, and unfolded to his feet. “Let’s get started. We’ll do the Mountain Pose first.”
At first glance, the Mountain Pose didn’t seem like much—just standing. But Oliver walked Ben through extending his toes and pressing them into the mat, through imagining a string pulling his spine straight as it extended up through his head, and so on. When he felt that Ben had gotten himself good and grounded, he moved on to Downward Facing Dog, which was a little more difficult for Ben to achieve.
“Can you feel how this pose stretches your spine?”
“It’s stretching something,” Ben grunted.
Triangle Pose.
<
br /> Oliver squinted at Ben’s spread legs. “A little wider.”
“This is as wide as they go.”
“You can do a little wider.”
Ben huffed, but shifted his feet out a bit more, his arms straight out to either side. “There.”
It wasn’t quite one leg’s-length, but Ben’s legs were just as long as the rest of him, so Oliver gave it a pass. “Now turn your right foot ninety degrees…lean over that leg…” He winced inwardly at the very awkward, very not-flexible picture Ben was painting right now. His face was red from exertion, his stubbly scalp damp from sweat, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa leaned further than he did.
“How’m I doing?” Ben panted. Oliver hesitated an instant too long and Ben’s expression fell. “That good, huh?”
“It’s your first class.”
Ben straightened and wiped a forearm over his brow. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” he muttered.
Oliver eyed his student, then gave a decisive nod. More yoga wasn’t what the doctor ordered today. “Come on, walk with me.”
4
He led Ben outside to the walking track. The sun was barely up, and mist gathered here and there along the ground. The scent of the pine trees at the edge of the FUCN’A compound had become a fragrance that meant home and safety to Oliver—two things he’d once wondered if he’d ever find.
“I don’t need a pep talk,” Ben said after they’d been walking for a few minutes. “I called my sister last night, and she gave me one. This is all just…so different.”
“Second career?” Oliver guessed.
“I was in HR before. Got laid off.”
Oliver almost exclaimed his disbelief—with a body like that, he was in HR?—but restrained himself. “Going from HR to FUC…that’s a big leap.”
