by E A Price
“How often do you work out?”
Actually, she was interested in that. Over the past few days, she’d pretty much been privy to his entire schedule, so unless he was working out in his sleep, the only exercise he was getting was with her – the horizontal kind. Not that it was always horizontal…
“Usually every day. Of course, I’ve been a little too tired these last few days.”
“Oh?” Judging by the twinkle in his eye, she knew where this was going.
“Yeah, I’ve been kept up every night by this hot brunette who keeps throwing herself at me and begging me to ravish her. She’s insatiable.”
Erin licked her lips. “Well, if you’re too tired to accommodate her, then next time she throws herself at you – duck.”
Gunner looked affronted. “And deprive her of this body? I would never be so cruel.”
“Mmm, you’re all heart.” No, he was all arousal. “So what do you normally do when you workout?”
He pursed his lips at her for ruining his flirty fun. “Usually weights or the punching bag, but when I can get a good partner, I like to spar.”
He chuckled as her eyes widened. “Don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to spar with me. We’ll restrict our wrestling to the bedroom. But maybe you could think about spinning or using a treadmill. Not that I think you need to! It’s just if you want to.”
“Take it easy, big guy, I think it’s a good idea. But I was kind of thinking that maybe I should take some more self-defense classes.”
“Really?”
Erin pinched the skin on her hand self-consciously. “Yeah, I mean I know I’ll never be a match for a shifter, but it would make me feel a little less helpless, and I was kind of starting to enjoy the lessons Avery gave me.”
“I think it’s a good idea. One of the trainers at my gym gives lessons; she’s really good. I’ll introduce you.”
She bit her lip as an unexpected flicker of jealousy nipped at her. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask! “An ex of yours?” Oh, lord, why did she ask? Her mouth really wasn’t connected to her brain.
Gunner gave her a hard look. “No, Erin, in spite of what you clearly think, I haven’t slept with every woman on the planet.”
“I don’t think that… just a large proportion of the women in Los Lobos.”
He narrowed his eyes, and she was about to get a blast of his annoyance when she was happily saved by Lara.
“The doctor will see you now.”
Erin scurried after the goddess, ignoring the dark look on his face. Why couldn’t she control her damn mouth? Why couldn’t she control her jealousy? She couldn’t really blame him for all the women he’d been with before he met her, but she couldn’t help but feel intimidated about them either. Especially when they were wandering round the SEA offices throwing the fact that they slept with him in her face.
The doctor was a small, slim man with dark hair and green eyes. If Erin had to guess by the plastic quality of his smile, he was no stranger to going under the knife himself. That seemed a little odd. He couldn’t have been more than about 30, and yet he seemed to have had extensive work done. Well, maybe he’d been in an accident or something, or maybe he just really hated the way he looked before. Or maybe he was trying to hide…
“Welcome to the Blue Lotus…” he began.
Gunner was in no mood for bullshit. “I’m agent Christiansen, and this is agent Jameson, and you are?”
Erin perched on one of the chairs opposite the doctor’s desk, and, stiffly, Gunner sat down next to her. His eyes were rigidly set on the doctor.
“I’m Doctor Philip Ross, how can I…”
“You operated on this man.”
Gunner passed him a picture of James Silver. Philip picked it up, and his eyes widened a little; he looked between Erin and Gunner.
“Ah…”
“He’s dead,” announced Gunner, brusquely. “Doctor-patient confidentiality is at an end.”
Philip sighed and passed the photo back. “How sad,” he commented automatically. It was hard to tell what his emotions were, his face hardly moved. “I performed a routine rhinoplasty operation on him about a month ago. I don’t recall his name, Lara mentioned the name James Silver, so I assume that is it, but of course, I remember the face.”
Gunner glared at him, and the doctor shifted uneasily in his seat, although sadly it wasn’t enough motivation to make him confess anything.
“How many people work here?” asked Erin, cutting through the tension.
Philip looked at her startled, like he’d forgotten she was even there. “Oh, me, three nurses, a receptionist and a cleaner. We’re a small operation. We share our garden with the yoga school next door.”
Erin nodded encouragingly, and the doctor’s wariness abated a little. “How long have you worked here?”
He smiled his tight smile. “Well, I actually own the place. I founded it about two years ago.”
“Is it common to take a blood sample of your patients before performing surgery?”
“Of course,” he said in his most patronizing voice. “We need to know that in case we need to give the patient a blood transfusion for any reason.”
“And what did you do before you opened this clinic?”
Philip blanched at the question. “I worked at a hospital overseas,” he mumbled unconvincingly.
Erin shot Gunner a curious look, and it was clear that the bear was just as suspicious as she was.
The doctor stood abruptly. “Sorry to cut this short, but I have another meeting to prepare for. If you have any more questions, please do come back. Or,” he pulled a card out of his desk and handed it to Erin, “here’s a coupon for a free consultation if you’re ever that way inclined.”
“Consultation?” she repeated, gulping.
First Lara, now him, were they trying to tell her something?
“Yes, we do everything here – face lifts, liposuction, botox, breast enlargement.” His eyes raked up and down Erin. “We can turn the ordinary into extraordinary.”
Erin felt rather than saw the fury rolling off Gunner. She said a hurried thank you to the doctor and hustled Gunner out the clinic to the car. Thankfully, he didn’t put up a fight.
The headlines really wouldn’t have looked good – ‘obnoxious plastic surgeon beaten to pulp by angry polar bear after calling his girlfriend ugly.’ Yep, not good at all.
*
Philip watched then through the slats in his window blind. Tension poured out of the polar bear. Fuck, that had been a bad move. All he’d wanted to do was fluster the woman into leaving, fluster her into thinking he thought she needed plastic surgery. Human women were easy to manipulate that way. They were always so uncertain about their bodies; he could easily get them to pay for numerous procedures they didn’t need. But he hadn’t realized that the two agents were an item, and bears were notoriously possessive of their females. He felt lucky to still have all his teeth intact.
He prayed the polar bear didn’t come back; bears weren’t known for seeing the funny side of things, and the brute might not be so restrained next time.
The bear helped the female into the car, ghosting a large paw over her ass as he did. Hmmm, it was a little big for his taste. He had trouble imagining any man going for a woman like that when someone like Lara was available. She’d been nipped and tucked so many times that she was almost perfect. Almost. It was just a shame that he couldn’t perform a brain transplant.
Fuck. Speaking of which…
He grabbed his cell phone and made a call.
“Hey, I was just about to call you…”
“The SEA were just here,” interrupted Philip.
A breath was exhaled down the phone. “Shit, who?”
“A polar bear and a human.”
“Gunner Christiansen and Erin Jameson. What did they want?”
Philip rubbed his forehead. “They were just asking about James Silver, about his nose job. But she asked whether we take blood samples, and she also w
anted to know what I was doing before I came here.”
His friend laughed down the phone. “Perhaps she’s not as useless as everyone thought,” he said ruefully.
“What am I supposed to do? What about tonight?” whined Philip.
“Nothing, don’t do anything. Just act normally. Go about your schedule as you would any day, and when I need you, I’ll call you.”
Philip frowned into the phone. “But won’t they be watching me?”
“They will, but it will be fine, we prepared for this kind of thing, remember? For now, I’m making arrangements for our new customer. Time is of the essence.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Are you mad?”
Erin looked at his handsome profile as he drove. His mouth was set in a grim line, and his eyes were the dark brown of his bear.
“No,” he growled. “Yes,” he amended a second later. “I don’t know.”
“Mad at me?”
“A little,” he admitted. “I can’t change the fact that I’ve been with other women before I met you, and it pisses me off that you’re trying to make me feel bad about it.”
Erin pursed her lips and folded her arms crossly. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. If you feel bad maybe it’s because you realize that it’s not okay to be a manwhore.”
Gunner flicked her a surprised glance. She hid her smirk as his eyes quickly traveled down to her jutting breasts. Ha, horny bear.
He softened ever so slightly. “Manwhore, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever been called that.”
“Not to your face,” she said tartly.
“You got me there; I guess no one’s ever been brave enough.”
“Or suicidal enough,” she muttered under her breath.
Gunner grunted. “Well, you’re just going to have to get over it.”
“Excuse me?” she scoffed.
His jaw ticked with the effort of maintaining his temper. “I can’t change my past, so you’ll have to get over it. And that’s all it is – the past – it’s not like I’m seeing any other women. I’m with you. I thought I made that clear.”
Yes! She knew that, and she did trust him. She didn’t actually think he was the kind of guy to cheat, but her concerns were more based on the fact that he could easily get bored of her and pick up with one of the perfect women he’d been with before he met her. Feeling masochistic, she’d managed to corner Avery before they left and found out just how long the list of women he’d been with really was. And those were only the ones who worked at the SEA!
Erin placed a cool hand on her burning cheeks. “But can’t you see that it’s difficult for me, though?
“It shouldn’t be,” he snapped before letting out a ragged breath. “I’m only interested in you; I’m not going to be with another woman.”
“But you’re you and I’m me!” Could he not see the distinction?!
“What the hell does that mean?” he exploded. It was a wonder he managed to concentrate on the road at all.
And, apparently he really couldn’t see the distinction. Well, to put it mildly he had the appeal of a nice, big slab of chocolate cake, and she had the appeal of a cheese Danish. Sure the Danish was okay, but come on; it was barely palatable compared to chocolate cake!
Erin sniffed. “You’re hotter than I am.”
“Tell that to all the men we work with,” he said, with more than a little bitterness.
“What?” she giggled. He was not serious!
Gunner cut his eyes to her. “Can you not honestly see all the men panting after you?”
She looked at him blankly, mouth open in surprise.
He let out a short, hollow chuckle. “There’s Diaz, Wes, Lake from tactical, Emerson from the tech division, Wiley from archives – they’re all after you. They all bet on who would get to fuck you first.”
“You knew about this and didn’t tell me?”
“Uh…” He had the grace to look a little sheepish at that
“They made me into a bet?” What was this? High school?
Gunner reached over and placed a hand on her thigh. He relaxed when she didn’t move to slap him away. She was tempted, but his touch was welcome. Even if she was pissed off with him.
“Well, yeah, but on the plus side, I already technically won.”
He beamed at her – smugly! That was what he was focusing on? She did slap his hand away for that. He let out a whine as he pulled his hand back.
“Ugh, you’re all disgusting.”
“Hey, I didn’t place a bet.”
“And you’re changing the subject. It doesn’t matter how many men are interested in me,” although she still didn’t believe any of them were, “the point is I have to work with dozens of women you’ve actually slept with.”
“Not dozens, exactly,” he interjected, although she could see that he was trying to calculate the number in his head. She didn’t give him chance to finish.
“I have to see your exes parading around everywhere. How would you feel if you had to deal with the men I’d slept with every day?”
His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, and his muscles seemed to grow and expand even more. “I’d be fine with it,” he said tightly.
“Yeah, sure, I can tell. And, you know what? It bothers me that your number is so much higher than mine. You have so much more experience than me.”
Gunner really did laugh at that. “Experience doesn’t matter.”
“Humph, maybe I should have a few flings to even it up a bit.”
Hell, she regretted that the moment she said it. It was half said in joking, but half in spite and she hated herself for thinking it, never mind saying it. She cringed, waiting for his outrage, but instead, he remained calm, in fact, he might have even relaxed a little at her words.
“You wouldn’t be so cruel,” he said simply.
Erin leaned back in her seat, deflating a little. “I’m sorry, you’re right, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
His lips curled up, and he displayed a sharp row of teeth. “No, I mean you wouldn’t be cruel enough to even flirt with another man knowing that I’d rip him apart.”
“You wouldn’t,” she whispered, disturbed by the malice in his soft tone.
“I would. I know you haven’t been with a shifter before, and this is a steep learning curve for you, so let me make it clear. You’re mine, Erin. You belong to me and me alone. No one else is allowed to touch you. You’re the only woman I want to be with. You believe me, right?”
Yes she actually did believe that he would hurt someone – badly – over her. There was no doubt in her mind that he could be moved to acts of extreme violence, but it didn’t scare her. It might have been messed up, but it was oddly comforting to know how possessive he was of her. It had been a long time since anyone had felt anything so strong for her. If ever.
She placed a hand on his cheek. He gasped but quickly nuzzled into her touch, rubbing his stubble over her palm.
“I do believe you, and I don’t want anyone else to touch me. Just like I don’t want anyone else to touch you, either. You believe me, right?”
“I do, babe, I do.”
Impulsively, Erin unbuckled her seat belt and leaned over to plant kisses on his neck before pulling his earlobe between her teeth.
His large frame shuddered as he let out an almost painful groan. “Fuck, you drive me crazy.”
She slipped back over to her own seat. “I wish I could say the feeling was mutual, but I was already crazy. Must be why I’m so hot for you.”
“Hmmm. So what did you think of the badger?”
Wow, talk about a 180! She frowned in confusion. “What badger?”
“The plastic surgeon, Doctor Ross.”
“He’s a badger shifter?” She did not see that one coming!
“Sorry, I forgot you can’t scent shifters… uh, but you have so many other talents.”
Aww, he looked so apologetic! Damn, she must come across as being so needy.
“Alright, I
think you can stop pandering to my ego, let’s just get down to business. So, okay, the badger, do you think he could perform a heart transplant?”
“I don’t know. But he does have a surgery all ready to go. I’ll get Jessie to do a background check; he acted funny when you asked him about his life before Los Lobos.”
“At least we have this.”
Erin pulled out the card the doctor had given her, and Gunner scowled.
“You should have thrown that in his fucking face. Ordinary to extraordinary my ass!”
“You don’t need to go Incredible Hulk about it; I only took it so we’d have his fingerprints. I didn’t get any visions from him, but my guess is he has a past he wants to hide.”
“Huh, good thinking. I should have thought of that. I was ready to punch his teeth out for what he said.”
“No kidding,” she remarked dryly.
Gunner blew her a kiss before calling Jessie and asking her to get cracking on a background check, and to get the rest of the team to make discreet inquiries about what goes on at the surgery, and whether they did any unscheduled procedures. If the doctor were performing the transplants, he would need people to assist with the transplant, so his accomplices might be his nurses. He also asked Jessie to get tactical to start following him.
“Jeez, does Jessie ever sleep? She always seems to be doing a hundred things at once,” said Erin, wonderingly after he finished his call.
“Yeah, we’re lucky to have her. Squirrels tend to be kind of hyper though.”
Erin sucked in a breath and opened her mouth to speak before hesitating.
Gunner grinned. “That’s such a cute tic you have. Did you know your eyes shine when you do that?”
“I just wanted to ask you whether you’d ever dated a squirrel shifter, but I was afraid to ruin the good mood, especially since we’d just started speaking again.”
“We were always speaking… but, no, actually I haven’t. At the risk of getting my ass kicked by a five-foot-five human, I have to admit that I generally used to go for large shifters, you know, bears and wolves.”
“First of all, I’m five-foot-six,” she told him haughtily, “second of all, I’m not mad, I was actually interested. And thirdly, you missed cats off your list.”
