“You’re amazingly arrogant is what you are,” she said, hiding a smile for his bad attempt at humor.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been told that,” he agreed.
“I’m not the least bit surprised.”
He grinned at her. “Look, we’re already fighting like a real couple.”
“Uh-huh.”
They passed through Hurricane Gulch. The wind hardly ever blew in this section of the highway, so he always wondered how it got its name. The deep gorge had a rocky river at the bottom. He always enjoyed this area of the state. He wondered if Tess had ever been this far north or if she’d always lived in the Matanuska Valley.
He needed to stick to the job and not wonder about things that didn’t matter. It was important to keep things light. She should have no reason to worry—not that she would.
“We’re going to have to look like a real couple. You know, you might need to hold my hand or look adoringly into my eyes. A little bit of hero worship would work.” This arrangement might provide some hidden benefits.
Her eyes rolled upward. “You are worse than arrogant.”
He decided he really liked this she-bear. More than liked her.
He was glad he’d been given this assignment.
4
Unbelievable, is all Tess could think. Stefan had automatically assumed she was a stripper just because she worked at Bared in Alaska. There are plenty of other jobs available in the entertainment business. Bartender, waiter, manager, custodian, cook…just to name a few.
Bared in Alaska was known for having generous-sized women as strippers, but still, he should have asked about her job, not assumed.
Typical male.
Annoyed or flattered, she decided to let him continue thinking she was a stripper. She had considered it at one time, but in the end, she doubted she’d have the nerve. Besides, she loved making costumes and keeping the dancers organized. As a details person, she loved her job. Granted, it didn’t pay that great, but there was something really satisfying in being happy with her work.
She wished she owned her own sewing shop, so it would be easy to pretend she did. She’d taken in occasional sewing jobs for five or ten dollars here and there, but she doubted a seamstress shop could make it. However, she’d seen quilting really take off in the Mat-Su valley. They even had some quilting clubs, so maybe there was a way to combine the two.
Regardless, he shouldn’t have assumed what she did for a living, he should have asked a few questions first. Maybe he wasn’t that great of a detective after all. For now, she’d be the stripper pretending to be the seamstress and roll with it.
They drove for two hours and Tess’s stomach grumbled. “Didn’t you say you were getting us—what did you call it?—road food.”
“I got so caught up in clothes shopping I ran out of time.” Stefan gestured to the space between them. “I’ve got chips and malted milk balls in the console. Help yourself.”
“Seriously?” She opened the console, because at this point any kind of food was acceptable. “That’s what you call road food? Next time you might consider something a little healthier.”
“Nah. Everyone needs a little junk food now and again. Or maybe because of your job you have to pay more attention to what you eat.”
“What does that mean?” She opened the carton of candy. Was this going to become a discussion about her weight?
“You must be in really good shape. All that dancing, you probably could out-run me in a foot race.”
Actually, she probably couldn’t, but he didn’t need to know that. If he thought she was in great physical condition—all the better. She may as well dip deeper into subterfuge. “Yeah, probably.”
She had been expecting him to say she shouldn’t eat junk food in order to not gain weight, but was pleasantly surprised. He sounded genuine. Plopping a couple of balls of candy in her mouth, she said, talking with her mouth full, “Yeah. It takes a lot of sit-ups to have the kind of core strength required for a girl to suspend herself on a pole.”
If she was going to be a stripper, she may as well be a really flexible and strong one. Crystal was the only one who could do pole dances with any kind of flair.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, exactly.”
Tess thought she saw a hint of gold around his brown eyes. Was he getting turned on by a pole dancing discussion? This might be more fun than she’d anticipated. “I do a lot of yoga to keep in shape. I have this one pole dance where I’m upside down. It takes a lot of leg strength too.” She ate three more Whoppers. “You know, it isn’t easy hanging from a pole upside down by one leg when you’re naked.”
She watched him visibly swallow, while she thought about the details of Crystal’s most difficult routine. “Are you a customer at the club?”
“Nope.” He rubbed one of his hands on his thigh. “I’ve threatened to go many times. Just never made it.”
He kept his eyes on the road, but he looked to be somewhere else in thought. “I will most definitely make a point of going now though.”
“Oh really,” she said coyly. “Why’s that?”
He slipped her a look. She clearly saw the thin ring of yellow around his dark pupil. “Because I want to watch you.”
She swallowed hard, but it wasn’t because of the candy she’d just eaten. Determined to see just how far this conversation might go, she said, “I might be convinced to give you a private showing, because after all, you are my protector.” She blinked several times hoping to look seductive, when she was only trying not to laugh. “It’s the least I can do.”
He shook his shoulders. “Oh, no. This is a strictly professional relationship. There will be none of that going on.”
She liked that this conversation made him uncomfortable. He was probably trying to shake the idea of a buck-naked dancing she-bear out of his head. Typical male.
She eyed the bulge of his thigh beneath his jean-clad leg and the sinewy muscles in his forearm. He was one big bear. She would never give him a private showing, she thought—or then again, would she?
Stefan’s cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. “It’s my brother, Stryker.” He turned it on. “What’s up?”
Tess took in the majestic scenery. They’d already passed through the Chugach mountain range and Mt. Denali stood in the distance, as exalted and noble as always.
“I was thinking we’d eat at one of the hotels, but let me ask Tess.” Stefan put the phone on his lap. “They’re making a big production of me showing up by having a barbeque. The three of us don’t get together often. Is it okay if we wait to eat? We’ll get together with my brothers and their wives.”
“Sure,” she said. The malted milk balls had taken the edge off her hunger and she liked the idea of getting together with his family. A family—especially siblings—shed a lot of light on a person, and Tess was interested in learning more about Stefan.
He grinned. “Thanks.”
Was that a dimple amongst the beard stubble? She hadn’t noticed it before. No, it couldn’t be. Dimples were a serious weakness for her.
“We’ll be there in about an hour,” he said into his cell phone. “Yep. Uh-huh.” After a pause. “Shut up. I’m hanging up now, goodbye.” Then he turned off the phone.
“What was all that about?”
“Oh, that’s Stryker giving me a hard time about having a girlfriend. He says if a girlfriend is what it takes for them to see me, they would have hooked me up a long time ago.”
“They can just—presto.” She snapped her finger. “Get you a girlfriend, just like that.”
“Stryker seems to think so, yes. My oldest brother Silas was determined to find a bride, so he signed up on one of those Internet dating sites. In the meantime, he fell in love with one of our human camp counselors. However, his soon-to-be-wife was already on a flight on her way to Alaska. Stryker picked her up at the airport and offered to marry her instead.”
“Wow. I think I got all that. That sounds like a lot o
f drama.”
He nodded. “Yeah, doesn’t it?”
“Let me see if I got this straight. Stryker married his soon-to-be sister-in-law?”
“Yes. It must have been one of those love-at-first-sight things.”
“Do you believe in love-at-first-sight?” The question slipped out before she thought better of it.
“I believe in lust-at-first-sight, but I’m not sure about love.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Tess couldn’t believe she’d asked such a personal question, but for some reason she really wanted to know his answer.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’ve been in love.”
“What happened?” Again, with the questions. What was wrong with her? Since when did she become so nosy? “I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but if you want to share, I’d like to hear, and as your girlfriend and all, I probably would have asked.”
“Sure, you’re right. Misha wanted to experience college outside of Alaska. I was reluctant at first. I wanted her to attend the University of Alaska with me, but who was I to say she couldn’t go? If I’d told her to stay here, she would have resented me for it.”
Tess nodded. “That’s probably true.”
“Misha was a rock climber.” Stefan’s tone grew softer, then he smiled. “She went to the University of Idaho so she could be on a competitive team.”
Tess interrupted. “That’s a good reason to attend a college elsewhere.”
“Yeah, probably. But she was very trusting and no one from our den was there. It appears as though she befriended a werebear at her apartment complex.” He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “While that should have been fine, in this case it wasn’t.
Tess sighed. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. “I’m so sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay.”
“It’s the reason I’m a detective today.” For a moment, only the sound of the tires on the pavement existed. “I think you should hear. It’s the reason I take my job so seriously.”
“I see.”
“She was killed. Strangled in her apartment. No forced entry. I was in college myself at the time, but I took the semester off and wouldn’t leave until we found her killer.”
“We?” she questioned.
“Yes,” he stated. “I refused to leave. I followed the detectives around, until we discovered it was this maintenance bear that worked at her apartment complex. Turns out he wasn’t even a student like everyone thought. He befriended lots of female students. Maybe Misha was more vulnerable than most because she was from another place.”
“I’m sorry.” It sounded inadequate, but she was without words. Tess had heard stories like this before—something traumatic happens and your life decisions change in a matter of minutes, all because of one event. It was easy to understand why he’d chosen the career path that he did.
“What about you?” Stefan asked.
“What about me?” She’d had bad things happen in her life, but nothing like what Stefan’s former girlfriend had been through.
“Have you ever been in love?”
“No,” Tess replied simply.
“Here’s our turn. We head west from here. I wanted to stop and eat in one of the crowded hotels just to make certain no one followed us. Even if it meant mixing with the tourists. But no one has been on our tail up to this point, so I think we’re safe.”
Stefan turned west on a narrow road away from the crowded “summertime only” community of Denali National Park.
“You don’t want to mix with the tourists,” she said. “They aren’t so bad. We get a lot of business from them.”
“Most of the tourists are gray hairs.”
“Gray hairs? Is that what you call them? We get some elderly patrons. But our busiest time of year is in the fall when there is an influx of out-of-state hunters.”
“Makes sense.” He turned the truck sharply to dodge a pothole.
“We should probably re-cap. You know, make sure we have our story straight.” She felt a little bit nervous about meeting Stefan’s brothers. She wanted them to like her and that made no sense. “You and I met at your supervisor’s cabin on Big Lake?”
“Yes. His name is Adam. You can be a friend of a friend. I doubt they’ll ask too many questions. They’re just going to be happy I brought a she-bear with me.”
“You know…” She hesitated. She’d be lying if she hadn’t thought about the “what ifs.” Like, what if she really was dating Stefan? What if she was part of a real family? “We are going to have to appear as though we’re dating, so I guess that means you might have to kiss me at some point.”
He twisted his grip on the steering wheel and dodged another pothole, although Tess didn’t actually see the hole.
“Yeah, you’re a—you’re probably right.” He kept glancing at her, then the road, and back to her again.
She swore some alien being had taken over her body and forced her to talk about kissing, when in fact she knew it wasn’t an alien, but her bear. “Should we pull over and practice first?”
Sometimes her bear said the most inappropriate things. Tess refused to give merit to the attraction she felt toward Stefan, but her bear kept poking her head in where it didn’t belong. The desire to do more than kiss entered her mind. Then she started to count back to how many months it had been since she’d had sex. No wonder her bear took over her otherwise rational thought processes.
“Riiight.” He nodded. “We don’t want anyone knowing the real reason you’re at Denali Crossings with me. We probably shouldn’t kiss for the first time in front of my brothers. It might not look natural.” His gaze narrowed, then he turned to her. “I think we do need to practice.”
Her heart skipped a couple of beats and her stomach did a somersault. In this moment, everything stopped. The truck moved, but she could only see one thing—Stefan—and she wanted nothing more than to kiss him.
And if she was being honest—she wanted to do a whole lot more.
5
Tess mentioned kissing first, Stefan thought. This was all her doing. There were plenty of reasons that a kiss between them wasn’t necessary, but for the life of him, he couldn’t come up with a single one. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about kissing her because he had. Her luscious curves and emerald green eyes were enough to make any bear hornier than hell—not to mention what she did for a living. Thankfully, she’d come up with the idea. He just had to jump on that band wagon. By god, he did, lickety-split.
He had fought Adam on taking a vacation, but he didn’t have to ask twice about protecting a woman during his “time off.” And then to have the woman turn out to be as gorgeous as Tess? That was a bonus. Her quick comebacks and stubborn pride only made her more attractive. He wanted a she-bear who could challenge him.
Wait. Why was he even thinking this way? Tess was his job, not his girlfriend. He’d be better off keeping that at the forefront of his mind. Protecting her from a rogue wolf pack was his mission. He needed to keep his eyes open and stay alert. He couldn’t be sucked in by her feminine charm and words like, you might have to kiss me.
His bear took over. Suppressing him didn’t seem possible. Stefan pulled his truck to the side of the road and put it into park. “Now this is just part of the job.”
“Of course,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
Who was he trying to fool? He made a half-hearted attempt to bury his bear, but it just wasn’t happening. “We need to be convincing. You’re my girlfriend not a witness who was almost murdered.”
“Absolutely,” she said, licking her lips. “This is just business.”
“Kissing is a way we can be convincing—you know, so we look like a couple.” His voice deepened. “And you need to look like my girlfriend—so you know, act like you like me.” He sounded like a stammering idiot. This was so unlike him.
“Yes. Don’t worry.” She nodded. “I’ll be convincing.”
Even if this was only part of
his job, he wanted to kiss her right, make it a kiss to remember. He opened his driver’s side door and stepped outside. Walking around the front of his truck, he realized he was already hard in anticipation. His jeans felt too tight. This might be the toughest undercover job he’d ever taken.
He opened her passenger door. She slipped her feet on the ground and moved down the length of the truck. He slammed the door shut. “This is just part of the job.”
“Yeah, I know. You said that already.” She stared up at him, her eyes luminous in the summer sunshine. “All part of the job.”
He pulled her into his arms. She felt so small. He wanted to protect her. Yes, this was an assignment, but he felt an inkling of something more. The heat of her body pressed against him…did something to him. His whole body ached with need.
He should pull away now, before it was too late, but he couldn’t.
Stefan leaned closer to her, bringing his lips to hers. Somehow, he knew that once he kissed her, his life would change.
He just wanted it to be a kiss to remember, but the kiss melded into passion and lust. Her body pressed into his and he burned. Her mouth opened. She smelled like sex. Hot, sweaty, intense sex.
His bear clawed to get out—to mate with this she-bear and brand her as his.
His body caught fire. This reaction wasn’t normal. He’d kissed plenty of she-bears in his life, but this was different. He wanted to consume her. His mouth covered hers. He kissed her long and hard and with desperation.
She made a whimpering noise that drove him insane. He ground his erection into her soft belly, pressing her against the side of his truck. He wrapped his hand in her hair and tugged it back, giving him access to her neck. He kissed all the way down to her collarbone. Her breathing was quick and fast. It matched his own.
A raven squawked and flew overhead. It was just enough of a distraction to bring him back down to earth. He released her, then stepped back.
Bound to the Bear (Denali Den Book 3) Page 3
