by Maria Amor
The poaching of employees was just another part of what seemed to be a larger mission to drive Oberon’s performance down. The personnel manager stated that it was particularly galling that Lasko was poaching candidates from high-level positions, people who knew the inner workings of different departments, who knew secrets.
There was a non-disclosure agreement that every employee was required to sign, but enforcing it—if they could find evidence that there were trade secrets disclosed—would require court battles, and would bring negative attention to the company.
Alex decided that he would have to not only make sure that his defecting employees weren’t giving Lasko information that could help the corporation push Oberon to the brink of bankruptcy; he would also have to take proactive measures to make sure that more of his staff didn’t leave the company in favor of greener pastures at Lasko.
He authorized the personnel manager to discover what kinds of new benefits would be enough to entice people to stay—or potentially to win them back to Oberon Industrial.
If he could get some of his best management talent back, it would be a major coup. Alex’s father had long been a proponent of the idea that employees who felt valued, who thought that they were treated like part of a corporate family instead of being just another worker, were much more likely not only to stay, but also to work better and harder.
Alex was mulling over the results of the last report that required his attention, considering the move of opening up into a new area of business in supply, when his phone buzzed, alerting him to an intra-office call from his assistant.
“Yes?” Alex was irritated at the interruption; the last report was just as important as the first two, though for different reasons. If Oberon Industrial could keep ahead of Lasko, it wouldn’t matter if the other company was trying to encroach on their territory. They could out-maneuver Lasko until the other company had to give up its attempts and settle for its secondary position in the pecking order of the industry.
“A Mr. Eric Neems is on line one for you, Mr. Oberon,” his assistant said. “He said that you would want to take the call, but I wanted to verify for myself.” Alex smiled. His assistant was instantly suspicious of anyone she hadn’t dealt with before—a good trait, and one that Alexander encouraged. But the name gave him a moment’s irritation. Eric Neems. Alexander frowned in distaste.
“I’ll take the call, thank you.” He picked up the phone and pressed the button for line one. “Eric,” he said, sitting back in his chair and turning away from his computer screen. “Seems strange for you to be calling me like this.” Alexander’s skin was crawling with the intensity of his dislike; he had thought—hoped—that he would never hear from Eric again in his life after the way their friendship had ended.
“Just wanted to check up on you,” Eric said, his voice a little too hearty, a little too friendly. “You know, catch up on the news. I heard about your father, that was a real shame.”
“He’s been gone for months, Eric; if you wanted to express your condolences, you’re a bit late for social standards.” Alex wished his former friend would get to the point already.
“I’ve been terribly busy—I hadn’t noticed.” Alexander rolled his eyes; if Eric was so busy, he wouldn’t have taken the time to call. Alexander could still remember the last words that Eric had spoken to him, on the dissolution of their joint venture. “You’re getting out of this scot-free, Alex, but you’re not always going to have daddy’s money and lawyers to help you out.”
Eric had given Alex the entire blame for their business venture together failing—had insisted that there was nothing wrong with the end of the company that Eric had responsibility for, but that it was Alex’s fault for the business development pushing ahead of what the client management side could actually produce.
“Get to the point, Eric. You’re obviously not interested in making a social call. You haven’t wanted to speak to me for two or three years now.” Alex glanced at his computer screen; for the moment the report, daunting as it was, was more interesting than talking to a man who blamed him for the fact that his own personnel hadn’t been able to live up to the projections they’d made.
“I wanted to tell you I did finally manage to get a new job a few months ago. Just before your father passed away. I would have told you sooner, but first it seemed like a bad time and then, of course, time got away from me.”
“I’m glad to hear you’ve gotten a new job, Eric,” Alex said, rolling his eyes again. “Anything I can help you with?”
“My new job is as CEO of the Lasko Corporation,” Eric said smoothly. Alex paused. Lasko; the company that had been pushing to outcompete Oberon Industrial for months, the company that had been making inroads and developing business to come up against Oberon and undercut prices. The sudden shift in strategy made sense to him now.
“I’m surprised they didn’t come to me for a reference when they were considering you,” Alex said. He needed more time to think about the implications of what Eric had told him. Eric had known a great deal about Oberon Industrial’s MO. As Alex’s friend, an intern in the company when they had both been in college, as a member of the same community that Alex and all of his family belonged to, Eric had been close—too close, apparently.
When Oberon Industrial had bought out the business that Alex had formed with Eric, Alex had gotten the entire buy-out price to himself; Eric had gotten nothing out of the deal. At the time, it had only made sense for Alex to sell out to his father—the business was failing, it was unsustainable, the field was narrowing and the company wouldn’t be able to survive for more than a few more months.
“I didn’t need you as a reference; I had plenty of other people to attest to my skills.” Alex smiled to himself at the harshness of Eric’s voice; it at least was a pleasant change from the overblown confidence and airy sociability that his former friend had affected at the beginning of the call. “In any case, I was calling to ask what you think of the latest moves we’re making. Looks like Oberon’s been losing some steam.”
Alex took a deep breath as quietly as he could. “I had noticed that Lasko seemed to be doing its damnedest to stick its nose into areas it has no business trying to compete in,” Alex said, keeping his voice level. “And that you’re trying to get us to race to the bottom to keep our clients, price-wise. That’s never going to work, Eric.”
“Don’t change your prices if you don’t want to,” Eric said, regaining his smooth, sleek confidence once more. “We’re happy to take the industry.”
“You won’t, though,” Alex said, shrugging indolently in the privacy of his office. In reality he felt his rising anger—another bear encroaching on his territory. A primal instinct was building up inside of him, an instinct much less pleasant than the one that had driven him to seduce Daphne. “How about this, Eric: I know that animal rights is a subject dear to your heart. Why don’t you meet me at the next ARC luncheon? We can talk all about Lasko and Oberon there.”
The luncheon was in two weeks; that would be more than enough time to at least implement strategies to counter his former friend—the results would have to wait, but he would have his pieces in place by then.
“I’d love to meet with you; I noticed you’d become a spokesperson. Think it might represent a distraction from your struggles?”
“No,” Alex said, struggling to suppress the growl that was forming in his throat. “Just something to add to my life. I’ll tell you more about it at the luncheon.”
“I will be there.” Alexander barely managed to tell his former friend goodbye before hanging up the phone. He had work to do.
CHAPTER 4
Alexander sat at a table in the enormous hotel that ARC had taken on for its luncheon, looking around the room in an attempt to spot Eric. He had given Daphne the information to issue an invitation to Eric, without telling her precisely why he wanted Eric there. He wanted to get the confrontation out of the way before he had another opportunity to be alone with Daphne after the lunc
heon; the situation had taken up more of his thoughts than he wanted it to.
He had met with Daphne again a few times after their first tryst. Every time they met his bone-deep attraction to her became stronger and stronger. Alex hadn’t made their relationship—such as it was—public as yet; for all the outside world knew, Daphne was only his handler at the charity, the person who kept him at work as a spokesperson.
He closed his eyes; the image of Daphne, sprawled on his bed at home, satisfied and content, bare except for the blanket haphazardly draped over her legs, flashed through his mind, sending a jolt of heat through his body. Whenever he thought of her, he remembered her naked, the delicious smell of her skin, the taste of her lips, the heat of her body wrapped around him.
She had hesitated when he invited her to meet with him at his home. “I don’t know if we should be doing this,” she said over the phone when he had called her.
“You’re participating in a long tradition, Daphne,” Alex had told her playfully. “Besides, you can’t tell me honestly that you didn’t enjoy yourself.” He had smelled her pheromones; he had known she was aroused, had scented the difference in her body’s fragrance after she achieved orgasm. “I guarantee you won’t get in any trouble at all for sleeping with me.”
“You can’t promise that,” Daphne had protested.
“If they fire you I’ll withdraw my funding and my spokesman contract.” Daphne had paused on the other end of the line.
“You would?” she asked. Alex had chuckled.
“Absolutely. Without hesitation. You’re the only reason I’m a spokesperson for ARC anyway; and there are plenty of other animal rights organizations I could donate to.” Daphne had hesitated only a moment longer before agreeing to come to his home.
The moment she had arrived, Alexander had pulled her into his arms, kissing her hungrily, letting his hands roam over her lush curves as the scent of her body flowed into his nose. He had carried her into his bedroom straight away, neglecting the dinner he’d had prepared for her visit—reasoning that it would hold over fine, and he was more interested in her body than in the food.
He had stripped her clothes off quickly, casting them aside with no care or concern for where they landed on his floor. He could barely restrain the animal desire rushing through his veins from nothing more than the delicious, intoxicating scent of her body, the taste of her lips. He had nearly ripped her shirt getting it off her, felt the simmering, tingling magic of his other nature crackling along his bones.
He had been able to hold himself back, suppressing the transformation that tempted to charge through him unheeded; it startled him, but he was too full of desire to stop short of Daphne telling him no.
She had not even noticed it, or so it seemed—Daphne was moaning, writhing against him, her body heating up, the scent of her arousal washing over him and driving him nearly insane with the need to touch her, taste her, possess her. Alex had thrown her onto the bed as gently as he could, reveling for once in his supernatural strength.
He could still see the way she had looked up at him, her cheeks flushed, her breasts quivering slightly from the force of her panting breaths. Her dark hair had tumbled down to her shoulders, and her eyes were almost black, her lips slightly parted in a way that drew him in as surely as the mixture of warm spiciness and musk overrode any consideration other than having her.
Alexander had spread her legs wide, stripping off his own clothes as he slipped down along the length of her body, kissing the not-quite-flat line of her abdomen until he came to the crest of her hip. He reached up and cupped her pussy, rubbing her slick folds with the heel of his palm, feeling her growing wetness against his skin.
He trembled slightly, feeling his animal essence boiling inside of him, threatening to erupt at any moment. When he couldn’t contain himself any longer, he buried his face between her legs, nuzzling his chin and nose against her labia, flicking his tongue out to give himself the barest taste of her.
Daphne was sweet to his tongue, her fluids like warm, running honey, ever so slightly tangy as he spread her labia wider and began to suck and lick. He closed his eyes and devoured her, teasing her clit with the tip of his tongue and then moving down to the well of her pussy to lap up the steadily flowing fluids he found there.
He plunged two fingers into her quickly, delighting in the sound of her surprised, pleased cry, the way it bent and twisted into a throaty moan as she pushed her hips down to meet his touch. In a matter of moments she was whimpering, writhing underneath him, her legs wrapped tightly around his shoulders, her back arching off of the bed as she came closer and closer to orgasm. The flood of her fluids gushing onto his tongue nearly made Alex hit his own climax; he barely held himself back, shuddering as he forced himself to breathe slowly and steadily.
Alexander came back to himself with a start, his brain registering the sight of Eric making his way towards the table in a survival instinct. Eric looked no different from how he had when they had seen each other as business partners for the last time; dressed in a three-piece suit, it would be hard for anyone to believe that the man was a werebear—but the signs were there to see.
Alex was unusual for his kind; long and slim, he contrasted with almost all bear shifters. Eric was more true-to-type, with heavy bones and dark, snarling hair on his head, his facial hair barely contained, already showing a 5 o’clock shadow halfway through the day.
“Good to see you, Alex,” Eric said, sitting down at the table. Alex felt a deep wave of dislike and animosity; his animal instincts twinged at the scent of Eric’s pheromones—something off about the other man’s scent. Alex realized that Eric was projecting a dominant tone, and one that made him immediately want to challenge the man, right then and there.
“Good to see you too, Eric,” Alex said, suppressing the territorial flash of anger that washed through his brain. “Being CEO of a company seems to agree with you.”
“You’re looking a little tired, maybe you’d be better off in a less onerous position.” Alex began to smile. Eric had never been—of the two of them—properly suited towards being in a dominant position; the cockiness he was displaying now was clearly an affectation, and one he wasn’t comfortable with.
“Just been busy, is all. You wanted to discuss our separate businesses.” Eric picked up a menu and looked at it briefly. There were three options—all three of them vegetarian, as befit the animal rights platform. Alex was far from excited by the selections; he had long ago come to the conclusion that he would not deny the omnivorous nature of either his human or his bear essence. But he could tolerate a vegetarian meal every once in a while.
“Lasko Corporation is going to buy you out,” Eric said simply. “We’re going to take all of your business—we’re on our way already—and then we’re going to buy up your company when it’s barely worth the price of its real estate.”
“Never going to happen,” Alex said with a shrug. “You don’t have the resources to outcompete us.” He had, after Eric’s call two weeks prior, put measures into effect that would ramp up development into new areas of business, and would increase the existing areas of business that Oberon Industrial had under its purview.
He was confident that there was little Eric could do to realistically bring Lasko up to speed—not with the size of their company as it presently existed, not with the resources they had available to them, and certainly not with their history in the industry.
Eric would have replied; but Daphne approached the table, and Alex felt a flicker of a smile curling his lips. Something flitted through Eric’s green eyes, but Alex didn’t notice. He could only take in the scent of Daphne floating towards him, the sight of her curves draped in the dress he had bought her for the occasion—over her protests. “It’s a fancy luncheon, you should look your best, and this particular design is amazing on you,” he’d said.
“I see your friend made it here,” Daphne said, her smile flicking from Eric back to Alex. Alex glanced at his former friend and
business partner and saw the appreciation in Eric’s eyes. A low growl—lower than Daphne’s ears would be able to make out, but enough for Eric to hear—sounded in the depths of his throat; a warning, a noise that he had never made in his life.
The sound surprised him. He had heard it before from other bears, wild and shifter alike—it was the sound that a male bear made in laying claim to his mate, deterring another bear from attempting to mate.
Before he could think about the instinctive reaction, Alex realized that Eric was talking to Daphne, saying that he appreciated the work that Alex had done with ARC so much that he was interested in becoming a spokesperson as well. “But only if I could have you as a handler—you seem to be keeping Alex in line so well.” Alex heard the noise leaving his throat again and coughed to stop himself.
“Well Alex is the only spokesperson I’m working with,” Daphne said, giving him a quick, secretive smile. Alex returned it as moderately as he could—knowing that Eric was watching, that Eric would find a way to turn it to his advantage. Alex hurried Daphne away as quickly as he could, his mind spinning. He could prevent Eric’s attempts to destroy the business he had inherited from his father—but Eric’s desire for revenge wouldn’t stop there.
“She seems very sweet. Fitting name, Daphne,” Eric said, his eyes half-lidded. He leaned in towards Alex. “Does she know about your true nature?” Alex held his gaze.
“If she finds out about it from you, she’ll find out about your nature too. And the elders wouldn’t look kindly on the revelation.” Alex hated to bring the elders of the bear shifter people into the equation—but it was the only threat he could really hang over Eric’s head.
“Probably best to be careful how close you let her get,” Eric said, sitting back once more. “I can smell your mark on her—but she’s not a shifter. Somehow, I don’t think she’d be so thrilled to work with you if she finds out. Of course I won’t tell her—but you never know.”
