Promising Peter (Bad Boy Alphas) (Shrew & Company Book 6) Read online

  She pulled in a breath of astonishment and retook her seat on the sofa, this time with her knees turned toward him and her gaze locked on his face. “That is wild.”

  He shrugged. She was his mate. He didn’t find them being able to communicate that way to be particularly unusual, though he did wonder why her ability would have been exclusive for use with him.

  The telepathy was meant to aid their ability to communicate when they’d shapeshifted to their bear forms, though the gift carried over to their two-legged forms as well. He occasionally used telepathy when he was out on runs with Bryan and Soren—when plans were changed mid-outing and he was unable to shift back to his human shape to communicate them.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “You really can’t do that with Bryan? He’s the person most closely related to you.”

  “No. At least, not without a lot of strain. Keeping a conversation going is hard. He has to initiate telepathy first so I can pick up on the frequency sometimes, and most of the time, we can’t get a conversation going that way at all.”

  Peter dragged his hand across the scruff on his chin and pondered that. He didn’t know what her unusualness meant. His father might have been able to venture a guess, as the man was a fount of arcane knowledge, but getting in touch with him at the moment was unwise given Peter’s requirement for discretion. The query would have to wait until later.

  “It’s easy for you? The telepathy?” she asked.

  “I suppose. Like with speech, I don’t have to think about using the skill. My brain knows what to do to make it happen without too much effort on my part.”

  “Nothing about being a Were-bear is easy for me. Even shifting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Hard to explain. Shapeshifting seems so easy for the rest of you. Like you know which internal buttons to push to make the animal come out, and with me, every time I try to shift outside of the full moon, I feel like I can’t start the ignition because I’ve lost my keys. That’s why I’m so slow. I try to practice as much as I can in case there’s ever a fight, or—”

  “You’re not going to get into any fights.” No way was he going to let that happen. Not anymore.

  “You can’t say that’s not going to happen. After all, I have a knack for getting myself kidnapped, right?”

  He may have been on the other end of the sofa and out of swiping distance, but she might as well had smacked him hard for the feeling of revolt that seized his body.

  “Oh, I didn’t…” She set the sandwich on the floor and scooted over. “I wasn’t talking about you. I meant—”

  “I know who you meant,” he snarled. “And I did kidnap you. That’s what this is. An abduction. I spiked your drink to remove you quickly and easily because I’m incapable of resisting my bear’s demands right now.”

  “I don’t understand what you want me to do. I’ve already told you I’m not going to yell at you. I’m not going to get angry because that wouldn’t serve us any purpose. There isn’t any clearer way for me to tell you. I’m fine with being here.”

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  “There are a lot of things I should or shouldn’t be. We’ve already established that I’m broken and not a very good Bear, so what’s one more thing?”

  “You’re not broken.”

  “You’re wrong. Even coming out of a clan of Bears known to be pacifistic peacekeepers, I’m pathetic. I’m reminded of just how much in my dreams every night. Maybe I’ll change and will grow a spine someday.” She shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’ve had to accept that and do all I can to compensate, which is admittedly not enough most of the time. Don’t tell me I’m not broken, but also don’t tell me how I should respond to being here. That may be one of the few things I respond to in the right way.”

  “Your response to being in a room with a mercenary of questionable ethics who’s kidnapped you is to be calm?”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed. Even that seemed to be a chore for her. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “You took me because you’re a Bear and that’s what Bears do sometimes.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re waiting for me to tell you that I have a problem with what you did.” She opened her eyes and canted her head. “Am I right?”

  “You should have a problem with what I did.”

  “I don’t, and not because I’m passive or lack opinions. The truth is I don’t have a problem with you being my mate. In fact, I’d like that idea. I just—”

  Whatever she was going to say after that point never reached the air.

  Peter’s body moved instinctively toward hers, and his arms were suddenly around her body and his mouth over hers, and it felt right and good.

  Until she gasped.

  That cleared the fog from his brain and made him get the fuck away from her.

  With her cheeks flushed and lips crushed red, she watched him scoop up the stack of background check forms and ease away from the sofa.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You’re sorry?”

  “You don’t deserve that. Just…give me some room. I won’t touch you again.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Peter retreated to the kitchen table, and Drea sat slack-jawed on the sofa, trying to make sense of what had just transpired.

  He was running hot and cold, and that was so unusual for him. For a Bear, he was one of the most even-tempered men she knew. He was usually in such a good mood and didn’t try to tamp down his enthusiasm for the things that excited him. The reticent man in that apartment wasn’t the Peter she knew.

  She turned and leaned her forearms onto the back of the sofa. For a while, she watched him rifle through the papers. He shifted his weight repeatedly. His jaw grated side to side.

  Nervous.

  Peter wasn’t a nervous man. He was fearless and calculating. At the moment, he was obviously completely out of sorts, and she knew she was to blame.

  You don’t get an alpha Bear, the beast sharing her subconscious chimed in. You don’t get to have Peter. Don’t you see how wrong you are for him?

  Drea closed her eyes and rubbed them. The beast wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, but that didn’t make the reminder hurt any less.

  Find some nice quiet Bear who doesn’t get noticed, the beast said. That’s more your speed. No one would judge you for having that kind of man for a mate.

  The clan was filled with those kinds of Bears. Drea had never been attracted to them for anything more than friendship. Those men didn’t make her stand up and pay attention. They certainly didn’t make her mouth water or body go tight at the mere sight of them the way Peter did.

  He won’t keep you.

  She swallowed hard and opened her eyes to find him gazing at her across the room.

  You’re just a convenient Bear who can slake his mating urges for a day or two. He won’t stick around.

  Drea didn’t want to believe that. She’d heard those words before—coming out of Gene’s mouth. He’d said similar things to women in the clan to prevent them from forming bonds with Bears who might go on to threaten him. Those women had believed him because their self-esteem was too low for them to trust otherwise.

  Drea didn’t exactly possess an overflowing inner fountain of self-esteem, but she knew one thing for certain: born-Bears mated for life. Once he had her, he’d want to keep her. And since she didn’t particularly have a problem with being had, she wasn’t going to let echoes of some sick man’s words poison what could be a beautiful joining.

  Peter had taken her. He’d made the first step. All she had to do was make him follow through. If he remembered why she wouldn’t make a very good mate before they did the deed—so be it. At least she’d be able to tell herself that she’d tried. Trying and failing was better than being too cowardly to make an effort.

  She put
one foot on the floor, then the other, and slowly pushed away from the sofa.

  Peter watched her move across the room and stared at her when she stopped in front of his pile of papers.

  “I think I’ll…take that water now,” she said.

  He went immediately to the sink and grabbed a cup from the nearby cabinet. As he filled the cup, she leafed through the documents in search of names she recognized. There were a couple of middle-aged male Bears she’d encountered in group events before Bryan had taken over the clan, but the rest were new to her.

  “Where did all these people come from?” she asked.

  Peter handed her the cup.

  She sipped the lukewarm water and watched him re-sort the stack into three piles.

  Pointing to the first, he said, “Those are local to Swain County.”

  “Yeah, I know those two. But the rest?”

  He grunted and pointed to the next stack. “Best I can tell, those are new Bears, recently turned by either Gene or his lieutenants.” About the last stack, he said, “Those Bears are or were part of Gene’s old clan in New Jersey. They’re known associates.”

  “How recent is this information?”

  “Soren pulled the profiles yesterday morning and brought them to me at the bunker.”

  “Has Dana seen them?” Drea’s boss tried to stay on top of the Bear scenario as much as she could. She had two employees who were Bears and, of course, Tamara was married to Bryan. Engaging in the Bear mess wasn’t great for the investigation agency’s bottom line, but entanglement still fell squarely in the category of “must do.” The Shrews were uniquely equipped to help. They were hard to catch, hard to kill, and scary smart. They’d been smart since birth. The other things had come about due to a botched drug trial they’d unwittingly participated in. The chemicals warped their DNA and nearly killed them. They’d sued. CarrHealth still hadn’t quite recovered financially from all the claims both from the survivors and the family members of the deceased subjects. They were pushing out new drugs at an alarming rate. Drea only knew that because the company was local to the NC Triangle. She caught news about them whenever she skimmed the paper.

  “Dana prefers we not pass on any leads to her that we’ve acquired through less-than aboveboard means,” Peter said.

  “Oh.” Drea took another sip and forced herself to meet his gaze. “And by ‘less-than aboveboard,’ you mean…”

  “Technically illegal.”

  Drea nodded. She didn’t know what else to do but nod. “How’d you get the info?”

  “My brother and I can be very persuasive when we want to be.”

  “I know that to be true. I’ve seen you in action. You could talk a little old lady out of her umbrella on a rainy day.”

  “I’ve never done that.”

  “But you could. You have a way of, um…” She made a waffling gesture and racked her brain for the words. “I guess, for making people do things they normally wouldn’t do and you don’t have to work that hard. Like last week when the parcel delivery guy had tossed all those boxes outside the office building at Shrew & Company, and you chased him down and made him carry them to the inner door.”

  Peter shrugged. “He needed his manners adjusted.”

  “Well, whatever you did worked. Ever since then, he makes the five extra steps and even leaves the parcels on my desk whenever I catch him out there in time to buzz him in.”

  “Good. You shouldn’t have to poke your head outside to grab packages.”

  “I seriously doubt anyone is going to open fire on Shrew & Company the moment we open the door.”

  The long blink he gave her in response hinted that he wasn’t entirely convinced of that.

  She smiled at him. “I think you overestimate how eager people are to do me harm. There are probably only a handful of people who’d want to waste the energy, Gene being at the top of that list.”

  “Is that what you really believe?” he asked low.

  She shrugged and sipped some more water. “That’s my opinion.”

  “All the more reason to prevent you from ever opening the office door,” he said. “You don’t even know how large the threat is against you.”

  “Nobody cares about me, Peter. I’m pretty sure most people know I’m not going to put up a very good fight, and Bryan and I have already made an agreement that he shouldn’t put the rest of the clan at risk to protect me.”

  Peter ground his teeth and pressed his palms to the tabletop. “Nobody cares? Seriously?”

  “I’m telling the truth. No one’s going to get any ransom out of taking me. Abducting me or attacking me isn’t going to make Bryan change his plans on a dime. If anything, one of the Shrews would rescue me. They tend to track my movements pretty closely.”

  He straightened up, pale eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Track you how?”

  “Through my phones, mostly, but also my car, and sometimes I wear a barrette that has a beacon inside.” Her hand went reflexively to her hair. She hadn’t worn the clip that day. She wouldn’t be able to until her hair grew back. If she grew it back.

  Peter relaxed a bit, and his brow smoothed. “Where’s the barrette?”

  “Probably on my nightstand. Unless the clasp is closed, the signal doesn’t transmit and obviously I don’t have enough hair to pinch right now, anyway.”

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “Is what all?”

  “Are you wearing any other devices?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t search me.”

  “An oversight I intend to correct right now.” The ominous tinge to his voice should have had her ducking for cover, but she’d already established that she wasn’t quite right for a Bear.

  She cocked her chin up and held her hands at her sides away from her body to give him room to pat her down.

  He started at the top, gently working his fingers through her short hair and tugging the lobes of her ears. He looked inside and behind both, but there was nothing there to see. She’d forgotten to even put on earrings before work the previous day.

  He smoothed his calloused palms down her neck, pressing lightly against her throat. “Open your mouth.”

  She obeyed, and instinctively moved her tongue around so he could see anything worth seeing. There was nothing there. Not even so much as a cavity or crown.

  Grunting, he brushed his thumb across her lips, but as there was nothing to be found there, he continued his investigation elsewhere.

  He fondled each button of her cardigan and every hole, and pinched down the edges likely in search of anything that felt out of place—a wire or a chip. Then he nudged the garment off her shoulders and down her arms.

  She let him remove the cardigan and watched him carefully lay it over the back of a kitchen chair.

  “You should be wearing more than just barrettes.” He raised the back of her tank top and efficiently unhooked her bra. For a brief moment, he lingered there with the heels of his palms pressed at either side of her spine and his fingers splaying toward her ribs, her breasts. She hoped for a caress. Instead, all she got was him sliding her bra straps down her shoulders and the instruction to hand him the garment.

  Sighing inwardly, she maneuvered awkwardly out of the straps and handed the bra over.

  There wasn’t very much interesting about it. She never wore underwires. The bra was plain cotton with blue and white stripes and a sweet little bow at the front. She couldn’t remember if her underwear matched. No one ever saw her underwear, so she generally reached blindly into the drawer and grabbed one of each garment without bothering to see if they were a set.

  He draped the bra over the chair, too, and then moved his hands to the fastener of her jeans. “I already checked your pockets,” he said.

  “I figured. They were empty.”

  He unfastened the button and let down her fly. And then he waited.

  Oh.

  She pulled down her long tank to cover her ass and pushed down the jeans. Like she’d said, he had a
way of making people do things without even trying. Some powerful shifters had unique abilities—special magic with which they could compel people to do their bidding—but she didn’t think Peter had that. Or if he did, she didn’t think he was specifically using the ability on her. She did what he wanted because she wanted to.

  She crossed her arms over her protruding nipples and shifted her weight as he turned the jeans inside out and examined every stitch and seam. He could have just trashed all of her garments. That probably would have been Bryan’s tactic. She appreciated the cautiousness. She’d spent fifty bucks on those jeans. While that may not have been a lot of money to some people, she’d cringed when she’d handed over her debit card at the department store.

  Peter added the jeans to her pile of clothes and then turned to reassess her from head to feet.

  Instinctively, she stepped out of her ankle socks.

  “I already checked your shoes,” he said, lifting the hem of her tank.

  “I guess there’s not much left.”

  “No. Not much.” He skated her hands across her quivering belly and around to the base of her spine. His fingers eased beneath her waistband and rounded over her ass.

  Her toes curled against the cold floor. Her breath hitched.

  He grazed his fingertips along every seam and fold, barely skimming, but arousing all the same. She couldn’t hide how wet she was or how eager she was to be breached when his finger hooked between her lips and briefly explored. She’d gripped him hungrily and made some pathetic, needy sound that he must have misconstrued, because he pulled his hand away.

  No!

  “Almost done,” he said flatly.

  He slipped his other hand inside her shirt, and she dropped her arms from her chest. He cupped and lifted each breast, passed his thumb beneath them, and across her tender nipples, and then stepped back. “I think you’re clean.”

  She let out some noise that was half growl and half scoff.

  He pushed the chair with her clothes closer to her and took a step back. “You’re cold. Dress.”

  She didn’t always have to do what he wanted. At the moment, she wanted to disobey. She didn’t want to put her clothes back on. In fact, she wanted him to touch her some more, and far less tentatively.