Chapter Twenty-One
Synamon tried to give me her brightest camera-worthy smile, but in this post-climactic haze, I could see right through it.
“Everything’s great. Amazing,” she insisted.
I agreed. Incredible, magical, life-altering—all words I’d add to that assessment. But she said no when I was inside her.
No.
It made me want to break this cabin into matchsticks with my bare fucking hands.
“I thought you wanted me to stop, like you didn’t want me.
” The words were almost pure growl. “If things were bad with your ex, if he made you do things you didn’t want to do” —this time I did growl.
Fuck it. No holding back-- “I will rip him limb from limb when we see him in that courtroom.”
If someone hurt her, there would be hell to pay. End of fucking story.
Instead, she laughed. It was probably the most genuine and sincere reaction I’d ever gotten out of her, and it threatened to break my fucking brain that it would come now. This way.
“No, it’s not that at all.” This smile was much dreamier.
“It’s just that...right before you came, an image of you as a bear flashed in my mind.
It was so vivid, I thought you’d shifted.
” She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip.
It took everything in me not to push her down on the cushion and have her all over again.
“But it wasn’t just that you were a bear.
It was so much more than that. I saw you wild.
Free. And it made me feel bad, because now you’re stuck in this cabin babysitting me. ”
“It’s hardly a chore.”
She shook her head like she was calling bullshit on me. “Why did you start working for Sawtooth Security? Why the change? Did something happen in the forest?”
I shook my head. “Things always happen out there. But the jobs were unpredictable. Not steady. And some of it was--” I was careful with my words.
Not to protect myself, but to protect her.
“I thought I was in control of who I worked for, but I wasn’t.
Got too close to some things I’d rather not be involved with. ”
“So Sawtooth Security is your Ellie era?” She cocked a brow.
“I guess it kind of is.” I laughed.
She came closer, and her body was lit up. Her scent was already tattooed on my soul but it intensified. I wasn’t the only feral bear in this room, and Synamon knew she had me eating out of her hand.
“Say I hired Brad the survivalist and asked you to solve this problem, how would you do it?”
Power flooded through my veins. I hadn’t thought of myself as that bear in a while—not without envy and frustration. I didn’t regret taking this job, but working at Sawtooth Security, following someone else’s protocol, had been much harder than I imagined.
So I could give her the company-approved answer, or the one both of us wanted.
“I wouldn’t be sitting around waiting for someone else to make a mistake,” I said. “I’d force them to make a move.”
“That’s pretty hot,” she said, fanning herself. “How would you do that?”
Careful, my bear warned. She’s baiting you.
This woman didn’t want to follow rules either. She’d only done it as Ellie to use them against her ex. So we were both trapped in this cabin—her words, not mine—and fighting our instincts.
If I could keep this woman forever, I had to show her exactly what kind of bear I was.
“We need to draw whoever is after you out. Make them comfortable enough to think it’s safe to strike.”
Again, I expected her to recoil. But this woman surprised me at every turn. She brightened. “Oh, I like the sound of this. How do we do it?”
“You’ll testify, just like you want to.” I couldn’t overpromise.
Put her in danger. My instincts were screaming at me to protect my mate.
“But to really make it effective, you need to let them know Ellie is alive. The element of surprise is priceless, but I think it would be wasted in the courtroom.”
Her inhale trembled. “Okay, but what about Synamon?”
“The evidence is pointing toward your ex.”
“That’s not what I asked you. So let me make myself clearer this time.
” She put her hand on my heart, and it thumped wildly in response.
“Hmm. Just as I suspected. Your body doesn’t lie, Brad.
You’re more bear than man even on your most human day.
We both know it’s not doing us any favors to deny who you really are. ”
“I won’t use you as bait,” I gritted out.
Her lips curled into a feral smile, and that damn hand was still on my heart. Any longer and an imprint would be branded there.
Good, my bear said. It’ll remind you who you should be loyal to.
“So what you’re saying is, you’ve thought about this,” she said. “And you definitely thought the Slasher was after me when you dragged me into that storage closet at the Stepchild.”
“Before we did the research,” I reminded her. “We were working on what Jen had given us.”
Synamon shook her head slowly. “I didn’t ask you about research. What does your instinct say, bear?”
I sighed. “He’s a threat.”
“So we need to figure out if you’re wrong or right—”
“I won’t put you in danger,” I growled.
“But you’ll let me testify, which by your logic, means you don’t think my ex is a threat.”
Fuck, she had me there. “You might be onto something.”
She brightened like someone had turned a spotlight on her. “Here’s my proposal, and let me tell you the whole plan before you argue with me. We book another show at the Stepchild. Make it a tribute to Velvet Ransom. Invite other Only Bears performers. Make sure the whole world knows.”
I cocked a brow. “You want to put a lot of people in danger.”
“Why wouldn’t we do this?” She tipped her head. “So you don’t have to defy your coworkers?”
“No, that’s not it.” Although I could picture Barrett and Bellamy losing their collective shit over this plan. The manpower. The logistics. “If someone gets hurt at this event, the blood is on our hands. Not Sawtooth Security. You and me.”
“Besides the pay and the 401K—listen, I get it, benefits are sexy—why did you take this job? You had to want something from it.” She ran her hand down my chest, through the hair that swirled on my stomach. “More than this.”
“I wanted to be seen as more than some backwoods bear that people hired when they wanted crazy shit.”
She nodded. “You wanted to be taken seriously.”
“Guess I saw it as a challenge.”
“You can be known as the bear that takes down the Centerfold Slasher or helps save a ton of shifter land from developers.”
“I could—”
She waggled her finger. “Am I your mate, Brad?”
“This doesn’t seem like a fair question.”
“It is, because if the answer is yes, that means I’m your partner. Your equal.”
“Of course you are.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Then stop thinking of me like I’m a doll you keep in a box because I’m too precious to play with. Let me play with you, Brad. I’m tired of being underestimated. Aren’t you?”
She leaned in and kissed me—tipping the scales completely in her favor.
“Let’s do it.”