Bear Arms (Alpha Werebear Shapeshifter Romance) (Mating Call Dating Agency Book 4) (7 page)

Eve couldn’t handle it any more. She burst out with laughter that was so loud it startled Dora slightly, making her jump enough to slosh a little wine off onto her hand. She licked it, then finished her glass. “You’re gonna get so many intricacies that you’ll wish you never taunted me with all that,” Eve said.

“Promise?” Dora asked, still grinning. “Because that’s exactly what I want. After all these years and all these couples you’ve made, that’s exactly what you deserve.”

Eve nodded. “I promise. And I also promise to be as disgusting, as in-depth, and as horrifyingly, clinically, academically accurate as I possibly can. You’ll hear every turn of tongue and thrust of—”

“Okay, okay!” Dora threw her hands up defensively. “I want to hear all that, but only
after
it happens.”

“Deal,” Eve said. “Now you get out of here, and I gotta run. I took your advice about meeting him at the place. If nothing else, I’ve got a parachute cord to pull.”

“You’re not going to need it,” Dora said, turning back from the door. “I think you know that.”

“Yeah, I think I do,” Eve admitted. “What can you say though? Never hurts to be prepared.”

––––––––

B
lake’s burning eyes were trained square on the television. Lexie’s were trained square on Blake. Three hours had passed—they were up to episode four—and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d completely forgotten about time passing.

Well, at least since the first time she played
Civilization
on her computer back in the early 90s. She looked down at her hand and smiled to see Blake’s finger absently stroking where it had gone to rest about fifteen minutes before.

“What’s going on?” she finally asked.

“Oh, Tasha Yar is practicing her karate on the holodeck and there’s something going on about a vaccine for a disease that’s pretty obviously malaria,” he said without taking his eyes off the TV. At the same time, he rubbed the inside of her wrist with a searching thumb.

Lexie giggled softly. “That’s not exactly what I meant, and I think it’s aikido,” she said. “I meant this. You walked in, we started watching the Trek, and... to be honest with you, I feel like we’ve known each other for years. This is seriously like already-comfortable-with-the-boyfriend stuff.”

He turned to face her, and immediately, Lexie felt the heat of his gaze deep in her core. A tingle snaked up her back, manifesting on her skin in a series of tiny goosebumps, and under her shirt as almost achingly-stiff nipples that brushed the inside of her bra and made her inaudibly gasp.

“I was terrified,” he said. “I thought I was going to come over here and have to put on a show or something. And then I’d have to keep it going for three hours of dinner, and two hours of miniature golf at Fonzie’s Happy Town and—”

“Ralph’s Fun Pit,” Lexie said. They both laughed for a second.

“Right, well, I knew it was something
Happy Days
related. I saw Scott Baio in a sex education video once, and when he asked the doctor about his erection I just about spit out the gum I was chewing. It was fourth grade and I would have certainly gotten at least a short detention for having gum.”

She smiled again, feeling a twinge of that sensation you only get when someone shares
exactly
your fears at exactly the same time. It’s a kind of anticipation, a sort of disbelief that you can’t deny because it’s right in front of your face.

“Anyway, I was terrified all that was going to happen. And instead here we are, and you knew she was doing aikido. How can anything have possibly turned out better?”

Lexie smiled again and gave his hand a squeeze. “Want a beer? We gotta run to the mini-golf course soon and meet Eve. I don’t know why, but it seems like she’s really taking an interest in us.”

“Sure, that’ll help. I’m not sure I’ve played putt-putt since I was legal drinking age. That said, I don’t think I’ve ever played it without a few in me.” As she got up and walked to the fridge, opening the door with a clank of glass and food, he thought of something else to ask. “How long have you been here?”

“Uh... three years. Wait, you mean this house or White Creek? My parents moved to the Creek when I was in middle school. Unless... you did mean the house?”

Blake sat there for a second, and when Lexie glanced over, he was obviously deep in thought. “I’m not really sure
what
I meant,” he said. “I think I was just making chit-chat, but now that you mention it, the house
is
pretty awesome for one person to live in alone. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, I just—”

Lexie was already laughing, and then laughed again when she sat back down, handing over the amber drink. “I guess it is a little out there. I just never really think about it. Really, I don’t leave very much so I don’t need to think about it.”

Truth was, the house
was
huge. There wasn’t a reason on earth for her to have a nearly-three thousand square foot cottage-style house in the middle of town. She’d only bought the thing because her accountant convinced her she could end up saving a ton off her taxes in mortgage deductions and home office deduction and all that sort of tricky tax-code business. Past that, she was still somewhat bewildered that he really didn’t have a clue who she was. So, instead of trying to explain it all, she just grabbed her phone.

“Cat video?” he asked with a half-smile.

If only you knew
, she thought.
If only you knew.
“Not quite,” she said with a grin.

“Wait,” he said as the video began, and Lexie’s entirely overdramatic introductory scroll went past, complete with pyrotechnics and wild effects. “That’s you and that’s,” Lexie watched Blake’s eyes get just about as big as hers must’ve when he walked through the door, “a
lot
of people. Eight
million
? Watched... you?”

He looked over at her, partially entranced by the numbers rushing at his head and partially enamored at her smile and the dimple in her left cheek. “So that’s why you were so confused that I didn’t know who you were. I mean, I’m not that into... potholders? Holy shit, did you just throw that whole wad of yarn in the air?”

He honked a laugh, and a second later she joined him. “That’s what I do,” she said with a shrug.

“My favorite part of infomercials is always when they show a person using a different product
really
badly. Like, have you seen the Magic Wallet thing? On the commercial, they show someone managing to spill all his credit cards when he tries to cram his wallet in his pocket and then—”

“There’s that woman who tries to open her pocketbook and flings shit all over the place?” she asked. “I may or may not have seen my fair share of horrible late night TV.”

“Oh my God,” he sat up. “So you’re some kind of rabbit-shifting... I’m gonna date myself really, really badly here, but... Ron Popeil?”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been called Ron Popeil, but I kinda dig it. I just wish I could figure out some way to feature spray-on bald-spot coverer on my channel. Or the blog, or the DVDs or...” suddenly, she was getting tired just thinking about it.

“You must be busy as hell,” he said, taking a sip of his Sam Adams and not really thinking about what he was saying. It was just idle chatter, the sort that most people make and don’t even consider until someone else responds. “All those people watching. Wow.”

She started clicking her teeth together. It was something Lexie had always done, but didn’t realize she did audibly. It might’ve been his bear hearing that clued him in, but when he started looking concerned, she cut herself off. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit any raw nerves,” he said. “I just think it’s awesome.”

“No,” Lexie said, still trying to calm her nerves. She took a nice, long drink. “It’s not that. It’s just that I get into these black holes where all I can think of is putting out more stuff. Another video, another blog, another video, another blog. And... here I am bitching about my incredibly cushy, incredibly lucky job to a guy who really doesn’t need to listen to my bitching.”

He just smiled in a way that told Lexie it was fine. “It’s... I’m not really one to do a lot of comparison bitching,” he said. “Truth be told, my time out in the desert was more weird than bad. I spent a lot of time in camps, trying to train people and when I wasn’t doing that, I was fixing tanks or choppers or, well, pretty much anything else they brought me to fix.”

She let out a long sigh, which he listened to, and then stood up, taking her hand. “Listen to me,” he said, “I had a good run over there. To be honest with you though? I can’t imagine having to show up on the internet and entertain people like that. It gives me the shakes just to think about.”

As though to emphasize his point, he tucked one of Lexie’s fallen blonde curls behind her ear. “Seriously. That’s a bigger nightmare to me than living in some barracks and never seeming to have a shower except during leave. Seriously,” he added, to make sure she understood. “And I’m not just saying this to calm you down.”

“You calmed me down about eight seconds ago,” Lexie said. “I was just thinking about how nice your hands feel on my face.”

She blushed deeply, slightly amazed that she’d said anything like that.

“Good,” was his reply. Soft and gentle, just like his fingers curling against her cheeks, and then running behind her ear, down the line of her jaw. He leaned closer, whispered that he couldn’t believe he was doing anything like this, and let his lips gently brush against Lexie’s for just a second, before gripping her in a kiss that forced her head backward, against the soft give of her leather sofa.

“If this keeps going,” she said, “we’re never going to make that minigolf date.”

“Do you care?” another kiss sent a chill up Lexie’s back, prickling the hairs on the nape of her neck and making her arch against his body. She felt every inch of his muscled chest flex underneath his loose hanging shirt, and for a moment, had to fight herself to keep from ripping it off him. And then for a split second, she considered that maybe she should fight so much.

Her fingernails rasped softly over the cotton shirt, and she smiled, just staring at Blake’s eyes as they glittered with a combination of mischief and something she couldn’t quite place. “How do you keep doing that with your eyes?”

“Doing what?” Blake did it again. His eyes glittered with flecks of gold and green that cast a soft spell on Lexie’s mind. When he noticed her staring at him with a slightly slackened jaw, he grinned. “Oh that, I dunno, it’s just something that happens sometimes. Actually that’s not true. It’s something that happens when I’m with someone I can’t stop thinking about. It’s been so long, so, so long since I felt like this. I can’t remember if I ever have.”

As the two of them sat motionless, staring into one another’s eyes and both wondering at exactly the same time if they’d somehow wandered into a time warp where nothing existed except the two of them, Lexie’s phone buzzed on the table, jarring them both back to reality.

“Son of a bitch,” Lexie said, laughing under her breath. “I almost forgot this thing existed. I almost forgot
everything
existed.”

He still had his arm around her shoulders and his eyes trained on hers. It was like he was making sure to remember every single detail in case it all ended without a trace. “Well,” he said, “I guess we should probably go. We’ve got all the time in the world for
us
, you know.”

“We... do?”

For some reason, his saying that sent a shock moving through Lexie’s core. “I mean... how do you know?”

Blake just smiled. “Sometimes you just
do
, you know?”

She smiled back and stretched over him for the phone. For a moment she loitered over his lap, wanting once again to rip his clothes off and have her way with him, especially when she felt his heat underneath his jeans. Lexie didn’t say anything, but she certainly took note of the way he felt and how it made
her
feel to have him right there with her.

She grabbed the phone a second later, hoping he hadn’t noticed her little respite on his lap... or maybe hoping he did. She let out a frustrated chuff and swiped the screen. As luck would have it, Eve had switched her tack from text message to call, and so when she moved her finger across the screen, it answered immediately.

“Hey!” Eve said. “Stop it! I said quit! I’m trying to talk on the phone you old horn dog!” she was laughing, and then giggling, but she finally stopped. “Sorry, Morales is acting... well, like we’re a couple horny teenagers. This bear won’t keep his damn paws off me!”

“Oh,” Lexie said, confused as to how she was supposed to react. “Well, I’m glad you’re having fun. So are we, Blake is... well, he’s...”

She looked over at her bear, and realized that she’d just thought of him as
her
bear. Just the thought of such weird intimacy shot a shiver arching through her body that had electric tingles following in its wake.

“So you like him? I figured you would. I mean, what the hell, who
wouldn’t
like a guy like him? Oh shut up, Moe! I like you too, yeah, yeah,
quit pawing me
!” She was giggling again, trying her best to keep her voice straight, but it was obviously not the easiest thing in the world to do. She laughed again, took a deep breath and apologized again.

The next few moments of conversation were spent with Lexie looking at Blake, watching his eyes, his lips, and trilling with excitement every time he curled his fingertips against the bare skin between the waistband of her jeans and the bottom of her shirt, where they’d settled. She thought that maybe the shirt had gotten sentient and pulled itself up.

Eve, for her part, just kept talking about how much fun dinner was, and how it worked out for the best that they couldn’t make dinner, but that both she and Morales really wanted to have them along for the minigolf part of the date.

“Are you sure?” Lexie asked her, sort of hoping she’d relent and say they’d rather go home and get it on instead. “I mean if you guys just want more time by yourselves we’re fine. We haven’t even broken out the Scotch yet.”