Dating Agency Bear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (BRIDES fur BEARS Book 6) (3 page)

He glimpsed her kitten heels
under her desk, and he grew uncomfortably hard as he imagined those
heels digging into his back as he took her on her desk…

“I'm outta here.”
Graham almost toppled his chair in his haste to escape. “I
can go now.” He shot Damien a smug look. “But you
can't.”

“I'm not going
anywhere,” Damien drawled. “I'm staying right here.
With Penelope.”

Graham grinned at his sister.
“You can match him with all the women in your database. He'll
be happy to go on dates with all of them.”

“No I won't,”
Damien said hotly.

But Graham was already gone,
the swivel chair spinning madly in his wake.

Damien had randomly ticked
the boxes without really reading through the questions. He wasn't
interested in signing up with Miss Hatfield's Dating Agency at all.
But he was certainly very interested in Miss Penelope Hatfield
herself.

Penelope pursed her lips as
she read what he had written on the form. Damien stared at those
puckered, pink lips and wondered how they would feel against his.
The woman was so kissable, and she oozed sex appeal without even
trying.

Gosh, where had she been all
his life?

“So. You're Graham's
big sister,” he said, looking her up and down. What a goddess.
He loved females with some meat on their bones, and Penelope's lush,
curvy figure was so perfect. She was hot with a capital H. He
wanted to pull her hair free from her tight bun and feel her long
tresses brushing against his chest as she rode him. His bear
surprised him by sitting up and growling in approval.

Strange. His bear had never
taken much interest in any of Damien's ex-girlfriends before.

“Yes.” Penelope
looked up in surprise. “I guess Graham's told you about me.
You work with him, right?”

“Yeah.” Damien
smiled. “I know you've been living in the city.”

She nodded. “I worked
as a secretary in a legal firm in the city. It was quite an
experience.”

Damien watched her type his
information into her computer. Her fingers flew expertly over the
keyboard and she seemed to be able to read his untidy scrawl without
any difficulty. She must have been a damn good secretary.

“Why a dating agency?”
he asked as he watched her work.

“Huh?” Penelope
adjusted her huge glasses and canted her head at him. “Oh.”
She laughed a little. “It's something I'm good at. I think
I've lost count of the matches I made. I paired up almost all the
people around me, and they're all blissfully married or engaged now.”

She sighed. “Then I
lost my job and I started thinking about starting my own matchmaking
agency. It started off as a daydream but the more I thought about
it, the more I wanted to do it.”

With a wistful smile, she
said, “I guess I'm a hopeless romantic at heart. And what
better job for a romantic than a matchmaker? I believe in love, even
if love doesn't believe in me.”

Damien perked up. “So...you
don't have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Penelope's eyes rounded
behind her glasses.

“I mean, you're a
matchmaker. Why didn't you matchmake yourself?” Damien asked.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“Well...” The
question caught her by surprise. Penelope chewed her lip and
wondered how to tell Damien that while she made great matches for
other people, her own love life was a mess.

She was probably destined to
be single for the rest of her life. She had wasted years on a
relationship that turned out to be just as disastrous as all the rest
of her short-lived, meaningless flings.

She had been with her
ex-boyfriend, Ian Renshaw, for four years. That was the longest
relationship she'd had. She and Ian had met when they were both in
their early thirties, and she thought that they were both ready to
settle down.

She thought wrong.

She remembered that fateful
afternoon when she decided to surprise Ian at his office. Ian had
his own accounting firm. It was a small firm with just one office
assistant, but he seemed to have more than enough work and his
paycheck every month was pretty impressive. In the last year, she
had moved into his posh apartment, and she'd thought that they would
be getting married very soon.

But it took just one surprise
visit to Ian's office for her silly, naive dream of domestic bliss to
blow up in her face.

It was just after she lost
her job at the law firm. She'd been home, baking a batch of butter
pecan cookies, his favorite, and decided to drop by his office to
cheer him up. Ian had looked awfully stressed. He was always in a
bad mood and she couldn't even remember the last time they had sex.

When she arrived at the
office, Penelope had been surprised to find the front door locked but
she could see that the lights were on in Ian's office. She had a
spare key to the office, so she simply let herself in.

His assistant's computer was
on but she wasn't at her desk. Well, of course she wasn't at her
desk. She was on his.

His good, dutiful,
eager-to-please assistant was spread out on his desk with her legs in
the air. Ian was going at it with gusto and wild abandon. Penelope
couldn't remember him ever being so energetic and enthusiastic when
he was in bed with her.

No wonder he was always too
tired to have sex with her. He had worn himself out at the office.

Penelope had placed her key
on his assistant's desk and left. She went home and packed up all
her things. Then she called her younger brother.

“I'll come get you,”
Graham said at once.

She didn't protest. All of a
sudden, she just felt so tired...of everything. She'd had enough of
city life. This wasn't where she belonged. At heart, she was still
a small town girl, and she missed her brother. They visited each
other frequently, but it wasn't the same as living in the same town
and being near each other. Graham was her only family now. She
didn't want to waste any more time.

Graham had driven her
straight to Shadow Point and insisted that she stay with him. But
his bachelor pad had only one bedroom and was too cramped for the two
of them. So she rented her own place, a cozy little house just a few
streets away from him, and decided to put her business plans into
action.

When life gives you lemons,
make lemonade.

It was ironic, but she picked
out lemons for herself and gems for other people.

Not to brag, but she really
was a matchmaker extraordinaire. She just knew how to spot a great
match and she loved seeing couples in love. Her friends, colleagues,
neighbors, all the people she had made matches for, were all getting
engaged, getting married and popping out babies.

Well, at thirty-seven years
old, she'd just had a baby as well. Her business was her baby. She
was going to make sure it grew big and healthy.

Penelope started when Damien
cleared his throat. She realized she hadn't answered his question
when he said, “I'm just curious why a matchmaker can't find her
own match.”

“I thought I found the
one. But...I was wrong,” Penelope said at last. “The
one turned out to be a dud.”

“A dud...and a fool,”
Damien said, holding her gaze steadily.

When she gave a crooked
smile, Damien thumped his chest and declared, “I can assure you
that I'm no dud, Penelope. I, Damien Ken, am a stud!”

“Yes,” she said,
startled into laughter. “I'm sure you are!”

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Penelope gasped when Damien
reached across her desk and took her hand in his. Brushing his thumb
across her knuckles, he lowered his voice to a seductive purr. “Am
I a good match, Penelope?”

“For whom?” She
blinked rapidly before she caught herself. “Oh, of course I'll
find you a good match...”

But Damien stopped her with a
finger to her lips. “You don't have to find anyone for me,
darling. I think I've already found my match,” he whispered,
tracing her jaw with his finger. “We'll make a good match,
don't you think?”

Penelope held her breath as
Damien held her chin and tilted her face up. Her heart was beating
wildly in her chest and her mind was swirling with all kinds of
inappropriate thoughts.

Penelope's eyelids drooped
and her gaze moved down his handsome face to his mouth. Damien had a
very sexy mouth. The guy was a smart mouth, that was for sure. But
he had a boyish, winsome smile that could melt hearts and dampen
panties. Just one look at his ruggedly handsome face and brawny
physique and women would swoon…

Penelope jerked herself away
with a start. What was she doing? Swooning and making goo-goo eyes
at a client!

“Mr Ken, you're a
client of the agency,” she said sharply.

“Hmm.” He
managed to run his finger down her neck, making her shiver, before
she slapped his insolent hand away.

Grinning, he flopped back in
his seat. “So what?” he said, lacing his fingers behind
his head. “A client can't ask the boss out?”

“No. He can't,”
she said firmly and rather unreasonably.

“But you're a dating
agency. You have to practice what you preach.”

“I'm a professional,”
Penelope sniffed. “I do my job. I don't need to matchmake
myself.”

“But you'll matchmake
me.” Damien raised a brow.

“Of course. You're my
client...”

“You said you can find
me my mate,” Damien went on as if he hadn't heard her.

“Yes. I...”

“I already found my
mate.”

Penelope's jaw dropped.

“And she's sitting
right in front of me, gaping at me and imagining us naked on her
office floor having hot, animal sex.”

“You...” Penelope
sputtered.

The image of Damien's
rippling, glistening body flashed through her mind, and she clenched
her muscles in consternation. He had planted that suggestive image
in her mind to rile her up, and she had fallen for his dirty trick.

Damien was just like her
brother. Graham was a prankster, and was irreverent, irrepressible
and incorrigible.

She glanced down at the form
in front of her. Damien was thirty-four, just a year older than her
baby brother. And at their very first meeting, he had already
managed to ruffle her feathers.

Penelope stiffened her spine,
her eyes flashing behind her glasses.
Game on.

If Damien thought that by
provoking her, annoying her and coming on to her, she would turn him
down as a client and decline to work with him, he had another think
coming.

Penelope Hatfield was a
professional matchmaker. She could find the perfect match for even
the most annoying, provoking, distracting client.

“Well, I'll set up your
profile and your account, Damien,” she said with a pleasant
smile. “Thank you for signing up for our matchmaking services.
Will you be paying your registration fee by cash or credit card?”

“Credit card.”
He pulled out his wallet and handed her his card. As she took the
card from him, he caught her hand for a moment and winked.

“What are you doing
tonight, Penelope?” he asked.

“Working,” she
replied curtly and turned away to process his payment.

“Aww, a girl's gotta
eat. Have dinner with me, Penelope. Just dinner,” he said
with a roguish smile. “Unless...you want something more after
dinner. I'm all yours, you know.”

CHAPTER
NINE

Penelope took a deep breath
to steady her nerves. The guy really knew how to get under her skin.
He was rather pushy and persistent, but she kind of liked that in a
guy. He wasn't one to give up easily.

Too bad. He would just have
to take no for an answer this time.

“You're very charming,
Damien. But I don't date clients. Company policy,” she lied.
She totally just made that up.

Damien's green eyes flashed
as he steepled his fingers. “In that case, Miss Hatfield,
perhaps I should withdraw my application. If I'm not a client of the
agency, then we can date all we want without violating any company
policy.”

Penelope froze. Male clients
were in short supply. She couldn't afford to let her first male
client go. She gritted her teeth and bit down a curse.

“That's blackmail,”
she hissed, glaring daggers at him. “What makes you think I
can be blackmailed into a date?”

If looks could kill, Damien
Ken would be dead in his chair.

Damien let out a breath
slowly. He looked pissed and impressed at the same time.

“You're right. I'm
being a dick. That's no way to ask a girl out. I'm sorry. Okay,
you win.” He threw up his hands. “Go ahead. Match me
up. Set up a date for me. I'll be a good client. Really.”
He gave her his best puppy-dog eyes.