Polar Bears are Forever: Book One Supernatural Enforcers Agency (7 page)

Dang, if Erin thought she showed a lot of teeth when she smiled, it was nothing compared to when she roared. 
So many sharp, white teeth.

Hmmm, maybe Erin had misjudged her.  Although, a spiteful voice still resented the fact that the tigress had been involved with Gunner, and for all she knew still was.  Sneaking a peek at Gunner, Erin was shocked by the intensely angry look on his face, but she was mighty relieved it wasn’t directed at her. 
No, that was all for the tigress.

A tall, although not as tall as Gunner, male wandered over.  He had an easy, cocky smile that bordered on arrogant, but it wasn’t that big of a surprise.  He was extremely handsome –
disturbingly so
– and the women in the bar stopped what they were doing to watch him walk by, much to the dismay of the males they happened to be with them at the time.  He was a lot slimmer than the polar bear, but Erin didn’t doubt that he still packed some vicious strength in his sinewy muscles.

He purred out a ‘Hi’ to the table that had Wayne, Cutter and Jessie rolling their eyes.  Avery went very quiet; Isis grinned, and Gunner looked like he wanted to murder the interloper.

“Hi,” croaked Erin.

Wes’ eyes roamed over the occupants of the table until they landed on Erin, and he gave her a predatory smile.

“It’s nice to meet you, Erin.  I’ve heard so much about you.  I’m Wes; I lead the Gamma team.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

Erin inhaled as a question popped into her head but then hesitated.  With surprise, she noticed that Gunner’s attention was now firmly on her, and he was watching her closely.  Cheeks burning, she blurted, “What species are you?”

Wes chuckled.  “I’m actually a liger.”

She gasped.  “Really?”

He nodded.  “Yep, my mom’s a tiger and my dad’s a lion.”

Erin looked at him with frank fascination, and she could have sworn that Gunner groaned.  “But I thought that for shifters the babies usually either took after their mom or their dad – they were one or the other.”

“Most of the time that’s true, but sometimes when the different species are compatible the offspring gets characteristics of both.”

“Wow, I had no idea.” 
There was so much she didn’t know about shifters.

“Yeah, don’t worry, like I say, it’s only where the species are compatible, you’re not going to see a half-polar bear, half-tiger mutant walking around like if Gunner and Isis had a baby.”

Gunner’s jaw clicked, and his eyes melted to dark brown as the liger shifter slapped him on the back. 

Wes smiled suggestively at Erin and waved his finger in a circle.  “But, if we had a baby, it could easily be a tiger or a lion and have your abilities too.  Double species are rare, but they happen.”

Erin noticed that Gunner had balled up his fists, and she was dismayed when he asked Isis if he could speak to her.  Oh, no, why does he want to talk to her alone? 
Crap, what if they were going to have sex?
  She knew that shifters were quite lascivious creatures, and even she couldn’t fail to notice the sexual undercurrent in the bar –
heck, a number of patrons were almost having sex in their booths!
  But would Gunner just ditch her like that to be with the beautiful tigress?

Isis and Gunner disappeared into the crowd, and Wes eagerly hopped into Gunner’s vacated seat.  He started asking her numerous questions about life in Playa Lunar, about her abilities…  She answered with as much spirit as she could, while obsessing over what Gunner and Isis were doing together.

*

“What the fuck are you doing?” snarled Gunner as soon as he was sure they were out of earshot of his nosy teammates.

Isis fluttered her eyelashes theatrically.  “What do you mean?”

His bear roared at him.  “Don’t act coy with me, what the fuck are you playing at?”

She rolled her eyes at his attitude.  “Wes wanted to meet her, so I said I’d introduce him.  It’s perfectly harmless.”

The tigress affected a look of innocence, but Gunner didn’t buy it for one second.  “No, Wes is hoping that he can talk her into a requesting a transfer to his team.  And you’re helping him because you think that means you can get onto my team.  Well, you can stop right now because it’s not happening.”

Damn right, it’s not happening
.  He wasn’t about to let that damn liger get his claws into Erin.  Alright, so under different circumstances, Gunner might have considered him an okay guy, but he was trying to steal Erin and that made him the enemy. 

Isis pursed her lips.  “You can’t control what Erin chooses to do.  If she decides she’s better suited to working with Wes, then that’s up to her.”

No, Erin wasn’t allowed
.  “She won’t do that.”

“Cocky aren’t we?” sneered the tigress.  ‘Wes can be very persuasive.”

Gunner felt his ire rise and he pushed his claws into the palm of his hands to stop his beast from lunging at the irritating tigress.  “To be clear, Isis,” he hissed, “even if Erin did leave my team, for whatever reason, I wouldn’t give you her spot.”

“Now you’re just being spiteful.”

If Isis took Erin away from him, he’d more than just spiteful!
“What you’re doing won’t work, so call off the liger.”

“We’ll see,” she hissed and flounced away.

Gunner took a few moments to compose himself and calm his irate bear.  He couldn’t allow himself to lose control.  Not over a woman.  Not even if she was the most perfect woman in creation…
damnit
.  He had it bad.

His bear nudged him.  Just what was he doing standing at the other side of the bar when Wes was probably flirting up a storm with his human? 
Shit
. 
The bear was right.

Gunner promptly shouldered his way back to their table and was thoroughly alarmed to see that it was almost entirely empty.  In particular, he was panic stricken to see that neither Wes nor Erin was there anymore.  What if they had left together?  What if they were going back to his apartment to have sex?  The fucking liger could have his feline tongue down her throat at that very second.  No, he had to stop them.

“Where’s Erin?” he growled.

Wayne and Jessie, currently in the middle of an argument about the benefits of his gator wearing Kevlar, looked up in surprise.  They both shrugged and got back to their conversation.

Useless
.  His bear snarled. 
Find her!

Gunner sniffed the air, trying to decipher Erin’s delicious vanilla scent, but he had trouble picking her out of so many sweaty bodies. 
Fuck
.

He would call her.  He would tell her there was an emergency, and he needed her right away.  Whatever she was about to do with Wes would have to stop.  He stalked to the exit, almost knocking over Rory the SEA medical examiner as he did. He howled as a small, curvaceously familiar body careened into him while exiting the ladies' bathroom.

His hands clamped down on her shoulders and an inordinate amount of relief washed through him.  She looked up at him in shock, an apology dying on her lips when she saw who it was.

“I’m leaving; I’ll drive you home,” he declared forcefully, not waiting for her to catch her breath.

“Oh, okay,” breathed Erin, not unhappily.

He nodded and grasped her arm, leading her out of the bar and to his car.  He knew he was being unfair; refusing to be with her but trying to stop her from being with anyone else.  Part of him knew how awful that was, but a larger part of him didn’t care. 
She was his
.  She just couldn’t be his yet.  And while he waited, he’d make damn sure she didn’t become anyone else’s either.

*

“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor.

Tom ‘the hammer’ Murphy raised his tired eyes.  He lifted his leaden hand to remove the oxygen mask.  He struggled to get it off and the doctor, in spite of Tom’s glare, helped him.  Tom didn’t like that he needed help; he resented feeling weak in front of anyone, in particular in front of a lesser shifter like this damn badger doctor.

“Fine,” he growled.

“Your vitals look excellent, better than expected.  You can rest here for the night and then your, ah, friend can take your home.”

The doctor nervously nodded to the corner of the room where Tom’s bodyguard, Alfie, a tough-as-hell elephant shifter, was sat in a chair.  To the casual observer he seemed to be relaxed and engrossed in a paperback copy of, surprisingly, Pride and Prejudice, but Tom knew that the slightest nod of his head would have Alfie thundering across the room and ripping the badger apart.

“What if I want to go sooner?” asked Tom belligerently.  He hated to be told what to do no matter the circumstances.

The doctor shrugged unconcernedly.  “Then go.  This isn’t a hospital.  If you fall down dead the moment you get out of here, it won’t be our problem.”

Tom pursed his lips, appeased slightly.  “I’ll leave when I’m ready.”

“Okay, holler if you need anything.  I’ll be down the corridor watching LLPD Bloopers.”

The doctor spun on his heel and ambled out the room.  Tom tracked his movements. 
Ugh, prey.
 

He ran his hand down the front of his chest.  He’d have a scar for the rest of his life, but after a couple of weeks it would knit itself into a thin silver line.  He could already feel himself mending; he could feel his heart – his new heart - beating more strongly, thumping as it did forty years ago. 

It was incredible, unbelievable and absolutely exhilarating.  He felt like he could climb a mountain, jump out of a plane, and take several young women to his bed without breaking a sweat. 
Just like the good old days.

He had to admit, the doctor did good work.  Perhaps he could persuade the doctor to come onto his payroll, couldn’t hurt to have a talented –
yet disreputable
– medic on hand.

Yep, it had been worth every cent.  Although the behavior of the asshole who put all this together still rankled.  He deserved respect, he deserved better than a pipsqueak upstart talking to him like he was nothing!  Red-hot rage boiled in his veins, his heart pounded in fury, and for the first time in months he felt… he felt fine.  He was back to his old self!  It was amazing.

That moment, his life began anew.

Chapter Seven

The next two weeks almost became routine.  At work, Erin was put through torturous amounts of training by Avery and Wayne while Cutter looked on and sneered.  The only case they had during that time was a murder, which solved itself when the murderer handed himself in and confessed.  There were whispers of further missing shifters, but as it wasn’t their case, they didn’t get a lot of details.

Spare time was spent going through open cases.  On the plus side, she got to spend time with Jessie, going out to lunch and shopping. 
Jessie loved shopping
.  On the down side, Gunner seemed to be going out of his way to avoid her at work.

The team went out numerous times to the bar for drinks, and every time Gunner would insist on driving her home.  She daren’t turn down his offer of a ride;
she dreaded disappointing him
.  The ride home would always mirror the first time.  Gunner asked her various innocuous questions about her likes and dislikes, and he seemed pleased when she asked him things, too.  When they reached her apartment, he would insist on walking her to the door, he would lament her poor security, linger as if he was about to kiss her and then leave abruptly.

It was frustrating as hell!

Erin wondered at his behavior.  She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience where men were concerned, but she suspected he did have feelings for her that surpassed those of just a colleague.  He bordered on frosty to her at work, but he seemed overly concerned after hours.  Sure, he could have just been worried about her as a friend, but she didn’t see him behaving that way to Avery or Jessie.  But then, he trusted that the two of them could actually take care of themselves. 
She knew he didn’t think she was capable.

She considered saying something to him, but if she really did have the complete wrong end of the stick, it would be absolutely mortifying.  He’d probably laugh at her for being dumb enough to think that someone like him would even give an average looking human like her the time of day.  She wasn’t blind; she could see the way women eyed him at the bar.  Hell, she could see the way other agents ogled him at work.  It left her steaming and frustrated as hell because she couldn’t rightly tell them to keep their slutty eye-fondling to themselves.

Erin prayed that the situation would come to a head –
and soon
– because there were only so many cold showers she could take. 

*

Gunner rolled his shoulders as he loaded his gun. 
Yep, a bit of target practice couldn’t hurt.
  It had been weeks since he’d done any.

The door behind him opened, and he heard a muffled gasp.  He didn’t need to hear that to know it was her, though; her vanilla scent invaded his senses, making his beast whimper in delight.

“Oh!  What a surprise, I didn’t know you’d be here,” she exclaimed, unable to hide the sliver of happiness in her voice.

He turned round and smiled at her. 
But he knew she would be
.  She’d started a routine of target practice whenever she could at about 7pm, choosing that time because the place was usually deserted by then.  There was generally a mass exodus of the building at 5pm.

Gunner gathered from Wayne that Erin was hesitant and shy about her own prowess with a gun, but was desperate to improve.  She just wasn’t keen to practice in front of other people.  Given how pleased she was to see him, she didn’t seem to have an issue with him being there.

“I just thought I’d get a little practice in; it’s been a while,” he said nonchalantly.

Erin bobbed her dark head.  “Me too, not that it’s been a while for me, I need all the practice I can get.”

She laughed nervously and looked at her feet.

Gunner shrugged.  “You just have to give it time.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’m ever going to be any good at this.”  Her cheeks flushed as she realized that perhaps she ought not to have admitted that.

“Come on, everyone needs practice.  You don’t think I was born this amazing, do you?” 

“Yes,” she breathed before gazing at him through her eyelashes.

Heat pulsed through his body, and the desire, the want and the need of the past two weeks reached boiling point.

“Erin, I…”

He was cut off by the laughs of the two male shifters making their way into the room.  His bear was furious at the interruption and Gunner wasn’t far behind. 
They were the reason he was down there in the first place.

Erin’s habit of practicing had also become apparent to other people in the building, namely Diaz and Wes. 
The jaguar and the liger
.  According to Wayne, who pretty much knew all the comings and goings of people around the building, the two a-hole shifters had also taken it upon themselves to come to the shooting range, just when Erin happened to be there. 
Gunner had to put a stop to that
.

He suspected that Wes was just trying to get her to join his team, figuring that a psychic would make his job a lot easier.  Diaz, on the other hand, he was sure that the cat wanted to get into her pants.  Gunner wasn’t blind; the guy wasn’t wholly repulsive and if the jaguar managed to hide his smarmy personality, Gunner was sure that a woman might take pity on him and agree to go on a date with him. 
He just didn’t want Erin to be that woman.

The two men stopped when they saw the huge polar bear shifter glaring at them.  He was a little pleased to note that their shoulders dropped a smidge on seeing him there.  No way could they cajole Erin into doing what they wanted when he was around.

They grudgingly nodded at Gunner and said hello to Erin, who waved in return.

Gunner was gratified when Erin ignored them and turned to him.  “Could you give me a few pointers?  I don’t think I’m standing right, my shoulder really hurts after I’m finished.”

As if in explanation she twisted her shoulder round.

“Of course,” he agreed, delighted to have any excuse to get her away from the other males. 
Other, inferior males. 

He led her as far away from them as possible and set her up with a gun and ear protectors.  He indicated for her to start shooting.  It was almost painful to watch.  She crunched up her face, hunched up her body and completely tensed as she let off the first round.  She hit the paper target; she just didn’t hit the silhouette of the man.

Wordlessly, he repositioned her slightly.  His hands roamed over her arms, gently tugging them.  He swiveled her hips and couldn’t help but notice as she gulped when his fingers accidentally –
on purpose
– trailed over her plump ass. 

Dang, how could he have failed to notice her ass before?
  He’d completely neglected it, preferring to obsess over her rounded breasts and pretty, pink mouth. 
It was just the right size for his hands…

Crap
.  She was looking at him expectantly.  He ignored his mounting arousal and made a big show of twisting her body ever so slightly to the left.  He gave her the thumbs up, and she tried to shoot again.  She actually managed to hit the silhouette, right in the arm.

Gunner nodded encouragement and then tried to loosen up her arms.  He stood behind her; his muscled chest grazed her back.  He took each arm and slowly made her stretch.  After that, he positioned her and motioned for her to try again.

The look of surprised glee on her face when she hit the center of the silhouette was charming.  He chuckled as she did a happy little jig, and almost thought she was going to give him a hug.  He would have let her too, in spite of being under the watchful eyes of Wes and Diaz.

After that, she couldn’t get enough.  They stayed for ages, practicing over and over.  Even Wes and Diaz gave up and left before they did.

He wondered at all the people who had ever tried to teach her to shoot. 
It had been so easy
.  Perhaps they just weren’t as patient as him.  Still, it made him proud at how she blossomed under his tutelage.

Finally, he had to admit it was getting late.  He pulled off his ear defenders and indicated she should do the same.

“We’ve been here a while; we ought to go.”

“Yeah,” she agreed unenthusiastically.

“Drink?” he offered.

“No, I don’t really feel like it.  I’m not much of a drinker.”

“I’ll drive you home.”

“You don’t have to do that, I don’t mind taking the bus,” she said, bashfully.

His hackles rose at that as his bear grumbled. 
No way was he letting her ride the bus at night
.  “I don’t have to; I want to,” he replied simply.

Judging by the smile she failed to conceal, that had been the right thing to say.

*

The ride home was like the other nights.  He asked her a few basic questions, nothing very intimate, while she darted quick little glances in his direction, pretending she wasn’t completely infatuated with him.

It had been an unexpected pleasure to find Gunner at the shooting range.  It also meant she was spared from having to deal with Wes and Diaz.  They were nice enough guys, but she could hardly practice when they were asking her questions every five seconds.  Plus, she didn’t particularly enjoy their laughs of derision when she missed the target.

Gunner didn’t laugh though. 
No, he helped her
.  He showed her what she needed to do and for once she actually felt like she was making some progress.  Just when she thought her warm, fuzzy feelings for the bear couldn’t get any stronger he had to do something like that.

All too soon they arrived at her apartment.  Would it be weird if she asked him to circle the block a few times just to prolong their alone time?  Probably. 
No, definitely.

As usual, he walked her to her door and waited for her to unlock it and go in.  She hesitated when she entered and turned back to see him filling the door frame.  She had to say something or do something.  Otherwise, this was what it was going to be like for the rest of their lives.  Her panting, dreaming and obsessing over him, while he acted chivalrous and apparently completely blind to her lust for him.

Yes, she had to say something that would make him see the depth of her feelings for him.  “Would you like some coffee?”

Ugh, well it was better than nothing, she supposed.

Gunner cocked his head on one side.  “Sure.”

Yes!  He said yes! 

He ambled into the apartment and locked and bolted the door.  It reminded her of the first time he’d ever visited her. 

She turned and made her way to the kitchen before stopping and groaning.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, inches behind making her jump.

Seriously, he made no noise when he moved! 
The darn bear needed a bell.

“I don’t have any coffee,” she admitted quietly.

He sucked in a breath.  “I don’t want coffee,” he murmured before she felt his scorching lips on her neck.

Erin let out a small whimper before sagging against him.  He twisted her in his arms, lifting her off the ground and pulling her tautly against his body. 
Oh, it was really happening!

His lips crashed against hers, devouring, tasting and unleashing passion she hadn’t even begun to guess at.  Finally pulling away, he leaned his forehead against hers, breathing heavily.

“Oh my…” she breathed as she saw his sharpened teeth.

Gunner winced slightly.  “Sorry, my beast…”

She didn’t know what came over her, but she pushed her lips against his open mouth and licked her tongue over his teeth. 
Oh, it was such a turn on!
  The idea that this man, shuddering against her, could be such a deadly beast, was ferociously arousing.

Erin drew away and delighted in his growl of arousal.

“Fuck, Erin, do you have any idea what you do to me?”

What she did to him? 
Was he kidding?
  If he weren’t holding her up she’d be a puddle on the floor right about now.

Gunner started rubbing his hands over her body, kneading the globes of her ass. 
Mmmm, that felt so nice.

His expression turned dark.  “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”

“I want to,” she whispered against his mouth, scarcely believing that this wanton creature was her.

He laughed roughly.  “Thank fuck for that, because I was lying.  I’m taking you to bed right now, and short of an earth quake and the roof falling in, nothing is stopping me.”

“Oh, that sounds nice,” she blurted before groaning at her uncontrollable mouth.

If anything, it only served to incite him more.  “Babe, the things I am going to do to you…  Bedroom?”

Erin waved her hand in the direction, and he fairly flew there.  In a whirlwind of hands and arms, he divested her of her clothes, and she was squirming on the bed, as Gunner, now shirtless, shoeless and sockless, was licking and kissing her skin.

He tugged on her earlobe, before flourishing kisses over her neck and nibbling on her collarbone, and, oh, she almost died when his mouth found her breasts.  She threaded her fingers through his hair and strained towards him, eager for him to take more.  He smoothed his tongue over her heated skin, lightly biting her nipple before moving onto its twin.