Unbearable Arms (The Grizzly Next Door 4) Read online

  His face scrunched up in the most adorable and delicious confusion, and her eyes locked onto his waistline as he reached up to scratch his head. His shirt pulled up, and she could see the sweat-glistened contour of his abs and V-cut. She was staring like a dope.

  “Violet?”

  The awkward introductions and small talk whisked by. Violet barely noticed it or processed it, because—she saw it in his eyes—Asher had noticed her. Like, really noticed her. He was trying his best to hide it as he talked about jacks and patches and tires, but his eyes kept sinking down to her chest, and when she turned even slightly sideways and looked away, she’d always catch him looking down at her ass when she looked back up at him.

  It was invigorating. She caught herself intentionally turning away from him, maybe pretending to look out at traffic, and then spinning back around without warning, just to catch him. Peekaboo!

  “...maybe you can show me what you do sometime?” she caught the tail end of him saying. They’d been talking about her boring-ass job. Was she hearing him right?

  “Uh,” she said, “you mean, like, what I do at the museum. With the...masonry?”

  “Erm,” he said, “well, maybe not the masonry, if you think it’s so boring. But whenever you have a cool artifact in, I’d love to see it.”

  There’s a lot of things I’d love for you to see.

  “Yeah,” Violet said. “In the meantime, maybe we can...”

  Her voice died down to a whisper and then extinguished. She tried to make herself say it, to be bold, but her voice died out on her. She couldn’t repeat herself now. Maybe he’d—

  “We can,” he said, “get drinks—”

  “Yeah!” Violet said. “My friends and I love to go to this one bar...”

  Love to. They’d been there one time. And her friends? She had never seen Laurence even crack a smile until a few days ago.

  “Oh,” Asher said. “You want your friends to come?”

  No! Shit!

  “No,” she said. Ah, that sounded too harsh! “Well, I mean, they’re my friends...”

  Her brain was running on fumes. It was a miracle she was putting coherent sentences together.

  “Right,” Asher said. “I’d like to meet your friends, but I was kind of thinking more like—”

  He suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed her toward the car door. She heard a vroom sound whizz way too close to her, and then she felt the wind from the passing vehicle.

  “Asshole,” Asher said.

  His hands were still on her. It was cold, so she was wearing a damn jacket. Otherwise she’d feel his skin on her arms...

  “So,” Violet said, “you were saying, about the...thing.”

  He nodded, and his eyes lingered on her. Big and beautiful brown eyes, with sharp brows. “Yeah. So how does eight on Saturday sound? At the place you mentioned?”

  “The Backdoor,” she said, wincing inwardly. What if he thought she was gay?

  Before the car had whooshed by, he had been about to clarify if it was drinks with friends...or something else.

  “Well,” he said, looking at the shredded spare, “you comfortable riding a bike? You can wear the helmet.”

  Violet gulped. She’d never been on a motorcycle before, but more importantly, she’d never pressed her body up against Asher Pines with her arms wrapped around him.

  “Sure,” she said. “Very comfortable.”

  He helped the helmet onto her. She didn’t want to die in a motorcycle crash, but she realized it would seriously hinder her ability to nuzzle up against his back as they rode. It was like a cuddling condom for her head.

  He started up the bike—God, he looked hot doing that—and then he helped her up onto the seat, his arm on the small of her back. The warmth was soothing and electric at the same time. That was exactly what she’d always fantasized sex with Asher would be like: a cuddly and teddy-bear type of warmth radiating out from his wide chest, and then electric pulses of pleasure as he touched her there...and there...and there.

  “Violet?” he shouted over the engine. “Did you get that?”

  “Uh,” she said. “Engine was too loud. What did you say?”

  “I said hold on tight to me, especially when I’m accelerating. I’ll take it easy, but don’t relax too much.”

  She scooted up the seat, and her thigh pressed up against his butt. Through two pairs of jeans, but holy shit, Asher’s butt! And then his body was right in front of hers, for the sort of taking. She couldn’t do everything she wanted with it, but it was better than anything she’d ever imagined happening.

  She wrapped her arms tightly around him, and she could feel his muscles shift and ripple beneath his shirt. She clasped her hands together just over his belly. His stomach was rock hard, and she completed the dream by pressing her boobs right into his back. She felt him suddenly begin to breathe quickly at that, and then they were off.

  CHAPTER 5

  ASHER

  Asher dropped Violet back off at her apartment. When she let go of his body and stepped off the bike, her warmth leaving him felt like being plunged into ice-cold water, which was something they had actually had to do during SEAL training. He wanted to just go into the apartment with her and...

  And show her why bear the most fun animal! His bear urged him to thump his chest at that, but Asher resisted.

  “So,” Asher said, “Saturday at eight.”

  “Yep!” she said.

  Was she blushing? A fully-curved woman who blushed at the mere hint of a date. This was too good to be true. Wait, had he made it clear this was a real date? What if she brought a bunch of her friends? What if she thought he wasn’t interested?

  She nodded and walked inside. Damn. He could have at least hugged her goodnight, let her know he wasn’t just being friendly. Maybe a peck on the cheek?

  He could just text her and say something dumb like “don’t forget, date’s at eight!” But no, that was dumb. It was too late. Using the word “date” at this point felt like forcing it.

  She had been checking him out though, right?

  Yes! his bear said. Stand by for status report. She checked you out at the following locations: penis—middle middle quadrant, butt—middle back quadrant, arm—left up quadrant, eye—up up quadrant—

  “Okay!” Asher said. “Got it! How are they quadrants if there is middle middle, middle back, up up, left up, right up...that’s way more than four already.”

  QUADRANT! his bear shouted.

  “Oh,” Asher said. “You’re saying it louder to cover up that you don’t know what it means. Got it.”

  Asher had only gone about a half-mile when he saw a black SUV with government plates tailing him. Fucking shit.

  He pulled over near a park with a playground, got out, and nearly shifted so he could claw down the windshield.

  Of course, if the SUV were from SHIFT—like he suspected it was—it would be bear proof.

  The door opened, and General Dickwad Metin himself stepped out. Asher knew just from the immaculately shined black shoe that it was him, but then the rest of the dickwad showed himself.

  He had a crew cut and a face that looked permanently constipated. He was, of course, not a shifter. It made sense that the guy ordering around the military’s most elite shifter fighting force would not be a shifter.

  Asher shook his head.

  He wanted out, but you didn’t disrespect a general, so he snapped to attention. “Sir!”

  “At ease, Pines.”

  Asher relaxed a fraction, which was as at ease as he’d get in front of General Metin.

  “Do you know why I’m here?” Metin asked.

  “Sir, if I knew, you wouldn’t be here to tell me, sir!”

  “Smart-ass,” Metin spat. “I’m here because of Andrei.”

  Asher nodded, waiting for more information, but obviously Metin liked watching Asher pull teeth. Metin did seem like the kind of guy that enjoyed getting a root canal.

  Finally Asher ventur
ed a guess just to end the silence. “I’m guessing he hasn’t retired to be a glass blower.”

  Metin’s lip twitched, which was equivalent to a slap upside the head.

  “Not a glassblower then,” Asher said. “Blacksmith? Or did he open a barbeque restaurant?”

  “Watch yourself, Pines,” Metin said.

  “I was giving you a chance to say it, sir, because I assumed it would be a touchy subject after what you did—I mean, after what...happened to Sandra—”

  Metin cut in. “Andrei has gone AWOL. Gone totally rogue. I cannot go into specifics at this time, Pines. This is all on a need-to-know basis, and you now know everything that you need to know.”

  “I don’t need to know shit, sir!”

  Metin sighed. “Speak freely.”

  “Sir, I’m done. I made that clear. Whatever Andrei is up to, it’s not my problem. SHIFT can continue to function without Andrei and without me. I’ve done my time.”

  “We think he’s going to hit here,” Metin said. “Do you still not care?”

  Asher mulled it over. “If he hits me personally, I’ll fight back. That’s it. I’m trying to make a normal life for myself. I know that Andrei is hurting, and he has a right to be, but I don’t think he’d hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.” Asher glared right at Metin as he spoke, and Metin pretended not to understand his meaning.

  “Right,” Metin said. “Go make little drawings for movies. You made a real difference in SHIFT.”

  “Yeah,” Asher said, “made. Past tense.”

  CHAPTER 6

  VIOLET

  “You want me to carbon date that tooth now?” Laurence asked.

  “Huh?” she said, looking up from the masonry. “The what?

  “The tooth! The thing you’ve been all obsessed with? What, you suddenly don’t care about it?”

  “Oh,” Violet said. “I still care about it.... It’s just...”

  “Out with it,” Laurence said.

  “It’s just that you told me to forget the tooth, so I did.”

  “That simple?”

  “No. I decided I’d do one of the things you asked me to do, which is focus on the masonry.”

  “So you did something else dumb then? To compensate for doing one smart thing?”

  “Well,” Violet said, “it was more like fate. I don’t know what I could possibly have done differently.”

  He shot her an exasperated expression. “So...? What’s the big thing?”

  “Asher!” she said. “He’s alive, and back, and he saved me!”

  “He saved you! You were in trouble?”

  “Well,” she said, “he saved me from having to call Triple A and wait in the cold for a tow. But, Laurence, listen. He drives a motorcycle.”

  “Damn,” Laurence said. “That is hot, I’ll admit. I should hint to David to get one.”

  “So he gave me a ride,” Violet said. “On his motorcycle, I mean.” She blushed. “I had to clutch so tightly to his body, and you should see his body...”

  “Do you have mummy bodies here?” a voice asked from behind her.

  Violet spun around in alarm.

  A man with flowing, blond, shoulder-length locks stood behind her, examining a display case.

  “No, sir,” she said, suddenly realizing how tall he was. And there was something about him she had noticed but couldn't place. “They are being loaned out to the Denver Natural History Museum.”

  He nodded. “Well, how about...interesting odds and ends?”

  He had a slight accent. As an expert in Eastern European artifacts, she was ashamed to say her best guess was a vaguely Eastern European accent. She had never been any good with accents or languages. The guy could be anything from Czech to Russian.

  “Odds and ends,” Laurence said, perking up, “like the—”

  Violet shot him a serious glance and put a hand on his arm. He caught the hint and trailed off mid-sentence. It didn’t seem like a good idea to mention the tooth. She didn’t know why, but it just seemed like a bad call.

  “Like this interesting reconstructed segment from the Zizovek rampart?” Violet asked.

  The corner of his mouth twitched, and he flashed a too-sweet smile. “Ah, no. Thank you.”

  “Anything else I can—”

  “If you were to have any, say, dinosaur bones that didn’t quite seem to match with a known species, where would you display them?”

  “Display?” Violet said. “If it were a series of bones that didn’t form a complete and obvious part—”

  “Not a series,” he said. “Just one single bone.”

  “That wouldn’t ever make it to display, probably,” Violet said. “Unless it were a claw or tooth or something.”

  His eyebrow raised. “Where could I see that?”

  Violet pointed him toward where the teeth were and hoped that he would look through the display and conclude that the tooth he was obviously looking for was nowhere to be found here.

  “Thank you for your help, miss?”

  “Violet is fine,” she said.

  “Well, thank you, Violet. You can just call me Andrei.”

  ***

  “Shit,” Laurence said. “What’s up with that guy? And he is so looking for that whack-ass tooth!”

  “Yeah,” Violet said. “Is it just me, or did it get like five degrees warmer in here as soon as he left?”

  “It’s just a tooth though,” Laurence said. “If it were, like, the missing link between birds and dinosaurs or something with huge black-market value, I could understand the interest, but the dude is acting like it’s a genie’s lamp.”

  Violet understood the draw. She understood how the draw felt, that is. She had no logical explanation for why she was drawn to a single tooth.

  “I feel like I should hide it,” Violet said.

  “That sounds really paranoid. Where is it?”

  “It’s locked up in the sorting room.”

  “So you’re going to remove it from where it’s locked up all nice and safe and...hide it? Like under the doormat? Down your shirt?”

  “Yeah,” Violet said. “Maybe the second one. Just until he’s gone.”

  “You sound so paranoid. How about you leave it locked up and—”

  A loud booming, like fireworks, erupted from near the lobby. The echoes bounced rapid-fire up and down the hallways as they reached Violet and Laurence, and echoing screams were shortly in tow.

  “Shit!” Laurence said. “I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and those are definitely guns!”

  “It’s Andrei,” Violet said. “I’ve got to get that tooth.”

  CHAPTER 7

  ASHER

  Metin pulled a phone from his pocket and listened without so much as a nod. He ended the conversation with, “Understood. I’ll be there in twelve minutes with Pines.”

  “What part of ‘I’m done’ don’t you under—”

  “Get in the car. I’ll brief you, and if you decide to walk away by the time we arrive, you’re free to do so.”

  They got in the SUV, and Asher saw it was full of weapons. No minigun harness, thankfully.

  Metin turned a sharp 180 and sped down the left lane. He flicked a switch, and silent blue-and-red sirens began flashing.

  “Andrei wanted out, as you know,” Metin said, “and that compromised our interests too much, so—”

  “You mean you couldn’t sink your pale little man-claws into him anymore so—”

  “Pines, please spare the commentary. There’s little time to fully brief you.”

  Asher crossed his arms.

  “Andrei wanted out, and there was an experimental procedure we were eager to try. These two things aligned, and for the greater good...”

  “Always for the greater good,” Asher muttered.

  “And for Andrei’s well-being, we allowed him to leave with what he knew intact. After he underwent the procedure, however, he could no longer shift.”

  Asher balked. “No shifter would go for that!” />
  Asher’s bear started whining like a siren in his head.

  “Andrei had no choice,” Metin said.

  “He’d stay in SHIFT before agreeing to that,” Asher said.

  “Yes,” Metin said. “He did try to change his mind, but once we knew he wanted out, he couldn’t be trusted.”

  “And you guys really wanted to test your little procedure, so you made up some shit about trust issues...”

  “The current situation, Pines, is as follows: Andrei has infiltrated a civilian building in the city, and he’s taken hostages. We believe he is looking for something specific, but we don’t know what. Either way, SHIFT is best suited to stop him.”

  “He can’t shift though,” Asher said. “So just send Ramdog in there and tear him a new one. Done.”

  “Ramdog and all the rest are done. You and Andrei quitting caused a chain reaction. And even unable to shift, Andrei’s strength is unaffected,” Metin said. “The procedure wasn’t as successful as we’d hoped.”

  “And Andrei played weak while you ran him through the tests?”

  A twitch from Metin’s cheek. Bull’s eye.

  “So what’s he doing now?” Metin said. “Robbing a bank?”

  “A museum,” Metin said.

  Asher’s intestines froze in his gut. Violet.

  CHAPTER 8

  VIOLET

  “Footsteps!” Laurence hissed. “Run, Violet!”

  “What about—”

  “Run!”

  He pushed her toward the sorting room and waved his hands and ran toward the gunfire. He was being an idiot by drawing attention from her, but she knew in her gut that stashing the tooth where Andrei wouldn’t look was important.

  She rushed down the corridors and fumbled with her keys when she reached the sorting and receiving area. She finally got the door open and ran inside, shutting the door behind her. She had seen enough Die Hard films to know that Andrei’s men—and she knew he had ‘men’ based on the number of guns they’d heard—would be searching for anyone like her who was hiding out in dark corners.

  She rummaged through the drawers and grabbed the tooth. She felt a chill run down her back as she clutched hold of it. Then she decided to put the thing down her bra. It was cold on her skin, but the curve of the tooth roughly matched the curve of her breast, and it wasn’t more than mildly discomforting.