Page 70 of Choose the Bears

“Well, for one, she’s shit with tools. Never seen a person strip a screw faster than her,” he replied, trying to smile but that faded under my steady regard.

“That’s not it.”

How did I know that? I’m not sure, but I was willing to bet it was the same strange impulse that told me to get the fuck away from Phil at the party, that let me know that someone was waiting for me behind my car. The same sense so many women have that they are surrounded by sharks, just looking for a bite.

The same sense men worked so hard to stifle in us.

“No, it’s not.” His acknowledgement was a relief when it came, because I anticipated the opposite. For him to pull the same shit so many guys did, deny, downplaying, and redirecting. I watched his hands shift, his palms face up. “It’s not, Imogen. You are… special.”

How? Why? In what way? I wanted to bark out those questions rapid fire, like bullets from a gun, but a customary reticence stopped me.

One I pushed back against.

This, this ‘special treatment’ was what had me coming up with weird theories to explain it. That he, Asher, and Lucas were not men but shifters, even when I knew the real reason would be something much more prosaic. So I did ask every one of those questions, watching him straighten up.

“You ever see someone and just know?” he replied, a wistful note in his voice. “With one look, you’re hooked. You don’t know their name, their life story, or how they take their coffee, but you want to.” He nodded slowly. “You really, really want to.”

“Yes.” That was blurted out, but as I heard my reply, I frowned. In some ways that’s what it felt like with Mike, but… Was that what it was? He was mysterious, notorious, cool, and remote, so when he spoke to me it was like an alien had descended from the stars to communicate with me only, but just like an alien, we had little in common once that process started. We kept looking for it though, searching for something to build a relationship on when sands kept shifting the foundations, no matter what we did. “No,” I amended, and he nodded slowly.

“Well, that’s what it was like for me, for Lucas?—”

“Lucas?”

That shouldn’t have been a surprise because we were pashing earlier this morning.

“And Asher.” I couldn’t help but show the surprise I felt then. “Asher too. All three of us were drawn closer the moment we sawyou, Imogen. At first to protect you from Phil, but that wasn’t enough to keep us around. We’d have referred you to the triage team and organised support, but…”

He shot me a rueful smile and I saw the fear, the sadness there.

“That wouldn’t be enough to keep us coming around.”

“Then what would be?” I wasn’t fishing for compliments. This was the moment the other shoe dropped, and I’d been waiting for it to happen for way too long.

“Kyle.” Of course, that’s when Asher walked in the door. “I got news…”

His words and Kyle’s played over and over in my head as he turned to stare at me.

Those pale blue eyes felt like they burned into my skin, but it wasn’t a painful thing. How could it be when it’d happened so many times before? In real life and in my dreams, I couldn’t seem to escape them. I watched him take me in, that cool gaze taking in the paint on my skin.

The way my lips felt overly full and swollen.

I fought the urge to flick my tongue over the bottom one because they felt way too dry right now.

“Mama Lisica got back to you?”

Kyle broke the spell, referencing some woman I didn’t know.

“Yeah, we… we’ll talk about it in the meeting room. I let Lucas know he needs to join us.”

Kyle was leaving. Our conversation was over, something I wanted to protest, but of course couldn’t, not without seeming like a whiny little bitch.

“Right, well?—”

Kyle turned to me with an apologetic look. He was going to give me the brush off, but I got there before him.

“You go, I’ll sort out the clean up.”

“No need.” Asher pulled out his phone and made a quick call to the cleaning staff. “That’s what we pay them to do. Also, the morning mail came and this arrived for you.”

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