Page 42 of Caught Bear Handed
“I’m assuming you’ve never been with a woman my age before,” I elaborated.“It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a guy your age, and I have to say I loved how attentive you were.Like the entire world melted away and there was nothing but me and you.”
He nodded slowly.“I’m not used to women knowing exactly what they want, and you do.It’s refreshing that you want to talk about it.”
“If we don’t talk about it, we can’t make it better.”It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t want to be guessing what Beau was thinking.That kind of thing only led to misunderstandings and resentment.
“It was pretty damn good, if you ask me.”The words were tipped with a growl.
“It was good.But I want to blow your mind, bear.”
His face lit up.“I also loved how willing you were to make me happy.Like you didn’t have anything to prove.”
“You don’t have anything to prove either, Beau.You were amazing.Even if you used your emergency condom on some random encounter at The Redheaded Stepchild.”
And his cheeks turned pink.“Can I make a confession?”
“Of course.Like I said, I want to know everything about you.”
“Okay, so I have brought ladies to Red Heaven.But I never went all the way with them.”
Oh.I hadn’t expected that.“But you have?—”
“Absolutely,” he cut me off with a rumble.“Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to play back there, and I did.And we will.But something about it felt cheap.It wasn’t what I wanted anymore.I wanted something real.”
“I get that.”
“Have you ever had a long-term partner?”he asked.
I shook my head.“I always blamed my job for making it really hard to meet people.And as my other shifter friends just knew when they met their mate, I never felt that spark.I expected it to knock me over the moment I met him.”
“You mean, it didn’t?”he teased.
“Not exactly, but I knew there was something different about you the moment you walked in this cabin.I hadn’t planned to do anything about it.I considered you my set crush.”
He furrowed his brow.“What’s that?”
“Every season, we pick someone in the production to crush on.It’s harmless, and usually anonymous.Although, there have been some mate pairings that came from it.”I smiled.“But when you came out of the shower in nothing but a towel, my wolf insisted this wasn’t just a crush.”
“Seems like we have a thing for showers.”
“Make that order, bear.”I pointed at the laptop and laughed, but this conversation was avoiding the real issue.“So now what happens?We were so nervous about the party we didn’t think past that.”
“Right now, I’m sending Barrett a message, asking him if he still plans to use you in the undercover operation,” Beau said with more confidence than usual.“If he hadn’t cut things short over the problems with the signal, you would’ve had a chance to go deeper yesterday.And since you accomplished what you set out to do without revealing your identity, I don’t think there’s any reason to abandon that plan.”
My heart thumped in my chest.Going undercover at a party full of friendly shifters was one thing.Putting myself into the belly of the beast was a completely different set of circumstances.I’d agreed to it, because I really needed to talk to Amelia.
The last person I thought would want to keep this plan alive was Beau.
Even though the mission had been successful, Amelia hadn’t provided us with that golden ticket—the information we wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.
“Do you think there’s a threat locally?”I asked.
He shook his head.“Hard to tell.Everything happened fast yesterday.I’m asking for a debrief, because we need to know what’s happening with the investigation.I know they’ll be looking into the incident Amelia described.What they uncover will determine the next step.”
“Sounds like you know something I don’t.”I felt more in the dark about the case today than I had any other day since I’d arrived in Sawtooth Forest.
“Nothing I haven’t already shared with you.Barrett and Bellamy are getting close to the heart of this operation.They haven’t shared all the details with me, either.But I can assume, if they need you to go undercover, it would be soon.”
My chest felt heavy, the same way I used to feel on the first day of school, or waiting for callbacks of the spring theatrical production.“Any ideas what that would entail?”