Bear Mechanic: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (6 page)

When they parted, she examined her hands. There was still a streak of grease on the inside of her finger. She took care of it by swiping it across his bicep, transferring it to him.

“Hey!” he protested.

“You were too clean. All mechanics should go around with a sexy grease smudge. I think it’s the law. Go on, flex it,” she said, barely keeping the giggling in.

“Everything becomes clear,” he said teasingly. “You just want me for my body.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She put her hands on her waist, pulling him closer. “Although it is a very nice…”

Noah cupped her face and drew her in for another kiss, one deep and slow and barely appropriate for standing out in the open like they were.

They were interrupted by a cough: at first barely noticeable, then louder. Caught up in Elise’s soft lips and darting tongue and the sensation of her breasts against his chest, shooting straight to his groin, making him almost painfully hard, Noah at first ignored the noise.

But Elise didn’t. Catching a glimpse of whoever was trying to get their attention, she squealed, and then jumped back out of Noah’s arms hastily.

Noah look up at the clear blue sky and counted to three. Whoever it was, they were going to get stuck with front desk duty for a month. Then he turned around.

It was her little brother, Cecil, looking simultaneously grossed out and mutinously pissy.

“Can I help you?” Noah asked, as politely yet pointedly as possible.

The teenager shifted from one foot to the other, obviously warring between two desires: telling off Noah for making out with his sister, and asking for something.

The latter won out. “I, uh, need to get some stuff.”

Elise spoke up. “You can’t go back to the house, Cecil! What if they’re watching it?”

He shifted his glare to his sister. “You don’t know that! Besides, how long are we supposed to stay here, just waiting for them to do something?”

“I’m inclined to agree with your sister,” said Noah.

“Of course you are, you just shoved your tongue down her—”

“You don’t want to finish that sentence,” said Noah as pleasantly as he could. “As I was going to say, we don’t know how long it’s going to be, no. So I’m happy to go to the store, or send you there. On my dime, since this was my idea.”

That quieted Cecil some, like Noah knew it would. He knew he couldn’t protest without seeming excessively bratty and ungrateful.

“Is he going to be safe?” asked Elise.

“I can take care of myself,” muttered Cecil.

“Of course you can,” soothed Noah. “But someone has to drive you. Hey—Tyler! Tyler!”

His shout carried across the yard to the front office, where Tyler’s exceptional hearing picked it up even through the closed door and all the noise coming from the shop.

Twitchy, restless, bored, and none too pleased with Noah, Tyler jogged up to their little group.

“Want to get off the phones?” Noah asked him.

“You know I do,” said Tyler suspiciously. “You got a job for me?”

“Take the kid to the store,” said Noah, jerking his head in Cecil’s direction.

“I’m not a kid,” muttered Cecil. No one listened.

“From the front desk to babysitting,” said Tyler, sounding almost as put-out as Cecil. “I must be moving up in the world.”

“Do you want to, or not?”

Tyler considered. Noah knew he would say “yes” eventually, if only to get out of the office for a while, no matter how insulted he felt. Plus, it would be a chance for Tyler to show off his car to someone who would be impressed by it, which he did at every turn, responsive audience or no.

“Do you have money?” Tyler asked Cecil, who looked embarrassed at the question.

“Take some petty cash,” said Noah before he could respond.

“All right, all right,” groused the tiger shifter, nodding at Cecil. “Come on, let’s go. You can see my…” His words grew fainter as they walked away.

“He doesn’t like being the receptionist, huh?” said Elise after they were gone. She sidled up to Noah and slid her hand into the crook of his arm.

“Not really, no,” admitted Noah.

“Why do you make him do it, then?”

“Tyler has a pretty specialized skill set. He likes body work, painting, that kind of stuff. When he's not racing, that is. We do some of that here, but there’s not really enough business to keep him busy all the time. Our last receptionist left a few months ago, so I figured, why not let him take over in his downtime? Save us a few bucks, keep him busier…”

“Attract more female clientele?” suggested Elise, pursing her lips to suppress a smile.

Noah coughed. “Yeah, that too.”

“Well, he is very pretty.”

This pricked Noah a little more than he expected it to. He tried to push it down. “You think so?”

Elise laughed. “I looked your shop up on Yelp. There were quite a few flattering reviews. You all have your admirers, though. Maybe you should go ahead and call yourselves the Hot Mechanics.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “You’ve got quite a following. I didn’t know mechanics had groupies.”

It was almost a question, the way she said it. The realization hit him like a bolt of lightning. She felt as insecure as he did.

“Not like that,” he assured her. Female customers who came in sometimes flirted, but it had never gone farther than that, with him anyway. “Maybe Tyler, though. He probably has a harem out there.”

She laughed. Her hand slipped off his arm. “So what do we do next?” she asked abruptly.

They had already fixed her car, and he thought she might be worried about what was going to happen next, both with the gang and with him.

“Maybe have lunch?” he suggested.

* * *

After lunch, Elise took a chair outside and pulled out a sketchbook and pencil.

“I’ve mostly painted nature stuff, not so much people and machines,” she’d admitted. “It would be nice to brush up on my skills.”

She tucked her legs up into the plastic chair and balanced her sketchbook on her bare thighs, biting her lower lip in concentration.

As much as Noah preferred being near her and having her close by, her absence gave him the opportunity to discuss with Gabe what he was calling The Situation: Elise’s problem with the Wild Dogs.

“What do you know about them?” Gabe asked, pulling up a chair to the front desk. His face was always serious, but he now had on his soldier’s “planning an op” face.

A mixed-shifter group like their crew didn’t technically have an alpha, but Noah considered himself the de facto leader all the same, and he considered it his responsibility to stay on top of possible threats. The Wild Dogs were one, and even though Noah had never personally encountered them, they were high on the list.

“They’re shifters. Hyenas, I think,” said Noah.

Gabe nodded. “That keeps our options open, at least.”

In some ways that was better, and in others worse. If they hadn’t been shifters, his crew would have much more limited ability to deal with them. They couldn’t reveal their shifter nature to regular humans. On the other hand, shifters were more dangerous than most regular people, even biker gangs.

“I don’t know how many there are. As many as us, at least,” Noah said reluctantly. He’d seen them on the road occasionally, their snarling dog logo prominent. He sometimes saw half a dozen or more at a time.

“Not counting Cameron,” said Gabe, eyes flicking to the shop floor.

“Right.” He'd never actually seen Cam shift, and supposedly she was a fox anyway—probably not up to dealing with hyenas. Not that he wanted her to hear that. She wouldn’t like it.

“A bear, a dragon, a tiger, a wolf, and a panther. We’re pretty well suited to dealing with a pack of hyenas,” mused Gabe.

“Hyenas are more dangerous than you think. Don’t underestimate them,” Noah warned.

“Aren’t they scavengers, not hunters? And they’re the size of a starved dog.”

“And they have to defend their scavenging. Not to mention that since they’re shifters, they’ll be bigger and stronger than the wild version.”

“True.” Gabe looked thoughtful. “You know, dragons do one-on-one duels to settle debts, instead of everyone in the clan getting involved.”

“Trying to save your own ass, huh?” Noah joked. Gabe snorted. Then Noah turned serious. “That’s not a bad idea.”

“Assuming they have enough honor to stick to the terms, of course,” said Gabe.

“It’s something to try, anyway. I’ll make some inquiries and find out who their leader is.” Sitting back, Noah stole a glance out the window at Elise. A breeze was lifting the ends of her hair. It made a very pretty picture, but it was clearly annoying her—she kept having to tuck her hair out of the way, and it kept popping back out. It made him smile.

Gabe was watching him. “You like her,” he said. Classic Gabe: master of the understatement.

“Yes,” Noah said, not bothering to deny it. Maybe with someone else, but not Gabe.

“She likes you, too.”

Noah knew it already, but it was nice to hear it confirmed by someone else. “Yeah,” he said, smiling.

“I’m guessing she doesn’t know.”

The smile faded. Noah shook his head. “We’re not like dragons. We don’t have to mate with our own kind. But that can make things more complicated.”

“That’s tradition, not necessity. Dragons are insular. Too insular,” Gabe said bluntly. “It’s past time we started marrying out, honestly. There’s a lot of inbreeding. My mother lost two pregnancies before me, and more after. I was the only kid who survived.”

Noah heard an undercurrent of frustration beneath the words. Gabe didn’t often talk about his family or where he came from, though Noah knew they were estranged, and Gabe had little patience for tradition.

“Thinking about marriage a lot lately?” Noah said, trying to lighten the mood.

Gabe grinned, sharp, and Noah saw his dragon in it. “Nah. You know me. I’m a loner.”

Noah looked outside again at Elise. “Well, I thought I was too.”

Gabe cuffed him on the shoulder. “No way. We all knew you were going to settle down someday with a nice girl and have lots of bear cubs running around someday. I’ll just be the cool uncle.”

Their conversation was cut off by Noah’s phone ringing.

The name TYLER was flashing across the screen. Tyler almost never called him; Noah frowned and wondered if something was wrong.

“Hey-y-y-y, Noah?” Tyler sounded cautious and worried—two adjectives that never seemed to apply to the tiger shifter.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Noah.

“Well, I kind of… lost-track-of-the-kid,” Tyler mumbled, his words coming out all in a rush.

Noah sucked in a breath, aware of Gabe’s curious look. “What do you mean, you lost him?!” Glancing at Elise again, he reined in his volume and hissed, “You were supposed to be watching him!”

“I wasn’t going to stand there looking over his shoulder while he picked out spare boxers!” snapped Tyler. “Jesus, I let him loose in the men’s section for two minutes and got something to drink, and I kept an eye out!”

“Obviously not!” Noah took a deep breath and tried to think. “Did you—follow his trail?”

“I can’t shift in the middle of menswear! His trail went cold outside—as much as I could smell of it. I’m not Will. I don’t have wolf senses. There was too much other stuff getting in the way. But they had security cameras. I checked with the manager.”

“Please tell me he just ran off again,” said Noah, even though he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Nope.” Tyler’s voice turned grim. “Looks like two of our favorite bikers picked him up. They weren't wearing vests, and there weren’t any bikes outside, so I wasn’t paying attention to them.”

“And security didn’t notice someone being kidnapped?”

“I didn’t see anything on camera. No gun, no knife. He just went with them. He didn’t look happy, though.”

“Shit. Shit,” said Noah with feeling. “Get back here, we’ll figure something out,” he said shortly to Tyler, then hung up.

He’d already started to put together some semblance of a plan, but this shattered it. It forced him to go on the defensive, which the military had taught him wasn’t a good position,

“Bikers took the kid,” Noah told Gabe, running a hand through his hair and blowing out his breath in frustration. “What do they want?”

“He owes them, right? Must be that. ‘Give us the money or the kid bites it.’”

“I was supposed to be keeping them safe,” said Noah.

A headache had started to form behind his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to think. The bikers shouldn’t control the situation. There had to be some way they could get the upper hand again. Will’s wolf could probably track them by scent, and if they stuck him in his shifted form in a backseat with the window rolled down, he could be mistaken for a dog. Probably. It was a half-baked, stupid plan, but nothing else was coming to mind. And time was of the essence. He turned to Gabe and opened his mouth.