Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,71

she’s going to say,” Eric mumbled.

“Ugh.” Connor punched him in the shoulder and because it was Connor, it actually hurt a little. “Man up.”

“Oh, c’mon! It’s not about that-”

“Talk to her or I’ll talk to her for you.” He gave Eric a wink and said, “That’s an order from your alpha.”

It was rare for Connor to actually pull rank. It always had to be something very important for Connor to insist. Eric nodded, “Alright, alright.”

“Good.”

23

James

James had decided he was both in love with and absolutely terrified of Michelle the first time he saw her blow out a light with a shot of magic. It had been in a bar and the light had been a cheap chandelier. She did it because she had been given the wrong drink by a bartender.

James had already been watching her from across the bar because she was beautiful. That she was a powerful witch on top of being a fellow shifter had been even more impressive (and rare). James had attached himself to her immediately. He considered himself incredibly lucky that she wasted time on him, even if he was devastatingly handsome by his own standards.

Life with Michelle was equal parts terrifying and exciting. If she really managed to take the Strauss brothers for all they were worth, that would just be a whole other level of exciting.

He liked when she gave him something to do and he always tried his hardest to do it well. He wanted her to think he was important.

There was also the fact that if he failed one too many times she would definitely kill him slowly and painfully. He had seen her kill men before. She’d disemboweled a guy with a spell once, before stealing the contents of his safe. And she’d only ended up getting a few thousand dollars out of it. Then she’d said she wished she’d done worse than disembowel him.

James didn’t want to know what was worse than a disemboweling.

Michelle was the most evil and powerful creature he’d ever met, much less heard of.

If nothing else, he wanted to see if she ever ended up taking over the world. And if she did, he damn sure wanted to be there.

So when she told him to keep an eye on Eric Strauss and his new girly, well, he wanted to do the best he could.

It was fun anyway.

He wore a dark suit and sunglasses and felt like a superspy hanging around the lobby as if waiting for someone to meet him. Eric was in absentia for a while and James broke away a couple times to grab a drink in the lounge. But in the late afternoon Eric showed up again, looking ruffled and smelling like sex.

Aha!

James was inordinately excited when he deduced that Eric Strauss had just had sex. He felt like a brilliant detective...even though it was all incredibly obvious when you were a shifter who could smell sex on other shifters. A lot of the guests smelled like sex. It was a strange thing to be able to sense about a stranger, but shifters were generally used to it.

James wished he had a hat because spies, he thought, should have hats. He also felt as if he should have a newspaper to hide behind instead of his phone, but it gave him something to look at while he listened to Eric talk to his brother after helping a bunch of annoying customers.

The more Eric and Connor talked, the more James found himself smirking down at his phone. The conversation was incredibly revealing. He had to think Michelle would be pleased by it. Yes, Eric had some girl who had replaced Michelle but things weren’t going well there either. And she’d left him at some point. Surely, Michelle could exploit something juicy like that.

Once the conversation ended, James got to his feet. He had been sitting in a nice leather chair, far enough from the front desk that he certainly didn’t look like a man who would be eavesdropping.

But he still made a point of clucking his tongue and shaking his head as he looked down at his phone. He was definitely someone who had been about to meet someone and had been stood up instead. He was definitely not Michelle’s actual lover who was staying in her suite, off the books.

He felt like a stealthy genius as he made his way back to their room.

“Michelle!” He clapped his hands and laughed, tossing his shades on a side table. The bathroom light was