Bear-ly A Hero (Bear Claw Security 2) (12 page)

“But just be sure,” he added. “You can’t take it back.”

“I know,” Limes said. He would never want to.

He didn’t know how much of it was his bear wanting to mate or her pheromones affecting him or just the situation they were in.

He just knew one thing. He wanted to make her happy for the rest of her life. That was all that mattered.

He said good-bye to his friends and hung up the phone. It was time to go ask the most important question of his life.

Would she say yes?

“
N
o
,” Jamie said abruptly, looking down at Limes, who was kneeling in front of the bed, holding her hand.

His expression went blank, and she yanked him to standing. “Did you hear what I just said?” he asked. “I asked you to be my mate.”

“I heard you,” she said, waiting patiently for him to get in the chair he’d occupied earlier. He stared at her, perplexed.

“Why would you say no?” he asked. “I can give you everything as a mate. Support you so you can stay home and write your books. Protect you from other males. I’ve thought this over. In fact, it’s the only way to protect you.”

“So you said when you proposed,” she said dryly, remembering his ham-fisted approach.

I need to keep you safe, and the only way is mating you… So will you mate me, please?

Ugh.

“What do you want?” he asked, crossing his legs agitatedly. “We’re perfect together. Compatible in the bedroom, fun when we talk.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Compatible in the bedroom.”

She sighed. “You said that already.”

“That’s because we’re twice as compatible as anyone else,” he said, teasing.

She just shook her head, and he stood in frustration, stalking about the room as if he didn’t know what she wanted.

She didn’t want someone who only wanted her for the wrong reasons or to protect her. She wanted someone who loved her as much as she loved Limes.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “What do you want?”

“How do you know if it’s pheromones?” she asked.

“I don’t,” he said. When she raised an eyebrow, he went on. “But I don’t care what it is. I love being around you in a way I’ve never felt about anyone else. I want to explore more with you.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I talked to Lindon, our wolf, and he said the pheromones won’t fade for me after being mated, so it should be fine.”

“Oh,” she said, unable to keep her voice from rising. “So it’s fine if our love is all based on an illusion as long as the illusion can keep going?”

His jaw dropped, but he quickly snapped it shut. When he was upset like this, he looked more like the Limes she remembered from the first night, when she’d been terrified and hit him with an umbrella.

The difference was now she knew he was incapable of hurting her. Hurting anyone he cared about, for that matter.

He looked at her with tortured eyes. “I don’t know what you want. I can’t convince you it has nothing to do with pheromones, and I don’t know for certain either. I do know I don’t treat you like other men affected by pheromones do. Doesn’t that mean something to you?” he asked.

“No,” she said, still embarrassed she’d actually let slip the L-word. Luckily, it had gone over his head. It didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. She knew she should just tell him what she wanted to hear, but then it wouldn’t mean anything if he did say it, and it would break her heart if he didn’t.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “We’ll finish the job together, and then after that, I’m not your responsibility.”

“Like hell you aren’t,” he said.

“Careful, that’s the pheromones talking,” she sniped, knowing she was being unfair. But right now, her heart was breaking. She didn’t have a choice. She had to distance herself from him somehow.

“So you’re rejecting me,” he said, staring at her. “Just like that. No matter what I do.”

“For now,” she said.

“Oh no,” he said. “You want to reject me, you do it good and well. I’m not going to be one of your stalkers. If you don’t want me, you don’t.”

“Limes…” she said.

“I get it,” he said. “I’m good enough to bang, but not mate. For mating, you’d want one of those elegant bastards on the phone.” He motioned with his hand like he was holding a teacup. “I say I’m a fancy pants alpha wolf! My shit doesn’t stinketh! Nay!”

She would have laughed if the situation weren’t so unfunny. “Limes, you’re taking it all wrong.”

“How am I supposed to take it?” he asked. “I’m asking the woman I want to mate me and she’s saying no. For good!”

“I just… We’re both confused,” she said.

“I’m not confused.” He walked up to her. “I know what I want. I don’t care why I want it. I’m not an idiot. However I feel, it’s not going to change. But if that’s not good enough for you. If what we have isn’t good enough…” He lifted a lock of her hair as he trailed off.

When she didn’t answer him, he dropped it and stepped back.

“I get it,” he said. “No further info needed.”

“Limes,” she said.

“You know, I have pheromones as an excuse for getting involved with you,” he said. “But what’s your excuse for climbing all over me, hm?” He glared at her. “Was it fun? Watching me go crazy over you? Did you enjoy our little fling?”

“It wasn’t a fling to me!” she yelled at him, balling her hands into fists. “I have feelings for you.”

He stared at her, blinking madly, as if he didn’t understand her language.

“I just wanted you to love me, too,” she said.

He rubbed at his arm like there was something there, looking completely uncomfortable and taken aback. They’d both been hurt by the exchange, and now it had taken an unexpected turn.

“And if I’m not ready to love you?” he asked, looking devastated.

Like she felt. “Then I don’t want to mate you,” she said.

He turned to leave the room with a growl.

She called after him. “But I never said it couldn’t happen in the future.”

“Right,” he snapped. “When I’m perfect. When I can feel everything you can feel.” He turned back to her. “Dammit, Jamie, wasn’t it enough to open me up as much as you have?” He shook his head. “I’ve felt more in the past days with you then in the last decade, but it wasn’t enough, was it? You want all of me. It’s not enough that I’d die to protect you. Not enough that I’d be willing to mate you for life. No, you want me to bare my soul.”

“It’s not usually that much to ask,” she said weakly. “When you’re going to spend a lifetime with someone. I’ve already opened mine to you.”

He just pinned her with a glare. She’d asked too much, and she could see him shutting down.

“Maybe you should work with Bronson,” he said. “Maybe you should use your attractive powers on him. Maybe he’d be able to love you quicker.”

The words were cold, and Limes looked like he regretted them the moment they’d left his mouth.

He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again.

“Fine,” she said, offended at his suggestion after everything they’d shared. Hurting inside too much to fight him. “Maybe I should. And maybe you should get out of my house.”

Limes’s eyes flashed. “I’m not leaving until—”

“Get out of my house!” she screamed, hating her own lack of control. But she just couldn’t look at him right now.

“I want you to leave,” she said, folding her arms. “I need to be alone. I can’t look at you without hurting.”

“Fine.” Coldly, he took his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Bronson?” he asked flatly. “Yeah, it’s me. I’ve been terminated. Yeah. Yeah, come on over.” Then he hung up and slid the phone in his pocket. “He’ll be here in like seven minutes. You should be safe until then.”

She frowned. “I didn’t tell you to do that,” she said. “I want to be alone.”

“Well, you hired our company to keep you safe, and until you sign papers terminating our relationship, that’s our job. But I can’t stay on your property without your permission.” He shook his head in disgust, then looked up at her, just once more.

Then he stormed out the door, and she had to keep herself from running after him.

She wanted to ask him why he couldn’t love her. Ask him what was so hard when she’d found him so lovable? Ask him why he’d gotten so angry when she only wanted to protect both of them?

But she was just too tired to fight right now, so she just sat on the bed and waited.

But she did find it odd that he wasn’t fighting for her, either.

L
imes gritted
his teeth as he pulled onto the freeway. His first fieldwork job and here he was, fired and sent running away. It wasn’t like him to just go, but he was tired of fighting with her.

The whole thing had reminded him there were some things you just couldn’t fight. He looked down at the bird tattoo on his arm. He’d been all locked up ever since that had happened. It had been dangerous to allow himself to open up to Jamie. But maybe it was better it was all happening like this, because maybe he could never open enough for her.

Maybe he could never
be
enough.

Maybe it was all pheromones. Maybe he’d never felt anything real. He knew he’d wanted her more than anything else, and her rejection, her inability to accept anything halfway between them, had stung incredibly. He didn’t remember the last time he’d hurt this bad.

Yes, he did. This was why it was stupid to love someone. He hit the steering wheel, not for the first time, and resolved to go back to his old self. Grumpy, sarcastic, closed off, not believing in anyone or anything.

But then he saw her dark eyes flashing at him as she swung her umbrella, full of fight and life.

Hell, maybe he started loving her even then. He definitely didn’t want to be parted from her from that moment.

He always criticized her for not fighting, but maybe he was the one who didn’t fight. Because for years, he’d just been hiding from his feelings, letting life pass him by because he refused to open up his heart after being hurt.

Dammit.

It was all confusing. That’s why she just needed to let him be by her side until they figured it out.

But then he remembered all those moments when she’d looked up at him, her eyes glowing with tenderness. Had it been selfish of him to enjoy basking in what was clearly her love when he wasn’t brave enough to check out his own feelings to see if he felt the same about her?

It’s just that he hadn’t opened his heart in so long. He wasn’t sure what he’d find when he did. The thought scared him.

But he’d be damned if how he felt could be put down to a chemical reaction. He hit the steering wheel again. His exit was coming, so he pulled off the freeway and took a right into a nearby gas station to fill up.

While he did, he looked at his GPS at the location of the tracker he’d put on her. Still at home. Bronson would be there by now. He’d know if the security system were breached. She’d be safe.

His heart beat rapidly even so, like if he wasn’t there, then she couldn’t be safe as far as he was concerned.

She was his
mate
. His to protect.

He ran his hands over his hair and leaned against the car with a groan. Even if he explained she was his mate, would that mean anything to her? In a way, it was just as confusing and mystic as pheromones.

And what was romantic love anyway? The only love he’d known was for his sister, and that wasn’t romantic, though it had torn him apart all the same.

And taught him that people could hurt you so badly you couldn’t breathe unless you cut yourself off from it, and there was no point in fighting it.

In so many ways, Jamie was braver than him. Each day she went out, polite and vulnerable, letting people hurt her and trying hard to be a good person. While he hid behind sarcastic quips and coldness.

So he’d wanted to fight for her and see her less hurt. And in the process, he couldn’t help picking up some of her habits of being emotionally open.

She’d loved him.

How was that even possible? He hadn’t done anything to earn it. He’d protected her, but that was his job. He’d teased her at every turn. They’d had hot sex, but that was more compatibility than anything else.

But then he remembered her being kidnapped.

That had scared him more than anything in his life. The idea of losing her had nearly broken him. Would have broken him if he hadn’t needed to stay alert so he could act quickly enough to save her.

At that moment, she was too far away for it to have anything to do with pheromones. She was his, the first real friend he’d opened up to in a long time.

Even if they took the attraction away, he knew he wanted to be beside her. Even if all they did was talk, he wanted to be with her for the rest of their lives.

That was love, he realized, sinking against the car with an unbearable pain in his chest. And it hurt.

It hurt to remember things he had locked away. His hand went over his arm, over the tattoo.

Tori. He thought of her face for the first time in a long time. How it was before the cancer. And after. The helplessness. The failing fight. The realization there was nothing he could do. That the only thing that would have prevented the devastation he felt would have been to never love her.

But looking back over their years together, holding her in his arms when she was little, carrying her on his shoulders, making her laugh when he teased her, he wouldn’t change anything.

He would have loved Tori again, even knowing what would happen. Even knowing he’d lose the only person important to him.

He’d practically raised her after their parents had left them. Everything had been fine until her fifteenth birthday.

Then everything had been wrong.

Limes felt wetness on his cheeks but didn’t care. It was a long time coming. When it had happened, he’d enrolled in the army not long after. The horrible things he’d had to do in service of his country had forced him to lock everything else away so he could focus.

It had been perfect.

And then he’d met a beautiful girl with dark-brown eyes who made him want to fight again. Maybe it was the way she rolled over on the carpet and asked him not to hurt her. Maybe it was the way she was so vulnerable but so kind, so fiery in her own way.

Or maybe he’d just seen another soul that had given up in one way but was fighting desperately in another.

As long as they kept fighting together, they could make it out of their respective holes, couldn’t they?

He heard a beeping and looked down at the GPS on his phone. The security system was going off. Bronson must have set it off without thinking. Still, a chill went through him as he dialed Bronson’s number.

“Hey, sorry, traffic is bad,” Bronson said right after he picked up. “I’ll be there in just a little bit longer.”