Page 4 of The Bear's Fated Mate
His bear went quiet, which was probably a good thing because the rapid march had brought him back in line with Lara, who was fumbling with a key at the school entrance door. The last thing he needed at this moment was his bear distracting him.
Alex placed a hand on the door, leaning over her. “It’s not nice to walk away in the middle of a conversation, sugar.”
Lara went motionless. He had her caged, his larger body looming like a wall around her. It was a power move, it was aggressive, and yeah, he knew damn well what a shitty thing he was doing.
Althoughwhyhe was doing it, he wasn’t sure. There was something about the scrumptious Lara Lazuli that tripped every one of his switches and straight-up pissed him off at the same time.
“You want to back up a couple of paces,sweetheart.” Lara’s tone was syrupy and polite.
“I want to know where the hell you get off—”
“That wasn’t a question,” Lara interrupted. “Move now, or I’ll move you.”
Oh, this should be good. Alex adjusted his stance slightly, noting his previous alignment had left his nuts open to being shoved through his spleen. “That’s not very friendly.”
“Alex,” Lara said, a world of disappointment in her tone. The bag on her shoulder slipped to the ground. “I thought better of—”
She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she moved.
He caught a glimpse of what she did, but it didn’t make any sense—not unless she’d learned to levitate—because she seemed to walk up the side of the door before flipping in midair to land on his back.
She didn’t weigh much, but the momentum was enough to set him off-balance. As he tilted away from the building, Alex scrambled to pull off the same swiveling trick Mac the cat had accomplished. The last thing Alex wanted was to fall and crush Lara under him.
Only, even as he twisted, her weight shifted again and she was twirling around him, catching hold of one of his arms to spin his off-balance torso faster than expected.
He rotated one and half times to land on his stomach, flat on the ground. His arms were spread-eagle, one cheek pressed into the dirt. Lara’s knee pinned his neck in place, her other foot planted on the back of his right hand.
That was awesome,his bear said with approval.
Really? For fuck’s sake, shut up.
What the hell was wrong with the damn beast? Alex and his internal animal were going to have a long, hard talk about cheering for the wrong side, but that would have to happen later.
For now, Alex ignored the beast and focused on what was proving to be an interesting challenge. “You want to rethink this, sugar? Because I’m willing to take the gloves off if necessary.”
She waited. Five seconds, six…
Alex gathered his energy in preparation to move when the pressure eased, and she stepped back, opening a good three to four feet between them. She bent and scooped up her oversized shoulder bag, settling it into place.
Then she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before speaking. “Maybe we should start again.”
Alex stood then brushed the dirt from his knees, meticulously straightening his T-shirt and jacket. His annoyance remained way off the scales for normal, though. He’d deserved to get dumped—hehadbeen messing with her personal space.
He glanced into beautiful brown eyes with golden flecks. She seemed to stare at him a little sadly, the way she’d looked at him more than a few times in the past. Her heart was clearly breaking, tugging at previously unsuspected emotional strings inside him. He wanted to sweep her up and protect her. To make her world perfect.
If he gritted his teeth any harder, he was going to wear them down to nubs.
The womanhadto be the best actress out there. Sad? Needing protection? Oh, please. A month ago he’d watched her effortlessly take down a cougar shifter twice her size.
Something wasn’t right, yet no matter how hard he dug, he still had no idea what her endgame was. Only, he wasn’t going to figure it out by making demands. This was going to take finesse.
He could finesse, dammit. It wasn’t his favourite way to do things, but no matter.
Change of plans. Alex copied her and breathed slowly through his nose for a moment. Each inhale was full of her rich, sweet scent, and a lingering hunger rose in his gut.
He batted down his inner bear, who was humming happily and wallowing in her delicious aroma, and fought to speak as placidly as possible.
“Starting again. Lara, my grandfather had a meeting scheduled with you today. He can’t make it, and he’s asked me to take his place.”
