Curves & Alphas: A Paranormal Box Set: (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (35 page)

Book 1

Willow Brooks

Chapter One

The Faust brothers sound like a scary group
, Katrina thought with a roll of her eyes, situating herself under the desk so that she could uncross and re-cross her legs. She rifled through the file on her desk, the case that her agency, Baker, Patterson & Taylor had dropped on her yesterday. They wanted the payout without getting their own hands dirty.
The cowardly bastards
.

In the year she had been here working as a lawyer, having worked her way up, she seemed to be the fall guy, or girl as it may be, for the dirty cases. The partners took all cases that came their way, bought and sold many of them, this everyone knew. Yet, certain cases, especially the ones that twisted the laws the most, getting criminals off with creative manipulations of the law, they went to very specific lawyers in the practice.

She had no idea how she’d become one of those. Regardless, she thanked her lucky stars, or at least reminded herself to, almost daily that she had such a job, high paying with high excitement built right in, along with a challenge and a certain star quality though it made her out to be a bit slimy herself.

She soothed her nerves, or at least attempted to by hand ironing her outfit. She liked looking the part of a professional too. She dressed for success, her long dark brown waves that fell just below her shoulders always swept up in some sort of neat up do that screamed she put time and effort into looking her part.

As far as clothes, she kept it simple, not having much time to shop, yet stylish for an office or courtroom. With her dark dress suits, she worked all the angles, a smart business jacket topping a just above the knee skirt to show both refinement and a bit of her full and curvy legs which were accented by basic heels.

Her only bit of self-indulgent luxury in her daily wardrobe was giving the suit a pop of color with the silk camisoles she wore under the jacket. She had them in an array of colors from a fuchsia or pale pink, to sometimes a deeper purple or even a lighter green. She figured it made her attire dignified and sassy, just as she was, a nice mix of the two in her humble opinion.

Working with yet another case of known criminals wouldn’t phase her, not if she could help it. Rewording the law like an author of fiction to make it work for her and her client, she could do that. She had been quite successful, a little too much so at times for her comfort, but she remained determined to deal with that to get herself to where she wanted to be — partner.

In a way, well in secret, in her own mind, the woman in her, too long dormant, as in out of the dating zone due to late nights proving herself in the predominately man’s world of this particular office, looked forward to meeting the legendary Faust brothers. They were not just known for illegal money laundering, which was what the IRS was currently after them for this time, but they were also talked about endlessly as the most eligible bachelors with money enough and then some to spend on a willing woman. Not to mention they stop even the most dignified woman in her tracks with good looks they were known for.

She couldn’t be willing, not the time nor the place, but she could look. From public images she had seen, no one was going to stop her from looking them all over, grabbing some mental images to review later in private. In person, maybe they’d have some sort of glaring flaw the camera air-brushed over, but from what she’d read, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Comparing their legendary blond hair and brown eyed looks, some more rugged while others leaned more toward clean cut, they all looked the part of handsome executive with enough money to throw around, maybe on a bed, to make love in as they held those hard chiseled bodies against the woman of their choice.

Stop it
, she chastised herself.
This is business. Review the file now, and think on them later, once you’ve gotten a damn good look on the sly.

With that, she flipped back through the file. The fact that these practically unstoppable men, if history told a true tale, were also part of a powerful shifter pack, these facts as presented caused her heart to flutter and her stomach to take a little flip. She tried not to admit this, not even to herself yet, but the facts there were undisputable. Alone in her office, long ignored parts tingled, causing her to squirm around in her chair in an unladylike fashion.

Shifters, even now that everyone knew they existed, still didn’t do much with humans outside of business. Regardless of all of that, she had to focus, her job as a human for these men was to represent them, basically a go between dividing them and the Criminal Investigators for the IRS so that a case was never built to try.

Humans were good enough to do business with, always had been even when the existence of shifters was a long kept secret. But, now that they were out, some things had not changed. They worked with, even were friends with humans, but as far as romantic entanglements, humans were off limits to shifters other than one night stands, just for fun. And, she couldn’t do that, not with a client, not with anyone really.

She’d known girls who did saunter up to stand in line to be a shifter one-night stand. Especially in college when learning that shifters had existed was only years old, and the girls had flocked to them to see if the stories were true. Even she herself had wondered if sex was indeed magical somehow just like their existence. Her best friend since college, Stacey Blacke, had been one of those girls, one time, on some whim that had her living life for a night, or so she’d explained it.

Stacey, in all her usual blunt honesty, had said the man, a jaguar shifter, had been some exotic mix of rough and loving, with a bit of kink mixed in. The magic had been in the fact that the guy had been able to go all night. The mere thought of this made Kat’s stomach clench, as her panties actually dampened. It had just been way too long that she had been cooped up in this office trying to make a name for herself. Even Stacey had complained, repeatedly, about how little they saw of each other these days.

Kat grabbed for her phone and poked her finger, maybe a little harder than needed, against the screen until her calendar came up. She set a reminder, added an alarm for tonight that was titled,
Call Stacey @ Faust
. That way, she would actually do it, as she was obsessive-compulsive enough to follow through with every reminder her calendar sent her, though she tended to think of it as dedicated, a woman who did her jobs, handled her obligations. In fact, she prided herself on this fact. Nothing wrong with being hardworking.

That out of the way, she made herself focus, merely rereading the highlights of the case that would soon walk through her door. It was only a preliminary meeting, for them to meet her and vice versa. The Faust’s had already connected with the agency she worked for, hired them for the job, and now had been assigned to her.

Since no formal charges had been filed, she’d only been given what she could know of the Internal Revenue Service investigation and the Faust empire. This meeting would fill her in on their truths, ones she wouldn’t record.

She’d been through these cases enough to know that they would admit to some sins here in this office where client confidentiality would prevent her from disclosing information they didn’t want the world to know. Still, they wouldn’t tell her all. Regardless, with some cases, actually the majority of them thrown her way these days, her conscious in association with them kept her from sleep already, so she was grateful for what they omitted.

She’d already risen to the title of the ’Queen of Criminal Cases’ here at Baker, Patterson & Taylor, being known for getting the guilty off. Even though, through a series of events she could easily connect the dots through, her title had somehow been assigned to her making it her lot in life. Trying to be grateful, she’d come to accept it in that it gave her the bigger dream, the one to try cases, noteworthy ones, to make a name for herself as a lawyer.

Maybe in college she had romanticized the business of being an attorney a little, seeing her name in the headlines for getting justice for some noteworthy case, a business man done wrong that she had saved, given she had been steered by her own interests and whims into corporate law.

She had already seen her name in the papers at this point, only it had been in reference to getting off a big business for racketeering charges, so the guilty looked squeaky clean again, at least until their next screw up. This had gotten her several cases, including the Faust’s who should be walking through the door any minute.

As if on cue, the intercom on her phone buzzed, her personal assistant, another lawyer wanna-be, a former intern, like she had been not that long ago, announced the arrival of the brothers. Katrina told Janet to send them in, even as she stood, smoothing down her skirt, tugging on her jacket, ensuring that the suit fit her as it had been tailored too, accentuating the right curves and all.

Being a fuller figured woman, she had to use what she had to her advantage, and business suit or not, the hint of cleavage and show of legs in hose and heels, it got her just the right amount of misguided attention to let her feel more in control of the conversations due to manly distractions. Right now, she needed everything she could use to feel comfortable with these men.

Her door soon swung open, and her shockingly fake blond assistant with a slim build yet too angular face to be a bombshell, ushered in four men that made her big office seem suddenly small, to the point of making her claustrophobic which she had never been.

With a deep breath over a suddenly irregular heartbeat that made her lungs shake, she managed to introduce herself in a low voice to hide how it trembled. “Hello, I’m Katrina Walton. Please come in. Have a seat.”

With a hand that not only immediately extended out to meet her own, but also took a tad too firm a grip of her fingers, the god-like man in the lead replied back, “Nice to meet you Katrina. I’m Alexander Faust. But, please call me Alex. Behind me are my brothers, Benjamin, Kristopher, and Jackson. But again, Ben, Kris and Jack are fine. Thank you for seeing us on such short notice. We appreciate your firm extending us such a courtesy. We are in urgent need of acquiring further assistance in legal matters.”

“I’ve been caught up to speed, and am ready to get down to business, so I can assist you as best I can,” she replied back as she shook each of the brother’s hands.

While each of them were beyond any guy she’d ever gotten this close to, Alex was the one that demanded her attention. Something about him struck her, first on some basic attraction level, but it was more than that. It was something undefinable, something she’d never experienced before that ramped up her heart rate, and stole a measure of her breath just being inches from him.

As they sat, filling up, overwhelming really, the seats meant she guessed for mere mortals, she gave them all a once over. These men were lion shifters. She’d been made aware of their pack association by the partners when assigned the case. Not like the world had yet inserted a box for species affiliations on business forms.

There was no box to even mark human or shifter or other, as who knew what else had yet to be revealed in this supernatural world so new to everyone’s knowledge. So, along those lines, there was no follow up question that let one know if they turned into a wolf or a lion or a whatever they wanted like the dreaded skin-walkers that most humans still liked to pretend didn’t exist, and hoped to never encounter one.

These men changed into lions, and from what she could see sitting in front of her, she imagined the golden blond hair on their heads all over strong animal bodies with their brown eyes full of flecks of gold sparkling as well in a fierce, full face of such a beast. Alex’s hair hung long, all one length but cut to his neck, and then neatly gelled back off his face. His facial hair, while neatly trimmed was fuller than his brothers, filling out the angular cut of his cheeks and jawline.

He seemed a bit irritated with something, and got right down to business, casting odd glances at her as if he didn’t approve of her handling the case. Something was off about him. He gave her curt, short looks that darkened his eyes before he looked back at his brothers when talking. Against the backdrop of her modern, crisp office, these four in suits were the male version of the Double Mint twins times two. Modeling looked more up their alley. She believed they’d look good in anything or nothing.

“These charges against us are insulting. We are a legitimate business no matter what popular gossip has to say or what the IRS is trying to maintain. They have nothing that will stick. We are being abused for being highly successful business men that are shifters. We don’t ask questions of our clients about how their money is obtained.