Curves & Alphas: A Paranormal Box Set: (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (36 page)

We simply make our living providing financial services to other shifters like us that want to make their way in the business world like all the other humans who do the same. It is unfair that given what we are that they are looking into our business with some magnifying glass,” Alex went on as she attempted to focus more on his words than the way his eyes darkened as he angered, and the way his hands were clenched into fists around the arms of the chair he sat in.

She couldn’t help but think about wanting those hands on her while those fierce eyes looked her over, preferably naked.
Get it together
, Kat, she admonished herself. She’d never had such a strong reaction to a man before, especially upon first meeting. She’d have to blame in on his animal-like magnetism, his fierce charisma, and refocus her thinking back to the work at hand.

She was a tad off kilter though to see that he was taking the angle of lying to her outright, denying any wrong doing, when she would go as far as to stake her life on the fact that these men were truly into the money laundering that they were being investigated for. She didn’t care for the prejudice note they were implying against humans, but it wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last sadly, that such accusations had flown about since the shifters had come out to the public.

“Good to know,” she finally got out. “For what it is worth, there is a legal binding agreement in this office that what you say legally stays here. Only what you allow will be stated outside of this room. The more I know, the more I can help.”

“Are you accusing my brother of lying to you, Ms. Walton?” the one named Kristopher spat as he sat up straight, the large leather business chair squeaking out a protest.

Kris, as she’d been told to call him, was the cleanest cut of the four of them. He had a more dirty blond hair, not as warm a color as Alex had. His hair was cut short, styled with a far right part before being swept back to the sides. His clean-shaven face was more all-American, a perfect setting for his lighter brown eyes, the lightest of all of them, though there was little difference, one only noticed if you had them all side by side like this.

“Not at all,” Kat countered. “That is a basic statement we make to all of our clients up front. I work for you, Mr. Faust. For all of you. I will accept what you tell me, and argue what you want me to, to the best of my abilities. Just let it be known that I don’t create the laws, I can only manipulate them to the best of my abilities. And, make no mistake, I will do my best for you. But, as we tell all of our clients, the more we know, the better we can help.”

“Your reputation precedes you, Katrina,” Alex said, giving her name a certain punctuation with a deepening of his voice. She believed he was reminding his brother to call her that. “We are here because we believe you can best represent us if indeed the IRS gets enough evidence to press any charges.”

“We don’t believe they will though,” the one named Ben spoke up. “There isn’t any to be obtained for one.”

Benjamin Faust had sounded the peace maker. Since none of his brothers had batted an eye at his words, she figured she was right. His voice was the gentlest of the ones she’d heard so far. He had a calming effect, though he seemed more of an outlaw just by appearance. He had to be a smooth talker, she figured. That signature blond hair on his head was cut shorter than Alex’s, also gelled back as if they all had the same barber, yet, his slimmer face with darker brown eyes had less facial hair that was cut into a fashionable ducktail.

Even in a light tan suit, he looked the least like a business man of all of them. Clothes couldn’t disguise everything. Something about him seemed wild, though she guessed him to have a silver tongue, one who could convince anyone of anything. To his left side, Jackson sat, his blond hair maybe an inch long all over and tussled to look that dignified messy, still he looked more refined than Ben. Jackson also sported some facial scruff, making him look more the handsome boy next door. She believed him to be the baby of the family.

They were something, all of them together like this in one room. She didn’t have a clue what their parent’s looked like, but the family pictures had to be something. Still, when she scanned over them, Alex caught her eye the most. Not that any of them were here to ask her out, but damn, did she want him to. In fact, she might be talked into a one night stand if not for the business relationship.
It’s just been too long
, she offered herself a way off the hook,
and this man is like a male centerfold. What woman wouldn’t daydream about him?

“You know all you need to, Katrina,” Alex said gruffly. “You are to speak to the Criminal Investigator, let them know you are working for us, and are to be the go between if there are questions to be asked, files to be looked at, whatever. We expect you to take this problem off of our hands so that we can do our jobs for all of the packs that depend on us.”

“I will do that, Alex. I will be in touch as necessary, but basically I believe that faxed statements to your office with updates are all you are asking for from me as they continue to just investigate.”

“That is what we would prefer as long as you can keep it up. Other than that, make it all go away. You will have direct access to our office, through our secretaries, who will get you anything you need as far as paperwork to prove our innocence.”

“Yes. I have been so instructed, and will do everything in my power to maintain your innocence.”

“We have nothing more to say then,” Alex said, standing abruptly as if he had to get out of the room.

She didn’t understand his obvious aversion to her, but as he shook her hand once with a rough pump, before she moved on to shake the rest of their hands, he was already out of the room as if someone had yelled fire. When the rest of them followed him, they left her standing there, her mouth open, watching four men in perfectly tailored, snug business suits walk away down the hall. She had to grab the door jamb to steady herself.

Chapter Two

The executive pen that had been in his hand cracked, snapping him out of his momentary lapse into rage from the gentle seethe of anger that had run through his veins since he had left Katrina Walton’s office. Usually he was aware of his own superhuman strength, a crossover from his lion when in human form.

Yet, since meeting Ms. Sexy Enough to Fuck in a Lawyer Suit with the shapely legs that he wanted to see more of, his entire mood, and thus the rest of his day had been off as she occupied most of his thoughts.

Looking down at the document he was supposed to be reviewing and signing, along with a stack of others that he had not made his way through like he should have already, he could see the remnants of the pen, a gift from his personal secretary, scattered all over the top page.

Special resins made to look like semi-precious stones in the colors of warm browns and creams and sepia that Sandra had told him reminded her of him, rested now in shattered squares. At the first drip of ink from his fingers he swore and threw his hand toward the trash can.

Hitting it too hard, as he was looking to see where else the ink may have landed, the brass-colored can hit the desk before tipping over to the ground. The clink of it against the wheel of his chair once it had rolled had set off another string of curse words as he set to motion to stop this ridiculous, yet out of control mishap. To top it all off, his secretary came in to see what all the cursing was about.

“Something wrong, Alex?” she asked, catching sight of the pen and trash can mess. Coming around to help him out, always too forward and touchy, she grabbed up some tissues, recuing his hand from what was left of the pen.

“You have been in a surlier mood than usual today since you got back from that new lawyers. I hate to tell you that she called moments ago to ask some questions she had looking further into the situation. Congrats though, whatever is bothering you, you killed the pen.”

While Sandra remained professional, her attraction to him never went unnoted, not to him or to his brothers. She was part of his lion pack, a suitable mate, except, he just wasn’t attracted to her. She had long blond hair, with overwhelming reddish highlights like a mane that hung halfway down her back in loose waves.

Built like a runway model with a slim figure, barely any boobs, though solid and strong, characteristic of his kind, she just didn’t have the curves he personally desired. Something a man could wrap his arms around, grab a hold of to bend the woman, a sturdy advocate, to his wills. Like Katrina Walton.

“Just a rough day. Business. Nothing. Sorry about the pen,” he muttered.

“Not a problem. I already know what to get you for your birthday now,” she said with a wink as she wiped down his fingers, clearing them of excess black ink, inspecting them for any injury though it couldn’t have mattered a few scrapes to a man like him.

Even this attention, something he usually saw as cute, irritated him to no end today. Even though he wasn’t interested in Sandra, she still stroked his ego with her undying attention. Today it was just another interruption in his thinking about Katrina.

To top it all off, that thinking irritated him more because he couldn’t act on his attraction, no matter how fierce it was. He went over it in his mind again, the dos and don’ts, more don’ts, a stupid long list of don’ts, as he smelled Sandra’s forest-like scent, and compared it to the rose like perfume Kat had worn.

Dating a human was forbidden. While one night stands were allowed, most never risked it outside of a good lay with a woman they had no interest in outside of a warm body. The fear of mating with one couldn’t be taken lightly. It meant eternal torment for that shifter, as the relationship could never happen.

Since the shifters had come out in society, something that had been seen among the packs at the time, due to an unfortunate series of incidents, as a necessary evil, they had made rules about their place in this new world, rewriting the old ones. Some had stayed though, like forbidding romance with humans to protect pack secrets. Yes, they still had some.

A human could never be made to fully understand their life, from their shifts, to their superhuman skills, to the crossover between man and beast. It only ran along logic that the way they lived in the world would be different, and thus, humans wouldn’t be able to fully understand that either.

There had been a few cases, ones tried before the packs, of a female werewolf and a human male, and also a male skin-walker and female human that had actually won out, but they were made to seem rare, extraordinary circumstances that made no real impact against the rules.

Besides, skin-walkers were a pack of wildcards anyway. The only ones among them that could turn into whatever animal they chose at any given time, with no pulls like the werewolf had say with the moon, they remained more elusive, off the grid, into the worst of the criminal circuit among the packs. They were dangerous even to other shifters. That case of a shifter being with a human had been thought won on just that fact alone. They were rarely challenged.

His mind wandered back to Kat, in her office, the way her suit, a charcoal grey, had hugged the generous swells of her breasts, her hips among other things. The shocking pink color of silk under the jacket had dipped between her breasts, revealing a line where they pressed together, threatened to fall from the clutches of her bra and tempt him into denying all he knew for just one bite of her.

No!,
he growled at himself, the sound actually emanating in his chest making Sandra look up into his face, distracting her from her business of cleaning up his mess.

“Something sure has you wound up. It has to be the case. You are not going to be happy that Katrina called about the black jaguar accounts in the southern part of the state, the Munick clan.”

“Damn it all,” he grumbled. “I knew she was going to be too good at her job for her own good.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Leave it. I’m fine,” he said to Sandra, pulling his hand from hers so abruptly that he felt guilty at the stricken look on her face. “Sorry. Forgive me. Just please, call Katrina Walton, criminal lawyer extraordinaire, and set up a business dinner for tonight. It isn’t optional. She needs to know that. When we call, she comes.”

“Yes sure,” Sandra said, scurrying from the room, always eager to please.

The word ‘come’ in reference to the lawyer had him getting hard, and he gripped his hand into a fist not to rub the ache in his hardening cock. He couldn’t date her. And, given the way his body reacted to her presence, a one night stand just to ease the ache was definitely out. There could be no half way if he ever got his hands on this woman. He knew that, and already it made his life resemble misery.

Business however, like always, was allowed with humans. They had no choice. This meeting with Katrina was again, a necessary god-damned evil. She couldn’t go snooping too much, or the brothers would have to listen to him and tell the truth to their lawyer. Or, at least some version of it. 

A dinner was above and beyond, but something about the luxury of getting to spend time with her had seemed like a good idea in the desperate moment. It would be a mistake. He couldn’t play with this, but he needed time with her. He needed to see her, face to face, alone, so he could work all he was feeling out. Yes, he was going with that.

The damned thing was a mess from day one. He didn’t know why the IRS couldn’t just leave them alone. Or the feds, or any other section of primarily human-run government or enforcement agencies. They left them no choice but to exist outside of the laws, just as they always had when their full identities had not been known.

He figured, as they all did, that since human men couldn’t take them on in a fight, they took them on with the law. In a pack world, human laws were only made to be broken, from a man staying in human form in public to whatever regulations they had about how money could be maintained.

A prime example of the struggle of this new world was the black jaguar Munick pack. They made their money producing and selling drugs. Sure, some were sold on the streets, mere hallucinogens to humans, but to the pack, they were vital, helping them to control animal urges when in human form. Not all of the packs had it easy when it came to assimilating.

And since they had all been outed, some were having a harder time of it, fitting in. They had not had to answer for so much when their dual identities had been off the radar. Now, humans wanted to know about them, the damn curious lot of them. It served no good for them to know all like most of them thought themselves entitled to.

Faust Financial Services provided a much needed service to packs like them. They laundered their money, to use the human terms, to hide the wrong doings basically, and to provide much needed funds for that possible day that the packs may need to defend themselves against the humans if they pushed too far. Many dealt in weapons, with the guns on the increase in human hands since the shifters had emerged. Now, guns were pointed at them all the time, as if they were always a threat. So, they had to fight back bullets for bullets.

Plus, if all went wrong, they would need money to build themselves lives elsewhere, in remote parts of the world as many already had. All the money went to those projects that the government could not know about, secret retreats off the grid.

Sure, it was a risky business, money laundering, but it allowed them to begin building the same for their own pack if the need ever arose for them to get away. His mind wandered again, to getting him far away from all of this with Katrina by his side.

In his daydream, he pulled from her dark hair whatever clips or pins she had holding it up until it fell down around her shoulders, maybe over her breasts, in a messy wave of dark silk. He’d run his hands through it first, lovingly, until he saw a certain look in her eyes of lust, of falling under its spell, and then he would grasp it into his fist, gently yanking her neck back until he had the skin exposed for his lips, his teeth.

His phone buzzed. Sandra. He repositioned himself in the chair, trying to give his erection some much needed room in his pants as he hit the button that unleashed her sultry voice which would only serve to annoy him further at this moment as any distraction from his thoughts of Kat would.

“Yes,” he grumbled.

“Brad Munick for you on line one.”

“Perfect. I’ve got it,” he said, slamming his finger down on the buttons to make that happen.

“Brad. What can I do for you?” Alex said, waiting for the man to explode over the phone.

While Alex himself was known as an impatient man, wanting what he wanted and wanting it now, the Munick’s were a combative group. Much like jaguars, again the animal also ruling the man, they were always on the prowl in every part of their lives, and they felt they had some edge up over the rest of them.

In a way, all packs did whether lion or wolf or tiger, they all were alphas, and yet they had found some tenuous line that made it possible to all work together or die at the hands of the humans, in public life, or in the wild at the end of their guns.

Most men were armed in this day and age, knowing themselves no match for shifters without bullets, most of the semi-automatic kind if they could get away with it. Alex, himself had a glock he carried always, but in his office, in a secret drawer under his desk, always above his thighs, there was a semi-automatic weapon at the ready, same as he had at home in a few places. They had to fight on their terms as well if they wanted to survive.

“We got a call from some new lawyer of yours asking questions. Look, we know all about the IRS trying to build a case against you, and that makes us nervous enough, but to have some lawyer, supposedly working for you, asking questions, well that doesn’t sit right at all. She should only be talking to you, not bothering us with your mess. We were promised that our accounts were safe and that this would not blow back on us. We don’t need the heat.”

“I’m sorry, Brad. I get it. Our mistake. She wasn’t told enough at our preliminary meeting. I have her coming here in a few hours to rectify the situation. I promise, it is the last you will hear of it. I have it covered,” Alex went on, the anger in him spilling out into his voice.

“Fine. We are trusting you. Fix this, or the packs will be meeting.”