Read Online The PlayBear Billionaire: A Bear Shifter Romance by Maria Amor - Free Book Online Page A

He could prevent Eric’s attempts to destroy the business he had inherited from his father—but Eric’s desire for revenge wouldn’t stop there.
    “She seems very sweet. Fitting name, Daphne,” Eric said, his eyes half-lidded. He leaned in towards Alex. “Does she know about your true nature?” Alex held his gaze.
    “If she finds out about it from you, she’ll find out about your nature too. And the elders wouldn’t look kindly on the revelation.” Alex hated to bring the elders of the bear shifter people into the equation—but it was the only threat he could really hang over Eric’s head.
    “Probably best to be careful how close you let her get,” Eric said, sitting back once more. “I can smell your mark on her—but she’s not a shifter. Somehow, I don’t think she’d be so thrilled to work with you if she finds out. Of course I won’t tell her—but you never know.”
    *
    Alex paced the floor in front of his desk, deep in thought, unable to stand still. He knew that he would have to do something about Eric. Since the luncheon, the Lasko Corporation had shifted into high gear; they were not in a position to do anything about the strategies that Alex had implemented for Oberon Industrial, but they were gaining market share and slandering the company with an open hand.
    On top of that, he had heard from Daphne that Eric was spending an odd amount of time in his off hours at the ARC headquarters—cultivating contacts, getting to know her. At first she said it had almost seemed flattering; though she had made it clear to Eric that she was only Alex’s handler—that she wasn’t interested or slated for working with another spokesperson.
    “He asked me if everyone else knew how closely we worked together,” Daphne told him as she lay in his arms, her dark eyes full of fear, her body’s sleepy, sexual scent beginning to take on the acrid note.
    “He won’t say anything,” Alex had told her confidently. He had explained something of his history with Eric—keeping the full disclosure of how they had come together in the first place, friends bonded over their mutual dual natures, a secret. He explained that the business they had created together had all but folded, that his father had bought them out and that Eric was out for revenge against him.
    Alex found himself troubled not only by the knowledge of Eric’s desire for revenge—and the apparent moves his rival was making against him—but by the fact of his reaction to Daphne’s presence at his side while Eric was putting on his best dominant bear traits; the low growl that had come out of him, warning Eric to back off.
    The sound had been instinctual, something he couldn’t have prevented until after it happened. Later that afternoon, thinking back on it, and on Eric’s words, “I can smell your mark on her,” Alex had nearly broken the relationship off altogether.
    He had refused to let himself think about why he had been so drawn to Daphne, and why he could barely control himself in her presence. Whenever she was around, he felt the conflicting urges to devour her, to destroy her, to protect her—until they had had sex for the first time. He realized, thinking about it after the luncheon, that his initial reaction to her pheromones, the delicious look of her body, the way she stood up to him and wasn’t cowed by him, were symptoms of his deep, animal attraction to her.
    He couldn’t get her out of his head, even when she wasn’t around. He had imprinted her spicy, warm smell in his mind, the way a bear in the wild could immediately recognize its mate. When he had had sex with her for the first time, the desire, the preference, had solidified into an animal need.
    He could even remember the moment when he had marked her, though he hadn’t noticed it at the time. A few nights before the luncheon, he had gone to Daphne’s apartment; she had paperwork to do, she had told him over the phone.
    She couldn’t go out to dinner, she