you don't need to pair them. handoff isn't working for me either and you might need 8.1 for it to work properly... I'm not sure since Im not doing iOS work
update: yeah, 8.1 seems necessary for full handoff capability, but handoff from my Mac to my iPhone (along with airdrop from iPhone to Mac) is working apart from sms/phone. But I can't do handoff from my iPhone to Mac.