Gingerbear Christmas (Howls Romance Howliday Special)

by Reina Torres

  If she hadn’t seen it for herself, she never would have believed it.

  One moment Clancy was there in his bare-naked glory and the next, there stood the hulking frame of a bear. The sunlight almost made his fur look like flame; the red touched with gold was truly a sight to see.

  Lifting his massive head, the bear opened his mouth just in time to catch the wooden handle of his axe before he lumbered off into the forest behind the house.

  Clancy didn’t need to shift. Cold didn’t bother him like it bothered her.

  But she would have bet a good amount of money that he’d done it for a few reasons. Clancy had likely shown her his bear so that she would have a chance to see him shift hoping that it wouldn’t scare her. It was a good reason, she told herself, but if she was right, his bear’s smug smile as he sauntered off told her that Clancy had wanted to show off a little for her.

  He didn’t need to, but she had to admit, she did like the show. There would be time for her to ruminate over the reasons later, but for the moment, she had things she needed to do, with a shower at the top of her list. After that cathartic experience, she would be ready to tackle the other tasks she had in mind while she waited for Clancy to return, including a project that she was sure he’d like.

  “Let’s get a move on.” She mentally kicked herself into action, realizing that her world was changing by leaps and bounds in Allaway and she liked it very much.

  7

  HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

  When Clancy first arrived in Allaway as a lanky teen, the Behrs had invited him to stay with them. At first, he’d refused, finding solace in the woods. He could catch his food, find his own shelter, bathe in the rivers and streams… when he wanted to.

  But on the rare times that he’d sit down at the table with them for a meal, he would sneak glances at a painting that featured prominently on the wall in the dining room.

  It surprised him when it wasn’t Mrs. Behr who caught him looking at it, but Mr. Behr.

  The man resembled a guy who Clancy had seen on television. The guy wore a sweater and talked to puppets, but he seemed nice. Mr. Behr was like that too.

  Except without the puppets. Clancy hadn’t seen puppets in the Behr house.

  “My mother painted that.”

  Clancy turned, startled, and caught Mr. Behr’s calm brown eyes looking at him across the table. “It’s… it’s nice.”

  “I think so too.” Mr. Behr’s smile made his eyes catch the light from the small chandelier hanging above the table. “When I met Theadora, my mother knew before I did that Thea was it for me. I was young and stupid, so it was lucky that my mother had a concrete way to show me the light.”

  Listening intently to the man’s words, Clancy nodded. “She gave you the painting?”

  “In a way.” The corners of Mr. Behr’s eyes wrinkled at the question. “She told me if I didn’t get my head on straight and mark Theadora, she’d bring that painting down on my head.”

  Clancy nodded, not quite sure he understood why Mr. Behr had started the conversation to begin with.

  “I know you’re happy out there in the woods. When I was your age, I felt the same way. Just know that you’re welcome here whenever you want to be here. I think we can help you understand.”

  “Understand the painting?”

  Mr. Behr shrugged. “Somewhat. Maybe it was just my excuse to teach you a lesson I had to learn under threat of bodily injury.”

  As he stirred the mixture in the pot, waiting for the chocolate to melt completely, Clancy nodded to himself. He’d always thought that Mr. Behr had said a whole lot of nothing back then. Life was raw and natural, or it had been in his experience. So many things had changed since then, but more had changed in the last thirty hours than ever before. And he was beginning to understand exactly what Mr. Behr had been telling him, in a roundabout way.

  Tapping the spoon on the side of the pot, he set it down, turned off the burner and poured two large mugs full of his hot chocolate.

  He had to walk around almost the entire circumference of the tree to find Haley.

  She was seated on the floor at the base of the tree almost lost in one of his sweaters. She’d rolled up the cuffs three or four times, but it still threatened to engulf her arms. She looked up at him with a warm grin on her face. “It smells like heaven!”

  He managed to sit down without spilling a single drop from either mug of hot chocolate and quietly reminded her that it had just come off of the stove.

  Cupping the mug in her hands, she lifted the cup up to her nose and breathed in the scent before she sighed. “I’m so impressed that you made this from scratch. I only know how to pour a packet into water and hope the mug is microwave safe.”

  He liked her praise.

  He liked the spark of light in her eyes more.

  And as she pursed her lips to blow across the surface of her mug, his eyes fixed on them, hoping to taste them again soon. He was still staring fixedly at her lips when she lifted her gaze to his with a broad smile. “If you’re not careful, I’m going to get spoiled with everything you do for me.”

  He wanted to do more for her, so he was happy to hear that she liked his efforts to make her comfortable… happy.

  Clancy wanted to know more about her too. Looking at the top of the coffee table he saw that she had pieces of fabric out and a heavy pair of shears that looked particularly dangerous. “What were you doing in here while I was in the kitchen?”

  Haley took a tentative sip and then set the mug down on an empty spot of the table. “It looks like a mess, doesn’t it? Don’t worry though, I’ll clean it up before we go to bed.”

  He didn’t know exactly how she meant that turn of a phrase, but she didn’t seem to understand the way he heard it. The way his bear heard it.

  And that lumbering mass of fur, muscle, and claws inside of him made his opinion on the situation very clear. He thought it was an excellent invitation to mark their mate. Clancy told him to back off and wait. He doubted, from what he knew of Haley, that she had meant to tease them with the idea.

  So, he shook off the rather erotic images that his bear sent rolling through their head and focused on Haley’s hands as she held something out to him.

  “Here. I’ve only managed to get a half-dozen or so made, but if you help me, maybe we can make more for our tree.”

  He looked at the red and white ornament in his hand and felt his heart squeeze tight in his chest. “You made this? For us?”

  Her smile seemed to burn brighter when he raised his gaze to her face. “Does that mean you like it?”

  “Yeah.” Clancy looked back down at the ornament in his hands and felt a rough scratch in his throat. “I like it… a lot.” She pressed another ornament into his hand, and he smiled at the small checked fabric in red and green. “How did you make these?”

  Haley crooked her finger to get him to move closer and Clancy certainly wasn’t going to argue.

  He moved quickly to close the space between them and adjusted his legs so she was sitting between them with her back against his chest.

  “Here,” she pointed to strips of fabric on the tabletop. “I think I shocked Angelina when she wanted to help me put my things away. The smaller suitcase has my clothes in it. The larger one is filled with fabric.”

  His reaction was to reach out and set a hand on her knee, so she turned her head back to him. “What do you mean your clothes? That’s all you brought with you?”

  Her gaze dipped down and away from him for a moment. “It’s all I have.” She startled and continued to talk, placing her hands on his chest as if she was trying to soothe him. “Don’t worry about it. I can handwash if you don’t have a machine. I’m really good at it after all of these years.”

  When he didn’t speak, she continued on. “It’s weird, you know? It’s easier for me to find jobs in smaller towns where people are still interested in handcrafting and the nostalgic appeal of quilts, but those small towns don’t have many laundroma
ts. It’s a trade-off, but I adapt to things. So, we can agree that you don’t need to worry about that, right?”

  His smile seemed to soothe her in return, but not his words. “I’ll worry about you all the time, Haley, because I care for you. More than you know.” He lifted his hand from her knee and as he wrapped his arm around her, he set his hand to rest on her shoulder. “And just so you know, I do have a washer and dryer. There’s not much need for a clothesline up here on the mountain where the cold freeze might turn your clothes into icicles.”

  She looked up at him, stunned into silence.

  He continued to speak and fill it so he didn’t have to worry that he’d stepped over a line with her. “So, you have a lot of fabric in your suitcase?”

  Smiling, Haley latched onto the question. “A lot and then some, but I only brought what fit into the suitcase, since I wasn’t sure what kind of fabrics we’d have access to here on the mountain. And when you went up the mountain to get the tree, I remembered that you said you didn’t normally have one in the house. So, I thought I’d make some ornaments using some of my fabric.”

  Her words warmed his heart even more.

  “I think they look really nice.”

  She beamed up at him. “Really? That’s great!”

  He wanted to see that smile more and more. “You said you wanted some help?”

  Her eyes closed for a moment and he held still, waiting to see her reaction.

  When she looked back up at him, he saw tears shining in her eyes. “That’s the sweetest thing you could have said.”

  He felt like a king.

  No, he felt like a hero.

  His bear rose up on his hind legs and let out a bellow that would have shaken the trees if he’d been in his ursine form.

  “Here.” Haley picked up a couple of strips of fabric from the table and put one in his outstretched hand. “This is your strip of fabric. And I’ve got one. So, I’ll talk you through what to do.”

  It took a while, but Clancy managed to finish his ornament, with a little help from her here and there. Even though he said how hard it was with his bigger hands, he was still game to try and that made her heart thunder in her chest.

  He cared.

  He tried.

  And they’d had a wonderful time laughing and talking while they’d gone through the steps.

  While the glue was drying on the loop she’d added to the top of his ornament, he got to his feet.

  When he held out his hand for her to take, she didn’t hesitate and soon she was standing before him enjoying the heat rolling off of his body.

  He reached past her and picked up a couple of the ornaments that she’d already finished and handed her one. “You first,” he smiled.

  She looked at the ornament and gestured for him to go first. “It’s your tree.”

  Clancy shook his head. “It’s our tree.”

  And right then and there, she made her decision.

  Okay, not RIGHT then, but it was a good enough time to point to if he asked her later.

  Actually, she’d made her decision back when he’d refused to let her drive her car without snow chains. There had been something about the tone of his voice and the naked concern in his gaze that had gone straight through her like an arrow and lodged in her heart.

  Lifting up her arm, she placed the first ornament on their tree.

  It didn’t take longer than a second or two for Clancy to place the ornament he was holding. It was smack dab beside hers.

  Two stars made of odd strips of left-over fabric, hanging beside each other on an otherwise bare Christmas tree.

  His hand lingered there for a moment, the tip of his finger tracing the edge of the star as he fixed his eyes on it.

  There was something so incredibly intimate about that moment, just the two of them, and handmade ornaments on the tree.

  Would she look at these same ornaments in a few years and remember this moment with a smile? She was kidding herself if she thought she wouldn’t. Haley had never felt a moment in her life more perfect than this.

  And if there was one thing she was certain of, it was that she didn’t want to let it go. Not then. Not ever.

  “You know,” Clancy’s soft voice broke into her thoughts, “I have a piece of wood in my workshop. It was too small to be a part of any of my projects, but I think it might be large enough to carve something for the top of the tree.”

  “That sounds…. That sounds wonderful!”

  “Really?”

  He sounded happy although a little bewildered, and she wondered if she was filling in the same gaps of his heart that he was filling in hers.

  His smile was something she wanted to remember. She wanted to drift off to sleep with that image in her head, but it wasn’t the only image she wanted. An image she’d dreamed over and over but never had a face to put to it, until that very moment.

  Taking hold of his shirt in her hands, Haley pulled him down toward her and managed to capture his surprised exhale with a kiss.

  She kissed him with everything she had and even though he was a good six inches or so taller than she was, she was doing a fairly good job of holding him close.

  It was only when she needed a gasp of air that she pulled away. “Sorry,” she panted out the words, “I don’t have a lot of practice at this.”

  “This?” His eyes were hazy, almost a stormy grey, maybe a tinge darker if his bear was pressing in. “Kissing?”

  “Kissing,” she confirmed, “and what comes next.”

  “Next.” He licked his lips, and his hands grasped her upper arms and held her still while his gaze bored into hers. “You’ve decided?”

  She nodded and parted her lips slightly, wetting them with the tip of her tongue. “I want to be yours, Clancy. I want these feelings… these amazing feelings inside of me to continue forever. I want to know what it’s like to be with you. I want to know what it’s like to have you inside of me in more ways than just physically. And I think that’s what we’ll have. I think together, we can be that for each other.”

  She let her words fade into the silence of the room. She felt her heart pound and throb inside of her chest as she waited to see if Clancy was going to make her wait.

  Instead of leaving it entirely to chance, she hoped she could convince him of her sincerity another way. Lifting her hands between them, she slipped them under the hem of his shirt and placed her palms on his belly. The distinct ridges of his abs felt warm under her palms and her hands ventured further, her fingers coming into contact with more and more of his bare skin.

  He felt like a heater and she loved it. She wanted to get closer.

  She couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Angelina had a bunch of things to tell me, or rather teach me about being with a shifter.”

  “Yeah?” His voice was barely a whisper of sound. She could feel how tight his abs were and knew he wasn’t breathing very much. “What did you learn?”

  Courage, Haley told herself. Courage.

  “She said that our bond will grow stronger the more ‘skin to skin’ contact we have. That yes, your bite will… seal the deal,” Haley couldn’t help the way her cheeks flushed with heat at the image Angelina’s laughter had put in her head, “but that the more we touch, the closer our bond would be. That’s what I want, Clancy. I want to start now.”

  Clancy didn’t need any more convincing.

  Somehow her borrowed sweater ended up on the ground. Where, she didn’t know, but it didn’t matter a moment later when the hands he told her were too big for delicate work like their ornaments deftly snapped open the clasp of her bra.

  There wasn’t any time to feel self-conscious about breasts because Clancy held them in his hands. His touch was gentle.

  Loving.

  And when he changed the position of his hands and swept the work-callused pads of his thumbs over her nipples, they pebbled, drawing tighter, becoming even more sensitive if that was possible.

  Again, he stroked his thumbs over her
sensitive skin and when her breath caught in her throat, he twisted his hands so he could roll them between his fingers.

  Haley tried to grasp something to keep her upright. Her fingers fought to find some purchase, but she was short of conscious thought and heavily drowning in instinct. Her nails, what she had of them, clawed at his waist and she heard the rough scratch of a moan pass his lips.

  “Clancy?” She was confused to say the least. Never had a man’s hands on her breasts created such a deep sense of longing inside of her.

  Maybe, she wondered, it wasn’t just the act, but the man.

  Again, his fingers touched her nipples, and she felt each caress as if he had touched her between her legs. Every jolt of sensation was echoed in her core and she whimpered and gasped, unsure of how to explain what she wanted.

  What she needed.

  “Haley?”

  Her eyes found his and watched as he cast a look down at the floor and then lifted his gaze toward the bedroom that was his… theirs.

  “Where?”

  She heard the hard punctuation in his tone and knew that he felt the hunger as much as she did. “Here,” she bit into her bottom lip, but the pain didn’t ease the ache between her thighs. “Love me here, Clancy.”

  His hands moved away from her breasts and she watched, shaking, as he yanked his shirt off of his body, flinging it somewhere near the couch. His pants were next. He’d only managed to free the button before he pushed his denim jeans down his legs.

  He’d been barefoot, and Haley found herself ridiculously happy that she didn’t have to wait for him to remove shoes or boots. Then again, she would have guessed that he’d tear the laces off them if he had to and really-

  Her internal chatter died down.

  Rather, it hit a wall.

  A hard muscular wall.

  Because Clancy Rhodes stood before her in his naked glory and it was glorious. His chest, she’d seen. His legs, his thighs especially, she’d imagined in great detail, but nothing had prepared her for the sculpted muscle that caught the residual light from the kitchen that had found its way around the Christmas tree.