Gabby’s husband Roman*** was Anton and Jack’s third or fourth cousin. Back home that was considered kinsfolk. Moreover, Roman and Anton had grown up playing in the woods. They were still as close as brothers. Anton was godfather to Gabby and Roman’s son.
Gabby laughed and rolled her big brown eyes. She continued their joke. “Roman always speaks well of you too, Anton.”
“How not?” asked Anton innocently. “No one can badmouth us Marines. While you can’t trust those flyboys further than you can throw ‘em.” Roman was a major in the US Air Force.
Gabby smiled. “Tell you what,” she said, “You start Monday and I’ll put you on the framing crew.”
His lunch arrived. He poured dressing on his salad and dug into his food. Gabby waited until his mouth was full before she proved that she was used to using her eyes. “So who was that girl you weren’t dancing with yesterday?”
“I danced,” he protested around his cheeseburger. “Twice with you, Mrs. Major Zhadanov, if memory serves.”
She laughed. “That’s so. But I never before saw one of you Benoits sit out even one dance. Let alone prop up the wall, dance after dance.”
“We are for sure dancing fools, but a man with one foot should get cut a little slack,” he suggested piously.
Gabby laughed harder. “You manage okay, Anton. So what’s the deal with that little mermaid?”
“I put my brand on her,” he said flatly.
She snickered. “Already? Is that why you want a job?”
“A fellow can’t go courting without a job. What would he say when her daddy asks what he does for a living?”
“Like that is it?”
“Exactly like that. How long did it take Roman to cut you out of the herd?” Anton asked. “I wasn’t there when Jack and Will married Hannah and Martha****, but Uncle Vanya and Uncle Pierre sure enough filled me in.”
“Our eyes met and that was that,” Gabby admitted. Her brown eyes were lustrous with fond memories. “A done deal.”
“That’s how it is with us bears. Don’t know if it works that way with mermaids.”
“You don’t think she felt it too?” Gabby asked sympathetically.
“I’m not sure,” Anton admitted. The waitress came over and refilled his coffee mug. “Either way, she gets courted. I’m certain enough for two.”
Gabby waved for their checks. “Add his to mine,” she instructed the server. “Part of the pay is a living allowance, Anton. You submit your receipts for food and lodging, and Bear Claw will cover some of them. Except for booze.”
“Fair enough.” They shook.
*Bear Necessities
**Desired by the Dragon
***Bear Infinities
****Bear Affinities
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Serena~
She wasn’t a bit surprised when her father showed up on her doorstep on Sunday afternoon. He pounded hard on the front door of the cottage, steam almost visibly erupting from his gills. Justine opened the door and stood back.
“By the Pacific, what is your sister up to?” Roger Merryman bellowed, as Justine flattened herself against the wall.
“Hello, Dad,” Justine replied. “How’s Mom?”
He glared at her, the blue-green lights in his black curls sparking and his green eyes flashing. “Where is your sister?”
“Right here, Dad.” Serena strolled into the living room and sat on the couch.
Roger snarled and plunked himself down on the opposite chair, hands on his knees. Compared to Anton he was lean and wiry, although broad and hard. But he looked just as fierce as her bear. “What is this nonsense I’m hearing about you and a hunter?” He was still shouting.
“I had breakfast with Anton Benoit,” Serena admitted cautiously.
“Don’t lie to me. George Greene saw you come out of Benoit’s cottage.”
Serena shook her head. “George saw Anton kiss me on the porch of Sunflower. He did not see me come out of Anton’s cottage, because I didn’t go inside. I slept here and was returning his truck to him.” There was probably no reason to admit to that early morning swim.
Dad was not mollified by this explanation. “And what were you doing kissing a hunter anyway?”
“What were you doing trying to hook me up with a rapist?” Serena shot back.
Roger’s mouth snapped shut. Red blazed on his cheekbones. “I had no idea about Jerome’s past. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”
“Well, he tried to abduct me last night,” Serena said. “If Wally Babcock hadn’t saved me, he might have succeeded.”
“I hear this bear,” he made ‘bear’ sound like ‘thug’, “was also present.”
“He was. But it was Wally who got the drop on Bock.”
“There is probably some mistake,” Roger blustered. “I checked out Jerome Brooks myself. He’s a straight shooter.”
Serena sighed. “Wally submitted Jerome’s prints. He’s actually a guy named Dyson Bock. Wally should probably add identity theft to the attempted abduction and assault charges.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. I called Massachusetts myself, spoke to guys I know.” Roger’s voice was softer and less certain.
Serena reminded herself that Dad loved her and that he too had been cruelly deceived by Bock. “Have you spoken to Wally?” she asked.
“Not yet. I went into town to find out what the heck was going on, only to find out that my daughter is the talk of the Bean and Bran.” The Bean was the local coffee shop, the hub of community life and Mystic Bay grapevine’s fertile soil.
“Anton is a stranger. And a bear,” she conceded. “But he seems to be on the side of right.”
“You can’t have anything in common with a bear,” Dad declared with finality. “Especially a bear from away.”
“Anton is from a small town too,” she said. Hyper-masculine like Dad. Was he also as controlling?
“Isn’t it enough that Carlyle is gone?” he asked despairingly.
The last time they had seen her oldest brother was when he and Dad had staged a major family argument at Mom’s birthday party. Roger had berated Carlyle for his lack of interest in his heritage – by which he meant both the Crab Hut and mer traditions. He had ended their shouting match with banishing his son.
It would have been almost funny if Carlyle had not taken the next ferry and never returned. For the first few months, Dad had stomped around like some modern King Lear grumbling about thankless children. But the holidays came and went and there was no word from Carlyle. Not even a card for Mom. Anger turned to worry.
Dad went to Portland and Seattle looking for his heir. He came back even more worried. He had made a few other attempts from time to time, but to no effect. Carlyle’s absence was a perpetual hole in the fabric of the Merryman family. Things had not been improved by Justine’s reckless marriage to Chris. And now here Serena was poised to flout mer tradition by consorting with a bear. No wonder Dad was livid and agitated.
“I don’t intend to leave West Haven,” she said softly. “And I told Anton that.”
“Did you?”
“Straight out.” It was time to stand her ground. “Dad, I’m twenty-seven. I think my private life is my business.”
“Your marriage is mer business. Which makes it mine!”
She couldn’t argue with the mer-king. “Yes, sire. How about I promise not to marry Anton without your permission?”
“Do you swear on the Pacific Ocean?” he asked solemnly.
Justine made a horrified noise, but Serena swallowed hard and raised her right arm high. “I swear on the Pacific,” she vowed. The little bear in her pocket burned like an ember. What had she done?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Anton~
All in all, it had been a pretty good day. He had had an exhilarating swim with his mate, kissed her for the first time, and shared a meal with her. He had also landed a job and spoken to his boss about some extended leave. Thank goodness Steve Holden was also a veteran as well a
s a black bear. He understood how fast love could happen.
Steve had fallen in love with his fated mate Laura Bascom in an eyeblink.* Anton wasn’t familiar with all the details of Holden’s courtship, but he figured that it couldn’t have been smooth sailing for an ex-serviceman to win the heart of one of the B&B Oil heiresses. At any rate, Holden had immediately granted him all the time he required.
Anton turned in early. Tomorrow would be a full day with the kind of manual labor he was no longer used to. No one could persuade him that lifting weights and running on a treadmill prepared you for anything but lifting weights and running on a treadmill. Even the martial arts regimen that Steve insisted all his operatives practice wouldn’t help him to do construction all day. He was strong, but tomorrow would be hard. Bring it on.
Had Serena taken her bear to bed with her? Growing up in French Town, he had heard tales of the wonderful magic that such love tokens produced. Making one for your mate was normal back home.** But given the high percentage of servicemen in his family, his kinsmen were surprisingly prudish when it came to discussing their love lives. Of course wild animals wouldn’t get him to brag about kissing Serena.
He didn’t really know what to expect tonight. He certainly hoped his love token would make Serena dream of him and of their kiss. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if he dreamed of his mermaid. He fell asleep, his brain buzzing with her image. And came awake, or partially awake, to her weight on his belly and her scent in his nostrils.
Soft fingers were playing in his chest hair, combing and parting it and stroking, as if it or he was a puppy. Or as if some naive sensualist was on a voyage of discovery. Every nerve in his body was on red alert. His muscles were immovable. Except for his favorite. Any minute now, both his heads would explode.
When he tried to raise his hands to his beloved’s waist, his arms were locked at his sides. His eyes refused to open. He was paralyzed, yet awake. Or was he? If this was bear magic, it was deeply unnerving.
Serena’s fingertips circled his nipples. Licking flame made them stiffen in delight. She giggled softly and brushed her lips softly against his. The movement brought her soft breasts against his chest. If he had thought her fingers set his libido sparking, it was nothing compared to the feel of her breasts tickling his chest hair. He thought he groaned.
She giggled again. Her tongue skimmed over his lips tracing their outlines. “Like that?” she whispered.
Hot damn. He certainly did. His body was abruptly damp. The aroma of aroused bear shifter joined her heady fragrance. They complemented each other. Surely there had never been a lovelier perfume? And then he was beyond thought as her taunting tongue slipped into his mouth and began to tease the tender flesh in front of his teeth.
If only he could return the sultry glide of her tongue. He could taste her, smell her, feel her hot wet pussy sliding on his furry six-pack, but he couldn’t move. She scooted back a couple of inches. Her rump collided with his cock. She must have reached behind her, for he was suddenly grasped by a hand that squeezed him tightly.
She carefully placed him in the cleft between her soft and supple buttocks and leaned back. His sensual agony was instantly intensified a hundredfold. Was that his throat shrieking like peacock’s? His mermaid clucked her tongue in reproof.
“This is my fantasy,” her earnest voice said in the language of dreams. “All you have to do is lie still, bear.”
As abruptly as he had become over-sensitized and frustrated, his mind and muscles unknotted. A deep sense of rightness flooded him. This was his mate taking her pleasure of his body. His mate. He relaxed completely, surrendering to her exploration of his body. She seemed incurably nosy.
She caressed the muscles in his arms, working her way up from the elbows to his shoulders and back down all the way to his wrists, stroking even his fingernails. He had big hands. Hell, he was big all over. The life he had led had not left him with pampered hands.
They were strong and callused, and the thumbnail on the right one had been split to the quick during basic training and had never grown straight afterward. Her fingers found the defect and wandered back and forth as if learning its misshapen contours.
She ruffled his chest hair again and followed it down his abdomen, past his belly button, past his happy trail. She lifted herself over the obstacle presented by his erection and sat on his thighs to play with his balls. It was agony and yet the most exquisite pleasure. She cupped him and teased the patch of skin beneath his package.
“You’re hairy everywhere,” she said. His ears strained to catch her mood.
Did his hairiness please her? She sounded astonished. But he couldn’t tell if she liked his fur. He was partial to his body in its natural state. He was by dang a bear. But for Serena he would fricking bathe in depilatory if that was what she wanted.
And then she was squeezing his cock and placing little nibbling kisses all over the head. This time he was sure he screamed.
It was still dark when his alarm woke him to a new day. Dawn came late in December. His room stank of unwashed bear. Try as he might he couldn’t detect a single trace of his lovely mate. It had all been a dream. The most erotic dream of his life. He only hoped Serena had shared it.
*Bear Pause
**Bearly Begun & Bearly Enough
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Serena~
As usual, Serena accompanied the crew from the Tidewater Inn to the museum construction site. Now that winter had come, Bear Claw had erected a big heated tent. Today the tent was a mixed blessing. The persistent drizzle that was such a marker for the Pacific Northwest had made the ground muddy and the air humid. Inside the air was thick and muggy.
Matters weren’t helped by the workers stripping off their jackets as soon as they hit the heat. A smell of rank, hardworking shifters competed with the hearty lasagna and shepherd’s pie that were today’s lunch offerings. There was frank jostling in the line as the guys flirted outrageously with her staff.
Serena didn’t mind as long as the men did not make personal comments or come on too strong. Lucy and Gina were older married women unlikely to take their playful compliments seriously. But nineteen-year-old Felicity Sullivan was more vulnerable. She was a mid-level weather worker born and bred in Mystic Bay and the great niece of the head mage, Deputy Mayor Gordon Sullivan. Serena knew Sully would not like it if innocent Felicity hooked up with some out-of-town hunter only wanting a good time.
It was a good thing the Bear Claw boss was a woman. Gabriella Zhadanov kept her workforce in line. But there was only so much she could do if the guys were off-site and on their own time. Serena had twice intervened to send Felicity off on an errand that took her away from the steam table and the head-turning compliments of a handsome pair of werewolves.
She was debating whether a good old-fashioned talking-to would be in Felicity’s interests, when every sense in her body began to hum. Last night’s arousal returned with inappropriate intensity. There in the gang, lined up with his tray, was her burly bear shifter, laughing and joking with the other guys as if he had always worked for Bear Claw.
He was wearing a blue jacket over a plaid shirt and faded blue jeans. Curls stuck out the open neck of his shirt, but unlike most of the others who sported weekend stubble, his big broad jaw and neck were clean-shaven. His brown eyes sought hers and he winked. She could feel a blush start somewhere around her breasts and wash over her face.
The guys in line noticed her red face. There was a certain amount of jostling and elbow jabbing, most of it good-natured. She did not hear what Anton said, but it stopped the jocularity cold. The comments turned into respectful, Good afternoon, Miss Serenas. Which was pretty impressive, unless Gabriella’s new hire had leapt straight to foreman. But no, Vinnie Salinas, the wolf who ran the work crew, was eating his lunch at one of the long tables.
“How are you?” Anton boomed as soon as he was close enough. Or maybe it was just that his voice made her every cell vibrate with longing.
Last ni
ght’s dream returned to embarrass her. The heat in her face increased. “I’m good.” Her voice emerged as a strangled croak.
She wanted to ask how he had gotten work so fast. After several months, Gabriella had a reputation as a picky employer. She had repeatedly assured the town council, including Mayor Fairchild and Deputy Mayor Sullivan, that she had done extensive background checks on all of her hires. Of course when she employed locals or pseudo locals like Bock, she just took the word of other locals. Her own father had vouched for Bock. Talk about embarrassing.
“Gina, would you please get the other tray of lasagna from the truck?” Serena asked.
“Sure thing.” Gina bustled away, not bothering to hide her smile. Undoubtedly the older woman had already discussed Serena’s supposed affair with a bear with Lisa and Felicity.
Serena took Gina’s place at the steam table. “What’ll it be?” she asked Anton, relieved her voice emerged more or less normal.
“Lasagna and pie, please.” He towered over the table. Even the spit guard couldn’t keep him back. If she reached out she could stroke his full lips. He was so broad, he didn’t look that tall, but he was. More embarrassing heat flooded her core.
“I didn’t know you were working for Bear Claw. Security?” she asked, even though she knew that the Drakes who were funding the museum* had insisted that Bear Claw hire locals for that role.
“Nah,” he said. “I replaced Bock. I’m framing.” He set his heaped plate on his tray and smiled even more widely. “Want to go swimming after work?”
He might as well have asked if she wanted to have sex after work. The tent hushed waiting for her reply. “Certainly,” she returned in her primmest voice. “I can show you where the angel sharks hang out.”
“I’ll look forward to that, Miss Serena.” His deep voice buzzed in her ears. He moved down the line and accepted both salad and vegetables from Lucy.
“You got a tail too, Benoit?” The skinny coyote behind him asked suggestively. “To help with swimming, I mean.”
Beloved by the Bear: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance (Mystic Bay Book 3) Page 5