“Good point,” he said, as a knot formed in his stomach. She was too perceptive. And worse, he liked it. Really liked it. He could sort of imagine them as old people, bantering over their TV dinners. He banished the thought as quickly as he could, grateful they had just pulled up to the lodge. “Okay, smarty pants, we’re here.” He stopped the car in front of the main building.
“What?” she asked. “I thought we were staying in a separate lodge.”
“We are, but we have to walk there.”
“But—”
He cut her off. “Calm down, princess. I’ll carry you.” He winked at her. “I kinda like it, anyway.”
“Carrying me? Why?”
He grinned, thinking of it. “I guess maybe because I get to feel your big beautiful—”
“Okay okay,” she said, laughing and shaking her head. He liked the way her curls bounced when she did that. “I get the picture. I kinda like it, too.”
“Great,” he said. “I’m going to leave the car keys in while I go get our stuff inside and get the fire going.”
“Real fire or electric?”
“Electric. But honey, I’m sure we’ll heat the house up just fine.”
“Hmph, you better buy me dinner first,” she said.
He laughed. “Lucky for you, I like feeding women almost as much as I like pleasing them.”
“Cheeseball,” she said.
“Guilty as charged. I’ll be right back. Lock the door after me.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, and he wondered if he’d just crossed a line. He thought about leaving it, but protectiveness welled up in him and he couldn’t resist it.
“Please? I want to know you’re safe.”
“You’ll be gone, like, five minutes,” she said stubbornly. “Why does it matter?”
He looked down at the locks and frowned. “It just does.” He didn’t know how to explain that he couldn’t just leave her there, vulnerable, with a running car, if he didn’t know that she was safe. It was like his body was rooted in place beside her unless he knew she was protected.
She sighed. “I was going to lock it anyway. I was just wondering why you looked so paranoid. Has something happened up here?”
His scalp prickled and he ran a hand through his hair. Well, Janna had been attacked up here. But she and Ryder now lived up at the lodge without any problems. The one bear who had been a problem had disappeared. “No,” he said. “Not recently.”
“Oh…” She trailed off, looking worried.
“I’d never let anything happen to you, Les,” he said, looking deep into those dark, sparkly eyes, and seeing something he couldn’t fathom. Something he wasn’t ready to accept. “Not while I’m watching out for you and your leg is hurt.”
She blinked, and the spell was broken. Like a cord had been cut between them. Why did he have to keep mentioning her leg, as if that was all this was, when both of them knew it was more? It was like whenever he felt shaky, that’s what he defaulted back to. It meant that she needed him, gave him an excuse to stay.
He sighed. “Okay, just lock the door. I’ll be back.”
He got out, loaded himself up with their things, listened for the click of the locks, and strode out into the snowy hill in the direction of the cabin.
* * *
A few minutes later, he found himself making the same trip but with Leslie in his arms.
“Are you sure I’m not too heavy?” she asked, wriggling playfully in his arms. Damn, she was sassy sometimes. “Seems like it’s a little hard for you to carry me.”
He grinned. “It’s hard, all right.” He let that one sink in, and she let out a little gasp when she heard it, and then threw back her head in a laugh. Her curls bounced around her face as she sat up again in his arms. He shifted his weight to carry her and tried not to think about the bulge in his jeans.
“So, you still think I’m a tease?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” she said, folding her arms. “But I guess you made good on at least what you promised to.”
“Good,” he said.
“And then some,” she muttered.
“What was that?” he asked, feeling his groin respond again. “What?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said lightly. But even her light voice was sultry, held just the slightest bit of heat and suggestiveness.
Damn, he’d help her shower all right. He’d get her dirty and then make her clean…and then do it all over again.
His bear growled, as if it didn’t like the thought of that without Riley acknowledging that he should make her his mate. But he ignored the bear. He’d let it out once before and that had been nothing but disaster. His life had been infinitely better ever since he stopped listening to or believing the damn thing.
Not that it had been the one that wanted to show off for his mom that night, but it was the reason she ran. If Riley hadn’t had a secret like that to show, if he hadn’t had a side of him that scared his mom, he’d still have his mom right now.
He wouldn’t be a lonely, albeit successful, Hollywood star with a blossoming career as a man that women lusted after onscreen.
A man who went home alone off-screen.
But not tonight, or the next few days. For those days, at least, he could play house with Leslie. Pretend he had someone to come home to, someone who meant everything to him, someone who was promised to him and only him. Oh, how that appealed to something deep inside of him.
And how he had hated the sight of Ryan’s hands near her. The thought made tension curl inside his stomach, made a deep, claiming feeling rise to the surface and nearly bubble over. Made him hold her a little tighter as he walked into the cabin. Made him delay a little when he should just set her down on the couch.
“Riley?” she asked quietly, looking up at him. “Something wrong?”
“No,” he said, looking down into her eyes and thinking how wrong he’d been about her when he’d first met her. How alike they were. When they’d first hung out, they’d both been the loud, open, obnoxious ones. But the more time they spent together, the more those masks that other people bought seemed to slip away, leaving them just the normal people they were.
She’d had a dirty, sassy mouth, and she’d given as good as she got. And he hoped they still could sometimes. But more often than not, he saw her relaxing like this, looking peaceful or thoughtful, in ways he hadn’t seen when he first met her. Hadn’t thought he would see.
“Okay, big guy, you can put me down now.” She grinned. “If you just want to feel my big, beautiful, um, hair, you don’t have to keep me up here just to do it.”
He laughed and set her gently on the couch. His sassy chick was back.
“And I can walk, you know,” she said.
“I know,” he said, smirking. He locked the door, having already kicked it shut when he came in, and turned on the rest of the lights throughout the lodge, illuminating a luxurious, beautifully furnished room. Large, high windows showed snow falling softly against the blue of the night. Trees rose high in front of the mountains around them.
The lodge had beige, soft carpet, deep-blue leather couches, and rustic furnishings. There were beautiful paintings of mountain scenes on the various walls, and a huge flatscreen mounted across from the couches.
Leslie stood up and looked around, and he let her, eyeing her injured foot with only a little concern.
At least he tried to.
“Wow,” she said. “Look at that view.” She winked at him. “Think anyone can see us from the lodge? You into performing?” She sent him a cheeky grin, and usually he would have responded with some sexy comment. But instead, the thought of anyone else laying eyes on her bothered him.
He strode to the switches on the wall and flicked the ones that controlled privacy blinds. A loud whirring sound started as white sheets lowered slowly over the windows.
“Whoa,” Leslie said. “How did you do that?”
“Modern technology,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as snippy to her as h
e did to himself. What was wrong with him? He was never like this with women usually. Never this possessive.
She settled in on the couch and turned on the TV while he ordered takeout from the lodge. Then the food came and they ate together at the kitchen table. They laughed and talked and he found he enjoyed their conversation almost as much as he enjoyed rolling around under the sheets with her.
Almost.
She set down her fork and stretched, and he tried to keep his eyes off her full breasts, her soft, sensuous tummy, and those perfect hips that were just below his gaze under the table. He loved her hourglass figure and couldn’t wait to get his hands on those curves again.
Her sleeves were rolled up above the elbow, and with her arms facing him as she stretched, he could see an angry, purplish bruise forming.
Coldness rolled through him. “Is that the bump you got showering?” he asked, feeling angry at himself. Which was stupid. He couldn’t blame himself for her falling in the shower, could he? He was taking a ridiculous amount of responsibility for her, considering he planned to leave her at the end of this, no matter how his bear howled.
He planned to go back to being the Riley his brothers and everyone else thought he was. A man only interested in a harem, not any one woman.
Let them think what they liked, as long as Leslie stayed safe from him.
He couldn’t stand the thought of what happened to his mom happening to her.
Leslie drew her sleeve down over her bruise. “It’s fine, it didn’t hurt much. I’m glad I’m not going to have to be bathing alone this time, though.”
His eyebrows flew up at that, and he grinned at her. She always knew how to cheer him up. “Oh, really?”
“Yup,” she said, standing and stretching again, looking like she was fully aware of the way her sensuously full figure excited him when she did that. Put it on display for his eager eyes. “I’m feeling a bit…dirty.”
His jaw dropped and he snapped it back up. For once he found himself without a comeback.
He decided he didn’t need one. Instead, he stood, put his napkin on the table, walked over to his woman, and carried her to the master bedroom.
9
Leslie laughed at the intense expression on Riley’s face, the way she was getting almost too comfortable at being in his arms, the way his eyes seemed to light up with green fire when she stretched. Damn, he liked curves, and damn, she liked that he liked them.
She’d stopped wondering at the fact that this was Riley Hart, movie star extraordinaire. Cleaning up a bar with him had wiped away the last remnants of that. Okay, maybe every now and then she still got a little starstruck. And she still wondered if she could talk him into acting out one of his kissing in the rain scenes with her. Not that snow would feel exactly the same…
She put her arms around his neck and nuzzled in, letting him know she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. He growled in response and kicked the bedroom door open. He tossed her lightly on the bed, like she weighed nothing, and then crawled over her, nipping light at her shoulder, her ear, her neck.
It was like she set off the animal in him. He definitely set off the animal in her.
A vague thought occurred to her, but she brushed it away. No way. Bears were too rare. And the chances of the hottest movie star in the world being one? Impossible.
She laughed as he tickled her neck with a gentle sweep of his tongue and dismissed the notion entirely.
“Riley?” she asked, voice breathy from gasping as he licked and kissed, setting her skin on fire and beginning the long teasing that she now knew was just his style of lovemaking.
Torturous, yes, but worth it.
“Yes, love?” he replied, in a casual way that said the word love was just a habit, nothing she should worry about. It was probably what he called every girl in bed. Nevertheless his body went rigid for a second, as if he was worried she’d take it wrong, but instead, she put her hands on either side of his head and gently tilted his handsome face toward her.
“What do you think about mixing it up a little?”
“What did you have in mind?” he asked, kissing her lips and making her lose her train of thought for a minute as his tongue dipped in to taste her.
“I thought…is there a Jacuzzi tub here?” she asked, feeling heat rush into her cheeks. But she couldn’t help thinking that being with him, surrounded by hot water, might just be the hottest thing ever.
He looked at her, eyes blazing with heated intensity, and then nodded. They pulled each other’s clothes off. He was gentle with her and she was rough with him. He let out a groan when she jerked at the button of his pants and jerked them down, revealing his huge bulge in a pair of sharp black boxer briefs.
He let out another groan when he bared her to just her bra and a pair of sexy red lace panties.
“Red,” he said, gritting his teeth. “It would be red.”
She grinned, biting her lip. “This is the part where I would normally scamper away and have you chase me, but um…I don’t scamper well right now.”
He growled and picked her up against his chest. “I don’t like when you say ‘normally.’ I don’t like thinking of you with other men.”
She swallowed. Did he even realize how committed he sounded? And the thumping effect it had on her heart? If men could be this charming, no wonder women like her mom could be confused. She realized deep down that the other men leaving had hurt her mainly because they’d been proving her mom right, that men didn’t stay.
But this would be worse. If she let herself believe Riley when he said stuff like that, if she let herself fall all the way in love, if she followed her bear in thinking he was her mate, and he left…
That would be the most devastating thing in the world.
“Riley?” she asked.
“Yes, love?”
“Stop gabbing and give me a bath,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.” He set her on a soft chair next to a huge, square Jacuzzi. He ran the water, and then reached under the sink for a bottle of sexy bath oil. She wrinkled her nose at it, wondering whom else he’d used it for.
But there was no point being jealous when he wasn’t allowed to be.
But then he ripped the plastic, and she realized there was a seal on the bottle. She was the first.
“I got this at the lodge gift store when I rented this cabin for us,” he said.
“Don’t you own the lodge?”
“Well, yeah. Me and my two brothers. But you know, we still have to keep things organized for the poor front-desk lady,” he said, pouring the oil into the tub. It foamed slightly. The scent was like mountain air on a snowy night, clean and sweet.
“Mmm… That smells so good. And by front-desk lady, do you mean the one you like to tease?” she asked.
“One and the same. Though I admit I have someone else I like to tease lately.”
“As you should,” she agreed. “She’s married.”
“Yup,” he said, lifting her into his arms and stepping into the tub. “Is that the right temperature?”
She reached down to feel the water. “Mmm…just right.” She felt so comfortable naked with him. Loved the feel of his muscle against her soft curves. It felt so right that she didn’t have time to feel self-conscious.
Not when she could choose to believe his worshipping eyes instead.
He looked almost reluctant to let her beautiful body go under the bubbles, but he sat slowly in the tub with her. It was long and wide, with plenty of room for him to spread out, and he rested her against him, under his arm. She felt light as air in the water, but was so aware of his velvety skin. Of the differences between them.
They couldn’t have been more opposite; but, she thought, looking in the mirror across from the bathtub, it couldn’t be more right.
He turned her over to face him. There were windows in the bathroom, but the blinds were shut. He’d turned the lights down, and so there was only a warm glow around him.
Happy from the goo
d food and good conversation, she found herself relaxing against him deeper than she had in a long time.
“I love this,” she said, feeling almost like what she really wanted to say was “I love you.” But she didn’t. He put his hand up, held her face gently as she rested on him, chest to chest. He ran his thumb slowly over her cheek. It was a tender motion, one that almost melted her, but didn’t, because she knew she wanted more from him than just this.
She moved against him, bringing their bodies together from head to toe, loving the feel of his firm calves, thighs, slim hips, and hard abs. She put her hands over his huge shoulders and pushed up to look down at him, letting her bubble-tipped breasts come up out of the water.
He smoothed the bubbles away and took one nipple in his mouth. She threw her head back at the sensation of warmth that went through her. He could drive her body crazy with the smallest of movements. His eyes stayed on her, daring her to maintain eye contact with him as his tongue swirled naughtily around her taut nipple. She cried out, arching again, as his other hand reached up to close around her other breast.
“You’re sensitive again tonight,” he said.
I’m sensitive to you, she wanted to blurt out. But she didn’t. Instead, she just nodded, biting her full bottom lip.
“Love how you feel in this water,” he said, resting her against him. Her sensitive breasts loved the feel of his chest as he ran his hands down her body to cup her generous ass firmly. He growled, a low, guttural sound, and sat up slightly in the tub, keeping an arm around her for balance.
His eyes were hungry, assessing, as he looked her over. “Leslie, you’re so gorgeous.” He leaned forward, kissing along her neck and shoulders. She arched and sighed at the touch. “I love your body.”
She bit back the words she wanted to say in response. They sounded too much like I love you. And she didn’t. She was just getting confused because he’d been taking such good care of her and made her feel so damn good.
“Talk to me, babe. What do you want?” he asked.
She frowned. “Shouldn’t you be in charge?”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “I forgot. You like that.”
Bearlebrity: (BWWM) Paranormal BBW Bear Shifter Romance Standalone Page 7