Shifters in the Snow: Bundle of Joy: Seventeen Paranormal Romances of Winter Wolves, Merry Bears, and Holiday Spirits

by J. K Harper

  Pausing, he quirked an eyebrow at her and let his grin turned dangerous. "Well, just a little more talking. How attached do you feel to this shirt of yours?"

  It was a pretty peach-colored number, with a silky row of pearly buttons down the front. Jessie shook her head, clearly confused. "Not very. Why?"

  Shane gently traced his hand over the sweet swell of her breasts beneath the blouse, this time eliciting a sharp gasp from Jessie. "Because of this," he growled, and in one smooth quick move ripped the blouse open, scattering buttons like shimmering little seeds.

  "Oh!" Surprise but, more importantly, breathless anticipation punctuated Jessie's voice. Her beautiful breasts, encased in a black lace bra festooned with a tiny rose at the center, lay heaving and exposed in their creamy beauty before Shane's fascinated gaze.

  His dick throbbed even harder as every sense he had seemed to roar to life, sweeping through him with a tingling electricity he hadn't felt since—well, since the last time he'd had this glorious woman all to himself for three incredible days. He managed just enough control to shake his head at her, murmuring, "I want to hear the sounds you make as I touch your body."

  Without waiting for an answer, he reached his head down to her breasts, sliding his hips back down her legs a little bit to give him enough space to dip his face down and trace the swell of her skin where her tempting breasts curved out of the top of the bra. She didn't disappoint him in her response, groaning and gasping and breathing happily all at once in the delicious staccato of sound that rippled out along with the crackle of the flames and the occasional beat of snow on the windows outside as the wind raged around his cozy cabin. He glanced up at Jessie. Her stunning eyes were wide open, fixed on him, her mouth also open with her keening gasp as she lifted herself partway off the soft little rug so that her breasts met his tongue.

  Shane smiled, spanning his broad hands over her waist, his thumbs tracing a delicate circle over her bellybutton as he slowly dropped kisses on the tops of her breasts and her collarbone. Jessie arched her chest toward him, putting her hands on the back of his head and pressing it down. Closer to her.

  Good. She was loving every second of it. Pretty sure she would be a little less happy if he ripped her bra off the same way he'd done with her blouse, he moved his hands underneath her and up her back, finding the bra's clasp and easily undoing it. He slid it off her arms, tossing it to the side so the bounty of her breasts could fill his hands.

  Shane just stared at her breasts, gently running his thumbs over her nipples, which gratifyingly hardened even more than they had already been. The beautiful pink rosebud tips crowned the silken creaminess of her breasts. Jessie was breathing fast, her eyes still fastened on him. Smiling at her, he dropped his head down again. This time, he lapped at one nipple with his tongue, then lightly nipped it with his teeth.

  Jessie whimpered and moaned. Hearing her voice soften and stretch, yet also tense and tauten as she gave herself over to her wilder, rougher side, made Shane's dick throb so hard it almost painfully strained against his jeans.

  He moved his head to her other breast, lavishing the same ministrations upon it. Tasting, teasing, nibbling. Losing himself to the incredible wonder of having Jessie with him again.

  This time, he wasn't losing her. Never again.

  Sitting up, he rocked back on his heels, then stood. Jessie's eyes opened as a protesting sound left her throat. She stared up at him from the softness of the rug, pushing herself up on the backs of her forearms to watch him as he stepped to one side of her. Hastily, not caring if he shredded his own clothing, he ripped off his shirt. Throwing it somewhere behind him, he unbuttoned the fly of his jeans so fast he heard the denim rip at the bottom. Careless, he shrugged them down his legs and kicked them off, leaving himself standing in front of her utterly buck naked since he never wore anything under his pants if he could help it.

  "Oh my god." Jessie's voice was a jagged, tumbling waterfall of womanly appreciation. "I thought my dreams remembered how amazing you are, but I forgot. You're much more amazing."

  He was so incredibly turned on just looking at the stunning woman in front of him, he was almost afraid he was gonna blow like an untried teenager. Flexing and unflexing his quads and toes in an effort to distract himself, he growled to the fucking hottest, most amazing woman he'd ever met, "I'm going to tear your jeans off now, Jessie. Then I'm gonna go to town feasting on you, because I want to taste you when you come in my mouth. How does that sound to you?"

  Chapter 7

  How did that sound to her? How did that sound to her?

  Holy freaking yowza yum was what it sounded like.

  Jessie stared up at Shane and his gorgeous, rock-hard cock, a single pearly drop of liquid shimmering on the end of it. Before she could help herself, before she could even think, she sat up all the way.

  Then she leaned forward and took that beautiful length into her mouth.

  Shane's breath whooshed out of him on a gasp as she turned the tables on him. Jessie pulled his smooth, velvet-encased hardness into her mouth, licking and twirling her tongue along it all the way. He tasted divine. She could hardly get enough, licking him up one side and down the other. Catching the fluid at the very tip, she swirled it over her lips, opening her eyes to look up at him as she did so.

  “Fuck me, that feels good,” he growled. His hands reached down to her head, catching her hair and burying themselves into it. His fingers clutched her skull, very gently pushing down as he groaned. “Careful, Jessie.” His warning was half-laugh, half-serious. “It's been a while for me. I'm gonna have a hard time holding back if you keep doing that.”

  She smiled around his thick length, pursing her lips over the head and sucking out the salty-sweet drop. Shane gasped, his fingers almost painfully convulsing on her head. Pulling back, she whispered, “It's been a long time for me, too. Since you, actually,” she admitted. She was too excited to care how pitiful that sounded.

  Shane's grip on her head tightened again. “Good.” The word was a pure growl. “I'm caveman enough to like that no one has touched you since me. Though I'm damned sorry it's been that long. You deserve to have your body worshipped every single day.”

  He looked right at her as he spoke. Even though she was the one on her knees, she felt like she was the one on top. The one in charge.

  The one truly being worshipped by this stunning woodland god of a man.

  “Shane.” His name was a whisper on her tongue as she stared back up at him, mesmerized by the sincerity of his voice and his eyes. Their gazes locked for a long, heady moment, the world narrowing down to the two of them in this snowbound cabin, their baby sleeping soundly in the other room, everything right.

  Then he sank to the soft rug beside her, leveling the playing field. “Jessie,” he groaned. “It's so damned good to have you to myself again.”

  Without another word, he flipped her onto her back in the plush softness of the white rug. She gasped as his fingers traced her skin. They skimmed over her hip bones, along her thighs, back over to caress her stomach and hold her breasts. Her nipples tautened as she pushed herself into him.

  “Yes,” she gasped. “I've missed you so much.”

  Shane's amber eyes seemed to glow, his entire face rippling with his desire as he slowly bent his head down once again to the soft bounty of her breasts that he held in his hands.

  * * *

  Moving his fingers out of the way, Shane first lapped one, then the other sweet nipple, circling his tongue around the hard little peaks. Jessie's fluttering breaths and gasps sounded musical to his ears. The fire crackled in the hearth, the wind roared and whistled outside as he gently scraped his teeth over her nipple. Soft cries of encouragement fell from her lips.

  Bit by bit, Shane felt his control slip as he slowly quested his way down her generous body with his lips and tongue. Her fingers curled again into his hair, urging him on. Her hips lifted upward beneath his shoulders as he worked his way down toward them.

 
; When he hovered his face over her closely trimmed golden curls, inhaling her scent like the ambrosia it was and feeling dizzy from it, he paused.

  "No!" she protested, pushing his head down.

  Shane chuckled, then leaned down to lightly huff a heated breath over the sweet damp folds that awaited his touch. Jessie's answering cry was inarticulate.

  Without waiting another second, Shane plunged his tongue into the delicate, glistening folds that awaited him. Honey and nectar, cinnamon and spice, everything that made this stunning woman so very nice, flipped inanely through his brain as her sweet taste exploded into his mouth. He feverishly licked her sweet crevices and folds, dragging his tongue up and down and around in rhythm to her keening cries and gasps. Pulling his head up once, he growled, "I've missed your taste so much, Jessie," before diving back down again into her succulence.

  Jessie trembled and shook beneath him as he worked his tongue thoroughly over her slickness, then into her hot depths. Licking and stroking, he swirled and twirled his tongue, hummed his lips over her clit, and lazily circled her inner walls with one thumb.

  "Shane, Shane, Shane," she began chanting, her voice rasping over his name, hardening his dick even more. Her taste subtly changed, becoming more intense, with a savoriness to it that he lapped up with the greed of a starving man.

  With a groaning cry, she fell over the edge, her inner walls clenching and flexing around his thumb, her voice keening through the walls of the cabin on the billowing waves of her ecstasy. Her voice pulsed and echoed slowly back down until she finally relaxed back against the rug, her ragged breath and the crackling flames the only sounds in the room.

  Reluctantly, Shane left her sweet center and pulled his way back up her body until he rested over her. Her eyes, their shade now close to a navy blue, blinked at him, sated. He let a corner of his mouth wing up in a grin. Both satisfaction and promise tumbled through his voice as he said, "That's just the beginning. Because I have to be inside you so badly right now that it hurts."

  Her own lips tipping up into a smile, she whispered, "Then come in. Please." With that, she reached down to guide him inside her.

  * * *

  At her bold invitation, Shane's eyes turned to molten gold. The sight of it, the evidence of the animal he harbored deep inside him, should've scared her. But it didn't. Instead, she simply felt more excited at her power in arousing him. At the clear knowledge of how much he wanted her.

  She about felt her own eyes roll back in her head as he pushed that huge, hard length into her, centimeter by centimeter. She could tell he was struggling to hold himself back, not just slam into her. It felt so good, and she was simultaneously both so relaxed and yet further roused by the orgasm he'd just wrung out of her with his lips and tongue, that she reached her hands down to the delicious hardness of his ass to press him into her.

  "Don't hold back," she whispered, looking right into his eyes. "I've missed you. I want to feel how much we want this."

  With a ragged groan, her name sliding out of him like a prayer, Shane nodded once. Then with a quick thrust of his hips, he pushed himself into her all the way to the base of his thick cock.

  Despite herself, Jessie gasped. He was so damned big. But the delightful sensations of him finally being inside her again simply intensified into a spiraling deliciousness that she wanted to climb. He paused briefly, halted by her gasp, but she frantically shook her head.

  "No. It feels good. It feels amazing. Don't you dare stop," she ordered.

  A chuckle rumbled out of him as he complied. He stroked in and out, going faster and harder as she encouraged him by lifting her hips with each stroke. She wrapped her hands around his broad back, hanging on to him for dear life as their synchronized movements slid her along the rug like the incredible power of an ocean wave slipping and bobbing them both along.

  His eyes shifted and pulsed with the golden lights in them, capturing Jessie and holding her in them. She could see his bear dancing in there, along with Shane's own powerful presence. Everything scary, everything hard, everything that could possibly be wrong between them melted away into the openness and vulnerability she remembered from their time together when they first met.

  "Love," she whispered, saying the word like it was a name for him. Saying it like it was the most natural, obvious thing in the world.

  Shane's mouth loosened and his eyes softened even more. He gently gripped her shoulders in his massive hands. "Oh, yes," he whispered in a ragged groan. “Jessie, my mate. My love.”

  In a powerful, blinding white heat, another orgasm soared through Jessie, shaking and shattering her. Making her shriek out with the beautiful force of it. At the same time, she could feel Shane tighten inside her and then pulse, releasing shots of his beautiful liquid heat deep into her as his guttural voice boomed out her name in his own pleasure. Their eyes never left one another, locked together as the sensations gripped them both at the same time, shooting up and around and binding them together in what Jessie could sense with every molecule of her being was exactly the right thing. Exactly the right way to be.

  She was his mate. And he was hers. This was exactly where she was meant to be, and it was right.

  As the tremors slowly ebbed and waned, gradually draining away to leave Jessie feeling boneless, Shane gently tipped his face down to kiss her. Long, deep, luxurious, he savored her lips with the taste of her still on them. His beard tickled her face, making her smile in languorous delight as the endorphins still flooded through her body.

  Long moments later, when he gently rested of the weight of his body on the floor beside her, keeping one arm and leg flung over her, his face nestled into her neck, the soft rumble of his voice vibrated against her skin. "Exactly where you belong, Jessie. With me. You and me and our son under the same roof. Together. Safe."

  The sensation of being lovingly cocooned into the warmth and safety of Shane's snowbound little cabin in the middle of a winter storm filled her every sense. It all felt perfect.

  “Now then,” he said, sitting up. Without warning, he scooped her up into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. She squeaked in surprise. Cradling her close against his sexy rock-hard chest, Shane strode to the bedroom and gently put her down onto his gorgeous sleigh bed. Staring up at him with a startled anticipation, Jessie's breath sucked in with delight as he said, “We've still got a lot more night ahead of us, beautiful. And I fully intend to hear every last one of the gorgeous sounds you've got to make.”

  * * *

  Jessie floated up out of sleep. She was somewhere softer than she'd ever been before. Soft, deliciously warm, completely comfortable. In Shane's bed. In his cozy little mountain cabin, tucked deep into the sheltering forest. Memories of the night she had spent with him flooded through her, coloring her cheeks, making her face split into a smile even though her eyes were still closed.

  Shane's home. It all felt so incredibly right that she simply stayed nestled into the bed for another several breaths, just enjoying the sensation. Finally, she lazily turned over and reached out her arm, patting the bed to find him.

  He wasn't there. Eyes opening, she sat up. She had the huge sleigh bed to herself. He must've gotten up early. She knew he wasn't going to be the type to make her breakfast, or probably even coffee. Though the cabin was not nearly as tiny as her apartment, it was still kind of small. She tipped her head so she could hear.

  Nothing. In fact, no sounds of the storm, either. Reaching to the window, she fumbled with the heavy blind and whipped it up. Gasping, she stared outside. Bright sunshine streamed into the room. Everything out there was utterly smothered in snow. It settled in heavy drifts on the bowed pine branches and blanketed the ground. The sky was robin's egg blue.

  It was absolutely beautiful.

  Somewhat reluctantly pushing the warm covers off of her, she swung her feet around and slid off the tall bed. Luckily, the cabin was warm. Stepping into the small living room, she grabbed up Shane's long button-up shirt that had been to
ssed onto the floor, smiling as she shrugged it on. It smelled like him. Then she glanced around. No sign of him. She looked into the kitchen. Nope, definitely not there either.

  Turning toward the little room Grant slept in, she walked over, her face ready to smile at the sight of her baby boy snuggled up in there.

  Instead, she sucked in her breath at the sight of the empty bed. "Grant? Baby?"

  Nothing. He wasn't here.

  "Shane?" Her voice pitched more loudly than she intended. Quickly, she checked each of the five rooms in the place again, just in case it was possible to miss a gigantic man or her little boy.

  They weren't here. They were gone.

  Sudden panic clutched at Jessie's stomach. Whirling, she ran toward the front door of the cabin, flung it open, and darted onto the porch. Swallowing desperately against the dryness in her throat, she screamed out Grant's name—then almost strangled on her own voice as she looked across the field of snow toward the nearby tree line.

  A baby grizzly bear cub clumsily tottered out from the trees on the other end, loping and tumbling straight toward her in an uneven line. The fuzzy little mouth was open, his entire little body bouncing with excitement as he shoved his still uncoordinated limbs through the deep, fresh snow toward her. He made funny noises that sounded like a bizarre mix between grunts, bellows, and shrieks of pure joy.

  "Grant?" This time, Jessie's voice was disbelieving. Yet almost instantly, she also felt a pure knowing that it was him.

  Her son.

  Grant was a baby grizzly bear, bouncing right toward her. The cutest, fluffiest, darlingest one ever.