Bear Guards: A Paranormal Romance

by J. S. Striker

  So he slid her panties down, then smoothed his fingers inside her skirt again to cup her core, which was throbbing and hot to the touch. Her firm butt ground against him, and her hand still frantically worked on his cock, but he tried his best to ignore all that as he slid his fingers inside her tightness. There was resistance at first, but she was already so wet that it didn’t take long for him to slide in smoothly.

  He thrust his fingers in and out of her, then returned his kisses to her mouth as she vibrated against him. He felt his cock reach its ending point as his balls tingled, right before he exploded and spurted all over. That had him kissing her harder, had his fingers pistoning faster inside her until her moans filled the freezer and made him aroused all over again. Then she was bucking on top of him, then vibrating even higher as her own orgasm took control of her and made her explode in a beautiful mass of nerves right in front of him—a sight he wasn’t going to forget for a long, long time.

  They stayed slumped against each other, the smell of their sweat and release faint and swallowed up by the cold almost instantly. He buried his head against her neck, inhaling her addictive scent in. Belatedly, his sensitive ears picked up noise just outside and realized that they were about to get interrupted in a minute or two.

  He bit back the curse at that. Then he lifted her off his lap, taking care to clean her up and steady her clothes as she stood in a daze.

  No words were spoken between them. She practically ran off to the front of the freezer and called out instructions to the deliverer to open it from the outside, and he knew what that meant.

  She wanted to forget about this incident.

  Or maybe she regretted it already.

  Chapter 9

  “Wait. Are you telling me you got trapped in a freezer with Evan Malone and nothing happened?”

  The emphasis on nothing had Deana shifting her eyes around, just in case there were customers who came in. No customer was there, but Ana visibly froze in between counting flowers. She started staring hard at them, too, something that had Deana concluding that the teenage girl was probably listening in.

  As if catching on, Joan turned to the girl, too—but to glare. Deana didn’t think vampire glares were any different from human ones, but Ana looked spooked, anyway, turning to Deana with almost pleading eyes.

  Deana sighed. “Ana, you can take a break if you want. We don’t have that many customers, right now.”

  The girl nodded before practically bolting out of there—either because she was excited like she usually was during breaks, or because Joan really did spook her. When she was gone and they were relatively alone, Deana turned to Joan, studying her.

  Being alone with a vampire should have made Deana nervous, but that was the last thing she felt whenever she was with the more outgoing woman. Sure, Joan was boisterous at times, despite being very rich and an important part of the town council. She was also very assertive, visiting Deana practically daily until Deana went from tolerating her to actually becoming friends with her. If Joan wished to harm her, it would have already happened during their first meeting, when the vampire visited while she still hadn’t opened shop. But that was a few weeks ago, and given how she had been running the shop for almost a month now, Deana was pretty sure the woman—well, vampire—really only wanted to be her friend.

  “So?” Joan asked impatiently, leaning over the countertop and letting her cleavage be highlighted. “Did you, or didn’t you?”

  What exactly happened in the freezer flashed in Deana’s mind—particularly, how having alcohol in her system made her bolder, doing things she normally wouldn’t have done.

  Like enticing Evan into kissing her.

  And letting him touch her until she exploded from how good it felt.

  And making him come using her hand.

  The sound of his groan stayed with her on the nights that followed, contributing to more sleepless nights that only made her grumpy in the mornings. But she didn’t have time to focus on that as she had a flower shop to run, and it wasn’t like Evan brought it up, either.

  Sure, he visited her from time to time to check up on her, reasoning that it was for her safety. But she always made sure Ana was around until closing time, and by then, Evan had no choice but to accompany the teenage girl home safely.

  No vampire or any other enemy had come for her again, either, so he really had no excuse to stay.

  Those intense eyes still followed her, and there was a wealth of emotion heftily banked beneath his cheerful façade. She wasn’t sure if she should be irritated by it or relieved, but one thing was clear: he was putting the ball in her court and wouldn’t make a move if she didn’t allow it.

  And she still wasn’t sure how to proceed with that.

  Joan was still staring at her and looking like she was going to start interrogating again if Deana didn’t answer. Deana looked wistfully at the door, wishing for a customer to interrupt. But no one came, and she ended up sighing.

  “We didn’t,” she muttered—mostly true.

  Joan’s eyes widened before she was shaking her head. “Oh, sweetheart.”

  “What?”

  “You just missed the chance of a lifetime.”

  “So, sleeping with him is a chance of a lifetime now?” Deana blurted out. She was half-expecting for Joan to be kidding, but the vampire only looked at her with solemn black eyes, nodding her head.

  “Do you know that man is highly coveted around here? He’s one of the most decent shifters in Orville—and that’s saying something, considering some of those shifters can be real assholes to my kind.”

  Sympathy slid inside Deana at the words and the sadness in the other woman’s eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that, Joan.”

  Joan brushed off the apology impatiently. “That’s another story for later. My point is that he’s one of the few shifters around here who’s gorgeous and nice. You couldn’t get any better than that. I’d have fucked him ten minutes in that freezer. Made some excuse about needing warmth and all that. I really envy you. I wish it was me stuck in the freezer with him.”

  Considering the gossip about Joan having the hots for Evan for too long now, that was no surprise. Deana looked down. “I don’t think I can do that. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Joan said breezily. “Oh, well. More for me. But I’m a take-charge kind of woman, and that’s exactly what works for him, I believe. I mean, if you want someone, why pretend you don’t? That’s just absurd. I’d rather take the bull by the horns and write it off as experience than keep wondering.”

  “Evan’s not a bull,” Deana reminded.

  “He’s a bear.” Joan winked. “And those bears have serious needs that just deserve some attention.”

  The way the vampire said it made a spark of jealousy hit Deana, one that she hadn’t expected at all. Joan kept talking, but Deana zoned her out, already in her mind as she thought of Evan and what she really wanted.

  She did want him; there was no denying it. And she’d be an idiot not to be curious how it would be like with a shifter like him—big, bossy and protective in more ways than one.

  Hot.

  Caring.

  Driven.

  The words made her body heat up, and it was a relief when Joan bid her farewell and she was alone again. Ana came back in after her break, looking sweaty. Deana smiled at her and imagined the girl had a little bit of fun in the fields out the back. Then it was back to thinking.

  Did she really want to keep wondering what it would be like with Evan? Was she going to keep being wary of the man who was obviously open with his feelings for her and hadn’t harmed her in pursuit of it?

  It wasn’t like her plans had changed. After she made enough income, probably in a few months or so, she was going to close up and take her income back to the city—to do what, she wasn’t sure yet. But Orville just wasn’t for her, even if everyone welcomed her enough.

  The thought of leaving Evan made her ache with longing, and the intensity of it had her taking
a deep breath. Realization slid in like a hot knife on butter, and the answer to her questions cleared her mind.

  She wouldn’t be able to escape whatever was between them, even if she tried.

  So, she might as well go for it.

  “Ana?”

  “Yes?”

  “Since it’s Friday and there aren’t plenty of customers, I think we should close early today.”

  The girl’s eyes widened.

  “Would you like that?” Deana asked.

  Ana grinned. “Sure! Do I still get full pay?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re the best, Deana. Thank you!”

  Deana beamed. “You’re welcome.”

  *****

  Finding Evan in a town that gossiped about everything and trying to be subtle about it was a lost cause—so Deana decided to just wait for him instead, knowing he made it his routine to drop by her place, anyway, right after his work shift ended. She used the extra time to cook some dinner, then shower in her favorite vanilla soap. She even took the time to dress herself up in her favorite aquamarine dress, one that accentuated her shoulders and made her eyes stand out.

  When the knock came at her door at exactly eight in the evening, she opened it with her feet bare and a glass of wine in her hand, delighting in the way Evan blinked. But that was all the excitement she got when she saw his state—all sweaty, with a wound on his shoulder and tear on his uniform.

  The smile dropped from her mouth as it dropped open instead. Then she was practically pulling him in, with Bingo in tow as she directed him to the couch.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Just a scuffle,” he grumbled. “It’s nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing,” she accused. Ignoring his protest, Deana asserted herself and started unbuttoning his top, sliding it down to his shoulder so she could see the wound better. It didn’t look as bad as she thought, as the blood had stopped flowing already. What was even more surprising was how the wound was slowly closing up, his muscles bunching and the scratch slowly disappearing right before her eyes.

  The quickness of it amazed her, and she looked up to grin at him.

  She found Evan’s eyes on her, so focused that it made her catch her breath.

  “It’s healed,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said back.

  “Did you want dinner?”

  “I want you.”

  The raw honesty she heard in his voice had her breath hitching—then, her gut pulling as an ache settled there. This time, she didn’t fight it.

  This time, it was Deana who closed the distance between them.

  Chapter 10

  It was quite a shock to find Deana looking like a dream when she opened the door for him, even when the bright smile on her face turned to concern. But that concern was something that touched him more, and he found himself watching her and being fascinated by how beautiful she was when she eyed him like that—like she cared.

  But what was even more shocking was how her concern turned into something else, particularly when she caught him watching her. Instead of backing off like she usually did, she did something that was so completely un-Deana-like that he had to wonder if he was in a dream.

  She kissed him.

  He supposed he should have already anticipated it with how her jade eyes flared with hunger, but this was Deana—the only woman he walked on eggshells with, because he couldn’t figure out how she really felt about him. He wasn’t about to push himself on a woman, even if they had one of the hottest trysts he’d ever experienced that wasn’t even sex.

  But now…it was Deana on top of him, kissing him like she hungered so badly for it. He could feel the desire in every bone of her body.

  And he was only a man—the most basic type of man, considering his nature.

  So, Evan kissed her back. He kissed her with the fervor he was feeling, pulling her in fully until she was straddling his lap. She didn’t protest, something that made him wonder. But his mind blanked instantly when her tongue shyly came out to seek his, and he didn’t waste time as he let them tangle and tasted her fully.

  Half of him sensed Bingo moving away and slipping out the still half-open door, and he could have hugged the damn dog. Then common sense kicked in, and he had to reluctantly lift her up and away from his lap, so he could close the door himself.

  He turned back to look at her, half-expecting her to change her mind. But she was looking at him quietly, huge eyes expectant, and he knew she was in this all the way. He took her hands and pulled up straight against his body, feeling her soft curves mold against his hardness and reveling in it. He backed away slowly, taking her with him as his mouth breathed against hers.

  “Where’s your bed?”

  Her eyes widened, and she leaned forward to take a kiss again, but he playfully leaned back and watched her frown. “It’s down that hallway,” she said, pointing to her right.

  “Walk me there.”

  She walked, and he watched her butt as it swayed beneath her dress. That particular dress showed off her legs fully, a rather pleasant sight. Deana turned around, starting to unzip her dress. He felt her nerves, so he stepped forward and gently pulled her hands away.

  “Let me do it,” he pleaded softly.

  She nodded her head. To ease her, Evan kissed her again—soft, whispery kisses as he unzipped the dress before sliding it off completely. The glimpse of creamy skin made his mouth water, but he took his time with her mouth, letting his hands wander her lace underwear instead.

  “I see you dressed for the occasion,” he said.

  Her cheeks flushed at that, making him chuckle.

  “Kind of,” she admitted.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it was worth it.”

  Those were the last words he said in a long time as he guided her to the bed, laid her on her back and crawled on top of her. Their kisses turned frenzied as he removed her bra, then slid his mouth down the skin he wanted to taste. When her breasts were freed, he took one in his hand and covered the nipple of the other with his lips, sucking until it hardened, and a moan slid out of her. She was so plump, with pink tips, and it only drove him wilder.

  He slid further down to her stomach…then further down, sliding her panties off and spreading her legs apart until he could see her glistening. He licked his lips once, then didn’t waste time as he went down on her, tasting her with his tongue.

  She was exquisite, and the increasing sounds from her throat made him want to do more. But he took his time, opening her up with his fingers before sliding his tongue in, flicking at first before he lapped at her like cat eating cream. Pleasure rose in the room, and soon she was writhing against him. When she was so wet that his fingers slid in with no problem, his body surged up so that he could kiss her again, one that she took hungrily as she kissed him back with a wildness that threatened to undo him.

  Then he was removing his pants and swatting her hand away, which was just about to wrap around his cock. He took that shaft in his hand instead, stroking it lazily before he positioned the tip at her entrance and looked her in the eye.

  They stared at each other as he slid in, taking his time. Evan gritted his teeth at how tight she was, but so wet that it was like sliding into a velvet sheath. When he was fully to the hilt, he had to consciously stop the urge to pound into her like a wild animal, taking the time to let her adjust.

  But it was Deana who moved first, wriggling her butt—a silent plea for him to proceed.

  He moved, thrusting in and out of her. It started out slow, but the need that burned between them turned sizzling, and he eventually quickened his movements. Her whimpers turned to loud moans, a punctured breath here and there that only served to make him want deeper. He slid in deep, burying himself inside her over and over until he could feel his balls tingle.

  She felt so damn good, she should be illegal. Evan could usually last a long time when it came to sex, but Deana’s feel and scent were about to make him embar
rass himself. He slid a finger down, touching her clit before pressing on it.

  The reaction was instantaneous. Deana let out a cry of pleasure at the touch. Then she was wrapping her legs around him as she exploded for him, her eyes widening and blurring. He watched it all as he pounded inside her now, pistoning his hips down and his cock deep. Her muscles squeezed, and that was the last straw as the tingle in his balls turned into a full-out flash of heat.

  Then he was following her into bliss.

  Once wasn’t enough with Deana, and he found himself seeking her out again before they could even get a breath in—something that she didn’t protest as she straddled and rode him this time. But she protested a third run and said they needed to have dinner first, and it wasn’t until they were fully into their meal that something happened.

  Whatever openness she had earlier just slowly…faded off. He could practically feel the worry seeping in her bones.

  Before he could ask, she spoke.

  “I hope you don’t take this as an invitation to stay here or to have a relationship. I’m not ready for any of that. That was just sex.”

  The hurt that slid through him was something he didn’t expect, although he should have anticipated those words out of her mouth. He hadn’t been expecting those words, either—but having her say it somewhat bothered him, and he was speaking before he could think.

  “Well, then, lucky you. Because this is just a regular fuck-fest to slake the lust, sweetheart. It’s nothing special.”

  The flash of hurt he saw on her face made him regret the words instantly, but he took his stand. Taking his plate to the sink, he waited for her to meet his gaze.

  “I have to go now, then,” he said.

  She looked down. “Yeah. Goodnight.”

  Without another word, he was out of there, with Bingo in tow.

  *****

  He was already walking about fifteen minutes in when it began to register just what an asshole he’d been for walking out like that, and he regretted it immediately. Even so, he walked some more, letting the fresh air calm him down. When he was relatively more relaxed, Evan didn’t think twice.