Joel (BBW Bear Shifter Wedding Romance) (Grizzly Groomsmen Book 5)

by Becca Fanning

  “I lost it whilst I was digging the tunnel into this place,” he admitted quietly.

  “I’m not complaining,” Jane replied.

  Her breath was returning, and the numbness faded from her extremities as she began to be able to move again. When she tried to get up, however, she collapsed into Hart’s arms, and he led her to the doorway which would take them out into the open. He set her down there, rubbing her arms and legs back to life with vigorous strokes. She reached for him, touching his face.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked.

  Hart paused, looking deep into her eyes. It was only now that she noticed his usually jolly presence had faded away. He was serious, the most serious a man could ever get, and he bit back a lump in his throat before he could reply.

  “It was me that called you when Carter answered your phone,” he revealed. “I put two and two together pretty easily.”

  “Clever,” Jane said, “but how do we get out now?”

  “You stay here and rest, ‘til everything’s clear,” Hart told her. “The boys are all in position. You want to know why it is that I can always be so relaxed?”

  Jane nodded, tracing Hart’s lips with her fingers as he spoke.

  “Because,” the golden-eyed ranger replied, “when I transform, I’m the wildest beast of them all. I’m going up there to get this rage out of my system. Stay safe.”

  He leaned in and kissed her, a deep kiss that lingered on her lips even after he had gone. That was when the noise started overhead, and Jane heard the roars of bears intermixed with the sudden, panicked cries of humans. Clan Best had definitely taken the Boys in the Wood by surprise, and when Jane managed to crawl up the entryway to see what was going on outside, many of Carter’s boys were already heaped together, surrounded by fur and claws.

  It was Carter himself that was the problem. Jane clocked him at once because he was only a few feet from where she lay on the ground, crouching and pulling his gun from its holster. Before him was a bear that Jane recognized, his back turned as he dealt with another assailant. Carter was readying his weapon, lifting the shaft to line it up right at the grizzly bear’s back.

  Jane amazed herself with her own strength, a rush of wild energy propelling her forward. She grabbed Carter by the feet and took him totally by surprise, his gunshot firing uselessly into the air above as he fell over. The shot alerted Hart, who spun as fast as a creature of his size could manage, and was soon pawing down on Carter to keep him pinned in place. Jane got to her feet, leaning on Hart’s strong body for support. Carter looked up at her, then the bear, then back to her with amazement.

  “How’d you like my boyfriend now?” she asked with breathless mirth.

  “It’s kind of like a ritual,” Hart explained. “Once you do it, there’s no turning back. If you’re with the right person, then it bonds you for life to them. You want to protect them, and love them always.”

  “And am I the right person?” Jane asked.

  Hart’s grin was broad and beaming. He leaned down and kissed Jane, their lips grazing hungrily for one another’s taste.

  “Of course you are,” he said. “I knew it the moment I fell and hit you with that door.”

  “You did not,” Jane protested.

  “Did so,” Hart argued.

  She tried to return the argument, but he buried her in kisses until she gave up. They were lying in the clearing where the pot farm had been, though it’d been almost a week since it’d been cleared away. Now, there was only a quiet little space, obscured by bushes, where no-one at all could see what they were up to. Jane was lying on her back, hardly worrying about the grass stains on her clothes, and Hart was on top of her, leaning on his elbows. His hips weighed comfortably heavy over her own, his erection throbbing against the thin material of his uniform. Jane wriggled against the bulge, and he gave a groan of delight.

  “So you’re saying once we make love, that’s it?” she asked him. “You’ll never let me go?”

  “Not ever,” Hart promised.

  He leaned down, kissing her neck and nuzzling against the soft skin there.

  “Not even if I go back to LA to work?” she challenged.

  “I will follow you anywhere you choose to go,” he said, his breath warm against her throat. “Although if you get that phone of yours replaced, we’re going to have a problem. It’s distracting you from what’s really important in life, you know.”

  Hart pulled up, and their eyes locked. Jane agreed with him completely, but she wouldn’t let it show just yet.

  “I suppose,” she mused wickedly, “you’ll just have to find something even more distracting to occupy me, won’t you?”

  She raised her hips, grinding them against Hart’s throbbing body again.

  “Here?” he asked. “Now?”

  “Here and now,” Jane replied, feeling strangely free.

  The clearing was shaded, and Hart stripped first. He laid his shirt and pants out to make a kind of bed for Jane to lay down on. She could hardly keep her hands off his naked form as he proceeded to undress her, hands roaming all over his toned, muscular body. When she reached his cock, she teased him with feather-light touches, and Hart lost his manners for a moment and ripped her shirt at the shoulder. Jane gasped, but she found that she didn’t care about the tailoring any more. All there seemed to be in the world was love, passion and joy. Hart had brought her that, and she didn’t want anything to spoil it now.

  When she was down to her underwear, Jane lay back on Hart’s clothes, feeling the crisp outdoor air on her body. She had a front-fastening bra on, a wise choice for the occasion, and Hart unclasped it partly with his teeth. He ran his mouth over her breasts hungrily, teasing her nipples with his tongue and brushing them with a stubbly jaw. Jane shuddered at the pleasure she felt, then gasped again when Hart’s hand delved suddenly into her panties.

  Jane shrugged them off entirely, wriggling around as his fingers slipped inside her. First one, then two fingers opened her, pushing teasingly, and then his thumb found her clitoris and began a circular rubbing motion. Hart’s face was rapt with passion, eyes deep and a darker shade of gold than before. When she pulled him in to kiss her, his tongue slipped into her mouth, roving all over in a search for conquest.

  It was relaxing, to let him take control of her body. Jane felt totally safe in Hart’s strong hands, and she lay back with no tension at all in limbs. Everything was pleasure, waves of passion hitting her with every thrust of his fingers, every flick of his thumb. When Hart’s kisses travelled all over her neck and breasts once again, Jane looked up into the leafy canopy overhead with a grin she couldn’t control. This was everything she had wanted, the thing that was worth leaving her stressful world behind for. Not long ago, she’d thought Elise was the lucky one, the one in a million to find real happiness, but now she was it. And it was the greatest feeling in the world.

  “You’d better not be daydreaming,” Hart chided, his lips against her stomach.

  “Oh, I am way beyond that,” she said with a giggle. “Who needs drugs when we’ve got this? This is the original high.”

  Hart’s fingers slipped out of her, leaving her barren and aching for them to resume their thrusting motions. He climbed on top of her body, resuming their original position, but now she felt his hard-on sliding along her thigh with an eager grace. She looked up into Hart’s face, watching a wicked grin overcome him.

  “I’ll bet I can take you higher still,” he promised.

  “Please,” Jane begged delightedly. “I really want to go there with you.”

  She let her legs open a little wider, and Hart shifted his hips to slide inside her. Jane held onto his firm back, hands roving downwards until she found those perfect buttocks she had glimpsed not long ago. She felt the muscles there squeeze tightly as Hart began to thrust into her, and the first push sent a wild wave of heat through her body. She shuddered, hardly able to contain her pleasure, and once again she was totally in Hart’s control. He knew just
to what to do with her, fulfilling her with thrusts that changed in speed and depth.

  They grew faster the more they went on, and Hart buried his face against her neck, kissing the skin there wildly. Jane felt her back arch, her body lifting of its own accord to be as close as possible to Hart’s. Her hips began to spasm as she grew closer and closer to her climax, something deep inside her aching as the orgasm built. A moment later, she let it go, shaking and crying out in abandon as pleasure washed over her body. Hart took the sign, his hips wild in their final thrusts as he let his own climax go. Jane felt the wet warmth between them as he rocked their hips the last few times, before they collapsed in a breathless heap together.

  “Good lord,” Jane breathed in amazement. “You know, I didn’t even think about protection. What if we… you know?”

  Hart looked at her, his grin unflappable again.

  “Just made a baby?” he completed with a chuckle. “Hey, I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”

  Laid-back as ever. Jane turned and cuddled against Hart’s body, mulling over the possibility in her mind. Baby Isaak was adorable, and she had felt that deep, strong longing for a child of her own when she’d laid eyes on him. It certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world if she fell pregnant from the perfect moment they’d just shared. In fact, it would be the start of a whole new world for them together.

  Five months later.

  “It’s amazing how much a bunch of idiots can fend for themselves when you leave them to it,” Jane mused.

  “You’d better not be talking about me and my cousins,” Hart threatened playfully.

  He stole a kiss before Jane could reply, and she smiled at him wryly.

  “I mean my assistants at the agency,” she explained. “They’re doing just fine with me running the show from a distance. I’m only getting half as many crisis calls as when we first met.”

  “That’s just as well,” Hart replied with a chuckle. “We’re going to have plenty of crisis calls here now, with a lodge full of kids to tend to.”

  Layla had given birth to a little girl, whom she and Ben named Lily. She and Isaak were laid out on a rug with a series of toys above them for them to watch and play with, and Jane and Hart were on duty to make sure the babies got up to no mischief. With Kurt and Stacey now expecting twins too, there was all the more reason for them to practice their babysitting skills.

  “Look at them,” Jane mused, watching the curious faces of the babies as they looked up at their arch of toys. “They’re going to grow up here in the wilderness, away from all the stresses of the urban world. Lucky little buggers.”

  Hart gave a contented sigh. He came to sit beside Jane on the sofa, snuggling his body against hers in a perfect curve. She relaxed against him contentedly, leaning her head back on his strong chest. Hart’s hand wandered down her arm slowly, sliding over to the large, rounded bump of her belly. He put his palm flat over the solid sphere, and Jane put her own hand over his, holding it there firmly.

  “Do you think ours will look like these two?” Jane asked. “The Best gene pool seems pretty strong.”

  “The only thing I can guarantee you is that he or she will have golden eyes,” Hart told her. “And perhaps that cubs are even messier to clean up after than fully-human babies.”

  “Endless fun,” Jane replied, closing her eyes for a long moment.

  The door creaked opened somewhere nearby, and when Jane opened her eyes again, she met Elise’s grinning face at the door. The pretty blonde was peeping in on the children with a mother’s careful glance. Jane had a lot to learn from her on that front, and she was looking forward to it immensely.

  “Everything okay in here?” Elise asked.

  Jane felt Hart nod beside her, and she gave her friend a smile that stretched so wide it actually hurt her face a little.

  “Everything is absolutely perfect,” Jane replied.

  And, to her amazement, she was right.

  Amir

  120 Proof Honey III

  by

  Becca Fanning

  Kora Lane sat at her desk, reading over her latest article. This wasn’t the speed of her favorite stories to cover. She loved the ones with some sort of intrigue, some possibility of something illegal or a deeper, hidden story. Something secret to uncover and shock the reader with. This current article was basically a human interest piece, which she found boring, though she thought she had managed to spice up the part about the shop owner having a side romance with his supplier.

  Her boss, Davis, knocked on her door and walked in. “Got something for you.”

  “Oh?” She slid aside the article, marked in red where she wanted changes in the layout, and let her pen hover over the top blank sheet of her notepad.

  “Ozark,” he said. “Up in the mountains. We got a report that there’s a house of men living there.”

  “I like where this is going so far.” She smirked and looked back up at him after making a quick note. “Continue.”

  “It’s suspected that there’s some illegal moonshine activity happening there. They have a business. Bear Natural Honey, and that might be their cover.”

  “Moonshine and honey. I like that. What else?”

  “That’s it. This one is all on you. The witness left an anonymous tip over the voicemail, so I can’t even give you his info. I don’t have any to give.”

  “Okay.” She tapped her pen against her lip. “This is definitely something I’ll check out. I’ll find out what’s going on up there in the mountains and bring it all into the light. I wonder if there’s any gay activity going on… House full of men, all living together?”

  “I don’t want to know how you’ll find out, but I know you’ll find something.” Davis rapped his knuckles twice on her desk and walked out.

  Kora started making notes immediately. She’d go to this house and find out what the real story was. Then she’d find a way to make it interesting to sell more papers.

  She drove up to the location listed on the web site for Bear Natural Honey. Unless they had separate business offices and processing facilities—unlikely for such a small operation—then this would be the place. She saw several big buildings, the bees buzzing around hives off to one side, and knew she had the place.

  With her notepad and digital recorder in hand, she maneuvered her heeled shoes over the gravel to the front door. She smoothed down the skirt of her business suit and knocked, her friendliest smile in place on her face.

  A large man opened the door. She took note of his features to write them down for later. Short black hair, dark skin, very good looking, very muscular. He cared about his appearance and his body. What could that mean for their cover up? Or was this a sign of the activities taking place with the other men? Well, she could certainly handle flirting with this fine specimen to see if he responded to her, a female.

  “Can I help you?”

  Mmm, and a slight middle eastern accent as well. Nice. “Yes, hello, my name is Kora Lane, and I’m with the Ozark Daily News. I’d like to talk to you about your business.”

  “Oh, umm.” He looked behind him into the house. “Usually Slade takes care of this sort of thing.”

  “Great. Is Slade here? Is he the CEO of the company?”

  “He’s not here right now. He’s, umm, I guess the CEO. We think of him as our leader.”

  How cute. This man seemed like the type that would talk. Just uncertain enough that she could convince him to spill everything. “Well, if this Slade isn’t here, I guess you’re my man.” She winked at him.

  His eyes widened slightly for an instant, then a slow smile crept over his face. He looked her over, but he was subtle about it. No blatant gawking at her chest. He was classier than that, she could see that now. He was downright sexy, too. Normally, she would never think about sleeping with a source for info, especially if he was the intended target for the story, but him? She wouldn’t mind taking him to bed to pump him for info.