Beary Sexy: A BBW Werebear Boxed Set

by Bolryder, Terry

  Most importantly she was a good listener and an amazing friend. Kylie looked at her thoughtfully and then perched on a stool in front of the counter. “You okay?”

  Kylie was wearing a huge, puffy blue winter coat that made her look something like a marshmallow. Her blue eyes matched the coat. Leslie tried not to laugh.

  “I’m fine. New coat?”

  “Yup,” Kylie said. “I’m thinking of taking ski lessons.”

  Leslie raised an eyebrow. “You mean you’re thinking of taking your stalking of Ryan to the next level and following him onto the slopes.”

  Kylie shrugged. “Potato potahto.”

  Leslie laughed. “Well, I can’t say I blame you. Each one of those men is…”

  “Dreamy?” Kylie asked.

  “Irritating,” Leslie said, as a frown crossed her face. Riley had taken her ending things a little too easy. Just strode out. Not that she had wanted him to make a problem of it. In fact, him taking it so well was just proof that she did the right thing. Cut things off before she could get far too attached.

  “I haven’t seen you much this week,” Kylie said.

  “Well, part of that is that you’ve been working.”

  “Janna says that’s not all, though,” Kylie said, blinking up at her slyly through long, blond lashes. “She says you’ve been spending time with a certain Hollywood celebrity.”

  Leslie frowned. It was ironic, because she was always the first to tell her friends that they had a duty to kiss and tell. But now, she sort of didn’t want to tell anyone about the things she’d shared with Riley. When it had been one-night stands with tourists, it’d been easy and fun to laugh about it with the girls.

  But now…

  Well, there wasn’t much to laugh about. Maybe when they had more distance.

  “So,” Kylie said, smirking. “Is he more of a leading man? Or more of a supporting character? Does he have a big…role? Does he—”

  “Stop, stop,” Leslie said, bursting into laughter and waving her hand to make Kylie desist. “No, I’m not going to talk about it. At least until Janna bullies me into it. She has the right to, after I forced her to give up the deets on Ryder.”

  Leslie sighed. Already things were feeling more normal. She’d known she just needed some time with her girls. She grabbed her coat, put it on, and slung an arm around Kylie’s waist as they walked out of the bar together. She waved to Talia, who’d promised to close up tonight. Part of Leslie being injured was realizing exactly whom she could count on, and with Talia being a single mother, she was glad to start giving the girl more responsibilities and more pay.

  “I wish I had something to give the deets on,” Kylie said, shaking her head. “I’m working on it though.”

  “Ryan’s definitely an odd one. Even Riley says so,” Leslie replied.

  “Takes one to know one,” Kylie muttered. “Riley’s a weirdo, too.”

  “Yes,” Leslie said. “But at least he’s my kind of weirdo.” She frowned. If only she’d stopped the words about a second earlier. He wasn’t her anything, not anymore.

  In a way, the ending to all of this had been simple. Too simple. She sort of wanted to take it all back. Like a girl newly on a diet who craved cake.

  Luckily, cake was something Leslie could have. Riley was not.

  “Do they have cake at the lodge?” she asked Leslie as they got into the Jeep.

  “I think so,” Kylie said. “Why?”

  “I just feel like having some,” she said.

  “I knew it,” Kylie said. “I knew something’s wrong. Did you break up with Riley?”

  Leslie shrugged. “You can’t break up if you aren’t together.”

  “The cad,” Kylie exclaimed. “Right. Well, we’ll get you up to the lodge and Leslie and I will make sure you’re fed adequate amounts of cake to forget the bastard.”

  Leslie smiled and nodded, brushing away the rascally tear that had come to her eye at how thoughtful her friends were and how lucky she was to have them. Truly, she’d never be alone when they were around. “All right. Cake it is.”

  Kylie nodded. “And then deets.”

  Leslie laughed out loud. “Fine, and then deets.”

  Kylie seemed satisfied by that, and they finally started the long drive up to the lodge.

  Where all Leslie had to do was get her things back from Riley, and things would be over between them.

  Damn, why couldn’t life be different?

  * * *

  An hour later she was at the lodge bar, pleasantly drunk with her friends, and in danger of getting a little too open about what had happened between her and Riley. She took a large bite of cake to keep herself from speaking as her friends asked questions.

  “But come on,” Janna said in that soft accountant’s voice of hers. “It’s Riley Hart. You can’t possibly think it’s fair to keep details back.”

  She smirked at her friends and tossed her dark curls over her shoulder. “Not fair, maybe. But I’m doing it.”

  Janna sighed. “Fine, I’m not giving you any more details either.”

  Leslie laughed. “Fine, no one wants details anymore now that you two are all settled down and lovey-dovey.” She poked at her cake, which had been brought over from the lodge cafe, and tried not to think of the slight bitterness that came over her as she thought about how nice that settled-down lovey-dovey-ness actually sounded.

  “You okay?” Janna asked. “You’ve been oddly quiet tonight. Oddly interested in cake, or your drink.”

  “You know I like to eat when I’m nervous,” Leslie said, smiling. “Keeps my curves maintained.” She ran a hand along her body playfully, and her friends laughed with her.

  “I wish I had your confidence,” Janna said.

  “You should have confidence,” Kylie said. “You’re the only one who has managed to track her man down.”

  “First, Les doesn’t want a man like that, and second, Ryder tracked me down, not the other way around.”

  Kylie sighed and stirred her apple martini. “Wish Ryan was that way.”

  “Hey, who said I don’t want a man that way?” Leslie quipped. “I never said that.”

  “Do you?” Janna asked. “You’ve always been more about the sex and less about the commitment.”

  “I never said I didn’t want it, I just know better than to hope for it.”

  “Some men stay, Leslie,” Janna said, in that firm, rational voice of hers. Janna pressed back one of her tight curls into the bun she was wearing. “I think your mom has really warped you.”

  “Maybe,” Leslie said. “But she also stayed and raised me. She’s all I’ve got.”

  “Except for us,” Kylie said, putting an arm around Leslie’s waist. Kylie let out a little hiccup. Since she was smaller than the other women, and didn’t drink often, it took next to nothing to get her drunk. “We’ll always be there for you.” Kylie nuzzled her shoulder and Leslie laughed, exchanging amused looks with Janna.

  “So, things are good with Ryder?” Leslie asked.

  Janna nodded, looking pleased but slightly embarrassed. “Yes.”

  “Deets?”

  Janna narrowed her eyes at her. “No.”

  Leslie sighed. “I thought not. I don’t deserve them. But damn, now that I’m on my own again I could use some.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Leslie shrugged. “Well, now that I won’t be doing it with Riley.”

  “Hm, so you have been doing it with Riley.”

  “Was there ever a question?” Leslie replied.

  Janna laughed. “Well, you always shared details before. I wondered if you two were just giving each other foot rubs or something.”

  “I know,” Leslie said, waving a hand. “But it’s never been like this before.”

  Janna went quiet, and Kylie let out a little hiccup and muttered something about the little brats she’d had to teach that day. Leslie knew the next stage of drunkenness involved Kylie crying about how sweet the kids were and how much she
wanted some of her own.

  And not remembering it the next day.

  She kind of envied her friend, her impulsive courage and ability to just go after what she wanted, regardless of rejection or hurt. Despite Ryan showing basically zero interest in her, she kept holding out hope for him, coming up with new schemes to run into him and change his mind.

  Leslie hoped Kylie succeeded someday. Ryan seemed like a good guy, not a confusing, conceited, far too good in bed and too aware of it guy like Riley.

  She sighed, thinking that maybe she should have had just one more night with him before she broke things off.

  “So how did you end it?” Janna asked.

  “What makes you think I ended it?”

  “You always end it,” Janna said, stirring her coffee.

  “I do not.”

  “Yes you do. Just when they seem like they’re going to try to commit, too. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy that you have to see come true.”

  “What? No, I can just tell it’s not going to work. And some of them just left me outright.”

  “Hm, really? Who?”

  Leslie tried to think about it. Aside from the one-time things, the only ones where they’d been almost dating, it was true, she had broken it off. But they’d as good as forced her to by not being committed or showing any signs they meant to stick around.

  It was just part of living in a tourist town that Janna didn’t understand because she hadn’t grown up there. Men came through to pass time, looking for entertainment, not to stay. It was obvious even if they never said it.

  She was just smart enough to know when to move on.

  “I think you’re making a mistake,” Janna said, staring at her drink thoughtfully. “I think you should give him a chance.”

  “Well he’s the one who’s afraid of commitment,” Leslie said. “He was just willing to stay and have fun with me and force me to fall in love with him just so he could leave me.”

  “I don’t think he’s like that. Do you?”

  Leslie hmphed. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you’re afraid to. I think you’re afraid to wait and see what a guy is really like because you know your mom might be wrong.”

  “I wanted my mom to be wrong, that’s why I—”

  “No,” Janna said, cutting her off. “You didn’t. You wanted to stay safe and play by her rules. And her rules don’t include being vulnerable. And you don’t gain much in life if you never allow yourself to be vulnerable. Sometimes the best things in life happen when we open our hearts and give someone the opportunity to hurt us, and trust them not to, and they don’t.”

  “But what if they do?”

  “Then we learn not to open our hearts to someone like that again,” Janna said quietly. “But we don’t die.”

  “Ah, like you and Scott?”

  “Right,” Janna said. “I learned a lot from that. And it could have put me off men forever. But I’m glad I opened up with Ryder.”

  “But how did you know how to?”

  “I just did,” Janna replied. “It was just instinct.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Kylie said. Her words were a little slurred and she was swaying slightly on her stool. Leslie gave her a little push to stay on balance. “If you always just lock it down and never allow yourself to get hurt, then you never learn.”

  “I’ve been hurt.”

  “You’ve hurt yourself,” Kylie said, poking a clumsy finger in her direction. “Dear me, how many martinis is that?”

  “Only two, I think,” Janna said. “How are you such a lightweight?”

  Kylie stuck out her fingers and counted. “No, I think it’s three, maybe. Stupid Ryan, stuck in my head. That man is driving me to drink.”

  “That man is doing nothing to you.”

  Kylie nodded sorrowfully. “That’s the problem.”

  Leslie and Janna laughed, and Kylie raised a hand. “But that’s because I don’t have a choice in the matter. But you can bet, if I had a chance to be with him, even if I didn’t know how long or where it was going, I’d take it. Isn’t that how you felt with Riley before?”

  Leslie nodded, thinking it over. “I guess so.”

  “So when did things change?”

  When he looked at me like he wanted me all to himself, Leslie thought. When he looked like he might want more, and I was afraid to hope for it.

  “Ugh, what do I do now?” she asked her friends. “I already ended it. He didn’t even fight me over it.”

  “Men are dumb that way,” Janna said. “They tend to be more afraid of making us angry than anything else. He probably just thought he was giving you what you wanted.”

  “Well, he was.”

  “So tell him it’s not what you want anymore,” Janna said.

  “That’s right,” Kylie said, yawning.

  “I think we better get you home.”

  “Girls’ night is too depressing at the lodge,” Kylie said, looking up at the TV that was showing a replay of one of Ryan’s half pipe runs on one of the sports channels. When he finished, girls were cheering at the finish line. He bent down to let one of them kiss his cheek. “Dammit, I need to get some sleep. Work is getting to me.”

  Leslie threw her arm around her friend’s shoulder. “I’m sorry he’s too stupid to know a good thing when he sees one. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

  Kylie nodded. “I know. I just wish I could tell my heart that. Ever since he walked in, I felt it was him.”

  Leslie felt an echo of that ache and wished she was as honest as Kylie in admitting it. Sometimes you just met someone who made you want to break all your rules. Made you want to be a different kind of person. Someone who believed in fate, or love at first sight, or just that things would work out.

  She sighed.

  Kylie stood, but was wobbly. Janna and Leslie walked out with her, but she didn’t seem too steady. As they exited the bar, Kylie bumped headlong into a tall man, and Leslie looked up to apologize to whomever it was and saw Rex.

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry, Rex. My friend here is a little…well, she’s had a hard day.”

  Kylie nodded mournfully, and Rex looked her over in amusement. She swayed and he caught her in his arms.

  “You guys leaving?” he asked. “Where’s your car?”

  Leslie bit her lip as Kylie struggled lightly against Rex. “I think she can walk.”

  “Really?” Rex said, setting her down. When she swayed again and flailed slightly, he caught her up in his arms again. She looked like she weighed nothing. But Rex’s eyes were on Leslie.

  Was he another one that she had shut off without giving him a chance? He certainly seemed to want one.

  “She drove,” Leslie said reluctantly. “Janna, can you drive?”

  “Sure, I’ll borrow Ryder’s car,” she said.

  “I can drive her. It’s no problem. I can take you down as well. We still have catching up to do,” Rex said.

  “Oh,” Leslie said. Janna gave her an odd look, as if trying to deduce the relationship between them, and Kylie settled into his arms, looking as if she’d found a comfy hammock, and muttering something about Ryan.

  Leslie sighed. It’d be better if Janna didn’t have to drive them, but then again, she didn’t know Rex that well. Should she trust him?

  But he didn’t wait for her to respond. He just turned and started across the lodge lobby, leaving her and Janna to follow, exchanging puzzled looks, wondering how the night had taken such a weird turn of events.

  Rex was a fine-looking man. Tall, buff. A nice butt, even if it was nothing compared to Riley’s. All in all, he was a shadow of how hot Riley was. A more ordinary kind of handsome, and the fake tan was slightly off-putting.

  But he’d always been friendly and entertaining when he’d been in town and stopped at her bar. More often than not, he’d brought her take-out lunch and exchanged pleasantries. That had to count for something.

  Maybe a little time with him wouldn’t be the wo
rst thing. Except that she probably needed to get to Riley. Explain things. Do damage control. See if things could be salvaged. And if Riley saw her with Rex, he probably wouldn’t be too happy about it. Not that he had any right to be unhappy about it, of course. But sometimes the heart just felt how it wanted to, without regard to right or wrong.

  Her heart definitely did. Her body did as well. Already she was craving his touch again.

  They were almost to the door, and Leslie was still feeling fairly ambivalent, when Rex stopped suddenly, his path blocked by a fairly large, intimidating-looking snowboarder.

  Chapter 13

  “Going somewhere?” Ryan said, folding his arms. His ice-blue eyes were as cold as the snow he made his living on.

  “Holy shit, Ryan Hart,” Rex said, taking a step back and shifting Kylie’s weight so he could put a hand out to shake. “Wow, it’s an honor to meet you.”

  Ryan kept his arms folded and nodded at Rex, who didn’t seem to notice the man’s hard glare and the fact that he was directing it toward the woman in his arms.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, shifting his weight and standing to full height to look even taller.

  Damn, Leslie thought. If she hadn’t already been in love with Riley…

  Shit, love? She was in love? The thought struck her dumb, and she could only sit there and watch the awkward standoff between the two men.

  Rex situated Kylie in his arms. “She had a little too much. I’m going to drive her home and then catch up with Leslie. We’re old friends.”

  Ryan raised a blond eyebrow. “That true?”

  Leslie bit her lip. “Yes. I mean, I know him.”

  Ryan shook his head slightly and walked forward to take Kylie from the other man’s arms. He did it smoothly and assertively and the other man let go with a shrug. Then Ryan hugged his small burden tight to his chest. She snuggled in.

  Leslie only wished the other woman was awake to see Ryan acting like this. Maybe they had more of a chance than she thought. Ryan was sure acting like a man protecting what was his. So why was he so cold to her when she was awake? He was a puzzle.

  “I’ll drive her. If she got drunk here, she’s the lodge’s liability.”