She didn’t even feel self conscious about her curves with him. Something about the way he touched her, held her, pressed her to him like his life depended on it, made her feel that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. And since he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, she was just fine with that.
He lowered her slightly and pulled back, his beautiful lips swollen from their kiss, his gorgeous eyes shining with lust. Those strong arms, holding her like she was a feather. He was so much bigger than her, and damn, did she like it.
“I know this sounds crazy, but would you like to take this inside?”
She bit her lip. It did sound crazy, but what the hell? Her body would never forgive her if she said no. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, take me inside.”
He didn’t need to be told twice.
* * *
SKY COULDN’T BELIEVE this was happening. It was the most instant chemistry he’d ever felt with a woman, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself if he tried. It was like riding a train toward an oncoming cliff and not being able to get off.
And he didn’t want to.
He set her on the bed and marveled at how sexy she looked in her bathing suit, dripping wet, short curls standing in all directions. She pushed herself back on the covers and he pulled them out from under her, leaving her on only the sheets.
Gosh, she was a sight for sore eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more beautiful, and that included the ocean.
The thought astounded him, and he became very aware of his bear as an arctic chill blasted through him.
Damn, this was his mate.
He knew it by the way he could see snow falling gently behind his lids when he closed his eyes. He knew it by the way she gasped when he ran a cool finger up her leg, to her curvaceous hip, when that gorgeous deep brown skin seemed to glow as he kissed his way from her ankle up to her hip.
Her body was soft and generous, but she still felt tiny compared to him. She was his mate, so she didn’t need to worry. He’d protect her with his life. Make sure nothing ever happened to her, make sure no one ever came too close.
The animal inside him was pacing, growling, and he closed his eyes, trying to think more clearly and get a hold of himself.
But his father had once described meeting his own mate, and it had sounded just as crazy, just as hurried, just as intense. And it had led to such happiness. And such misery. But there would only be happiness for him and Leah, he’d guarantee it.
He slid her swimsuit strap off her shoulder and licked the skin there, loving the slightly salty taste of her skin. She gasped and reached for the strap but then seemed to think “what the hell” and pulled the other one down, baring the tops of her breasts.
Damn, they were luscious, rising in soft, glowing swells that made him instantly hard. He had to taste them. Now. He dragged the swimsuit down and she helped him. He cupped her breasts in his hands and she arched up, helping him fill his hands completely. Damn, he could do this forever.
Her swimsuit was at her waist, baring a tempting strip of soft tummy, and he pushed it down, needing to see a little further. She once again had a moment of hesitation, but then he leaned forward and caught her lips with his and was able to coax her back into feeling beautiful and trusting him with her beauty.
He slid the swimsuit lower, loving the soft curves of her belly. Her legs clenched beneath him and he found he wanted to go there too. But he needed to save something for later, or he’d go mad with lust. Even madder, really, since he was already completely lost to the pleasure that was being able to touch her, have her breathing heavily and moaning beneath him as they both fought the rising waves of passion between them.
He paused, giving her time to change her mind, but she grabbed his face with both hands.
“Don’t stop,” she growled. “Don’t you dare stop.”
“We’re being…” he kissed her nipple, flicking it with his tongue. “Impulsive…”
“I don’t care. I have a feeling this is going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“That’s for damn sure,” he said. He’d mate her, and they’d work out the rest later. Talk about their bears, their lineage. Present her to his dad. Heck maybe his dad had planned this. It didn’t matter. She was here. He was happy. He was going to make her see that he was the one for her, and then mark her as his forever by spilling his seed deep inside her. He could tell by the way she writhed beneath him that she was on board.
He slipped a hand under the bottom of her swim bottoms and felt her slick heat. He bit his lip against a groan and took her nipple in his mouth again to distract him from the wonderful, velvet feel of dipping a finger, then two, inside her. Gosh, she was tight. Hot and wet for him. Hot enough to burn, but he still wanted to be inside her.
And she was getting increasingly ready. He heard her breath catch as his finger came out of her to swirl at the nub above it, pressing and releasing as she writhed against him. He swirled his tongue over one nipple and then the other, noting and loving each little movement of her body, and then pressed down at the apex of her legs, at the center of her pleasure, and felt the bear inside him roar as she reared up in beautiful release, crying his name and clawing at his back as he released her nipple and pulled her up against him and held her.
When she’d calmed, he looked into her eyes. So dark, so deep, so perfect.
“You ready?” he asked.
She nodded eagerly. “I’ve never been more ready.”
He licked the finger that had been inside her, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. “Good. I like that.”
She flushed and bit her lip at his words, and he started to pull down his swimsuit. “Wait, what about protection?” she said, as he was getting ready to enter her.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want you, but you have to wear protection. Safety first.”
He raised an eyebrow, the fervor inside him waning slightly as he tried to figure out what she meant. “We’re shifters. We’re safe. We don’t have those diseases.”
Her eyes widened and she crawled back away from him. Her face was still flushed, her body glowing in pleasure and ready for him, and his own heart was threatening to beat out of his chest.
But he had a feeling this was no longer going to happen.
She pulled the sheets around her and pressed against the headboard. “What the hell is a shifter? And what do you mean, we’re safe? Are you crazy?”
She waited for his reply and an insane but obvious possibility sprung up before him.
His mate didn’t know she was a bear. Which meant she didn’t know she was his mate. She didn’t know why she was feeling the way she was, and he’d have to calmly explain it, when all his bear wanted to do was press her back against the headboard and take her.
He sighed. Best to get it over with. He gave her a wary look, and stepped off the bed to go into the living room. He closed all of the doors and shut the drapes.
Then he transformed into his bear.
And heard a scream from the bedroom.
4
Leah tried to take in breath, but she couldn’t. Whether it was because she’d just orgasmed harder than she ever had in her life, or because she’d just screamed at the fucking POLAR BEAR in the living room, her lungs just didn’t want to cooperate.
Calm down, she told herself. We’re hallucinating. Too much excitement, between almost drowning, being rescued by a hunk, and then nearly having the best sex of her life.
He said he was a shifter. Just what the hell was that?
But she felt that arctic chill again, and something about it seemed familiar. She put a hand to her head. There was something there, but she couldn’t remember. She’d been adopted when she was three, and she didn’t know her birth family.
Was it possible there was something she didn’t know about herself? Something to do with her attraction to this man, and the fact that he didn’t want to use prot
ection and could somehow turn into a bear?
Fuck, things were confusing all of a sudden.
Then the bear turned and looked at her, really looked at her, and aside from the vaguely chilled feeling of snow falling, a distinct calm came over her. Like she knew him, really knew him, beyond just what she knew of him as a man.
There was definitely something between them, whether he was a bear or a human, or whether she was a human or a…
She felt her body stretching and changing. She tried to scream but nothing came out, and then she tried to scramble forward, but heard the tearing of sheets.
She stumbled blindly to the only thing that made sense at the moment. The only thing she had to go to. The bear in the center of the room. He growled and lunged forward, helping her and letting her lean on him as she felt her strength go out of her.
He gestured with his head in front of them and she looked up to see a mirror at the end of the hallway that probably led to the bathroom.
And in the mirror was the edge of a giant polar bear. Which made sense, because he was standing right beside her. But next to that was a smaller bear, a female grizzly bear. She screamed but only a guttural sound tore itself from her throat. She turned to him with wild, panicked eyes.
“Calm down,” he said. Her eyes widened. He could talk? “You’ll be able to verbalize if you just calm down and let yourself adjust. The first few shifts are overwhelming, and you won’t be able to hold your shape for long. But the quicker you calm down, the better it’ll be.”
She tried to calm her breathing. She inhaled slowly, held it, counted to ten, and then released it, like she was getting ready to do yoga, or trying to meditate after a bad conversation with Ignus. Which was every conversation with Ignus.
She heard a growl from the bear next to her and turned to him. “What?” she croaked out huskily. Phew, at least her voice was working again.
“Don’t think about another man when you’re with me,” he said.
“What…” She took a step back from him hesitantly, and he took a step forward.
“We polar bears have only one alpha power. Always the same alpha power. Evolved because of our need to evade predators. We can read the thoughts of our destined mate. When they are in bear form.”
She gulped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Destined mates? Alpha powers? This is all completely foreign to me.”
Her body felt weak and started to tingle all over. “What’s happening?” she cried out, stumbling into him, letting his warm, solid strength steady her. His body was much bigger than hers, and it was reassuring at a time like this.
“You’re passing out,” he said. “Just let it happen. Being in your animal form is exhausting when you’re not used to it, and you’re the farthest thing from used to it. Go ahead and go to sleep, princess. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
And even though she wanted to fight to control her body, even though she didn’t want to fall asleep in a room with a strange man who had turned her world upside down, she found she had no choice.
She shifted back into a human and flopped onto the floor. He cushioned her fall with a pillow and then transformed and carried her to another bedroom in the house.
He had a lot of things to explain.
* * *
“ARE YOU OKAY?” he asked, as she opened her eyes warily, blinking against the darkening evening light. The sun must have just set. Great, she’d spent her first full afternoon here passed out in a stranger’s room. And now that stranger was looking at her like she was delicate, something that had to be handled gently.
She rubbed her head. “I think so.”
He pursed his lips. They were full and gorgeous and she wanted to trace one finger along the intense dip on his upper lip, see if it was really as defined as it looked.
“I…” She trailed off, wracking her brain for any memory of what had happened, and then, as she threaded her hands through her short, tight, unruly curls, it all came back at once, like a flash flood from hell.
She groaned. “Dammit, I remember everything.”
He sighed. “I thought you might.”
He was wearing a robe, and she realized she was wearing one as well. That’s right, she probably had ruined her clothes when she’d turned into a bear.
She hesitated, waiting to have a heart attack or go into shock or something at the knowledge that not only did bear shifters exist, but that she was one of them. But she didn’t. It was almost like she’d known all along, but very deep down, where she couldn’t consciously access it. It was weird.
But in all of it, the one thing that felt right, no matter how confusing it was, was being here with him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is all so new to me. You’ll need to start at the beginning.”
“Why didn’t your parents tell you?” he asked, looking sad for her. She straightened. She didn’t need this tall, sexy man to feel sorry for her. She needed him to explain everything, and possibly to make love to her until she couldn’t walk anymore, but she didn’t need his pity. For sure.
“I was adopted at age three,” she said. “So yeah, I know nothing.”
He colored slightly and ran a hand through his deliciously tousled hair. He looked like a man who’d been having sex, and her ‘down there’ responded immediately to him. “Oh, that makes sense. I’m sorry. I’ve been raised by two shifter parents, so I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”
“It’s weird,” she said. “So what are alpha powers?”
“Powers passed down from an alpha to his offspring. Wolves have them commonly. Bear shifters are rare, due to our inability to mate very easily, so we usually have only one power per family.”
“What about types?” she asked. “Why am I a grizzly? and so much smaller?”
“Well,” he said, laughing. “It just depends on your blood line. Most American bears are grizzly bears or black bears, and black bears aren’t very large. But all that really matters to me is that you’re my mate, and I’ll protect you with my life.”
She flushed, feeling her neck warm, trying to stop all the images of him touching her, kissing her, undressing her, from flooding through her mind. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Don’t you want to know what mates are?” he asked.
“I kind of feel like I already do. In fact, I could swear my body said that in response to you earlier,” she murmured. “But it’s all very odd, very new to me. There’s a part of me that’s like, mmhmm, it makes sense, and another part that’s like, run, this is terrifying.”
“Well, I’m here to help you figure it out,” he said, reaching out with an arm to pull her against him.
“I still don’t get why you’re so much bigger than me,” she said, not liking how easy it was to feel safe and at home in his arms. Things in life just didn’t come this easy. She didn’t want to get too situated in case this didn’t turn out happily. After all, even with this mates thing where two people were really attracted, she assumed one could still choose, could still get rejected.
“Well, we do sort of reflect the size of our bear,” he said, chuckling. “But don’t worry. You’re mine and I’m the biggest bear around.”
“Really? Aren’t Kodiak bears bigger?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You seem oddly interested in bears.”
“Well, it would make sense if I was, right?” she joked, snuggling into him. It felt right, so why not. She felt safe and warm for the first time in a long time. Why not savor it while it lasted. “So what next?”
“First, I set you straight about Kodiak bears, so that you know that your mate is the strongest and coolest of bears, no pun intended,” he said, with a dazzling smile that sent tingles straight to her toes.
“Oh, of course,” she said.
“We polar bears are bigger on average than the typical Kodiak bear, and on top of that, I’m a pretty big polar bear. So don’t worry your pretty little bear head.”
“Yeah, I got the small bear.”
She turned to look up into his handsome face. “So, you’ve set me straight that you’re the largest and um, manliest of bears. So now what?”
“Now, I set about making you my mate,” he said, running a hand along her neck.
She shivered. She had a feeling she’d like what that entailed.
5
Leah had thought that Sky convincing her to be his mate would involve sexy times, but she was disappointed to find out that he was determined to take things slow and let her get adjusted.
He was also determined that she learn how to swim.
She struggled to stay on her back, trying to relax and float against his arm, but every time he removed it, she panicked and started to sink.
He laughed, and she resisted the urge to look up into those Caribbean blue eyes. She needed to focus. He removed his hand, she started to sink again.
“Damn,” she said. “I don’t think I’m ever going to get this floating thing.”
He laughed and helped her stand back down in the shallow water they were learning in. “Should we go back to scuba drills then? Now that you’ve learned basic swim drills, I’m less worried about you in the water. Besides in your scuba gear you have a BC, so floating isn’t really a problem. It’s just a skill I’d prefer you have, mate.”
She flushed at hearing that word again. Mate. It was all so new to her. And yet, for the past few days as they’d been working together, she hadn’t really questioned it. And learning to scuba and swim, to be a part of his world, that was an excellent distraction.
Except for moments like this, when she could feel his soft hands on her arms and all she could think of was the other day in the bedroom and how far they’d gotten. And how far they still had to go.
She avoided his gaze and swam to the edge of the eternity pool. They were at her suite today. The other girls hadn’t come back much at all during the day, so she had the place to herself. She wondered if they were getting up to trouble with the men they were spending time with as well.
Bear-ever Yours: BBW Bear Shifter (BWWM) Romance Standalone Page 3