by T. S. Ryder
"That doesn't mean I won't. In the future."
"You won't. Don't cut me out, Oliver. Please."
"I can't have children."
"I don't care. I love you."
"You love me?" A brief smile crossed his face. "I was afraid you'd run away from me. But I was wrong. You ran towards me." He stepped forward, and his fingers brushed her cheek. She pressed her hands to his chest. His heart beat sure and strong. "I don't understand why you want to be with me."
"Because you are the most unique, wonderful man I have ever met, and you let me be me." Mack pressed herself against him, smiling up into his deep eyes. "I'm happy when I'm with you… and I like to think you're happy with me."
Oliver wrapped his strong arms around her. "Deliriously happy. Happier than I've ever been in my life."
He pressed a kiss to her mouth and, with a sigh, Mack wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him in deeper.
Epilogue
Florida was growing on her. To hell with spanx and whatever else was going to make her look thinner and hide her wobbly bits. Now it was all tank tops and short shorts. Even less when she and Oliver were home in their countryside getaway, but with a business to run, they could only get out there during the weekends.
Mack smiled as she carried a basket of squirming, mewling kittens back to their mother after being weighed. Oliver had purchased a few acres of land just outside Orlando so she could finally set up her animal rescue shelter. They only had licenses to take in domestic animals at the moment, but she was working on getting registered to care for wild animals.
"Here you go, lovely." She slipped into the large pen where the mother cat was anxiously waiting for her kittens to return. As Mack put them down one by one, the mother cat began licking them. "All healthy and purrrrrfect."
She scratched the cat behind the ears, making her purr. In a few weeks, the kittens would be old enough to adopt out, and she already had a new owner for the mother and the runt of the litter when that happened.
Adopting out kittens and puppies was easy. The older animals, however, were starting to get overcrowded. They'd have to put out more advertisements. Even with all their space, they just didn't have enough room to care for them all.
After she fed the cats and cleaned a few cages, Mack sought her lover and business partner out. He was where he always was at this time of day, sitting outside the cage of a cat they had gotten from a hoarder two weeks ago. The poor thing had been half-starved, and though it had fattened up since then, the ragged patches of fur on its body had not regrown. The fur that was growing was a hideous poop-brown. As Mack approached, the familiar warning hiss issued from the cage.
"I don't know if there's hope for this one, Oliver." Mack put her hand on his shoulder. "He just doesn't like people."
Oliver pressed her palm to his lips. "And that's why I think he's perfect for us. Think about it. I don't like people, you don't like people. If we don't take him, who will?"
The cat spat at Mack as she looked at it. She closed her eyes very slowly several times until the growling ceased, then sat beside Oliver. Her family had found him strange and a little off-putting when she first introduced him, but he had soon won them over. Her mother had confided in him that she had never seen Mack so light-hearted and happy in her whole life, and his eccentric ways were soon labeled endearing.
Mack put her head on her lover's shoulder, enjoying the warmth from his skin.
"If we take him home, he'll run away and end up being an alligator's snack," she said, while Oliver made gentle hooting noises towards the ugly, defensive cat. "I have to admit, though, you're really good with him. Look at that. He's visibly relaxing."
"We could have him in our city apartment at first until he won't run away. I just hate to see him in here. It's so lonely… And I know how he feels. Like he's not wanted, like the world will hurt him if it gets too close." Oliver turned sad eyes on her. "What if I promised to stay home every day to take care of him? I'll buy scratching posts and toys and treats. I'll buy you a new car," he added. "And a new dress. And I'll buy your parents a new house."
"You just bought them a new house."
"I'll buy them another one. And your brothers, I'll buy them houses, too. I'm very rich, you know." He said it seriously, as though she didn't know that already.
Mack laughed. "You crazy monkey."
"Ape," he corrected. "Or hominid-ape. Maybe I'm Bigfoot. It doesn't matter." He beamed at her. "I have you and I'm happy. I just want to give him the same chance that you gave me."
Mack felt herself caving. She straddled Oliver's hips and nodded. "Fine. We can adopt the cat."
Oliver's eyes lit up.
"If, and I do mean if, you clean up after yourself for a full week," Mack smiled, knowing that he wasn't going to do it and she was going to let him have the cat anyway. Her heart felt full to bursting and she pressed her mouth to his. "Let me change that. You can have the cat if you tell me you love me."
"I love you," Oliver said at once. "Have since I first laid eyes on you."
"I love you, too."
He drew her back for another kiss. Their lips parted and their tongues flicked against each other. Mack moaned, pressing herself tighter against him. The cat hissed and Oliver laughed, sticking one of his fingers through the cage.
"Silly kitty. You're coming home with us tonight. You're going to have to get used to it." He sighed, resting his head on her chest. "He's perfect, isn't he?"
"You're perfect," Mack replied, smiling at him.
Oliver chuckled. "No, you're perfect."
Mack tilted his face to hers, cupping his face in her hands. "This is perfect."
"Can't argue with that." He pulled her in for another kiss.
*****
THE END
Paranormal Menage Romance: Claimed by Two Werebears
Description
A curvy girl unlucky in love PLUS two hot bear shifters wanting a mate PLUS a deadly attack!
Destiny is looking for adventure and love. So when she finds a dating website just for bad boys, she signs up.
Turns out that it’s a shifter site and that her curves attract not one, but two sexy bear shifters. She can’t decide which is hotter, but she doesn’t have to. She can secretly date them both. Right?
Too bad the guys are clanmates. Luckily, they see her dilemma and make her a proposal that make her cheeks blush...
Does she really have room for both, though?
Add to that the outside prejudice against shifters that suddenly turns lethal, and Destiny feels torn. Is dating a shifter worth the nasty looks and comments? Will she be able to decide on just one or will she lose them both?
Chapter One
Destiny Brown clicked through the screens, looking at the latest dress offerings from her favorite online clothing store. Another Monday, another slow and boring day behind the reception desk at Greene and Greene Law Firm. If it wasn’t for the decent pay, she’d loathe this job for its slow days. Though, if she admitted it to herself, sometimes being able to surf the web and do some online shopping was nice. Getting paid to shop? Who wouldn’t love that? But she’d had jobs far more exciting that made the day fly, and she missed the chaotic excitement that came with waitressing, even if she knew she’d never go back to that world. She was 26 now and it was time to hold down a serious job for her serious life.
She sighed and clicked away from the clothing website. What was the point? The dresses were super cute, but she had no place to wear them to. It wasn’t like she’d be going out on any dates anytime soon. Since her last relationship failure, she hadn’t had any luck in the dating world. No one she was interested in, no one interested back. It’d been months since she’d gone out.
Her mother was good about not asking. Not like Ava’s mom, who was always on her about finding a man and keeping a man and having his babies. Her mom had been a single mom, so she never saw the value or necessity in keeping a man. Destiny did, though. She wanted to be married and have a
family—live the American dream. But her love life had been a nightmare.
She scrolled through her feeds on the social media sites, glaring at the photos of her friends in their happy relationships, with their pretty little children. One of the sidebar ads caught her eye. It was an ad for online dating, featuring a grinning couple who looked happily in love. She clicked the ad and looked around the site.
She’d never done the online dating thing before, but why not give it a try? She had nothing to lose at this point. She clicked the link to make a profile but stopped short when she saw the price. $40 a month and a 6-month commitment? That seemed like an expensive adventure. And she knew people who used free sites. So instead of signing up for this site, she searched for the top free dating sites and when the list came, read the descriptions.
All of them were similar. They claimed to help you find your soulmate, to be the best matching site around and have the highest success rate. There was one site that seemed different, though. It was called Wild Hearts, and it claimed to be a site that wasn’t for the faint of heart. “Sick of the same old, boring dating profiles? Dinner and a movie not your style? Wild Hearts is for those who are looking for adventure in life, who aren’t satisfied with the mundane. If you’re looking for a wild love connection, make your profile today!”
The site itself looked somewhat shady compared to the other ones. Those had been crisp and clean, with lots of white space and light colors. This site lived up to its name. It was wild in reds and blacks. The sidebars were images of claw marks and the logo had a paw print. This was apparently where all the bad boys went to find love. This might be her ideal site. She loved bad boys. Motorcycles, tattoos and leather jackets, someone who could handle himself in a fight and wouldn’t hesitate to defend her. Someone who was just as much an animal in the bedroom as she was. And the best part? The site was free.
Destiny clicked on “Create a Profile” and was faced with another dark page. At the top, in bright red letters, there was a warning: “Finding a match on this site means your life will never be the same. Only those who are ready for a thrill and a bit of danger should proceed. You’ll find only the wildest hearts here.”
A grin spread across her face. A little danger? She glanced around the bland office. The cream colored walls and soft tan chairs of the waiting area. The predictable wooden table with a selection of newspapers. Even the carpet was a dull brown. You’d think a place called Greene and Greene would have some color to it. But only their names were colorful. Two Greenes, a Brown, and a White worked there. The staff was a crayon box, but the office was a burlap sack.
She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before how she blended right in. Her dark brown skin, her creamy top, her chocolate-colored pants. She was just another part of the decor around here. Something had to change. And this site might be just the thing she needed to make her feel alive again.
Chapter Two
Writing her profile took hours. Luckily, she had them to spare. Today was even slower than usual. The mailman had brought the mail, which took her a handful of minutes to sort, and there’d been only five or six phone calls. She took her time, making sure every detail of her profile was perfect. She wanted to be attractive to these men so that she’d have her pick of the top profiles.
First, she worked on the description in the “About me” section. She wrote: “Curvy African American woman looking to spice up a boring life and find some hot action.” But she was horrified as she reread it. It sounded like all she was after was sex. Sure, that’d be part of it, but that wasn’t her primary focus. She wanted someone to love, not just someone to sleep with.
She thought for a while and changed her description to: “Curvy African American woman looking for new adventures in love. I’m ready to settle down with someone I can stay wild with.”
There. That got across what she was hoping to portray. She didn’t want to settle into a boring home life or a boring marriage, but she wanted to be secure in a relationship with someone that would rock her world daily. That sort of settled was the only kind she was interested in.
Next, there was a section on hobbies. Well, if she was honest, she didn’t do much besides shopping and going out with her girls and cleaning her house and her mother’s. But those things sounded boring. Not something an adventurous guy would be into. She needed to sound just as interesting as the men she hoped to find. She didn’t want to go too far and lie, but an exaggeration would be required.
Well, partying could be dangerous and exciting, so maybe her nights out with the girls could be talked up a bit. They usually had drinks and dinner, but if she just said they partied, no one had to know it was a rather tame party of three. She couldn’t see any way to make shopping sound better, and cleaning? Not something most people considered a hobby. She always wanted to get more into motorcycles, though. And maybe learn how to shoot a gun or throw a punch. But since she didn’t do these things already, she said, “Interested in motorcycles and weapons.” It was truthful, at least.
The last thing she needed was some photos. This would be the hardest part. While Destiny loved every one of her curves, she also knew not all men did. She needed to find the pics that focused on her positive aspects. She scrolled through the photos on her phone. There was a good one from a recent night out, but it had two other people in the photo, and the website said her profile photo could only have her. She uploaded the photo to her collection, but would still need a profile pic. One or two weren’t bad, but when she got home tonight, she’d have to put on something hot and take a new photo. Something tight and low cut to show the men exactly what they would be getting with her.
Once she had a temporary profile photo in place, she was done. She hit save and looked it over one last time to make sure it was error free. Then, she hovered her mouse over the link that said: “Find Matches.” She took a deep breath and clicked.
A screen of photos cascaded in front of her. Rows and rows of little squares. She felt like a child playing a card game. If she flipped over the cards, it would tell her secrets and she would have to search through them all to find the one she was looking for. Could he really be here? Her future boyfriend, listed here among so many other hopefuls?
Starting with the first row, she inspected each face until she found one that she considered very attractive. She clicked it and was presented with his profile. More photos, a section about him, his list of hobbies. At first, she felt disappointed. This site was like any of the other dating sites she’d looked at. What was so special about Wild Hearts? Where was all the intrigue and danger? Or did they just mean to say that online dating in general was risky?
Destiny went back to the main page. As she looked over the photos, she noticed that they seemed to have one thing in common. All the men here were thick with muscles. Maybe the bad boy theme of this site attracted a certain type and that was what made it different. Realizing this gave her renewed excitement. These men were exactly her type and the large majority was quite hot. From what she’d seen when her girl Francesca did the online thing, finding a lot of good looking men online was not the norm.
One by one, she clicked the profiles. This time, she paid more attention to the hobbies section. Whatever they were into was probably what they would want to do with her. So the guy who loved fishing and hiking was a no. She was not going to sit in the heat near a fly-ridden lake and wait for a fish to chomp on her worm. No way. But if they listed motorcycles, that caught her attention. She loved the feeling of that motor with all its power between her legs.
The Wild Hearts site had a feature that let you click on a paw print shaped button and send a “growl” to someone to show interest. She “growled” at several men, the excitement in her belly rising. If any of them responded, she’d be happy.
A message window popped up as she was surfing. There was a note from a guy named “bigguns87.” A smile crept across her face and she clicked to open it. “Hey there, hot stuff. If you like my big guns, message me back. Maybe we c
an workout sometime.”
Workout? Was that his opening line? Her thrill started to fade, but she clicked on his photo to view his profile anyway. His photos were all attractive. He clearly worked out and now she saw that his “big guns” were a reference to his huge biceps, not his firearms. In the hobby section, he had listed lifting weights, working out, and spending time with pretty ladies. She rolled her eyes. What a line.
He didn’t seem that interesting. But she wanted to be fair, so she read his description. “Hey there. I like to hit the gym and sweat hard. If you want to come sweat with me, message me and we’ll see if we can work out.”
So, he thought he was being clever? She let out a long sigh. Bigguns87 did not seem like her type at all.
The office phone rang and Destiny picked it up. As she listened to the man talk, his voice deep and smooth, she wondered what he looked like. If he was a bad boy looking for love, too. Maybe he was on this dating site too, there were thousands of people on it. Surely, she’d run across one in real life now and then. She was tempted to keep his name and number for herself, to maybe Google him later, but then he said that he needed Mr. Caleb Greene to call him because he needed to be defended on a sexual assault charge. She thanked him for calling and hung up after taking his message. There would be no keeping that name and number.
Back to the site. She had another message waiting for her. “Hi. You seem fun. I like to party, too. Want to party together?” This profile seemed much more interesting. He did list working out. She’d have to get used to that, she supposed. These guys weren’t just huge by accident. But exercise wasn’t her thing. If they didn’t have other interests, she’d have nothing to talk about with them. This guy, “looking4luv9133,” also listed shooting, kayaking and motorcycles. Now that sounded like fun. Unfortunately, his photos weren’t the best, though. He looked a little short, a little awkward, and she just didn’t find him too attractive.