Caring Bear
Love Laid Bear Book 5
By
Amber Belmont
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2017 by Amber Belmont - All rights reserved. No part of this publication or the information in it may be quoted from or reproduced in any form by means such as printing, scanning, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Want to know all about how Stephanie and Dom first met? For more details on how to get Heart Laid Bear for FREE, as well as the chance to join my advance readers group, head on over to http://bit.ly/2bsZEkG
Prologue
Legend has it that when you dream of a shifter, you’re destined to be their mate. Dom had haunted my dreams for weeks before we started dating. Back then, I had no idea that the man of my dreams was actually my dream man, let alone what was to happen after we got together…
Chapter One
My day started with an orgasm and laughter. I didn’t think it could get any better.
“I love your smile,” Dom, told me, lightly running the back of his hand down the side of my cheek, before brushing over my lips with his thumb. I moaned and closed my eyes, opening my mouth to gently nip his thumb.
“And I love the way you make me feel,” I replied. “I love the feel of your mouth against mine.” I gently kissed his lips. “I love the feel of your hands against my body.” I took his hand and planted a little kiss on the tip of each finger. “And I love your cock, dear Gods, I love your cock…”
I moved down the bed, taking him into my mouth. Even though we’d just made love, he was still an impressive size and he groaned, arching his pelvis towards me, sighing when I pulled away.
“Why did you stop?” he protested, flexing his muscles so that his penis looked as though it was wagging at me in disapproval, half-way to being fully erect again already.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I’m not stopping. It’s just that it’s my turn to open up Perk this morning, so I figured that we could multi-task and head on over to the shower. We can get clean as we get dirty!”
Dom growled, letting some of his bear leak into his voice, as he scooped me up and carried me to the shower. I’m a curvy girl, but in the powerful arms of a shifter, he made me feel as light as a feather.
Once under the running water, Dom picked up the soap and turned me round to scrub my back. I could feel his erection pressing up against me and he gently grabbed the back of my neck, pushing me to lean forward so that he could massage more of my back. I closed my eyes, arching my spine to press up against him as his hands skillfully worked their way around all those pressure points on my back that I never knew were there until he made them feel oh-so-good.
I rubbed myself against his groin, hoping that he’d take the hint and insert himself in me, but instead, he pulled me upright, turning me round.
“Not just yet, beautiful,” he breathed. “I haven’t finished washing you.”
Putting the soap between my legs, he worked up a lather before setting it to one side, using his hand to make sure that every part of me was clean. Teasing me with his fingers, he rubbed against my clit, forcing me to hold onto him as my knees buckled with the intensity of how he was making me feel.
“Dom…” I moaned, biting my lip in a vain attempt to hold back the scream that was building with my orgasm as his hands continued their insistent, erotic movement.
“I think you’re clean,” he grinned, when my body finished shaking. “Now to make you dirty.”
Reaching down, he put his hands underneath my thighs, lifting me up as I wrapped my legs around him so he could penetrate me. Resting my back against the shower wall for support, he started fucking me hard, and all I could do was close my eyes and submit to the pleasure washing over me in waves so powerful that I thought I’d never surface again.
I could feel his cock pulsing inside me, the tell-tale sign that he was about to cum, and I clenched my pelvic floor, tightening myself around him, wanting to make him feel as good as he was making me. His cries joined mine as he exploded inside me.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, Stephanie,” he whispered, running his hands through my hair.
My heart melted, as I kissed him in reply. “Me too.”
o0o
I practically skipped towards Perk You Up, the coffee shop where I was temporary manager. Dom and I had been dating for a couple of months and things were just getting better and better. I never thought I’d meet someone like him, someone who made me feel as if I were the only woman in the world who mattered, someone who went out of his way to do those silly little things he knew would make me happy, like surprising me at work with flowers or making out in the back row like we were teenagers.
I really did think this could be love and hearing that Dom thought so too had put the biggest smile on my face.
As I drew near to Perk, my good mood evaporated. The lights were on, even though I knew that they’d been turned off last night – I’d done it myself. Since Joe, the owner, had left to visit family in Boston, I’d made it a point of principle to be the last one to leave at night and first to arrive in the morning, so no one else should be inside this early. As I drew closer, I could see movement inside as someone went into the back where we kept our supplies.
We were being robbed!
Reaching into my purse to call the cops, I cursed when I realized that I’d left my cell at home. I was going to have to hope that I could get to the phone inside the store before the burglars saw me and use my pepper spray to defend myself if it came down to it.
Holding my breath to delude myself that this would be the difference between the burglars hearing me and being able to reach the phone undetected, I slowly pushed the door open and tiptoed into Perk, keeping my head low as I crept over to the counter. What if there was more than one burglar and they were watching the front of the store to see if anyone was there?
Worried that I was still too visible a target, I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled round to the back of the counter, I reached up to where I thought the phone was to grab the handset. However, I misjudged its location and as my hand scrabbled about on the counter to find it, I knocked the phone to the floor, the clatter it made falling down sounding like a herd of elephants running through the room.
The door to the store room opened and I whirled round, screaming as I closed my eyes to protect myself from the Mace and pressed the spray button, wildly aiming it in the general direction of whoever was there.
“Stephanie! Stop! It’s me!”
I dropped the can in horror as I realized that I’d just Maced my boss!
“Joe! I am so sorry! I thought you were a burglar!”
I rushed to his side, wincing in sympathy as he tried to blink away the chemicals I’d sprayed into his eyes. “Here. Let’s get you to the sink.”
I took his arm, guiding him over to the si
nk behind the counter and turning on the cold tap to get some water to wash his eyes.
“We might have to take you to the emergency room,” I said, worried by how red his eyes were.
“I’ll be fine. Luckily your aim’s really bad, so most of the spray landed on my shirt.” Joe dabbed at his face and, to my surprise, his eyes already looked better.
“Wow. I’ve heard that shifters healed fast, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in real life,” I gasped. Despite his claim that I’d missed my target, I’d seen how puffed up and watery his eyes had been when the spray had hit him, yet the red seemed to fade while I watched, the swelling going down at a remarkable rate.
Joe frowned. “How do you know that I’m a shifter?”
“I haven’t told anyone else,” I rushed to reassure him. “I figured that if you hadn’t told us yourself it was for a good reason and it wasn’t my place to say anything to the other staff. But I went out on a date with your brother and-”
“Justin,” Joe sighed. “Of course. I should have known that he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut. All right. It seems that you and I have even more to talk about than I thought. Come on. Let’s start getting everything together for the morning rush and we can discuss it all while we work.”
Dashing one last bit of water over his eyes, you could barely tell that anything was wrong with them as he led the way out to the store room.
“I flew in early this morning and I figured that I’d come in and check on the place before I went home,” he explained. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but this was the first time I left Perk and-”
“And it’s your baby,” I finished. “It’s okay. I totally understand. I’d feel the same in your place. As you will have seen from the monthly accounts that I’ve been emailing over, we’ve been doing really well, so hopefully you’re happy with how much money’s been coming in. One of the ways in which I’ve saved money is by sourcing a new supplier with a great range of ethically sourced coffee beans at a very good price, so I’ve been adding the details of where the beans actually come from to our marketing materials and people seem to love knowing more about their coffee. I’ve been experimenting with blends to come up with weekly specials that the customers have loved, so much so that sales of the specials have really surprised me. It seems that people want to grab a cup while it’s still available and I’ve been making notes of the ones that sell the best so we can bring them back on a more permanent basis later in the year.
“I’ve also been expanding our food range, trying to encourage people to stay longer to eat and buy more coffee while they’re here. Our main business is still take outs but I think it makes sense to get people to stay longer if we can so that they buy refills at a discount price. It’s early days yet, but as you can see from the figures, my strategy definitely seems to be working. I’ve got quite a few more ideas that I want to test as well, but I thought I’d wait until people were used to what I’ve done already. You don’t want to scare people away by changing too much too soon – and obviously it’s still your coffee shop, so ultimately I need to be sure that you’re fine with everything that I’m doing with Perk.”
I was aware that I was gabbling, but I didn’t seem to be able to stop talking. I’d thought that Joe would tell me when he was coming back, so I’d have time to prepare myself to present my ideas properly and show him how well they’d worked with the figures to back me up. Joe had always been resistant to changing anything around the place and I wished that I’d been able to talk him through how and why I’d rearranged the store room instead of pepper spraying him the moment I saw him.
After attacking my boss, I was going to be lucky if Joe didn’t just fire me on the spot, no matter how good a job I’d done.
“Breathe, Stephanie,” laughed Joe when he finally got the opportunity to get a word in. “If you’d let me finish, what I was actually going to say was that I wanted to come and see the place one last time before I left for good.”
“For good?” My jaw dropped. I’d always thought that Joe was going to die serving coffee here.
My face must have been a picture, because Joe laughed at my expression. “I know. I always thought I was going to grow old behind that counter, but my time away has made me re-examine my priorities. Since you already know that I’m a shifter, I can be a little bit more open about what’s happening, but as far as the rest of the staff are concerned, they just need to know that I’m going home to help out with the family business, all right?”
“Of course. I promise I won’t tell anyone.” I pretended to zip my mouth shut and threw away the key.
“Well, since you’ve been on a date with my brother, I don’t want to make any kind of comment about your taste…”
“It’s okay. It was only one date and it was pretty obvious that we weren’t right for each other. Nothing happened between us,” I reassured him. “I’m seeing someone else now anyway.”
“I’m glad.” Joe’s relief was palpable. “Justin’s trouble. Always has been. I’m sure he means well with women – well, most women anyway – but he just can’t seem to help leaving a trail of broken hearts and devastation in his wake and I don’t just mean in his love life either.”
He paused, seeming to struggle to choose his words. “As he told you, I’m a werewolf. I don’t know how much you know about shifter politics, but there are different ways of doing things between different types of shifters, which can make for interesting times when two species collide over territory.
“The whole ‘lone wolf’ thing is a bit of a misnomer. We’re actually very family and pack loyal. If you threaten one of us, you threaten all of us. Even after all this time away from home, the second I knew that the panthers were going to try a land grab, I had to go home to help. There’s been trouble brewing with the panthers for a long time, but until recently it was all talk and no action. I was hoping that I’d be able to smooth things out enough for the pack to handle things if I just went down to Boston for a while, but it’s becoming obvious that the pack needs me to be there until a more permanent solution is found and given how complicated the situation is, it could be years before the pack is safe from panther attack, if we ever are.”
He took a deep breath. “That’s why I was wondering if you would be willing to take over managing Perk You Up on a more permanent basis, so I can focus on keeping the pack safe.”
“You’re kidding?” This was the last thing I expected to hear after what I’d just done to Joe.
“I would never kid over something as serious as coffee,” Joe deadpanned. “But the figures speak for themselves. This place needed a fresh pair of eyes to, well, perk it up a bit. Seeing the positive impact you’ve had round here, I know that it’ll be in safe hands with you. So what do you say, Stephanie? Do you want to be the official, full-time, permanent manager?”
Did I?
I’d thought that the day couldn’t get any better. I’d been wrong.
Chapter Two
I gazed around at the staff gathered around me for our Monday morning pep talk. Not just the staff. My staff. I didn’t think I was ever going to get used to the idea that Joe had handed the coffee shop over to me. He trusted me and I wasn’t going to let him down.
“All right, everyone. As you all know, Joe has appointed me manager.”
“The official, full-time, permanent manager,” corrected Kate with a grin. “And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person too. We’re all really happy for you, aren’t we?”
She looked round for support and the other baristas smiled and nodded in agreement.
“I’m glad, because I’ve got quite a few changes planned over the coming months and your support will make a huge amount of difference,” I told them. “For a start, I’m going to put a staff suggestion box in the back, so if you think of anything you think will help bring in business, please write it down. I’m sure I’m not the only one with ideas round here and I want you to feel that your contribution is valued.” I waved the s
mall cardboard box I’d brought in for staff feedback. “I’d like to put on a few more events with live music or maybe a poetry slam, but if you have better ideas to bring in customers or suggestions for who we could get to perform, let me know. If you’ve got a friend with a band, this could be their big break! Likewise, if there’s anything you think I could be doing better, please don’t be afraid to tell me. You can do it anonymously in the suggestion box if you don’t feel comfortable talking to me in person, but I like to think that I’m approachable, so you can always just talk to me if you prefer. We’re a team and I want you to know that we’re all in this together. I can’t do it without you.
“I’ve also updated the noticeboard with the targets for this week, so please make sure you go and check it out. I’ve made them ambitious but realistic. I’d really love it if I could send Joe some record-breaking figures this month, so all that’s left to say is to remind you to make good coffee and make everyone who leaves Perk You Up all perked up!”
The staff all turned to take up their stations ready to deal with the early morning rush while I went out to the back room where the staff took their break so that I could put the suggestion box in a prominent position. The team that I had around me felt like a really tight family, so I couldn’t imagine what they might want to tell me anonymously, but I figured that it couldn’t hurt to give them the option, just in case. I was absolutely determined to be the best manager I possibly could be.
When Joe had first left me in charge, I’d hit the local business bookstore and now I had a whole stack of books on management at home that I was gradually working my way through. Maybe when Joe was ready to retire completely, I might be able to persuade him to sell the coffee shop to me.
“Don’t run before you can walk, Stephanie,” I laughed to myself, as I pinned a motivational poster to the noticeboard next to where I had the targets.
Sales go up and down. Service stays forever – Jason Goldberg.
Caring Bear: A Paranormal BBW Shifter Pregnancy Romance (Love Laid Bear Book 5) Page 1