Bear Mountain Bride: Shifter Romance

by Sky Winters

  He hung out on the couch, applying for jobs while she went to work. It wasn’t a solution, but it was a start.

  One evening, Allie sat on the floor with a package she’d received in the mail from IKEA, trying to make sense of the instructions. “This is supposed to be a crib,” she told Lance.

  Looking over the laptop at her, he grimaced. “It looks like a pile of sanded wood to me,” he joked.

  “It would look better if you’d come down here and help me,” Allie retorted.

  Lance closed the laptop and set it aside, sinking down to his knees from the couch and crawling over towards her. He kissed her neck and cheek, still not exactly helping.

  She let a soft giggle escape her. “Lance, this crib isn’t going to build itself.”

  “Mm,” he replied through a kiss. “But I have some good news and I want to celebrate with you.”

  Allie pulled away from him to look him in the eyes. “Good news?” she asked. “Normally you tell people what the news is before you try and celebrate.”

  “Sorry. I’m not used to having good news to share.”

  She picked up one of the wooden slats that were meant to form the crib’s sides and hit him with it, with a light thwack.

  He chuckled. “A baby of mine is going to be able to eat through that.”

  “TELL me the news!” Allie shouted, but she was laughing. It felt good to live with someone again. They were taking things slowly, but she could not deny her continued attraction to him. Crib-building aside, he was showing her that he could be just as dependable as her goody-goody ex.

  Lance cleared his throat and started helping her assemble the ridiculous, Swedish-crafted cradle. “I got a job,” he said. “And the mythical Powell’s Books.”

  Allie’s eyes widened. “Whaaat!? But have you even been there?”

  He laughed. “No, I got the job purely based on my ability to imagine the place.” He pretended to tap her head with another of the wooden slats. “I went there for an interview while you were at work. I just didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t want to get our hopes up for nothing.”

  Her jaw dropped. That was so impressive. “I have to admit, I’m jealous. I love that place. Oh, my god, Lance! Congratulations!”

  Beaming proudly, he nodded a little. “Now can we celebrate?”

  “How do you want to celebrate?”

  He answered by dropping the wood he was holding and making out with her on top of it. The pile of wood was not much of a pillow, but there was something kinky about making out on top of their baby’s future bed.

  After several minutes of that, Lance finally – and a bit awkwardly – got back up onto his feet and then lifted Allie up into his arms. He carried her to the empty bedroom that was going to be their baby’s nursery. But for the colorful animal wallpaper, there was no evidence of the room’s intention yet. That was for the best, considering Lance’s intention.

  Placing Allie gently down on the blue-carpeted floor, he threw off his shirt and unfastened his pants. As he got on top of her to continue making out with her, Allie pulled his pants off of him and he grabbed at all of her clothing. They kissed amidst a frenzy of flying fabric but, before long, they were naked together.

  Lance pressed himself inside of her and thrust his cock against her walls, but he was slower this time. They were sober this time, which was a nice change.

  She looked up at him as he took his time with her, exploring around and not being so rough. Gasping, she smiled at him. “It’s nice to not have an exit strategy this time,” she murmured into his ear.

  “You don’t need an exit strategy,” he whispered back, shaking his head and placing a finger into her mouth. “Just like I’m never going to exit you, if I can help it.”

  Allie laughed softly, licking his finger and sucking at it.

  They fucked each other nice and slowly for a few moments before he pulled out and lifted her up, bringing her over to the back wall of the nursery room. She put her hands up against the wall and moaned loudly as he inserted his throbbing penis into her from behind.

  Lance had an insatiable desire for making love to her from behind. She felt like she could get used to it… particularly when he licked his fingers and brought them to her clitoris. He stroked and flicked at it until she was barely able to keep standing.

  She came and held onto the wall to keep from falling. His hand was now surely covered with her female juices. “Aaaahhhh!” she shouted. Their shouts and moans echoed throughout the empty room and the still-spacious apartment. All of a sudden, he spun her around and held her up against him, putting his cock back inside her and holding her as he stood, ramming into her and watching as her face contorted in indescribable pleasure.

  He tightened his grip on her hips, practically drawing blood with his fingernails as he held on and came inside her.

  “Ahh, shit!” he yelled, closing his eyes. “Whooo.”

  Slowly and carefully, he lowered Allie back down to the floor and pulled out of her. He squeezed her boobs for a moment, gently getting her nipples good and hard before he walked out of the nursery and back to the pile of abandoned wood.

  Allie gathered up her clothes and carried them back out to their living room. She got dressed while Lance worked to put their crib together.

  Once the crib was built and didn’t fall apart at the slightest touch, they beamed at each other and carried it into the nursery.

  “One item down,” Allie said. “And so, so many more to go.”

  Lance smiled and put his arm around her. “Well, at least he or she won’t have to sleep in a drawer.”

  When Monday came around again, Allie was pleased to be joined by Lance in the kitchen at seven a.m. She poured a bowl of cereal for them to share and they sat together, eating chocolatey cereal and drinking the chocolate and banana infused coffee. She had become addicted to the stuff, but it wasn’t the bad, dangerous sort of addiction.

  He could have his cigarettes if she could have her coffee.

  Once their breakfast was over, they went downstairs to the parking lot and got onto his bike. She hadn’t been on it since their accident, but as she hugged him and they took off down the road, she realized that she trusted him.

  Lance drove the motorcycle responsibly and got her to her office building in no time. “My shift doesn’t start for, like, three more hours,” he confessed then, smiling a sideways smirk at her. “I just wanted to be with you.”

  Allie smiled and blushed. “Careful, Lance Chase. Don’t forget your bad ass reputation.”

  He chuckled. “It’s Lance Chase DuBois,” he said. “And I’m making a new reputation.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yup,” he said. “I think I’m going to start a motorcycle club for Portland dads. That’s how bad it is.”

  Allie laughed, but she knew he was serious. And she loved him for it. THE END

  Alien Romance

  Alien Lord’s Slave

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cynthia had been staring at the same spreadsheet for what seemed like too long. She was supposed to submit her analysis of the rolling budget her manager had prepared from the costings she'd provided. All she had to do was to simply cross reference the figures to see if they matched, nothing that should have taken her three hours, but it was hard to concentrate when her husband’s face kept popping to the forefront of her mind.

  And it wasn't only his face, either, but the face of the woman she had caught him with as well. After five years of marriage, she had thought her life with him, though not perfect, was good enough to last a few more years. She certainly didn’t think it would end in this way.

  “Cynthia!” she heard her boss call. His office was only three cubicles away, and he had a terrible habit of calling to his employees from there.

  “Coming, Mr. Sloan,” she replied, and stood hurriedly. She would just have to wing it. She smoothed her skirt and gripped the file in her hand; it contained the same information as the one in the Microsoft Excel
document.

  Sloan was drinking coffee when she arrived. He waved her inside as he sipped and then put the cup aside. He didn’t speak as he took the file she handed to him. “So?” he asked her.

  “Well,” she began unsteadily, “the performance variables show that more revenue is being generated than costs are being expended. If you look at the curve--”

  “Right,” he said, nodding. “But how does the budget appear this year with respect to other years before? And are we accurately accounting for the time value of the dollars here? Miss Scott, I don’t want to allocate less than we need, nor do I want to overspend in areas I don’t need to.”

  There had been times before when she loved her job, but this wasn’t one of them. Mr. Sloan was speaking, but most of what he was saying was going right over her head. She felt like a zombie, and Jeffrey’s image came to mind once more, and her eyes grew glossy. She bowed her head so he wouldn’t see the telltale signs of her heartbreak.

  “Miss Scott?” he asked after a while.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, and tried hard to perk up. She swept her hair behind her ear, and licked her lips moist. She felt like all the liquid in her body had been diverted to her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. He looked at her as if concerned, rested the file on the desk, and leaned into his leather chair.

  She sighed. “Honestly, I am just going through some personal issues,” she told him without looking at him.

  He bit the tail of his pen and scrutinized her. Then he opened his file and looked through it again. “I guess that explains why you didn’t get much done here. I see the notes section has been left empty.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said as she reached for the file. “I will look it over and give it back to you by day’s end.”

  He held it suspended still, and then rested it back on the desk before him. “Cynthia,” he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose, “you are one of my youngest and brightest analysts, and I won’t have you here like this. My suggestion? Take a few days off and get your head together. I'll have someone handle this and hopefully, when you get back, you will be raring to go.”

  He was smiling, and seemed sincere in his offer. “Are you sure, sir? I mean, I could--”

  “Nonsense!” he bellowed. “I’ll expect you back in a week.

  She asked, not wanting to seem too eager, but the truth of the matter was she could really use some time off. “Thank you, Mr. Sloan,” she said, and backed out of the office. She could feel the weight lifting from her shoulders, but another kind of pressure was taking hold of her heart.

  She kept her head held down as she made her way out of the office, trying not to grab the attention of her nosy coworkers, but they seemed too distracted by the loads of work that accompanied the month's end that she probably appeared to them as nothing more than a blur in the distance.

  When she got to her car, she flopped down into the seat, and took a moment to catch her breath and steady her heart before she turned the key in the ignition and headed home.

  Home was where most of her demons lay. As she pulled into the driveway of her suburban home, the manicured lawn only served to remind her of their picnics in the park; her stoop was where they'd sat many nights and stargazed; her kitchen was where they'd shared delectable dinners; and her bedroom…that was a place she could hardly stand now.

  She gazed up the stairs, decided against it, went to the refrigerator, and grabbed a beer, a six-pack she had bought and befriended over the past week. Cynthia went back to the living room and fell on the couch. This time she couldn’t hold back the tears, despite the beer.

  She was knee deep in her salty lake of tears when she heard the phone ringing. She glanced at it, and groaned before reaching for the device.

  “Hello?” she croaked.

  “Is this Miss Cynthia Scott?” the caller asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, already planning a response for the potential telemarketer.

  “This is Sally, from Wildlife Reservations. Are you still interested in the cabin?”

  That’s right! She had made plans to go there with Jeffrey, and completely forgotten about it. She was about to refuse when she thought that a week to herself was exactly what she needed.

  “You know what? Yes, I'm still interested. Thanks for calling,” she said.

  “Okay, Miss Scott,” the caller replied cheerfully, and hung up.

  The timing was perfect, as she only now had a week to spare. Her trip would, hopefully, leave her rejuvenated for her return to the office. Her mind drifted to Jeffrey, and she wondered what he was doing. Her first assumption made her face grow red, and she stomped to the storage cabinet where she yanked her suitcase free and hauled it upstairs.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The air was crisp, kind and forgiving, and she held her head up towards the green and yellow blanket of leaves overhead. The sun forced its way through, hitting her arms and feet, projecting colored patterns on her clothes and body. She was barefoot at the moment, and she wriggled her toes in the cool grass as she enjoyed all that nature had to offer by way of comfort. She wrapped the shawl around her to stave off the morning's stubborn chill, and walked along the path. For the next few minutes her mind had completely forgotten the name Jeffrey, and her lips managed an upward slant.

  She found the boardwalk at the beginning of the pier and walked to the water’s edge. She sat there and dangled her feet in the water, enjoying the coolness on her skin. Her eyes wandered along the water’s edge, all the way to the coast, until a glint struck her eye, causing temporary blindness.

  “What the hell?” she asked. She held her head back this time, trying to avoid the effect, should it happen again, when she noticed what she thought was a piece of metal through the trees. “Now that’s odd,” she thought aloud. She had been there before, and technology was usually absent from this environment. A piece of metal through the trees was a virtually impossible occurrence, yet there it was now, distinct through the green and yellow foliage.

  As if in a trance she got up, went back down the boardwalk, and back on the trail. She kept her eyes peeled forward, searching for any signs of a possible wreckage. Maybe a small plane had crashed and there were injured people out there. The thought of that made her walk faster, until she got to where she thought she had seen the object, only nothing was there now. She turned about, thinking maybe she had veered onto the wrong path, but when she looked through the trees, she could see the end of the pier where she was sitting before. She was standing in the right spot, but there was nothing metallic and shiny there.

  “I must be losing it,” she muttered to herself. She pulled the shawl around her and turned to walk back. Her heart stopped, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw the figure standing before her. It was like a man, only not. He was tall, and his skin a ‘whiter shade of pale.’ His yellow hair was pinned at his nape in a ponytail, and he wore only trousers; the rest of his body was painted in black and white swirls going around his middle and to his back. It was hard not to notice his bulging muscles, except, of course, when she was noticing that he wasn’t human.

  Her eyes nearly popped from her sockets when he stepped closer. She started to retreat, but in the same moment, the gleam struck her eye again, and she noticed the metal object.

  “Over here!” she said and waved, in a desperate bid to distract him. It worked. When he turned to look, she dashed off in the opposite direction. The fact that she hadn’t worked out in a long time, or even ran anywhere, for that matter, made it easy for the muscled alien to catch up with her. She screamed when she felt his shadow clawing at her, and when he grabbed her, they both fell. His hand came down over mouth, and then she smelled something awful. By the time her brain had registered the smell, her head was spinning, as were the trees above her. The last thing she saw was the smile on his face as he brought his face closer to hers.

  ************

  Cynthia woke suddenly from her sleep, and the act gave her a
terrible headache. She rested her palms against her temples to quell the rising pressure there, and looked around her. She could barely make anything out, but when her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, she saw that she was in the company of several other women. They were slowly waking up, too, some had already woken, and all of them seemed frightened. This was exactly the emotion she should be feeling, but for some reason, she felt only numb instead.

  “Oh, you are all awake,” the figure said as he entered the room. He turned on the blue lights, and she saw that he was the same man she had seen on the trail.

  “What is this?” one woman asked.

  He looked at her as if he was about to answer and then turned to the other women. “I am Bracken, and I am from the planet Argon. You have been specially chosen to be life mates for our men,” he told them. “Right about now you should be feeling a slight pinch on your arms, right there,” he said, indicating the bicep region.

  All eyes focused there, and Cynthia could hardly believe she hadn’t noticed it before. “What is that?” she managed to ask.

  “That is how we will be able to communicate. Relax, and enjoy the trip,” he said, and moved off.

  “Hey, Bracken,” she called after him. She had had enough of men at the moment, and she could hardly believe they were sailing off into space with a cargo of women destined to become wives for alien husbands. That was the last thing she wanted.

  He stopped and turned toward her. “Do not speak to me,” he said, condescendingly.

  “I will speak to anyone or anything I please,” she replied. “You came to our world and kidnapped us, and you expect me to be silent and fall in line? That’s not going to happen, and if you think I'm going to this Argon place to sleep with any of--” And that was all she said.