“Lori, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that at all. I lost control of myself. You looked so beautiful and vulnerable standing there on the forest track that I didn’t even know what I was doing. I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened.”
“But – but what’s the problem?” she stammered.
“I can’t be with you,” he said.
“Why not?” she demanded, when he didn’t say anything else. “Is it because I’ve got a baby? Or because I’m not good looking enough? Or because you don’t think I’m good enough for you?” She was so full of confusion and frustrated desire, and hurt that it came out as anger, and he looked taken aback.
“No – it’s none of those things.” His voice was full of pain. “You’re amazing, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. But we can’t be together.”
“Tell me why, Bruno,” she said, enunciating each word clearly.
“I can’t. It’s too complicated.”
“No,” she said simply. “Shiftr picked us out as a perfect match. You just kissed me like you meant it. I don’t care how difficult this is for you; you’re going to tell me the reason, right now.” He groaned, and tried to look at her, but couldn’t meet her eyes.
“I know Shiftr thinks we’re a perfect match, and believe me, I can understand why. I also appreciate that I acted like an ass when I sent you the message the other day. I went to reply to you, and saw that you’d removed me from your feed, which made me understand that I’d hurt you. I was actually trying to write a kind message. I kind of signed up to the app by accident while I was helping Niall sign up to it. Then Tad was looking through the profiles and clicked on yours. I didn’t want you to see that I’d left a track on it and passed you by, so I thought I’d send a message. But now I can see that it didn’t help matters at all.” She shrugged.
“I guess replying or not replying would’ve been equally bad, really. All that matters is that you don’t want to be with me.” The eyes that met hers were full of fire.
“’Cant’, not ‘don’t’,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Really?” she said tauntingly, her hands on her hips. Secretly, she was shocked at her behavior. She never acted like this. But his evasiveness was driving her wild.
“Really.” He stepped close again, and took her in his arms. As his mouth met hers in a burning kiss, he swept her right off the ground. He walked her backwards, until she felt her back bumping against something unyielding. A tree trunk. His huge hands grasped her thighs, and somehow, she wrapped her legs around his waist, as there was nowhere else for them to go. He kissed her deeply, his lips soft and pillowy, and his stubble brushing her cheeks thrillingly. She felt weak, like a rag doll. All she was aware of was her hunger for him, that raged through her body like wildfire. He could have flung her down on a pile of dead leaves, and she wouldn’t have minded. In fact, she would’ve welcomed it. She ached to feel this huge, muscular man on top of her, rough and rugged in his firefighter’s uniform. She knew what those callused hands felt like, and she yearned to feel them on the bare flesh of her thighs, her breasts, between her legs. The thought made her shiver, and squeeze him tighter. He pulled away from the kiss and looked into her eyes, searching, before he dove in again, his velvety tongue dancing around hers in blissful motions.
His mouth moved onto her neck, in hungry, biting kisses. He murmured her name over and over. “Lori, Lori”; it sounded like honey on his tongue. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the tree. Then she opened them again and stared up at the tree branches.
“Bruno, put me down,” she said.
“What?” his voice was thick with desire.
“I said, put me down. I’m not going to let you kiss me like this when you’ve just told me that you can’t be with me!” She braced her arms on his shoulders and pushed at his body. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t move an inch, but he let go of her thighs and let her slide to the ground. His eyes were full of regret and suffering.
“My mate,” he began.
“What?” she said, more softly.
“She died in a fire. It was in our house. I was away that night in the next state, working on a conservation project. I’d taken Tad with me because she was a nurse and had to work shifts that weekend, and it was hard to find a sitter, so she was alone. She fell asleep with her laptop on the bed. It overheated and caught fire. Apparently the carbon monoxide fumes intoxicated her, and she never even woke up. And then the house just turned into an inferno. It was all ashes by the time the firefighters put the blaze out. I know she died in her sleep and didn’t suffer, which makes it a little less awful. But still, it was so needless. I didn’t know anything about fire then. I wish I had, wish I’d used some common sense. I knew laptops get hot. I should’ve told her not to leave it on the bed. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left her alone. It’s all my fault.” Lori stared at him, her heart aching for him.
“I’m so sorry to hear that, Bruno. And I’m sure I’m not the first to tell you that it obviously wasn’t your fault.” He looked down, silently.
“Is that why you became a firefighter?”
“Yes. It was partly the guilt. I felt like I had a duty to understand everything about fire that I could, to atone for my ignorance. And it was partly to help others. I wanted to make sure that no-one else would die in a fire while I had the chance to protect them. I’m not always successful. I’ve lost a couple of people over the years, and it’s traumatized me all over again. But you, you were the closest I came to losing in a long time.” He reached out and touched her cheek with the tip of his index finger. The roughness felt nice on her skin. She felt herself being caught up in the spell again, losing herself to the intensity of her feeling. She took a step back.
“That’s why we can’t be together,” he continued. “Because we met through fire. I lost one mate to fire. It feels like a bad omen to meet my next one because of fire. It all seems too coincidental, and just wrong.”
“But – ” she faltered. She could see his point, kind of.
“The heavens shone on me when I snatched you and Nancy out of the car, against all the odds. Now I can’t tempt fate again. I know there’ll be retribution. I just know it.” His expression was as serious as she’d ever seen in anyone before.
“I don’t know too much about these things – after all, I only discovered that shifters existed a few days ago – but if we’re a perfect match, isn’t that really important in the shifter world, like fate telling us we should be together?” He nodded.
“It is. It’s what every shifter hopes for. But I can’t take the risk of losing you. I can’t have a second mate, especially one that I met through fire. It’s a bad omen. We can’t be together.” Lori was silent as she began to comprehend how tortured he was, how much guilt and pain he concealed beneath his nice guy exterior. She understood his darkness. And she so badly wanted to protect him emotionally. As he’d protected her physically, she wanted to take care of him, remove his pain, show him that both fires were nothing more than terrible accidents. Heal him. But she could see that he wouldn’t let her. Not now. Maybe with time but not now so close after her accident. His feeling and his conviction ran too deep.
“I’m sorry, Lori,” he continued. “Please believe that I don’t say this lightly. Telling you that I can’t be with you, when I so want to be, causes me a lot of grief.”
“Bruno, I’ll be forever grateful that you saved us that day. And I can’t pretend to agree with your reasoning, but I do respect it. I hope, with time, you’ll feel differently. But for now, I think it’ll be too difficult for me to be around you for a while.” She took his huge, rough hand and kissed his knuckles. Then, before her eyes filled with tears, she turned and walked back to the house.
Chapter Ten
Days passed and Lori tried hard to put Bruno out of her mind. It wasn’t easy. His kiss still burned on her lips; her body still felt alive with the memory of him lifting her up and holding her against the tree. It ha
d been by far the most passionate moment of her life. It was the kind of thing she’d dreamed about in high school, when she’d lounged on her bed, scribbling in her diary and fantasizing about finding someone who’d love her, despite her puppy fat. Bruno had wanted her badly. She’d felt it in his kisses, in his impulsiveness, in the way his hands had held her so tight. And he’d turned her on like crazy too. After she’d walked away from him, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the roughness of his stubble as he kissed her, the softness of those well-shaped, masculine lips. It had taken all her self-control not to run back to him, take him by the hand, and lead him deeper into the woods. But she couldn’t. Because, if they’d slept together, she knew she’d never be able to get him out of her head.
She told Andrea all about it, and Andrea listened attentively and comforted her, with a sweetness that she wished they’d shared when they were teenagers.
“It’s such a bitter irony that if the accident hadn’t happened, and I’d just met him on Shiftr, we could’ve dated. It’s the fact that he saved our lives that makes it impossible,” Lori said, when they were curled up on the couch drinking tea one afternoon. Nancy was tottering around in a patch of sunlight, propelling herself from one piece of furniture to the next, and falling on her butt every couple of minutes.
“I know,” Andrea said sadly. “It doesn’t make sense to us humans, but I know that shifters believe in these things very strongly.”
“Do you believe in fate?”
“I’m not sure,” Andrea said, after a pause. “When my life sucked, and I felt like no matter what I did, men would never like me for myself, and would always pick the skinnier girl over me, I felt like life was a random collection of crappy events. But now I’ve met Magnus, and he talks about how I’m his fated mate. Like there was a hole in his life that was waiting to be filled with me. And it kind of makes sense. I mean, Magnus was not short of offers, believe me. But he didn’t find his mate till he was in his thirties, which makes it seem believable. But how about you – do you believe in fate?”
“I think I used to feel like you did, when I was with Rob,” Lori said. “Now, I don’t know. Maybe it’s coincidence that Bruno was on duty the night of the accident, instead of another firefighter, who wouldn’t have risked his life to save us. Maybe it was more than that.”
“And maybe you should speak to him again,” Andrea said, nudging her shoulder.
“No,” Lori said firmly.
“He’s made his decision. I don’t want to cause the poor guy any more emotional torment. Now I need to forget about him and move on with my life. I’ll get back on Shiftr, maybe not for a few weeks, but I will eventually. The whole thing with Bruno has given me a little confidence that other shifters might be interested in me too.”
“That’s great to hear, sis. I can’t wait for us both to be mated, and our kids to hang out together,” Andrea said, squeezing Lori’s hand.
*
A couple of days later, the real estate agent from Hope Valley Property Services called. He couldn’t sell Lori’s old store back to her.
“It’s an issue with the contracts, I’m afraid,” he said, his voice tight and quavering.
“But isn’t there any way around it? Maybe I could take over ownership, and work on evicting them myself?” Lori insisted, suddenly feeling determined to have the store. She wanted to take it on as a project, and pour her energies into it.She wanted to grow a sustainable business that would support her and Nancy. She loved the idea of being able to care for her child and work at the same time, instead of having to put her in childcare while she went off and worked in an office.
“Miss Bianco, I couldn’t let you do that with a clear conscience. I’m afraid that I can’t sell. Please don’t ask me any more about it.”
“Mr Reynolds, please – ”
“The tenants are not very nice people. Please take my advice and forget about the store. Look for a property somewhere else in the town.” He sounded terrified.
“They threatened you, didn’t they?” she persisted. But the line went dead.
Lori put her phone down and stared into space. That was it, then. Her place had been occupied by some gangsters, or whatever they were. Bruno said there were rumors they were into money laundering. She didn’t really understand what that meant, except that it was highly illegal and made some criminals very rich. She thought back to the day that revolting biker had threatened her, the feel of his big, swollen beer gut pressing against her belly, and the naked menace in his yellow eyes, and she shivered. She’d take the real estate agent’s advice and move on, find a place in the south end of town, maybe. It was a crushing disappointment, but it just wasn’t to be. It would probably have needed a lot of renovation anyway. She picked up Andrea’s laptop, and started looking for vacant commercial properties in town.
*
Bruno was on autopilot. He went to work and put out fires, rescued cats from trees, and helped forgetful old ladies get back into their houses when they’d been locked out. He took Tad to school and collected him, when his shifts allowed, and he played ball with him and helped him with his schoolwork. But inside, he was hollow. It was as if something had been ripped out of him. When he’d lost Karen, he didn’t think he could lose any more, but he was wrong. And until a few weeks ago, he was sure he’d never feel desire and passion ever again in his life. But Lori had proved him wrong. So wrong. He’d found another mate, his second chance at love. But fate told him he couldn’t have her. He couldn’t stop thinking about the look in Lori’s eyes just before she’d turned away and left him in the forest. They were huge and unnaturally bright, and full of incomprehension. How can you show me that you want me, and then tell me that you can’t be with me? they seemed to say. He shouldn’t have kissed her. And he certainly shouldn’t have lifted her up and held her in his arms. That was the most damn fool thing he’d done in a long time. But he couldn’t control himself. Her mouth had felt so nice, so soft and velvety, and he’d sensed the passion lying beneath those calm violet eyes. And her body! She was so deliciously curvy as she writhed in his arms. It was doing all kinds of things to him. He was glad he’d been wearing his heavyweight uniform, so she couldn’t see how much she’d affected him. His bear let out a howl of total frustration. It knew she was his fated mate, and it didn’t share his beliefs. But Bruno couldn’t let his bear rule his actions. If it did, he would have ended up ravishing her right in the middle of the woods. There’ll be another mate, in time, he told himself and his bear, but it didn’t sound convincing to either of them.
“Are you going to date the pretty lady?” Tad asked him.
“No, I’m not, son,” he said sadly. “We’re not right for each other.”
“But WHY?” Tad whined, with his child’s incomprehension of the complex emotions that adults created for themselves. In his youthful mind, if two people liked each other, that was enough.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Bruno said automatically, before stopping himself. It had driven him crazy when adults had given him that patronizing response when he was small. He considered the best way to explain it, and decided to be honest. Tad was a very mature kid, and he knew his mom had died in a fire. He couldn’t remember her too well though – in his conscious mind anyway.
“The way I met Lori, by rescuing her from the car wreck, makes me think it would be a bad omen for us to be together. Can I leave it at that?” Tad frowned, as if he was thinking hard.
“Omens suck,” he said at last.
“Yes, they do.” Bruno rubbed his head.
“I liked her. I think you and her looked like you should be together.”
“I liked her too, Tad,” Bruno replied.
*
The following Saturday, Bruno and Tad went to the supermarket, stocking up on the few things that the shifter community didn’t grow or hunt for themselves, such as breakfast cereals, some herbs and spices, and cleaning products. And just as they were leaving the shop, they ran into Lau
ren who was on the way in.
“Hey! How are you guys?” she called with her characteristic ebullience. “I haven’t seen you at the house for a while, Bruno. What’s making you such a stranger?”
“Oh, lots of work,” he said, not wanting to admit that he’d been staying away from the clan to limit the possibility of seeing Lori. And the work wasn’t a lie. He’d been picking up extra shifts whenever Tad wasn’t around to keep his mind off things.
He asked after Willow and Connor, and she said they were doing good, and updated him on other comings and goings in the community. She looked at him expectantly, sensing the unspoken question on his lips.
“How’s Lori?” he said at last. Lauren’s lips parted in a brilliant smile.
“She’s doing good, too. Spending most of her time chasing Nancy around, as the little one’s walking well now. Apart from that, she’s busy finding new premises for her shop. She’s starting the online business up again, and the website is starting to look good, but the actual, physical site has been a little harder to find, as Hope Valley doesn’t have many empty properties.”
“But I thought she was going to get her old place back?”
“Oh, no, that one’s a no go. Seems like the current tenants are pretty unsavory characters, and warned her off when she went to see it, and then stopped the owner from selling it to her.” Bruno’s breath caught.
“What do you mean, warned her off?” he said. Lauren ran her tongue between her lips. He sensed his tone had been too forthright. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound so full on. I was just worried.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’m not sure of the full details, but I think she just went to take a look at it, and some mean dude came out and was aggressive with her, and told her not to come back.” Bruno’s blood ran cold. She’d been to see the place right before she saw him at Andrea’s place, and he kissed her in the woods. And she hadn’t mentioned it at all. She’d said something like it was a shock to see it, but she hadn’t said that it had been an unpleasant experience and someone had threatened her.
Shiftr: Swipe Left for Love (Lori) BBW Bear Shifter Romance (Hope Valley BBW Dating App Romance Book 5) Page 10