Barely Bear: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance

by Elsa Jade

  “I wouldn’t take it slow,” he growled. “And you’re a virgin.”

  She curled her lips at him, half smile, half answering growl. “Maybe I’ve just never found anything—anyone—I wanted badly enough yet.”

  “And that’s me?”

  Disbelief cracked his voice, and she almost smiled. Who would’ve guessed this big bad bear had a vulnerable side?

  Her amusement faded. Because he didn’t have his bear back yet, she reminded herself. When he did, he’d be king again, and she’d be…still herself. “I want this night.”

  He took one step toward her, the dock creaking ominously under his bare feet. “Swear this thing between us isn’t a spell gone awry. I won’t take you if there’s anything more than moonlight between us.”

  Honesty compelled her to answer, “Everything has magic. The heat of the night. The chill in the water. Even loneliness.” She lifted her chin. “And there is power in first times, it’s true. That’s what I want from you. But I’ve not bewitched you, Thorburn Montero, if that’s what you’re afraid of. Not beyond the oh-so irresistible temptation of what you see here, anyway.”

  Fingers steady, she loosened the tie at the neck of her peasant blouse. With a shimmy of her shoulders, the neckline widened, exposing the lacy vee of the white camisole underneath.

  Thor caught his breath, a deep rasp that sounded like a groan. “Rita…”

  She waited for a heartbeat but he said nothing more, only rolled forward to the balls of his feet, so she gave another shrug. The shirt slipped down, hung up on the cuffs of her crutches for just a moment before fluttering to the ground—a blue checkered gingham flag of surrender.

  Except he was the one who sounded beaten. With another groan—no, that was definitely a moan this time—he watched with hungry eyes as she unfastened the button on her culottes. The thin denim clung to her hips just long enough to look like a tease and then pooled at her feet.

  In two long steps, he closed almost all the distance between, stopping just within arm’s reach. He didn’t touch her, but the scalding heat of his bare skin eclipsed her nervousness like lightning outshone a lightning bug.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he rasped. “That what I see is entirely too tempting.”

  She let go of the last of her hesitation—and her crutches—and stepped out of her sensible shoes and the circle of her discarded clothes, wearing only her camisole and panties. She wavered, hardly perceptible, but he noticed and reached out to her.

  “I won’t fall,” she protested.

  “Not while I’m here.”

  Which wouldn’t be for long, which was why she wouldn’t let herself fall. But she could hold onto him for just a little while and that would be enough.

  Chapter 8

  When his hands closed around her hips, steadying her, Thor felt his own shudders ease, something inside him settling into place.

  He’d jumped into the lake hoping the cold would take the edge off the simmering, restless need that had ignited with that one innocent kiss. He’d told himself he’d go back to the house when she was safely confined in the bedroom. And it had almost worked.

  Then he clambered out of the water and she was right there, as if he’d conjured her out of moonlight and lust.

  Like the magic-infused rose, she glimmered with highlights of silver. Her skin, silkier than the skimpy white top held up only by two narrow ribbons over her shoulders, gleamed like the moonstone that graced the cabin door—a welcome to all shifters.

  Rita had invited only him.

  It made him want to roar, an appallingly primitive response considering he couldn’t blame his missing beast. But he’d always known as rex ursi everything he had was given to the clan, every action, every consideration, every dream.

  Rita—this night—was only his.

  He tightened his grasp on her hips. Though the rough pads of his fingers caught on the white cotton of her panties, underneath, her flesh was yielding. He growled a low, approving noise as she canted her hips toward him. She raised her gaze—her green eyes darkened to winter pine—a bold stare that gaffed him like he was some careless fish floating by.

  And he wanted it, exulted in that pierce of desire. Almost as exhilarating as the hook of her finger in the open fly of his pants. Her knuckle bumped his swelling erection, and his breath left him in a surprised grunt, knocking him backward a step.

  “I’m a virgin,” she purred, “but I’m not that innocent.”

  “Because of your studies of natural magic?’

  “Because of romance novels.”

  He huffed out another breath, not quite a laugh. “High expectations.”

  “And low-down dirty fantasies.”

  His cock perked up higher, straining against the confines of his undone pants. “Tell me more.”

  “Read ‘em yourself.”

  “Gimme a hint where to start at least,” he wheedled.

  “Once upon a time…”

  “Ah. A classic.” He reeled her closer, trapping her hand between their bodies. “Usually ends with a kiss, right?”

  He’d told her he couldn’t do slow, but that was a lie. For her, he’d move slow as winter honey.

  Or so he swore to himself.

  Bending over her, he lowered his head and skimmed his mouth over hers, light as the breeze over the lake. She hummed softly and parted her lips. The velvety caress of that lush upper curve sent a hard, hot pulse careening through his body, and he slid his hands farther behind her, taking ahold of her backside, anchoring himself. Slow, slow…

  She rocked into him, bringing their bodies together flush from the blunt knock of their knees to the tender give of her breasts against his chest. He traced his tongue over the arc of her lip, as if he could taste the excited gasp of her breath.

  Actually, he could—she tasted of cinnamon, a little spicy bite that inflamed all his senses. He sank his fingers into her haunches, wanting to pull her closer.

  Instead, she wriggled against him, bringing her arms crisscross between them and opening a space for cooler air to flow. Wrestling down his reluctance, he pulled back to give her distance—slow, slow, slow—and she unwound her arms, flinging off her skimpy top in one wanton gesture.

  She gave a hard shake of her head, the usually tidy auburn curve roughed into sable waves, and the movement sent her breasts bouncing. The breath exploded from him in a wordless oath.

  Fuck slow.

  He glided his hands up from her hips to cup the sweet mounds. With his big hands, he could cradle them perfectly with just enough room left over for his mouth. He dipped his head for a taste of her and groaned deep in his throat, deeper even than his beast would’ve been. The faint hint of salt and sun and desert dust couldn’t disguise the true scent of her skin—something sweet but musky, like the ripest cherries on the verge of turning to wine. He traced his tongue down the arch of her throat, feeling the heave as she swallowed, tasting the richer fragrance as he made his way to her cleavage. The throb of her heartbeat was a drumming in his ears. Not just her heartbeat, but his too, in sync.

  As rex ursi, he’d always had to hold a piece of himself back. But now that piece was missing, and he could give himself wholeheartedly.

  What was left of his heart anyway. At least for tonight.

  His bear might be MIA, but he knew how to find all the secret places on her body that would make her sigh. Though he wasn’t versed in the sacred geometry of her magical world, he could draw a simple circle with his tongue around her nipple, tracing an ever tightening spiral toward the stiff peak. Ah, there was her first sigh as he closed his lips gently on the swollen flesh, suckling the nub between his teeth until she threaded her fingers through his hair and the scent rising from her body was more darkest rum than wine.

  He traced a straight line across the valley between her breasts to her other nipple, and now she was clutching his shoulders, her short, sensible nails driving deep.

  Marking him. The thought was a darker, more dangerous
pleasure than any hard liquor had ever given him.

  That wicked spirit urged him to triangulate from the sensitive tips of her breasts down lower. With his mouth and one hand caressing her nipples, he dragged his other hand over the soft swell of her belly to the white scrap of fabric over her mound. Slow, slow, slow, he hissed at himself.

  “Take it off,” she moaned. “I want to feel you.”

  Virgin, not innocent. He let out a rasping breath and fisted his hand in the cotton. Fabric shredded, and he didn’t even have the excuse of claws…

  Thick, sable curls down there held him off for a moment, like the ruff of a wary wild animal guarded its vulnerable pulse. But he delved deeper, spreading two fingers in a peace sign, as if he could calm her with a touch.

  Instead, he drove her wild. He pressed down with his two fingers on the outer rim of her labia, knowing the hidden inner structures of her clitoris would amplify the pleasure through her core. How virginal? How not innocent?

  He felt the pout of her inner lips between his fingers, as plush as the curve of her upper lip, parted now on one endless inhalation of delight. By the great bear, he needed to see her in the bright light of day, watch the flush of his touch suffuse her skin, marking her as she’d marked him.

  “More,” she breathed. “Don’t tease me.”

  “But tease and please are so close,” he murmured.

  “Do you want me to beg?”

  From the heady mix of defiance and excitement in her tone, he guessed she’d do whatever he asked.

  He’d never felt more a king.

  He angled his touch, sliding his finger across the slick heat of her.

  “So close,” she murmured.

  He wasn’t sure she meant his aim or her orgasm, but the tilt of her hips into his grasp told him to get closer. He dipped one finger inside her and groaned as the same wet heat seemed to flush through his whole body, as if he’d dived into one of the hot springs hidden around the mesa, a sensual, mystical discovery.

  Looming over her as if he were feasting on her, he continued his relentless pursuit of her pleasure until she came apart in his arms, all her muscles seizing. Even the ones hidden deep in her body clenched his finger as if they’d never let him go. Her cry of release was a ragged little sound he swallowed down, a memory he’d keep for his own. Though her weight wobbled against him—maybe from the absence of her crutches, more he hoped from his sexual prowess—he held her up easily, bracing her weight against the unwavering bar of his forearm at her lower back while he kissed her again and again until her slackened arms finally tightened around his neck and her sighing laugh rose around him like those hot springs bubbles.

  “Your hand is much bigger than mine,” she murmured. “I like it.”

  A mere statement of fact, hardly a ringing endorsement, but his whole body stiffened more—as if that were even possible—at the thought of her taking care of herself. He wanted to do that for her, not just with his thumb over her clit or his arm as a temporary cane. He wanted to stand between her and any hard fall, clear any obstacle from her path, lay whatever she wanted, anything she desired, at her feet.

  Except he didn’t have that right. And she hadn’t asked for any of that, didn’t even need it.

  “Only one problem,” she said even as she writhed sensually on his hand.

  He froze. “What’s that?”

  “You’re too tall.” She stretched herself up against his chest to prove her point, pressing a line of kisses up his neck with a nip at the hard-clenched edge of his jaw. “It’s like climbing the oak tree in front of the Victorian.”

  “Just dig your claws in,” he suggested.

  “Or I could bring you down to my size.”

  And then she…disappeared. Right out of his arms. For half a heartbeat he thought it was some black magic before the splash cleared his befuddled mind.

  He swiveled toward the lake and got a flick of cold water across his overheated chest.

  She paddled away from the dock, her toes popping up through the water as she floated on her back. “Come on in,” she called with a throaty laugh. “It’s lovely.”

  “I’ve already been in there,” he reminded her.

  “Not in me you haven’t.”

  His body flamed up so fast he thought the droplets over his heart probably turned to steam.

  “Watch out,” he warned as he stripped out of his pants. “I’m coming in.”

  Taking one step back, he lunged forward three steps and launched himself into the air.

  Her shriek of dismayed laughter was lost in his cannonball crash of spray that rooster-tailed up in all directions.

  When he surfaced, flinging water from his hair, she swam into his arms. One lick of her tongue against his incinerated any thought he might’ve had about keeping his cool or his distance in the middle of the dark lake. But as he tightened his hold, she eeled out of his grip.

  “Catch me,” she teased over her shoulder. “I don’t want to seem too easy.”

  “Oh, you’re definitely making me hard,” he growled as he paddled after her.

  She whisked around him in a circle, the brush of her sleek, buoyant body only exacerbating the painful clench in his groin. If his muscles cramped any more, he’d probably drown.

  In her, and happily.

  Happy, yeah, that was the name for this feeling, chasing her around the lake, the moonlight gilding her wet skin in silver, her giggles ringing in his ears. When he finally trapped her against the dock, grabbing the old wood on either side of her shoulders, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and suddenly he felt more weightless, as if her full breasts and soft thighs were his own personal flotation device holding him up.

  “You’re a strong swimmer,” he said. “I think you let me catch you.”

  She tiled her head, her eyes glinting brighter than the droplets caught in her lashes. “I started swimming for physical therapy, and it was the only school sport where I stood—ha ha—a chance.”

  “Let me guess. You outlapped everyone and won the captain of the football team for prom.”

  “Uh, no. I never won anything, only got participation trophies. But I had enough upper body strength—plus a bit of alloy leverage—to knock Susan Sanders off her feet when she called Gin a witch.”

  Picturing the enraged older sister, he chuckled. “Your sister is a witch.”

  “Yeah, but Susan didn’t know that. She was just too goody-two-shoes to say bitch.”

  “I pity poor Susan. I’ve seen you go to bat—and crutch and rifle—for your sisters. Hell, you chased me right out of town.”

  “Mmm, and now I’ve got you right where I want you,” she purred. Dunking herself lower in the water, her backside bumped the aching shaft of his erection. “Is that a pool noodle or are you just happy to see me?”

  “Very happy,” he confessed. “But I’d also be happy just following you around this lake all night.”

  She pursed her lips, that tempting upper lip of hers bejeweled with one silvery bead of water. “You’re pretty good with the dog paddle, but…maybe we should review your breaststroke.”

  He kissed her, hard and fast, licking up that droplet and her gasp as if they were the only thing keeping him alive and breathing.

  Maybe they were.

  If anything could lure back his beast, certainly it was this strong, sassy female with her short claws and tart words.

  And if then he had to release her to take on the burden of rex ursi again… That was the price he’d pay.

  But he’d dream of this night forever.

  ***

  She felt the lightheartedness go out of him, like a retreating tide in this landlocked lake. What remained was darker, deeper, an abyss that might suck her down…

  Or reveal long-lost treasure.

  As much as she could, she tightened her legs around him, in case he was about to have some belated burst of regret for fingering her. That had been a nice start, but he’d better not stop there.

  “Whateve
r you’re thinking doesn’t matter right now,” she said.

  His jaw flexed. “And you know that how?”

  “Because it didn’t matter a minute ago when your tongue was down my throat and your finger was in my—”

  “It mattered then. I was just being selfish.”

  She noticed the cage of his arms around her didn’t open. “Then be selfish again and give me another orgasm.”

  He made a noise halfway between a chuckle and a groan. “Rita, you could break me.”

  “I’m not that strong, no matter how many laps I swim around you.”

  “With just a touch,” he countered.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, making herself a barnacle against his big, wet body. “I’ll put you back together again,” she promised. “As a witch, I have advanced training in folklore, mythology, and fairy tales, including Humpty Dumpty.” She ran her hands down his shoulders, then under the surface of the water, dropping lower. “I had plenty of practice holding things together and making things right.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be the one who breaks your streak.” He finally lifted one hand from the dock to caress her cheek.

  “We’re not so much streaking as skinny dipping,” she pointed out. When he took a breath as if he might argue, she turned her head and nipped his thumb. “A virgin, but not innocent.”

  The serious set of his lip softened to a smile. “You really know how to pressure a guy.”

  She answered his smile with a wicked grin of her own. “I’ll squeeze you so hard your dick will be a diamond.”

  He groaned, and under her backside, the body part in question nudge-nudged her like it was in on the joke. Even if it wasn’t yet in her. “You already got me a ten on the hardness scale,” he said.

  “Ooh, naughty. Talk crystals to me.” Even mostly submerged in the cool lake, she felt like a newly lit bottle rocket, fizzing and sparking and ready to fly. And when his mouth came down on hers again, she made sure to match him stroke for stroke, not giving him any time to think she might not want this every bit as much of his body told her he wanted it. She angled her hips back just enough to rub his swollen shaft along the crease of her body. He was so long, spreading her flesh so wide, when she made room for him, the cold water rushed between them, a delicious contrast to the rampant heat rampaging through her veins.