by T. S. Joyce
A soft moan left her lips as he eased back, then flexed his hips against her again.
Brighton’s breath trembled, and his arm muscles twitched with his next stroke, as if his control was slipping. She loved it. To hide her victory smile, she kissed him, pressing her tongue gently against his. With a low hum she’d never heard him make before, he gripped her waist and rolled over, sat up until she was straddling his lap.
She giggled at how fast he was. Her stomach had dipped as if she were on a roller coaster.
“You’re running the show now, darlin’. I’m yours,” he whispered.
“Yeah?” she asked, rolling her hips until his eyes closed.
He nodded and wrapped his steely arms around her waist, then kissed her lips gently, plucking at them with tiny, sexy smacks until she had to concentrate to control her panting breath. As long, or short, as she lived, she’d never tire of kissing him. Of his taste and the way his lips turned soft for her. Of how eternally sexy his raspy whisper was against her ear. Scars, no voice, it didn’t matter. Brighton was perfect. He was everything that was good in this world, and until right now, she hadn’t known it was possible to live in a stainless moment. But Brighton made things easier, less painful. He made everything that had been blurry in her life clear as a freshwater stream. He made her want more from life.
She set the pace slow, and he allowed it. He didn’t rush her or beg for her to hurry. He rasped his facial scruff against her neck in an adorable sign of affection she recognized because she had an acute instinct to do the same. His fingers gripped her back, and his powerful hips thrust forward with every stroke she allowed. Pressure built from her middle, tingling from her core through her stomach, shooting pleasure between her legs every time his thick shaft filled her. And when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she bowed against him, arched her neck back, and cried out his name. He gripped her hard against him and slammed into her over and over as the first waves of orgasm crashed through her.
Her whispered name on his lips, so reverent, was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard as his warmth filled her in pulsing jets. He eased back and looked at her with such adoration. He pushed into her again and emptied himself completely, filling her until wetness spilled out.
She snuggled against him, throbbing in rhythm to his own release, rocking gently with him while he gripped her hair and hugged her close.
“Brighton?” Happiness filled her like spring rains to an empty well.
He eased back and stroked a wayward strand of hair from her face. His eyes were the green of rain-bloated moss as he searched her face.
“I feel safe with you,” she said on a breath.
A heart-stopping smile took his lips, faded as if he was unsure she was being serious, then returned even bigger. You are, he mouthed. Always.
A mixture of joy and relief flooded her, stretching from her center to her limbs, making her hands tingle like she’d been too close to a lightning strike. Chills rippled up her arms, puckering goosebumps all across her forearms as her heart yawned open. Her middle grew warmer and warmer as the first tear slipped from her eye. But as Brighton brought her palm to his lips and kissed it gently, the warmth became uncomfortable. Painful even. And with each second, the intensity grew until she was sure a seizure was coming. But as she waited for her body to freeze up and go rigid, she began to shatter from the inside out. Fire and glass and streaks of numbness shredded her until she hunched in on herself and cried out, “Something’s wrong!”
And then the world went dark.
Chapter Nine
“Brighton!” Everly’s voice sounded strangled.
This was different. It wasn’t like her other seizures. There was no pulsing air around her. There was no smell of sickness. Now, his senses were full of animal and fear. Gripping her shoulders, he tried to yell her name, but the word only came out as a raspy whisper.
She drew into herself in the instant it took him to realize what was happening, and with a ripping, popping sound, an enormous grizzly burst from her.
Brighton flung sideways into the wall with the force of her Change. He glanced down in shock at the painful, deep claw marks across his ribs. He could see white through the tear in his flesh. Bone. Fuck. Chest heaving, he looked up at Everly, who stood unsteady, paws splayed against the carpet of the small room as she stared at him.
He’d imagined what her bear looked like, hoped he’d be lucky enough to see her someday, but all of his dreaming hadn’t even begun to touch her animal in reality. Fur as white as snow covered her body. Her nose was pink, as were the six-inch curved claws that had sprouted from her giant paws. He’d bet his ass the pads of those paws were also void of pigment, and her eyes…the silver had faded away to reveal a blue as a clear spring day.
She was the most beautiful bear he’d ever laid eyes on.
It was in this moment, in the unusual color of her eyes, that he noticed something else. Something horrifying. She wasn’t looking at him with a spark of recognition like she should’ve been doing. She looked terrified.
Submissive she might be, but she was cornered, and dealing with the pain of her first Change in a small room with a man she was glaring at as if he’d caused her all this grief. And an injured, cornered grizzly was the most dangerous kind of predator.
And the only escape from this room was through the door she was blocking.
“Everly,” he whispered, standing slowly with his hands out in a calming gesture.
Warmth trickled down his stomach in rivers, and the room was beginning to smell of iron and his own pain. All bad news.
Her muscles tensed, and she charged. Brighton’s bear ripped out of him, shredding him on the way out of his skin just as Everly tackled him. Wood splintered as his back slammed into the wall behind him. Unable to take the weight, the logs shattered and daylight hit his face as he landed on his back in the weedy side yard.
Everly was rampaging, clawing and biting as a snarl rattled her throat. He let her have him. She didn’t know what she was doing, and he couldn’t lift his claws against her if he tried.
He loved…
He winced as her claws raked across his shoulders.
He loved her, his Everly.
This wild, beautiful, deadly creature was it for him.
She lifted off him and spun, then barreled toward the trees. Her fur shook with every powerful lunge, and he stood, unsteady and awestruck as she disappeared into the woods. She could cover some serious ground at that speed, and she was headed in the direction of the nearest neighbor. Panic pulsed through his veins as Brighton trotted after her, then picked up his pace to a sprint as he imagined how scared she must be.
She was an easy follow. The smell of fear led him directly down her trail. Lodgepole pines and towering spruces dotted the woods, and she zigzagged through them. Pine needles prickled the tough pads of his paws, and pinecones littered the forest floor. Birds sang high in the canopy above, as if his world hadn’t just been rocked by Everly’s first Change.
She was slowing down. He could tell because the invisible tether that draped from his heart to hers didn’t feel so tight anymore.
And when he slowed and walked cautiously into the clearing she’d chosen to stop in, he was stunned all over again. Rays of golden sunlight filtered through the thick branches above and highlighted her snowy fur. Her profile was to him, but when her eyes landed on his, they weren’t vacant or wild anymore. Now, there was recognition and regret in them. Perhaps even worry. There she was.
He approached cautiously, head low, until he reached the center of the small clearing. Exhaling loudly, he sat on his haunches and waited for her to decide to bolt again or not. He hoped she wouldn’t run. He wanted to touch her fur, to smell her skin and reassure her until the scent of her fear washed away completely. He wanted to familiarize himself with her animal until he’d memorized every angle.
He wanted to show her how much it didn’t matter to him that she was a bear.
****
Everly’s heart thrummed against her oversize sternum so fast she was afraid she’d pass out. The instinct to escape the enormous bruin that sat in the meadow before her was overwhelming. But no matter how strong her impulse, her heart wouldn’t let her go. She knew him, that dark-furred grizzly nearly twice her size. Brighton. The word caressed her mind, flooding her with memories of him.
She crouched down until her belly brushed the pine needles that blanketed the forest floor. Legs splayed, she froze under the avalanche of fear. Terror seized her, and Brighton stood on all fours, then paced tightly back and forth, his eyes never leaving hers.
He approached a few steps, but her muscles were already bunched to flee again. She hated this! She wanted to touch him. He smelled of blood and some emotion she couldn’t decipher yet.
Barrel chested and thickly muscled, Brighton’s claws dug into the soft earth with every step he took toward her. His nose was black, only a shade darker than the pelt that covered his body. His fur looked soft and inviting, but still, that didn’t halt the urge to run and hide from the monster grizzly bear that was inching closer.
As his shadow touched her, she flattened her ears and lowered her chin until it settled against the forest floor with the rest of her. Heart pounding, breath ragged, she waited for him to hurt her for what she’d done to him when she’d fled the cabin.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he pressed his nose gently against the scruff of her neck, then inhaled deeply. And when he’d had his fill of her scent, he licked her muzzle, then rubbed his big block head down the side of her neck like an overgrown cat. A growl rattled her chest, but it wasn’t a warning, like she’d given him in the cabin. This one was a sound of satisfaction. Of relief that he’d forgiven her for hurting him. And muscle by muscle, she began to relax under his careful affection. He backed up a few paces and waited for her. She didn’t understand bear body language, not yet, and he was asking her something she didn’t know the answer to. Slowly, she raised her head from the ground and belly crawled to him.
He snuffled against her neck, tickling her, in reward for her doing something right, so she followed at a crouch as he eased away a few more paces. More affectionate reward, and she found enough bravery to lift off the ground and press her muzzle against his.
Brighton froze and let her explore his body, the form she was still unfamiliar with. Nary a muscle twitched as he allowed her to inhale the scent of his fur. She imitated his attention and brushed the side of her face down his ribcage, and when a soft humming sound emanated from him, she turned her startled gaze on him.
He watched her, neck arched, his eyes relaxed. It filled her with warmth to know she was likely the only one who’d ever heard this sound from him.
Excitedly, she hooked a claw around his arm and tugged until he rolled onto his back, then she flopped on top of him and play bit at his neck. His chest huffed in a silent, bearish laugh. She slid over the top of him and kicked her legs out at him when she landed on her side. She wanted to wrestle, but Brighton wasn’t playing back. And when the first sting of hurt feelings washed over her, he grew still, and the amused look in his eyes faded to worry. He wrapped an enormous arm around her shoulder blades, and when he pulled her against his chest, a warm, comforting tingly sensation blanketed her. He wasn’t meaning to brush off her playfulness. He was being careful with her.
Burying her face against his chest, she listened to the base drum of his heartbeat, slow and steady to match her own. She looked down at her white paws and the blade-sharp claws where her fingernails used to be. She was different, down to a cellular level, and she should be terrified of the creature she’d become. But here with Brighton, sharing the burden of being other, it was impossible to feel scared. This all felt surreal, and she had to close her eyes and inhale his scent, remind herself that this was really happening to her. As much as she hated Connor for what he’d done. Hated him for making her different and for changing her fate, he’d also put her on a collision course with Brighton. What Connor had done to her was horrific, but her experiences with that awful man had allowed her to acknowledge just how gentle and caring Brighton was. Would she have fully been able to appreciate what a wonderful man he was if she hadn’t endured pain and heartbreak at Connor’s hand? She didn’t know. All she knew was that there was a reason she’d gone through what she had, and that reason was Brighton. She could love him with everything she had, and know she couldn’t appreciate him an ounce more, because she’d seen darkness and witnessed how empty a man’s heart could be.
Brighton was different.
He was everything good about what she’d endured.
He hefted himself upward, then led her out of the clearing. The trees began to feel familiar, as did the birdsong and the breeze through the branches as they walked on and on. She could settle down here and put the sickness she used to feel out of her mind. Here, in these woods, she could just be. Safety settled over her like a security blanket she’d been attached to as a child. With Brighton by her side, she didn’t startle over new sounds or panic at unexpected shadows. His ears swiveled this way and that, and his eyes shifted with the movement of the forest around them, but never once did he give her any indication that anything was wrong, or that she should be wary. His easy nature out here, in his home, brought a comfort to her she never thought she’d have again.
Time lost all meaning as she adjusted to this new body. Her gait became smooth and unforced, and after a while, her ears picked up the sounds of the forest without her overthinking each distraction. She basked in the silence between her and Brighton. Here, he was just a bear. Scarred, to be sure, as his fur refused to grow where he’d been cut, but his silence mirrored her own. And when she became curious about felled logs or moss patches, he waited patiently for her to explore them thoroughly before sauntering off toward some unknown destination again.
It wasn’t until she heard the running water that she figured out where he was taking her. A river snaked through the land, capped by gently rolling white-crested rapids. The water near the bank was as clear as the cloudless sky above, and she huffed in surprise as she watched tiny silver-backed minnows dashing this way and that along the shore. Everly hesitated at the edge, but not Brighton. He splashed into the water until the waves lapped at the fur on his belly.
She paced, unsure of what he wanted, then backed up a few steps and took a running leap into the river, feet landing on the stony bottom. Water splashed over Brighton, and he turned and cupped his paw, then splashed her back. His eyes smiled as she shook droplets from her fur.
Deeper he stepped until he could swim, and Everly followed, entranced by how graceful he was in the water. Brighton circled back toward her and ran his face and neck down the side of her body as she took the first two tentative strokes off the bottom.
Snorting breath, her confidence grew. She’d been a so-so swimmer in her human life, but in this body, she was actually good at paddling around, as if her new form had been made for this place and all the many terrains the woods here possessed.
This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be this easy to be a bear. This natural. She’d been human all her life with a flimsy, petit body and a bland face, but now, she was strong. Thinking of her human form made her feel funny inside—almost nauseous. And the more she thought about it, the more ill she felt, until the corners of her vision blurred. Panicked, she made her way to the bank as the pain became too much. Even the water that lapped at her skin felt like little shards of metal cutting into her. And with the sound of snapping bones echoing through the woods, she sank back into the same human skin she’d been imagining.
Stunned, she fell backward, landing hard in the shallows. She drew her shocked gaze to Brighton and watched as he melted back into a man. Where she’d felt pain, a hurt that still clung to her burning nerve endings, Brighton was smiling as soon as his face looked human again.
Come here, he mouthed as the waves splashed against the strips of taut muscle that delved over his hi
p bones.
Still unsure of how to use her voice, she stood and wobbled over, not used to walking on two legs after walking on four.
Take your time.
Everly bunched her muscles and stood with her hands out, palms down to find her balance. When she was comfortable again, she made her way carefully into the water.
“I’m naked,” she observed with a frown, sinking down into the water as soon as she was deep enough.
“Yeah,” he whispered, reaching for her. He encircled her waist with his powerful arms and pulled her deeper until the water hit her breast line, then released her. “You’ll have to take your clothes off before you Change, or you’ll shred them. This is hell on a wardrobe if you aren’t careful. Is your skin still sensitive? Can I touch you?”
Her skin was, in fact, tingling like a live wire, but right now, she needed him to touch her. The unexpectedness of her Change back had scared her, and her heart still hadn’t stopped trying to eject itself from her chest cavity.
She stepped into his embrace and rested her cheek against his chest. From here, she had the perfect view of the claw marks—her claw marks—across his ribcage. They weren’t bleeding anymore and looked half-healed already, but still, she could see pink muscle through the torn flesh.
His lips were soft against her temple. Moments turned to seconds as he let the kiss linger there, and her stomach filled with happy warmth. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispered. “Ever, you did so well.”
“But…I hurt you.”