Safe with Her Bears

by Madeline Hill

  As much as she hated to admit it, part of her walked out into that living room knowing exactly what she wanted to do. She feigned innocence to both herself and to them, but when she felt the singe of Carter’s touch on her skin, all pretenses dropped.

  Her body welcomed Carter inside her with relief. He soothed her nerves, nourished her starvation, filled her with heat and lust and comfort and love... oh, God. He’d said it, hadn’t he? He said he loved her. The scariest part wasn’t that he uttered the words. It was that he vocalized exactly what she was thinking, right at that moment. She was in love with him. Somehow, already... even though she’d only known him for days.

  Max had been distant. He resisted her. Resisted his own urges. But he couldn’t deny her, any more than she could deny her own feelings. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that these bears were right. They really were fated to be together.

  Her heart ached for Max. She couldn’t believe he opened up to her and revealed such a dark past. She understood completely why he was hesitant. Anyone would be. And especially with a person like her... a criminal. A woman who had lied, and conned, and resisted arrest, and who’d worked with the most heinous criminals, the lowest of the low. Why would anyone in their right mind trust her?

  Carter fingered a strand of her hair, looking at her dreamily. “What’s on your mind?” he asked softly.

  “What’s not on my mind, is a better question,” Jules laughed.

  “I told her,” Max said suddenly from where he lay on her left, arms stretched behind his head.

  “You what?” Carter asked.

  “I told her about my parents,” Max said.

  Carter’s face dropped. “Oh. Wow.”

  Jules looked over at Max and smiled reassuringly, placing a light hand on his hip.

  “Now she understands why I’m so fucked up,” he laughed with a tinge of bitterness.

  “You’re not alone,” Jules said. “I’m fucked up, too.”

  Carter groaned. “Guess that makes me the third wheel, then? The well-adjusted one?”

  Max laughed. “You’re hardly well-adjusted.”

  “Sure I am!”

  Jules giggled between them. She loved hearing their playful spats. It warmed her and made her feel at home.

  Carter ran a finger across her collarbone, making her shudder. When he spoke, his voice held a more serious tone. “I want to know your history, Jules. I want to know who you are.”

  Max perked up, glancing over at her with interest.

  Jules sighed. “It’s not that interesting. I’m just a screwed-up girl who made bad choices in life.”

  “Things are never that simple,” Carter said, probing.

  She flicked her eyes to the ceiling and ruminated. “Well. I grew up in Montana. I never knew my mom. She died when she had me.”

  Carter winced, his eyes pained.

  Jules waved her hand dismissively. “It’s okay. I got along just fine. My dad was amazing. He was a teacher. He loved the outdoors. He taught me so much and loved me unconditionally. He worked so hard to raise me right.”

  Her voice quivered towards the end. Max wrapped an arm around her stomach in support.

  “He died in a car accident when I was seventeen,” she said. “After that, things changed with me, I guess. I felt lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I should’ve been strong. That’s what my dad would’ve wanted. But I wasn’t.”

  Jules sucked in a breath, bracing herself. “I went to college, at least. But I struggled through it the whole time. One day I went with my friend to pick up weed from a dealer. There was a man there... his name was Nick.”

  Memories flooded her mind, and she shivered with unwelcome emotions. She thought back to that night, meeting him for the first time. His sharp black eyes. Muscular arms covered in ink. The way he smiled at her crookedly. He seemed so rough, so dark, so exotic. He ignited something deep inside her. He was a scary man, she could tell from the very first moment she laid eyes on him. But behind his stern, angry demeanor hid a softness. A sweetness. He showed it to her that night, tempting her with it.

  From that point on, she was convinced she could draw it out of him. There was something sexy about a man so dark and twisted, who only became soft and sweet for her alone. But she was wrong. He wasn’t soft and sweet. Peeling back the layers, there was nothing there. Nothing but darkness, contempt for society, and a thirst for violence and anarchy.

  Jules cleared her throat, trying to refocus. “I fell in love with him. Well, it felt like love at the time. He was powerful. Strong. Rich. People feared him. I guess I felt safe around him, because no one could touch him. I don’t know how I started working for him. It just kind of happened.”

  Max tightened his squeeze around her stomach possessively, and Carter let out a low growl.

  “As time passed, I realized just how... violent and depraved he really was. I took solace in the fact that I was the exception. I never thought he would hurt me. And he didn’t, actually. He only hurt others. Even close friends.”

  Jules opened her mouth, hesitating. She wasn’t sure whether to share this with them. But since Max had opened up so completely, she thought she owed him the same courtesy.

  “The turning point happened when he killed a man right in front of me. Slit his throat. Not just any man. His name was Jake. He’d been Nick’s best friend since childhood. Nick executed him coldly, just like that, because he thought the guy had ripped him off. We found out afterwards that it had all been a misunderstanding, but Nick didn’t show an ounce of remorse.”

  Jules breathed deeply. “I was so afraid. The fear kept growing and growing. I got no enjoyment out of being with him, but I was too scared to leave. Finally, about a year ago, I grew the courage to leave him. I thought he would kill me. But he didn’t. He let me go with no complaint... only on one condition. I had to keep running drugs for him from Billings because he said I was the only one in that area he trusted. So I did. And that about sums it up.”

  “Even up until now, a foolish part of me wanted to believe he would never, ever hurt me. But I was wrong. He ordered Ansell to take me out to the woods and kill me. He was worried that I’d tell the police about him and get him locked up. And somehow, Ansell knew about the three of us and told him. That, apparently, was the last straw.”

  Max and Carter exchanged wary glances.

  “I’m still hurt about it. I just don’t understand. I don’t understand how a person can be so cold to just murder someone like that. Someone they’d spent so much time with. Someone they were supposed to care about.”

  The air rumbled with the vibrations of Carter’s angry growl. He rolled to his side and wrapped a strong arm around her, squeezing possessively.

  “We’ll never let him hurt you again,” he rasped.

  Jules felt comforted and secure nestled between her two mates. But her throat grew tight with dread and her head spun thinking about Nick. He was still out there. He still wanted her dead, now more than ever. A mental image flashed of Nick sitting in his office, receiving news of Ansell’s death and Jules’s escape. His fists were clenched, tattooed muscles flexing taut. A large blood vessel throbbed in his forehead as he planned his revenge.

  “No one fucks with me and lives to tell about it,” Nick had told her once in the past. She had believed it. She just didn’t think it would ever apply to her.

  She shivered, and the two arms wrapped around her tightened and squeezed. She felt both of their breaths on her skin and their presence enveloped her like a warm blanket. She never wanted to leave their embrace. Ever. She didn’t want anything to get in between her three mates.

  Jules tried to stop thinking about the threats that loomed around them. The cops. Nick’s thugs. Stop it, Jules, her mind admonished. So she did.

  For a brief moment, she allowed herself to let go of her worries and fully embrace the moment. Her heart twisted with warm feelings of love and acceptance. She closed her eyes and drifted off, cradled by her bears, and soothed
by the low rumbles of her shifter’s rhythmic breaths.

  28

  Carter’s eyes snapped open as a familiar scent wafted into his nostrils. The sizzle of batter on a hot cast iron pan. Pancakes and syrup. His stomach growled with intense hunger. He rolled out of the empty bed, completely nude, and stooped down to pick up the rumpled jeans he’d left on the floor.

  His heart swelled with pride and satisfaction. He’d claimed his mate again. His cock stiffened as the thought about the previous night, Jules’s beautiful curves gleaming in the moonlight as he penetrated her, filling her up and communicating his bear’s desperate need for her body. She accepted him fully. She needed him as much as he needed her.

  Carter stepped out into the kitchen to see Jules and Max cooking together. She turned to him and grinned, her cheeks rosy, her eyes wide and glimmering. It was such a huge change from when she first arrived. She actually looked happy! Gone was the sadness and worry that had previously overcast her delicate features. Instead she looked positively glowing.

  Jules bounded over to him and wrapped her arms around his hard torso, mashing her lips against his. He groaned, pulling her into him, his skin prickling and warming at her touch. She broke the kiss and gazed into his eyes, the air simmering between them.

  “Good morning, handsome,” she purred.

  Carter’s jaw dropped. She was wearing his oversized t-shirt and boxers and looked totally unkempt, but for some reason it only made her sexier. The fact that she wore his clothes seemed to further cement his claim on her.

  “Making me breakfast, I see?” he joked.

  Max looked up from the stove. “No, this is for me and Jules. You’re on your own for breakfast.”

  Anger flamed in his belly for a brief moment before Max broke out into a grin and laughed.

  “Bastard,” Carter grumbled. “I’m gonna hog all the pancakes now.”

  Jules giggled as he brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles softly.

  “I’ll need the energy for when I bend you over and take you again,” he rasped hotly.

  Jules’s cheeks grew ruddy and her eyes flamed with lust. Her breath hitched, and Carter could see in her eyes that she didn’t want to wait until after breakfast. She was ready to have him right now.

  His manhood lurched to life in his jeans and he was about to drag Jules into the bedroom when Max blocked them, striding over to the dining table with a steaming hot plate of pancakes piled sky high. The scent of the meal momentarily distracted Carter from his hormones, and it must have been the same for Jules, too, because she sat down at the table immediately, wasting no time.

  He followed suit, and the three of them dug into the pancakes, slathering maple syrup all over and shoving the bites into their hungry mouths with no regard for etiquette. He chuckled at Jules, who ate like she hadn’t seen food in ages. He was pleased she could be herself around them and didn’t get caught up in appearing too ladylike.

  The plates were empty in minutes. Jules moved to clean up the table, but Carter and Max stopped her, insisting she rest. She slumped down with a frown, clearly wanting to be helpful. But Carter wouldn’t have it. He was so ecstatic to have her around, he wanted to serve her all day long and treat her like the princess she was.

  The days passed, both quickly and slowly at the same time. It felt like a dream. Jules settled in, making herself at home with the bears. She stayed indoors most of the time, never venturing past a few steps from the front porch. Even though Carter and Max lived out in the middle of nowhere, twenty miles from the nearest town, they all knew it would be folly for Jules to freely roam outside.

  She didn’t see a single soul in that time besides her shifters. It was only the three of them in their cozy little wood cabin, surrounded by tall, dark evergreens that seemed to stretch on infinitely in all directions. They were so isolated that it became easy to forget that the rest of the world even existed.

  It was a little suffocating not being able to go out. When the bears went off in their dirty pickup truck to buy groceries or check in with their clan, she couldn’t help but feel left out. But it was for the best.

  Jules learned a lot about her shifters. In retrospect, she realized she’d fallen in love and become their mate without knowing hardly anything about them and using only her intuition to guide her decisions. But the more she learned, the deeper their bond grew.

  Carter and Max were complete opposites. That much was obvious from the first night she met them. Carter was happy go lucky, funny, lovable, and kind. He seemed to look at the world with a sense of child-like wonder. He had the personality of a playful bear cub, trapped in a grown man’s body. He was confident and strong, and left no question to his unwavering love and devotion to her.

  Max was more guarded, but understandably so. His dark hair and gleaming silver eyes reflected the maelstrom of dark angst that brewed deep within him. Yet despite his reservations, he gradually opened himself up to her. Carter told her he’d never seen Max so happy and carefree. Apparently Max always lived like he had a chip on his shoulder; always slow to trust people, looking at the world through a cynical lens, expecting betrayal. Yet with Jules around, he eased. He smiled, he laughed. He made love to her passionately, kissed her with deep emotion, and gripped her so hard and tight, like he was afraid he’d lose her if he let her go.

  As she learned more about their past and all the time they had spent together, she felt her connection with both of them deepen. They were practically brothers. They’d known each other since they were cubs. And after Max’s tragedy at the age of seven, Carter’s family took him in and treated him as one of their own. Carter never left his side. He protected him, dealt with his angst and his baggage, and always provided him with a shoulder to lean on.

  Despite his cheerful, carefree attitude, Jules learned that Carter had weathered storms of his own. His parents were killed when he was sixteen, when their clan went to war with the wolves. Knowing that he lost his family around the same time that Jules had, only deepened her connection with him. Behind his silly antics and his absent-mindedness, was a man who was strong, secure, and impenetrable. Jules and Max had been left broken shells by their tragedies. In contrast, Carter had only grown stronger, becoming the Oak that other people could lean on.

  The days bled into each other. She felt herself becoming domestic, especially since she couldn’t leave the house. Two bachelor bears living together didn’t make for the cleanest or the most attractive habitat. Jules swept the dirt off the floors and reprimanded Carter when he tracked in mud on his boots. She scrubbed the kitchen clean and washed all their clothes and bed sheets. She also rearranged some of the furniture and dug through storage to find framed photographs to hang on the wall and little trinkets to spruce up the rooms.

  Jules couldn’t help but laugh when she hung a photo on the wall of Carter and Max together in their police uniforms, right after graduating from the Academy. What a strange twist of fate took her from transporting drugs and dealing with the seediest criminals, to living with two grizzly shifter cops out in the middle of the woods. She never would’ve guessed.

  Carter and Max treated her like a queen. They bought her new clothes and loved to surprise her with freshly picked flowers and pastries from the town bakery. Every night they cooked together: steak and potatoes, freshly caught salmon, fresh bread and homemade jams from plucked blackberries. And every night they made love. She took both of them inside her eagerly, relishing the feeling of them filling her.

  Jules was amazed at her sexual hunger. She’d always enjoyed sex, but these two seemed to ignite a hidden flame of lust that she never knew she had. She felt absolutely ravenous for their touch, for the taste of their cocks in her mouth. She longed for them to fill her and pound her into the bed. When they were gone, she fantasized about them mounting her and taking her hard and deep, over and over.

  Thankfully she had grown the appetite to match theirs, because they were insatiable. They couldn’t keep their hands off her.

>   Jules felt herself drift away on a cloud of pristine happiness. For the first time in her life, she was content. Every cell in her body seemed to sigh with relief. She hadn’t realized what she’d been missing. But now that she had a chance to look back on her life, it became obvious. She’d been living with a hole in her heart. She’d felt empty, hopeless. She’d searched for something, or someone to fill it. But nothing ever came close until she met her mates.

  Of course, concern for her situation never left the back of her mind. She was still a fugitive. They were still possibly in danger from Nick’s thugs. Occasionally she’d catch Max, or even Carter, carrying a worried expression on his face, like a cloud rolling in to block the sunlight, but only for a moment.

  But the quiet of the woods, the solitude, made her feel confident. She felt those worries gradually drift away as the days passed by. Waking up in the morning and drinking her coffee on the front porch, watching the sunlight scatter through the branches of the trees, glancing up at distant snow-peaked mountains, she felt a million miles away from everything. From her past and from all the troubles that had weighed down on her for so many years.

  29

  Jules giggled as Carter ran his fingers up her inner thigh. She lay on the bed, sketchbook open in front of her. She was trying to focus on the vase of sunflowers sitting on the dresser, so she could sketch them with her charcoal pencils. But Carter was doing everything in his power to distract her, and it was working.