Bear The Blaze (Firebear Brides 3)

by Anya Nowlan

  “Like what you see?” Ragnar teased, breaking that serious façade that he seemed to wear so well.

  Startled, Abigail looked up. She was the last woman on Earth that could be blamed for being coy, but around Ragnar, she felt positively bashful at times.

  “I, um… yes,” she finally admitted, pressing her head into her palms and shaking with strangled laughter. “I’m sorry. I feel stupid. You look good though, so at least there’s that, right?”

  He put his hand on her leg and it made her suck in a breath. There it was again: that immediate, raw heat she felt every time he touched her. Stirring from her self-inflicted embarrassment, Abigail looked up, eyes wide. Ragnar was looking at her like he was inches from ripping her sweaty top off and taking her right then and there. She knew she wouldn’t have even objected.

  “You’ve got nothing to feel stupid about, Abigail. Stuff like this is rarely one-sided,” he said with surprising candor.

  Abigail straightened her back, smiling slightly. Redmond had sometimes talked about his brothers. Ragnar was supposed to be the grouchy one, the quiet one, and the one that got shit done. She could totally believe the last part, but the first two… well, from the brief encounters she’d had with him so far, he was a far cry from the mopey bear he’d been described as.

  “Yeah?” she asked, gaining back her confidence. “So what you’re saying is that you’re not here only because you enjoy manual labor in backbreaking heat?”

  Grazing over her lower lip with her teeth, she grinned wickedly. Ragnar chuckled, keeping his hand exactly where it had been before. Searing heat pulsed through Abigail’s body and she could feel wetness building between her legs. It was insufferable being so close to him and not touching him. Abigail knew damn well that it was possible to “just” be friends with men—she worked around countless parades of hot manflesh every day. But with Ragnar, it seemed like a physical impossibility to not have him every which way.

  “Well, I can think of a few other things that I might enjoy even more,” Ragnar said wryly, his eyes trailing over Abigail’s body and leaving her shuddering all over.

  She swallowed dryly, her ears ringing a little.

  Is this actually happening? Am I encouraging this to happen?

  Yes and yes.

  “Like what?” she asked, her voice breaking as she already found herself leaning toward Ragnar, lips slightly parted.

  “Like this, beautiful,” he murmured, his deep voice making her shivers that much more intense.

  His hand slipped behind her neck and he pulled her closer until she was just a fraction of an inch away from him. There seemed to be no space between them at all, but he held her there, their noses almost touching. The second seemed to tick by like an eternity, the universe grinding to a halt around Abigail as she breathlessly waited for the kiss that was now sure to come.

  She broke before he did, mashing her lips against his desperately. Her hands reached for him, curling around his strong, wide back and pulling herself closer to him. Ragnar was right there with her, crushing her body against his and kissing her with the ferocity of a man who’d been looking for exactly that moment all his life.

  Moaning as his tongue slipped into her mouth, he parted her lips and let her get the first taste of him. It was as she thought it would be—divine. His kiss was firm and commanding, but yielding to her need. As his one hand slid down the length of her back, Abigail wished desperately that there wasn’t anything between them at all anymore.

  She wasn’t sure which one of them initiated it, but the next thing she knew, she was in his lap, straddling his hips with both hands on his chin, pulling him to her in case he had any intention of leaving.

  “Calm down, beautiful,” Ragnar said with a sultry chuckle, his hands resting on her voluptuous ass.

  His words sounded more forced than anything else. The hardness that she felt against her told her that she wasn’t overthinking this—Ragnar wanted the moment as much as she did.

  “Why?” she asked, not letting him cool her down without a good reason. Nipping at his lower lip with her teeth, she drew a low growl from him. His fingers flexing and squeezing her ass made her giggle and grind against him harder. ”What, firebear? Is this too much for you?” she teased, her green eyes shining with mischief.

  Ragnar hissed a growl and stood up, bracing her with one hand on her ass. She yelped, wrapping her legs around his narrow waist as he spun them around and slammed her back against the wooden wall of the shed.

  “Oh, I thought I was dealing with a good girl here,” he said, his tone so dangerous and dark that it made Abigail forget to breathe for a second as she stared at him wide-eyed. “But I don’t mind being wrong every once in a while.”

  He blew her mind and he didn’t even know it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Abigail

  Abigail’s nails raked down his neck and arms as he suffocated her with another passionate kiss, making her use every ounce of self-control to keep from screaming his name. The act of making out with him was far more intense than any sex she’d ever had, which blew her mind.

  “I never said I was good,” Abigail snapped back with her voice shaking. “But you never told me you were bad either.”

  He kissed her neck and his hot lips on her bare skin made her eyes roll back in her head. Hands on her top, he tugged it upward and she eagerly helped him, pulling it off her body herself and tossing it aside. They were out in the open. If anyone had driven down the biggest road heading to Hamilton House right then, there would have been no way that they would have gone unnoticed.

  Abigail didn’t give a damn. All she wanted was this hot and dangerous man fate had brought her together with, and if she didn’t have him now she just might lose her mind.

  He slid the straps of her bra off her arms and then pushed the cups of her black bra down, revealing her generous breasts. Immediately, his lips curled around one of her nipples, sucking it into his mouth and making her squirm against him. With her nails scratching along his skin, she writhed against him, so wet she thought she’d drown in her own heat.

  “Fucking hell, you’re hot, beautiful,” he growled and it was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard.

  “Fuck me already, then,” she hissed through clenched teeth, dragging his face up and away from her tits.

  Kissing him deeply, she could vaguely tell that he’d pulled her away from the wall and was walking her inside the shed and the relative cover it provided. He sat her down on one of the working tables, dusty as it was, and undid his belt and the zipper on his jeans. Her hands were right there, pushing down his pants, demanding that he move faster.

  When his cock was revealed to her hungry eyes, she let out a little whimper. It was perfect, like the rest of him. Big, hard, thick, and curved just slightly upward, she already knew that she would melt around that thing happily. Ragnar didn’t give her time to admire it for too long, pulling her up by her hips and ripping down her jeans without bothering with the details. The button popped off of them and Abigail yelped as he turned her around, making her grab hold of the table with both hands for support.

  He pushed her legs apart and when the slick, velvety head of his cock traced her slit, Abigail arched her back and looked over her shoulder. Ragnar’s face was contorted with barely held self-control and concentration. The gruff sullenness she’d thought she’d noticed there was now nothing but the most handsome face she’d ever seen. If she’d thought that he was hot before, then he was damn smoking now, his jaw set with restraint and his eyes on fire.

  “Fuck. Me.”

  Abigail squealed as Ragnar fisted one hand in her hair, yanking her head back a little so he could kiss her. It was exactly what she was begging for. Rough. Raw. Primal. As soon as his lips touched hers, he was thrusting into her, parting her wetness with his thick cock. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and she braced her body as his huge thickness wore her thin, stretching her to fit inside her.

  Every stroke brought him deeper in
side her, and it was only when he bottomed out so exactly, filling her to the brim and then some, that she let out the scream that had been building in her.

  “Is this what you need?” he growled, two hands on her hips now, his fingers prying into her, sure to leave marks that would make her smile the next day. “Tell me, Abigail.”

  It was a command and she was glad to comply.

  “Yes, baby,” she mewled, lips parted in a constant groan as she bucked against him, his thrusts becoming faster and harder with every word she spoke. “Fuck, that’s so good,” she whined, shuddering as the tightness coiled maddeningly in her.

  One of his hands slipped over her soft belly, tracking downward until his fingers grazed over her wet folds. He pressed her clit between two fingers and Abigail was damn near in tears with how good it felt as her nails scraped at the wood of the table. She pounded back onto him wildly, getting into the same rhythm as Ragnar was in, impaling herself on his cock every time. And dammit, it felt like everything she didn’t know she’d been missing.

  “You’re tight as hell, beautiful,” he whispered, and there was a modicum of control to his voice that Abigail couldn’t dream of matching at this point as he kissed the back of her neck.

  She felt the hard ridges of his well-defined abs against her back. Throwing her head back, she let her body rest against his as he fucked her with reckless abandon. When he pinched her nipple, she sucked in a sudden breath, her eyes fluttering open. The tiny prick of pain felt so damn good. He did it again and she stuttered a groan. When he twisted her nipple between his fingertips, she was gone.

  The pad of his thumb was slicking over her clit quickly now and he was buried in her, grinding into her slower and slower as she rocked on the precipice of her release.

  “Cum for me, beautiful,” he said, and again she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—fight what he wanted from her.

  With an earsplitting scream of pure ecstasy, she ground back into him and let the orgasm take her. Wave after wave rocked her body, crashing above, in, and around her and taking her with it completely. She held on for dear life, her pussy milking Ragnar’s cock hungrily. A little part of her told her that she should worry, she should be safe, but a much louder part of her told the voice to shut the fuck up and enjoy the feeling of him filling her up.

  Ragnar bit into her shoulder gently at first, and then harder, his driving thrusts growing more erratic and short. He had to be close. When she slammed back into him once in the last throes of her orgasm, he couldn’t deny her any longer. With a roar, he emptied into her, long, thick ropes of cum shooting out of his rigid, veiny cock. And she loved every second of it, just as raw and untamed as it was.

  When Ragnar finally pulled out, they were both out of breath and worn ragged. He pulled up his pants and with an ounce of sadness, she watched him tuck away that still half-hard cock of his, already missing it desperately. Ragnar gently pulled up her jeans over her wide hips and then slide her bra straps up. Abigail was still too shuddery to even think about covering herself up. She yelped as he scooped her up in his arms, carrying her carefully outside again and sitting down on the bench where it had all started.

  She was cradled against his wide, strong chest, her head resting on his shoulder in blissful silence, inhaling his scent and loving the way his sweat-dappled skin felt underneath her fingertips. They sat like that for a while, coming down from their high.

  “That was…” she started, running out of words to describe what the hell that exactly was.

  “Yup,” he confirmed with a chuckle, kissing her forehead softly.

  “You’re a man of surprises, Ragnar Hamilton,” she said with a chuckling sigh, uncurling herself from his grip slowly and sitting up on his knees.

  He still kept a protective arm around her, like he had no intention of ever letting her stray too far from him. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to be anywhere where he wasn’t, and that was a scary thought.

  You barely know him, she reminded herself.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said casually, and that hit hard.

  He was right. She didn’t. All that Abigail knew about this man was that he was the brother of one of her closest friends and that he had a dark past, one that made her heart beat far faster than it should have. And now she’d fucked him in a damn shed in the middle of the day when anyone could have walked in on them. Sort of mortified by what she’d done, she slid off his lap and plucked her shirt off the lawn, pulling it on.

  Ragnar looked at her with surprise in his eyes. The sun caressed his muscles and the desire to be back in his arms was almost overwhelming in its intensity.

  “Everything okay, beautiful?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head with a forced smile, unsure of whether she was trying to convince him or herself.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. There’s work to do, you know?”

  Ragnar nodded mutely, getting up. He was about to step into the workshop when he stopped at the door, looking at Abigail. His hazel eyes sucked her in immediately.

  “You know they planned this, right?”

  “Planned what?” Abigail asked, confused.

  “You. Me. In Idaho. There’s no reason why one of us couldn’t have come to Los Angeles and picked up that truck. They wanted us here together.”

  “For what?” Abigail asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Smirking darkly, Ragnar kept her gaze. “You’ve been imported, Abigail. A real modern mail-order bride, except they got you here with a phone call and nobody warned either you or me about this.”

  “What?!” Abigail asked, surprise hitting her in the face like a baseball bat. “You can’t be serious,” she stuttered. “That’s ridiculous. I came here to fix the truck!”

  “Royce is a decent mechanic in his own right. Me too. But I’d seen your picture before, and I think after I commented on it, something must have stuck with Redmond. He’s a chump at times but the man’s got a memory on him.”

  Staring at him incredulously, Abigail couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Had this all been some elaborate trick? But the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like exactly something Redmond would do. That beautiful, impossible bastard.

  “Wow. I was staring right at it and I didn’t even see it.”

  Ragnar crossed over to her and before she could say anything, he pressed his lips against hers in a soft, lingering kiss that she couldn’t help but return.

  “I’m glad they brought you here, beautiful.”

  With that, he turned around and stalked into the shed, leaving Abigail in a state of dazed confusion and maybe a little horny. Okay, definitely horny.

  She slapped her hand against her forehead, groaning.

  I should have known that Redmond Hamilton was up to no good, she thought.

  But maybe Redmond’s meddling could be the best thing that ever happened to her?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ragnar

  Something that Abigail had said struck home far too hard with Ragnar. When he managed to untangle himself from her later in the day, having concluded cleaning out the workshop and finding himself unable to think of any good excuse to hang around her anymore, he’d taken a shower and headed out.

  Shifter Grove was a new settlement in the foothills, but the area had been a home to shifters for a long time. The Hamiltons had been a big clan once, and there were others not far either. Off the top of his head, Ragnar could name the Bitterroots in Montana—though it wasn’t so far over the mountains—and the Arders. But those were the good guys, the clans that the Hamiltons had never had problems with.

  As with all shifter relations, things were rarely that easy.

  Driving down the long, dusty road that he could faintly remember from his childhood, Ragnar kept his eyes peeled. Hamilton House was on a five-road intersection, three of which led to their grounds, one back to Shifter Grove, and the last one… well, that was what he was intending to find out now.

  The thick, lush fores
ts thinned out as he got farther from the Hamilton grounds and the mountains sprouted up in jagged lines. The road was barely visible, obviously rarely traveled, just like the ones leading to the Hamilton areas had been before Royce dragged everyone back kicking and screaming. Ragnar slowed down the truck slightly, taking his time to consider the surroundings. The woods were as dry here as they were everywhere else around Shifter Grove, but they were well-tended. It was obvious that someone had occasionally taken the time to clear out the thick underbrush, bringing more light and life in.

  Frowning slightly, Ragnar continued on. It wasn’t long until a building came into view in the distance. It looked slanted to one side, perhaps to the point of collapsing in on itself. It was painted a deep, gnarly sort of red that stuck out like a sore thumb in the green foliage. He had to imagine that it was what the owner intended, though Ragnar couldn’t be sure who was he showing off for. Nobody came this far out of town, especially in that direction. From that point on, there were nothing but lifeless rocks and treacherous mountainsides.

  As he got closer, he also saw two trucks parked out in front, both of them F-250s.

  They certainly have the cash to blow on trucks, he mused to himself, taking mental notes.

  Ragnar drove straight up to the front yard, scattering some chickens, and parked next to the matching black trucks. He clambered out, eyeing the vehicles thoughtfully. In the back seat of one of the cabs he spotted an unmarked canister that looked too small to be used for oil or gas. A dark thought pricked at the back of his mind, sprouting questions.

  He didn’t have time to snoop around more as the door was heavily flung open and a tall, broad man with gray eyes stomped out.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing in my yard, Hamilton?!” he roared, his face twisted with rage.

  Shit. I found the hospitable neighbors.

  Squaring his shoulders and raising his chin, Ragnar crossed his arms over his chest. There was something incredibly familiar about this place, as well as the eyes of the man staring at him now. Ragnar’s brow furrowed slightly as he tried to remember what struck him about it all, but he wasn’t given a chance to really drill down on it.