Ranger Trent (Shifter Nation: Werebears Of Acadia Book 2)

by Meg Ripley

  Eric pulled her toward him and pressed his lips to hers hungrily, and her body cried out in joy. She wrapped her arms around the breadth of his shoulders as he massaged her lips with his, his hands slipping under her shirt to caress the silky warmth of her bare skin. He stood and pressed her body tighter to his, his arousal pressing against the front of her skirt, hard and heavy through his pants.

  Cassie pulled back from the kiss breathlessly. “Wait, Eric, are you sure you want to do this? I work for you.”

  “I don’t care,” he said deliriously, his hands running lower on her body until the lifted her skirt and grabbed her buttocks roughly. “I want you, Cassie.” Cassie moaned and ground her hips against his reaction, desire echoing through her body like a shockwave. A rush of moisture drenched the crotch of her panties, and the next moment, Eric was kneeling and pulling them away from her body, planting hot kisses on the soft skin of her thighs.

  Cassie lifted her shirt, letting her high, round breasts spring free as she leaned back against the breakfast nook and parted her thighs. Eric gripped her hips firmly and gazed up at her, his green eyes burning with need. He kept her gaze as he slipped his tongue between her slick folds, and Cassie threw her head back and shouted her pleasure to the heavens as Eric dragged his tongue around her clit in long, slow licks.

  “Eric!” Cassie shouted, throwing one leg over his broad shoulder and grinding herself more firmly against the force of his tongue. She couldn’t believe how perfect his mouth felt on her body, and couldn’t imagine the kind of pleasure his member would send through her.

  Eric pulled away from her suddenly as though he could read her mind. He placed his hands on her hips and lifted her until she sat on the counter, kissing her roughly as her hands fumbled at the clasp of his khakis. She could taste her own sweet essence on his tongue, and her hand moved eagerly over the hot thickness of his shaft as she pulled his cock free.

  He didn’t waste any time. Eric held one hand behind her head as he pushed his round head inside Cassie’s warm velvety walls, and she cried out in ecstasy as his length stretched and filled her for the first time. It was like they were two interlocking puzzle pieces; every slow stroke felt perfectly tailored to her body, expertly crafted to push her toward her most delicious edge.

  “Cassie,” Eric moaned, his thumb passing over her erect nipple as he slowly pumped between her thighs. “Oh god, you’re the most incredible woman.”

  His strokes grew faster and harder, and Cassie could only whimper and tighten her arms around him as his body collided with hers. Pleasure was streaking through her muscles and enveloping her brain, carrying away all thought except the joyous sensation of his hips pounding into hers. Eric’s hand fisted in her hair, and Cassie cried out as her ecstasy reached its peak at the precise moment that her lover reached his.

  “Cassie!” he moaned, throwing his body against hers with abandon. “I’m coming! I’m coming!”

  Cassie arched her back and screamed wordlessly as the slick walls of her pussy tightened and pulsed around Eric’s thick, rigid shaft, his cries reaching a fever pitch as he exploded inside her. His mouth covered her breasts in wet kisses as they both twitched and moaned together, hips bucking together weakly to pull all the pleasure from each other’s bodies.

  She didn’t have time to catch her breath before she was being carried to his bedroom and laid across the bed. He wrapped his arms around her naked body and gazed down at her, stroking her soft hair as she gazed at him wearily.

  “Eric,” she said softly, her eyelids growing heavier by the moment.

  He smiled. “Yes?”

  Cassie took a breath. “I love you.”

  His face went blank, and for a moment, Cassie feared he wouldn’t respond. “I love you, too,” he said finally.

  Something in his tone made her open her eyes. He was starting to turn away, but she put a hand on his arm to top him. Eric was startled, but Cassie fixed him with a stare.

  “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  The look in his eye was of pure terror. “I didn’t think it would get this far,” he said.

  Cassie frowned and sat up on the bed. “You mean…love?”

  Eric covered his eyes with his hands, and Cassie’s heart started to sink in her chest.

  “Oh, no,” she said quietly. “Do you have a girlfriend that I don’t know about?”

  He looked up, his anguish interrupted by surprise. “What? No.”

  Cassie shook her head. “Then what is it?” she demanded. Eric didn’t answer, so she took hold of his chin and reputed her question. “Eric. Something tells me you think I’m going to find out anyway, so tell me what it is. You just fucked my brains out; I think I’m in a good enough mood. Come on, did you find the person sabotaging your project already, and then hide it from me so you could get in my pants?” she grinned at him to show him that she was joking, but when the panic in his haze sharpened, her smile faded. “Oh, no. Oh, god…Eric. Have you been paying me so you could woo me?”

  His silence gave her the answer.

  “Eric, what the fuck?!” Anger coursed through her, and she felt her heart start to gallop in her chest. “How long have you known?”

  Eric met her eyes briefly. “A long time.”

  Cassie scoffed. “So, who is it?”

  Eric covered his hands with his eyes again, a small sound of despair escaping his lips.

  Cassie went numb with shock. “Eric…no. It can’t be. It couldn’t be…”

  He raised his green eyes to hers, and they were brimming with tears. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I didn’t mean for it to go this far.”

  A bitter laugh burst from her mouth. “You sabotaged your own project for some ass, Eric? Are you fucking kidding me? You led me along just so you could fuck me?”

  “No!” Eric said desperately.

  “Then why?”

  “Because I wanted to get to know you, Cassie,” he said, his voice pleading. “I wanted you to get to know me.”

  “Good idea, except the part where you lied to me about everything!” she shouted, scooting away from him on the bed as he tried to reach for her. “I can’t be with someone like that, Eric—I can’t be with a liar.”

  Eric was following her as she raced through the apartment and pulled on her clothes. “I was so impressed by you, Cassie, I just wanted to work with you. And then I fell in love with you. I didn’t mean to.”

  Cassie laughed in his face as she pulled on her shirt. “Well, that makes it better. Have a nice life, Eric. Don’t call me. I’ll bill you.”

  “Cassie!”

  But she sprinted to the road and was flagging down a taxi by the time he caught up with her. Cassie sobbed in the back of the cab, unable to stop herself from watching Eric’s place growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

  ****

  Cassie wasn’t sure how long it took her to stop crying. Hours maybe, or perhaps it was minutes. It was nightfall when she left her house again, and that was only to check the mail. She saw Eric’s silver Mercedes on the street and dashed back up before he could even leave his car.

  She wasn’t sure what had hurt her more—that she’d been lied to, or that she’d fallen in love before she figured out. She kept going over the last few weeks in her mind, trying to find a warning or red flag that should have tipped her off. Cassie kept going back to their first serious conversation about who was sabotaging his company; once the truth comes out in a case like this, bonds can be broken and never repaired. How right she’d been.

  By the end of the first week holed up in her apartment, Eric stopped calling, and his Mercedes couldn’t be found outside on the street any longer. Her relief was enormous—but she was surprised to find that she was more than a little disappointed, too. Had his love for her dried up so quickly?

  Don’t be stupid, said a nasty voice in her head. He never loved you—he just wanted to get in your pants. Now that it’s over, he has no reason to try again.

  She burned with rage at the thought of hi
m simply losing interest in her and the body he’d ravaged so insatiably. Was she really so disposable to him? Cassie took another week off work and spent it wandering the streets aimlessly, bumping into walls and citizens at random as she tried to sort her jumbled thoughts and feelings. Cassie hated to admit it, but Eric had given her a purpose beyond professional—she’d felt important to someone for the first time in years. Maybe that was why she’d been so upset with him; not because she felt disposable now, but because she’d felt so invaluable before. Could it be possible that she liked feeling so desperately needed—so desired that a man would concoct a wild scheme just to get close to her?

  Am I that crazy? She thought—and then: Do you have to be crazy to miss being madly in love? Maybe. Probably. Cassie pushed open a door without reading a sign, and her heart stopped when she realized where her legs had carried her: the bookstore where she’d first met Eric.

  Definitely crazy.

  Cassie’s heart felt strangely heavy as she strolled through the aisles, the cashier and bored shelf stockers ignoring her like they had the first time. There was The Joy of Sex, precisely where she’d picked it up last time. The arrangement of spines looked just as dusty as they had before, and when she turned toward the front of the store, she could swear Eric was standing right where she first laid eyes on him. Then she did a double take, and her heart stopped.

  “Cassie.”

  Eric hurried toward her, and Cassie stood, rooted to the spot by the panic and heartache mingling in her chest. “Cassie, please, just let me say this.” He took her hands in his, aquamarine eyes shining with sincerity. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I should never, ever have lied to you. But you’re right—I have blind spots. Huge ones, put there by money and the privilege it brings. One of those blind spots kept me from realizing that all I had to do was be real with you—and let you come to me yourself.”

  Cassie gazed up at him, her eyes wide and unblinking.

  “I don’t have any common sense—but please, don’t let that scare you away from me. I’m willing to learn. I want to learn. And more importantly, I want to show you the way you make me feel—so you understand why I’m so damn taken with you.” Eric swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “You make me feel like I’m the only one who matters on Earth…and I’m so used to putting that idea out of my head in favor of work or profit, that I didn’t realize I wanted and needed that kind of love so badly.” He squeezed his hands. “Do you know what I mean by that?”

  Cassie finally opened her mouth to speak. “I think I do.”

  Eric didn’t try to hide his surprise. “So…will you give me another chance?”

  Cassie paused. His eyes were shining with such luster and love that she felt like she was being warmed by the sun from the inside out. She did know exactly what he meant—Eric was the only person immune to her shield of invisibility. Before him, she had no idea being seen could feel so good. Cassie pulled him down and pressed her lips to his hungrily, wrapping her arms around his neck as he slipped his hands around her waist and melted into the kiss.

  When he pulled back, he looked dizzy and more than a little dazed. “So…that’s a yes?”

  Cassie laughed. “Let’s run another test and see.”

  THE END

  Dan

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a Saturday night at Respects, and Mark and I had PB&Js—Pabst Blue Ribbon with a Jameson shot—in front of us. Outside on the patio, the karaoke was just starting to get into gear; the MC had to wait for the burlesque show to end, but everyone had managed to get a good few drinks in, so he had plenty of people willing to take their turns on the smaller stage.

  “Seriously,” Mark said, leaning in close but still shouting a bit to be heard over The Cure, playing through the system, “how fucked is it that Jules has a girlfriend before we do?” I laughed, shaking my head at Mark’s question. It was one we’d passed back and forth about a dozen times since Jules and Fran had come out about their relationship and started working on their side project together.

  “We don’t need girlfriends,” I told Mark, throwing my arm around his shoulder. “We’ve got Molly!” Mark rolled his eyes and picked up his Jameson and gestured for me to follow suit.

  “Man, fuck Molly,” Mark muttered. I raised an eyebrow even as I took the shot glass in one hand and my beer in the other to chase it.

  “You can’t fuck Molly,” I pointed out, smirking at my own wit. “She doesn’t have the right parts.”

  “She doesn’t have any parts,” Mark agreed. We knocked back our whiskey and I drank a gulp of beer. I knew I’d need to slow down soon—I was getting into the territory where fun drunk started to slip into messy drunk, and I didn’t want to end up on some stranger’s couch again.

  “I’m just saying,” Mark said, turning the empty shot glass over and sliding it on the acrylic bar top, “I need to get laid like fucking yesterday.”

  “Who’s stopping you? Go—find one of those girls from the show. Or one of the ones who wishes she was in the show,” I suggested. “Any of ‘em would lay you.” It was pretty close to the truth; Mark never had any trouble picking up women, with his long, curly hair and big brown puppy eyes. He was ripped from playing drums and going to the gym, but he had a baby face at the same time. The only person in the band who had ever been better than him at pulling tail was Nick—but Nick was an honest guy suddenly too, dating his journalist girlfriend and shockingly managing not to cheat on her with anyone.

  In fact, every member of Molly Riot was paired off except for Mark and me—which I assumed was the main point that the drummer was getting at in his comments about Jules. There was probably something about macho pride—some Spanish thing—in Mark’s objections to being single while Jules had a steady girl, but I didn’t really care all that much. For my own part, I only resented it inasmuch as it meant that none of the other guys in the band wanted to hang out as often; as soon as rehearsals were done, or we finished in the studio for the day, they were all off to their girlfriends.

  It wasn’t too bad; Mark was fun to go out with, and when I wanted to get laid, he was good for finding girls to hook up with who miraculously had friends every bit as hot as they were. It wasn’t like it was difficult for me to pick up a chick on my own—more that unless Mark suggested we find a hookup, I wasn’t interested enough to put in the effort. I had nothing to prove to anyone, and I’d come to the conclusion about a year before that about half the time, one-night stands turned out to be shitty sex; why waste the effort and time when getting myself off was at least as satisfying, if not more so?

  The DJ went from The Cure to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and I started tapping my foot idly against the leg of my stool, looking around the club. It had cleared out some after the burlesque show, with the typical downtown club kids wandering to their preferred haunts: O’Shea’s for the guys and girls who wanted uncomplicated beers surrounded by Irish paraphernalia, Monarchy for the ones who wanted to thrill themselves with the notion that because they could afford bottle service they were somehow cooler, Off The Hookah for people who wanted something more “adventurous” and “exotic” than regular cigarettes, and so on. The hardcore Respectables crowd was there, though: goths, hipsters, misfits, nerds. Tattoos and piercings everywhere, unnatural hair colors, cute vintage-styled dresses or jeans and tee shirts or all-black for girls and the same for guys—in some cases including the vintage-styled dresses. Nobody batted an eyelash at it; the stranger thing was the odd Polo-and-Khakis college kid, who should be at O’Shea’s or maybe in CityPlace instead, drinking overpriced Miller Light or mining a friend’s bottle service.

  “You two ready for another round?” I turned my head in the direction of the voice that cut through my thoughts and saw the new bartender that Jackson had mentioned when we’d arrived; at least, I didn’t think there’d been more than one new hire at the club, and the woman in front of me was one I’d never seen before. She had dark green hair pulled back from her face in short, almost spiky-looking pigtai
ls on either side of her head, and a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses to frame dark eyes, but other than that she looked almost more normal than anyone else in the club at the moment, save for maybe Mark and me: black tee shirt, jeans, light makeup, a pair of studs in her ears, a fine gold-chain necklace with an S pendant that hung down to just above the neckline of her shirt, highlighting her cleavage. She had an hourglass figure, all full tits and hips with a tight little waist in between, and I definitely—definitely—wanted to watch her walk away from us, though I also wanted to make sure she’d keep coming back; I was pretty sure her ass was spectacular, though I hadn’t seen it to notice yet.

  “Let’s do another shot each,” I suggested to Mark; when I looked at him, I saw that he was definitely taking in the same information I was, with the same impact.

  “What’s your name? I don’t think I’ve seen you behind the bar here before,” Mark called out, leaning closer to the bartender. The woman grinned.

  “Sophie,” she told him and then glanced at me to make sure I’d also heard. “How about it? Another round?”

  “Just the shots,” I told her. “And can I get a bottle of water to go with it?” Sophie nodded and turned to start pouring our shots. When she walked to one of the other ice bins to grab my bottle of water for me, I got confirmation on her ass: it was as close to perfect as any ass on any woman I’d seen in at least a week—at least in person. Mark let out a low, quiet whistle next to me; obviously, he’d seen it too.

  When Sophie came back with our shots and my water, she raised a dark eyebrow and leaned in close, looking at Mark. “Don’t think I didn’t hear you just then,” she told him.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Mark countered, grinning. Sophie held his gaze for a moment and her lips twisted in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile; it was that man-eater look that you see in women who know just how good they are, just how strong they are, just how little they need you. Sophie leaned in a little closer to Mark’s ear; I leaned away, feeling like there was something about to happen that I wanted to be out of range for. I watched as she brought two fingers up to her bright red lips, and barely managed to keep from snickering until after she’d whistled—high and loud—right in his ear. Mark’s head jerked back and he clamped his hand over the ear, but the damage was clearly already done. I caught sight of Sophie’s grin as she turned to help the next customer and laughed my ass off.