Bear No Loss

by Anya Nowlan

  Memphis Corley was a rare man in the sense that April had a damn hard time imagining him doing anything that would really hurt her. Having grown up with emotionally abusive parents, who shied away at nothing to get their children to be the right kind of puppets in their convoluted little dance of power-mongering, April’s first instinct about people had been to doubt their sincerity. But with Memphis, she was perfectly happy thinking that he would never willingly hurt her and that made her all the more eager to enjoy her time with him!

  They kicked off their boots and undid each other’s belts, all the while kissing like horny teenagers, and when April’s back hit one of the thick sleeping mats, she couldn’t help but laugh. It was a happy sound, her giggles continuing as Memphis got down next to her to unhook her bra off and she ran her hand over the thick, throbbing bulge in his pants.

  “What’s so funny?” Memphis asked between kisses.

  “Just… everything! How scared I was to come here, how I was convinced this would be a horrible idea and we’d just end up hurting each other. It seems so ridiculous now.”

  “Good,” Memphis murmured, kissing a trail down her chest while her hands were busy ripping his belt open. “Because as much as I love our conversations, I really just wanna fuck you right now.”

  “The feeling’s mutual,” April purred back, unbuttoning his jeans and sliding her hand down the front of his pants.

  They must have groaned at the exact same time, April from finally getting her hands on that cock she’d been daydreaming about since their first night together, and Memphis for… well, much the same reasons, probably. April grinned wickedly as she gripped him tightly through his boxers, jerking up and down with her hand with maddening slowness, making Memphis twitch with every movement. She could completely understand now why he had been so content just to play with her last time instead of going all the way—watching him writhe against her was almost as fun as being the one who was at the center of attention.

  Instead this time she didn’t want to go without knowing exactly what he felt like. While she’d gotten swept away last time in how good it felt to have his fingers in her and his mouth on her, this time she wanted more, clearly shown by the way she was tugging his pants down now and wiggling her hips against him so he’d return the favor.

  There was a lantern in the tent giving them light while the outside was pitch black, but it cast shadows over Memphis’s muscles and made him look like a god rather than a man. Every ridge and slope of his carved body was revealed to her greedy eyes as he pulled off first his own pants and then hers as well, though the latter April hardly even noticed because she was too busy staring at his cock.

  It wasn’t completely hard yet, but it perfectly fit the giant of a man she’d come to know. Her mouth fell open a little and she sat up, just staring at that thing, giving Memphis a moment to peel off her bra. She reached her hand out again and gripped it, missing a good solid inch or so for her fingers to meet. A glistening bead of precum clung to the head, and before she could let any thoughts of proper tent-fucking manners veer her off the path, she leaned forward and licked it up, the taste perfectly salty in her mouth.

  “I… wow,” she stammered, looking up into his stormy gray eyes now.

  Memphis grinned, scooping her up in his arms and pulling her mouth to his, which April allowed with an eager murmur.

  “Like what you see?” he asked.

  “Love it,” she whispered in response, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth.

  “Good, that makes two of us then,” he growled back and as April’s hands clasped around his neck, he lowered himself down on their makeshift bed.

  April straddled him, suddenly very aware that she was buck naked as his hands traveled up her sides, cupping her breasts and having them fill his big, rough palms perfectly. He kneaded them as April kissed him, her pussy getting wetter by the second and her body grinding against his as she hovered over his hips, his cock pressing against her stomach.

  She couldn’t keep toying with it, her thumb spreading a bead of precum as it appeared on the head, making him heave for breath. She adored how she could make him react, how she could draw growls and whimpers out of him with just her hands. The need grew in her steadily until it was too much to ignore and she rose higher, moving the head of his cock to her wet slit.

  Memphis’s hands went to her hips and as she pushed down, he kept her there as he slowly thrust upward, filling her inch by inch. The sound that emitted from between her lips was some bastardized mix of a scream and a mewl, his huge cock splitting her open and filling her just like she’d dreamed it would every time she’d touched herself since they’d been together. But it was even better, the paradox of pleasure and pain, his hungry eyes looking up at her, as if drinking in every second of the sensations they shared and getting as much from her expressions as he was from her body.

  When she’d finally sunk down on him completely, taking all he had, she thought she would shatter into shards right then and there. April felt so incredibly full that any movement might just break her apart and make every muscle in her body clench up. When she could meet Memphis’s gaze again, she could see the kind of restraint he had to muster within himself to keep from rushing her along, his fingers gripping her hips and stomach tightly.

  “Relax, sugar,” he whispered, rising up slightly so he could kiss her mouth. “Ease into it.”

  His words were soft and encouraging and when April ground against him, first gingerly but then faster and faster, both of them had to suck in hurried breaths as their passion grew from mild to scorching within seconds. Soon enough, April’s knees were digging into the mattress and she was bent over him, driving down against his hips as he bucked up, one of his hands clutching her by her red locks as her head was buried in the crook of his neck, teeth clinging to his flesh.

  “Holy shit, you’re so tight,” Memphis ground out between clenched teeth, and April couldn’t say a word because holding onto her sanity was hard enough.

  Where has he been all this time? she thought feverishly as Memphis rolled them over, leaving her lying on her back, staring up at him.

  He pulled her knees up, pressing them against her chest and holding them there with his hands as he plowed into her, now at an angle that made her eyes roll back in her head. She hadn’t thought she could feel any fuller, but he’d proven her wrong and now she was moaning like a wildcat, her nails scrabbling against his arms as he fucked her senseless.

  It didn’t take long for April to completely give up on trying to control her orgasm. As it swept over her, she was reduced to a spasming, mewling mess and Memphis’s grin only grew wider, his eyes shimmering with affection and maybe a hint of pride that he could make her lose control so brilliantly. Whatever it was, she couldn’t really concentrate on it because the world was melting around her and her body was a jumble of hot and cold flashes, tension and release at the same time.

  Her pussy milked him mercilessly, small muscles tightening around his big cock, urging him to give in with her. She loved the way he shone in the low light, the thin coating of sweat only accentuating his muscles and the strain, and she could trace the lines of his scars with her eyes even as her mouth fell open and she breathed out a few more gasps.

  It was the moment she completely relaxed around him that Memphis gave in, cumming inside of her with a roar. April grinned, feeling him now brace his massive body with his hands on her knees instead of keeping her legs in place, the man twitching and growling as he spilled his load inside of her. She clamped down around him for good measure, drawing a whimpering heave from him before he pulled out gingerly, sitting back on his haunches.

  April let her feet drop down on the mattress, staring at Memphis like she’d only really seen him for the first time now. Her world was spinning and as fantastic as the orgasms had been when he’d fingered her, they were nothing compared with him taking her to insanity and back with his cock.

  “We could have been doing that the entire time, yo
u know,” she finally said, her voice deadpan.

  “Yeah? You don’t say,” Memphis quipped back with a chuckle, still catching his breath, though his gaze was already tracing a path up along her thigh and to her pussy. “I guess we need to make up for lost time then.”

  “You won’t hear any objections from me.”

  As far as April Whitaker was concerned, Idaho was turning out great so far.

  Shame it couldn’t last, right?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  April

  If April had been having trouble containing her grin the last time she sat in the stands during one of Memphis’s practices, it was practically impossible now. It was early in the morning the day after their impromptu getaway in the forest and April hadn’t even turned on her phone yet out of fear of the “real world” immediately ruining her happy little glow.

  The Shifter Grove Shovelers were off the ice this time. Instead, they were lined up at the edge of the forest, ten of them in shifter form and ten in human, the latter waiting for their turn. The team was an equal mesh of bear shifters and other species, with a duo of wolves and several tigers thrown in, but it was the bears who seemed to take most naturally to the sport. While football was mostly reserved for the big cats and the occasional bear, hockey was bear dominion through and through.

  April didn’t mind, seeing as she was very partial to one particular bear.

  She leaned against the arm rail on one of the stands, her head propped against it as she watched the huge shifters mill back and forth while Coach gave them their directions, Memphis understandably as the biggest guy among them, along with another polar bear whose name she hadn’t quite caught.

  Maybe tonight during drinks, she thought with a soft smile, though her thoughts were rattled suddenly by a sharp whistle sounding as Coach stepped out of the way and the ten shifters burst into action.

  For a second, all April could see was a cloud of snow billowing up as they took off at a run around the entirety of the lake. Memphis had explained their training to her as they as drove down from the mountains that morning, stopping at the Sunrise Diner for a quick bite of breakfast before Memphis had to be present at the lake for their early start.

  Coach Wiley had a tendency of training both the shifter and the man, believing that only with the two of them together could an athlete truly reach his full potential. The games were always played in human form, though a few scuffles on the ice led to shifter forms being let loose every season—a crowd favorite, of course, because who doesn’t like watching a Siberian tiger shifter beat the living daylights out of a couple of brown bears, right?—and so a lot of coaches veered on the side of preferring to train the men, not the beasts.

  “But Coach is onto something. A shifter is damn hard to control, and unless both parties are involved, the man and the animal, then nothing good can come of it in the long run. You’re either too emotional or too rational on the ice while you have to be both. So we drill quick shifts and hard runs and muscle endurance in both forms and I think it’s paying off.”

  What it translated as to April was that harmony between the two sides of a shifter made them stronger, and that made a lot of sense. She’d seen Memphis’s eyes flash the dark brown of his bear a few times the night before and frankly she felt good knowing that the man she was with was in touch with both his sides instead of letting one overcome the other when it suited his fancy.

  It wasn’t long until she couldn’t even see movement in the tree line anymore, the first group of ten disappearing beyond sight and the remaining ten being told to shift and take their places. While April hadn’t spent too much time around shifters, she’d seen all the regular documentaries and read all the Wiki pages to know what the average shift speeds were and to realize that these men were way beyond it.

  There was a difference between just being a shifter and being a shifter athlete, at the very peak of your physical fitness and capability. Even someone as far from sports as April could appreciate that!

  She took a quiet sip of her coffee, feeling the pleasant warmth spread through her as she lazily kept an eye on the training group, while sometimes glancing out to see if she could see any movement across the lake already. The sun was creeping up slowly but surely and the scenery was bright and airy, yellows and early-morning oranges playing with the icy white and making for a scene so beautiful that she was sort of sad she couldn’t paint worth a damn to capture the majestic nature around her.

  Her hand automatically reached for her notebook, which she had steadily been filling with thoughts and notions since coming to Shifter Grove, but she didn’t even manage to thumb to the right page before two hands grabbed her shoulders and Nicky’s face obscured her view.

  April shrieked, flinging herself back, but Nicky’s grip was strong and she laughed a high-pitched, slightly pained giggle that cut through April like a knife.

  “Where were you?! Oh my God, I was so worried! You only left me a text and you were gone for a whole day?! Were you with Memphis? Where did you go? What did you do?! Tell me everything!”

  Questions rattled out of her mouth like bullets out of a machine gun and Nicky plopped down on the bench next to her, plucking her coffee out of her hands and taking a long sip from the Thermos.

  “Not enough sugar. So, spill the deets!” she urged, elbowing her in a way that April thought was supposed to be friendly, but came out as anything but.

  “Oh, yeah! I was out with Memphis. He took me for a meal and a hike and showed me some sights around Shifter Grove. It happened so suddenly that I couldn’t invite you along,” April said, cringing at the little white lie which Nicky obviously didn’t buy, considering the look on her face.

  “Uh-huh. It was so much fun you didn’t come home all night?”

  April smiled bashfully, looking back out to the lake and catching a flash of white fur flying through the high snow just then, only a glimpse before he was gone again.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, then. I’m surprised though, girl! I thought you weren’t that kind of woman!” Nicky said with a shrug, handing back the Thermos.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know, that kind. He only sleeps with puck bunnies, you know. Those chicks who collect hockey players. He’s like a reverse collector. He’s all over the blogs because he’s supposed to be like one of the easiest catches. Manwhore Memphis is what they call him.”

  April’s mouth fell open, staring at Nicky, who looked back with honest surprise.

  “What, you didn’t know?” she asked, batting her long lashes a few times.

  “No… wait, are you sure? I thought you liked him a lot too, before!” April stammered, feeling the nice heat turn into icy cold in her bones now.

  “Don’t be silly! I like the way he plays! And sure, he’s a nice guy and all, but come on, he’s a manwhore. I mean, no offense, it’s cool if you like him and you know what they say—the love of a good woman can change any wretch,” Nicky said, shrugging innocently as she stood up to get a better look at the shifters lining up.

  “I guess,” April said, frowning to herself as she glanced between Nicky and the stretch of forest that the first team would appear from.

  Sure enough, there they were a minute later, a stretch of time that had been taken up by endless confusion in April’s head. Memphis wasn’t at the head of the pack as the snipers and offensive players were usually the faster ones, but he was right in the group as they blew past the stands and skidded to a halt in front of Coach, each getting a time put down.

  April didn’t hear what Coach was telling them, but when they shifted back and headed for their bags or benches to grab a drink or sit, April could feel a slight tremble run through her. Memphis was heading straight for her and she had no idea what to think.

  Why would Nicky tell me something that wasn’t true? But why would Memphis invite me here… we talked about this yesterday! Ugh, what am I supposed to believe?

  She resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands, in
stead giving Memphis a light, if strained smile.

  “Good run?”

  “The best,” he barked back with a grin, giving a short wave to Nicky who replied with much the same. “Hey, I wanted to ask you. I know you must be getting tired of the hockey jerks, but you only met the defense guys the other night and we’re having this bigger shindig tonight as some sort of a ritual nerve-cleansing before a big game we have in a week. Toronto Bobcats, vicious team. I can’t miss it but I’d love it if you were there. Both of you, if Nicky wants to come too,” Memphis said, tossing a quizzical look at Nicky.

  “Sure, if April wants to,” she said, arching a brow at April.

  “I… um, sure, we’ll be there,” April said, forcing another smile on her face, though she knew she must have been looking a little pale now.

  “Okay, great,” Memphis responded, though he was frowning now, giving Nicky a few looks that didn’t exactly gush with friendliness. “I’ll see you there then.”

  “See you,” April said.

  Memphis stood there for a moment before turning around with a scowl and walking back to where the rest of the team was milling about, scratching the back of his neck. It dawned on April a moment later that he’d probably expected a kiss or a hug considering the night they’d had and how neither one of them had gotten a wink of sleep.

  In a frustrated bout of questioning energy, she turned on her phone and groaned only to find it with no cell reception yet again, as was becoming the norm in Shifter Grove. She couldn’t even Google and make sure if Nicky was telling her the truth.

  What am I supposed to do here? Trust the guy I’ve known for a few months or my roommate of several years? But he doesn’t seem like an asshole. Could my instincts really be that wrong?

  April gnawed on her lower lip, grabbing her notebook again. For some reason, she was getting a great mental image of the villain of her fantasy book. An evil bitch that was as two-faced as she was conniving.