How Not To Date a Bear

by Stephanie Burke

  “But — but —” he stammered again. Then he glared at her, pulling his hand back. “I’m bald!”

  “You still have the hair on your head, and it is very nice hair indeed.” She grinned at him. “And when you have your clothes on, no one will even notice. It’ll be our little secret.”

  “Secret?” he asked, a whining quality in his voice before it hardened. “Secret? Woman, I can’t keep anything like this secret! I’m a bear, for goodness’ sake!”

  “Yes you… are,” Gillian allowed.

  “I am a bald bear!”

  “And still quite handsome and strong.”

  “But —”

  “Don’t tell me that you allowed yourself to be defined by your body hair?” she asked, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “I didn’t think you were that vain.”

  “I am not!” he snapped, running his hands through his hair. “But — but you — I don’t — you shaved me bald!”

  “You said I could groom you.”

  “Groom,” he growled, sounding like the animal he identified with. “Grooming is brushing, combing, washing, and the occasional rubbing and stroking, usually ending in oral sex. What you did was — you butchered me, woman!”

  “I did no such thing,” Gillian denied, beginning to feel a little bad for her actions. It’s not like she had done it on purpose. It was an accident. And the hair would grow back.

  “You did!” He pouted, still glaring at her.

  “You are so cute.” She grinned. She was in no danger from this man. Her instincts to take him home were correct. Her instincts had never failed her.

  “I am a bear.”

  “And you will be again in a few days, man. Give it a rest, Declan. Your hair will grow back. You hair does not define you.”

  “Yes it does!” He slammed his hands on his hips, making his cock look longer and thicker without its fine covering of fur as it bounced off his hairless thigh. She licked her lips, her gaze on the swaying member. “And get your eyes off my dick, woman. You look the man you emasculated right in the eyes.”

  “You are not emasculated.” She shook her head, tearing her gaze away from his crotch. “And you are really upset about this.” He looked like he was about to cry. “I am so sorry, Declan. But it will grow back. I made a mistake and yacked the trim, and then I kept trimming and trimming and well, I evened you out so your hair will return at the same rate. And you are still very much a man.” She licked her lips. “Oh, I can attest to that.”

  “You don’t understand,” he tried again. “I am a bear.” This time he said the words slowly, as if she were too ignorant to understand the simple words. “I — am — a — bear!”

  “Bear is a physical attribute, Declan.” Now she was starting to grow angry. Guilt would do that to a body, she supposed. “You are still a gorgeous, masculine man.”

  “I am a bear!” he snapped.

  “If you say that one more time —” And then he changed. It was so fast she almost missed it. He was there, and then there was the impression of a large land animal.

  “You are a new-type shifter,” she gasped. “Oh. You are a bear bear. Now how did I miss that?”

  Just as suddenly, he was back in his bald, naked human form, glowering at her. “I told you I was a bear — several times.”

  “I didn’t know you meant bear bear.” She put emphasis on the first bear, leaning forward, eyes large as if she were speaking in code. She knew she was doing it, but couldn’t stop. “Wow. Your people — can I say people?” At his irritated nod she ranted on. “When your people made yourselves known and let everyone know that you had been living amidst us for centuries — I was shocked and amazed, and I thought you guys would never move near Manitoba. I mean, we take multiculturalism to a higher level but I have never heard of shifters here. They are usually all in America.”

  “Right,” he grumbled, looking down at his body in confusion.

  “What?” she asked.

  “My hair — it should have come back.”

  “That fast?” she asked, awed.

  “We shift for minor injuries, and this is a minor injury.”

  “I did not injure you!” she defended herself, hoping that the hair of a bear shifter was not like an extra sense organ or something like that.

  “It itches.” He scratched at his chest, all the time giving her the hairy eyeball.

  “So change again. Maybe you did it too fast.”

  “Like suddenly you are the expert,” he grumbled.

  “Well, it’s worth a shot. If your skin is irritated —”

  While she was speaking, he shifted again, and this time Gillian paid attention to what he was doing.

  There wasn’t a fancy light show or smoke or even sound. Declan’s form just sort of melted and reformed — into a bear. A large, hairless kind of gray-skinned polar bear.

  She was amazed. He really was a bear. A large, naked, ashy-skinned polar bear, if the white hair on his face and head was any clue. But the rest of him —

  She didn’t know she was laughing until he let out a subterranean grunt and glared at her.

  A naked, nearly eight-foot polar bear was standing on two legs — naked — and she was laughing her ass off. It was odd, but she felt absolutely no fear, only humor for the pitiful sight he made.

  His grumbles were growing louder when she pointed to her closet door and the huge mirror that hung there.

  She laughed harder as she watched the naked polar bear do a double take.

  His mouth dropped open, showing a huge maw filled with massive, sharp-edged teeth, and he blinked at himself before a paw with just a bit of fringed hair around the claws covered his nose in distress.

  He switched back to human form just as his phone began to ring. Gillian laughed even harder as Elvis’ “Teddy Bear” blared out as a ringtone.

  “Theo?” he snapped. “Chto? What do you want?”

  Gillian could not hear what was being said, but from what she could see on Declan’s face, the news was not good.

  *

  “Boss?” Declan’s second in command, Theodore, did not sound pleased.

  “Now is not the time,” Declan snapped in Russian.

  “Well, you had better make time,” Theodore snapped right back. “This is important. I would not disturb you otherwise, not after all the months you put into this treaty and our relocation.”

  That calmed Declan down immediately.

  Sure, he was upset that the woman he’d gone home with shaved him like he was some American Army recruit — why he hadn’t killed her outright for such an assault on his person he didn’t know. But the seriousness in Theodore’s tone took his mind off his personal problems.

  “What happened?”

  “They suddenly want to dispute rights, boss. I don’t get it.”

  “They give you any reason?” Declan began to pace, his anger and discontent growing by the second. “This deal was done. We were just waiting for final approval.”

  “They said something about it being a matter of our savagery and some cousins who may start trouble.”

  “Savagery?” Declan froze, his eyes narrowing as his mind ran through every scenario he could think of. This was one that he could not fathom. “Savagery? Damn it Theodore, we are bears! And cousins? We have no direct family here.”

  “I have no idea what they mean when they say cousins, but I think they are afraid of us, Boss.” His second’s voice was weary. “I have no idea why.”

  “Damn it, I pulled my people out of Russia to avoid the territorial wars going on there. Before, the Brown Bears here were quite amiable.”

  “I think they fear retaliation from the Grizzlies.” Theodore sounded resigned.

  “The Grizzlies?”

  “The land we want not only butts up against Brown Bear land, it touches a small part of Grizzly territory as well. And Grizzlies are —”

  “Evil, sadistic bastards. Except for their women. They are evil, sadistic, and hormonal.”

  �
�I was going to say distant cousins, Boss. But that works too. And the Browns and the Grizzlies have an uneasy truce.”

  “And I am assuming the Grizzlies think we are extra hired muscle for the Browns?”

  “Best I can figure it, Boss,” Theodore agreed.

  “And I am assuming the Browns think that we can be swayed to join the more aggressive Grizzlies sect.”

  “That would be a good assumption, Boss.”

  “So I need you to go and assure our skittish neighbors that we are not about to join in on any land disputes or whatever the hell they are angry about.”

  “No can do.”

  “Pray tell me why not?” He absently scratched at his chest and stomach. Damn, he had never itched so badly before. What the hell did she shave him with? Silver?

  “Because they want to meet with you.”

  Declan sighed, looking over his shoulder at Gillian, who was still snickering on the bed.

  He wanted to go over there, jack her up and fuck the shit out of her.

  Oh, yeah, he thought as his dick began to fill with heat. He wanted to spread her out all over her bed and just eat her down until she begged him to stop. Then he would flip her over, pull up that sweet, sweet ass and spank it nice and red. Then, when she was screaming, writhing on the bed, begging for it, he would slam it to her nice and hard.

  But first, he had some business to attend to.

  “Okay. Give me a chance to call a car around and get myself home for a shower and a shave —”

  “They want to meet in the forests, outside of Churchill.”

  “Okay —”

  “They want to meet in true form.”

  Declan winced and gave Gillian another narrowed eye glare from over his shoulder.

  “Fight, or is it the sniffing of asses, because —”

  “I’d be prepared for anything, Boss. So yeah, true form.”

  Oh, hell no, Declan thought. There was no way in hell he was taking his skinned gray ass out there so he could be the laughing stock of the bear shifter community. If he went out there skinned as he was, he would lose the respect of the people he was trying to create a treaty with. And if that happened, he would never get his people out of that bloody war in Russia.

  His clan was a small clan, an offshoot of a larger Great Clan who emigrated from Norway generations ago. He’d fought long and hard to gain their freedom from the more vicious group who spawned them. And he’d fought even harder to modernize his people. He didn’t want to exist in the Russian Mafia world that most shifter groups there had become, especially the bears.

  If he could not find a home here in Manitoba, it meant he would have to travel further into the US Territories, and there he would most certainly have to fight off the Kodiak and Browns that made their home there. If that happened, superior numbers would overwhelm his people, and they would lose their hard-earned standing in the communities, especially now that shifters were exposed to the world.

  “Well,” he admitted to Theodore. He trusted Theo to be at his back no matter what. In fact, Theodore could have been a clan leader in his own right. But instead he chose to follow and assist his compatriot. But could he trust him with this fucked up situation? “I have a personal emergency, Theo. There is no way that I can show up in true form without causing us to lose face and lead us into the war that we don’t want.”

  “What the hell?” Theo gasped. “What happened, Boss? Do you need assistance…?”

  “Nothing like that,” he grumbled. “But saving face is vital. And if I show up —”

  “Are you sure you are okay?” Then he whispered, “Are you alone? Can you talk freely?”

  “Theo!”

  “This had better not be about a piece of ass! Archer told me that you got picked up hard. Declan, if you are balls-deep into some pussy that makes you forget your duties, you can at least find out if she has sisters.”

  “Theodore! That is not the problem! But it is serious enough that I can’t appear in true form for a few days. You will have to go and give them my assurances.”

  “That I can do.” Theo sighed. “Since talking to them on the phone is getting me nowhere.”

  “Keep me posted. Maybe I can come up with a solution to my problems by then.”

  “Will do, Boss.”

  Declan closed his phone. He stared at it for a moment, and then used the hard edge to reach an itchy spot on his back. “Graaa,” he intoned, closing his eyes as he really got into it. He was dancing from foot to foot, it felt so damn good.

  Great Uris, he had never itched so badly. He wanted to drown himself in oil. And the itch was getting worse.

  Turing to the now silent Gillian, he asked in his most commanding tone, “What did you use, woman?” Only to have her rise up out of the bed, a frown on her face, as she snatched the phone from his hand.

  “Stop it,” she snapped. “You are scratching yourself bloody and raw.”

  And for some strange reason, he was not ripping out her throat for that either. For some strange reason, he was pulling his hands away like a chastened cub, looking sheepishly down at her.

  He didn’t know why, but the urge to listen to her instructions was almost instinctual. It was like she was his mother or his mate or something.

  He frowned hard. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it, not one bit.

  *

  Gillian frowned as she stared at her man — Declan. There was the disturbing phone call in what she assumed was Russian that left him pacing and looking like he was ready to spit glass. But that was his business and she had nothing to do with that.

  What she could deal with was skin irritation. And as she moved around him, circling his thick muscular body, she noticed patches of red skin.

  “I have an ointment for that,” she muttered. “Hydrocortisone…” She ran her finger along what looked like a burn mark on his shoulder. “Maybe some silvadene cream — I think you scratched yourself into friction burns.”

  “No silver.” He sighed, sounding resigned. “Anything to help ease this itch. It may not kill us but there is a definite reaction.”

  She grabbed him by the hand and led him back to the bed.

  Gillian had no idea why she was not kicking his growly ass out of her place. Well, except she was responsible for his itchy state, it seemed. And she really wanted another go, shifter or not.

  Maybe he had one of those allergies to shaving, she decided after checking out his skin once more. A few men she had run across had that problem— maybe a Carba Mix allergy or eczema.

  She eased him down on the tangled blankets and went to get her cream.

  She did feel sorry about laughing at him, but — she snickered again as she thought about his poor bear shape, and how skinny and pitiful it looked.

  Yeah, that was her fault entirely. So she had to at least help ease his discomfort.

  When she came out of the bathroom, he was sitting with his elbows on his knees, looking quite pitiful once more.

  “Why the long face?” she asked, then chuckled as he glared at her from under his long eyelashes. “Seriously, you having problems at work or home?”

  “It’s complicated,” he sighed.

  “You are not married, are you?” she asked, suspicion rearing up its ugly head. “Because I refuse to be the other woman. I’ll kick your ass on her behalf.” She was suddenly so pissed that she fisted her hands and had to resist the urge to smack him a good one. “You are married, aren’t you?”

  Before she could work up a good head of anger, he shook his head. “Not married. Never even close.”

  “Oh.” She looked down at the tube of cream and winced when she saw that she had squeezed the tube until the cream was oozing out of the top.

  Shrugging her temper off like a worn coat, she walked over and climbed onto the bed behind him. She wiped the leaking cream from the tube and began to rub it into his irritated skin. The heat coming from him was magnificent.

  She grinned as he moved closer, the massage becoming less m
edicinal and more sensual as she moved down his shoulders and back.

  “Is there anything I can do to help? I mean, non-shifter wise. We learned a lot about shifters in the compulsory course in school, and I remember most of it was bunk. I know that the moon or anything doesn’t control shifting. And I know that shifters come in complicated clan structures. So is there something complicated going on in your structure?”

  “Besides the fact that you shaved it free from all hair, locking in my humiliation until however long it takes to grow my hair back, just a small territorial dispute that I can’t be at right now.”

  Gillian winced at that. She had no idea how being shaved would effect a dispute, but she was responsible and it was making her feel really bad. “I didn’t know that there were Polar Bears in the territories. I heard that all the major shifter clans here were Grizzly and Brown Bears.”

  “There aren’t. We are Russian.”

  “You told me that last night, and I figured your parents were from Russia. When you speak English, you barely have an accent.”

  “I traveled a lot,” he muttered, “with my family when we were young. I had to learn the family business, and shifters start their education at a young age.”

  “So this complicated territorial thing you have to be at?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Required you to be in bear form. And because I got carried away last night, you can’t be there. Is your leader going to come down on you?”

  “I doubt it,” he snorted.

  “Your father then? You said it was family stuff —”

  “I am the leader,” he admitted, and Gillian’s hands froze.

  “I snagged the leader of a Polar Bear clan who is immigrating from Russia?”

  “Da,” he answered, his Russian accent thick and deep.

  “Oh, God, I am so sorry.” Now she felt extra bad. She hoped and prayed that she had not ruined a meeting for him and his people.

  Her true regret must have shown on her face because he was reaching for her and pulling her into his lap. “It’ll be fine,” he admitted. “My second is going in my stead, and he will report back to me. We are not uncivilized. I am sure if there is an issue, I can get them to postpone our meeting.”