KIKO (MC Bear Mates Book 3)

by Becca Fanning

  Sure enough, the buzzer sounded to alert anyone in the waiting area that the surgery was over. Aurie bolted upright as Hyde strode past her to the door. She willed herself to follow him, but it seemed like her feet were stuck.

  Thalia came up behind her and poked her back. “Come on. One way or another, it’s over, and not knowing is worse than any possible outcome here.”

  “Pick that up in your family’s criminal empire?” Aurie asked faintly.

  “Oh, honey, there is nothing criminal about my family’s empire,” Thalia said, pushing Aurie towards the door.

  Getting chased through the halls by a berserk Dom had been the most terrifying experience of Aurie’s life. Walking steadily towards the door with no idea whether or not it had succeeded was a close second.

  Seeing Dom wincing as he touched the bandage on the back of his neck, Hyde smiling down at him, was like being able to breathe again. Dr. Lee took one look at Aurie’s face and rolled her eyes.

  “Alright,” she said, handing Hyde a bag. “There’s everything you need to treat the incision, including instructions. Now get out of my hospital before someone who isn’t as nice as me comes along.”

  Dom smiled and reached out for Aurie, who with trembling fingers took his hand as they made their way back to the ship. Aurie honestly couldn’t say what happened on the trek back, other than that Dom was there and that she was happier than she had been in recent memory. Time only returned to her when she and Dom were sitting next to each other on the floor of the engine room, smiling and talking.

  “I can’t believe the miracle of medicine has been handed to you and you just want to go back to your job,” Aurie said, laughing.

  Dom shrugged, then winced. “I missed my normal life. It’s nice to get back into the schedule.”

  “I’m glad,” Aurie said quietly. “Do you want me to look at the scar?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, turning his back to her. She jerked awkwardly up to her knees and peeled back the bandage. The dermal regenerator had done wonders, but he’d still need to keep the bandage on for another twenty-four hours and the skin would feel tight until he got used to it.

  “Looks good,” she told him, prodding him gently to test the elasticity of his skin. “Unless you’re feeling actual sharp pain, I’d say everything’s as it should be. Sorry to be poking my hands all over your scar, by the way.”

  Dominic hummed. “That’s fine. I like your hands.”

  Aurie stilled. This was it. This was the moment when she chose, no looking back.

  It was, surprisingly, the easiest choice she’d ever made.

  It was so quiet, only the hum of the engines and their breathing and the runaway beat of her heart, and he was there and she was there and it all felt right. She leaned forward and pressed her mouth—gently, lovingly—to the thin scar on the back on his neck. She could hear the breath catch in his throat as she let her eyelids slide shut, lashes sweeping lightly across his skin. The warm skin shifted under her touch and she pulled back, opening her eyes to meet his. They sat there for a moment, suspended in an eternal second of perfect understanding, before Aurie leaned back in. This time, Dom met her halfway and their lips met in a gentle kiss. Aurie hummed and opened her mouth, a shiver of pleasure running down her spine as Dominic copied the motion.

  She leaned forward and he leaned back until he was lying down on the metal floor and Aurie had the top of her torso pressed against his chest, her legs kicked off to the side. Their breath mingled as they just lay together, Dom’s hand coming up to gently release Aurie’s hair from her ponytail and his other warm hand wrapping around her waist. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his neck, smiling.

  “Think it’s worth it to try and hightail it to your room?” she asked quietly and felt her body be lifted slightly as he huffed out a laugh.

  “I can’t think at all right now,” he told her. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

  “Do I think it’s a good idea to have sex with one of my kidnappers, who’s merry little crew I may or may not have been Stockholm Syndrome’d into joining, on the floor of the engine room?” she asked wryly. “I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.”

  It should probably have worried her a little more that she was telling the truth.

  Dom was quiet for a moment. “If at any point you want to stop, or leave…”

  Aurie leaned up and silenced him with a kiss. “I’ll let you know.”

  Dom looked hard into her eyes before relaxing, whatever he saw in them extinguishing whatever fight he had left. “In that case,” he said with a smirk, “want to play doctor.”

  A snort burst out of Aurie’s mouth before she could contain it. “Oh my God,” she said, giggling, “that was terrible.”

  “No, no, really,” Dom said, his smirk splitting wider into a grin, “I think you need to examine me.”

  “Stop,” Aurie commanded, collapsing back on top of him and rocking both their bodies with her laughter.

  “Mmm, okay,” he said, slipping a hand under her shirt and rubbing soft circles on the skin of her back. “Let’s try something else instead then.”

  Aurie shifted back to look at him, relaxed and beautiful and—for once—soft as he stared back at her, and leaned in to press her smiling mouth against his.

  “Get naked,” she whispered into his lips. “Doctor’s orders.”

  Dom leaned in and deepened the kiss for a moment before pushing her back and stripping off his shirt. He was every bit as well built as he had been when she had examined him, but this time there was the burning frisson in the back of her mind of the knowledge that she could touch. She ran her fingers lightly over the defined muscles of his abs, pleasure sparking through her at the way his stomach muscles tensed under her touch.

  Dom tugged at the hemline of her blouse. “Your turn, Dr. Talbott.”

  Aurie smirked and yanked her top over her head. She reached for the clasp to undo her bra, but Dom’s hands slid up her back and grabbed her as he sat up to kiss her. He pressed a languid open-mouthed kiss to her lips before peppering kisses along her jawbone and down her neck, leaning her back so he could trail his lips between her breasts as his fingers swiftly undid her bra and slid it down her arms. Aurie’s breath shuddered as the cool air hit her sensitive nipples. Dom looked up at her with those lazy, hypnotic eyes and slowly, almost teasingly, took one in his mouth. Aurie whimpered as he tugged lightly on it with his teeth, thumbing her other nipple with the hand that wasn’t at her back to keep her steady. On instinct, Aurie ground down, rubbing them together between two layers of clothing and making them both moan.

  “How about we save foreplay for round two?” Aurie asked breathlessly.

  “Agreed,” Dom said, pressing a kiss to her collarbone and they rolled apart to hurriedly strip off the rest of their clothing. Dom spread their shirts out on the floor and maneuvered her on top of them, settling between her thighs as he did so.

  “Well, someone likes being on top,” Aurie teased.

  “It’s only gentlemanly to volunteer to be the one who has to put ointment on their knees for the next few days,” Dominic told her, running his hands up the sides of her thighs. Aurie sighed happily and lay back, letting her legs fall wider apart.

  “Are you on… I mean, do you have…” Dom started, suddenly uncertain.

  Aurie snorted. “Of course. Get to work, will you?”

  Dom raised an eyebrow in response and suddenly his clever fingers were sliding along the hot, wet juncture between her thighs. “Like that?”

  “You’re not getting paid by the minute here,” Aurie huffed. “Mind hurrying up?”

  “So impatient,” Dom said, his voice threaded with the barest shade of adoration, “and all for me.”

  “Every inch,” Aurie promised. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, please get inside me already.”

  Dom leaned up to kiss her, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders and kissed her once more as he slid into her
. A gasp punched out of Aurie’s lungs as he filled her, her arms snapping up to wrap around his back.

  “Move,” she told him, half a command and half a plea. Dom, ever the gentleman, obeyed her.

  Kissing Dom had been like putting a piece of lightening on her tongue. The naked friction between them had threatened to consume her with its heat. But this, oh, this… this was something new, something powerful, something so overwhelming that Aurie didn’t have words to describe it. It was like she was floating weightless, her body eroded away and only Dominic above and the steadily growing feeling of white-hot pleasure the only things left in the whole universe. She’d made love before, but never like this. This was the connection of two souls through the stifled moans and heady gasps and sweat-slick skin.

  “I’m going to…” she managed to warn Dom in a strangled breath seconds before her orgasm shuddered through her body, her nails scraping across his back as she moaned his name. Almost immediately after, Dom swore and grunted, collapsing on her and panting heavily.

  They stayed like that, unable to find the energy to move, until the cooling sweat became uncomfortable enough for them to drag their exhausted bodies apart and fumblingly get dressed. “I’m, um. I’m going to go take

  a shower, I think,” Aurie said without looking at him, suddenly and inexplicably shy.

  “That’s smart,” Dom replied.

  “Would it be okay—and you can say no—but, would it be okay if I stayed with you tonight?” She asked, dragging her eyes to his face to see his response.

  Dom smiled at her like a sunrise, slow and bright. “Sure. I could use the quiet.”

  FIN

  Bear Chopper

  Grit and Growl IV

  by

  Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  Anna was just about to walk out of the meeting. She had enough of the bickering between managers of the departments that made the most money. They were always arguing about one bloody thing or the next. More often than not it was an argument aimed at stroking egos. All the damn testosterone in the room was going to drive her crazy. She hated being there when her boss wasn't.

  The motorcycle riding, gorgeous piece of sexy man she swooned over every time, rarely ever came into work. This was because he assumed he hired two competent men to run his business. If only he knew that was not the case he would probably clobber them all into oblivion, but it was not her place to say a word. Instead, she sat quietly listening to the incessant ramblings of the two pig headed fools who were in charge.

  Nomads Travel Core was one of those companies nobody thought would have made any sense. Anna remembered when it had just started up six years prior. She had been in her comfortable bank job, just carrying on as if there was not a single problem in the world. She had actually been the one to deal with the account when Aiden Savage from the motorcycle clan had come in. He had been such a flirt while trying to convince her to come work for him. The truth was that she was not going to leave her comfortable well paying job to go struggle on some pay check to pay check kind of salary. When his company had become the multimillion dollar franchise it is now, he had come back. She took his offer in a heartbeat.

  “Anna what do you think?” Jake, one of the pig-headed idiots was asking her.

  She glared at him. She was thinking maybe, just maybe, she should not say what she was thinking. Maybe she should just let them carry on, but she managed accounts and so in reality she had just as much power as they did. Besides, the other exasperated faces staring at her from around the table said that they had had enough.

  “I think you two are idiots,” she said unapologetically and waited for that to sink in. She even waited an extra couple seconds for them to have a comeback. When they remained in silent shock she continued.

  “Both your departments bring in the money. Jake, you manage cruise ship bookings and air travel. Simon, you manage all our hotel bookings throughout the seventy-eight countries we have listed. Why you both cannot see there is no need to bash each other is beyond me.”

  She started collecting her things. “Every two weeks you both call these meetings to update us and then go at each other like two girls. Enough though! You are both excellent workers and a little healthy competition only puts more money in all our pockets. However, because of all the testosterone killing your few brain cells, none of you can see that. Just because of damn testosterone.”

  She picked up her folder and looked at them with utter disdain.

  “I don't know about anybody else in this room, but I would rather go lobotomize myself elsewhere than stay in this room with you both any longer. So as to what I think…I think your arrogance and high levels of testosterone makes both of you two goddamn idiots who belong in an underground fight club and not running a prestigious business like this. I for one will not be coming back to any of these fortnightly meetings unless you both get it together. That is what I think.”

  With that she walked out of the conference room and did not look back. Moments later she saw others following her lead and smiled. Enough was just enough and those two idiots just needed to get that. If she had to face the firing squad in Aiden’s office when he came in for an update later that day, she would happily deal with it. Someone had to get them straight and on track. They were all in it to the same end. Jake and Simon needed to get that. If they couldn't then that was not her problem to deal with.

  “Good job!” Kelly, her assistant said poking her head around her door. “It was about time someone did us that solid.”

  She smiled and swiveled in her chair to look at the city below her. It had felt pretty great, but in the meantime she grabbed a hot dog and pondered on her fate when Aiden got in. At least if she faced the gallows she would go on a stomach full of her favorite meal. There was just something that was too depressing about going to hell on the verge of starvation.

  * * *

  “Hey Aiden! Get out here!” London called. He was about to smack the teenager silly for disrupting his stalking tendencies. He decided to ignore him as long as he could and turned his attention back to his computer screen.

  He kept hitting the replay button to watch her speak again. It was amazing how she managed to get the two men to shut up. Jake and Simon were the reasons he stopped going to those meetings. They were excellent sales managers, but clambering buffoons on a regular day. Truth was he no longer had the patience for their incessant childish tantrums and fights. They reminded him of the relationship he had had with his brother before he died. Sometimes he wondered if this was how exhausted his parents had been by them.

  “Aiden! What are you doing? We have to go!” London burst into his office.

  The newest motorcycle clan recruit was just eager to show his shifting prowess. Recruits were only allowed to wear the MC cut after they had been deemed loyal enough. And after they could shift effortlessly. There were a lot of laws and bylaws that governed their brotherhood. Top of that list was mastering your shifting abilities. Having been in the clan for eight years now, Aiden had been here several times before. He still showed up because it was a duty he had to perform. And if it could get London off his back then so be it.

  “I am coming!” he shouted irritated.

  “Ooh! Who is that?” London asked with his lustful eyes looking at the woman on his computer screen. “She is hot!”

  “Shut up and let’s go!” Aiden pulled him by the ear, but the seed had been planted.

  Anna was definitely one for the books. She had all the right curves in all the right places. The sexy pencil foot dresses and skirts she wore to work just made it hard to avoid looking. And those heels...man those damn heels had him thinking thoughts that would earn him an eternity in hell. She was the kind of woman that you just wanted to take home and do ungodly things to her. When he had met her the first time, her curly strands, belying her mixed ethnicity had entranced him. He had barely heard a word she said as he looked in her beautiful milky brown face framed perfectly by her curly hair. He had just
kept saying yes, totally oblivious to what she asked. It is a miracle she had managed to set up his account the way she had. When his business had taken off, he had found out just how much of an accounting dynamo she was and he had gone back to steal her away from a boring bank job.