A Taste of Honeybear Wine (BBW Bear Shifter Standalone Romance Novel) (Bearfield Book 2)

by Jacqueline Sweet

  “Fuck me with your fingers, please,” she said, her voice low and strong. And so he did, circling her opening with his fingers until she was dripping, writhing, begging for him, and then sliding his fingers into her, curling them in that magic way that all women like, and which Alison definitely liked very much.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Michael murmured into the curve of her neck as he nipped the soft skin with his teeth. “From the moment I saw you, I had to have you. It’s not just that you’re my mate, and that we’re destined to be together, no. It’s that you are the sexiest damn woman I’ve ever seen.” Michael kept murmuring into her neck, running the tip of his tongue around her ear and fucking her with his fingers slow and steady. Alison had her legs around his waist, her arms looped around his neck, holding on for dear life. But as he licked and nibbled she began to lift herself up, rising, kissing him, and then plunging back down onto his fingers, faster and faster until she was whimpering with the urgency of “yes yes yes” and “almost there” and “oh god I’m so close,” just bucking against him, galloping on top of him, her whole body alive with electricity and fire and sex and love. Her scent deepened as her body sang to him of her pleasure and need.

  And then she went abruptly still, every muscle in her body squeezing him, her legs shaking as the muscles in her sex rhythmically squeezed and fluttered and pulsed around his fingers. She broke off their kiss to stare open mouthed into the glowing gorgeous face of infinity. Her climax stretched on and on. Michael didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t even breathe. He just watched in awe, in love, at the transformative power of a really toe-curling orgasm.

  It broke like a storm, with Alison heaving and crying. She hugged him tightly with both arms. He withdrew his fingers from her and hugged her back, expecting nothing from her at the moment but giving her everything he had. Alison’s breath came in ragged gasps. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Michael kissed the tears away. Did she always cry after sex? There was so much to learn about her. He’d never lived with a woman before. What would that be like? In his fantasies, it meant sex whenever and wherever he wanted, but he knew the truth to be better and far more complicated. The way Matt was now with Mina—domesticated, calmer, deliriously happy—it spoke to more than just sex taming the man.

  “I love you,” he said to Alison, kissing each of her tears away.

  “I know,” she said, her voice raw. “That’s why I’m crying.”

  Michael was surprised to find that each tear he tasted had a different flavor, like they were each old pains or regrets that Alison was shedding, purging, so she could be with him.

  The crying did not last long.

  “Is it hard to hold me up like this?” Alison nuzzled her lips against Michael’s neck, planting delicate kisses everywhere she could.

  “You weigh literally nothing to me. I can hold you up one handed.”

  “I love how strong you are,” Alison said, a laugh in her voice. “I know it’s really girly of me and silly, but it turns me on like crazy. You make me feel small and delicate, and those aren’t things I’ve often been able to feel.”

  “You are small and delicate. Especially compared to me. I’m a moose.”

  “You’re a bear.”

  “I’m your bear.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you like that?”

  “Very much.”

  “The shifter thing doesn’t freak you out? I think it’d freak me out.”

  “It thrills me. You thrill me. Bearfield thrills me. There’s a lifetime of things to learn here, to do here.”

  “You’re going to marry me, you know?” Michael said it without thinking, without realizing the enormous weight of his words.

  “Of course I am. But can I ask you a question?” Alison’s voice took on a sultry playfulness.

  “Ask me anything.”

  “Why aren’t you fucking me yet?”

  * * *

  Alison was surprised as the words left her mouth. Had she ever been so bold before? Had she ever asked for what she needed? No. Never. With Drew, sex had been enjoyable enough, but always tainted by shame. The way he’d looked at her when she was naked—like he’d been served a plate of disappointing food—it hadn’t exactly inspired confidence. They’d been one of those couples that turned the lights off before doing it, one of those couples that didn’t speak at all during sex.

  What if Michael saw her naked and that same look flashed on his face? How could she possibly stand that? They were fated—she could feel it with every drop of her blood—but that didn’t mean they’d be happy, did it? The relationship would still take trust and understanding and communication, and what if she fucked that up? Or what if she had so much doubt and such a low opinion of herself, that she sabotaged the relationship before it even began?

  Alison blinked and then saw the way Michael was looking at her. His eyes burned with golden fire. His chest heaved with every breath, revealing his rippling muscles. He wanted her. He’d wanted her since the moment they met, since she shot him in the chest with a shotgun.

  Sliding out from between Michael and the wall—a cock and a hard place?—Alison grinned at him. The look in his eyes filled her with confidence. She was beautiful. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to make love to this indescribably handsome man. His presence was like an antitoxin pushing all of Drew’s poison from her system. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but she could sense the process already at work. In a year she wouldn’t recognize herself, if it all worked out.

  “I want you to fuck me, Michael. But not against the wall. In my bed. In our bed.”

  “Yes,” he growled, taking one step towards her. The wooden floors creaked under his weight.

  Alison’s fingers trailed along the wall as she stepped backwards towards the bedroom, never taking her eyes off Michael. She could feel his lust like a fire on her skin, and if she turned he’d pounce on her and take her on the floor. She didn’t want their first time to be on the floor, or against a wall, or in a car. She wanted comfort.

  “I want you to fuck me with the lights on. I want to see you and I want you to see me.” She took another two steps backwards towards the bedroom, her heels banging against piles of books.

  “Take your clothes off,” Michael said with a smile. “You’ve seen me naked a lot already. It’s hardly fair that you’re still dressed.”

  Alison held her breath. Looking good in clothes and looking good naked were two different things. And the cute dress she’d borrowed from Mina was definitely a winner. What if he saw her curvy hips, the roundness of her belly, the thickness of her thighs and flinched? What if underneath it all, Michael was just like Drew? There was only one way to find out.

  Alison reached back and unzipped her dress and wriggled out of it. Then she slid her panties off and undid the clasp of her bra. The air was cool on her skin as the clothes fell to the floor. She stood naked and afraid before the man she loved.

  Michael eyes’s burned so bright they cast shadows on the walls. “Holy fuck you’re gorgeous,” he said, his voice an awed whisper.

  Tears sprang to Alison’s eyes. It was going to be okay. Everything was going to work out. He saw her clearly and fully and wanted more. And she was going to give it to him. As much as he could take and then some.

  “Come get me, big boy,” she said, and then ran laughing to bedroom with Michael at her heels. She leapt into the bed and rolled over and there he was on top of her, naked. His clothes lay strewn down the hall, ripped off in a blind hurry. Her body was still soaring from the last orgasm, but she could use a few more like that. Maybe four or five. No more than ten. Okay, twenty if she had to.

  A constant purring growl rolled out of Michael as he ground against her. It was a mating growl and it felt like feathers on her spine. Alison ran her hands down his muscled chest, almost embarrassed at how turned on his hard, perfect body made her. She’d never been one of those girls that was super into muscles, but maybe until now the muscles just hadn
’t been on the right person. Because looking at Michael, touching him, feeling the strength in his flesh as he leaned down and kissed her—she was definitely into muscles now.

  She reached down between her legs and found his hard cock, straining up towards her. She grabbed it tightly, shocked at how hot it was. It was the biggest cock she’d ever seen, not that she’d forgotten that. It’d been in the back of her mind since they first met. How would a cock like that feel? Would it be amazing? Would it hurt? But would it be a good hurt or a bad hurt? So many questions, and she was about to get answers.

  “Are you always this hot?” Alison asked.

  “Are you always this hot? You look amazing.” He kissed her gently, his lips just grazing hers. And then with more ferocity, his tongue diving deep into her.

  “No, it’s like your cock has a fever or something. It’s really actually hot.”

  Michael looked down in surprise. “That has never happened to me before. Maybe it’s a mating thing?”

  “Are you going to mate me now? Is that what this is?”

  Michael looked at her—into her. His eyes now more serious than she’d ever seen. This was important to him. She was important to him. This wasn’t a one-night stand or some relationship that would crumble under the first strain. This was the rare treasure you search a thousand miles of wilderness to find. It was alchemy. It was a miracle. It was perfection. It was true.

  “I’m going to fuck you now. The mating has to wait a year and a day. But we’ll get to that, too. Trust me when I say it’ll be worth it.”

  “Do it, Michael. Take me,” Alison panted.

  She stroked his thick cock with both hands, guiding it past her lips and into the tight wet heat of her cunt, letting him stretch her open. There was pain there, but a delicious sort of pain that vanished as she opened for him. As his rock-hard thickness just kept entering her and entering her, the heat she’d felt since meeting him sparked as she engulfed him.

  The pleasure in her bubbled and fizzed and popped. She felt like some witch’s cauldron that she’d been throwing ingredients into all week. Add one part sexual tension, one part awful break-up, four parts adventure and raise the heat. Gently stir in a kind-hearted man who was prettier than an underwear model. Add a pinch of true love and stir with the biggest fucking cock you’ve ever seen. And then, voila!

  Michael fucked her slowly against the bed, thrusting his great big dick into her in a fast head-spinning rush of pleasure, and then dragging it out slowly until it was almost gone, leaving her feeling empty and starving for more. Again and again he did this, the old bed squeaking and groaning and shrieking almost as loud as Alison. At first it was distracting to her, but as Michael kept the rhythm up, she soon lost herself in the physical joys of the moment. And then Michael was all the way inside her, making her feel so incredibly deliciously full. Every thrust coaxed primal animal noises out of her that she didn’t even know she could make.

  For a moment, Alison realized that she was always going to have this. He was moving in with her. This ridiculously amazing man was going to live with her, hopefully forever. He was going to take her like this, forever. He was going to love her, and look at her with his adoring honey-brown eyes, forever. The realization unlocked something inside her, something deep and ancient, and she felt the earth move under her feet. Figuratively, of course. Her feet hadn’t been on the earth for some time.

  Michael’s growl deepened and his thrusts grew harder and faster. Alison felt the yawning abyss of her climax opening its mouth to swallow her. They were both almost there.

  Lying back on the bed, with Michael on top of her, her legs spread wide with her toes pointed to the ceiling, Alison licked her fingers and rubbed her stiff hard clit.

  Michael’s growl became a roar. His eyes burned with golden fire.

  “Yes,” Alison moaned as he erupted inside her and her pleasure finally took her. “Yes, Michael. Yes.” She was answering questions he didn’t need to ask. Whatever he wanted, the answer was yes. Now and forever, yes.

  Epilogue

  Bearly Awake

  The night was cool and the moon was nowhere to be seen when Michael slipped from Alison’s warm bed and padded out of the house on bare feet. There was one last thing he needed to do before he could rest, before he could devote himself to Alison in the ways she deserved.

  Through the woods he tromped, loud when he needed to be to keep the mountain lions away, quiet when sneaking past the new pack of wolves who were out exploring the territory they now called home. The wolves would be a problem, he was sure of it. But they would be Marcus’s problem. He’d either assimilate them into the town properly or find them a new pack elsewhere. It’d happened before. Shifters all over knew of Bearfield as a place of peace and sanctuary from the bullshit politics that gripped basically every other shifter community on the planet. Some came because they genuinely wanted a quieter, better way of life.

  But some shifters came to town thinking that “quiet” meant “weak,” and when they made a play for the town, Marcus was there waiting for them. Jack Sable was just the most recent usurper to come at the Alpha. He wasn’t the first or even the hundredth, and he wouldn’t be the last. Every fight made Marcus stronger, cagier, but also less trusting. There’d come a point, Michael knew, when Marcus’s nature and Bearfield’s nature were no longer a good fit for each other.

  But today was not that day.

  When Michael found the great bear cave, Craig Vander was on guard. Craig had been his swim coach, and his English teacher, and was one of the town’s part-time librarians. Craig stiffened when Michael came padding into the cave but relaxed when he realized who it was.

  “Fear is one of the greatest emotions, Michael. One of the most primal. Certainly the oldest.” Craig said with a gracious smile. “Whenever we touch it, we feel our history in our blood. We taste the fight-or-flight that is the first question every being must answer, posed again for us to hear.”

  “Hey, Craig,” Michael said.

  “It’s a gift, is what I’m saying. When you sneak up quiet and scare me, it’s like for a second I’m an ancestor—a caveman—facing down a bear in the woods. His fear and my fear are identical, both philosophically and chemically. So thank you. It’s always a pleasure to walk in the muddy footprints of the ancients.” Craig wore rimless glasses. A pile of library books and a lantern sat on a neatly folded blanket next to his chair. More than anyone else in town, Craig loved guard duty.

  “I’m just here to pay my respects to my dad.”

  “Of course, of course. Say hey for me, too, willya?” Craig settled himself back down in the chair and picked up his Kindle from the stack of books. The books on the ground were all by Russians—Dostoevsky and Gogol and Bulgakov. But on his Kindle, Craig loved romances. He told anyone who would listen about the necessity of engaging with the modern as well as the classic. That night he was alternating a chapter of Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” with the newest novel by Krista Lakes. He didn’t even watch Michael as he shifted once more into his bear form and walked the long path to the body of his slumbering father.

  The cave was dry and warm. The sounds of gentle snores rolled down the long passage like waves crashing on a beach. On either side of the path, offerings stood in knee-high piles, like cairns mourning the dead. Flowers, dried food, and photographs were common. But mixed in with them were articles of clothing that smelled strongly of family. They were beacons, pulling the elder bears back from their slumber. The Morrissey boys weren’t the only Bearfielders to have relatives in the cave. There were offerings more recent than Michael’s. During the Winter solstice, all of the bear-blooded people in town would come down to the cave to clean it and tidy it. To lay fresh wood shavings on the ground and to refresh the piles of food and clothing. But no one ever cleared away the old offerings, so as Michael padded down the passage he passed by older and older offerings. The first offering was a pile of painted stones, an arrowhead, and a long severed braid of hair as bla
ck as night. Michael’s father wasn’t too far past that offering, asleep at the mouth of a large yawning cave.

  Michael shifted once he found his father. The big bear hadn’t moved an inch. The lines in the dirt Michael had drawn around his father’s body years ago were perfectly intact, except where Michael’s own feet had scuffed them.

  “A lot’s happened since we last spoke, Dad. I met a girl. Alison. She’s amazing. Smarter than anyone I know, brave as the sun, with a beauty that makes me want to bury myself in a cold stream to keep from overheating. She’s my mate. Every part of me knows it, and she knows it too. First Matt finds Mina, now I’ve got Alison. Can you imagine if Marcus found a mate? Part of me wonders if it’s all coincidence, or if something is up. Is someone doing this, helping us find our mates? Or is it really just fate? I wish you’d wake up so we could talk about this, so you could meet her. You’d love her, Dad. I know it.”

  Michael rested a hand on his father’s giant back and rubbed the fur there. “I’ve got more to say, Dad. But I left Alison alone and I’m dying to get back to her. Mostly I came here to give you this.” Michael removed the bear pendant from around his neck and looped it—with some effort—around his father’s ursine head. “I love you, Dad. Please wake up.”

  The young shifter turned into a bear again and padded out of the cave, giving Craig Vander his second taste of caveman fear in an hour.

  * * *

  The cave was dark and warm and dry. No one was watching when the big bear yawned, stretched, opened his eyes for the briefest of seconds, and rolled over.

  * * *

  Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoyed A Taste of Honeybear Wine, I hope you’ll leave a review to help others discover it. Reviews are seriously the best. Even if it’s just a few words, a review is priceless.