by Sophie Stern
The Writer's Baby Bear
Sophie Stern
Published by Sophie Stern, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE WRITER'S BABY BEAR
First edition. February 22, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Sophie Stern.
Written by Sophie Stern.
Also by Sophie Stern
Alien Chaos
Destroyed
Guarded
Saved
Alien Chaos: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance Bundle
Anchored
Starboard
Battleship
All Aboard
Abandon Ship
Below Deck
Crossing the Line
Anchored: Books 1-3
Anchored: Books 4-6
Club Kitten Dancers
Move
Pose
Climb
Dragon Isle
My Lord and Dragon
The Dragon Fighter
A Dragon's Bite
Lost to the Dragon
Beware of Dragons
Cowboy Dragon
Dark Heart of the Dragon
Once Upon a Dragon
Catching the Dragon
Dragon Isle (Collection: Books 1-3)
Dragon Isle (Collection: Books 4-6)
Dragon Isle (Collection: Books 7-9)
Good Boys and Millionaires
Good Boys and Millionaires 1
Good Boys and Millionaires 2
Honeypot Babies
The Polar Bear's Baby
The Jaguar's Baby
The Tiger's Baby
Honeypot Darlings
The Bear's Virgin Darling
The Bear's Virgin Mate
The Bear's Virgin Bride
Office Gentlemen
Ben From Accounting
Polar Bears of the Air Force
Staff Sergeant Polar Bear
Master Sergeant Polar Bear
Airman Polar Bear
Senior Airman Polar Bear
Red
Red: Into the Dark
Red: Through the Dark
Red: Beyond the Dark
Shifters at Law
Wolf Case
Bearly Legal
Tiger Clause
Sergeant Bear
Dragon Law
The Fablestone Clan
Dragon's Oath
Dragon's Breath
Dragon's Darling
Dragon's Whisper
Dragon's Magic
The Hidden Planet
Vanquished
Outlaw
Conquered
The Wolfe City Pack
The Wolf's Darling
The Wolf's Mate
The Wolf's Bride
Standalone
Saucy Devil
Billionaire on Top
Jurassic Submissive
The Editor
Alien Beast
Snow White and the Wolves
Kissing the Billionaire
Wild
Alien Dragon
The Royal Her
Be My Tiger
Alien Monster
The Paralegal
Roses in the Dark
Honeypot Babies Omnibus Edition
Honeypot Darlings: Omnibus Edition
Red: The Complete Trilogy
First Shift
The Swan's Mate
Eternity: A Vampire Romance
The Feisty Librarian
Polar Bears of the Air Force
Wild Goose Chase
Star Princess
The Virgin and the Lumberjacks
Resting Bear Face
Seized by the Dragon
Fablestone Clan: A Paranormal Dragon-Shifter Romance Collection
Star Kissed
Club Kitten Omnibus
The Writer's Baby Bear
The Writer’s Baby Bear
Sophie Stern
Contents
The Writer’s Baby Bear
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Author
The Bear’s Virgin Darling
Don’t Date Demons
Story Copyright 2019 by Sophie Stern
She lives alone in the mountains with her baby because it's the only place she's ever felt safe. It's the only place she's ever felt whole. It's the only place she's ever called home.
But one night, everything changes.
A chance encounter and a terrible storm threaten to rip apart the world she's built for herself.
Will she walk away in one piece?
Will he?
Prologue
Cage
Running my hands over her soft breasts, I sigh.
“What’s that for?” She whispers, smiling.
“I’m just so happy,” I tell her.
Honesty.
It’s the first time I’ve ever shared it with a woman.
Ever.
Even my own mother has never heard me tell the truth. I’ve just never been that interested in letting people get to know me. Sharing personal information tends to have bad results, especially if you’re a guy like me.
Especially if you have a criminal for a dad.
Alicia doesn’t care about any of that, though. She’s never cared. She’s always just been...mine.
For the longest time, she was my friend. Tonight, she’ll become my lover. Tomorrow...well, tomorrow, she’ll just be a memory, but she doesn’t know that yet.
I want to have this one perfect night with her.
To remember.
I want to give her this one gift.
Oh, I’m more than aware of my reputation as the local bad boy. Of course, I’ve got that reputation. With a father like mine? It’s no wonder that I’m not already locked up behind bars, but that doesn’t bother Alicia.
“Cage?” She whispers. “I’m happy, too.”
The backseat of the car is cramped and tight, but neither one of us really minds. Not tonight. It’s the first time we’ve worked up the nerve to go all the way, and neither one of us is backing out.
I kiss her, silencing her with my mouth. Our lips hold so many promises I wish I could keep.
There’s passion and yearning and hunger here, but right now, all I want is her body writhing beneath mine. I want to make her come, and I want to feel her shaking beneath me.
We’re sitting up, kissing, teasing each other. Her shirt is...somewhere. I don’t even know where her bra is. She reaches for me and starts pulling off my own clothes.
I close my eyes, and I breathe her in.
She’s so perfect.
Everything about her just gets me.
My inner-bear is growling, begging me to claim her as my mate. If I were the type of guy to believe in mates, then I’d do it right here and now. I’d mark her as my own and make her promise not to love anyone else but me. I’d tell her that one day, I’ll come back for her. I’d do so many things.
But I don’t believe in mates.
I don’t believe in any of that.
Someone like me doesn’t get to have a happy fairytale ending with a fated mate and true love and an eternal com
mitment.
Nope.
But I do have tonight.
And I intend to make it count.
I reach for Alicia, and I pull her close. I kiss her, I touch her, and I whisper sweet nothings in her ears. The windows of the car fogged long-ago, and now it’s just the two of us.
“Cage,” she whispers. “I love you.”
It’s my first time.
It’s my first time making love to a girl.
It’s my first time making a promise I can’t keep.
It’s my first time for everything.
The people of Storm Haven think I’m something of a floozy, but the truth is that I’ve been obsessed with Alicia for a long time. For some reason, I’ve never been able to imagine myself with anyone but her, and so tonight is the very first time I’ve ever truly let loose.
And tonight is the night when our relationship ends.
I don’t want to hurt her. I know that what I’m doing is totally, completely selfish. If I were a good man, I would tell her I’m running off with my dad tomorrow. If I were a kind and loving man, I would tell her that she shouldn’t spend this night with me.
I’m not, though.
I’m not any of those things.
I’m just me.
Cage.
I’m just a bear shifter 19-year-old who wants what everyone else in the entire world wants: to be accepted and to be cared for and oh...
To lose myself in Alicia.
“I love you, too,” I tell her, and it’s not a lie. I adore Alicia. If I were the type of guy to settle down, she’s the woman I’d want to do it with. When I think about my future, I always see her, but I know that I’m no good for her.
She climbs over me. Somehow, we’re both naked. Somehow, we’re both ready. It’s time for this thing between us to happen, and she lowers herself down onto me.
The sensation is...unimaginably perfect.
She’s perfect.
The way her pussy clenches around my cock is perfect, and it takes every bit of willpower not to come apart right then. She seems to sense this because she laughs at me and kisses me softly. Then she starts to rock gently, moving up and down.
I look up at Alicia, and I reach for her face. I touch her cheeks carefully as she moves in time with a song no one but our hearts can hear.
I love her so much.
I need her.
Crave her.
When I close my eyes at night, she’s all I see, and right now, I can’t imagine a world without her in it.
I kiss Alicia gently, and I thrust up into her. I’m going to take my time because we have all night.
We have all night, and no tomorrow, so I’m going to make this count.
Chapter One
Five Years Later
Alicia
“I don’t want to!” Orlando stomps his foot and shakes his head like it matters. He glares at me, crossing him arms over his chest like I’m somehow going to care about the fact that he’s upset.
“I understand that,” I tell him gently. “And I know you’re upset.” It’s taking all of my patience not to freak out. When people warned me that the toddler years were going to be terrible, they forgot to share that the preschool years are even worse.
“But I don’t want to!”
“It’s going to be fun,” I remind Orlando as I wrestle him into his jacket. Fun for who? I’m not sure. Definitely not his teacher. Hopefully it’ll be fun for him, though. Orlando is a good kid, albeit a bit nervous when it comes to trying new things. That’s not really his fault, though. If anything, I blame myself.
I should have tried harder when he was smaller to get him out of the house and doing stuff, but being a single mom is hard, and honestly, it’s not really what I signed up for.
When I gave Cage my V-Card all those years ago, I thought I was making love to someone who adored me and cherished me. I didn’t know he was going to leave town the next day or that I’d never hear from him again.
I definitely didn’t know that I was going to end up pregnant with his kid.
Oh, and I didn’t realize that his kid was going to be a panda shifter.
Cool.
Shaking my head and pushing the thoughts away, I finish getting my son dressed. At four, Orlando is a bright, brilliant kid. He’s smart and happy and fun, and he’s feisty as hell. The school he’s going to is a special one for kids like him: shifter kids. It’s a place where he can feel safe and where nothing bad is going to happen if he accidentally shifts into his bear form. Everyone at the school is either a shifter or mated to one, so it’s a place I feel totally comfortable leaving him.
I load him up in the car and make the slow, winding drive down the mountains. Orlando and I have lived in my tiny little house pretty much his entire life. After I got pregnant, I realized I wasn’t going to just live with my parents and raise a kid. I knew that they’d let me, of course, but I didn’t want to be a burden. So, with the inheritance money my grandmother left me, I bought a little cabin in the mountains and the two of us have lived there ever since. My parents live close by in their own home.
Hell, even Cage’s mother was close until she passed away last month.
I glance in the rearview mirror at Orlando, making sure he’s okay. Even though he’ll never get the chance to know his dad, it makes me happy to know that he had a chance to get to know Cage’s mom. Betty was pleased as punch when I told her I was pregnant. I thought for sure she’d freak out and tell her son’s former girlfriend to get off her porch, but instead, she welcomed me into her home with loving arms and revealed to me that her son was a shifter and that chances were, my baby would be, too.
If I hadn’t had her guiding me, I don’t think I could have survived losing Cage.
Ten minutes later, I pull into Happiness Daycare. It’s not really a special or creative name, but something about it warms me inside.
“We’re here,” I tell Orlando.
“No.”
“Yep.”
“No.”
Whatever.
I turn off the engine, get out of the car, and grab his backpack from the trunk. Then I help Orlando out of the car. I squat down in front of him and look at my kid eye-to-eye. He looks so much like his daddy sometimes that it makes me ache.
It’s not that I wish Cage would come back for me.
It’s not that I’m sitting around, pining for something that was never meant to be.
Nope.
I’m totally not doing that at all.
“Hey, muffin,” I tell him.
“Mommy, I don’t want to go,” he says again. This time, his voice is lower, and my little guy looks really worried.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him. “It’s going to be fun, even. I promise.”
“How do you know?” He looks over at the building suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at it, and I choke back a little smile. I shouldn’t laugh at his nervousness, but he looks so cute when he wrinkles up his nose like that.
“Because I used to go to preschool,” I tell him. “Pretty much everyone does. And besides, there are other kids there.”
“Really?”
“Yep. And they’re like you,” I say, tapping him in the chest.
“Are they four?”
“There are three-year-olds and four-year-olds and even some five-year-olds, and they are all shifters.”
“Really?”
For the first time, he looks interested, and I realize that I should have led with that. Even though we toured the building, it was when there were no classes in session, so he hasn’t actually seen other kids in the building before.
“Yep. Let’s go.”
I take him inside and lead him up to the registration desk. I check in with the front desk before walking Orlando back to his classroom. We’ve toured the building before and he’s met his teacher, so we both know where to go. He’s just feeling pretty uncomfortable, which is normal, I’m sure. At least, I tell myself that it is.
“Good morning, Or
lando!” Miss Tracy greets us when we reach the door to his classroom. There’s a half-wall around the play area with cubbies outside.
“Hi,” Orlando whispers.
“I’m so happy to see you. Put your backpack in the cubby and then come inside to wash your hands,” she says. “Hi, Mom,” she greets me with a wink, and then Miss Tracy turns back to the other kids who have already arrived.
Together, Orlando and I get his jacket and backpack in his cubby, and then he hugs me goodbye. He goes into the classroom and I close the little half-door behind him. I stand by the cubbies until I’m sure I’m being a total weirdo.
“He’ll be fine,” Miss Tracy mouths to me, catching my eye. She waves to me and walks Orlando over to the sinks so he can wash his hands. Finally, I turn to leave. I manage to make it all the way to my car before I burst into tears.
Am I doing the right thing here?
Am I being a good mom?
For the last few years, Orlando has either come to work with me or Betty has babysat him for me. She’s been a total lifesaver, which is strange because she and Cage were never particularly close, if I remember correctly. If anything, there was always a sort of disassociation between them, but I never felt comfortable asking her why they didn’t get along.
I did, however, ask her if she knew why he left, and she made it clear that was a topic we would never be close enough to discuss.
Now she’s gone and it’s up to me to figure out a way to make things work. I have Orlando and I have Cage’s memory – not that I always want it. I’ve got the lessons that Betty taught me, and I have all of the hope she instilled in me. It’s just that sometimes, things still feel...well, impossible.
Wiping my tears away, I take a deep breath.
“You can do this.”
Sometimes, I need to give myself pep talks. Doesn’t everyone do that? Or is it just me being a crazy lady? Shaking my head, I pull out of the parking lot and head to work. My office is located in downtown Storm Haven. Once upon a time, I thought I’d move away and go live in a big city with lots of shimmering lights and huge, looming buildings. As it turned out, however, having a kid made me decide to raise him close to our families.
