by Elsa Jade
Table of Contents
Bachelor Bear
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About the Author
About Shifters in Love
Thank You!
BACHELOR BEAR
A SHIFTERS IN LOVE: FUN & FLIRTY ROMANCE
Elsa Jade
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It's high summer in Angels Rest...
The Four Corners bear clan is slowly recovering its place in shifter society, so Ben Leblanc has decided its time to find his mate. But Angels Rest is a small town and the cellular reception is so bad he can’t even reach a dating site. He’ll have to use his bro bear charm and the town’s new gardening club to choose among the likely ladies.
Gin Wick thinks Angels Rest is all dust and cactus, but she needs to add some local flavor to the herbal sachets required for her upcoming ordination as a witch. And a certain burly bear shifter certainly seems tasty enough.
But when her Anti-Love Potion No. 96 goes awry and threatens a big chill, Gin and Ben will have one chance to claim this summer lovin’ forever.
A new Fun & Flirty trilogy in the world of the “Wolves of Angels Rest”
BEAR AND BABY June 2018
BACHELOR BEAR July 2018
BARELY BEAR August 2018
Claim the very first Wolf of Angels Rest: HERO for free!
And find all the Fun & Flirty books at ShiftersInLove.com
Copyright © 2018 by Elsa Jade
Cover design by Willsin Rowe
Editing by Razor Sharp Editing
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as factual. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be scanned, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Chapter 1
Balancing lightly in the spreading branches of the majestic oak, Ben patted the rough gnarl of bark, noting the July dryness. The old tree had stood for many years, and it would stand for many more. But it could use some tender loving care.
Not today though. He hadn’t brought his safety gear or work tools since he’d just wanted a quick peek—
Whoa. Speaking of peeking…
He had climbed high enough to reach the second floor of the vintage Victorian house tucked behind the oak, which put him right in line with the open bedroom window and the woman it framed.
The naked woman. The beautiful naked woman. The beautiful naked woman who’d been getting him hot and bothered all summer.
He swallowed hard before his tongue lolled out, but he was instantly as stiff as the wood around him. The short hairs on his skin shivered like oak leaves stroked by a gentle breeze. Good thing there was so much leafy cover. If Gin Wick caught sight of him peeping in her window, she’d turn him into a frog before he could croak an apology.
If he tried to climb down, he’d attract her attention for sure. But he should at least close his eyes. See? Eyes. Closing. Aaaaany second now… Except, wow, she sure was something.
He was a gentleman—and not usually an idiot with a death wish—so maybe if he squinted tight enough, he could knot his lashes together. He’d wait for her to pull the curtains or walk away or at least get dressed. But closing his eyes only sharpened his other senses.
Through the open window, the sound of her humming was softer than the caress of the rising evening breeze. He inhaled, deep and slow, and caught the scent of her skin. High summer in Angels Rest was dominated by the aromatic whirlwinds of dust and sage and the liquid gold of pine resin lazily simmering through the ponderosas up on Mesa Diablo. But underneath all that, he breathed her: something cool and shadowy, like the still waters of Lake Angel under a midnight sky. The shiver along his skin sank deeper, toward his bones, a delicious contrast to the heat of the day.
Awwww hell. Even with his eyes closed, she burned on the back of his eyelids like a candle in the dark. Her pale skin was as sleek and smooth as sweet beeswax, the red of her hair as brilliant as any flame.
By the great bear, this moment would light up his fantasies for many nights to come.
And come, and come…
He’d been summoned to the Wick house to evaluate the oak for the soundness of its structure. Unfortunately, it was hard to pay attention to the tree when nakedness was distracting him—
A loud crack sounded under his feet, the vibrations sending a tremor of alarm through his legs. He gulped back a startled curse, but the tree had already betrayed him.
As his eyes snapped open, his gaze arrowed to Gin’s.
She stood frozen with her arms raised above her head, like a water fountain nymph, doing something girly with her bright red hair. Her root-beer-brown eyes widened with shock and outrage, and even though he was a seriously strong bear shifter and he did everything in his great power to avert his gaze, his glance settled on her bare breasts.
Though it wasn’t yet cranberry season—one of his all-time, very favorite tart fruits—his mouth watered with hunger for the rouged nubs of her nipples. With a groan that was half apology, half lust, he slammed his eyes closed again just as the branch broke under his feet and sent him plummeting through the leaves.
As he pinballed helplessly through the branches, he figured he’d had a pretty good life as a bear shifter. Even though the clan had gone through a spot of trouble, things had been getting better lately. Still, he’d longed to find a mate and that hadn’t happened for him. Too bad. Maybe he’d have better luck as a croaking frog. Maybe some princess would take pity on him and give him a kiss.
So sad he’d never get a taste of Gin Wick’s sweet, dark, dangerous beauty.
***
The startled yelp from outside her window broke Gin’s paralysis. She dove for the loose tank top and boy shorts she’d set out before her evening bath. “I’m going to kill him,” she muttered.
Assuming the fall hadn’t already done him in.
Swearing aloud, she covered all her girly bits then raced down the narrow stairs of the old Victorian and burst out onto the front porch. Even though the sun was on its downward glide, the sapping Four Corners heat lingered in the overgrown front garden. In one leap, she hurtled down the porch stairs and swung a hard right toward the oak. She’d been so fast, torn leaves were still fluttering down when she skidded to a halt next to the crumpled body of Ben Leblanc.
She folded to her knees beside the big, dumb bear. Not that he was a bear at the moment, but even when he walked on a mere two legs, she swore she sensed the beast contained within his big, dumb body. Now, his eyes were closed, those long legs sprawled awkwardly. An impressive bulge tented the fly of his boot-cut denim—well hell, not looking there.
She splayed one hand across his chest, holding her breath, feeling for his heartbeat. At her touch, a powerful thud rattled her palm, and he sucked down a massive breath of air, the heavy muscles of his chest heaving under her fingers. His eyes snapped open, already fixed on her face. At least he wasn’t still staring at her boobs.
“Lie still,” she demanded. “The fall knocked the breath
out of you.”
“Something knocked the breath out of me,” he rumbled.
With an exaggerated wince, he disobeyed her order and levered himself upright. The shattered branch next to him was as thick around as his big, dumb biceps. Bracing one elbow behind him, he lounged in the fallen leaves as if he were just taking a little break. Or posing for a pin-up pic.
She edged back warily. Not that she was afraid of him, or his bear. But there was something about him that chimed her warning bells.
Chimed other parts of her too, the parts she’d just covered up. Maybe that was what was making her wary.
“You shouldn’t move,” she scolded. “You could have broken something.”
“Eh, just branches and my pride,” he demurred with a note of Canadian nonchalance in his drawl. “My body is tough enough to take it.”
At his claim—not quite a boast, but not quite not—her gaze flicked down the length of him. It took most of her still clamoring heartbeat to get all the way down his frame, he was so tall and so big. That made sense, what with him being a bear shifter and all.
Just evaluating him for injuries, she ticked her way back up his sprawled body: steel-toed work boots, size is-it-true-what-they-say-about-big-feet; rinse wash jeans just a little too nice and a little too snug for a tree climber; a pearl snap chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled back to reveal the hard corded muscles of his forearms, the top two snaps undone to reveal the notch in his throat. She hesitated a moment, but she wasn’t afraid to look in his eyes…
He really did have the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. She didn’t even like blue-eyed blond boys; it was such a cliché. Especially on a bro bear like Ben, who looked way too much like those swaggering jocks in school who’d managed to be just smart enough to ignore her.
At her quick-check glance, Ben gave her a small quirk of a smile, bringing out the dimple in his cheek. Ugh. A dimple? Really? She pushed herself briskly to her feet, her toes curling away from the scratch of the patchy grass under the oak.
Those blue eyes tracked up her bare legs for a second, then Ben scrambled up too. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
She snorted. “What do I care if you break your neck falling out of trees?”
He tilted his head. “I meant when you looked out your window.”
With one last glower, she pivoted on her heel and stalked back to the porch. “Yeah, creeper. Don’t do it again, or I’ll—”
“Frog, right?”
At the strangely lighthearted lilt in his voice—maybe it was just because he was one of those cheerful Canadians—she glanced back over her shoulder at him. “What, you like the idea?”
With a shrug, he tagged along behind her, stopping at the bottom step of the porch when she paused with her elbow looped around the column. “Frogs seem happy.”
She frowned. “Happy.”
“They’re always singing.” In a throaty tenor, he warbled out the chorus to “The Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie.
When he got to the “lovers” part, she interrupted, “That’s Kermit. He’s a Muppet.”
“And a frog. A happy frog,” Ben repeated, as if she’d proved his point. “Have you ever seen their orgies?”
She recoiled. “Muppets?”
“Frogs. In the spring, they all get together in Angel Creek and sing all night.”
Tightening her grip on the column, she stared at him. “A frog orgy.”
He nodded enthusiastically. “They never have any trouble finding a mate,” he went on. “Just singing and frigging.”
“Frigging.” What even was happening right now? Was she really having this conversation?
“But bears…” He propped his hands on his hips, scowling. But even the scowl brought out his dimple. “It’s way harder for bears.”
Inadvertently, her gaze dipped to where his hands framed his groin. It had seemed rather hard.
“Natural bears are solitary except during the mating season. Us bear shifters feel the call of the mating moon—”
Despite the shadow of the porch, her skin prickled with heat at the strangely seductive drone of his words.
“—but we need more than that too. We need companionship, a forever mate to balance the bear and the man. Without that, we’re like the dark side of the moon, never feeling the sun, never feeling that connection.”
Oh, it’d been too long since she’d had the chance to connect her girly bits. But… She yanked her gaze up with all of her willpower. “I prefer the dark side,” she said in a quelling tone. “And probably you’d have more luck finding a girlfriend if you weren’t creeping around in trees.”
“Maybe I’ll find a pretty fairy girl.”
She lifted one eyebrow. “There’s no such thing as fairies.”
He shrugged. “You’re like a fairy.”
“I’m not a fairy,” she reminded him with a touch of asperity. “I’m a witch.” Or she would be as soon as she finished her circle ordination. “Anyway, why were you in the oak?”
He gave himself a little shake, his hands sliding forward to hook his thumbs in his front pockets. “Mac asked me to come out and take a look, for Aster.”
Gin’s exasperation evaporated at the mention of her not quite three-year-old nephew. Aster was obsessed with climbing, so making sure the Victorian’s oak, ash, and alder were in good shape was important. And he was a toddling shapeshifter, so good relations with the bears of Angels Rest were also important.
For those reasons, probably there should be no frogging—or frigging—of the peeping Ben.
With a soundless sigh, she released the column and stepped back. Ben was a distraction she didn’t need right now. Not when she was so close to the final step of her ordination. “I guess you identified the weak branches already.”
That damned dimple again. “At least a few of them. Uh, and while I was down here, I noticed you could probably use some nice mulch around the base.”
She twisted her lips to one side. “Softer landing?”
For a moment, that dimple wavered. “No, Aster will always have someone to catch him if he falls.” Ben raked one hand over the straw-gold bristles of his hair. “I meant it’s better for the tree, helps with the stress of summer drought.”
She’d been stressed by her own dry spell. Living in a small town this summer with her sisters was putting a serious crimp in her sexy times. Not that throwing down a thick layer of peat moss or whatever was going to help her.
Maybe if she covered herself in a thick slab of Ben…
Oof, awful idea. The only reason she was thinking it was because she was standing out here after he’d seen her naked, and now it seemed only fair if she got to see him naked. After all, he said the shifters were all about balance, and so were witches. How very lucky.
She propped one hand on her waist, thrusting out her hip just a bit. Under her palm, under the silky black fabric of the boy shorts, her flesh felt soft and yielding, but underneath that was a rising tension. She tightened her fingers on the prowling restlessness. Did she want to get lucky with blond bro bear Ben? “My sisters aren’t home at the moment,” she murmured. “I’m all alone in the house. But you can come inside and tell me what to do…about the tree.”
He blinked. “I was just going to give my recommendations to Mac.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Sure, right. But maybe later? Maybe you’re feeling…thirsty after all that hard…work. You could come inside me—with me, and I’ll give you something wet…and stimulating.”
He was leaning so far toward her, he was about to fall up the stairs. “Do you have sweet tea?”
Oh. My. God. “Noooo,” she drawled. “But I could pour some sugar for you. If you’d like.”
He put one big, dumb boot on the lowest stair. “I am kind of thirsty.”
She took a step backward toward the front door, which was still open from when she’d bolted through it, thinking he’d fallen to his death. He matched her pace, covering more ground with his long
strides, and in a few more steps—like a country two-step except they weren’t touching…yet—she was through the doorway into the house.
Without her aunt, her two sisters, and her rambunctious nephew in its heart, the old Victorian was quiet and still, closed up against the heat of the day. The dark-stained wood and pale walls—like shadow and bone—held the many mysteries of its hundred years of existence. Gin centered herself in its energy, not unlike a spider in her web.
Maybe he sensed something, because Ben hesitated at the threshold, but then stepped over. He toed off his boots in the foyer—obviously somebody had trained him well—and an oak leaf fluttered out. Although it was his first time in the house as far as she knew, he didn’t glance around at the lovely old lady, though the elegant Victorian style was rare in this western town. All his focus was on her.
And she felt it, like a hot caress on her bare skin, even though his hands were still in the front pockets of his jeans—not just casually hooked thumbs, but his whole hands, fisted, as if he was holding onto something in there. She gave him a wicked smile, and his lashes fluttered like a helpless little mayfly in a spider’s web.
She glided toward the stairs leading up to the second story where he’d seen her in her bedroom, but the soft thud of his heels on the floorboards suddenly stopped. She glanced back coyly over her shoulder. “What’s up?” She let her gaze drift down toward his fly.
Though his gaze had been locked on her this whole time, now those blue eyes angled down the hallway. “Isn’t the kitchen that way?”
He wasn’t this innocent…was he? Didn’t he know how these porntastic plumber/pizza boy/bear-shifting arborist scenarios went? “I thought maybe we’d get a little…hotter first.” Standing with one foot on the next stair up, she slowly butterflied her knee wider, flashing him with the pale skin of her inner thigh. “Then the sweet tea will be even sweeter.”
His nostrils flared wide, but he squinted up at her. “Or…we could just add more honey.”
