Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)

by Lynn Red

  “What are you talking about?” I asked him. “You have to give it a shot. The girls have been asking about you, so if nothing else they’d like to see you. You did save Millie’s life, you know.”

  He ran his hand through his long, golden hair, and a little swoon crept through me. Somehow I kept it together, but when he reached out to help me to my feet and those rough, warm hands wrapped around mine, I was in another world for a second. When I came back to earth with nothing but a little twinge in my stomach to remind me of the flight I just took, Orion was holding me close.

  He inhaled deeply, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “Every day I’m away from you I just want to be with you,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t stop thinking about you, I can’t get you out of my head. You did something to me, Clea, something I’ve never felt before.”

  Welp, if there was any hope of Orion’s first day at The Cubby Hole being normal, it went right out the window then and there.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” I said. As I opened my mouth to speak again, he silenced me with a kiss.

  At first soft and gentle, the harder he gripped me against his muscled body with those huge hands, the hungrier and deeper his kisses grew. I opened my mouth to accept another of them, and he slid his tongue inside, exploring my lips before swirling it against mine in a desperate dance.

  My breath escaped in a soft whimper of pleasure. My knees buckled slightly and my clothes – my shorts, and the overly sensible, totally not sexy at all cotton panties I always wear to work – bunched around my sex, tugging at me even as Orion’s grasping fingers curled against the small of my back.

  Sliding up my back just a bit, my shirt allowed his hands to brush against my bare skin, at least until he ran them high enough that the calluses on his palms rasped against my bra strap.

  “I didn’t expect this,” I said with a little laugh. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  Orion’s eyes melted into me, turned me into a puddle of wiggly Jell-O in his hands. He didn’t speak; he didn’t need to. Everything he could have possibly spoken he said with the gentle curling of his fingertips, the hot breath sliding along my prickling neck. “How do you—”

  Again he silenced me with a kiss, but this one was deeper and stronger than the one before. He pushed me back against the scratchy brick beside the door to my house and ran his hands up into my hair.

  Holding me still as he pulled away, Orion sucked a ragged breath into his lungs. “Your scent,” he whispered. “The way you move, the way you smile. You’ve made me yours, Clea,” he said.

  It was all so sudden, so incredible, and honestly so overwhelming that I wasn’t really sure what was going on inside my own head. I was being pulled in about fourteen thousand different directions at once, or at least that’s how it felt. It was like no matter how much I wanted what he was doing, how much I needed the love that he obviously had on offer, I kinda didn’t believe what was happening could be real.

  “Stop,” I whispered, with a hand on his powerful, muscled chest. “I’m... I’m sorry, I just—”

  When he tilted his head to the side, the rising sun caught one of his eyes and reflected. The sparkling color reminded me of holding a tiger’s eye stone up to a candle and turning it around in my fingers. Still he stayed silent, but the storm behind his eyes told me everything I needed to know.

  “Something... something in my mind is making me think you’re not for real. I mean,” I paused, to shake my head. “That’s not what I mean. Shit, I’m not even sure that I know what I mean. Chew on that for a second.”

  “It all happened fast,” he said. “Finding you in the first place, then finding you again. I don’t mean to frighten you. That’s... that’s my curse.”

  The tattoos around his eyes, and the giant one peeking up out of his shirt caught my attention. His skin was hot to the touch when I laid my hand on his arm, squeezing it to prove to myself that he was real.

  “I’m easy to scare,” I said. “I act like I’m not, but I had a real hell of a run before.”

  Orion narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. I promised I’d help with the kids, and I’m not one to go back on my word. Did someone hurt you?”

  His jaw went tight. “If someone hurt you, I’ll—”

  “Whoa there, cowboy,” I laughed softly. “He’s long gone. And he didn’t hurt me, not physically. He was... well I was married before, got hitched young and it went the way that sort of thing usually goes. We turned into very different people, I resented him, I thought he trapped me in something I hated. I don’t blame him for any of that, though, not after looking back. But Liam – that was his name – he did make me doubt myself. Kind of a lot.”

  “You have so much love in your heart,” Orion said. “So much courage. How could anyone look down on you?”

  At that, I had to laugh a little louder. “I haven’t always been like this. Actually I kinda think Liam’s bullshit helped make me who I am now.”

  Orion grunted. I could tell he didn’t really believe me, or at least I thought that’s what I saw when he looked at me. He turned the left corner of his mouth into a slight smile. “I wish there was something I could do,” he said. “To make you realize that I’m not him, that I won’t do that to you.”

  I shook my head. “I know you won’t. Or I mean, I know you don’t think you will. But—”

  “That’s not the kind of man I am. And you’re not the woman you were back then, either. If you don’t want me,” he said, trailing off. “No. I’ve seen the way you look at me. I felt you arching against me and sucking at my kisses. I heard your voice waiver when I touched you. I know you want me, even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”

  I couldn’t say anything at all. Somehow, he figured me out exactly in the few moments we’d been together that morning. His words brought comfort, and at the same time, the clarity with which he saw through me was startling. I’m used to hiding, used to being able to pretend to be someone I’m not and get away with it.

  “I can smile when I want to cry,” I said. “When I’m hurting, I can act like I’m invincible.”

  Saying those words made them real. That’s when I realized that I’d never said them before. I’d never laid myself open, laid myself bare, like I just did.

  “My father wants me dead, because I left the gang. I wouldn’t kill on order. I refused to hurt people who didn’t deserve his cruelty, so I ran.”

  I felt a tear run down my cheek, although I wasn’t all that sure where it came from or why that was my reaction to what he’d said. “Why did you just admit that to me?”

  Orion pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and dragged his teeth along the stubble. “Because you let me in. You trusted me enough to be vulnerable. And I’ve never admitted what I am. My past is something I’m not proud of. For a long time, I convinced myself it wasn’t my fault – I was just a,” he shook his head. “That I was just an unwitting victim. But it isn’t true. Just taking orders isn’t an excuse for some of the things I’ve done, but I’d never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it, and that got me in trouble.”

  I took a deep breath, holding it in for a moment before letting it out in a shuddering exhale. “I think,” I said, carefully and slowly, not wanting to do any damage I couldn’t repair. “I think that... we both have healing that needs to be done. I thought I was over Liam, I thought I was ready for someone else to love me.”

  “But?”

  I lifted my head, pushing a fallen curl out of his eyes, back behind his ear. “I hate what I’m about to say.”

  “I hate what I just said,” he answered.

  His eyes flickered again, the shadow marking the cleft in his chin, and the tattoos along his cheekbones emphasized his sharply cut, statue-like features.

  “I hate it because it isn’t fair to ask you what I’m going to ask, and because someone else did it to me once.”

  “I’m a big boy,” Orion said wi
th one of his smirks that could drop the panties off a mannequin. “I can handle it. And remember – I’m not joking about this fate business. The second I saw you, I knew that... somehow, I just knew that you were for me. Whatever you need, whatever you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”

  I gulped. I knew he meant what he said. And knowing that? Just letting myself believe him was a pretty huge thing, at least for me. Sounds like a little thing, but believing people has never been a strong suit of mine. Or at least not after Liam.

  “I want to heal with you,” I said. “I don’t want to rush, I don’t want to—”

  “You’re asking me to wait?” he asked. “That’s what’s going on here, right?”

  I bit my lip and looked down at the ground, focusing on the tips of my Mary Janes. I couldn’t believe that I’d just told him that, but at the same time, he was still right in front of me. That was a good sign, at least.

  I felt a finger underneath my chin, lifting my face up. “Look at me,” he said. “Look at my face. Do you see these scars?”

  Slightly embarrassed that I hadn’t actually noticed them before just then, I nodded. “What are they from?”

  “Fire,” he said. Orion grabbed my hand and flattened my palm against the spider web of scars on his left cheek. “My father burned me. Sort of like a brand. He wanted to prove that he owned me, that I was nothing without him. Without the gang.”

  I curled my fingers against the puckered skin. It looked so much like the rest of his tattoos that I hadn’t noticed, but touching them, yeah, it was completely different. I swallowed again, my throat clicked. “You’re so much more than that,” I whispered.

  Orion shook his beautiful head. He looked down, closed his eyes tightly shut for a moment and then opened them again, staring straight into mine.

  “He never proved anything. I never needed him. Never needed the gang. Mitch Samuelsson never owned me, no matter how hard he tried to prove that he did.”

  I had a feeling what was going to come out of his mouth before he started to form the words. That was good at least, because it gave me a little time to prepare myself.

  “You claimed me the first time I saw you, Clea,” he whispered. His breath caressed my neck, but his words? They caressed my soul. “Fate, fortune, luck, whatever you want to call it, it claimed me. Took me for its own, right then. I won’t rest, I won’t stop, until I make you mine.”

  Yep. Yeah, even with the couple seconds lead in, hearing him say the words made them real, and made me ache. From deep inside the core of my body, a wave of heat pulsed through me. Goosebumps crept down my arms, my scalp clenched slightly, and my sex yearned to have him – even if it was just another make-believe session.

  “You mean that?” I asked, with a smile. “You’re really going to chase me? Why do you care so much?”

  “Because,” he said, those eyes burning holes through me and the hands against my back making me quail. “Because you’re mine. In this life, in this world, I’ve barely got anything. I have a backpack with a couple of books, and I have this necklace.”

  The tiny golden pendant was hidden under his shirt. He fished it out, producing a delicate, paw-shaped pendant. “It was my mother’s,” he said softly. “She gave it to me right before she died. And now?” He unlatched the thing with so much gentleness that I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

  Slowly, carefully, he hooked the chain behind my neck and flattened his palm against my chest, on top of the pendant.

  “I can’t take this,” I said. “You can’t... it’s your mother’s.”

  Orion shook his head. “The Samuelsson bears have a pretty terrible past. My grandfather started the Devils and my father took it over. We haven’t always been like that though. My mother, she was different. She had a head on her shoulders that wasn’t full of gasoline and rage. She knew all about the clan, way before the Devils. This necklace,” he twirled a finger around the chain. “This is older than her, older than my grandfather. This is the necklace that Samuelssons have given their mates for a hundred years, maybe more.”

  I gulped.

  “What I’m saying,” he said, “is that I’ll wait, if that’s what it takes. But you better be ready for me to chase you, too.”

  Without another word, Orion grabbed my hand, led me the few feet to the motorcycle, and helped me on.

  “Hold on tight,” he said, turning halfway around and grabbing my hands, wrapping them around his waist. “Gotta hurry. Can’t make those cubs wait, right?”

  I was glad for the wind going through my hair, partially because it felt really awesome to blast along a deserted road at a speed well above a reasonable rate.

  But really? I was glad because it dried the tears before they could hit my shirt.

  -16-

  “There isn’t enough hamburger in the world to get me to take care of a room full of shifter cubs on my own. Okay, maybe there is, but it’s a LOT.”

  -Orion

  If having Orion show up and sweep me off my feet was a weird way to start a morning, the way he reacted to a room full of squealing cubs pushed me one step further over the line into surreal.

  “I am... I’m kinda dumbfounded,” Malia said. “I didn’t expect him to be totally terrible at this, but I really didn’t expect... this.”

  “Aaaah!” Orion shouted, grabbing Millie out of the air and swinging her around and onto his shoulders for what must be the eight hundredth time since we showed up about three hours before.

  At first, I had tried to be my normal, controlled, calm, schedule-observing, type-a self, but the whole pack was so excited it felt like I was fighting gravity. Orion hung out on the fringes of the room for a few minutes, but when Millie walked in fifteen minutes after we got there, that whole plan went to hell.

  Orion met her parents, acting very humble and reserved, but after they left, the giant bear really came to life.

  She saw him, she screamed, and she ran at him, burying her head in his stomach and wrapping her little arms around his waist as best she could. For a while, she was understandably weeping – after all, this guy did save her and me from being impaled by a tree – but then out of nowhere, I turned around to see her and Leena Lee crawling all over him.

  “How did I not notice this thing before?” Malia said, as we watched Orion wear out yet another cub. He’d managed to roughhouse the panda triplets, the raccoon twins, Leena and just then, Millie, into a nap.

  If there’s one thing that makes me count a day as successful, it’s a day where all the little ones take a nap. Those days are also about as rare as a unicorn. Well, as rare as a unicorn anywhere except Jamesburg, anyway.

  “It’s... oh, this,” I said, not really wanting to have a long sit down discussion about the intricacies of my dumb love life. At least not right now, not without a real big glass of wine or two.

  “You’re beaming,” she said.

  So I was. Oops.

  “So, what happened, you naughty thing?” she was giggling and I was blushing. “That big, sexy hunk of a bear showed up to get you this morning and you gave in to his seductive wiles?”

  I mean, yeah, that is sort of what happened, but not in the way she was insinuating. “No,” I said. “Well, kind of. But not like that!”

  Malia curled her mouth into a mischievous smile. “Uh-huh,” she said, flatly, putting a hand on one hip and turning one of her feet sideways. “You guys want to double?”

  “Whoa, whoa, you’re already throwing a mate-swap invitation my way? Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”

  It was Malia’s turn to blush and giggle uncontrollably. “I mean, not that I’d mind, exactly,” she said, loudly enough to make sure Dean heard. He shot her a nasty, playful glance. “No! Double date. We’ve been meaning to find some more couple friends, and, well, this one just sorta fell into my lap. I mean, we already do everything together anyway.”

  Yeah, I thought. And now I won’t feel like an awkward third wheel.

  Everything was just falling i
nto place, somehow. Except for the part about me not actually being his mate. But the fact that I didn’t say anything to correct her assumption spoke a whole lot of words without any actual talking.

  I watched Orion lay Millie down on the napping pallet. Immediately, she crawled over to Leena and the two of them instinctively curled up in a pile, snoring as bear hair appeared on their arms.

  “She’s been doing that thing where she was valiantly refusing to fall asleep for like ten minutes,” Orion said, coming over to us and noticing the way Malia was looking at him. “What?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I invited you two out for a double date but for some reason, your girlfriend thought I was inviting you to a mate swap.”

  Orion scratched his head, obviously confused.

  “Uh, wait just a second with all that,” I said, pulling Orion to the side. “She thinks we, uh, well, she thinks we’re mated already.”

  A grin spread across Orion’s face. The gesture even seemed alien to him, like he hadn’t smiled or laughed, or much of anything except looked real grim for a very long time.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s that look for. I expected you to be irritated.”

  “Irritated? Why on earth would I be mad? The whole morning I’ve been planning my approach, trying to figure out how best to woo you and make you fall in love with me, and now I don’t have to bother. Seems pretty much a win-win to me. Well, for me anyway.”

  I watched his face, studying it for any sign that he was joking or maybe a clue that he was actually serious. But those stormy, beautiful, striking eyes gave nothing away.

  Then he barked a laugh. A laugh! This was just about a hundred percent turnaround in half a day. From brooding, to laughing at my embarrassment. “Are you okay?” I asked. “Sounds like you caught a cold.”