by T. S. Ryder
“So . . . What you’re saying is that you feel inadequate?” Diana studied him before nodding. “I believe you. That that’s how you feel, not that you’re actually inadequate.”
Kurtis let out a relieved sigh.
“I am going to need you to be honest like this all of the time. With yourself as well as with me. I know it won’t be easy.” Diana slid her hand into his. “Thank you for sharing this with me. Maybe next time you want to get something nice for me, you can talk with the others and all four of you can get something together. And I need to talk to you and Ricky both about . . . Well, not tonight. I think we’ve fought enough.”
Kurtis laughed ironically. “This wasn’t a fight. This was a mild disagreement. My parents . . . they’d scream so much at each other. It’s not what I want, Diana. I want this to work out. Not just between you and me. Between all of us. I know I can kid around a lot, but it’s important to me.”
Diana’s eyes narrowed again, but not in an angry way. She looked pensive. After a moment, she took his hand and pulled him into her room before closing the door. He raised a brow when she led him to the bed, but refrained from the comments that went through his mind.
She sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space next to her. “Kurtis . . . Why? Why do you want this to work out? Why do you want me?”
Kurtis opened his mouth and closed it again. He hadn’t tried to put his feelings into words before . . . How was he meant to explain the warmth in his chest when she smiled at him, the tightness in his loins when she pressed up against him? The way his heart beat faster when she was near him?
“There are plenty of other women out there who would love your money and be all over you for buying them diamonds — those were diamonds, right?”
Kurtis nodded.
Diana blew out a shaky breath. “Wow . . . ”
He moved a little closer and took her hand in his. “We’ve been talking for a while. I really like talking with you. From the moment I saw you, I started fantasizing about sex.”
Diana sighed.
Kurtis hurried to continue. “But the more I got to know you, the more I thought, ‘Now, here’s a woman who I could talk with forever.’ Even if we never had sex, I’d be happy. I mean, I want sex,” he added, his gaze roaming over her body. “And I want kids. Lots of them. But I want a relationship more. I don’t want to be with a woman just to be with her. I’m so done with having meaningless sex to fill the void in my life.”
Her eyes flashed. “How often have you had this meaningless sex?”
“Why? Are you jealous?”
She folded her arms and started to shake her head before nodding.
Kurtis laughed and pulled her into his lap. “Look. Oftentimes, when a bear sees their mate, they know. It’s a gut feeling. And when I saw you in the flesh . . . I knew that you’d be the perfect mate for me.”
Her brow furrowed. “So, no pressure, then. I’m just the only one for you.”
“No . . . Bears don’t have just one perfect mate. I’ve met my perfect mate before . . . ” He bit his tongue. He hadn’t meant to say that.
Diana’s eyes were round like saucers. “You have? Then why aren’t you with her?”
Him. He looked away, thinking about the fury in Ricky’s eyes every time they were together these days.
“It didn’t work out, but that’s how things happen sometimes. I might not have been my perfect mate’s perfect mate. It’s not destined, it’s choice. I want you, Diana. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anybody. I’m not used to feeling inadequate. I want this to work.”
Diana nodded. She put her arms around his neck and gave a gentle squeeze. “I do, too. Ricky and I had a good talk a couple of days ago, and it made me see things clearer. I’m not saying that it’s a for-sure thing that I’m going to stay, but I can go into this with the thought that it is for forever . . . I just want the four of you to get along. Stop trying to show off and compete. You have to work together when considering the politics of the island as well as during sex.”
Kurtis nodded slowly. It was harder than he expected, but easier, too. Since they had moved into their new home, he and Ricky hadn’t fought once. Squabbles, yeah, but no fights. Perhaps this could work . . . as long as they all worked at it. He kissed Diana lightly.
“I’ll try. Now, let’s get to dinner. I can hear your stomach growling.”
Diana clutched her belly and grimaced. “I am hungry. And it’s almost six-thirty. Everything is going to be cold.”
“Except my passion for you.” He nipped at her neck, unable to resist. “That will never cool.”
Chapter Nine – Bobby
The full moon shone outside. Bobby pulled a loose-fitting shirt over his head, listening intently to the noises around him. From what he could hear, the other alphas were sound asleep. He was lucky that none of them had tried to go to bed with Diana. He knew that they wouldn’t approve of his plan, but it had been weeks since she had arrived and they hadn’t come across any dangers. The person who had chased her here had clearly lost her trail. And it wasn’t like he was going to leave the island.
He slipped into Diana’s room. Ruby had decided to go home for the night because of something about her cat getting close to giving birth, so that was one less person he could disturb.
Diana lay diagonally across her bed. Her dark hair was spread around her face and the blackout blinds were open, streaming silver moonlight onto her face. Bobby knelt on the bed and shook her shoulder gently.
“What?” she jerked and shouted. Bobby put his hand over her mouth, wincing. Diana’s eyes widened, but she relaxed when he turned on the light to show her it was him.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “There is a wedding happening at my clan and I wanted you to come with me.”
Diana stretched. Her blankets shifted to her waist. She wore a pair of silk pajamas. The bottom buttons had come undone, revealing a strip of creamy skin. His mouth watered at the sight of it. He placed his hand on her stomach and she shivered slightly. A grin crossed her face.
“A wedding, huh?”
Bobby nodded. “It’s the full moon. Come with me.”
“I’d love that.” She climbed out of bed. “What should I wear?”
“What you have on is fine.”
Her eyes widened. “Without a bra?”
Bobby couldn’t help but chuckle. He moved to take her in his arms but stopped himself. If he did that, he’d have to kiss her. And if he kissed her, there would be no wedding tonight. The desire to roll around the bedsheets with her was almost too strong to resist. He yearned to just open up her shirt and make love to her in the moonlight.
He was the only one who hadn’t had sex with her. They didn’t know each other well enough yet.
Diana put on her bra without taking off her shirt, leaving Bobby both relieved and disappointed, and they snuck out of her room holding hands. There was still no sound from the rooms around them, and they slipped down the stairs without making much noise. Bobby retrieved Diana’s coat and they headed outside.
The air smelled salty. Electric. The way it did before a storm. The sky was utterly clear, though. The moon was huge, close enough that he felt like he could touch it. The stars danced brightly, and he quickly found his favorite constellation, Pegasus. He could just imagine the mythical horse’s wings spread to either side of it as it flew through the heavens.
“So, what is a bear wedding like?” Diana asked as they moved to the garage where he brought out his two-seater moped.
“Not that different from human weddings, depending on where you are. On the island, we’re mostly descended from Anglo-Christian tradition. Our clans only formed a few hundred years ago when our ancestors left Europe to come here and escape the witch hunts. As you can imagine, a person turning into a bear . . . We faced a lot of persecution. Then when our ancestors came here, they traveled across the continent until they finally found this island, but you’ll find shifters of all kinds from every culture across the
globe.”
Diana hummed in her throat. She climbed onto the moped behind him. Her warmth seeped into his back. Her breasts pressed against him. The night was chilly enough and her bra thin enough that he could feel her hard nipples poking into him. He sprang to attention in his jeans and let out a low moan as he turned on the moped.
Waiting is the best thing we can do, he thought. It ensures that we’re compatible in daily life. It’s not like we can just go through life constantly having sex. We need to know that we can talk to each other and one another’s presence.
He kept repeating that to himself as he drove to the Black Sands beach. By the time they arrived, he was actually in pain. He hurried off the moped to start the wedding. Diana mingled with the other bears with ease, and when he stepped to the flowered arch, she took a seat in the front row.
The wedding proceeded without complication. As the alpha, it was his duty to perform the wedding, a task he gladly accepted. The bride and groom beamed at each other throughout the wedding. When the bride kissed the groom at the end only for him to seize her around the waist and tip her into a dip, the crowd cheered and hooted.
After the wedding, they all moved to the large platform constructed on the edge of the beach. Colored lights had been strung up, reflecting in the distant ocean. Music soon played from the speakers set up around it. A free bar was set up on one side, and Bobby brought Diana a glass of wine before sweeping her onto the dancefloor.
Diana did not hold back. She moved her body like she was made to dance, her hips moving this way and that. Her arms swayed over her head and her hair spun around her. Bobby got lost looking at her until she threw her arms around him and they went spinning across the dancefloor. One song melted into the next, and every once in a while, they moved to the bar to wet their throats.
By the time the horizon started to lighten, nearly everybody else had left. The bride and groom had disappeared quite some time ago. A slow song played for the fifth time. Bobby held Diana close in his arms as they moved in a slow circle together. His brain buzzed with happiness and excitement. It was the first time that they had done something, just the two of them, without the others hovering around the edges.
“Can I ask you something?” Diana cocked her head.
“Of course.”
“Why haven’t you wanted to sleep with me yet? The others can’t keep their hands off me, but this is the first time you’ve been this close to me.”
Bobby moved his hands to her ass and ground himself against her. He’d been somewhat hard all night. This movement made him even harder and he gave her a wicked grin.
“Oh, I want to sleep with you, Diana. I have from the moment I saw you. Right now, I’d like almost nothing more than take you down the beach and take off all your clothes and make love to every inch of your succulent body. I want to taste your skin on my tongue, to feel your nipples harden in my mouth, and feel you get slick as I play with your clit. I want to kiss you so deeply that you forget your own name and make you scream mine a thousand times.”
Diana’s eyes darkened with every word he said and he felt her pulse quicken. Her honey scent increased, indicating her arousal. When she spoke, her voice was husky. “Why don’t you, then?”
“Because that’s not the only thing I want.”
“What do you want, then?”
He smiled as he spun her away and then back into his arms, closer than before. “I want a mate. A woman who understands me, who knows me. A woman I know just as much as she knows me. I want to be able to come home after a long, exhausting day and cuddle next to a fire and talk about our days. I want a relationship. Not just a sexual partner. If I wanted that, I’d have my choices.”
“Ruby said that all the women on the island are related to you in one way or another.”
“Not all of them. And besides, the mainland isn’t that far away. Plenty of the bears here go over there, especially in tourist season, and have their flings. For me, sex is something that’s a secondary need. If I had to choose between the best sexual partner in the world and someone I’d never have sex with but shared an emotional connection with? I’d pick no sex.” He chuckled at her incredulous expression. “I know. It’s strange coming from a man.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.”
Bobby shrugged. He’d felt like there was something different, maybe even wrong with him because of his convictions for a long time. None of the other alphas had any hang-ups about sleeping with women who weren’t their mates. Hell, casual sex was common across the island. As common as breathing. Even his mother had expressed concern about his apparent lack of desire. But it wasn’t that he lacked the desire. He just wanted the right circumstances to act on that desire.
“So . . . Emotions first, sex second?”
Bobby nodded. “My parents were always all over each other. They were the most passionate people you can think of, but they didn’t love each other. It was all physical. When they weren’t having sex, they were fighting. I decided from a very young age that I didn’t want that. That’s why I left my clan . . . I was originally from Ridgeline, you know, but the Black Sands did things differently. I wanted different. I guess I’m a bit weird.”
“It’s not weird to want an emotional connection before you have sex.”
Bobby shrugged. “It is around here. Sex comes first, then love. I want the other way around.”
They stopped dancing. Diana’s gaze searched his as the purple hues in the eastern sky lightened to a brilliant pink. The playlist started up again and he heard a car engine. The rest of the people who had been hanging around had left. His arms tightened around Diana’s waist.
“From the moment I saw you, I wanted you,” he whispered. “But I want to get to know you first. Even with everything we’ve done together and all those months we spent chatting online, I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface.”
Diana stood on her tiptoes, one hand cupping the back of his skull. She brought her lips to his, kissing him deep and hard all at once. Heat flooded his body, making him tighten. He leaned forward, parting her lips with his. His tongue thrust into her mouth, trying to mimic the way she massaged him. He grasped her ass and kneaded her soft skin with his fingers. Her smell was driving him crazy. With a growl, he picked her up and then carefully laid her down on the wooden platform. His heart pounded as he pushed his knees between her thighs.
“Bobby,” Diana purred.
He moaned in need, so hard that it was hurting again. Buttons went flying as he tore open her shirt. He cupped her breast with one hand and let out a heavy moan.
Diana’s hands threaded through his hair, but when he moved to kiss her breast, she pressed her hands against his chest. “You’re right,” she whispered. “We don’t know each other well enough yet . . . I don’t want to make you throw away what you want, Bobby.”
He hovered on the edge. His body screamed at him to just ignore what he had said and just give in, but the look in her eyes . . . He knew that she was right. With a groan, he pulled away. His zipper bit into him and he tried to readjust himself without Diana noticing, but notice she did.
“What are you hoping that you’ll get by being mated to ‘the queen’ of the island?”
Bobby adjusted himself. “Well . . . I’m hoping for recognition. For an ally. To get things to really change, so that those of us who aren’t sold on the way things are don’t end up stuck as outcasts. I want our voices to be heard. I want the clans to stop pretending like we don’t exist.”
Diana nodded slowly. “And if it wasn’t me?”
He hesitated but sighed. “I hadn’t even thought about having a queen until Noel suggested it, but now that he has . . . If you decided not to be our mate, I would have to do what’s best for my clan. Not what I would want.”
“Okay. I understand.” She stood and gave him a smile. “Let’s go home, Bobby. I have a feeling that if we stay out here, we’re going to get into trouble.”
She was right. Still, going back
to the shared house to where the others waited left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. He wanted her all to himself.
I just need time, he told himself. Time to come to grips with it all.
Chapter Ten – Noel
The salmon wasn’t running yet. Noel growled in frustration as he headed for the shared alphas’ house in his bear form. He’d needed the exercise and time to calm himself down from an unsuccessful hunt out on the ocean. He and his people had spent all day fishing with nothing to show for it except for a couple of tuna. Big ones, for sure, but it wasn’t enough to distribute to the clan. Not to mention that the other clans relied on them for wild meat, too.
He was really starting to crave some red meat, but at that point, they didn’t have anything to trade with Ricky for a couple cows. He could buy it, but the clan’s funds were tied up in paying off the new boats they had added to the fleet. To buy the meat would put them in debt for another couple of years, and he was tired of looking at Kurtis’ smug face while indebted to him.
The sun was still high in the sky when Noel got to the house. He shifted in the lilac bushes and dressed before heading inside.
As soon as he was inside, the scent of blood hit him hard. It sent his bear snarling and ramming his chest. His heart pounded as he raced toward the scent. It came from the kitchen. There, he found Ruby lying on the floor. She clutched her head as blood poured from a jagged gash in her scalp. She moaned and Noel dropped to one knee next to her.
“Diana?” he asked, hardly able to get the words from his throat.
Ruby only groaned.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, hurry, go get her!” Ruby said.
A scream came from outside. Noel was back on his feet in an instant. He saw a car sitting in the driveway and a man forcing Diana inside. He acted without thinking and hurled himself through the huge window over the sink. Glass shattered, piercing through his skin and tearing his clothes, but he didn’t care. The man got into his own side of the car as Noel let loose a battle cry.
