PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Bear Naked Satisfaction (Fantasy Shapeshifter Alpha Male Romance Book 3) (Contemporary New Adult Billionaire Steamy Romance Short Stories)

by Audrey Storm

  Everything looked the same as the night before. Aaron was covered in bandages. Some of them had a bit of red on them, telling Paula that she would have to check his wounds. He was hooked up to several machines and she could hear his slow but steady breathing. She was glad that he was breathing on his own and that he had made it through the night without incident. Paula checked all of Aaron’s vital signs and documented them on his chart. Knowing that he was fighting gave her a bit of hope in what seemed like a hopeless situation.

  Paula gathered clean bandages as well as a sponge and tub of warm water. It would take a long time to clean Aaron but she was willing to do what it took. She looked at the man that lay in the bed in front of her, knowing that no matter how long it took to get him better, it was going to be worth it because he was willing to give his life to help someone he did not even know.

  Paula began unwrapping one of Aarons arms and noticed that he flinched slightly. She looked up and saw that his eyes were open and he lay there watching her.

  “I am sorry,” she whispered to him. “This is going to hurt a little. Do you remember what happened?”

  Aaron looked past Paula as he thought about what he remembered last. He had no memory of the accident and the last thing he remembered was leaving his fiancé when he was drafted. He looked at Paula and she could see the confusion on his face.

  “You were in an accident,” she said softly as she continued to unwrap his arm. “Your plane was shot down by the Nazis but you were lucky that you ejected just in time.” She smiled as she talked to him. If there was one thing that this war had taught her, it was that men were not as tough as she had always thought they were.

  When she was growing up, she viewed men almost as if they were superhuman. She did not think that they felt pain in the same way that she did and she did not know them as emotional beings. She had always been taught that men did not cry; they did not get scared, and when they were hurt, they just sucked it up. Since treating the soldiers, she found out that none of that was true.

  When she spoke to soldiers about their families or what they had seen while fighting, she had seen many of their eyes fill up with tears. She had seen them suffering from not only emotional, but physical pain in much the same way she would. She had learned that she had to be just as gentle with these men as she would expect someone to be with her.

  “I have to change your bandages and clean your wounds,” she continued speaking as she worked. She knew that it was good for Aaron to be engaged and that it was important for her to keep him calm. “The doctors say that you are going to be just fine, and when you are well enough, you can go back to the States,” she tried to speak with excitement, even though she could tell that Aaron was not listening.

  Aaron was focused on remembering what had happened to him and was busy trying to figure out where he was. He remembered hugging his fiancé, telling her that he would come back to her and then getting on the bus. There was not much after that, just a blank spot and then waking up in the field hospital. He did not remember going through any training and had no memory of being in a plane.

  Paula could see that he was struggling with his own mind. “Sometimes when we go through traumatic events,” she stopped working and looked up at him. “Our minds black them out so that we do not remember.” She wished that he was able to speak, but knew that it would be hours before he could even answer a question.

  While the doctors were doing surgery, they had to place a tube in his throat in order to ensure that he did not stop breathing, which caused a lot of irritation and swelling. “Don’t you worry,” she continued as she picked up the sponge and began washing his arm. “You are going to be able to talk again really soon and I will answer all of your questions.”

  Aaron turned his gaze at the nurse who was washing his arm, and it occurred to him that he had not even tried to talk. She began to explain about the surgery and how the doctors had to ensure that he did not stop breathing. She told him that he would be able to talk again by the end of the day and that she would do her best to answer any questions he had.

  As she spoke, Aaron could not help but notice what a beautiful woman she was. She had dark hair, pale skin and the bluest eyes. She was a larger woman with big breasts that kept getting in her way as she worked. Aaron could not see below her waist, but he imagined she had a round plump hips and thick thighs. She was just the kind of woman that Aaron had always dreamed about.

  She was completely opposite of his fiancé back home. Angela was a thin blonde that barely had any breasts at all. He had met Angela in high school; he was on the football team and she was a cheerleader. Of course he did what was expected of him and asked her to go steady. She came from a good family, which made his parents happy, and after they graduated from high school, Aaron went to the local community college while Angela stayed at home with her parents.

  She was raised to be a housewife, and that was what she wanted to be. So while Aaron learned how to make a living, Angela learned how to cook and clean. She talked about having babies in the future, and although Aaron wanted kids, he wanted to be established in life before that happened. Angela had started talking about marriage, so about six months prior to Aaron being drafted, he did what he thought was right and asked her to marry him.

  He knew that if he did not and her parents found out that she was not a virgin, he would have hell to pay. Like most men his age, he had been with more women, but Angela did not know and he saw no reason to tell her. She lived in a fantasy world and was happy with the way things were. There were times when Aaron looked back on high school and wished that he had not been so worried about what other people thought. He wished at times that he had never started going steady with Angela. He thought about his friends and how many of them didn’t have a steady girlfriend. They seemed so much happier and always teased Aaron about being tied down.

  The truth was that he knew exactly what his life would be like. He would buy a house in the town he grew up in because Angela refused to leave her parents. He would get married, have a kid or two, go to work every day and most likely live a boring life because of a decision he had made in high school.

  As Aaron listened to Paula talk, he wished that Angela was more like her. Paula was gentle and caring, whereas Angela was demanding and generally looked down on those that she thought were not as good as she was. Angela would not be caught dead washing some strange man’s body, even if it was to save his life. She refused to touch bloody meat, let alone a bloody man.

  Aaron lay in the bed as Paula slowly and gently washed his wounds, then redressed them before moving on to the next part of his body. As she did so, he wondered about her. He wondered where she had grown up and if she had a husband waiting for her who was possibly drafted just as Aaron was. As he watched her, he saw a sadness behind her eyes and wanted more than anything to ask what it was that made her so sad.

  He wanted to reach out and touch her, but he was unable to move his arms. He was only able to blink at her as she talked to him. It had taken Paula several hours, but she had finished cleaning and redressing Aaron’s wounds. She knew that he was in a lot of pain and injected a sedative into his IV bag. She was exhausted and needed to throw away all of the old bandages and Aaron needed to rest. His body needed to heal and the only way that it would was if he rested.

  Aaron quickly dozed off and Paula threw away all of the old bandages. She checked on him once more before her shift was over and found that he was still asleep. She felt bad because she had told him that she would be there to talk to him, but knew he would wake up in the morning and they would have the entire day to discuss what had happened to him.

  Paula hoped that she would have the answers that he was looking for when he woke up, although she knew very little about the accident. The only thing that she really knew was that his plane was shot down and he had ejected just before the missile hit the plane, which caused pieces of the plane to slam into him and cut him. There had even been small pieces of the plane foun
d embedded in his skin. Paula had no idea how he had been found or even who had found him. She knew that his commanding officer would answer any questions that Aaron had about the accident and that all she could do was answer the medical questions.

  Paula informed the doctor that Aaron was doing better and that she had cleaned the wounds. She told him that there was no sign of infection and she would update him the following day on Aaron’s condition. As she headed back to her tent to eat dinner, she breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a long day, but she had not heard any explosions in hours. She hoped that she could eat and get a few hours of sleep before they started up again.

  Paula was grateful for the days like this one. They were few and far between, but on occasion, the Germans would not shoot off missiles during the day. They would wait until nightfall when it was harder for them to be seen. It was when things were quiet that Paula was able to forget that the entire world was at war. She would pretend to be back in the US and pray that she would see it again.

  Of all the things that Paula had learned during her time as a nurse, the one thing she cherished the most was that she had learned not to take life for granted. She had considered taking her own life a time or two when she was younger, when she felt completely alone and as if it did not matter whether or not she was in the world. Now Paula understood just how fragile life really was and how important it was to take advantage of every minute.

  That night as Paula went to bed, she decided that she was going to take advantage of every minute of her life from that moment on. She was never going to let an opportunity pass her by again and she was never going to spend her time focusing on the past and the things that she had been through. The next day would be a new dawning for her and she was excited to see it come. As she fell asleep, she felt hope for her future for the first time in her life.

  Over the next few days, Aaron began getting better and better. He regained his voice as Paula continued to clean him and change his bandages each day. As his wounds began to heal, she began seeing the beautiful man that was under all of the cuts and bandages.

  Aaron had dark skin, dark brown eyes and beautiful dark hair that had been cut short. Paula wondered if that was how he normally wore his hair or if it was cut that way just because he had been drafted. They talked about life and how they had grown up. Paula did not want to tell him about growing up in an orphanage, but he refused to let it go.

  When she told him about all of the things that she had experienced in life, she could see tears well up in his eyes. She told him that she had moved past all of it and that she was just thankful to be alive. He told her how amazing she was.

  Aaron had never met anyone who had been through anything like what Paula had lived through. He had grown up in a small town where everyone seemed to live a normal, happy life. Bad things never seemed to happen where Aaron was from, and he never imagined that kids were growing up in the conditions that Paula talked about. As he listened to Paula talk, he knew that when he got back to the US he was going to do something to bring awareness to the way orphans were being treated. He was not sure what he was going to do and part of him wished that he could adopt all of the kids but he knew that was not possible.

  He told Paula all about his life and watched her eyes sparkle as he talked. She imagined what it would have been like to grow up with parents like his, what it would have been like to have her mother tuck her in at night and to have her dad play with her on the weekends.

  Aaron talked about his older brother and how much he looked up to him. John was three years older than Aaron and Aaron had always looked up to him. John was the reason that Aaron had played football in high school, the reason why he had went to the community college and the reason why he wanted to be a mechanic. John already owned his own shop and Aaron just wanted to work with his brother.

  Aaron talked about how his parents were so proud of John and how he was their pride. Paula actually felt bad when she heard Aaron talk about his brother. She could tell that all he really wanted was for his parents to look at him the way that they looked at his brother. That in reality even though he told himself that he had a normal life and that he was happy growing up he really lived in his brother’s shadow.

  By the time that Aaron was able to walk the two of them felt as if they knew everything about each other. Paula often helped him into his wheelchair and took him out to see the sun. He would tell Paula how good it felt on his skin and there were times when the two of them would just sit in silence and enjoy each other’s company.

  It was those times when Paula felt the best. She missed home even though she really had not home, but it was the time with Aaron that reminded her of the good things in life. When she was with him she smiled more than she ever had in her life, she learned what real joy was and she loved to laugh with him.

  As Paula helped Aaron begin to walk, she knew that he would be going home soon and sadness filled her. She could not imagine being in the hospital each day without having Aaron to spend time with.

  One day after Aaron had been walking Paula was massaging his legs to ensure that his muscles did not ache when he saw a tear fall from her eye.

  “What is wrong,” he asked her.

  Paula looked up at Aaron and smiled, shaking her head. She was not the type of person who was good at sharing her feelings and was afraid of making a fool of herself.

  “Tell me,” he said, lifting himself up on his elbows.

  “I was just thinking about when you leave. You know when you go home,” she said, wiping the tear from her cheek, “It is going to be lonely here without you.”

  Aaron smiled at her, “I am sure you will find some handsome man to take care of,” he said laughing.

  Paula giggled as she moved to his other leg. “I will never find a man as handsome as you.” She teased him but she was being honest. She had grown quite attracted to Aaron as they had spent more and more time together. Aaron was a very attractive man physically, but Paula found that she was attracted to him on a deeper level as well. She loved his personality and loved the way he liked to joke. She enjoyed hearing about how he viewed the world and what he thought about different topics.

  Paula hated hearing about his fiancé and found that she was getting more and more jealous as she learned more about Angela. Paula did not think that Angela deserved to be with Aaron, in fact, she secretly wished that she was Aarons fiancé instead of Angela. At night she would often find herself imagining what it would have been like to be with Aaron and she even fantasized about how his lips would feel against hers.

  Paula had never been with a man, she had never dated and she had never really been interested in it. Paula had never had an example of what a relationship was supposed to be like, she didn’t know how to make things work and she assumed that it would only cause her more pain. As she had grown older and made friends with other girls she watched them cry about the way their boyfriends had treated them, they had their hearts broken when their boyfriends had cheated on them. She had even seen women that worked in the orphanage go through divorces and she saw how it changed them. The women would be sweet and loving and then after a divorce, they became mean and hateful.

  Paula wondered why people put themselves through such pain when it really was not necessary, but after spending time with Aaron she began to understand. She knew that Aaron could hurt her and that chances were she would be hurt, but she wanted to spend as much time as she could with him. Aaron was the one thing that brought her joy in life, the one thing that made her happy and the one thing that she looked forward to each day.

  When Aaron was tired and was not able to spend time with Paula she felt as if part of her was missing. Paula had never felt this way about anyone before, she had made sure that she did not allow anyone to get close to her and this man had somehow snuck through that wall that she had built.

  “It’s going to be a long time before I go back home,” he said trying to console her. He loved the fact that she was upset that he would lea
ve eventually. Angela never seemed to be that upset when they were apart and even though Aaron knew that he would go home and he would marry Angela he refused to let the chance that was in front of him slip through his fingers.

  He knew that for the first time in his life he had the choice to do what he wanted to do and he did not have to worry about what anyone thought of what he was doing. No one would ever have to know that he had fallen in love with a nurse while he was recovering. No one had to know that he dreamed about her each night when he went to bed and he knew that for the rest of his life he would not forget her. A war was going on around them and neither of them knew if they were guaranteed to see the next day or not, but Aaron knew that if he did wake up again it would be because of the beautiful woman that took such gentle care of him.

  After just a few more weeks Aaron was walking around on his own. His muscles were growing stronger and even though the thought of him leaving loomed over the both of them both he and Paula refused to focus on it. Instead, they spent their days together after Paula had finished her other rounds. The US was winning against the Nazi’s and it seemed as if the war would be over soon so the two of them chose to focus on each other instead of all that was going on around them.

  One morning Paula had no one to take care of in the field hospital and that made her very happy. She was glad that men were not coming in injured and that they were winning the war, but more than that she was happy that she would get to spend the entire day with the man she adored.

  Paula made her way to Aaron’s cot and found him already sitting up on the edge of the bed waiting for her. He looked like a completely different person than the man they had first brought in. He looked strong and healthy his color was good and he smiled a lot. Paula knew that there was still some pain and that there probably would be for a long time, but Aaron did not let that bother him. He was going to spend the day with Paula and that was all that mattered to him.