Bearly Hanging On (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (The Jamesburg Shifters Book 6)

by Red, Lynn

  If she were a possum, she'd be spitting and hissing. Instead, she just felt her claws grow and her fangs lengthen. Whoever was sharing her little shelter had better show himself fast.

  There was a footstep, distant and soft. Then another one nearer, but she couldn't see, or smell anyone. That was not something she was used to. Spinning in her low crouch, Jamie wasn't going to let anyone get the drop on her. She squinted, trying her best to search the darkness. She took a step forward, then another two, cautiously, deeper into the cave.

  "Answer me," she said, her voice calm and cold. "Don't try anything stupid. I'm not messing around."

  Still nothing. The sound of grinding rock made her spin, but it was just pebbles falling that she'd passed. She felt air whizz past. Someone was close, someone was moving around her so fast she couldn't keep up.

  "Who are you?" she demanded again, twisting her toes into the ground, clenching her fists and her jaws. "I'm not playing arou—"

  "Neither am I," the voice came in a whisper. A moment later, a hand clamped over her mouth. A hard hand slid around her belly, pulling her backward against a muscled torso that was covered in something soft and cottony and halfway buttoned. "Shhhh," he said with a chuckle on his lips. "How's it feel to get snuck up on?"

  -12-

  “Holy hell, you can hit a lot harder than I thought!”

  -Ryan

  With a sharp elbow pointed backward and up, Jamie drove an elbow into her attacker's solar plexus.

  "Damn!" Ryan grunted, still laughing, as his grip loosened and he lurched backward. "Hold on!"

  But "hold on" is not something you tell an enraged bat girl after you surprise her with a hand on her mouth. Jamie whirled, claws flashing, and Ryan dodged backward at exactly the right time to avoid losing a chunk of ear. "Damn, you're serious!"

  With a snarl, Jamie jumped at him, nails catching his forearm, and leaving a hot, painfully red trail. They snagged in his flannel shirt sleeve, but she was so panicked, so terrified, that she just went at him again, ripping away her nails and lunging again.

  He twisted at exactly the right time, sliding past her wild clawing, and caught ahold of one of her wrists. "Quit trying to kill me!" he was still laughing, but he was also starting to get slightly winded.

  All Jamie heard was his breathing get harder. She wrenched her arm down, then up, catching him with a backhand that stunned more than hurt. Ryan backed up again, batting away another flurry of strikes, and then trying once again to pull her into a bear hug, suddenly more for his own safety than because he wanted to feel her against his body, but... well there was that too.

  Her eyes were a mixture of slate gray and blood red as she whirled past the vague light coming through the cave's entrance.

  "Jamie!" Ryan shouted, suddenly very aware that his little joke was possibly not the best idea. "Jamie, it's me, Ryan! Ryan Drake!"

  She hit a deep crouch, like a linebacker ready to absolutely murder a quarterback. Her eyes cleared, and her eyebrows furrowed. A low, rumbling growl escaped her lips.

  "Are you in there Jamie?" he asked, chancing a step closer. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, I—shit!"

  She lunged again, backhanding the bear with surprising force.

  "What the hell was that for?"

  Jamie wasn't responding. She glared, cold and hard, sending a shiver up Ryan's back. "Jamie!" he called again.

  Jamie dove, and as he lifted his hands to defend himself, she slid to the ground, between his legs. With impossible agility, she entwined one of her legs between his, straightened it, and sent the huge bear sprawling to the ground. He caught himself, but still landed with a dusty thud and a grunt.

  The next second, she flipped him over, and was straddling his chest, holding his arms pinned with her knees. "What the hell?" he was saying over and over. "What are you doing?"

  She glared down at him and leaned close enough that they could both feel each other's breath. His was hot and heavy with surprise. Each inhale lifted her a couple of inches and every exhale caressed the bare skin of Jamie's neck. She leaned closer, only an inch from his lips.

  "Don't ever write me any more dirty limericks," she whispered. "Next time, I'll kill you."

  He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, Jamie pushed his head back against the ground, forced his lips open with hers, and kissed him as deep and hard and hungry as she'd ever imagined a kiss could be. She closed her eyes and let him get his arms free. Up her back, then down, he ran his hands, his calluses rasping over the smooth fabric of her bunched up dress. The hotness between her legs, on his belly, gave Ryan a burning ferocity he'd never felt before, never known.

  In the next second, he grabbed Jamie's hips, holding her against him so that she ground up him, then down, and then flipped her over, settling her gently against the floor of the cave, and pushing between her legs with the muscles of his lower abdomen. She was smiling now, mouth opened in a silent gasp.

  "I thought you were gonna kill me that time, and the limericks worked, didn’t they? You’re here, aren’t you?" he asked, with a half-smile before he forced her head backward with a kiss. Swirling his tongue inside her mouth, Jamie felt her bear stir inside those tight jeans he wore, and slid her hand along the thickness she felt. He let out a rumbling groan as she squeezed; she moaned softly as he pushed, the buckle of his belt cold against her clit.

  "If you'll keep doing this," she gasped between breath-drinking kisses, "you don't have anything to worry about. I couldn't kill anyone that can make me feel like this."

  With a rough hand on one side of her face, Ryan held Jamie's head and kissed her neck, her ear, and sucked a line of kisses from her chin to the hollow of her throat, where the button down part of her form-hugging dress had fallen open.

  "Were you here the whole time?" she asked as he opened another button and let his fingers trace the line of one of her breasts up to the nipple. "Just sitting there watching me?" Her breath got hotter, heavier with desire. She sucked air through her nose, inhaling his sweat, his musk, the smell of wood that lingered on his skin, and the smell of her own lust heavy in the air.

  "Yes," he said simply, pulling his lips from her throat long enough to answer. "I watched, I stared, I wondered if what I was doing was wrong. I wondered if I was making a mistake."

  Jamie raked her now-normal fingernails down Ryan's flannel-covered back, relishing the lines of his muscles, and the way he rolled his eyes back in pleasure with every scratch. "Mistake?" she asked.

  He kissed her again, forcing her mouth open to taste her deeply. Her back, and her spread-out wings scratched against the cave floor. One of them fluttered and brushed against the place Ryan's shirt had pushed up above his jeans, but instead of recoiling, or really reacting at all, he just smiled and kissed her again.

  "This won't hurt them, will it?" he asked a second later.

  "The only thing getting hurt," Jamie said, reaching up and grabbing Ryan's face to pull him back for another kiss, "is you if you don't shut up."

  With a laugh, and then a smile that made his dimpled right cheek more prominent and somehow more panty-soaking, Ryan cocked his head to the side and held Jamie's shoulders on the ground as he resumed his slow path of kisses down the middle of her chest, unbuttoning the shirt a little more with every gently placed kiss.

  Each one, he previewed with a touch of his tongue, a soft, circling lick. He sucked, and pulled, and stroked her, wrenching her shirt off one shoulder, then the other. He dragged his tongue over her bra, letting it settle where her nipple was so that she felt the heat, the wetness, even with the fabric separating her from him.

  "You always wear a sports bra?" he asked.

  He was talking, sure, but he was also still stroking her with those rough, beautiful, massive hands. When he pinched her covered nipple softly, then slid his hand underneath to warm her with his palm before he did it again, Jamie decided she could let it slide that time.

  "You try flying in some stupid, lacy number." She gasped, sh
e moaned, and then smiled as her hair mussed into a frame around her head when she relaxed again, completely unaware her bun had come undone.

  "Worse than running?" he asked, lowering his head for another suck, though this time he slipped the tip of his tongue under the fabric, teasing the rim of Jamie's nipple with playful flicks.

  "So, so, so," the last word was drawn out into a nine syllable groan. "So much worse. Also, permission to speak?"

  "Revoked?" he chuckled, before biting gently on her breast, and then her nipple.

  "Revo—holy shit," Jamie hissed.

  "Too much?" he pulled the finger he was pressing against the opening of her sex back. "Too fast?"

  "When someone interrupts what they're saying to curse and then groan, you keep doing it, you big jackass," she said with a laugh.

  As his finger sank into her, up to the first knuckle, the physical pleasure was only part of what Jamie felt. The fact that this huge bear made sure she was okay? That he wasn't going to hurt her? That he didn't mind her damn wings? She couldn't believe it. She never would, not in a million years, except... he was right here. He was right here, and it was real hard to deny the reality of his fingers stretching into her, and his sucking, wonderful kisses that were just about to require a lot less skirt if they were going to get any lower.

  He didn't ask permission for that part.

  Jamie whimpered as his huge finger slid out of her for a moment, but as soon as the skirt was unhooked and his tongue was on her panties, the finger came back, and she forgave him for the momentary inconvenience.

  With one leg on either side of his head, Jamie draped her knees over Ryan's shoulders. His kisses - up one side of her and down the other before settling back on the middle - brought her right to the edge.

  "My body," she gasped, in between thrashes of his tongue and curls of his finger, "my body never does this. I never get wet like this, I never open up to someone like this. I never have."

  Breathing hard, eyes focused, jaws tight, Ryan lifted his face from between her legs, kissing along the inside of Jamie's left thigh until he couldn't turn his head anymore, then he fixed his eyes on hers. "I fought this for as long as I could," he whispered, kissing her bare belly, and then tugging the top of her black panties down to kiss the tuft of hair there. "I tried to stop myself, tried to convince myself I should just go on with life, just keep surviving."

  He curled his finger hard inside her, lingering on that place that not only got her gasping, but also made the muscles in her sex twitch and pull at him. "You know what I realized?"

  She shook her head, biting her lip and hooking her thumbs through the sides of her underwear and pulling them over her hips, which he helped with, never taking his eyes off Jamie's for a second.

  "I realized that surviving wasn't worth it. Living hidden away? Without," he swallowed hard. "Without you?"

  Jamie felt that familiar heat on her cheeks. A flush crept up her chest. Every nerve in her body was alive, flaring at his touch.

  "Without you, it isn't worth doing. If I can't have you," he paused again. Jamie interrupted him with a hand on his chin, her thumb pulling gently at his bottom lip.

  "You make me feel safe," she said. "You make me feel like I don't have a thing in the world to fear. I couldn't explain what the hell you did to me, Ryan Drake, but you made me feel a way I didn't even think was possible."

  "And you," he said, grabbing her hand and kissing down her wrist, then her inner elbow, and then her neck, "you broke my walls."

  "Fair is fair," she whispered with a smile, returning another of his kisses. "I'm naked in a cave." She quirked an eyebrow at him and then looked downward.

  With a grunted laugh, Ryan pushed himself to an elbow, taking another second to run his tongue along her sex, groaning deeply, inhaling her, tasting her. When he pulled his finger out, the ache he left was more powerful than any physical pain - she just needed him, nothing else.

  He kissed her one last time, slid his tongue around her cleft, and sat back. Jamie followed him, legs around his waist, and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "You gonna get up and dance like a Chippendale?" she asked, biting at her lip, wanting him back so badly she could taste it in the back of her throat.

  To answer, he snatched his shirt from her, and yanked hard, popping the buttons off, and ripping the flannel of one of the sleeves as he wrenched it off. "Never seen 'em," he said. "Is this what they do?"

  Jamie giggled, and tugged at his belt. He obliged, yanking through the belt loops, even ripping one of them as he did. He was so possessed with her, so intent and laser focused, that he didn’t bother with the button on his fly, he just pried it open and yanked his jeans down to get back to his Jamie.

  As he settled back against her body, Jamie arched her back against him, letting the bear's warmth course through her. From head to toe she felt her skin, her nipples, her sex, all prickle and pebble, all surge with the energy bouncing off him and through her. Sweat ran down her body, and his, sticking them together ever so slightly. Every time one of them moved to kiss or tug or anything, the cool night air caressed Jamie's naked body. Goosebumps ran from the back of her legs all the way up her scalp.

  The urgent scratching, the hungry kisses and desperate hair pulling had them moving in sync, him against her, his thickness on her belly, his thigh against her clit.

  "I can't take this anymore," she groaned, staring straight into Ryan's piercing, soulful brown eyes. "You're making me crazy, you're making me..."

  He laughed softly and pulled away, leaving Jamie reaching for him. "I need another taste," he whispered in her ear before sucking at her earlobe, then her neck, then sliding his tongue in a slow circle around each nipple, punctuated by a brief nibble, on the way down her body.

  Biting at her navel, then dragging his tongue through the tuft of black hair above her cleft, by the time he sucked at her clit, slid his fingers back inside, Jamie was practically weeping for him to give her what she wanted, what she needed.

  When he finally did, the warmth of his massaging tongue, the circles of his fingers inside her, stretching her sweetly, sent electric surges up her back. Jamie arched against him, inviting him deeper, deeper, as deep as he could possibly go.

  The next few seconds were a blur - a hot, sweaty, groaning, pushing, sucking blur - that ended with Jamie's eyes shooting open, and white-heat exploding from inside her. She felt the shakes, the tremors, and the ecstasy, radiate from her core out. She gripped the back of Ryan's head, pushing him into her as hard as she could, pushing, thrusting, aching and pulsing.

  She closed her eyes, letting it all wash over her, letting the tension release. She squealed, she purred, she smiled, and then before she knew it, Ryan had piled up his clothes and put them under her head as a pillow, and she curled up, her head in the crook of his arm, the beat of his heart lulling her to sleep.

  *

  "How is it still raining?" Jamie opened her eyes, rubbed at them, and rolled over, surprised to find Ryan still right where he was. "It never storms for this long."

  He turned his head and kissed her gently, then curled a lock of her midnight hair around his finger. "Probably because you were only asleep for about fifteen minutes, if I had to guess," he said, smiling his intoxicating, obnoxiously perfect smile.

  Jamie laughed under her breath. "I feel like I got run over by a bull," she said, rolling over to face her bear, and returning his kiss with her own little nuzzle under his chin. "Or something very similar, anyway."

  "I feel like I've been lying on a stone floor with a beautiful woman's head on my elbow so long my arm went numb. And then she started snoring, but the snoring was cute, so I didn't mind."

  With one eyebrow raised, and her lips puffed out, Jamie stared at him for a second. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never snored in my life." For a moment she just cuddled against him, letting his bear heat flow through her chilled body. "And anyway, that's not the right way to be romantic, you big idiot. You're supposed to start with t
hat beautiful woman thing, and then talk about how you didn't want to go to sleep because you'd miss all the cute sounds I was making, and you didn't want to miss a moment of being with me."

  Ryan thought for a second, forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Well, I did say you snored cute. Does that count?"

  Jamie started laughing, but the next second, he was on top of her again, urging her legs apart with his knee. She opened them, smiling as she felt his heat push against her softest place. "Already?" she asked. "You sure it won't kill you? Only people I've heard about whine about numb elbows were ones that were primed for heart palpitations. Wouldn't want to overwork you."

  The answer to her joke was a gentle stroke of his tip up and then down her. "You do crazy, crazy things to me, Ryan Drake," she whispered as he slipped the barest bit of his tip inside of her sex, holding her hands, pinning her to the ground with a kiss on either side of the neck. “But unless you want a cub, you’re not gonna get too excited.”

  He pushed, testing her, but being gentle in the way only a giant who knows his strength can be. "Too much?" he asked.

  Jamie laughed out loud, her canines growing longer with each slow, deep stroke. "If by too much," she said, nipping at Ryan's forearm where he propped himself beside her head, "you mean not enough?"

  She wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles and pulling him in, deeper, harder, faster, matching the pace of the pulse beat she felt in his throat. She bit at him, careful not to do any feeding, just enough to be fun. As she felt herself begin to crest, Jamie closed her eyes, letting the motion take her away.

  "Open them," Ryan growled, voice rumbling low in his throat. "I want to watch your face when you..."

  With a grin, Jamie let her eyes fall open lazily, though all she could manage was to keep them halfway open before the effort was too much. Ryan locked his fingers between hers, holding tight. The mat of clothes underneath her shoulders slipped forward and back with each of his increasingly intense, urgent thrusts, and before she knew it, that sweet tightness in her belly spread to her chest, her shoulders, her neck.