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

by Red, Lynn

  “Jamesburg,” Jamie said with a smirk, and a squeeze of Ryan’s hand. “There’s always room for one more. Or, you know, fifty or sixty.”

  Branson let out a groan, and his head thumped backward against Jenga’s examination table.

  “Which reminds me,” she said. “I think you were talking about needing a place?”

  Ryan smiled back. “I guess I’m not looking anymore, huh?”

  “Happy to keep you,” Jamie said, as they walked through the wind-chimes, the aisles of odd poultices and the strange smelling cauldrons. “If you’re willing to keep me, that is.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said, leaning in for a soft, gentle kiss that dragged a tingling surge through the bottoms of Jamie’s feet, all the way to her scalp.

  She grabbed at him, running her fingers through the hair on the back of his head, latching on and refusing to let him go, at least for a moment. When he pulled away, slowly, leaving his taste on her lips, Jamie sucked a deep breath, inhaling Ryan’s scent, and letting the warmth wash over her before she opened her eyes.

  A slow, soft clapping sound emanated from behind them. When Jamie turned her head, she saw Atlas, smiling, drooling just a little, and clapping.

  “That might be our cue to take it somewhere else,” Ryan said, giving Jamie another one of those smiles that turned her into jelly. “Think you can carry me all the way to the house?”

  She jabbed him playfully in the arm. “I think we’d be better off calling a cab. Or, you know, you could turn into a big magical bear and let me ride you all the way out there.”

  “Now there’s an idea,” he said, giving her a sly wink that made her blush. “Although if there’s a town ordinance against him standing around without any pants on, your idea might be about eight steps past acceptable.”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said, laughing. “Come on you big idiot, let’s go see what Erik’s managed. What do you say?”

  Once more he grabbed her, planted a deep, warm, toe-curling kiss on Jamie’s lips, and watched her face for a moment before he spoke. “Let’s go home,” he said.

  Home. The word swirled in Jamie’s mind, stirred her soul. She nodded. “Home it is,” she said, laying her head on Ryan’s massive shoulder as they walked out into the night.

  “One thing though.” Jamie squeezed his hand and pulled him to a stop.

  Ryan raised an eyebrow.

  “Do you think maybe we could put something up in the attic? I’ve got... well, I kind have a thing for heights.”

  She smiled, and a moment later, Ryan’s lips warmed Jamie’s one more time. “For you? I think I can manage,” he whispered.

  Jamie went to turn again, to keep walking, but he held her still, his eyes studying her face. “For you,” he continued. “I’d do anything.”

  The kiss he gave her wasn’t their first, or their hundredth. But somehow, for some reason that she couldn’t quite understand, even as the electricity between them tickled her toes, that one felt to Jamie like the sweetest, the most wonderful. They parted with a soft whisper of their lips separating, and for a long, blissed moment, Jamie just watched Ryan’s eyes.

  “We have a long, long time, don’t we?” she asked. “This isn’t all going to disappear tomorrow?”

  The smile on his face wasn’t one of his smug grins. It wasn’t a cocky one, or any sort of grin at all except penetrating, honest, and heartwarming.

  “A long time,” he whispered, savoring the words. “We got forever if you’ll have me.”

  Three seconds later, Jamie had to reconsider her thoughts about the previous kiss, when he blew her mind again.

  This one. The one that stole the breath out of my lungs, that made me realize I never needed anyone as much as him. The kiss where our hearts were beating together, the kiss that made me believe – if only for a second – that we were one soul split between two bodies.

  This one, she thought, running her hands along the sides of Ryan’s face, and pressing her body against his, this is the one that I’m gonna remember forever.

  Bonus Excerpts

  Two Bears are Better Than One

  A Broken Pine Bears Ménage Novel

  From USA TODAY and NEW YORK TIMES best-selling author Lynn Red comes a steamy, sexy, hilarious alpha werebear romance... with two times the bears!

  Jill Appleton is a witty, slightly-lanky, tall-enough-to-make-most-guys-nervous biologist with a thing for bears.

  Whoa, whoa, not like that - she's got a thing for SAVING bears.

  When she hears stories of a secretive group of Kodiaks in the Appalachian Mountains, she knows she's got to check them out. First of all, they're not supposed to be there, and second – bears that live in a pack? That's about as rare as biologists who love big crowds. Or, when it comes to Jill, it’s as rare as one of her dates not turning into a train wreck. She's all but given up on finding that one guy who the universe decided was right for her.

  Good thing she's about to meet two.

  Rogue and King, joint alphas of the Broken Pine werebear clan, could not be more different. King is quiet, stalwart, and strong. He holds clan traditions and history sacred, and refuses to wear anything but a loincloth – the way the elders did. Rogue would rather get a face full of werewolf teeth than bother with all that. He’s feral, wild, loyal to a fault, and loves to guzzle craft beer straight from a keg. And also – a loincloth? Jeans all the way for this bear, thank you very much.

  With the outside world coming closer to Broken Pine territory all the time, and the werewolf packs getting more riled up than ever, something is wrong. But, when the two alphas - who according to clan law, both mate one woman, and mate for life - see Jill making her way to camp?

  The two alphas feel their hearts beat together, and know in that second that no matter what, no matter how, they will have her, they will possess her. They’ll make her theirs at any cost.

  ***The Broken Pine Bears is a series of standalone novels each with a complete storyline and HEA ending. No cliffhangers here!***

  Excerpt

  A surge of fear, then anger at herself for being afraid, and then at Rogue for not being a normal bear, ripped through Jill. She pushed away from him, though he held her at arms’ length. “You’re not supposed to exist!” she said. “None of you are! None of this is! You’re supposed to be a bunch of bears that wander around the woods, eat berries, and I’m supposed to watch you and—”

  Her mark burning, deep in her chest, stopped Jill’s tirade short.

  “We do those things,” Rogue said in his quietly powerful way. He regarded her cautiously, like he was trying to figure out the best way to say something that was rolling around in his mind. For a long moment though, the two of them just watched one another.

  Jill chewed her lip, like she always did when she couldn’t think of anything else to do with herself.

  “Have you never wondered about the mark on your chest?” he finally asked. “The one I know you feel burning? We both have them too. You’ve never—”

  He said we, she thought. We.

  “You said she—” Another voice, very similar to Rogue’s, but slightly deeper and calmer, broke the silence.

  “Who is—” Jill turned to the left, toward the door, as someone she knew, but couldn’t place, stepped through. He too was nearly naked. Huge, muscled thighs flexed every time he moved. Jill felt her mouth fall open, but couldn’t do anything aside from stare.

  She shook her head. She knew this man, just like she’d known Rogue. “You’re...”

  Running his hand over his wavy, black hair, King stared back. “King,” he said simply. “My brother told me he’d found you. I don’t understand how this is possible, though.”

  Jill scoffed. “You don’t? The giant, magically transforming bear-man doesn’t understand how I am possible? Did I just step into la-la land?”

  “No,” King said. “I don’t know where that is, but it isn’t here.”

  He and Rogue exchanged a glance. “I don’
t know either,” Rogue said. “Is that like Virginia?”

  A smile crept across Jill’s taut lips. That was the first time she realized she’d pulled them into a line. Just that instant of levity relaxed her enough to let emotions other than fear and anger come through. “It’s just an expression,” she said.

  She laughed for a moment, then she smiled again, and then before she knew it, a tear was rolling down her cheek followed by another and another.

  “This is real, isn’t it? I’m not going to wake up from this like it’s one of my dreams?”

  Rogue stroked her cheek. His hands were quickly joined by one of King’s, pressed flat on Jill’s back. The heat from his palm burned through her shirt, warming her skin. “But she’s a human,” he said. “This can’t be right. Can it?”

  The shorter, more muscled Rogue, turned his face to the other bear, then back to Jill. “Don’t you feel it?” he asked the other man. “When you look at her, don’t you feel your mark burning? When I kiss her, when I taste her lips,” he paused to do just that. She felt him warm her to the core, and then when he pulled back, immediately chased him for another.

  “When I taste her, when I smell her, I can’t explain my emotions,” he said. “All I know is that I haven’t felt this since they were taken.”

  Rogue’s voice had a strange down-turn when he spoke. King cocked an eyebrow, and Jill noticed that even with his skepticism, he hadn’t taken his hand away. “I,” he began, then trailed off.

  “What?” Jill urged him. “If you’re going to barge in here and tell me I shouldn’t exist, you can at least finish a sentence every now and then.”

  King turned to her, confusion on his face. “She certainly reminds me of our last mate,” he said to Rogue.

  “I am right here,” Jill said, pinching him hard enough to get a reaction. “You can use my name instead of talking like I’m livestock.”

  It was King’s turn to smile. “I don’t understand this,” he said, “but you are right. She – Jill,” he said, catching himself. “She makes me feel like I’ve not for a long, long time. But Jill,” he turned to her. “You’re human.”

  Slowly, she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m glad we’ve established that. And you are a giant magical bear who isn’t supposed to exist.”

  “We do tend to stay to ourselves,” Rogue said. “But I think he’s referring more to the difficulty you’re going to have in delivering our children.”

  He said that with such plainness, with such complete matter-of-factness, that it took a second before Jill actually realized what he’d said. “I met you a week ago and you three minutes ago,” she said, looking at King, “and you’re already talking about babies?”

  “Cubs,” King corrected, helpfully.

  “Right, yeah, cubs. I mean, don’t you think that’s a little forward?”

  Rogue obviously got the joke, but King stood there, shaking his head. “I’m not sure why? We’re fated to be together, why would it be strange for—”

  “Ah,” Rogue patted the other bear on the shoulder. “I think maybe this is one of those times where me being more worldly than you is a very good thing. Brother, I say this as gently as I can, but I think that she might be joking.”

  King furrowed his brow and shook his head.

  How can anyone be this serious without having an embolism?

  “But the joke,” he said. “It wasn’t funny.”

  For a moment, the three of them sat in silence before King broke it with a loud, single laugh that sounded more like a cannon going off. “You see?” he asked. “I pretended like I didn’t understand the joke, and then when I fooled the two of you, I said that I did, but that it wasn’t very funny.”

  Rogue smiled an easy half-grin, and began nodding slowly. “Sure you did, sure,” he said. “I’m sure that’s exactly what happened.”

  The two of them turned their attention back to Jill, who was still in more than a little shock. She let her arm flop limply down.

  “Oops,” she said, as she squeezed where it landed, and realized what she had her hand around.

  King swelled larger in her palm, his shape apparent through the flimsy fabric covering he wore. “Sorry, I—”

  Rogue silenced her with a kiss that forced her head backward against King’s chest.

  Bear With Me

  A Jamesburg Shifters Novel

  From USA TODAY and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Lynn Red comes a steamy, seductive, sensuously heart-felt alpha werebear romance!

  Curvy, sharp-witted and slightly self-conscious, Lilah Jorgenson is a raccoon-shifting painter with a white streak in her hair and a longing to find the family – but mostly the MATE – she never thought she’d have.

  All she wants is someone to hold her, to kiss her, to... claim her as HIS. But who has the time to hunt down a perfect man? Does such a creature even exist?

  Clocking in for what she assumes is going to be a normal night at her job at the Jamesburg jail Lilah’s got no clue that she’s about to meet the bear of her dreams.

  Thickly-muscled, widowed, inked-up former soldier Rex Lee spent five years away, but clan trouble called him home. Love is distant memory for Rex – the only thing on the huge alpha’s mind is keeping his cub and his bear clan safe, even if it means the occasional scrape that ends with him in the slammer.

  Trekking down the cell block, Lilah stops, dead in her tracks. A bear with wicked tattoos, a massive chest and a pair of arms perfect for holding her tight? Who was tossed in jail for fighting to keep his daughter safe? Maybe that perfect man DOES exist!

  When Rex catches a glimpse of Lilah’s two-toned eyes, her luscious curves, and her wicked little grin? The bad boy alpha decides right then he’s found something he never would – a mate to claim, to possess, to make his forever – no matter what it takes.

  Excerpt

  Down the way, by the entrance to the jail, the door creaked and a sliver of moonlight crept through. He’d never expected things to go so fast. The way that officer, Ash, was talking, he’d be sitting in the can most of the night for the judge.

  “All right,” Rex said to himself, under his breath. “Let’s get this over with. I’m ready for a ticket or some community service or—”

  As he watched the person who walked in, he couldn’t believe, couldn’t imagine she was here to take him to the judge.

  Suddenly, as he watched her adjust the blue bandana she used to hold her tan and black hair back, Rex for some reason forgot about all that stuff with him swearing loneliness and chastity to keep from getting hurt. Something about the way she moved, the way she walked... he couldn’t get enough.

  She was wearing these thick, horn-rimmed black glasses that didn’t exactly fit her face, and as she started down the hallway, he thought maybe he saw each of her eyes glint a slightly different color.

  Falling down the side of her head, cascading about three inches down the woman’s cheek past the bandana was a shock of white. Rex had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t something attached to the bandana, but no – it was part of her hair, a part that was either dyed white, or had turned that way on its own. He’d never seen anything like that before.

  Then again, he’d never seen anyone like that before.

  “You need anything?” she asked, coming up to the bars and putting her small hands on them. “Water? Food? Cooper told me you’re the good guy in this one.”

  You, he thought. I want you, he wanted to say.

  “I’m kinda hungry,” is what actually came out. “Jail food is... not really the best for bears.”

  Three cells down, Davis Edgewood started whistling. She shot a nasty glare in his direction and shook her head. “Glad to see he’s back. It’s hardly a weekend without an Edgewood in here. But you, I’ve never seen before.”

  The woman laughed. She had a guarded kind of air about her, but there was a certain care-free breathiness to her smile that made Rex’s chest tighten. He was standing straighter than he usually did, sticking his ches
t out some. He never did that.

  “You’re staring at me,” she said.

  “Sorry,” Rex replied, but didn’t stop staring. He couldn’t, not even if he wanted. Something about her was magnetic, even when she raised her left eyebrow.

  “The judge,” she said, “he’s not going to be here for another couple of hours. The long days keep him in later. But, since there’re only two of you, I can probably make a run for something if you want. And... just so you know, I don’t usually do this.”

  “Why are you offering now?” Rex asked. He dropped the dog tags he realized he was still clenching, and let them fall against his thickly muscled, lightly hair-covered chest.

  “I dunno,” she said with a shrug.

  The way she smiled and how it made a dimple on one of her lightly freckled cheeks made Rex grin too. It had been a long, long time since he bothered doing that around anyone except Leena.

  “Well... thank you,” he said. “I’m not picky. Just some burgers.”

  “Some?” she asked, showing him that smile again. “I’m guessing you don’t stop at one.”

  “I am what I am,” Rex answered. “When I get out of here, I’ll pay you back. Get me... let’s call it ten. I don’t need much in the way of lettuce. Tomatoes are good though.”

  Her hands curled tighter around the bars, and without realizing he was doing it, Rex put his on top of them.

  “Onions?” she asked. “Cheese?”

  You, he wanted to say. I’d forget all about the hamburgers if I could touch your face, if I could...

  “No onions,” is what actually came. “Yes to the cheese. And mayo. If that’s on offer.”

  For a long moment, she just stared back at him. He thought that he felt the same flicker behind her eyes that he had, but he also wasn’t sure he hadn’t just gone crazy in the last thirty-four seconds.

  “Do I get to make an order, Lilah?” Davis Edgewood screamed from down the hall. “I want something too!”