"Yeah, show me where you want me," he growled into her ears and she wanted to laugh, wanted to run her hands over her entire body to show him what she wanted.
She heard the zipper on his jeans, and turned back. "Not fair. Not yet. Not without me seeing."
He grinned, gold eyes blazing. "You are greedy." He sounded impressed.
She answered with her own growl, tearing open the snap button denim button-down and exposing his chest. The muscles weren't ripped – there was a layer of insulation over the muscles, making his chest amazingly thick, strong, hugely muscled, like a classical statue. She ran her hands over it, then ran her nails over it, hard, leaving trails, following the red lines with her tongue, leaving him shiny with her saliva even as she worked his belt buckle, grinding her backside against the wall for lack of sensation. His jeans parted.
His cock was enormous, thick, full, hard as any she'd ever had. Her fingers met but just barely when she wrapped her hand around it and slid it all the way to the base, leaving the proud crown out where she could lean down and wrap her lips around it.
He gasped, pulled away. "You'll have me coming doin' that," and even as she said, "That's the idea," he had pulled her up, his mouth on hers, tasting of her. His tongue took her mouth, his teeth grazed her lips. She ran her nails down his back, under his shirt.
He turned her again, facing the wall, rubbed himself on her ass. When she pressed against him, hard, he pulled away and tore off the last of the lace. She was naked from the waist down, hot and wet and aching and she pressed herself to him, let him drag her hips into his.
His cock nudged her opening. So hard, so hot, and she was so wet and ready. Even so, the size of him sliding in made her catch her breath, then catch her lip between her teeth. He thrust hard and sank into her up to his balls. His breath on her neck was hot as the bear’s breath. She shuddered. The hands on her breasts, kneading hard, pinching her nipples, were totally human.
She shoved herself back into him, pressing hard, taking him as far as she could, as deep as possible before they both started to rock. She could feel him in every inch of her, pressing, thrusting, bringing wave after wave of pleasure until her knees were too weak to hold her and he pulled her around to face him, forced her legs up around his waist again.
Pulling her a little farther from the wall he lengthened her body so her upper back pressed against the wall, her legs around his waist, his cock sunk as deep in her as he could be.
She could see the sweat on his forehead, the growl on his lips. His eyes were deep, dark gold, watching her as she writhed in another orgasm, feeling the liquid between them overflow. Her legs were wet with their mingled juices when she saw his face change, the look of concentration gone, his eyes half closing as his own massive orgasm shook him.
Colby pumped his hips, giving her ever drop, filling her until Gemma clawed at his shoulders and came one more time.
When he let go of her legs, she slid down the wall and splayed out on the floor. Colby still stood, one hand on the wall above her, his jeans still half on, his cock still half hard. She let her eyes close and reached one hand up to guide him down to the floor beside her.
"We can't stay here long," he said.
"No," she agreed.
"People will come along and find us."
"Yes," she agreed, and this time managed to open her eyes. He was watching her, an expression of mingled lust and maybe love on his face. She thought something had just started today, not just the events of the day, but events setting the stage for days to come.
At the same time, other things had ended. Gemma had no intention of running off with the rodeo, going all country and all bull riders, all cowboy, but she thought she might end up in a few of the cities that Colby did if he didn't invite her to go with. Somehow she didn't think he'd mind.
The door to the past had finally closed, too. Not with a bang. But as a gift. She'd loved her childhood. She'd run in part because it wasn't there anymore and in part because she wanted something new and turned her back on childish things.
But it hadn't been a bad childhood. This didn't mean she had to embrace the lifestyle.
She just didn't have to shut it out completely, either.
It might be nice to see her dad again.
Introduce him to the new man in her life.
"You planning to stay around a while?" Colby asked her as if reading her mind.
His words were too close to her thoughts. he had to mean something else. "I've got to try and get that other interview," she said. As if she were the consummate professional. On the concrete floor. With no pants. She started giggling.
He gave her a patient look. "I meant, you going to be around the circuit for a while?"
She met his eyes, wondering what he was asking.
"I mean, if most of your interviews are by phone, doesn't much matter where your body is, does it?" He sweetened the offer with a stroke of his hand over her bare leg.
She shivered. Not only was the door to the past closed, the door to the future was opening.
Colby stood effortlessly and held out a big calloused hand.
Gemma slipped her hand into his. "You were going to give me a ride home," she said. "Let's talk about it on the way."
He looked just slightly uncertain.
She grinned. "I have to pack, don't I?"
END
Jacob
Rodeo Bears IV
by
Becca Fanning
Chapter One
She saw him from across the arena.
First day of the rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada. The weather was perfect, dry and hot. The opening ceremony fireworks the night before had been perfect. She'd lost all the weight she'd wanted to lose before the rodeo started.
And now, across the enormous modern arena from Cara, was Jacob Tyrell. Of the Tyrell clan of bull riders, bronc busters, rodeo superstars – and shifters.
She was looking at a bear. Dressed as a man. Wearing a man's skin. He was working with one of the horses. Dawn had barely broken, the day only just beginning to heat.
Cara melted back into the shadows. She stood in one of the chutes that led the bulls out when the rodeo was in full swing.
There was almost no one else in the stables. Probably no one else in the arena. This time of year sunrise happened before 5:30 and it was still dark out.
Cara moved cautiously. Inside the arena was shadowy and dark. One or two dim lights stayed on overnight but for the most part everything was shadows. She didn't want to trip. She definitely didn't want to fall into anything left behind by the behind of an animal.
She wasn't ready to call attention to herself.
Her alarm had gone off at three a.m.. That gave her time to tease her strawberry blond curls into a messy, romantic upsweep and put on the perfect makeup. Design the perfect outfit. She didn't want to splatter that with horse muck. She didn't want to run into one of the homeless men who hung out near the arena during the day with their cardboard signs. They had to sleep somewhere. Probably harmless, the majority of them, but no sense taking chances.
Really she didn't see any of those men. Or anybody else. There weren't even security guards. The arena was empty, smelling pleasantly of hay and horses and desert morning air. The majority of rodeo personnel were probably still sleeping off a drunk. Some might even still be in the midst of last night's drunk.
There were only a handful of people obsessed enough to be there before hours if they weren't paid to be. A percentage of those people ghosted through the darkness outside the arena, working the horses, mucking out the stables, and doing all the ranch hand chores that someone else was definitely paid to do in Ray Chaudett's rodeo circuit.
Because they loved it. Jacob Tyrell was here because he loved it.
Cara was there because she loved Jacob Tyrell. And didn't know what to do about it.
"You're stalking him," her roommate Karen had said. They shared a ratty apartment on the wrong end of Vegas.
"With the
best intentions," Cara answered. "Doesn't that count for something?"
Karen didn't think so. But Cara did. She'd first met Jacob Tyrell five years ago when she was 17. She didn't think he'd remember. At the time he'd been in his early 20s, and Cara had been a star struck girl at her first rodeo. Back then there were only rumors about the family of shapeshifter werebears competing in rodeos across the country.
That day she hadn't cared whether Jacob Tyrell was a shifter or not. He was a better man than the three men who showed up at the same time Cara's great idea – take her dad's best horse and ride to the rodeo – blew up in her face.
The horse had gotten scared by the crowds outside the arena, the crowds that were normal on Vegas city streets. The horse had bolted outside the modern day arena. It carried her only halfway to her father's ranch outside city limits before it threw her and vanished.
Cara wasn't hurt and the horse ended up home hours before she did. By the time Cara got home, bedraggled and aching, her father apparently thought she'd learned her lesson. Because even though he seemed to accept the runaway-and-returned-home-on-his-own-I-had-nothing-to-do-with-it horse story, he'd never asked how the horse had gotten himself saddled.
Cara's problems had started after the horse threw her. Not only was her father's best horse running off on his own, but Cara, now on foot, was cornered nearly instantly by three guys who stopped on the deserted road to "Help her."
Those men were still "offering her a ride" when the big paws had come out of nowhere and lifted the most insistent of her good Samaritans right off her back. The guy had flown all the way across the highway. He'd landed hard in the dirt on the other side of the road.
"Who's next?" Jacob asked, grinning at each in turn. He wore a man's skin again – he wasn't a bear any longer – but he was clearly maniac and looking for trouble. His grin said he wouldn't mind taking on the remaining two at the same time.
When the first of the two rushed him, Jacob grinned savagely and disabled him with what looked like basic boxing moves.
When the next rushed him with a knife, though, and cut through the first layers of skin over his abs, Jacob went berserk. In a heartbeat he changed into a eight-foot-tall grizzly bear.
One swipe of one enormous paw sent the last of Cara's attackers flying. Cara flinched away. When Jacob Tyrell, clearly struggling to control his emotions, turned to face her, she cowered behind his truck.
She was almost more afraid of the bear than she had been of her three attackers.
He'd recognized that, though. Through the next several minutes she'd watched him reign in his emotions, tamp down the anger. Emotions made weres shift.
Jacob had marshaled his as fast as he could. When he was human again, he held out his hand to her.
She'd been 17. He had been burly, barrel chested, not tall but taller than her five-six. Work rough hands had been gentle on hers. He modulated his voice, keeping it calm but not soothing. He calmed her but he didn't treat her like a spoiled child or a silly girl or a sexual being. He treated her like a person who needed help out of a jam.
"Darlin', ordinarily I'd say stay out of trucks with strange men." He grinned then, very blond and with a spray of freckles across his nose. "And I'm definitely a strange man."
She wanted to say I noticed but her voice didn't work.
"But you're gettin' yourself into more trouble out here than you will with me. Let me give you a ride."
Then he stopped talking for most of the ride to her father's ranch. Before she got out of his truck she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, inhaling the musky smell of animal that clung to him. The scent went straight to her head. If there hadn't already been the gallant rescue and the gorgeous man, that alone would have been enough.
Her stalking was benign – from a distance, designed to keep distance between them while media covered Jacob's affairs and breakups. He was currently single.
He was currently here.
Cara was no longer 17. She was a college grad, a vet tech, and a volunteer on the county sheriff's mounted posse.
And now that she was finally in a position to do something about her feelings, she'd frozen. She had no idea how to move forward.
Cara surfaced from her memories. Jacob Tyrell had been a total gentleman that day. Attentive and caring, he'd helped her to his truck when it turned out her ankle was sprained. He stopped for ice at a convenience store and made her a pack for her ankle.
When she told him it would be better to show up on foot and alone, he stopped out of sight of her father's ranch and let her hobble from there. He didn't insist on taking her to the door.
It hadn't ended there, though. Every Chaudett rodeo allowed the stars to choose a charity and donate winnings. Also at every event cowboys could choose a family to sponsor. An entire low income family might attend, or a special guest.
Jacob chose both. He'd sponsored a family with three small children and a wounded veteran dad, and he'd chosen to invite Cara, free of charge, with a VIP box and her own guests. Cara and Karen spent the day like princesses while her father came and went, talking horses and ranches and expenses. Jacob himself sat with them during some of the events.
By the end of the day Karen was teasing her nonstop. By the end of the day Cara was in love.
Five years later.
Soon Jacob would look up from the far side of the arena where he was walking one of the horses. He'd see her in the shadows, watching. There was no way he'd recognize her. Or even remember her.
She hadn't thought of anything to say yet. When Owen Hutch, Jacob, Eddie and Holden Tyrell's cousin and one of the superstar bull riders on the circuit, one of the winning-most cowboys of all time, got together with Mary Beth Chaudett, the big boss' daughter, it was after they'd known each other for years and on her side, at least, years of animosity.
Then Ray Chaudett had a heart attack that landed him in the hospital. Mary Beth, who had turned her back on rodeo altogether, stepped in to fill his shoes and ended up sharing them with Owen.
Colby Tyrell, another cousin, met Gemma Thomas when she showed up to interview Owen at a Reno Nevada rodeo. First he knocked her down by mistake, then he bandaged up her leg after she cut it by accident and fainted during the interview.
Or at least so said the urban legend, and the whole fainting and being bandaged up again fairytale was too good to pass up.
Even Eddie Tyrell, one time boozer and gambler and now reformed shapeshifting cowboy – even he'd found a woman in his life.
But everyone was moving cautiously. Because as the anti shifter movement moved underground, more and more shifters vanished. Rumor had it Holden Tyrell was off investigating the disappearances. Colby, who was a lawman back in his own county in Texas, had survived two anti shifter attacks. Rumor was he hadn't been seen for a week, but rumors always abounded in rodeo. Especially where bears were concerned.
That didn't mean some of them weren't true. Or that people weren't being very careful.
If Jacob saw her, he might think she was one of the homeless who made the arena home, hiding well enough they usually couldn't be flushed out. Or he might consider her a threat.
The rodeo association had rules for the protection of both participants and audience. So did the performers. Especially now: Anti-shifter sentiment ran high anymore. There were more t-shirts with international NO symbols – the circle and the slash – showing bears in cowboy hats.
The Rodeo Association hadn't handed down any decisions against them. The Tyrell Clan and the few other shifter groups starting to participate in rodeo could still do so.
Bearly Christmas Page 19
