Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

“I’m glad,” he said, kissing the side of her neck, “’cause I want you here with me, too.”

  She sighed and turned in his arms, wrapping hers around his neck and laying her head on his broad chest. She might have been content to stand that way all night, but as his lips began to explore her neck and move to her jaw, she raised her face and brought her lips to his. Her mouth opened under his prompting, and their kiss deepened until his arms were the only thing keeping her from melting into the floor.

  When he shifted to return his exploration to her neck and throat, she tipped back her head to give him open access.

  “I don’t know about you, darlin’” he murmured, “but I don’t think we’ll be sleepin’ in separate beds tonight.”

  “I hope not,” she said on a gasp, as his tongue explored a sensitive place along her collar bone.

  Mark chuckled and brought his lips back to hers.

  “I’m thinkin’ we’re a little too exposed out here in the livin’ room, too,” he said between kisses.

  Addy felt herself blush, and she would have pulled away from him and the front window, if Mark hadn’t been holding her so tightly. He laughed and lifted her into his arms.

  “Just like Scarlet O’Hara,” she murmured dreamily as he headed for the bedroom.

  “Except I don’t think I’d make it up a flight of stairs,” Mark said on a laugh.

  She giggled, until he set her down at the foot of the bed and went back to work, kissing her fiercely. She kissed him back, trying desperately to get her hands beneath his shirt so she could touch him. He was still wearing the jeans and sweater he had changed into before getting into the car, but the t-shirt beneath was tucked snuggly into his jeans.

  “Easy, darlin’,” he whispered, letting go of her just long enough to pull his shirttail free. Then her hands were on him, molding his torso, feeling the hard, smooth contours of his muscular chest. When her fingers found his nipples, he jumped and pulled her hands away.

  “That’s for me to do, sweetheart,” he said, trapping her arms behind her back with one hand while he used the other to pull the front of her robe open and went to work on the buttons on her nightgown.

  Then she felt both garments slip away, and she froze as the night air found her bare breasts. No man had ever seen her like this, and she was both embarrassed and excited as never before. She was breathing hard, her breasts heaving, and she could see by the street light leaking around the drapes that he was staring at her with bright eyes.

  Mortified, she pulled away, grabbing at her nightgown and robe.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  “Addy?”

  She took a deep, fortifying breath. “I…I’m sorry.”

  “You haven’t anythin’ to be sorry for, darlin’. I think maybe I should be apologizin’ to you, though. I thought you wanted…”

  “No!” She was crying now, almost frantic with needs twisting inside of her. She felt herself tingling with the first onset of a Shift, and she angrily grabbed at her hair, using the pain to keep her in the now.

  “Just tell me what you want, Addy,” he said, his words a gentle balm to her frantic nerves.

  “I want you!” she cried. “Only I’ve never done this before, and I’m bound to make a mess of it!”

  She heard his sigh, and was startled to hear relief rather than frustration in it.

  “Then I should be apologizin’ to you, darlin’,” he said, taking her gently by the shoulders. “I can’t say I’m the most experienced buck around, but I know better than to treat you like I just did your first time out.”

  Mark turned her to him once more and tenderly brushed the hair back from her face. He smiled.

  “I remember the first time I saw you. Your hair was this wild, jumbled mess, soft as a kitten and the color of summer wheat.”

  Addy felt herself blush again and dropped her eyes.

  “I used to cut it myself.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “I’d just hack at it with scissors when it got in my way. Misty—the hairdresser Mel took me to see?—took one look at it that first time and just rolled her eyes.”

  He chuckled. “I guess she didn’t appreciate how much I wanted to run my hands through it,” he said, combing out the tangles of her new haircut with his fingers, until the soft feathers were in place once more. “I do like your new haircut, though,” he added.

  She managed a small smile. “I do too. And I think Granny was relieved to see it.”

  Mark laughed and pulled her to him once more.

  “We’re gonna take it slow this time, darlin’,” he said, lightly brushing his lips over her forehead and along her jaw. “Anything I do that makes you uncomfortable, you tell me. Hear?”

  “All right,” she said, though the touch of his lips was doing those magical things to her insides again.

  This time, he shed his own sweater and t-shirt before reaching for her robe and nightgown. She marveled at his musculature, running her fingers over his shoulders and down his arms. His chest was dark with thick, curly hair, which arrowed down and disappeared into his jeans. She barely noticed when her robe and nightgown slid to the floor, leaving her completely naked once again. She was too busy trying to unbutton his jeans. Then the zipper nearly defeated her, but he took over, slipping off his jeans, leaving only his shorts behind as he gently pushed her back onto the bed.

  Addy couldn’t take her eyes off of him. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured.

  His laugh sounded pained. “That’s supposed to be my line, darlin’.”

  But she shook her head as she pushed him onto his back and straddled his thighs. She ran her hands over his body like a blind woman, the sensitive tips of her fingers exploring every inch of him. When she got to the waistband of his shorts, he lifted her off of him, reversing their positions.

  “My turn, darlin’.”

  “Let me see you, first,” she said, staying his hands.

  He hesitated, then lifted himself far enough to push his shorts down and away. Her eyes widened when she saw him, and she started to tremble.

  “I know how this is supposed to work,” she whispered. “I mean, I do live on a farm, but…”

  “We’ll do this a little different,” he told her with a chuckle, nudging her legs apart.

  She opened for him, and when he reached down to touch her intimately, she gasped when she felt a gush of wetness between her thighs.

  “Mark!”

  “It’s okay, Addy. It’s just your body tellin’ me you’re ready for me.”

  When her eyes met his in confusion, he smiled. “Trust me, darlin’.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, suddenly certain that she could and did.

  She felt that huge part of him at her opening and sucked in her breath as she felt him come into her, slowly at first, then suddenly filling her completely. There might have been pain, but it was gone in another moment as he began to rock inside her in an age-old rhythm. When his lips and hands found her breasts, she cried out again. But just as she thought she could stand no more, her whole body tightened, and this time his voice joined hers as their world shattered.

  * * *

  Addy lay curled against Mark, listening to his heartbeat slow to match hers. She had never imagined anything like what they had just shared together.

  “Are you all right, darlin’?” he asked after a time.

  She smiled to hear the concern in his voice. “I’m fine. Actually, I may be a whole lot better than fine.”

  She heard the deep rumble in his chest and remembered him as a bear and the pleasure of wrestling with him in the meadow.

  “I need to tell you something,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “I almost Shifted tonight,” she confessed. “When I panicked, just before we…”

  She broke off. It was one thing to do what they had and quite another to talk about it.

  “But you didn’t,” he finally said. “You stayed as yourself. You didn’t Shift, w
hen I scared you.”

  She pushed herself up and looked him in the eye. “You didn’t exactly scare me!”

  When he only raised his eyebrows in that way of his, she blushed.

  “Well, all right, you did—for just a minute, though.”

  He reached up to push her loose hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trail down past her ear, along her neck and to her throat.

  “I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am that I did.”

  She reached out to close his lips with her finger tips.

  “It doesn’t matter, now, Mark. Really it doesn’t. I didn’t know what I was gettin’ into. Well, not exactly, anyway. But you made it good for me. You made it right. And I love you for it.

  He smiled. “Do you?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I guess I love you for a lot of reasons, but that one for sure.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Mark reached up to take her face between his big hands and pulled her down to kiss her. She felt herself start to tingle again, and it had nothing to do with Shifting. When he pulled one of her legs across his body, she sat up to straddle his thighs. This time he allowed her to trace her fingers down his torso, and when she reached the part of him that once more ached for her, he took her hips between his strong hands and lifting her, fitted her onto him.

  Addy sucked in a deep breath at the sensation. It was different like this. Bigger. Fuller. And she didn’t know quite what to do. Then he used his hands to first lift her then slowly let her down once more.

  “Ride me, darlin’,” he said, and his golden eyes burned for her.

  She did as he directed, grasping his hips with her thighs and bracing her hands on his shoulders as she moved up and down on him, guided by his big hands. After a time, he released her hips only to reach for her breasts. The aching pain/pleasure from his hard grasp shot straight to her groin, and she arched back, screaming her release. He followed her over the edge with a roar as he emptied himself into her once more.

  Much later, she stirred as she felt him pull the blanket up over her shoulders against the cool night air.

  “Mark?”

  “Go back to sleep, Addy.”

  “Okay.”

  “Addy?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Before you do, there’s something I should tell you.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I love you, too.”

  Her breath caught, and she suddenly felt warm all over.

  “I’m glad,” she whispered, dropping a light kiss on his furry chest.

  “So, from what you saw of them, do you think my family will be up for another weddin’ so soon?”

  “I hope so,” she said, snuggling in. “I don’t want to wait as long as Mel and Matt did, okay?”

  Addy felt his smile when he kissed her brow and allowed herself to believe in miracles.

  Luke

  Bearly Saints III

  by

  Becca Fanning

  Candace Chance ducked into the alley, just as a black limousine passed a third time. She had no reason to believe the people in the car were looking for her, but she had no reason not to believe it, either. The temperatures had dropped with nightfall, and she had started to shiver uncontrollably. It had been raining off and on all day, and though the precipitation had stopped for now, the streets were wet. The alley smelled horrible—a mix of the stench coming from an overflowing dumpster, oily refuse, and things better left unidentified—but with nowhere else to go, and the limousine continuing to drive by on what seemed like an endless loop, she had no choice but to hole up here and hope things looked up in the morning.

  Happy birthday to me, she thought, as she sank down behind some wooden crates.

  The ground near the wall was littered with flattened cardboard boxes, which, while wet, at least provided some insulation between her and the pavement. It was cold, though, so very cold, and she huddled in her fleece sweater, wishing it were a full-length down coat. She had never had to think about people living on the street before. Raised in a sheltered environment, home-schooled, and protected, she hadn’t spent much time thinking about the outside world. She hadn’t needed to, though she now realized she should have insisted. Much of her schooling had been online, and perhaps she should have looked beyond her lessons. But she’d known her online access had been ruthlessly monitored. She hadn’t thought of the “why” of it—there’d been no reason to—but now she knew, first hand, the “why.”

  Candace had been born in a bordello, the product of her mother’s miscalculation and an unknown, faceless john. She’d often wondered why her mother had kept her, but she’d never asked, and had never been told—until yesterday. The Manager, as he was known to everyone living and working there, was used to paying for abortions for his “girls,” though he resented the need for them, and the girls under his management felt his fury, when they slipped up. Candace’s mother had been too far along for an abortion by the time she’d had to admit her pregnancy, so the Manager had made her a deal. She would be allowed to have the baby in the safe confines of the House, but the child would belong to him.

  The irony of a white woman selling her white baby to a black “manager” had been lost on her mother, or it had at least been ignored in favor of the opportunity to remain in the high-class establishment. If Candace had wondered over the years about why she was treated differently from the other girls, many of whom were only young teenagers themselves when they’d arrived, she hadn’t thought to question it. The Manager had always scared her a bit, in spite of his well-dressed, soft-spoken, polite appearance, if only because all the women in the house obviously feared him. Still, shouldn’t she have questioned the clothes? The comportment and music coaching? The exercise regiment? The schooling?

  Of course, I should have, she realized now, when it was too late. Though in a different way, I was as much a fool as my mother.

  This time when she shivered there was more than the cold behind it. She would never forget that last conversation with her mother. Had it been only this morning? Her mother had come to her at dawn to tell Candace she had to get ready. She would turn eighteen at midnight, and the Manager would be coming for her.

  Why, Mama, why?

  Because he owns you, baby.

  How could you do this to me?

  Because he owns me, too.

  The deal had been struck the night the Manager had found out about her mother’s pregnancy, but he’d become even more interested when he’d learned Candace’s mother was carrying a girl child. He’d paid for everything over the years—her education, her health, her physical training, her musical training, her dance lessons—everything that would make her a prize worth a great deal of money to a certain kind of man who would be willing to pay top dollar for such a commodity: a genteel young lady, all packaged in a beautiful, untouched body. Candace had begged and pleaded with her mother, but in the end, she had been locked in her room. The sound of a bolt sliding home on the outside of her door had left Candace paralyzed with fear, knowing there was nothing for her to do but run, if she could only find a way out.

  A quick search had uncovered the fact that most of the windows in her room had long been painted shut, but she had found one chance. There was a very small hexagonal window in her bathroom, high in the wall across from the vanity, that could still be opened for ventilation. It was doubtful anyone would have considered the possibility that Candace could fit through it, or would even try, since her room was on the fourth floor, but desperation had lent her both strength and courage. She’d had to wait until after dark, and she hadn’t been able to take anything with her other than the clothes on her back, but thanks to rigorous physical training—which she now realized had been intended to keep her physically attractive—she’d had the strength and agility to squeeze through the tight window and climb down the side of the building. The old Victorian house had had plenty of dormer roofs and decorative trim to hold onto, and her light weight, slender hips, and yoga practice made it p
hysically possible. She’d dropped lightly to the ground just as the neighborhood church bell tower had rung the hour at eleven p.m.