Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  He stepped in front of her and looked her in the eyes. His mirrored the haunting sadness in the moonlight that slipped through the windows behind them. She was sure hers burnt with the desire she was fighting hard to control...futilely.

  “Is that really what you want?” he asked her stepping in close to her.

  She smiled shyly up at him, wondering if that question even needed an answer.

  She sighed and was about to speak when he kissed her. She closed her eyes and leaned in to the kiss. The steel resolve she had built up slipping away with every second their lips were together. He tasted like danger on a cool summer’s evening and she was the hopeless maiden caught in the web he spun. A web she had willing walked right into and was sure she was not going to walk out of unscathed. Right now she really did not care. He represented everything she wanted and she was not a woman who was used to being denied.

  She angled her head and pulled him deeper into her. The line where she ended and he started blurring with the passion that washed over her.

  “Be sure this is what you really want, because once I start I will not be able to stop,” he said. He spun her around, and ran possessive and intrusive hands over her curves. It was a gesture of complete appreciation for her body. In that moment she would have begged him to just bend her over and fuck her silly.

  She would have, if she didn’t think that would be giving him her goodies far too easily. SO she shut up and moaned her desire instead.

  “Be sure Anna...” he said again.

  His voice was husky with the desire he was trying to fight, and it sent shivers down her spine. The tiny bumps on her skin that rose as she stepped into him again, were enough to say there would be none of that. She rested the book she had taken down on the chair and turned to cup his face pulling him into her. His tongue snaked into her mouth, dirty dancing with hers. It was then she realized for the first time that he tasted like wild apples. It was a thought that made her smile as she remembered her teenage love for all things that tasted and smelled like wild apples.

  Oh, how time was the master of bringing all things full circle.

  “I want you Aiden. And nothing can change that,” she whispered against his lips.

  His hands slipped down her side to rest gently on her ass. Then he bit lightly on her lips, causing her to moan into his mouth. She responded by sliding her hand beneath the hem of his shirt to feel his hot skin burning with desire.

  Stop and walk away!

  She knew she needed to...or rather... she should. Every inch of her body wanted nothing but to be devoured by the passion he ignited. He responded with the same. He pressed her ass into his groin so she could feel how much he wanted her. then bent his lips to trail the tip of his tongue against the sensitive part of her neck. She could feel her knees getting weak with the pleasure that rolled over her. He lifted her as if she were paper weight and turned towards his desk, shoving anything in his way to the ground. How he knew exactly what she wanted was beyond her. Nevertheless, she was in no mood for the softness of sweet love and he was right there with her. They were like animals caught in a dance that predated human existence and she lived for this moment.

  He slowly pulled away and every ounce of desire in her protested as she let him. His soft hands cupped her face and his stormy eyes were confused by what he felt from the anger she had dished him. Still they searched her face for certainty. “If you are so sure you don’t want this then walk away and I won’t stop you.”

  He let her go as he bent to kiss her one more time and she hesitated before allowing him to. She could feel herself getting closer to the point of no return. No, she was at the point of no return and she no longer had the energy or desire to fight it.

  His hands found her breast and gently squeezed her nipples before he rolled her pants off her hips. She had not bothered to put panties on, and he smiled. She pressed her heated pussy against his groin. She wanted him just as much and decided not to play coy or wait any longer. She reached to stroke his erect dick through his pants as her other hand freed his belt buckle.

  Their lips met and his fingers wrapped around her slender thighs. She knew instantly that no matter how much self restraint she had; tonight was not going to be the night she resisted. She had waited a whole month for this. She slipped her hand into his boxers and released his cock. The heat of her palm touched his manhood for the first time and she enjoyed every inch of the skin she felt. She gripped him and slowly stroked back and forth. She wanted no dry humping and she wanted no child’s play. She wanted him... all of him.

  His lips lowered to her neck and he lifted her off her feet. She positioned his dick to enter her as he slammed her against the book shelf.

  She let loose a primal moan that spoke of the pleasure the pain of his entrance brought her. As he slowly thrust in and out of her she met each thrust with a plea for more. This was no love making, and it was not love making that she craved or wanted. She wanted to be fucked and he gave her exactly that.

  With each thrust she could feel her climax building. The muscles of her pussy clenched and shuddered with the promise of an earth shattering climax. In a matter of minutes they could hold back no longer. He gave one hard thrust into her, groaning from the pit of his stomach in satisfaction. She threw her head back and could not hold back the scream that escaped her.

  She could feel his cock burying his seed deep inside her as it pulsed its satisfaction. They stayed that way until their breathing slowed.

  Aiden slowly eased her down to the floor, his cock still buried deep inside her and growing erect again.

  “You are mine Anna,” he whispered in her ear as he started to move in her again. “Mine and nobody else’s.”

  She would not object, because then and there she knew she would want no other man but him. This was the kind of connection she had waited all her life for. She rode his dick like no other before and vowed never to let him go.

  Bear Anchor

  FisherBears II

  by

  Becca Fanning

  One

  A shadow loomed over the circulation desk just as a throat cleared, cutting into the comfortable silence of a slow Tuesday afternoon. Irina Vasiliev looked up from her computer screen into a pair of amber eyes framed by horn-rimmed glasses. Eyes the color of honey, like the stuff her grandmother used to make medovik with: raw and sweet and sticky.

  And now she craved the layered honey cake, longed for the familiarity, the comfort of it. Medovik had been Babushka’s favorite recipe. Generations of Vasiliev women had made it, back to the days when her ancestors had lived in a tiny fishing village on the Baltic Sea. Irina’s grandparents had been the first generation in America, and they clung to their traditions with an iron grip. She could remember the old woman standing over the stove time and time again, whisking, whisking, whisking. “You must whisk like devil, Irochka, or eggs cook,” she’d say in her thickly accented English. Irina hadn’t made the cake in years, not since Babushka had died.

  But she thought she’d like to dust off the recipe now. Comfort and security were rare commodities in her life these days. The routine of preparing the cake, as well as eating it, savoring it, would be a balm to soothe her tired soul. She wouldn’t be able to eat the whole thing herself, but perhaps she could bring some in for her co-workers. She took mental stock of the ingredients in her pantry. She would need to stop at the market for sour cream and more flour. Maybe this weekend, she thought.

  The large man standing in front of her cleared his throat, and she shook her head, trying to banish the visions of medovik dancing through her head. I’ll add berries this time, was her final thought on the subject. It’s still early in June. Strawberries should be in season.

  She looked up at the man again. “Can I help you?” she asked politely.

  “I put in a request last week,” the man said, holding up a call slip. “I got a call earlier that my book is in.”

  She took the slip from him, along with his library card. She gla
nced at the title printed neatly on the small scrap of paper, raising her eyebrows. They didn’t get many requests for Kierkegaard at the Sitka Public Library, unless one of the students at the University was writing a last-minute paper.

  “Let me take a look,” she said. She turned from the desk, walking to the back room to retrieve the library’s only copy of Either/Or.

  She returned a moment later to see that another man had joined the first. The newcomer seemed younger, rangier, than the man in the glasses, long and lean where his companion was solid, almost stocky. He was turned away from her, facing the first man, but she could just make out a scowl twisting his mouth. “You already read all this stuff!” He rocked back and forth on his heels, as though standing completely still was beyond his capabilities.

  “I have,” the man in the glasses agreed, calmly and indulgently, like they’d had this argument many times.

  “So whaddya need to read it again for? You ain’t in school anymore, Sherman.” The second man brushed his hair out of his eyes. It was pale, white-blond, like the finest silk. It was beautiful hair, but much too long. It hung in his face and curled over his ears, like he was a mop-topped kid in a boy band. She had the strangest urge to offer to cut it for him. “You don’t need philosophy while we’re out on the boat.”

  “I don’t read because it’s useful. I do it because I need it to thrive. ‘Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty,’” the man in the glasses quoted.

  “‘Anyone who keeps learning stays young.’” Irina finished the quote before she’d even realized she’d spoken.

  The younger man turned to her, at last giving her a good look at him. He all but took her breath away, he was so beautiful - but in a contradictory way. A study of opposites. Delicately sculpted cheekbones in a deeply tanned, slightly weather-beaten face. That white-blond hair, but with dark eyebrows and lashes. Full, almost feminine lips above a square, strong jaw. His accent sounded vaguely southern, a rarity here in Alaska. And his eyes were almost identical to his friend's, though the two men looked nothing alike otherwise. Deep amber, exactly like honey. Curious.

  He smiled at her in a perfunctory way, observing those social niceties that Irina had never been any good at. His eyes skimmed over her, taking in her unremarkable features and plain clothing, noting the bun and headband she used to tame her thick, unruly hair. He seemed to almost look through her, as though she was the least interesting person he'd ever come across, and she was surprised to find herself a little indignant at the idea. Blending into the background had been her goal in life after her marriage ended. She no more wanted to attract a man than she wanted to be mauled by a bear.

  So why did she feel a sudden flash of ire that this beautiful young man was so obviously not attracted to her?

  “That a quote from one of your philosophers?” the blond man asked, turning back to the one he’d called Sherman. He drummed his fingers on the desk, and Irina had to ball her hands at her side to keep from holding them still. She couldn’t stand fidgeters.

  The other man laughed lightly. “Henry Ford,” he replied, his eyes smiling at Irina from over the top of his glasses. “You a student of Industrial Age history?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “My grandmother taught it to me.” Babushka had collected little quotes about education and learning, writing them down on little cards. It’s how she’d learned English back when she’d emigrated to America, more than sixty years ago.

  “Oh, how sweet,” came the library director’s voice from behind her. Irina’s smile vanished like smoke in a breeze at the arrival of her boss. She turned to see Betsy looking at her reproachfully. “Irina never tells us anything about herself,” the older woman continued, now speaking to the two men on the other side of the desk. “And she’s so dour. Always frowning. She’ll never catch a husband that way,” she tittered.

  Irina frowned, as if Betsy had somehow extracted it from her. The antiquated idea of wanting to “catch a husband” would have been laughable, had Irina not abandoned her sense of humor in Anchorage. If the older woman only knew why Irina kept to herself, she’d never be so flippant.

  Irina made no answer. She didn’t have the patience not to snap at her boss today. She turned back to the two young men in front of her. “Will that be all?” she asked, scanning Sherman’s library card, then the Kierkegaard volume.

  “Where’s the movies and stuff?” the blond man asked. He was fidgeting again, now shuffling his feet and rolling his shoulders. He looked like the kind of man who would probably still be twitching in his coffin. That dour enough for you, Betsy? Irina thought.

  Wordlessly, Irina pointed him in the right direction.

  “You need a library card to check things out, Finn,” Sherman called after his friend. Finn. Interesting name.

  Finn turned around, scowling. “Then I’ll just use yours.”

  Wouldn’t he want one of his own? Irina mused.

  Sherman shook his head. “No, he doesn’t read much. He prefers to watch TV or listen to the radio. Sports radio,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  Irina knitted her brows. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “How could anyone not like to read?” she asked. She couldn’t fathom a life without books.

  Sherman chuckled. “I’ve been asking the same thing for years.” He shrugged. “He’s not much into intellectual pursuits. Makes living with him very difficult sometimes.”

  Oh. Irina had a sudden burst of comprehension. She might have laughed, it was so ironic. Here she’d been drooling over a man a decade younger, an unattainably gorgeous man who hadn’t looked twice at her. Her pride was soothed by the knowledge that it wasn’t so much her that was undesirable to him, as it was all women.

  “I suppose opposites really do attract, then,” she said.

  Sherman looked confused for a moment, then laughed, a full belly laugh. “No, no. It’s not like that. He’s my brother.” He shook his head, still laughing.

  Irina frowned in confusion. She thought it indelicate to ask how Sherman, with his dark chocolate skin, could be the brother of a man like Finn, whose features were as European as they came. And both men looked to be about the same age, twenty-five at most.

  Though they do have the same eyes, Irina thought as Sherman continued to laugh. I suppose it’s not so implausible after all.

  Behind her, Betsy tutted.

  “Sir, this is the library,” the older woman hissed. Irina looked around the two-story building. There was almost no one there. A quick glance out the floor-to-ceiling windows told her why: it was a glorious Alaskan spring day. The sun was shining, the air was warm, and the clouds were fluffy and bright, free of the pendulous gloom of oncoming rain that had shadowed the previous week. The residents of Sitka no doubt preferred to enjoy the good weather outside. But despite the lack of library patrons to disturb, Betsy was glaring at Sherman as though he’d let out an air horn in the main reading room.

  Sherman immediately sobered. “My apologies, ma’am.” He nodded at Irina, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Thank you,” he said, holding up the book.

  She acknowledged him with a nod, ready to return to looking busy. But heavy footfalls and noisy breathing caught her attention.

  “Sherman, help me pick. I don’t know which one Lila would want,” Finn called as he approached again. His arms were laden with VHS tapes. He dumped them all on to the desk, and Irina jumped back, watching them cascade onto the counter with an almighty clatter.

  Irina narrowed her eyes. She hardly knew Finn, but he was already starting to grate her nerves. He didn’t read, he didn’t respect library property, he couldn’t stand still.

  And he didn’t want her. Not that she cared, but still.