Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  “This is nice,” he said. “Cozy.” He sounded nervous, but his smile was genuine.

  “Thanks.” She smiled in return. “It was my dad’s. Still is, I guess. Wherever he is.”

  He frowned. “You don’t know where your dad is?”

  She shook her head. “He took off when I was sixteen. Haven’t seen him since.”

  He rubbed a hand over his hair, and she longed to follow suit. She wondered what it would feel like between her fingers. “I wonder if that’s where it came from. You know, you being a shifter.”

  She frowned as she thought about it. She had inherited her dad’s eyes, the only one of her sisters who had. Had she also inherited the ability to shift? But surely her mother would have known if her husband was a shifter, wouldn’t she?

  “Is it always hereditary?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “No one knows for sure. My mother said no one in her family was a shifter, and she didn’t think my father’s side had any, either. But Matt says his dad and uncles were all shifters. His dad was actually a wolf,” he added. “So maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.”

  She bit her lip, and he stepped closer, his eyes darting to her mouth. She gave herself a mental head shake. This was what she’d come here to talk about, this whatever-it-was between her and Sherman. There’d be time in the future to think to look for answers about her dad.

  She took a deep breath before speaking again. “Sherman, I asked you to come here because I wanted to talk to you about… well, about us.”

  He frowned. “Look, I know I said I couldn’t get into anything with you,” he began.

  She closed her eyes. If he was about to brush her off again, she didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want to see the expression on his face, the pity in his eyes, as he let her down gently.

  But then she felt his hands cup her face, and her eyes snapped open.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” he rumbled. “I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you, Joanna. I don’t want to deny this any longer.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him that she didn’t want to deny it, either, but her words were cut off by his lips. The kiss was hungry, desperate, like he was making up for lost time. Nearly two weeks of lost time, she thought.

  His hands skimmed down her sides to her waist, then around to her ass. He squeezed her cheeks roughly, and she moaned against his mouth. He placed his hands under her ass and lifted, and she wrapped her legs around him, bringing his hard cock in contact with her center. She ground against him for a moment, and he made a rumbling noise deep in his throat, not unlike a growl. He bit her lip, and she did it again, feeling the slick slide of her clit against his zipper through her thin yoga pants. She was beyond ready for him to be inside her.

  He walked them over to the bed, breaking the kiss and dropping her onto the bed. She leaned up on her elbows as he stepped back, pulling his shirt over his head. She bit her lip as she took in the sight of his barrel chest. She loved that he wasn’t a gym rat. His body was thick and powerful, but from hard work, not weightlifting. The rest of his clothes followed swiftly after that, and she inhaled sharply when she finally got a look at his long, thick cock. God, he was perfect.

  He bent, digging around in his wallet for a condom, which he laid on the bedside table. Then he climbed onto the bed with her, laying next to her.

  “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he rumbled, nipping at her lower lip.

  She sat up, pulling her shirt off, then lifting her hips to shimmy out of her pants. She saw his nostrils flare when he realized she wasn’t wearing any underwear, and she smiled wickedly.

  His hands roamed her body, kneading her hips, brushing across her nipples, teasing the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. He leaned in to kiss her, tangling his tongue with hers.

  Without breaking the kiss, she reached over him to grab the condom. She tore it open, and he grunted into her mouth as she rolled it down his length. He leaned over her, but she pushed him back.

  He pulled away, raising his eyebrows in confusion.

  She smiled up at him. “I want to be on top.”

  He grinned, laying back on the bed. “Be my guest,” he said.

  So she climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. She lifted herself onto her knees, grabbing his shaft and positioning him where she wanted him. Then she slowly sank down.

  They moaned in unison as he slid inside her, inch by torturous inch. When she’d taken him as deep as she could, she stilled, savoring the feeling of fullness. Then she slowly began to roll her hips.

  He reached his hands up to cup her small breasts, and she threw her head back, moaning wantonly at the feeling of his rough hands on her sensitive flesh. She thought she could stay like this forever, with Sherman deep inside her. She always wanted to feel as alive, as free as she felt right now.

  She moved faster, feeling her orgasm building, fierce and inevitable. He snapped his hips up to meet hers, and she could tell he was close, too. She dropped her shoulders, draping herself across his chest. Their mouths met, their tongues dueling urgently.

  “Let go,” she whispered, when she broke the kiss. “Give it to me.”

  He groaned, long and loud, as his hips stilled underneath her. The hot pulsing of his cock deep inside her sent her tumbling over the edge. Her back arched and her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she cried out his name over and over as she rode the waves of her climax.

  When she finally stopped twitching, she rolled off him, flopping back onto the bed. He leaned over and kissed her, and she got lost in him again.

  Eventually, he broke the kiss, climbing off the bed to dispose of the condom in the tiny bathroom. When he returned, he slid back in next to her, pulling her close to him.

  “I’m glad you changed your mind,” she teased, circling a fingertip around his belly button.

  He chuckled. “Me too.”

  She looked down at her hand, loving the way his darker skin contrasted with her own lighter, reddish brown skin. “You never told me what was holding you back before.”

  He cleared his throat, and she looked up to see that his expression was sheepish. “Seems kind of stupid now.”

  “Tell me?” She planted a soft kiss on his jaw. “Please?”

  He rubbed her hip. “Well, after all the stuff that happened with my dad, and some of the things I’d seen happen to other shifters, I promised myself that I’d only ever fall in love with another shifter.”

  She frowned. “So, the only reason you’re here now is because I’m a shifter?”

  He shook his head, squeezing her hip. “No, Joanna. I’m here because of you. I’d already decided this morning when I woke up that I was going to break my promise. I was up half the night, kicking myself for being such an idiot. I realized I didn’t want to let you get away long before you landed on that boat.”

  She chuckled. “I guess that was a pretty dramatic entrance, huh?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. But it’s a great story.” He smiled at her softly. “We can tell our grandkids about it one day.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s getting ahead of ourselves a bit, don’t you think?”

  He shook his head, leaning in to kiss her again. “I told you already, I don’t want to let you get away. So I won’t.”

  She laughed. “That’s crazy.”

  He grinned. “It’s only crazy because it doesn’t feel crazy,” he said, echoing her words from their first meeting. “It’s crazy because it feels right.”

  She looked up at him. “Yeah it does.”

  So they lay there together, talking and kissing and scheming for the future. Eventually they fell asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms, content in the knowledge that it would be that way from now on.

  THE END

  Riding Bearback

  Bear Ranchers Book I

  by

  Becca Fanning

  Damn cows! Damn them all! Jess Lincoln, her black hair flying free from her ponytail, swore as she ran through the knee high
grass. The cow loped out of her way, dodged around a scrubby bush and cantered off in the opposite direction.

  She hadn’t signed up for this, not at all. The property description had said quite clearly that this damnable ranch, in Colo-stupid-rado, had stupid people…what were they called? Oh yes, hands who worked with the cows. No one had said that they would all be gone when she got there, or that the fences were in reprehensible disrepair, or that in the face of an oncoming thunderstorm, the stupid creatures would scatter to the four corners of the state.

  Jess stopped her helter-skelter run and hands on knees began to suck in lung-fulls of air. The stitch in her side was becoming a problem. A cow turned brown, expressive eyes on her and mooed dolefully.

  “Yeeesh, and to you too,” Jess said.

  “That’s not how ya do it!” That was Old Charlie. He had come with the ranch, but since Jess guessed he was at least a thousand years old, he was no use to her. He leaned against the still standing part of the fence and smiled his toothy grin. He was an African American man with a dandelion, powder puff of white hair that stood up like Albert Einstein’s. Jess had known Charlie for five minutes and already he was getting on her nerves.

  She could’ve stayed in New York. It was a big city, with bustling people and cabs. She could have kept her old job at the ad agency, or found a new one since Conrad, her ex, probably still worked there. Actually come to think of it, she could have chosen a lovely tropical island in the Bahamas instead of this cow-infested dust bowl. But then she looked up at the view; the plain stretching out ahead of her to a line of trees, and then the mountains in the distance. All this space, all this land, and she’d bought it for a steal.

  Sighing, Jess turned to look at Old Charlie. “Okay, so how do you suggest I get these dumb creatures back?”

  He shrugged. “You know how to ride a horse?”

  “No,” she said wrinkling her nose.

  “Well then, you’re poked,” he said and shuffled his way back up to the main house.

  “Thank you, oh so much for that,” Jess yelled after him.

  He just waved a wrinkled hand at her and went on his merry way.

  Oh well, nothing for it. She ran around for a while as the clouds rolled in overhead and cows trotted out of her way in a distressingly unconcerned fashion. It was almost as though the beasts knew that she had never so much as petted a cow before.

  Eventually she flopped down in the turf her sides aching, while above her the sky began to boil. Lightning flashed and licked the depths of the clouds turning them bright for an instant before letting them fall dark again. And of course the sun was setting. It was going to rain and get dark all at the same time and she was so far out of her comfort zone, it was on another continent.

  “Hell of a first day,” she said to herself, pulling at a grass stalk. It had such smooth sides. Her fingers ran up it and then, “Ouch!” Jess stared at the red blood welling out of the slice and then something hit it. Something wet and cold crashed into her finger, washing the blood away. More raindrops fell.

  Jess stood up and ran after the cows again, flapping her arms and yelling with more urgency now. Why were the stupid creatures so happy to spend a stormy night out in a field? Couldn’t they see that the sky was angry at something, and planning on hitting the ground with as much lightning as it took to make it sorry? How was she supposed to do this on her own?

  A cow mooed at her and ran towards her. She sidestepped out of its way and in the gloom lost her footing and fell face first into a puddle, drenching her from head to toe.

  “Oh well, thank you so very much!” she yelled after the beast’s retreating back. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” Each word was accompanied by her fist slapping into the muddy water. And then she began to cry and swear, and as the hopelessness built inside her, scream.

  “Excuse me Ma’am, but you look like you could use a hand.”

  Wiping mud and sodden hair out of her eyes, Jess looked up. The face she saw was long, brown and had huge nostrils. It snorted at her. She looked up again and this time saw the man seated on the horse.

  “It’s the damn cows,” she said in what she thought of as her petulant voice. “They won’t listen. They won’t come in out of the storm.” She was sobbing now and then realizing that she must look awful, she tried to wipe her face. But the rain was doing a good job of washing her from head to toe, and her efforts to not look like a drowned rat were proving futile.

  “Well, we’ll see what can be done,” he said and in one fluid movement he got off the horse’s back.

  All she could see of the man now standing in front of her offering her his hand, was his golden eyes. They almost seemed to glow in the dark.

  “Who are you?” she asked taking his hand. He pulled her to her feet and then helped her onto the horse. “Oh no, I don’t know how to ride one of these,” she said. He might have smiled, she couldn’t tell in the uncertain light and the rain. In a moment he was up behind her, his arms on either side of her holding the reins. “What about the cows?” she asked.

  “The cattle will be just fine,” he said. His voice was smooth and rich and confident. It was the voice of someone who just knew things would work out. The horse ran up to the house where the lights were on and Old Charlie was standing in the doorway.

  Her legs feeling a little weak, and shaking from the cold, Jess found herself deposited on her back porch. Then the stranger on the horse galloped off into the night as lightning sliced the sky.

  “Who was that?” Jess asked.

  Old Charlie just smiled at her and handed her a towel.

  Jess sat on a cardboard box on the floor of what would eventually be her living room. A pool of rainwater settled around her as she dried herself off. Old Charlie collapsed into an armchair. It was one from the apartment she’d live in in New York; a candy striped, overstuffed thing that looked so out of place here in this rustic room. Well, at least it was here.

  She sighed and watched the steam rising from the cup of tea Charlie had made for her. It was awful, the worst tea she’d ever had. “Thanks for the tea, and the towel.” She said smiling.

  Old Charlie nodded his head. “Hell-of-a first day out here,” he said. “And now christened with a storm.”

  “Is that good?”

  He shrugged, “Can’t tell yet.”

  They sat in silence.

  Then Charlie grunted and said, “So what you runnin’ from?”

  “Excuse me?” Jess said. If she was a cat her fur would have been slowly rising. She felt the words form on her tongue…I’m not running…but what she said was, “I guess I’m running from a jerk who made my life horrible.”

  “You married to this jerk?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Uh huh, well it’s gonna be ay-okay now,” Charlie smiled. His teeth were dazzlingly white.

  There was a click and the French doors to the back porch opened. Jess looked up as a young man entered the room. He was tall, broad shouldered with dark hair plastered to his head. He dripped in the doorway looking into the room. “Hey there,” he said looking at her. He smiled.

  Jess realized she was sitting with her mouth open.

  “Um…” she said and reached for her tea mug on the floor, hesitated, then tried to grab it again and knocked the contents onto the floor with a tinkling thump. “Oh shit!” she swore and got down on hands and knees using her towel to wipe up the tea. “I just wanted to say, well…um…” she left the sodden towel on the floor now as the tea and her rainwater pool mingled. She stood up and ran her hands over her wet jeans. She was bare foot and her light blue t-shirt had mostly stopped clinging to her. She held out her hand. “I just wanted to thank you for helping me.”