by Anne Douglas
“That…that is something new to me. Umm…please don’t take this the wrong way ‑‑ I’m not good with human patients. That’s why I practice as a vet except for Pack business. When I came inside you, the magic took my beast and gave it to you. Usually, if you’re bitten and not born Were, at your first change you find out what your beast is ‑‑ the magic exposes it, you could say. If you’re born to a matching Were couple, you will be born as your parents are. If you are born to a Were/human couple, it’s a hit-and-miss affair that you will even be Were at all, and in a mismatched Were couple, the chances are a third either way of being Were like one of your parents, or having no beast at all.”
“So it’s a bit like human genetics, brown and brown won’t usually beget blue eyes, and so on?” He was heartened that Pearl was being so rational.
“Essentially, yes. I’ve never heard of a bitten Were taking the beast of another before, but the Grande Dame had an answer for that, too.”
“This Grande Dame seems to know a lot that she doesn’t tell people.”
“Don’t think of messing with the Grande Dame, Pearl. She can kick both of our asses all the way to China and back.”
“Let her try. I was trained by the best.” Judging by the way Pearl’s face froze up and her haughty expression, Rex thought she just well might have been. “So, just what was her grand rationale?”
“Well, you know how my beast is a bear?”
“Yes, and now so is mine.”
“Yes, well…I’ve no family. And to the best of my knowledge, I’m the last of my kind. If there is a group of Ursus, they are hidden well, and it’s extremely rare for a bitten Were to take Ursus as their beast.” Rex was well used to his lonely existence, but the gradual loss of his family still ached deep down in his heart, alongside the knowledge that, until today, he would never have had the opportunity to watch his cubs grow to adulthood, and in turn have cubs of their own.
“Ursus have proven over the years to not throw bear cubs in a mixed Were relationship, and in a human mixed relationship, cubs were nonexistent. The Grande Dame believes the magic has given my line a chance. That extinction is not our fate when I die.”
“So, I was bitten by a Were…person, and I ended up having great sex with a Were-bear when I came to find out why I had every man and his dog sniffing my tail. Then, voilá…insta-bear, insta-knocked up, and I’m the savior of a species.” Pearl sighed dramatically and carried on with a dry tone. “Well, I guess it sure beats the hell out of what I had planned to do today.”
Chapter Six
How ironic. All the years her mother had held her to a standard dedicated to illusions of grandeur were finally paying off; she had become the savior of a species. Well, hurrah. Go, me.
Once Rex had finished telling her of her new fate, and more about the Were community in general, she’d somewhat reluctantly peeled herself from his lap and showered. Alone. Just to torment the horrible ache between her legs that cried out to drag Rex in there along with her and make him do obscene things to her body, all the while performing daring feats of strength to hold her up against the shower wall as he fucked her senseless…yet again.
Cut off your nose to spite your face is more like it, Pearl my dear. Her wayward thoughts made her blush again. Even the cool air from the freezer she was rummaging through wasn’t helping a lot.
“Oh, thank God! Bread, bacon, and liquid eggs…not high-quality dining, but hungry beggars can’t be choosers.” Pearl scooped everything into her arms and turned back to the bench, bumping the freezer door shut with her shoulder as she swung around. At least the freezer was stocked, even if the fridge was bare.
She could still hear the thump of the water against the shower walls as Rex bathed. He’d been more kind and courteous than she’d been expecting, finding shampoo, lotion, and soap for her to shower with, and when she’d emerged from the bathroom, she’d found a worn but comfortable robe on the bed for her to wear.
She lifted the collar of the robe to her nose, scenting its previous owner ‑‑ Rex. Her nipples peaked, and her tummy twisted with possessive gratification at the knowledge that when he next wore the robe, it would smell of her. Pearl shook her head in disgust as she caught herself reveling in the dominant, preening behavior Rex had said would rear its head often with becoming the female to his Alpha male.
Just lovely. As if I weren’t already thought to be cold and aloof, now everyone will think me cold, aloof, jealous, possessive, and that I have a daily case of PMS. Although people who didn’t know her that well tended to think she was a snob, it was really just her reserved nature around strangers and little known acquaintances that made it look that way. It took her a while to open up, and people took it as standoffish snobbishness instead. Pearl had a suspicious feeling that for the next while she was going to have more than enough on her plate getting accustomed to the changes in her body and the unbelievable new world now exposed to her to care all that much what everyone else thought.
Lost in her thoughts, Pearl didn’t hear the soft pad of bare feet as they entered the kitchen, and jumped with a startled cry as an arm wrapped around her belly and warm lips brushed her neck.
“Well, this gives new meaning to barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. I think I like this.”
Her eyes and nose crinkled up as she shot a look of disgust in Rex’s direction. Oh, that so did not come out of his mouth. Maybe it was her spine straightening up like a flagpole that gave her away, but Rex pulled her back into his chest with a growl.
“It was a joke, Pearl, a joke. The last thing I expect is a woman to be waiting on me hand and foot, tending to all my desires…” The nuzzling at her neck took a rougher turn as she felt his teeth gently clamp over his previous bite mark. “Although…I have a few desires that would be mutually pleasurable that you could attend to right now.”
She’d been standing at the bench, staring out the window when he had come up behind her, so she could feel exactly what his desires were; they pressed hard into her backside as he crowded her against the bench. The lust that had been simmering in the background while she thought things over came out to play with a rush, heating her core, making ladylike a thing of the past. Wanton, uninhibited Pearl was here, and she was planning to stay.
“How?” The question came out on a gasp as one of those large hands came around from behind and slid under the crossed front of the robe, plucking at a nipple.
“Just hang tight and let me show you.” Rex pulled at the knot in the robe’s sash, freeing it easily. He separated the fabric and pushed it off her shoulders, trapping her as he let it sit around her arms. Her shoulders and breasts were now bared to him.
“You have the loveliest skin, Pearl. Your name suits you well. You’re smooth and creamy, yet behind that cool exterior, I get the idea that there’s a lot of fire hidden away. A lot of strength, too.” Rex peppered his words with kisses and licks along her shoulders and neck. He cradled her breasts in his hands and gently kneaded them, pinching the nipples slowly between his thumbs and forefingers.
The dark green of the pine trees at the edge of the clearing had turned the window in front of her into a murky mirror, and Pearl watched their reflection. Rex stood tall behind her, his head bowed to her shoulder, his beard tickling at her skin. His broad shoulders eclipsed hers; his arms were long, and strong enough to wrap around her and hold her tightly, making her feel secure and protected. The gentle scrape of his teeth along the mark on her neck made her shiver, then press her ass back, rubbing along his erection as he growled in her ear.
“You’re a tease, Pearl, one of those librarian types with a sassy slut all leashed up on the inside, aren’t you?”
How did a man that she had known only for a matter of hours have her pegged so quickly?
“How do you figure that?” The extra little arch of your neck exposing your most vulnerable spots to his teeth and mouth might have given you away, m’dear. Her internal voice echoed her mother’s dry, supercilious tones; even her
own conscience mocked her.
“Could it be the way your nipples pucker even harder when I do this?” Rex gently suckled the soft, sensitive skin at her nape into his mouth. “Or maybe it’s the way your skin has flushed so attractively?” A hand left her breast and smoothed down over her belly and through the curls at the apex of her legs; from behind, his foot nudged at her legs, inching them apart to open her sex to him. “Maybe it’s the way I can scent your pussy heating up, flowing, readying for me?”
Thick fingers dragged over her labia, opening her so Rex’s thumb could gently rub across her clit. His fingers swept deeper, swirling in the moisture they sought, then pressed into her opening, making her gasp.
“Yet, even with all that, I can’t help but remember the woman in the prissy clothes, all buttoned up tight, the one who looked down her nose at me with her brow in the air and didn’t collapse into a screaming heap when I turned furry ‑‑ at her insistence, I might add.”
Rex’s fingers continued to work all too slowly as he talked, stroking, petting, gently thrusting. She dropped her hands from the bench and started to shake free of the robe. She wanted to be free to touch him, too.
“Keep your hands where I can see them, Pearl.” Pearl obeyed the low and possessive command instinctively and released her arms from the robe, bringing them up and linking them around Rex’s neck. “Well, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but it works.” Looking up, Rex finally saw their reflection and growled out, “Oh yes, that works indeed.”
Rex took a small step back, dragging her with him, and bared to both their view the more intimate parts of her body that had been hidden below the bench. An arm snaked up beside hers, pulling her shoulder back more until her back arched and her breasts thrust forward.
She was entranced by their joined image. Her nipples were pointed and her breasts taut. Her skin was flushed, and she looked like a courtesan presenting herself for Rex’s pleasure. His hand kept up the exasperating slow dip and thrust between her legs, making her frustration worse as she not only felt, but also saw what he did to her.
Strangely enough, all recent changes considered, she wanted to purr like a cat and rub all over him. Touch all the spots he hadn’t yet reached with his mouth. A low, sexy rumble rolled up from deep in her chest, and Rex groaned in harmony. She turned her head and bit down on his earlobe, and he growled again, then pulled her tighter, his voice and manner rougher than before.
“Oh, hell yeah, baby…”
Remember, he likes it rough; do it again and you might just get what you need. But before she could react to her slutty subconscious, Pearl found herself in the air, turned and lifted, then deposited on the table behind them. “What the…?” Her question was cut off by a hard kiss that gentled in its possessiveness to a caress.
Rough, working man’s hands trailed down her sides and slid over her hips, then angled down her thighs. He lifted her legs and tucked her heels behind his back, leaving his thick cock resting along her cleft. Pearl’s belly twisted as she pushed her mons toward him. Her hand crept between them to guide him to where she ached.
“That’s it, honey; show me how you want it.” As eager as she, he pushed forward into her fist, encouraging her to grasp him firmly, guiding her with his hand over hers. Rex’s head fell back as he made an involuntary hiss of appreciation; his eyes closed as he showed her the best way to stroke him, where to hold tight, where to let loose. His head came forward again, and he opened his eyes, taking in their conjoined bodies with a smirk.
“Oh yeah, I can’t wait to see your mouth around my cock, honey.”
“I need to taste you…” And she needed to wipe that smirk off his face. Pearl reared up from the table, not feeling at all the rational, cool librarian he claimed she was, and pulled him closer. An arm around his neck dragged him down so she could lick along his straining shoulders, and she bit down when she reached the tender crook of his neck, making him jerk, making him finally thrust his cock deep inside her.
She bit me! Oh, hell yeah!
Instinctively she had bitten down on the one spot destined to make him crazy. The one spot that would make him forget all about slow and sweet, and go straight to full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes.
Rex’s beast reacted. He ground himself against Pearl until she whimpered and set him free, theoretically proving that he, the male, would fill all her needs as she submitted to him.
Yeah, sure. Like she was really going to knuckle down and transform into the perfect little homebody wife…not in this lifetime, buddy. There was no way in hell this was going to be some easy, hey-we-love-each-other-happy-ever-after, not after all that had happened that day. Love was earned ‑‑ he felt a great, great, deal of lust, but he had no idea who Pearl really was. And she had no clue about him either.
Rex stared down at where they were joined, his hips working on autopilot, nature taking control to do what it did best. The drag of her flesh against his mesmerized him as he tunneled in and out. Her blonde mixed with his dark hair as he pressed up tight, Pearl’s sex opening with each thrust like the old-fashioned euphemism of a flower’s petals furling open. The beast inside wanted to reach out with claws bared and mark her as his, to make it obvious to both man and beast alike that Pearl was taken, mated.
“Harder, Rex, please. It feels so good; you feel so good,” she pleaded with him.
Rex shook free of his daze and took his time tracing his way up Pearl’s body with his eyes. Her body strained, her muscles taut as she reached eagerly for her peak. Still holding her in his instinctive grasp from when she bit him, Pearl arched over his forearms, her head resting on the table yet thrashing from side to side. Her breasts pushed forward again, inviting him to lick and suck and bite, to tease her as badly as she teased him.
“What do you need, Pearl?” Rex knew all too well what she wanted, but he would draw the wanton out of her inch by inch if he had to. There was going to be no place for prim and proper between them when it came to sex. “Tell me, Pearl, should I fuck you hard and fast, or should I make love to you, slowly, surely?”
The frustration on her face as she stilled and stared back him was beautiful; she was caught between a rock and a hard place. Abandon her restraints and ride the rush of endorphins to a sharp, fast explosion, or wait and enjoy the delicious build toward an orgasm that would roll from her belly, making her fingers and toes tingle as it ebbed its way through her body? He planned to make her feel all those things, repeatedly, satisfying her like no other, but right now he needed one or the other.
He withdrew from her body, pushed her legs to the ground, and pulled her body up ’til she stood on her feet. “Which is it, Pearl?”
With the way she looked at him, Rex figured if there had been another cock close by, she’d have ripped his head off for stopping when she’d been begging for completion and moved on to the next guy.
Pearl didn’t know it, but her claws had extended, and she gripped his arms so tightly she scratched him. He wasn’t any sort of masochist, but a little rough Were lovin’ was a big turn-on for him ‑‑ besides he just plain liked the idea of wearing this woman’s mating marks.
“You think it’s funny, do you ‑‑ this whole, make me beg for it deal?” Her lips sneered at him, while her body teased him.
“Funny, no. Sexy as hell, oh yes.” He was done with talking. Pearl was beating him at his own game, and that meant his dick wasn’t where he wanted it to be ‑‑ right back inside Pearl, where it should be.
Rex broke free of Pearl’s hold and twisted her around, quickly reversing his earlier movements so they stood at the kitchen bench again. “I think I’ll make the decisions this time around; we can save nice and slow for another day.”
He bent her face first over the bench then kicked her feet apart, making space for his legs between hers. A hand held her wrists behind her back as he pressed her chest to the cool surface of the bench; his cock slid along the wet channel of her sex as it invited him in.
“Do it! Do it now,
or so help me God, I’ll ‑‑” Pearl’s demands cut off in a strangled cry as he thrust hard into her core.
Chapter Seven
Rex had wrapped her back in his robe as she’d recovered from the mighty orgasm he’d given her, gently escorting her to the table when her legs had failed her. Then he’d quietly taken himself off to quickly shower again and change into fresh clothes. What had felt like hours, in reality had only been twenty minutes, so the items she’d taken out of the freezer were still frozen solid.
Pearl set the small container of liquid eggs in warm water to defrost and the bacon in the microwave to do the same, then set to working the bread slices loose from where they had frozen together. When one of the slices jumped free from her wrangling to land on the windowsill, she automatically reached out to grab it back, and then paused, her hand left hanging in midair.
It felt like every hair on her body stood to attention, like the hackles rising on a dog’s back when it prepared to protect its territory.
“Rex…” Pearl heard the squeak she had noted previously as the shower door opening; her senses had changed dramatically and small sounds now reverberated like church bells. Rex called out her name questioningly, his reply muffled by the cabin’s log walls.
“Rex! Get out here, now!” The high tone and the fear in her voice must have echoed through the thick walls just fine that time. Pearl heard the bathroom door slam open, and then Rex came flying around the corner as fast as a man possibly could while trying to drag jeans up over wet legs.
“What? What’s wrong?” He hopped to a halt beside her, questions written all over his face. “Did you hurt yourself? What?” Then he looked away from her face long enough to follow her outstretched arm and pointed finger. “Oh, shit.”
In the clearing behind the cabin stood a man and three animals ‑‑ a wolf, a jaguar, and an overly large bobcat. All three animal species could have been imported into the local area, but Pearl had a feeling none of them slept in a cave or on a tree branch, but instead a nice comfy innerspring mattress and blankets kept them warm at night.
