by Abby Blake
Suddenly Bear
Life sucked. Twenty-eight and alone was not in her life plan, yet there she was—pathetic, sad, and falling for her sexy, gorgeous, five-years-younger roommate.
But when Jayden saves her from her ex’s drunken attack, Violet can no longer hide her need for the man she loves. She allows herself only one hot, amazing, incredibly sexy night with him, but it wouldn’t be fair to hold on to the man. He has the world at his feet and she’s an ambitionless waitress. Yet it would seem that Jayden has a better idea—sharing her with his brothers. Intrigued enough to get to know the other Delko brothers, Declan and Brandon, long distance, Violet is shocked to learn of their shifter status. Yet it’s not enough to make her walk away.
But it’s the secret the brothers are keeping from her that just might destroy everything.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Shape-shifter
Length: 34,290 words
SUDDENLY BEAR
Abby Blake
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
SUDDENLY BEAR
Copyright © 2011 by Abby Blake
E-book ISBN: 1-61926-163-4
First E-book Publication: December 2011
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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SUDDENLY BEAR
ABBY BLAKE
Copyright © 2011
Prologue
The guy was a dick.
Sharing an apartment with him while working his way through college was the most stupid, dumb-ass decision Jayden had ever made. He’d somehow believed cohabitating with his friend’s brother would be easy. Boy had he been wrong. If it didn’t mean acknowledging that his own older brothers were right, he would pack up his gear and get the hell out.
Of course, at this moment, it almost seemed worth the bruised ego.
If it wasn’t bad enough that the guy was drunkenly fucking some blousy, equally drunk blonde on the sofa Jayden had paid good money for, it seemed that Bruce “the asshole” Potts hadn’t noticed that his fiancée, Violet, had followed Jayden into the apartment.
“Bruce,” Jayden said loudly, trying to convey in a single word that Bruce had an audience.
“Fuck off, man.” Bruce pistoned harder and faster into the woman lying on the couch with her legs in the air, but stopped a moment to add, “Or grab a camera.” The woman moaned a sound of agreement and then giggled like a silly schoolgirl, despite being old enough to be Bruce’s mother.
“Bruce,” Jayden tried again, adding more urgency to his tone. Hell, he wasn’t trying to protect him—although he would’ve done anything to protect Violet from this little scene—but he wanted the guy to at least stop fucking long enough to see the devastation on his fiancée’s face.
The guy must’ve finally gotten part of the message because he pulled away from the woman and turned to look at Jayden. He didn’t even see Violet as he grinned and suggested that Jayden join them.
Jayden tilted his head to the side, silently indicating Violet’s presence. Bruce leered drunkenly at her for three whole seconds before he recognized his fiancée.
“Oh, shit. I…um…it’s not what it looks like.”
Jayden snorted in disgust, but it was Violet’s reaction that surprised them all. Her hand connected with Bruce’s cheek in a slap hard enough that the sound echoed through the apartment. The drunk blonde giggled from her position on the sofa, and shouted, “You go, girl.” Jayden had a brief moment to wonder if the blonde realized she was lying naked with her legs still open, before he saw Bruce’s reaction.
An angry sneer on his face, Bruce swung his fist straight at Violet’s head. Jayden stepped between them, easily catching Bruce’s arm and twisting it behind his back. The guy yelped in surprise but seemed too drunk to have the thinking power to fight his way out of Jayden’s hold. Jayden released him when he dropped to his knees, but the stupid bastard crawled over to the lounge and buried his face between the blonde’s thighs. The woman made a delighted, giggly sound and threaded her fingers in his hair.
Without a word, Jayden wrapped his arm around Violet’s waist and led her outside. By the time he got her into the car and secured the seat belt around her she’d begun to shake in reaction. By the time they arrived at her apartment she was crying hard, and by the time she fell asleep in his arms he’d agreed to be her roommate.
Chapter One
Violet opened the door to the apartment and somehow found the energy to make it all the way to the couch. It had been one of those days. The type of shitty day where one thing went wrong, and then another, and another, and another until she’d finally wondered if maybe going home and crawling back into bed was her wisest choice.
As soon as Jayden saw her, he moved across the sofa and patted the space beside him. She practically fell onto the soft cushions.
“Tough day?” he asked as he lifted her legs onto his lap and began massaging the balls of her feet. She groaned at the incredible sensation and
nodded tiredly. They’d been roommates for almost a year now, and every day she fell just a little bit more in love with the guy.
But they were friends—just friends—and she valued the friendship too much to risk it for one of her disastrous relationships. She had a very bad track record in that arena, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to risk a solid friendship for fleeting sexual gratification. Of course she had to remind herself of that over and over as she bit back the moan that threatened to escape. The promise of one of Jayden’s amazing foot rubs was about the only thing that had gotten her through the day.
If he was this good with feet, how amazing would he be at rubbing other parts of her body? Forbidden images of him doing just that slid through her brain, and she closed her eyes as she tried to recall her daily mantra. What was it again? Oh, yeah, just friends. Just. Friends.
But then he pressed his thumb into a particularly sensitive spot, and the moan she’d been trying to deny escaped her lips, and her daily mantra dissolved into white noise in her brain.
Holy cow. Talk about magic hands. She closed her eyes, allowing herself a few self-indulgent moments as she imagined what would follow his heavenly foot rub if they were more than platonic roommates. He’d probably lean over and kiss her until the room spun, his hands roaming over her hips and spine as he pulled her closer. She could just imagine his hard cock pressed against her, rubbing back and forth, teasing her before plunging hard and deep into her dripping pussy.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Sex? Talk about sex? With Mr. Sex-on-a-stick?
She almost blurted her confused questions out loud before she realized what he meant. Talk about her day. Not sex. Shit.
“Um…no…not really. Just a shitty day.”
Understatement. But when Jayden was rubbing her feet, she could barely remember details—hell, she could barely remember her own name—so she shook her head again.
* * * *
Jayden could smell her arousal. He bit back the groan and tried to tell his cock to behave. Of course the damn thing wasn’t listening. He’d spent the last twelve months trying to control his rampaging need for this woman. Knowing that she was as physically attracted to him as he was to her, was so not helping his sanity.
Despite her heightened arousal whenever they were together, Violet had never once given him a sign that she would welcome more than platonic friendship from him. He shook his head and tried not to growl. Some days his uniqueness was both a gift and a curse. He knew that getting through years of medical training while surrounded by humans wasn’t going to be easy, but he really hadn’t counted on it being this hard either.
Hell, maybe it had just been too long since he’d shifted into his alter ego. When he’d shared an apartment with Violet’s ex-fiancé, he’d quite often slept in his shifted form, but he’d barely even considered it once he’d moved in with Violet. It was only now that he was realizing that it had been him subconsciously hoping for her to visit him in his bed.
“I need a glass of wine,” she said as she tried to extricate her feet from his hold. She rarely drank alcohol, and considering his previous roommate’s obsession with liquor, neither did Jayden.
“Wine sounds good,” he heard himself say. He lifted her feet up, slid out from under her legs, and headed into the kitchen. He grabbed the bottle of white wine that had been sitting in the back of the refrigerator for months, uncorked it, and carried two glasses back into the living area.
“Thanks,” she said as she took the glass and moved her legs so that he could sit beside her. She looked quite sad, and he wasn’t really certain why. He knew the anniversary of her engagement ending was coming around, but she’d spoken so little about her ex that he’d sort of assumed the man was history.
He opened his mouth to ask if she was all right, but she held the glass out and made a toast. “Happy birthday.”
Confused at first, Jayden was about to tell her that it wasn’t his birthday when his brain finally caught up. Shit. He hadn’t even given a thought to when her birthday might be. He put his glass on the coffee table and leaned over to press a soft kiss to her lips. He tried to keep it platonic but his mind and body screamed at him to deepen the contact. He pulled away almost roughly and growled the words, “Happy birthday.”
When she burst into tears, Jayden felt like the world’s biggest asshole. He gave up trying to control himself and hauled her into his arms instead. He cradled her close to his heart as she sobbed quietly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered a few moments later as she tried to lever herself out of Jayden’s embrace. He allowed her to sit up, but didn’t let her go far. Now that he finally had her in his arms he didn’t ever want to let her go. He ran his hand through her hair, the way he’d dreamed of doing a million times. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, but she was already pulling away, and he mourned the loss even as he acknowledged he had no right to crave what wasn’t his. Violet had always drawn a very firm line for their friendship, and he’d always respected her wishes, no matter how much he’d wanted more from her.
“God, I’m so embarrassed,” she said as she shuffled over to the other side of the sofa, wiped her eyes, and tried not to look at him.
“Don’t be,” he said, trying to sound casual. “After all, what are friends for if you can’t unload a few problems now and then?”
“Yup,” she said with a half-hiccup, half-laugh type of sound. “Friends.”
“That didn’t sound very convincing,” he said, trying to hide the hurt he suddenly felt. “I mean, we’re roommates, but you know you can tell me anything…if you want. I…consider you a friend, so you know anytime, anything…anything you want to tell me I’ll…”
She snorted, and pain ran through him once more. He knew there was an age gap, one that she probably considered insurmountable, but he’d at least believed they were friends. She must’ve finally realized how her words were affecting him because her gaze flew to his, and she started to apologize.
“Oh, hell, that came out all wrong,” she said in a watery voice. “We are friends. I consider you one of my closest friends—hell, probably the closest friend I have. I’m just…”
When she hesitated and dropped her gaze, he leaned over and lifted her face with a soft touch on her chin. “You’re just what?”
She closed her eyes, and tears leaked down her cheeks once more.
“I’m just confused. Lord knows I shouldn’t be thinking of you that way, but shit, I just can’t seem to control whatever hormones seem to be controlling me.” Jayden sat back feeling a little stunned by her out-of-character behavior. She’d never voiced her attraction to him, had always seemed intent on denying it, yet by her words it seemed that maybe her attraction wasn’t just a physical thing. He opened his mouth to ask any one of the million questions running through his head, but before he could say anything she levered herself to her feet and began pacing in front of the television.
Back and forth, back and forth. He probably should have tried to stop her agitated movements, but words started flowing from her mouth, and once she started speaking, he didn’t want to stop her. Whatever was on her mind, at least if she had a chance to say it out loud, it might help her to deal with whatever issue this birthday had brought into focus.
“Shit. Shit! Why do you have to be such a good guy? Why can’t you be an asshole?”
He shrugged. She wanted him to not be nice? Okay, he was only twenty-four and didn’t claim to understand women, but he was fairly certain his mother raised him to always treat a girl with respect. Why would Violet expect otherwise?
“Fuck. You don’t get it. You just don’t get it. I’m nearly five years older than you. I’m a fucking waitress. I have no future. I’ll probably always be a waitress. I don’t even have enough ambition to want to be anything else.” She ran her hands through her hair, her irritation with the auburn curls even more obvious today than when she was cursing her uncontrollable hair in the mornings. “And you,” she said, turning
an almost accusatory stare in his direction. “You! You are going to be a doctor. You’ve got your future all mapped out for you. We have nothing in common.”
Still confused, he stood and gathered her in his embrace once more.
“Don’t,” she said, even as she let him pull her closer. “We have nothing in common, and I have no right to want anything from you.”
“Tell me what you want,” Jayden said in a voice that he hoped was as confident and deep as his older brothers’.
“I want you,” she said in a voice that seemed filled with self-loathing.
“You already have me, babe.”
* * * *
Violet shook her head violently. “That’s not what I meant.” This was exactly the conversation she had been trying to avoid.
“I know what you meant.” He said it so confidently that she didn’t even try to resist the gentle hand that turned her face up to his. Jayden gazed into her eyes for a moment, perhaps waiting for her to deny what she felt. But she was so mesmerized by the deep brown of his eyes and the understanding that passed between them that she didn’t utter a sound.
And when he leaned over and pressed his lips to hers, instead of doing what her conscience screamed at her to do, she sighed into his mouth and kissed him back. She whimpered as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, tangling with hers, exploring her intimately.
Jayden held her closer, engulfing her in warmth, and she gave in to her need to be held even as she swore at herself to let him go.
