by Skye Jones
“Charlie. Thank God.” Brenin ran to her and enveloped her in his big arms. His big, naked arms.
“Erm, you’re naked.” She laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. Great, now she seemed to be turning hysterical.
“I’m going to change into my bear and get you home before you freeze. Are you okay, honey?”
She nodded. Not sure if she really was but wanting the hell out of there.
“Good girl. Get on my back when I change into bear form, and we’ll head back.”
A bear shifter. Yes, she remembered it all now. And those women must have been the fairies the shifters had warned her of.
“You ready?” Bren looked at her.
“I’ll fall off.” She didn’t fancy riding a grizzly bear. Not even Bren’s bear.
“Nah, you won’t. Cling on tight to my ruff and don’t let go. But we have to move, baby. The dark fairies had you in their power, and the longer we linger, the more danger there is.”
Justin spat something out of his mouth. She avoided looking at his nudity as he handed it over. “This will help protect you,” he said.
A ring. She turned the dark iron ring over and tried to slide it onto her middle finger, but it wouldn’t go over the knuckle.
“Ring finger. I made it to fit your ring finger. I based it on the ring you wear on your right hand. You’d left it on the counter in Bren’s bathroom, so I borrowed it.” He gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry about the whole carrying it in my mouth thing, too, but I didn’t have much choice in bear form.”
She wore her grandma’s ring on her right hand, so she put the iron ring on her left-hand ring finger and studiously avoided Bren’s heated gaze.
“Get ready to climb up and hold on.” Bren gave a nod to the others, and they all changed quick as a flash into their bears.
Bren lay down to make it easy for her to climb on his back. When he stood, she made sure her fingers fisted tightly in his thick coat of fur.
They ran through the snowy landscape, and it proved magical in the best way. Oh, good, good, good. The happy, angelic voices reached her. You’re free, free, free. He came for you. You broke the spell. You are both strong. This is your mate. This is meant to be. You and he will be a great mated pair and will bring much happiness to our little area of land. Please stay. We worked great magic to help you two meet. Some things are meant to be. Stay with him. With the clan.
They all joined in then. Yes, please stay. Stay, Stay. Stay.
The request followed her all the way home. Bren let her dismount outside the house, and then the shifters changed into their human form. She followed the three naked folk in through the porch, wondering if she’d get used to it if she hung around for a while.
Whoa! Did she mean to stay? She considered staying for a while, at least. Get to know Bren a bit better. People needed to know where she’d been, though. Her mum would be sick with worry by now. And her employers needed to be made aware of what had happened to her. The police might be looking for her by now. People didn’t simply disappear without anyone caring.
So…she’d need to go home for a while. But then? Did she happily return to her dull old life and leave all this behind? Or should she give things a go here? Give her and Bren a chance? Would he even want her to when he got over the shock of her being missing? He’d spent the last few days pushing her away, after all.
The guys were pulling on various items of clothing, and once dressed, Bren held out his hand to her.
“Come with me.” He took her upstairs to his bedroom and closed the door behind them. “I know you haven’t been made welcome by me. And I get asking you to stay now is a huge request. But when I thought you were lost…” He paused and cleared his throat. “It killed me. I swear, Charlie, I’ve never felt anything like it before.”
“As soon as I heard your voice in that strange place, I came back to myself, back to reality.” She might be scared of the connection they had, but she couldn’t deny it. A troubling thought occurred to her, and she twisted the ring on her finger. “I still heard some of the voices on the way back here. The ones belonging to those Aiyana called the good fairies, but I’m wearing the ring. Does it mean they’ll always be able to reach me? The bad ones, too?”
He shook his head. “The ring is a ward against the dark fae. The good ones won’t do anything but talk to you. And I’m sure if you want them to stop, you can ask and they will.”
She swallowed down a nervous lump in her throat. “They want me to stay,” she said. “They think you and I are a match made in heaven.”
“I think they might be right,” Bren said with a small smile.
“But you fear I won’t want to change, right?”
“Yes. I’m scared you won’t want to become a shifter, but I’ve made a decision.” He huffed out a long breath. “I want to see more of you. Want to get to know you. But I won’t mate with you unless you do decide you want to shift. We can be careful. If we do make love again, we’ll use condoms, we won’t let things go too far. Once you decide one way or another, then we can take things further.”
She carried right on twisting the ring on her hand, not able to meet those warm eyes. “I think…I think if I decided to be with you, then I’d want to change. I’d want the whole experience, Bren. All of it. But I have a life away from here.”
“It’s not a life I can be part of,” he said, and his mouth turned down at the corners
“No. I understand. But Aiyana talked to me the other day, when you were avoiding me.” She poked him in the arm, and he gave a sheepish smile, reaching out and holding her neck to pull her in for a soft brush of lips.
It took her a moment to pull herself together after only a brief touch from him. “She says you need a manager. You all suck at paperwork. You and Kyle do the physical stuff. She and Eric the meet and greet with the tourists. And Justin does all the odd jobs. Despite this late snow, the tourist season starts in a little over a month. How about I go home, pack up some things, sort my job out. And basically get my life in order so the whole world doesn’t think I disappeared, and then I come back. It gives us a month to think things through without all these weird, supernatural hormones messing with our minds. If we still want one another, I come back in a month.”
“And be my mate?” His voice held equal amounts fear and desire, and she bit back a smile at the way his emotions so closely mirrored her own.
“No. Not right off the bat. I live here, in the spare room. We date, or whatever you guys do.”
He met her gaze then, his heated with fire. “We tend to mostly fuck, to be honest. Sometimes for days or weeks on end, and then we mate.”
“Okay.” She suppressed a shiver of desire. “I come back here and we…do what you said. We also get to know one another, because those things matter to me as a human. I help you guys out here so I feel useful. And if it works… If I fall for you…” She smiled at his sharp inhalation. “Then we make this official, bear style.”
She laid down the law. No way could she simply say she’d mate with Bren straightaway, no matter how much she wanted him. She needed some time. If, in a month, she still wanted to be with him, then she’d return to this house and spend some time getting to know him properly. Her father’s crappy treatment of her mother after a whirlwind romance and a quickie wedding meant she needed to be certain before committing herself to anything deep. And it would be deep. Everything she’d learned through chatting with Aiyana had explained just how permanent and strong a mating bond was. As far as she was concerned, this kind of commitment demanded respect and needed the parties entering into it to be damn sure.
“Okay.” He picked up her hand and squeezed it in his own big one. “It sounds like a plan.”
“So, tomorrow, you take me home and I stay there for three or four weeks, sorting my shit out. But you guys get a satellite phone so I can call you, yeah?”
He nodded. “I don’t like the idea of you being away from me for so long.” His voice came out low and tight.
> “Me neither, funnily enough. But I need to get stuff arranged. We can talk on the phone daily. Hey, have you had phone sex before?”
He shook his head, but his expression brightened.
“Well, there’s something new to look forward to.”
“Then we get to be together, if we both still want it.”
“Yes, if we both still want it.”
He nodded, and then he kissed her properly.
Chapter 10
It had been a hell of a month. He’d jacked off more in the last twenty-nine days than the rest of his life put together. He’d also done a lot of soul-searching…and some deep thinking.
They’d talked every evening. Sometimes, their chats were hot and heavy, and they’d had some amazing phone sex, as well as some naughty video conferences over Skype. But they’d also spent a lot of time talking about their lives. Despite missing her terribly, in many ways, he viewed their break as a good thing. They’d gotten to know each other as people. He learned about how much she’d loved horses ever since she was a young girl. She talked to him about her deepest wishes, how she felt she’d been treading water, not really living her life but not sure what she wanted to do.
She’d also sent him some of her photos via Snapchat, and they were good. Her confidence in her talent was rock bottom, but he sensed a good eye behind the photos. They were very different from his. Bright and colorful; sometimes she’d used filters to intensify the hues. But some of the ones she’d taken of her friends looked as if they’d fit into a fashion magazine. She seemed adept at capturing moments well.
He looked forward to the two of them going out together and taking pictures of the often melancholy landscape where he lived. It was beautiful but at times forbidding, and he liked to capture it in black-and-white. And he wanted to see how Charlie would photograph it. Would she see it the same way as he did? Maybe she’d prefer to take pictures in the height of summer, when the flowers were in bloom and the insects buzzed about. Whereas he preferred the quiet of winter and early spring and the decay of autumn. Although, since she’d come into his life, he’d found himself wanting to capture the more beautiful spots around where he lived rather than the striking but harsh places he often found himself drawn to. At this rate, he’d be photographing bright yellow daffodils and brilliant bluebells instead of his moody black-and-white moors and mountains.
One night, they’d been talking, and she’d played him a load of her favorite “cheesy tunes,” as she called them. Lots of ABBA, early Kylie, Take That, and Sister Sledge. His own tastes ran to heavy rock, so he had not returned the favor, but he would once she got here. Which…he glanced at his watch. Yep, any moment now.
His stomach was in damn knots. Brenin went and stood on the porch, door open, just in time to see a small car pull onto the gravel in front of the house. Aiyana clambered out, followed by Charlie.
His heart soared. He’d wanted to be the one to go and pick her up, but Aiyana said she ought to do it. Give them time for some so-called girl talk. Whatever. He’d agreed because he wanted to make Charlie happy and comfortable here, and having Aiyana as a friend would help.
She looked good. More than good. Her long red hair shone in the early spring sunlight, and her gorgeous curves were wrapped in snug-fitting dark jeans and a tight sweater, topped with a cardigan. He wanted to peel the clothes right off her and taste every single inch of her creamy skin. He needed her. To fuck her. Make love to her. To take her hard and fast, and gentle and slow.
It had been almost four long, painful weeks. Each day reinforced how much he wanted to be with Charlie. He’d called his father, after Kyle bought a new satellite phone, and asked his dad’s advice. His father surprised him by telling Bren to go for it.
His exact words rang in Bren’s mind now. “Bren, son, I’d do it all over again. Even with the same outcome. Do you think for one moment I’d choose to lose any of the time I spent with your mother?”
He’d never looked at it that way, and his father’s words helped rid him of his last vestiges of resistance. Now, looking at Charlie as she walked toward him, a smile playing about her gorgeous lips, any lingering doubts flew away, as insubstantial as gossamer threads. They’d make this work. He’d do anything in his power to ensure it.
She reached him, and he wrapped her in his arms, her warm softness a balm to his tired soul. He didn’t want to be alone any longer. He wanted to allow someone in, allow Charlie in.
She sighed against his sweater and mumbled, “I missed you so much.”
“Me too.” He let the guys grab her bags and put them to one side in the hallway, as he pulled her behind him and up the stairs.
“Are you here to stay for a while? To…you know, do the…dating thing we discussed?” Nerves had him all tongue-tied.
“Yes, I am.” They reached his bedroom, and he hesitated, knowing she’d said she’d be in the spare room.
“I still think I need my own space at first, for my things.” She jerked her head toward the spare room. “But I’m sure I’ll be spending a fair bit of time in here.”
Charlie was the one to push open the door and pull him through it with her.
“Now, why don’t you show me the filthy things you were doing to yourself for my benefit the other night, but in person this time?”
He didn’t hesitate. She seemed to have a real fetish for watching him jerk off; the satellite phone had proved useful in that respect. He wasn’t sure the inventors of Skype meant for it to be used in the way he and Charlie had, but he didn’t care.
She reached for him and pulled his mouth down to hers as he kicked the door shut behind him.
The moment their lips touched, his world exploded with scents and tastes that drove him wild.
“Oh.” She pulled away, and he went after her with a low grumble.
“Uh, uh, uh.” She batted his hands away and took her handbag from around her shoulder. “I bought you something.”
He frowned as she opened the bag. He’d gotten her a gift, too, but now that she’d arrived, he grew nervous about giving it to her. Thought it might seem a way to pressure her into staying, when he’d honestly not meant it in such a way.
She handed him a neat white box with a black ribbon wrapped around it. He opened it to see a small Leica digital camera. He blinked in shock at the thing of beauty in his hand.
“Wow.” He grinned at her.
“I know you have the large Canons, but I wanted to get you something smaller so you can carry it with you all the time and take pics whenever you want.”
He swallowed past the lump in his throat, but then something struck him, and he frowned. “Honey, this is amazing, and I’m truly touched, but it’s an expensive gift.”
Her flushed cheeks told him he’d hit a nerve, and he ran his tongue over a suddenly dry mouth. The awkward silence reminded him how little they still knew one another, despite their late-night chats. How he wanted to rectify that.
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It’s amazing…so thoughtful, but I don’t want you spending money you can’t afford.”
“Bren,” she sighed. “I didn’t exactly live a social whirl. I’m not into clothes, and my hobbies aren’t expensive. I wanted to get you something. Talking to you, getting to know you this past month, it’s been the highlight of my days.”
Her flush intensified, and she dropped her gaze.
“Hey.” He tipped her chin up. “Don’t go hiding from me. It’s been mine, too.”
He itched to give her the surprise he’d prepared for her, but he wanted to wait a while. And frankly, right now, he needed to touch her.
“I love it.” He pulled her in to murmur against her hair. He’d been dreaming about this hair of hers. The deep red contrasting so gorgeously with her pale skin.
She turned her face up to his, and he let himself look at her for a moment, enjoying having her right in front of him. Then he bent his head and took her mouth in a demanding kiss, and she opened right up and met him with her own hun
ger as fierce as his.
They moaned against one another, and he pressed into her, needing to meld their bodies as close together as possible. She pushed right back at him, and her arms went up around his neck as she clung to him.
He needed her clothes off, off, off. So he began to tug at the pale green cardigan she wore. It slipped easily from her shoulders, leaving her in a thin cream sweater. When he touched it, the wool was so soft, and he gave an approving humming sound in the back of his throat.
“It’s cashmere,” she said. “I’m not into fashion as such, but I love the feel of cashmere and silk against my skin.”
He smiled at that. His little sensualist. He’d buy her silk sheets. Silk clothes. Silk underwear. Hell, he’d drape the damn house in silk for her if it pleased her.
“Feels nice.” He wanted it off, though. He pulled up the hem as she lifted her arms, helping him remove it.
Her jeans were next, and she toed her boots off first as he pulled the zipper down. Then she was in only her underwear, standing before him, glorious and beautiful in her own skin and the deep red lace she wore.
“This is sexy.” He lifted the bra strap from her shoulder.
“Glad you like it. I got it with you in mind.” Again, her cheeks flushed, and he realized her skin was a sort of emotional weather vane. It pinked up when she was turned on or embarrassed, and it went deathly pale when she was shocked. She tended to get a tiny bright blush of color high up on her cheeks when angry.
But now, he wanted to see the deep flush that started at her neck that she wore when turned on. So he ran his hands down her back, reveling in touching the skin he’d dreamed about for weeks.
She shivered under his touch, and tiny goose bumps broke out along her arms. He kissed her neck, brushing her hair to one side to give him access, and her goose bumps intensified. When he pulled away, her nipples were hard and poking at the lace of her bra.
He wanted her so badly, but he needed to keep himself in check and locked down to a degree. She said she didn’t like it when he did so, but if he let his wild side out now, they’d end up mated before they knew it, and they needed some more time to cement their bond. Or at least, she did. He knew what he wanted now, but he also sensed the skittishness still lingering in Charlie.
