by Beverly Rae
His thoughts drifted and he remembered her scent. He lifted his hand to his nose and sniffed, extracting the aroma still lingering on his skin. Unable to resist, he’d pressed his nose against her and had taken a deep breath, forever committing her fragrance to memory. She smelled like a human, but her scent was different, more alluring…special.
And her skin. Her skin was softer than any female he’d ever touched. Oh, how he wished he could’ve slid his hand, instead of the rough pad of his paw, over her flesh. Her leg was firm, yet supple. She had a runner’s legs, not the soft fleshy legs some females had. He closed his eyes and could almost feel his paw sliding over the swell of her hips and along her side again. If he could have touched her breasts… But he hadn’t let himself go that far.
Conan tracked his fingers through his hair and groaned. He’d fought against the urge to stroke her lustrous hair, and somehow he’d denied the urge, knowing he would have frightened her more. Even in the filtered light of the woods, her brunette locks had shown their coppery highlights with glistening strands of blonde peeking through to tempt him. He clenched his fist, imagined taking the soft strands in his grasp, then letting them slip from between his fingers in a silky waterfall.
He blinked, his gaze falling to the drawing, and let out an exasperated sigh. One last look, then he would tear the page from her book, shredding it and scattering the pieces to the wind. Yes, she was good. Too good. But at least she hadn’t sketched his transformation from man to beast. He destroyed the image, placed the pencil on the sketchpad, and set it on top of a nearby rock next to the flask of liquor she’d left.
“Hmm. Now there’s something you don’t see very often. A naked guy with a sketchbook.” Billy Tyler, a were-coyote and Conan’s best friend, grinned at him and handed him his clothes. “I figured once I found your clothes, you couldn’t be far away.”
“Looks like you figured right.”
“Are you planning on inviting a lady friend back to the cave to see your sketches? Or have you enrolled in art classes in your spare time?”
Conan arched an eyebrow and looked down at his friend, his narrowed eyes pointedly staring at the smattering of freckles across his nose. Billy hated it when anyone stared at his freckles. He frowned and rubbed his nose.
“You aren’t as funny as you think you are.” Just to irritate him more, Conan ruffled Billy’s sandy hair and watched the irritation flare in his eyes.
Nonetheless, Billy was never far from another grin. “Tell me, man, where’d you get the drawing materials? It’s not as though we have an art store out here.” He cast him a sly smirk. “Conan, did you have a run-in with a human?”
“Never mind.”
Billy’s excitement was almost palpable. “You did, didn’t you? This after you told me a bullshit story about wanting to get away from both humans and your kind. You, my friend, answer the question everyone asks. Does a bear shit in the woods? Answer? Yeah, you sure do because you’re full of it.”
“Your mouth’s going to be full of my fist if you don’t shut up.” Conan growled, a warning that didn’t faze Billy.
“Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on. Seriously, man, keep your pants on.” He chuckled at Conan’s menacing expression, then took in the pieces of paper scattered on the ground. “I guess you didn’t like the picture? What was wrong with it? Did he give you a four-pack instead of a six-pack?”
He knew he shouldn’t, but somehow he always ended up telling Billy the truth. “A woman dropped the pad.”
“A woman dropped it, huh? Like out of an airplane? Or did she just happen to walk by and thought this was a great place to leave her things?” Billy’s blue eyes zeroed in on him. “Or let me guess. She saw you fishing and took off, leaving everything to run screaming into the forest. Am I right? Shit. Did she catch you with your drawers off and your fur on?”
His friend was intelligent if nothing else. “I didn’t know she was there.” Conan strode away, making the shorter man take two steps to his one to keep up.
“Aw, hell. She did, didn’t she? So she saw you change, didn’t she? Why didn’t you check before you shifted?”
Billy was right, of course, but having it thrown back in his face wasn’t helping his mood. “I forgot, okay? I was fishing, enjoying my time alone, and I shifted.”
“So you just did it? Without making sure no one saw you? Tell me. How many times have you warned me against doing that exact same thing?”
Digging in his heels, Conan pivoted, catching Billy before he had a chance to escape. He grabbed him under the arms and lifted him, bringing Billy’s face close to his. “Yeah, I get it. I screwed up. But what’s done is done, so let it go.”
Thanks to a determination not to be as scrawny as most were-coyotes, Billy worked out, building up his physique. He broke Conan’s hold on him and dropped to the ground. “Relax. No harm, no foul.”
Conan grunted, scooped up the fish he’d left on the shore and stalked into the water to stride to the other side of the stream. No harm, no foul was right. Or at least he hoped so.
“So, man, what did she look like?” Billy followed him, squeezing the water from his shirt once they’d reached the shore, then danced around him, keeping up with Conan’s quick stride. “Was she hot?”
Conan shot him a look that would’ve deterred anyone else from asking questions, but not Billy. Although he had a temper, Conan would never harm anyone unless he was in danger. A fact Billy knew well.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah what? Yeah she was hot?”
“Yeah. Brunette.” Conan envisioned her hair, saw the highlights and once again wanted to take a lock of her hair in his hands. “Long hair.”
“Ooh, cool. Did she have a good rack?”
He shot Billy a scornful glance and kept walking. “Yeah.” A good rack didn’t cover it. Her small breasts, firm and round in her tight T-shirt had quickened his pulse even before he’d started chasing after her.
“Was she tall? Taller than me?”
“Everyone’s taller than you.”
“Ha-ha, bro. Funny you ain’t. But I’ll forgive you if you’ll just open up and tell me about her. What did she smell like?”
Conan slammed to a stop and started to tell Billy to knock off the questions, but the memory of her scent highjacked his words.
“Whoa.” Billy pointed at him, an awed expression on his face. “You liked her scent. You, Mister I-Don’t-Like-Human-Smell, liked the way she smelled.”
Since Billy already had his answer, Conan forged on, heading to the cave they shared.
“She must’ve been something for you to remember her scent. Was she alone? Did she have a friend? Where do you think she came from? Her campsite has to be near the stream, right? Well, say something. Man, you really need to work on your communication skills.”
Conan grabbed his friend and snarled. “Do not get any stupid ideas.”
“Who, me? Of course not.”
Conan studied him but failed to get a good read. Billy looked sincere enough, but that didn’t mean anything. The man could lie with the best of them. It didn’t matter. He’d make sure they stayed away. He shook his head, hating the tickle crawling up his spine. Still, if he was determined to keep away, why couldn’t he shake the feeling that he hadn’t seen the last of the beautiful artist?
“How are you feeling?”
Chloe tore her gaze away from the fire, placed her mug of coffee next to her on the log and nodded at Nina. “Better.” She’d taken the first hour after she’d returned to the campsite to calm down, but now she was back to normal. Or at least on her way. “I’m sorry I left your flask. I’ll get it when I go back for my sketchpad.”
“I’m glad you’re doing better and you’ve got some color back in your face. But don’t worry about the flask or your pad. Those things are replaceable. A good friend isn’t.”
“Thanks, Nina.”
“You applied antiseptic to those scratches, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Pff. If I was your mom, you’d already be sitting at home in a nice hot bath with the biggest glass of wine I could find. Do you think we should pull up camp and head back to civilization?”
Chloe hugged the blanket around her. “No, it’s too late, and besides, I don’t like the idea of navigating those roads in the dark.”
“But if there’s a grizzly bear on the rampage…”
“I don’t think he’s on a rampage. I think it’s more likely that I startled him. I shouldn’t have run. I should’ve just backed away quietly, but I lost my head and blew it. Still, you moved the food away from the tents, right?”
“As ordered. It’s hanging from that tree in a backpack.”
“Good. But I think we’d better finish off those brownies before we hit the sack.”
“I’m way ahead of you.” Nina tossed her a foil-wrapped package containing two of the brownies. “I guess you really are feeling better if you’re thinking about chocolate.”
“I’m always thinking about chocolate.” Although Chloe was getting back to normal, she still couldn’t shake the way the bear had reacted. The way he’d stroked her, almost as though he was trying to calm her, just didn’t make any sense. Who’d ever heard of a bear comforting a human?
“I can’t figure out what a grizzly is doing in these parts. They’re not native to the area.”
“Maybe he escaped from a traveling circus.”
“A circus?” Chloe scoffed, but couldn’t argue the fact since she didn’t have a better explanation for why a bear normally found in the upper northwestern states had somehow ended up in North Carolina.
“Look, Chloe, I don’t mean to upset you or anything, but do you think maybe it wasn’t really a bear? Maybe it was a big dog or something. Maybe you drank too much crazy juice from the flask. I warned you that it was strong.”
Chloe shook her head. “No. This was real. Not some alcohol-induced hallucination. I know what I saw.”
“Hey, relax. I’m not saying you didn’t see something. I’m just questioning why you saw what you saw.” Nina poked the fire, then waved away the smoke. “Okay, so let me make sure I have this right. You went to the stream and found—wait for it—a naked man fishing with his bare hands.”
“That’s right. And not just any man. He was an Adonis.” Chloe pictured his Herculean body and felt her heart speed up. She’d had no choice but to try to capture the strength of his thick arms and legs, not to mention the broad expanse of his chest that had narrowed to a sculpted waist. Her stomach had tightened with excitement in much the same way as when she’d viewed the creations of Michelangelo’s David and the beauty of the Venus de Milo.
“And then you saw him change from a man into a bear? Am I getting this right?”
Chloe ignored the skepticism lacing Nina’s tone. Could she blame her for being skeptical? Would she have believed her friend if she’d told the same story? But she’d seen him change into the bear. Or had she? She frowned, no longer as sure as she’d been earlier. Could she have had too much to drink? After all, she wasn’t much of a drinker, and she’d had more than she normally consumed and at a much faster pace. But was it enough to make her see things?
“And the bear chased you, but it didn’t hurt you once it caught up with you?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Chloe scowled at her friend, but in reality, she was more irritated with her own lack of conviction than with her friend’s questions.
Nina didn’t back down, even at the harshness of Chloe’s tone. “Well, then I think you got off easy. A bear has you down on the ground and doesn’t touch you? Wow. Talk about getting lucky.”
But he had touched her. She just hadn’t told Nina that part. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t. Chloe stared into the fire. He’d touched her, all right. With his paw and his nose. She’d felt the strength in his stroke and had known he could kill her with one blow. But why couldn’t she shake the idea that he’d comforted her?
“Hi.”
Chloe jumped at the sound of a male voice and heard Nina utter a yelp before grabbing a nearby stick. Standing at the edge of the clearing stood a man, a big grin covering his face, and her sketchpad, pencils and flask in his hands. The threatening rumble of a thunderstorm overhead added to her already jangled nerves.
“Are these yours?” He took a step forward, then stopped as though waiting for an invitation to join them. “I found them by the stream.”
Nina held the stick in the air, ready to strike. “Is this him?” Her whisper, however, wasn’t as quiet as it should have been if the man’s widening smile was any indication.
“No.”
“Oh, good.”
Chloe glanced at her friend. “My guy—” My guy? “The guy in the stream was a lot bigger.”
“Hey, I’m bigger than I look. Besides, height doesn’t matter.” His grin took up most of his face as his gaze locked onto Nina. “Size does.”
“Ooh, he’s yummy.”
“Nina, he could be the ax murderer you were talking about.” Leave it to her free-loving friend to overlook his sudden appearance from out of nowhere.
“I don’t think so. And remember which one of us is the better judge of character. Especially of male character.” Nina tossed her hair, a sure sign that she was attracted to the man.
“Okay, then, drop the stick. I don’t think he’s going to play fetch.” Chloe approached him, careful to stay alert. He didn’t look like he wanted to hurt them, but who knew?
“I’ll play fetch if you want me to.”
He glanced at Chloe, but again his gaze slid back to Nina who blushed and giggled.
Oh, hell, she giggled. Nina’s silly laugh meant she was ready to flirt. Nina let the stick drop to the ground and returned his attention megawatt for megawatt. Chloe mumbled a warning, although she knew her sexually uninhibited friend wouldn’t listen. Once Nina set her sights on a man, she didn’t let go. Still, maybe if she got him away from their camp fast enough, she could keep Nina from jumping his bones.
“Where did you find that?” Chloe pointed to her sketchpad and reached out her hand.
He came closer, but she didn’t sense any danger. Instead, he seemed genuinely smitten with her friend and couldn’t keep his eyes off her. “I found everything down by the water sitting on a rock. Are they yours?”
“Yes.” He still hadn’t given her the pad so she leaned forward and tugged it out of his hand. She scanned through the pages and searched for the drawing she’d done by the stream, but the drawing had been ripped out of the book.
He continued to smile at Nina, oblivious to Chloe’s gasp of dismay. “I’m Billy Tyler.”
Nina was by Chloe’s side in an instant, his introduction the only incentive she’d needed. “Hi. I’m Nina Winters.”
Chloe waited for her friend to introduce her, too, but Nina and Billy didn’t seem to remember she existed. Unable to stand the way they looked at each other as though they couldn’t wait to touch, she took Billy’s hand and pumped it, hoping to break their connection and using the gesture to take the pencils and flask back. “I’m Chloe Long. Thanks for returning my stuff. But where’s the drawing I made? Did you tear it out?”
Instead of answering, however, he kept his focus on Nina. “Do you think I could sit down? With you?” He inclined his head toward the fire, offered his hand to Nina, then led her to take a seat on the log.
Feeling like the third wheel with Nina on the prowl was not an unusual situation for Chloe, but that didn’t mean she liked it any better. Circling the fire pit, she watched the two cuddle together as though they’d known each other for a lifetime.
What had just happened? A stranger shows up and Nina goes all gaga for him? Sure, it wasn’t the first time, but meeting a man in the forest? Leave it to Nina to make such an unlikely event happen. Still, their attraction had gone ballistic so fast. Was everything out of whack today or was she still inebriated and hallucinating again? Again?
An hour later Chloe’s third-wheel s
tatus was still intact. She’d listened to the couple talk about everything from nature to the possibility of life on Mars and had reached her limit. Excusing herself, she slipped into her tent and turned out the lantern.
Lying in the dark, she listened to the murmur of their voices. The attraction between them was undeniable. What had her grandmother once called it? Love at first sight? Until now, however, she wouldn’t have believed it could happen. Knowing Nina, it was probably more like lust at first glance, but who was she to judge? God knew she didn’t have the best track record with men. And Nina, well, Nina was another story. Her love life was simple and easy. And never had the rotten endings Chloe’s did. Maybe she should follow Nina’s lead from now on.
Cushioning her head with her arm, she turned on her side and watched their silhouettes as they moved into Nina’s tent and sat on her sleeping bag. An arm reached out to touch the other shadow and she imagined Billy brushing a lock of hair away from Nina’s face. Billy leaned forward, joining their shapes, and she heard Nina gasp.
Oh, man. If only… Chloe couldn’t begrudge her friend a night of pleasure. Just because her love life was nonexistent didn’t mean Nina couldn’t have a one-night stand. And Chloe would stay awake and watch, not to play voyeur, but to keep her friend safe.
Yeah, right. That’s why.
An ache of pure longing ripped through Chloe. How long had it been since Roger and she’d had sex? Of course now she understood why. All those nights he’d had to work late, all the times he’d claimed he’d been tired, he’d been cheating on her. If not with Jilly, then with someone else.
Nina’s happy laughter floated on the air as she stripped, the shadows showing her clothing being tossed to the tent floor. Billy’s silhouette did the same and soon the two bodies converged into one again.
Sighing, Chloe turned away from the sight. Nonetheless, she couldn’t block out the sounds they made. She gave up the pretense of trying to ignore what was happening in the next tent and turned over to watch.
