by Zoe Chant
"Thanks, Sammie Jo!" Cody called after her. A blush climbed his face under the suntan.
Crystal could feel her cheeks getting hot, too. "Is this what living in a small town is like?"
"All the time," Cody sighed. He glanced around the diner, where the early dinner crowd were starting to trickle in—mostly farmers in workboots or elderly couples. "As much as I love small-town life, it can be hard to get privacy sometimes."
"You know," Crystal said, her heart hammering, "we could go somewhere more private."
Cody turned his summer-storm eyes on her. "Got somewhere in mind?"
"Well, I have this motel room right around the corner ..."
Cody's eyes dilated, going dark with lust. Even through her own growing arousal, Crystal was fascinated; she'd never seen that happen to anyone before.
"Yes," he said hoarsely. "Yes ... I'd like that."
Cody threw a handful of bills on the table, and escorted her out with a hand lightly touching her elbow. Just that light touch on her skin was enough to make her knees wobbly.
She'd never had it this bad for anyone, especially not someone she'd barely met. But just like the family farm felt like home, Cody didn't feel like a stranger. On some deep level, she felt as if she'd always known him, as if their souls had twinned when they'd been born and they were only now finding their way back to each other.
By the time they got to the parking lot, the heat between them had grown unbearable, a quivering untapped well of energy seeking a release. When she turned to look up at him, the intensity of his gaze made her gasp. With her lips already parted, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for Cody to lean down and for her to stretch up. Their mouths came together like a circuit closing.
She lost all sense of time. When she surfaced from the kiss, it was to find Cody gazing into her eyes as if mesmerized, one hand on her face and the other resting just above the swell of her hip.
"Motel?" he breathed, staring into her face like he wanted to memorize every line.
"Motel."
***
The Stumble On Inn was right around the corner, an L-shaped strip of a dozen doors, their green paint peeling and faded. As far as Crystal had been able to tell, she was the only guest.
They were kissing as they tumbled through the door, their hands all over each other's bodies. Cody kicked the door shut, and they stumbled to the bed and collapsed on top of the freshly fixed sheets.
Just kissing him with all their clothes on already had Crystal so aroused she thought she might lose control and go straight over the edge the moment he touched her inner thighs. She couldn't imagine what having their clothes off was going to be like—and at the same time, she wanted him all over her, needed him all over her. Her entire body quivered with raw desire.
Cody pushed his knee between her legs, and she opened for him, grinding against his thigh as they rolled together on the bed. She struggled to unbutton his shirt while they writhed together and finally gave up, giving it a tremendous yank that parted it in front, revealing his T-shirt-clad chest and sending buttons scattering across the bed.
"Sorry!" she gasped against his mouth.
"Don't care!" was his indistinct answer.
Now she could get his hands on the hard planes of his chest. His hands were under her T-shirt, fumbling with her bra clasp. He managed to undo it; now the bra was flopping loose on her chest. She untangled herself from Cody long enough to sit up, kneeling beside him, and quickly stripped the T-shirt over her head. The bra followed it an instant later, flung across the room.
"You're gorgeous," Cody whispered. He reached up to cup her breasts in his hands, stroking his thumbs over her nipples and sending little electric zings through her.
No one had ever said that to her before. She liked her body, but a lot of guys weren't into that kind of thing—the little rolls over the top of her jeans, the gentle curve of her tummy. She wasn't supermodel-thin and was never going to be.
But Cody was looking at her with eyes dark with lust, and something softer, deeper, as if he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment.
She didn't know what was happening between them, but one thing she did know: if he kept just lying there looking at her, especially with the way he was rubbing her nipples, she was going to go out of her mind from frustrated arousal.
Swinging a leg over him, she straddled his waist. Cody's hips involuntarily bucked and she felt the graze of his erection, straining at his jeans. She grinned, rubbing her wet sex against him through the fabric of her soaked underwear and jeans.
"Watch it, woman," Cody growled. He took hold of her around the waist. "What are you trying to do, drive me out of my mind?"
"I'm hoping that's what you're gonna do to me." She writhed, rubbing on him. "But you've got too many clothes on."
His lips parted in a wild grin, and he lifted her and rolled over in one smooth motion, so she was pressed down to the bed with Cody on top of her. "Drive you out of your mind? Like this?" he asked in a voice that was rough with need, nipping at her collarbone and the hollow at the base of her neck. "Like this?" He took one of her nipples in his mouth, laving it with his tongue while he ground slow circles with his hips, his erection brushing her thigh on each downstroke.
"Like that," she gasped, hips rising to meet his next thrust. Ineffectually clumsy as lust rose in her, she struggled with his T-shirt, trying to strip it off, trying to touch him everywhere. Their hips were moving in sync now, even though they hadn't experienced union yet. "I need you—need all of you—oh—"
Cody moved his attention to her other breast before finally sitting up and peeling off the T-shirt and the ripped plaid shirt over it, flinging them aside. He undid his jeans one-handed and lifted his hips to slide them down. The boxers went after them.
And now he was naked on top of her, and he was glorious. All the promise she'd sensed under his clothes was fulfilled in him. He wasn't overly bulky; instead he had the lean muscle of a man who'd gotten it from hard work rather than working out. His body hair was the same light, gold-dusted brown as the rest of his hair, trailing in a fine line down his flat, hard belly to the nest of curls framing his massive, fully erect cock.
He was huge. She caught her breath at the sight of it. One part of her couldn't help thinking Is that going to FIT? but most of the rest of her was already on fire with the anticipation of how his thickness and girth would stretch her inner walls, the heat as he'd slide in—
She groaned and wriggled her hips in wordless need. Cody still took his time taking her pants off, sliding them down one leg at a time. He kissed her inner thigh and nuzzled against the damp crotch of her panties.
In a small, distant part of her mind, she was glad she'd worn the black silk ones today. It was as if she'd known she'd be meeting someone who was worth the good underwear.
Cody probed at her mound with his tongue through the fabric of her panties. Her hips lifted and she groaned again. Cody mouthed at her throbbing clit and finally, finally pulled down her panties as she gasped in reaction.
She was so aroused that just the brush of the air on her clit sent a hot quiver through her. When he pressed a finger into her, then two, she arched her head back and gripped two fistfuls of the sheet.
"How much longer do you think I can hold out, Cody Hayes?" she gasped.
He dipped his tongue briefly between her folds, a quick lap that made her shudder, and then, at last, he was leaning over her and guiding himself into her and—ah—
He went in slow, aware of his size and careful not to hurt her. He needn't have worried; she was so wet and open that she took him all, down to the base, tilting her hips up instinctively to give him better access.
"Okay?" he murmured, bent over her with his face pressed into her sweat-damp neck.
"Oh God," was the only response she could manage. She pushed her hips against his, the inner pressure singing down every nerve ending.
He started to move, slowly, the fullness of his cock gliding aga
inst her soaking wet inner walls. It was amazing. It was like no sex she'd ever had before. Her entire body was an endless hum of pleasure, tingling down to her fingertips.
Vaguely she was aware of Cody nuzzling against her neck. His teeth brushed her skin lightly, sharp little zings on her incredibly sensitive nerves.
His thrusts sped up, and her hips moved to keep pace, snapping back to meet him each time he bore down. She couldn't have stopped now if she'd wanted to. He pounded into her and she met him every time, rising waves of pleasure lapping through her, mounting to impossible heights.
"Cody—" she gasped, and she heard him call out her name in a rough cry of passion as her head arched back and she came in a lightning flare of sensation. Cody's body bucked and heat filled her as her shudders of orgasm brought him to his own climax.
They pulsed together through the aftershocks and collapsed in a sweaty, sated heap on the bed.
As her ability for rational thought started to trickle back, Crystal kissed him lightly on the corner of his mouth and murmured, "You're heavy."
"Sorry." He rolled off her, and with a little regret, she felt him slip out of her as he softened.
"Wow," she murmured, gazing up at the water-stained motel ceiling. It seemed like a sudden shame that their first time hadn't happened somewhere more, well, magical. The way she felt right now, though, it didn't matter if they'd had sex in the back of his pickup truck. She felt almost high, her head swimming and her body utterly limp with fulfilled pleasure.
She could never imagine being more content than she was at this moment.
6. Cody
The urge to claim his mate had been almost overwhelming, his teeth hovering over her neck, on the verge of leaving a claiming mark. But he had resisted. And now that he'd come down from the sex high, Cody was glad he'd waited. She was human; she didn't know what a mate bond meant.
As he lay beside his mate on the motel bed, the sweat drying on both their bodies, he wondered how to explain. She probably knew about shifters; most humans did. But she didn't know that he was a shifter. And even humans who knew about them had a lot of misconceptions. The only shifters most of them had ever seen had been characters on TV shows, where shifting was just a special effect.
How could he tell her in a way she could understand and accept?
He needed to talk to the rest of his clan, he decided. Three of the other four bears in his clan were mated to humans. They would surely have good advice for how to explain the situation to Crystal without confusing her or scaring her off. Of the various humans on the ranch, he got along particularly well with Tara. She was friendly and easy to talk to, and she was always there, since she worked from her home office. Charmian spent a lot of time away at her midwife job, and Daisy was usually back up in the hills at Gannon's cabin, so Tara and Saffron were the mates that he knew best. And Saffron was a fellow shifter, so she wouldn't be much help in this particular case. She and Tara were close, though, having become best friends as the only two moms among the Circle B mates, so far.
Yes. That was a good plan. He'd talk to Tara and ask her how Axl had told her about shifters and fated mates.
When he sat up, Crystal stirred beside him. She rolled over and yawned. "Wow," she murmured. "I think I almost fell asleep there. Sorry."
"You never need to apologize to me." He stroked a lock of sex-tousled hair away from the perfect curve of her cheek. "Asleep or awake, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
She smiled sleepily, but then it morphed into a slight frown. "Let's not get too carried away here, buddy. You've only just met me, after all. You haven't seen me when I'm tired and cranky, or before my first cup of coffee in the morning."
"It doesn't matter. I don't think you could ever look less beautiful to me than you do right now."
"Mm-hm. Let's just wait to make that kind of declaration until you've had to deal with PMS Crystal." She yawned again, stretched, and sat up, swinging her legs off the bed. Cody couldn't help drinking in every move, every luscious curve of her. "As wonderful as this was, and as much as I hate to make you think I don't want to lie here and cuddle until midnight, all I was doing just then was thinking about more things I need to buy for the farm. I should go hit some stores before everything starts to close, so I can make a bright and early start at the farm in the morning. Er, have you seen my underwear?"
Cody retrieved her panties from the foot of the bed and handed them to her.
"Thanks. Do I smell? I do, don't I?" She sniffed her armpit. "I could take a quick shower, I guess. Or ... no ... maybe if I just don't stand too close to people—"
"You smell wonderful." Cody kissed her bare shoulder. "Want a guide? Let me know what you need, and I can show you where to buy it."
"Don't you have to get back to your ranch?" she asked, reaching for her discarded jeans. "I mean, out here, 'til the cows come home' has a pretty literal meaning, and your cows are going to be coming home anytime, aren't they?"
Cody had to laugh. "I'm not the only person on the ranch. There are other people to handle the chores. But ... you're right. They don't know where I am, and I do have responsibilities up there."
And also down here. But until he had that talk with her about fated mates, he couldn't explain why he needed to stick so close to her. Being parted from her was going to feel like having a part of his soul torn away, even though she was just a few miles away; he could sense it already. But ...
But for now, she had her life and he had his.
A life he'd give up in an instant if she asked him to. But he couldn't explain that to her, not yet. One thing he did know, from getting to know his clan brothers' human mates, was that humans had very particular ideas about how relationships were supposed to grow and develop. Being willing to change your entire life for a person you had just met wasn't how humans thought a relationship was supposed to work.
Above all, he didn't want to give her any cause for uncertainty or concern.
So, for now, he let himself be content with a long, lingering goodbye kiss at the door of her motel room. As their lips parted, Crystal looked up at him with big, anxious brown eyes. "Are you sure you don't mind me running off like this? It's nothing to do with you. And definitely nothing to do with today. Today was amazing. It's just ..."
"It's just that you have things to do. I get that." He brushed his hand across her cheek. "I'll see you bright and early at the farm tomorrow, how does that sound?"
"It sounds like the best thing ever. In fact, how about I bring breakfast? I can have Marge package up a couple of breakfasts to go at the diner—what are you grinning about?"
"I know the diner is called Marge's, but her name's actually Sammie Jo. And don't ask me about the story behind it. I think there was a Marge at one point, but Sammie Jo's been the face of the operation since I was a kid."
"Fine." She gave a playful little tug on his ponytail. "I'll have Sammie Jo box us up two breakfasts. Ham and eggs sound good?"
"Tell her I want my usual. She'll know what that means."
"Amazing," she murmured. "Small towns." She kissed him again, and Cody's hands drifted to cup her generous buttocks. "Mmmm. Yes. I'd better go or I'll never get out of here."
"Would that really be so terrible?"
"If I want to make it to the town that actually has stores before all of them close, yes."
"That's Spring Meadow, the county seat. My cousin Axl runs the sheriff's office there."
"Are you related to literally everyone in the county, Cody?"
"I'll have to introduce you around. If you want me to." He kissed her again, a light brush of his lips on the corner of her mouth. "We should have a barbecue up at the ranch. You can put faces to all of these names I keep dropping."
They're going to want to meet my mate. But that was part of the whole thing he didn't quite know how to talk about yet.
And now she was frowning. "Cody, I'd like to meet your friends, but this is starting to sound awfully like meeting your family, you k
now, in the 'this relationship is serious' kind of way, and I don't want you to think—I mean, I have to go back to St. Louis at the end of all of this, you know that."
"Shhh." He brushed her cheek with his fingertips. "I know you're leaving in two weeks—"
"More like a week and a half—"
"But that's still a week and a half." He rested his cheek against hers, bowing his head so he could breathe in the smell of her. "Let's just enjoy it and not think about the future too much."
Crystal sighed gustily against his neck. "Not think about the future. Good luck with that. Sometimes it seems like all I do is think about the future."
"Well, maybe it's time to just live day to day for a while. Settle into the natural rhythms of the world. The sun comes up, the stock needs to be fed, the sun goes down. It's simple."
Another sigh, so sad that he yearned to lift the weight of the world off her shoulders and carry it for her. "Nothing's ever that simple. But thank you."
Cody kissed her neck. "You better get going or everything will be closed."
"Yes. I should." She peeled herself away, very slowly, with a certain amount of kissing and light, affectionate touches along the way. "Remind me again why I'm not just spending the rest of the day in bed with you and having sex about four more times?"
A heat and tightening in his groin made his cock's opinion known. Down, boy. "Because you're responsible, and I'm responsible, and we both have responsibilities elsewhere."
"Oh right." She grinned, gave his hand a tight squeeze, and then turned to lock the motel door behind them. "Ah, well. Until tomorrow."
"What do you want me to bring?" Cody asked as they walked back to their vehicles; he'd just parked beside hers in an empty space, figuring nobody was going to mind. "I saw a brush-cutter in the barn."
"Is that what that is? I know there's a rototiller. My mom's parents in Illinois have a garden, so I'm familiar with those."
