Big Bad Bear: Billionaire Shifter Romance

by Linda Mathers

  Before her eyes, there was an expansive chamber full of chains and locks, and all manner of sadistic looking devices. The “serial killer” idea lit up in her mind again, and she fought the impulse to run for the hills. Once more she remained rooted to the spot, continuing on under the man's unfathomable magnetism. She calmed herself down, noticing how clean the room was, and told herself that perhaps it wasn't as sinister as she'd been thinking.

  These are all basically sex toys, she thought to herself, and she felt ridiculous for having let her mind jump to the serial killer conclusion. But another wave of anxiety rolled over her as she studied the concrete proof that Owen's intentions for her were sexual in nature. And what was more, this wasn't just normal sex he seemed to be propositioning - he wanted her to tie him up, perhaps beat him with whips. Or worse still, he wanted to tie her up and make her submit to him. As tantalizing as it may outwardly appear, she wasn't quite sure just how she was prepared to handle such abuse, and wondered if it was a part of her job description.

  Whilst all these things ran through her head, Owen didn't make the slightest move toward her. He didn't lay a hand on her. He remained just as civil as ever until he turned to face her, and she caught the terrible pain in his expression, alarming her. She gasped, trying not to let herself be too overwhelmed by it, yet she felt herself growing more confused with every additional twist that came her way.

  “Brooke, here's what I need from you. Chain me up, tie me down on that table over there, exit this room, and close the door behind you. Then tomorrow morning at six AM, come back and get me.”

  She stared at him, dazed by the information. She waited for any elaboration, but he said no more, and she didn't feel she could ask for more.

  “If - if that's what you want,” she said. She waited for a moment, expecting him to finally reveal his reasons, or for him to get undressed, convinced that this was some manner of sexual fetish.

  After nothing happened, she followed him over to the bench with a lump in her throat. He laid down on its surface, and she strapped him onto the surface with trembling hands. It felt strange, dominating her boss in this way, but she couldn't deny the erotic charm to her actions. She grunted as she secured him tightly to the bench, pulling, fastening the chains all around him as best she could.

  “Tighter... Tighter...” he implored, all the while she feared cutting the circulation off from his limbs, killing him somehow with her lack of expertise. At last he let out a contented sigh, and said, convincingly enough, “Alright... That's good...”

  Her fingers were trembling as she stepped away. She stared for a moment at the indentations in her palms where the chains had sunk into her flesh. It took her a moment before she could force herself to look at him in his present state, but at last she managed to do so, catching sight of a clearly visible erection through his pants that she did her best to ignore. He was breathing heavily, and she wondered whether he might now ask her to start beating him or something. She wasn't sure whether she could handle that.

  However, when he spoke, it wasn't a plea for sadism that passed his lips, but the same even, business like tones with which he'd spoken to her the entire time up to this point.

  “Alright. Great job, you've done well. Now, repeat back to me the combination I gave you.”

  “Um... 325, 527.”

  “Perfect, you've got it. Now go, please. And remember, no matter what, don't come back until six o'clock tomorrow morning. If you have any questions, you can ask Jones. His home number is on my refrigerator in the event of an emergency.”

  “O- kay then. Alright... Goodnight then...”

  She turned to go, but he stopped her one final time.

  “And Brooke?”

  “Yes?” She said, turning back nervously toward him.

  “You've done a wonderful job for your first day. I just wanted you to know that,” he smiled at her.

  “Oh. Thank you,” she said, supposing that praise was a good sign.

  “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” she said again, before tapping the code in and locking him inside the chamber.

  She crept off to her room, and closed the door behind her. Her mind was in a daze and she blinked, trying to find her bearings. She only scarcely realized what she was doing as she peeled out of the dress he'd bought her, then tossed the thing to the floor in a heap. She stood, topless and panting in the middle of the room which was cool and air conditioned, but felt swelteringly hot in her present state of anxiety and bewilderment. She looked at her other dress on the bed and it occurred to her that she didn't have any sort of sleepwear here yet. She thought about slipping back into her discarded clothes, but instead simply slid out of her panties, and settled for sleeping naked.

  She pulled the blankets over herself, snuggling down and closing her eyes, trying to empty her mind of all the things that happened over the course of the past day.

  Before drifting off, she heard loud crashing noises coming from deep within the building, and she had to go out of her way to pretend as though she didn't know where they originated.

  7

  She realized, upon waking, that she'd forgotten to set her alarm clock, and for a moment she felt panicked. Grabbing her phone from her purse, she saw that she'd woken at 4:30 in the morning, and still had plenty of time before she was set to release Owen from his bondage.

  She wondered if she went down and let him loose now, what exactly she might find. She collapsed back onto the bed, her mind fully alert at the prospect of freeing her new boss. Time seemed to progress with ridiculous slowness as she lay there. 4:48. 5:03. 5:19. 5:32. 5:47. 5:53.

  When the time came, she was dressed and ready to go. She took a deep breath, feeling nervous, and peered out the door of her room. She looked down the hall, thinking perhaps Jones might be there, but it appeared that she was the only other person around.

  She closed her bedroom door, and crept along at a snail's pace toward the end of the hall, half curious, half dreading what she would find. As she moved, she found herself reciting the code to the door aloud, fearful that somehow she might forget it.

  But at last, the vaulted door toward which she'd been heading came into view, and she reached up to type in the number with her heart in her throat. The door beeped at the correct combination, and she waited for several seconds before proceeding any further. Slowly, she brought her hands to the handle of the vault, turned it, and pulled it open on creaking hinges.

  She hadn't known what she should expect upon entering, but she was undeniably shocked by the sight which lay before her when she did so.

  There was Owen, still strapped to the table, but looking absolutely terrible. Somehow, despite how tightly she'd secured him down, he'd torn free and lay with the chains loose around his body, which was completely naked, his clothes torn into a heap beneath him on the floor. He looked as though he hadn't slept a single minute the entire course of the night. His face had a five o'clock shadow and his limbs quaked beneath the chains, making them rattle.

  “Oh my God. Owen! Owen, are you alright?”

  “Uhhhh... Yes...” He moaned, sounding dazed. “I'm so sorry you have to see me like this... Please, unchain me, and I'll be fine.”

  She hurried over to do as instructed, her hands shaking violently as she struggled to free him. The whole situation seemed bizarre and horrifying to her, and she somehow felt guilty for having played a part in it.

  His nakedness was a distraction as she hurried to free him. She didn't know how he'd managed to tear through his clothes over the course of the night, but she couldn't avoid gawking at him as she slid her fingers through the chains, undoing him. It was made worse by the fact that every accidental brushing of her hands against his skin encouraged the growth of an erection down below, getting longer and longer, bouncing up into the air.

  She tried as best that she could manage not to stare at the heat he was packing. Her inescapable thought was that it was the biggest she had ever before seen on a man, capable of te
aring her to bits if given the chance, and she had to struggle to push the thought out her mind.

  As Brooke focused on unchaining him, she considered asking him what the hell happened to him, but thought better of it. She was extremely careful to avoid brushing against his engorged manhood as she undid the chains around his lower body, and when at last she'd managed to unwind him she stepped back, giving him some space.

  He sat up on the table, breathing in deep after having had chains pulled tightly against his ribcage for so long. Brooke averted her eyes, trying to be as proper as she could manage to be under the circumstances. She kept running it over and over in her mind, wondering what could have happened to him over the course of the previous night.

  She wondered if he'd been on some extreme drug trip, losing his shit and going completely haywire. He was a very rich man, after all, and it couldn't have been that difficult for him to get his hands on whatever substances he desired.

  That didn't exactly add up, though, either. She'd been with him right up to the moment of locking him in there the night before, and he hadn't shown the least signs of being under the influence of anything stronger than wine - and she'd gotten way more soused on it than him. But nothing else made sense.

  The longer she stared at his bedraggled, exhausted form, the more worried she grew. At last she could no longer contain her curiosity.

  “Sir, I know this isn't my place to ask, but... What happened to you? This concerns me, you know? I don't even know what this is. Am I just supposed to accept it as a part of my role in looking after you?”

  Owen looked slowly up at her. He stood up from the table, penis blazing and swinging from his body like a pendulum. She waited, her body tense, but unmoving.

  “Brooke,” he said, in a gravelly voice that somehow managed to come across as sexy despite his present condition. “Brooke, I - I need you.”

  “I'm right here Owen,” she said, “Whatever you need, but... Please, I need to know what I'm getting into here.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, I need you.”

  Brooke opened her mouth as if to say something, but found herself coming up short for the words. He stepped towards her, his sweltering heat making her sweat. His thick, swinging immensity was pointing mere inches away from her body, nearly jabbing into her, and it was only some distant feeling of propriety that kept her from reaching out and grabbing the thing right there on the spot.

  They peered, long and hard into one another's eyes, and she began to sweat as every nerve in her body tensed. She was mesmerized by him, lost in a daze, simply waiting for him to make that first move. Somehow she knew it was only a matter of time before she gave into the temptation.

  She recalled her dream from a few nights ago. The man in the forest, his face seemingly right in front of her now. Their bodies seemed to react on their own accord, closing the space between them. And then, she was kissing him.

  His kiss was like how she dreamed; protective, demanding and incredibly hot. He held her, one hand by the small of her back and the other on her cheek, and took everything from her with only his mouth. Her breath came in shallow puffs between kisses and her heart quickened to such a pace she wasn’t sure if it was still beating, just sending tingling sensations all through her veins.

  She moaned when his hands turned investigative and rubbed her breasts, thumbed her nipples through her clothes. He was hard against her thigh and it took everything in her not to reach down and grab it.

  Was this really happening? Was she really kissing her boss? Possibly going to sleep with him?

  She turned her head and he indulged her neck with kisses, planted them along her pulse and over her collarbones in a way that made her sigh. As her eyes fluttered open she saw the chains she’d just freed him from.

  She pulled away, and everything in her body protested. Her lips were still wet from his, and her core wanted to be touched by him, possessed by him, taken by him.

  “Sorry, I—that shouldn’t have happened,” Owen said.

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean, I just think that we—”

  “Should get to know each other more,” Owen finished for her.

  “Yes,” she whispered, looking away from his green-eyed gaze.

  When she’d made a move on him at dinner the other night, it had come from a place of too much wine and too many new feelings. As Brooke backed away from Owen she knew she liked him. Liked him a lot. But the sight of the chains reminded her that he kept some weird habits. And he was her boss. Her boss! She needed this job, needed to get away from Becky. She couldn’t risk it or the benefits that came with it.

  Her feelings were all intermixed with the logic that told her to back away, but Owen had hit the nail on the head.

  “I’d like to get to know you better first,” she said, trying a smile. “I think… we should park this for now.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, his cheeks flushing. “I wasn’t thinking properly. Maybe we could forget this happened?”

  Brooke’s smile faltered. She didn’t want to forget it completely, but if that was what he wanted… a bit of space for them both might not be a bad idea. “Sure,” she said. “I’m going to go and get some things from my apartment. I’ll be back later, same time as yesterday, okay?”

  “Thank you,” Owen said, green eyes wide and grateful.

  Brooke turned to go but couldn’t help a glance over her shoulder as she pushed the door open. He was still as erect as before. With a pang, Brooke wondered if she shouldn’t have turned him down.

  8

  Insofar as one could become accustomed to such a strange aspect of their job description, Brooke became used to the routine of chaining her boss up each night as the weeks rolled by. Thankfully there were no repeat incidents like the first morning, or not so thankfully, she sometimes thought.

  She still found it bizarre seeing Owen naked, his clothes ripped to shreds every morning when she opened up the vault to free him. Even if they weren't actually engaging in sex, it seemed impossible that he wasn't deriving some perverse sexual pleasure from the act. She wondered just what it was that he loved so much about it, and then why she helped him do it at all.

  Every night, like clockwork, she would show up to lock him up at 10 PM on the dot. Then she would get up at 6 AM every morning to go and let him loose, neither a moment later or too soon. No matter how intimate their contact whenever she unchained him from his binds, his conduct toward her remained business-like, and he never once stepped a foot out of line.

  It was difficult sometimes, seeing that fine, naked body of his, and remembering the feeling of it on top of her. The fact that he'd nearly been inside her often made her burn all over with want for him, and she occasionally wondered just what she'd missed out on by shutting him. However, she felt endlessly grateful that things between the two of them hadn't taken on the degree of awkwardness it might have following that morning in the chamber together. Owen treated her with the utmost respect and dignity, even if he continued to act in his strange, aloof ways. And Brooke supposed, given the circumstances, that that was about the most she could hope for.

  As far as moving into the penthouse was concerned, she welcomed the in her life. Seeing the look on Becky's face when she gave her the new address was worth every single bit of weirdness that had ensued up to that point, and she loved seeing her tormentor’s raging jealousy blaze up beneath the surface.

  “Alright then,” she said, extending a hand, and waving with her middle finger. “It's been fun. You take care now.” She savored the sight of Becky's slack jaw as she closed the door in her face, and exited the apartment complex for the last time.

  Brooke wasn't normally one for burning bridges, but this was a bridge that had been smoldering on its own for months now. It felt incredible to have struck that final match at last and to watch it all go up in smoke.

  The move into Owen's penthouse might have been a more enjoyable one had the circumstances been slightly different. Having a place to hers
elf would have been more ideal. She didn't feel as though she had complete freedom there, but then again she hadn't really had that at Becky's place either. Some things just had to be sacrificed it seemed, and there was really no way around it.

  And again, there was the memory of the two of them almost having sex that crept into her head with annoying frequency. She wondered whether, at some point, she would stumble too hard into temptation and succumb, and she still didn't know quite how she felt about the prospect of that happening if it did. It was hard seeing Owen naked all the time and not letting fantasy take root in her mind. It was undeniable that he was a remarkably attractive specimen of manhood.

  In other regards she was grateful for his weirdness. Any time she became too enamored with her boss, she could just harken back in her mind to thoughts of his strange and unpredictable behavior, and more often than not it would aid her in stamping out her desires before they got out of hand.

  There were plenty of other good things she had going on right now. From the luxury of the room in which she now stayed, to the beautiful wardrobe he'd generously purchased for her over the ensuing weeks. He insisted that she dress nicely for him whenever the two of them had dinner together, which happened on a regular basis. What was more, during the day Brooke more or less had the entire penthouse to herself. Of course, Jones was usually there cleaning and seeing to the running of the property, but she herself had very few responsibilities during the daytime, and had the freedom to practice her acting via an online course. She felt as though, should she ever leave, she would be a shoe-in to land some halfway decent parts, and her confidence grew the more she studied.

  Still, for all that was good in her life, the issue of freedom lay at the heart of what was still wrong with her present living situation.

  Owen seemed to begrudge her any freedom whatsoever to go out into the city, to even set foot outside the door of the penthouse.

  It wasn't like he expressly forbade it. Sometimes she questioned whether he did it purposefully at all. Whenever she said she was going out somewhere, he would suddenly recall something he needed her to do, keeping her in the house and catering to his every whim. It wasn't all the time that this happened. During the day when he was at work she was more than free to do as she pleased, if she had nothing else to take care of. But it happened with enough frequency during the evenings, whenever she said she was going to meet for drinks with Abby or auditioning for a play, that she began to suspect that it wasn’t accidental.