ROMANCE: Bear Naked Seduction (Billionaire Bear Trio Book 1)

by Audrey Storm

  “I have to get going soon.”

  “Ordered you back did he?”

  “I'm in a relationship, we like to spend time together. It's called being courteous, something that you would know little about. Adult relationships are a lot different to the one night stands that you're used to Danny, so don't go judging me for something that you don't understand,” she said, and followed it up by draining her glass of wine and sending it back down to the table with a loud crash. Danny shifted his body so that he was looking away from her. She hung her head.

  “Why do we always end up like this lately?” she asked.

  Danny knew what he wanted to say but he thought better of it, and remained silent. Interrupting them was a group of three men that came up behind Carrie and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around to face their smirks.

  “Hey, I've always heard that fat chicks are better in bed because they try more, you want to try and prove that right?” Carrie flushed crimson and found her arms folding across her body, trying to hide it, just as she had done when she was younger. Danny stood up and flung his glass on the floor. It smashed and everyone turned to face them.

  “What did you say?” he growled, stepping in between Carrie and the men.

  “Are you her boyfriend?” the leader asked. Each of the men tensed and raised themselves to their full height but Danny was not intimidated by anyone. He stared back at each of them in turn, sizing them up and thinking about how he was going to hurt them.

  “No.”

  “Then it's not really your fight, is it, I was talking to the lady.”

  “You're done talking,” Danny said, pushing the man's shoulder.

  “Danny leave it, it's not worth it,” Carrie said, trying to pull him away, but once Danny felt the heat of anger rush through his blood he went into a red haze and there was little that could shake him from it. The bartender tried to calm them down but his words just echoed around them. It just so happened that on that night a cop had stopped into the bar for a drink after his shift, and he walked up to them.

  “Is there a problem here fellas?” he asked, with a tone of voice that let them know they'd better not do anything stupid. Danny snarled.

  “No, there's not officer, we were just leaving,” Carrie said, having to use all her strength to drag Danny away.

  “I'm not bailing you out of jail again,” she said as they walked out of the bar. As they left Danny continued to look back at the men, glaring at them.

  Chapter 2

  When Carrie got home she kissed Martin on the cheek and smiled at the idyllic life they had built together in just a short few months. Things had changed dramatically ever since she had met Martin, and sometimes it scared her to think of how quickly her life was moving forward, but she reminded herself that it was what life was supposed to be like, and it was what she had wanted ever since she was little, or at least that's how she remembered it.

  “Did you get those files sent off today? Jodie was on at me about them,” Martin said without looking up from the TV.

  “Yeah, it was the last thing I did before I left,” Carrie said, dumping off her stuff and grabbing a yogurt from the fridge before settling down beside Martin, dragging his arm so that it rested around her curves. “What are you watching?”

  “Oh, I don't know really, just some cop show. I'm not really paying attention. How were drinks?”

  “Yeah, they were good, had a bit of trouble at the end though.”

  “Oh, what's up?”

  “Just some stupid guys making stupid comments. Danny was ready to blow up at them.”

  “But you're okay?”

  “Oh yeah, there was a cop there so he came and defused the situation, which was great because it's hard to stop Danny when he feels like he wants to be a hero.”

  “Well, I'm just thankful that he was there. I hate the thought that anything could happen to you.”

  “I was fine. They weren't the first stupid guys I've had to deal with and I don't need people to fight my battles for me. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of things myself.”

  “No, but it's always nice to have someone in your corner, especially someone as strong as Danny,” he said. Then, after a few moments of silence he added, “But don't you think it's a little strange that the two of you are so close?”

  “Not this again, Martin. We're just friends. There's never been anything between us, okay?”

  “I know, and I'm not saying there ever was, but are you sure he doesn't have any designs on you? Usually in my experience when there has been a close friendship between two people of the opposite sex there's usually one who feels a greater affection for the other. I just think it'll be awkward, especially in the future when we're married and have a family, do you really want him hanging around all the time?”

  “You want to get married?”

  “Not right away, but it's in the plan, and then after that there are kids to think about as well. We've got to have the future in mind Carrie, even if it is a long way away. And I'm just not sure that I see a place for Danny in it. I appreciate that he's your friend and that you've known each other for a long time but it doesn't seem to me that there's going to be a place for him in your life. And really, is a grimy mechanic someone you want your kids to be hanging around? I don't think he's the greatest role model.”

  “Danny is a great a guy and if you got to know him properly then you'd see that as well. He's my best friend and nothing is going to change that, and yeah if we have kids I will want them around him because I know that they'd always be safe with him and that he'd never let anything bad happen to them.”

  “Okay, but I still think you're making a rash judgment there based on your life so far. Just think about it, okay? When you get a promotion you'll be working a lot, when you have kids you can make friends with other new moms and you'll be going to nursery, etcetera... All I'm saying is that do you really think Danny is going to fit into that life? I just think that at some point you're going to outgrow him, I mean, the man is basically a relic from the 80s, he doesn't strike me as the type that's going to change and there's nothing sadder than seeing a man being stuck in the past.”

  Carrie rested her head on Martin's shoulder, too tired to argue. She watched the TV as two cops shot their way into a building and apprehended the criminals. The good guys won and everyone went home happy, all the beautiful people got together and had beautiful sex in their beautiful beds but while her eyes were seeing those images her mind traveled back to the past, when she was a teenager, in the first days of her and Danny's friendship.

  Her body had been changing and growing and she had no idea what was going on. Hormones were raging around her body and causing massive explosions of different sensations. It seemed like everyone else knew what was going on and she was left alone, cast away in a lonely sea of confusion. All the pretty girls started talking about boys and sex and in gym class Carrie eavesdropped. It was all cloaked in mysteriousness and innuendo, and it made Carrie's heart beat with anticipation for her first time. But it wouldn't come until much later than high school. She was bigger than all the other girls and she knew that others knew it too. She felt ugly and unattractive. Every morning she would look in the mirror at the lumps on her body and wonder why she had been cursed by the fates while other girls had the perfect skin and the perfect smiles and those sweet supple breasts that perked up and greeted everyone with a smile. Self-esteem ebbed away every day and doubts tore at her mind, dragging her down until she wallowed in self-pity and confessed to herself that she would always be alone because nobody would ever love her.

  That was even before the bullying started. The girls and boys all talked and they all started sniping at her. It started with a few small comments but they got more and more nasty and cruel until Carrie was reduced to tears. Her pillow was always wet at night and in the dark hours of midnight she thought how easy it would be to just stop everything and end her life.

  But she never could.

  The tea
sing continued. The days became an endless drag and she walked through them as though she was drifting in a mist. There seemed to be no end to them, all she knew was that she was unlovable. Then, one day, some boys from the football team followed her home and called out to her in an alley. They were the best and brightest of the school, heroes to everyone else as they carried the team to another record-breaking season but in that moment Carrie stared into their eyes and knew that they were villains. They licked their lips and prowled at her like wolves, moving in for the kill. Carrie wanted to run but her stumpy little legs wouldn't have carried her far, and there was no way she could have escaped those athletes with their big strong muscles, their tight torsos, and their rigid cocks, filled with a dark lust.

  “We thought we'd do you a favor. No-one else is going to fuck you so we thought we'd let you lose your virginity to us,” the leader said as they stalked up to her. Carrie shook her head and tried to scream for help but she was trembling with fear and her words came out like a squeak, which only made the boys laugh.

  She fell to her knees when she felt the wall behind her because she knew there was nowhere else to go. The three boys towered above her and as they encircled her they blotted out the sun, and all became dark.

  Then, suddenly, they yelled as they were hauled back. Carrie dared not lift her head but if she had done she would have seen Danny swoop in and throw them all about. Carrie had seen him around but he had always been a loner, turns out they had that in common. He sent the other boys scurrying and then spoke softly to the trembling Carrie. She looked up and saw the sun shining behind his head, but she was the only person to see him as good.

  After that nobody bothered her again although nothing happened to the boys, nothing bad anyway. They ended up going undefeated and getting scholarships. Carrie tried to put her pain down in a book and within a year of finishing high school she had finished her first novel and was soon starting her second, but she didn't have faith in the material or in herself and it languished for years until she was able to find a publisher. In the meantime her friendship with Danny flourished although it only remained a friendship. In her early twenties she finally started to date and have boyfriends. He had one-night stands. Every one of their partners remarked how strange it was for the two of them to be friends, and they didn't seem to believe Carrie or Danny when they said that nothing romantic had ever happened between them.

  But even through all that Carrie still struggled with self-image issues. She'd tried losing weight but could never seem to shift enough, and it didn't help that she felt worthless in life because she hadn't achieved her dreams and was approaching her late twenties without having accomplished anything of note.

  That's when Martin had come along. They'd met randomly at a bar and to her surprise he took an interest in her. He was a little older and had a steady job and he knew exactly what he wanted. He told Carrie that she was the most beautiful, sexiest woman in the world, and while at first she didn't believe it she was soon convinced that he meant it after their first time together because he was like a wild animal, ravishing her with a primal savagery. She had never been made love to like that before and she enjoyed it.

  He was very strict through and quickly took control of the relationship, making it clear that if she wanted to be with him then she would have to go at his pace, not hers. Early on she was still trying to get her book published, having finally worked up the courage to send it off to publishers, but he told her that it was a forlorn dream and sometimes these things just weren't meant to be, that there were other ways of being happy in life. That's when he told her that he knew of a job in his company. He pulled strings and Carrie got it. Then he asked her to move in. It had been a whirlwind but Carrie couldn't refuse. She never thought she'd have someone be so interested in her and want to build a life with her, and she was grateful for that.

  Laying in bed, Carrie had the covers pulled tightly over her. Martin came into the room and slid in next to her. The familiar heat of his body seeped through to her own as his arms wrapped around her. He started to kiss the back of her neck and his hot breath washed down. His hardness pressed against her.

  “Not tonight, baby. I'm feeling kinda tired,” she said, closing her eyes and nestling into the pillow. Martin continued to kiss her.

  “Come on Carrie,” he whispered in her ear, “you're so sexy I just can't help myself,” he said, his hands moved around her breasts and squeezed, and he started to peel away her clothes.

  “You love me don't you,” he said.

  “Yes,” she found herself saying in a breathless whisper.

  “And you want me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want us to make each other happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let's make each other happy.” Her eyes clamped shut as she felt him enter her.

  “Yes,” she said, as they rolled around under the covers, cloaked by darkness.

  Chapter 3

  The following morning Carrie was looking at herself in the mirror. Her skin had bruised where Martin had held onto her tightly, and in the cold light of day they didn't look like marks of love. But she told herself that Martin was enthusiastic, and it was just a sign of his uncontrollable desire for her. That's how she always explained it away, and Martin always made sure to leave his marks in places that were covered by clothes. She dared not tell Danny about what Martin was really like, and she only admitted it to herself deep down inside, and only when she was alone, for when she was with Martin it was easy to forget the ways in which he took control, and how he often expressed his love in hard and cruel ways, ways that hurt her, ways that reminded her she was unlovable and unattractive, that tapped into her adolescent doubts and fears, the ones she had yet to grow out of, the ones that she was afraid would always be with her like a specter haunting her as she walked through the graveyard of life, always whispering in her ears, never letting her settle or be happy.

  Just after she and Martin had made it official Danny had expressed some concerns that things were moving too quickly and that he was pressuring her into being with him. Danny had asked her point blank whether she actually loved him or not, and although at the time she had said that she did in her heart she knew that it was a lie, and even months later after they had been living together for a while Carrie still didn't know whether she loved Martin or not. But then again what was love? Was it equitable with happiness or contentment, or was it simply feeling safe and secure with someone? Or was it just having someone to be there to take care of her. The last one fit her and Martin, and she hated herself for taking the easy way out but it was the only way out of loneliness.

  She didn't think that Danny believed her but he had never pressed her for it, although he had come close, and her relationship with Martin had caused a lot of friction between the two of them and she tried to keep the two spheres of her life as far from each other as possible. It didn't always succeed and when she was forced into arguments with one or the other she hated on. On the rare occasions when the of them had met there had been palpable tension between them and she feared that at one point she would have to choose between one or the other. It wasn't the idea of being forced into a choice that provoked such feelings, but the fact that she wasn't sure which man she would choose.

  Martin had been dropping more and more hints that at some point she would have to excise Danny from her life but she knew that was wrong, for Danny was the one man that had stood by her through everything she had gone through and he was her only true friend. But Martin was the man that was planning to marry her, to build a life together with her and she wanted that badly, for if she didn't marry Martin then she couldn't imagine that anyone else would want her.

  It was a sorrowful existence and Carrie's heart was filled with a deep melancholy, one that was inescapable, no matter how often she looked up to the stars and prayed for some salvation. So instead, she endured it and excused Martin's behavior. If that was how he wanted to express his love then she w
ould allow him to do so.

  Things with Danny were becoming difficult as well. She was worried about him. While her life had been filled with change his was stagnating. He'd been working in the same garage ever since high school and seemed to have no ambition to give himself better opportunities in life. His relationships were always infrequent and impermanent, and it saddened her to think that he was going to be swallowed up by life without ever having really lived at all. It was her worst fear realized, and she hated the idea of Danny suffering from it.

  But it seemed like there was little she could do apart from go on and continue stumbling through life, hoping that somehow it would all work out for the best, because that's what life always seemed to do.

  Work was hard and stressful and over the course of the following few weeks she had less and less time for Danny, so their interactions were done mostly via text. But every night she saw Martin and cuddled up to him. Some nights they made love, other nights he made love to her, but always he made veiled references to the future.

  “I told you that this would happen,” he said after Carrie replied to another text from Danny, “this is what life is like. It happened with me as well. I had a great bunch of buddies that I used to hang out with all the time but I got myself a job and other responsibilities while they kept goofing around and eventually we just went our separate ways. I think that's one of the problems with the world. People keep trying to hold onto things when they need to let them go. Not everything has to last forever, and that's perfectly fine. Better to leave something when it's golden rather than watch it twist and fade into bitterness. And you think it's going to get any better? Danny's not the type of guy to want to come around here and play with kids. He wants to go to bars and drink himself until he can forget about the emptiness of his existence but you won't be able to do that when you're a mom. You'll have too much to do. Please, I'm not trying to get in between the two of you I'm just trying to show you what's going to happen because it'll hurt you more in the long run.”