“I’m in the driving seat tonight, baby,” he said, and he put his arms around her and unfastened her bra in a single movement, freeing her big breasts from their constraints. He cupped them in his hands, chafing the nipples between finger and thumb. She bit back a moan. She couldn’t remember ever being this turned on before, this hungry for a man to take her. All she could think about was how much she needed that big, thick cock inside her.
He pushed her onto the bed and pulled her panties down at the same time.
“I love your scent,” he growled. “Come here.” Then he spread her thighs and dove right in, pleasuring her with a long, agile tongue, circling her aching clit and teasing her entrance until she yelped and moaned and muttered all kind of things under her breath. She’d never been licked like that before, with such appetite and evident pleasure. He kept going, building and building on her arousal. And then he stopped and drew back, his eyes full of a wild, animal expression. She wriggled on the bed, confused.
“I’m not done with you yet.” He lifted her right up and turned her over, so she was on her hands and knees on the bed. Then he spread her wide, with a purr of appreciation, and followed it up with a series of licks, all the way from her clit to her ass. She gasped and wriggled and begged him to take her, but he kept going, until she was right on the brink of coming, before he climbed up onto the bed and eased his big cock inside her. She climaxed in seconds, crying out and bucking her hips as a powerful orgasm ripped right through her. He moved slow until she was done, and then he fucked her long and hard and sweet and rough, until he’d screwed all the pain and sadness out of her. He turned her over and laid her on her back, and crouched over her while he pounded into her. He made her sit on his cock and grind her pelvis up and down while he looked up at her adoringly. He held her up against the wall, and she saw their reflection in the closet mirror as he impaled her with his huge shaft. She came a lot, her pussy muscles gripping his cock in tight little spasms, and he didn’t slow down. He kept right on until she was weak and floppy, lying flat on her front, his teeth nipping the back of her neck as he ploughed into her faster and faster, before coming with one final huge thrust and a mighty roar.
That was the best sex of my life, she thought as she continued to lie on her front, Ryzard’s big, strong body next to her, both of them slick with perspiration.
Marilyn didn’t remember falling asleep. When she was next conscious, her head was pounding and she was lying diagonally across the bed. There was a strange, animal smell in the room. She sat up, making her head ten times worse and looked around. The room was pitch black, but as far as she could figure out, she was the only one in the bed.
“Ryzard?” she called. There was no answer. She shuffled to the nightstand and groped for a lamp. There was a sudden loud noise, a lot like an animal growl. Like a warning growl, she thought dazedly. She found the switch and flicked it on. And then she screamed her lungs out at the sight that confronted her. There was a huge bear at the end of the bed. It had thick black fur and light-colored eyes, and it seemed to be in some discomfort. It was kind of contorted, its limbs seeming to reshape themselves, and its back hunching. There was a series of loud crunches and cracks, and the bear began to look like a man in a bear costume, and she blinked several times as its fur appeared to recede. There was a sudden explosive movement, and then the bear wasn’t there at all. In its place was Ryzard.
“What the fuck was that?” she wailed. She was hyperventilating. She’d scooted up onto the pillows, as far away from the bear as she could get, and wrapped her arms around her still naked body.
Ryzard straightened up, the expression in his eyes stricken.
“It was nothing. Everything’s okay,” he said, coming toward her.
“It was not nothing,” she hissed, snatching a pillow and holding it in front of her body. “What the hell just happened?”
“Nothing. It was nothing at all. It was just a bad dream. Please think of it like that, and you’ll never see anything like that again.”
“It wasn’t a dream. A bear was just here, and that bear was also you.” She burst into tears. “Tell me what happened! I’m really scared.”
“Shhh,” he crooned. He sat down, right at the end of the bed. “It’s okay. I promise nothing’s going to hurt you. But please, promise me that you’ll forget about this and never mention it to anyone else.”
“How can I forget it?” she wailed. “It was the weirdest thing I’ve seen in my entire life!” Ryzard leapt onto the bed and crouched over her in a single movement.
“Please!” she screamed in terror. He took her head in his hands.
“Lady, I’m not going to hurt you. I just need you to promise me. If you promise me and keep your word, everything will be fine. No-one will hurt you or your family. It’s very important that you don’t mention this to another living soul. Do you promise?” She nodded fast. She’d promise anything. She just wanted this beast of a man to leave her alone.
“Good girl. It was just a bad dream. I’m going to leave you now, and I won’t come back. Just go to sleep, and when you wake up your mind will be clear.”
“Okay,” she said. He lifted the comforter and helped her to climb in, and he tucked it around her. Then he handed her the hip flask.
“Drink. It’ll make you feel better,” he said. She obeyed him like a small child, taking a large gulp. Then he switched the light off, squeezed her hand in a way that felt like a warning, and left through the front door.
She continued to tremble and whimper for some minutes, but then the alcohol did its work, and she passed out again into a heavy slumber, chased by nightmares.
3
Sometimes it takes less time to heal from heartbreak than you expect. A month passed. Marilyn kicked her husband out of the house, and burned or sold all of his possessions. She filed for divorce and broke off all associations with her best friend. She took some time off from her high-powered media agent job, and took stock of her life. She was 32 years old. She hadn’t lost everything. Her relationship had been a lie, as had her closest friendship. But she could start again. She was a strong woman.
And that weird night with the wild man? Thinking of it brought up such ambivalent feelings that she kept it firmly in the back of her mind. How could you process having the best sex of your life with someone who, in the middle of the night, in a drunken fog, had appeared to also be a bear? It was so crazy and weird that she never told anybody about it, just as he’d requested. And she never allowed herself to think of him either, although his scent had seemed to linger on her body for days afterwards.
But six weeks later, she began to feel queasy. She could never eat anything before noon, and she had to lie very still for an hour when she woke up, or the queasiness could turn into prolonged vomiting.
The home test confirmed what she knew already. She tried to remember the last time she’d had sex with her husband, but the memory was hazy. Sex with Eric had never been spectacular, and once they’d started trying for a baby, it had become perfunctory and tense. How ironic would it be if he’d finally got me pregnant just as we’re getting divorced? she thought with a hint of amusement. But how likely was it that the baby was his? No, the more likely scenario was that the virile man who’d screwed her senseless was responsible for impregnating her. Time would tell.
By the end of her first trimester, she’d stopped feeling sick, and begun to feel great and full of energy. She was starting to see her discovery of the affair as a lucky escape. What if she’d never found out, and they’d lived these parallel lives forever, both she and Viola having sex with the same lifeless man? And at least now she knew what sex was supposed to be like. Her business was going well, and she was working hard to shore up some cash to allow her to have a lengthy maternity leave. She was full of excitement for the baby to be born. But then the doctors had a surprise for her: she was having not one, but two babies! Twin boys.
“They’re unusually active for this stage of pregnancy,” the doctor p
erforming her scan told her. “Be prepared for some lively babies.”
They started kicking at 13 weeks, and didn’t let up. She imagined them wrestling for space in her womb, and daydreamed about them growing up together, playing and fighting and sharing all the important stages of their lives. The prospect of having two babies was daunting, but it was also doubly exciting. She’d lost her father a few years back, and her mom was very keen to be involved in raising them. They talked about her coming to live in the house for the first year or so to help take care of them.
When Marilyn was eight months pregnant, she went into labor. It was a quick labor, to the doctors’ amazement, and the two dark-haired boys came out weighing 9lb 12oz and 8lb 6oz. While the doctor rushed off to find out if that was a national record, she gazed at them as they both fed, and knew. They were Ryzard’s babies. No doubt about it. She named them Angus and Blake, and when she whispered their names to them, several times a day, they looked at her with wide blue eyes.
They were generally easy babies. They didn’t cry much, and were contented and slept through the night, but they had huge appetites, more than she could cope with. From the first month, she had to supplement her breast milk with formula to stop her nipples from getting too sore.
There was something unique about them, something superhuman. They crawled at four months, and were taking their first steps at eight months. Marilyn forced herself to think back to that night, to relive the whole experience of the sex, and passing out drunk, and waking up to see a bear in the room. No, she hadn’t imagined it. The man she’d had sex with was half-bear, however crazy that sounded, and she had to face the fact that her babies bore those genes. She started researching men who were capable of transforming into animals. It wasn’t easy. There was very little contemporary information, only a rich history of myths and legends. Is it really possible? she wondered, time and time again. Does this mean that they’ll be able to turn into bears too?
She had a sharp brain, and she became an expert at researching obscure records on websites. There were no answers for a long time. But one day, she came across a comment in a social media site based in the UK about someone named Auntie Tamika, who had an American werewolf husband. It didn’t take long to track Tamika down, as it turned out that there weren’t many British-born people with that name in the USA. She was a businesswoman, and she lived in an obscure town called Hope Valley.
Marilyn had to speak to her. Telling her mom some half-baked story about wanting to find someplace to live with a better sense of community than their hometown, Marilyn bundled her family into her brand-new SUV and made the long journey to Hope Valley.
When they arrived, she saw that was in fact a very pretty town, which gave some credibility to her lie. It was nestled at the foot of a low mountain range, and the houses were very well kept and interspersed with lots of green space. Kids played out in the streets and neighbors hung out chatting to each other. She checked into a comfortable B&B, left her mom to settle in, and took the babies with her to find Tamika.
It didn’t take long. Everybody in the town seemed to know her, and they were happy to point out where her offices were located.
A few minutes later, Marilyn was standing in front of an elegant, glass-fronted building, pressing a buzzer and wondering how she was going to explain herself.
“Yes?” a clipped English voice said for the second time, while Marilyn opened and closed her mouth, with no words coming out.
“I – I have some questions about shape shifters,” she said at last.
“Wait right there. I’m coming down.” In less than a minute, the door opened to reveal a beautiful, voluptuous woman with long chestnut hair, wearing a beige skirt suit that clung to her curves in all the right places. Her lips were parted in a polite smile, but her eyes were coolly assessing. It was clear that she wasn’t going to give anything away. She held out her hand.
“I’m Tamika. What can I do for you?” she said in a warm, booming voice.
“My name’s Marilyn. I was wondering if we could sit someplace and have a chat?”
“Can I ask what it’s about? It’s just that I don’t have oodles of time this afternoon.” Marilyn took a deep breath. She had nothing to lose. At the worst, Tamika would think she was insane.
“The truth is that I’ve driven half way across the country to find you, because I read somewhere that your husband is a werewolf,” she blurted out. The slight stiffening of Tamika’s spine told her that she didn’t think she was insane. “I had a one night stand with a guy, who I saw change. At the time, I thought I might be crazy. But now I’ve had his babies, I’m sure I wasn’t mistaken.” Tamika looked down at Angus and Blake and her eyes crinkled at the corners.
“And aren’t they gorgeous?” she trilled. Then she looked up at Marilyn and held her gaze again. “When you say change, what do you mean?”
“I saw him change into a bear. Well, I woke up in the middle of the night, and saw a bear in the room, and it changed into Ryzard,” Marilyn said, more confidently. Tamika broke into a grin.
“We have a lot to talk about, my dear. Have you told anybody about this?” Marilyn shook her head vigorously.
“No. Ryzard made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone what I saw, and I haven’t.”
“Can you promise me that you won’t tell anyone anything we discuss, apart from other people who are also in the know?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I’m not interested in sensationalism. I just want my boys to have a happy life, which is why I tracked you down, because I was hoping that I could find someone who would help me understand how I need to bring them up.”
“That’s all I need to know,” Tamika said, her eyes shining with kindness. “Why don’t you come up to my office?”
Upstairs, Tamika showed Marilyn over to a comfortable seating area and one of her staff brought them a tray of tea and biscuits.
“I’m very glad you found me, my dear,” Tamika said. “Although I’m somewhat worried that I was discoverable on the internet. I go to great pains to keep my business a secret.” Marilyn explained exactly how she’d found her, and how long it had taken, and Tamika giggled.
“Oh my goodness. Yes, my British family do think I’m rather eccentric, even by their standards. There’s a family joke that I have a werewolf husband, but no-one actually knows the truth. So it was quite a long shot that you found me based on that information.”
“I was very tenacious,” Marilyn said, spreading her hands wide. “Please take that as a mark of how serious I am.” Tamika nodded acknowledgement.
“So, let me tell you about my business. I moved to Hope Valley with my husband – or mate, rather – Kyle. A lot of shape shifters live here, and they’re not always the most adept at finding the human mates that most of them desire. I felt bad for them, since I’ve found my own happiness. I also felt bad for all those amazing curvy girls out there who don’t have a man to appreciate them the way they deserve, so I decided to create a dating app to bring them together. It’s called Shiftr.”
“That’s really neat,” Marilyn said, smiling. Tamika laughed.
“It’s cute, isn’t it? Any shape-shifter man is eligible to join, and women can join on an invitation-only basis, to ensure that the shifter secret stays that way.”
“And is it successful?”
“Yes, it’s not doing too badly. Sorry – my mate is always telling me off for being too English and self-deprecating – it’s doing really well, and I’m very proud to say that we’ve had hundreds of successful matches.”
“So shape shifters and humans make good matches?”
“The best. I’m biased, of course. But nothing really compares to them. They make fantastic partners. They’re very loyal and fiercely protective. You won’t have to worry about a shifter cheating on you because they pick their mates very carefully, and then they mate for life. And they’re very passionate lovers too.” Marilyn pressed her lips together, recalling that night.
“That nigh
t I spent with Ryzard – I’d had a big shock, and just found out that my husband and best friend had been having an affair for the past five years, so I wasn’t feeling myself. And to be honest, I was a little drunk too. But it was intense. Easily the best sex of my life.” Tamika’s eyes sparkled wickedly.
“That doesn’t surprise me. They have these animal appetites, but they stop at nothing to make sure that their mate is satisfied. Maybe you should sign up to the app, dear, and find yourself a mate to take care of the three of you.” Marilyn’s tummy did a little flip.
“Maybe I’ll do that when the babies are a little older,” she found herself saying. Tamika nodded.
“Just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll help you set up your profile on the site.” She gave Marilyn a kind smile. “But what’s your plan in the meantime?” Marilyn let out a slow breath.
“You’ve given me a lot to think about. The idea of living in a shifter town so that the boys will be surrounded by their own kind really appeals. And from the little I’ve seen of Hope Valley, it looks like a lovely place.”
“It really is. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming, even the humans who know nothing about us. And it’s very pretty and safe, and doesn’t have a single chain store within the city limits.”
“I’ve brought my mom with us too, so I’m thinking that I’d like to rent a small house or an apartment for a while. I work freelance, mainly from home, so I can live pretty much anywhere.” Tamika broke into a grin and clasped her hands together. “So that’s settled. You’re staying! I’m so happy. I think you’ll make an excellent addition to the town. I can give you the details of a great real estate agent. There are also some properties available within the national park. They’re log cabins, but they’re often quite elaborately built, mostly by the bear shifter community.”
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