Mark added, "Yeah, do you know how much paperwork we're going to have to fill out tomorrow because of him?"
Annabeth smiled to herself as she grabbed a couple of piping bags and quickly filled them with some leftover frosting from the cupcakes she had baked earlier. Now, I just need to add a bit of food coloring to this one…
"Here you go, Evan," she said a few minutes later.
Dane and Mark roared with laughter when they saw the clown cupcake she placed in front of Evan. Their laughter was joined by that of the BLM crew seated at the next table.
As Annabeth headed back towards the counter with the intention of fetching her boyfriend and his brothers a generous pile of the lemon bars they liked so much, she overheard an enigmatic snatch of conversation directed at Dane.
"What do you mean you haven't told her yet?" Mark demanded in a loud whisper.
Evan added, "You gotta tell her, Dane. Especially since she's your—"
"Not here!" Dane growled, and Evan stopped talking.
Out of the corner of her eye, Annabeth saw Dane's shoulder's slump.
He added, sounding defeated. "I'll tell her. I just…need a little time."
She remembered her conversation with Kayla a few days ago and shook her head. What on earth is going on here?
She decided that although she was dying to find out what Dane was supposed to tell her, she could wait until he was ready to talk. Even if the suspense killed her in the meanwhile.
At least I know Dane's not married or cheating on me, Annabeth tried to reassure herself. Whatever his big secret is, it can't really be that bad, can it?
Chapter 13 – Reunited
After the bakery had closed for the day, Annabeth headed upstairs to her apartment to shower, change out of her work clothes, and wait for Dane to arrive.
As she passed her mailbox at the base of the stairs, she noticed a small padded manila envelope sticking out.
It was very light and had a printed label with no return address.
She took it upstairs with her. Once inside her apartment, she opened it with a great deal of curiosity.
A Ziploc baggie slid out into her palm, and Annabeth stared down in disbelief. It was the pearl-and-sapphire pendant on a gold chain that Roger had given her for her birthday last year.
She had been overwhelmed by his generosity…until he confiscated it just before Christmas, to punish her when she had failed to get a discount he wanted on their existing satellite TV package.
The Ziploc bag was jittering in her hands, and she realized that her hands were shaking.
She saw a piece of folded paper tucked into the Ziploc bag and pulled it out. It looked like it had come from the notepad that sat next to the landline in Roger's condo.
Her gut roiling with anxiety, she unfolded it and immediately recognized his writing.
Come home, Bethie. This has gone on long enough. You can stop punishing me now. I get it, okay? I need you, and I don't care if you were dating that guy who answered the phone. Just dump him and come home. All my love, Roger
With a chill, Annabeth realized that not only had Roger somehow unearthed her unlisted phone number, but he had found her address as well.
Probably through some Internet people-finder site, she thought numbly.
She rose from her couch and shoved the baggie into the top drawer of her chest of drawers. She couldn't tell Dane about this. He'd insist on confronting Roger, and she was afraid it might get ugly.
Roger would be no match physically for Dane, but if Dane took a swing at her ex—and she knew he would—Roger wouldn't hesitate to try to get Dane arrested for assault. Or maybe worse.
Dane was really, freakishly strong. He might kill Roger by mistake. The thought made an icy chill run down Annabeth's spine.
No, she definitely couldn't tell Dane about this.
Besides, she didn't think Roger would actually come here to make trouble for her.
For one thing, he was always so busy at work that she couldn't imagine that he could find the time for a road trip to the middle of nowhere. Bearpaw Ridge was a fourteen-hour drive from the Bay Area and at least a two-hour drive from the nearest major airport.
But hearing from him had certainly managed to put a damper on her reunion with Dane.
Or so she thought, until Dane actually showed up, showered and shaved…and carrying a big bunch of pink and yellow roses which looked like they had come from his garden rather than from a florist.
He handed her the roses, which smelled wonderful, then kissed her until she was warm all over and shaking with need.
"Oh God, Dane, you have to stop now, or we'll never get around to eating dinner," she pleaded, breathlessly, when they finally parted.
He inhaled deeply and made a point of glancing between her and the kitchen, as if trying to decide between the two of them.
She had left an elk stew simmering in her crockpot all day, using meat that Kayla had given to her. Annabeth had decided to cook the unfamiliar meat like a Boeuf Bourguignon, with bacon, onions, garlic, herbs, mushrooms, vegetables, and lots of red wine.
To round out the meal, Annabeth had brought up a fresh, crusty baguette from the bakery and some leftover apple turnovers. She had to admit that her apartment smelled pretty damned good right now.
"Woman, you've presented me with an impossible choice," he declared. "Food or you—how can I possibly decide?"
"You can have both," she informed him, reluctantly extricating herself from his embrace and heading for the kitchen. "Just not at the same time."
He groaned but didn't protest when she lifted the lid from the crockpot and began ladling out the stew into a pair of bowls.
His first bowl disappeared while she was serving herself.
Annabeth tasted the stew, decided she really liked it, and poured a glass of Cabernet for each of them. She had used about half the bottle in the stew and thought this was a nice way to finish off the other half of the bottle.
As she ate, she enjoyed the sight of Dane wolfing down her food. He had seconds, then thirds, also demolishing most of the baguette in the process.
Finally he sat back with satisfied sigh.
"That was outstanding," he told her, wiping his mouth with his napkin and downing the last swallow of wine.
"I've got dessert. Should I make some coffee?"
He shook his head and rose, circling the table to stand behind her.
"The kind of dessert I want doesn't go well with coffee," he informed her, lifting her hair to kiss the nape of the neck.
She shivered with the pleasant jolt of sensation, then let him draw her up into his arms for another long, deep kiss, flavored with wine and herbs this time.
"I missed you," he whispered, drawing back just far enough to speak. His lips brushed her skin with every word, and his warm breath mingled with hers. "I thought about you a lot while I was up on the ridge."
"I missed you, too," Annabeth said, and a wave of desire caught her, robbing her of breath.
God, she wanted him! Wanted to taste every inch of him. Wanted to feel him everywhere.
She put her hands on his hips and sank slowly to her knees before him.
"Dane?" she asked. "Can I—?"
"God, yes. Please," Dane answered, his voice rough with desire.
She licked her lips as she ran her hands up his hard, muscled thighs. She eagerly unbuttoned the waistband of his jeans and carefully pulled down the zipper. Dane was already half hard.
Eagerly, she pulled down his briefs and used his own trick, blowing gently on his cock to tease him.
He smelled wonderful, soap and musk and his own special scent.
Dane groaned softly, and the sound went straight through her in a rush of welcome heat.
She pushed up his shirt, slid her hands around to his tight ass and pressed her breasts against his thighs while kissing the hard planes of his stomach and belly.
She felt every muscle in his body tense. She felt his
cock move against her, as if he'd just gotten harder.
Annabeth leaned back, curled her fingers around his shaft, and felt him twitch under her touch as she stroked him with lingering movements until he was fully erect, while she enjoyed the contrast between the soft, silky skin covering his cock and the hardness within as she pulled it gently forward.
She teased the sensitive head with her breath and the tip of her tongue and heard Dane's breath hitch as she tasted salt.
This is going to be a lot of fun, she realized.
Roger had always wanted blow jobs from her, so she'd gotten good at giving them, but they had never been her favorite thing.
Until now. She couldn't wait to drive Dane crazy with her mouth. She wanted to give him as much pleasure as he'd given her last time, and she knew she would enjoy every minute of it.
She glanced up through her lashes and saw that Dane was watching her with predatory intensity in his hazel eyes.
"That feels amazing," he murmured.
"And I'm just getting started," she promised him.
Then she opened her mouth as wide as she could and engulfed him. He reacted with a gratifying gasp.
While she worked him with her mouth, she continued to caress his shaft with firm strokes while her other hand toyed with his sac.
"God, Annabeth, that feels so good," he said, his voice uneven as his breath caught and hitched. "It's been a long time since someone did this for me."
"Mmm," she said.
She felt him shiver at the vibrations of her voice.
His hands came to rest on her head as she worked on him. She felt his fingers slide into her hair, caressing it.
She liked feeling the subtle shifts in his muscles as she touched him and relished hearing the changes in his breathing when she did something that he liked.
After a blissful interval, she felt his thigh muscles tighten.
"Annabeth, stop," he said raggedly. "I want to come inside you."
A little reluctantly, she pulled away.
And almost instantly found herself on her back on the rug, his hands at her waist, pushing up her summer dress and yanking off her panties. She discovered that she loved being manhandled like this, liked how he was in complete control now.
He paused to put on a condom before parting her legs with his big callused hands and covering her with his hard, heavy body.
Annabeth wrapped her legs around his hips as he entered her with a powerful thrust.
Pleasuring him had turned her on, too, and Dane felt so good inside her. It was thrilling to be stretched out like this on her living floor, both of them still half-dressed, as he devoured her mouth and rode her hard and fast.
Her climax took her by surprise, the pleasure sweeping over her in an unexpected wave. An instant later, she felt Dane's stomach muscles tense. He convulsed, driving his cock deep into her welcoming flesh with short, sharp jerks as he rode out his climax.
He was still hard inside her when he sighed and relaxed, his hands gentling on her hair. "I can't get enough of you," he murmured.
"Does that mean you're ready for another course of dessert?" Smiling up at him, she rose shakily to her feet, took his hand, and led him over to her bed.
It was paradise to be naked in Annabeth's bed, skin to skin with her, her lips and hands and body touching him everywhere.
Every kiss, hot against his skin, every firm caress, every sigh of pleasure melted Dane's brain as he and Annabeth made love with slow tenderness.
He had missed her these past few days, consumed with yearning for her in the midst of the endless slog of fighting a wildfire, the heat and smoke and sheer exhausting hard work of it, interspersed by occasional moments of adrenaline-pumping terror when the wind shifted and the flames came roaring in their direction.
Truth be told, he was a little embarrassed about throwing her down on the floor and fucking her like that, but the feeling of her hot, wet mouth on his cock had made his bear take control. It had claimed their mate in the only way it knew how.
And she had enjoyed it as much as he had, apparently. God, what a woman!
Dane didn’t think he'd ever stop wanting her. She was his mate, the only woman for him, now or in the future.
Yielding to his need to feel her heat, inside and out, once again, he rolled them both over, pinning her beneath him on the soft mattress. She arched up eagerly to meet him. Her arms and legs were wrapped around him and her hot, wet core pressed eagerly against him, surrounding him in a tight grip as he slid into her once more.
Shaking, he kissed her long and deep as he sheathed himself fully inside her.
Now that Annabeth had yielded to him, he belonged to her.
But was she strong enough to give him what he needed?
He wouldn't know until he revealed himself to her—and the prospect terrified him. Annabeth had been raised in a world where shapeshifters and magic were the stuff of movies and novels.
Once she knew what he really was, would she want to bind herself to him?
But she was his. And he was hers, and the truth of that could not be denied as he moved against her with long, deep thrusts.
He made love to her with every bit of skill he had, using everything he had learned about her during the past few weeks.
Just as she touched, stroked, nibbled, kissed, and caressed every inch of him, he did the same to her, needing to hear her soft gasps and her whimpers as he brought her to the edge again and again.
And when she climaxed, he drowned in the sheer bliss of hearing her sob out his name, her pleasure summoning his own release.
Dane made love to Annabeth until they were both satisfied at last, and she lay panting in his arms.
He pulled her quilt over them both, and Annabeth wrapped herself around him, cuddling close.
Even then, sated as he was, he couldn't keep from kissing her delicious lips. And she responded to him with the same eagerness she had shown when he had first arrived.
"So I was wondering," Dane murmured, and felt Annabeth's arm tighten around his waist. "Do you have any plans for tomorrow night? Would you like to come to the ranch for Sunday dinner and meet my mom? My brothers will be there, too."
Annabeth tensed, and he wondered if he was moving too fast.
"I'd love to," she said.
Chapter 14 – Engaged
"Damn, Dane, I haven't seen you this nervous since senior prom," teased Mark as he watched Dane pacing around the ranch house's living room.
Dane scowled at his brother, tried to stand still, and found himself pacing again a few seconds later.
He could hear his mother setting the table in the dining room, and the house was filled with delicious smells of roasting prime rib and baking potatoes.
Mom had reacted with a mixture of worry and excitement when she heard that he had invited Annabeth to dinner. Worry because Annabeth wasn't a shifter, and excitement because he hadn't introduced her to any of the few-and-far-between women he'd dated since Tanya.
At least Mom now seemed to be resigned to the fact that Dane and his bear had found their fated mate in an ordinary human woman.
He peered anxiously out of the living room window and saw a cloud of dust in the distance. Annabeth was coming!
The road from the highway to the ranch house was unpaved, but it had been graded just a few weeks ago, so he didn't think her little Prius would have any problems making it up to the house.
"You know we all really like her, right?" Mark said, his tone serious now. "I was a little worried when I heard she'd come all the way from California, but she really seems to fit in here." He paused, and Dane felt his brother's keen scrutiny. Mark's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "You still haven't told her about being a bear shifter, have you?"
"What?" said Mom, poking her head into the living room as her keen shifter ears overheard the question. "What do you mean she doesn't know? And your bear has mated her? Dane, what on earth!"
Dane turned to loo
k out the window again. It was preferable to seeing Mom's disappointed expression.
"I know," he said with resignation.
"You can't really blame him," Mark said, quick as always to defend his big brother. "After what happened the last time, I mean."
Mom just sighed and shook her head before heading back to the kitchen.
Dane swallowed down a lump of guilt. He knew he was way past the point where keeping a secret like this from Annabeth was a good idea, but somehow, he hadn't been able to bring himself to tell her last night.
She had been so generous, so hungry for him. He couldn't stand the thought of seeing her warmth and affection turn to fear and loathing.
But he had to tell her. And soon.
Dane watched as the dust cloud drew closer and closer until finally the little blue hatchback pulled up in front of the house. It was dwarfed by the two large Ford pickups already parked there. The old pickup was used for work around the ranch, and the new one was used for running errands in town. Both were emblazoned with the Grizzly Creek Ranch logo.
When the Prius driver's side door swung open, Dane immediately went to the front of the house and opened the door.
"Hey there, beautiful," he said, smiling as Annabeth approached, walking up the short flagstone path between the flowerbeds of lavender, cosmos, and other summer blooms.
She looked radiant in a light turquoise summer dress, her glorious red-gold hair loose around her shoulders. He bent to kiss her lips, which shone with tinted lip gloss and tasted of black cherry.
"Careful!" she said in mild alarm as he put his arms around her, and it was then he noticed that she was carrying a bakery box.
He felt a presence behind him and turned to see Mom.
"You must be Annabeth," Mom said warmly, extending her hand. "I'm Elle. I'm so glad to finally meet you. Everyone has been talking about how wonderful your bakery is."
Color tinted Annabeth's smooth cheeks. "That's really nice of them. I'm really glad to meet you too," she replied. "I, uh, brought dessert. I hope you don't mind," she added, and Dane froze.
Heat: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 1) Page 11
