by Ash, Leela
With one last glare at him, Lisa turned on her heel and unhurriedly strode through his front door and out of his life.
She didn’t let the tears fall until she had managed to gain the sanctuary of her bed. Then she opened the floodgates and cried.
She cried for herself; how could she have been stupid enough to think a man like that would want her. She cried for him; how could he have been so mean after leading her to believe he was nice? She cried for herself some more; no one could ever really love her as she was.
She rose to stare at her reflection in the mirror. She was overweight, she thought, curling her lips contemptuously. She was curvy and beautiful, she knew, but sometimes she wished she could shed some weight. She hadn’t jogged since the last time she had run into that beast on the trail.
A cold finger of fear pressed down her back; why was she thinking of that now? She had buried that thought and pretended it never happened.
She stared at her reflection one more time. It really wouldn’t do to pretend she was happy with her weight. Perhaps it was time to start working out again, she thought.
With a sigh, she flopped onto her bed again and slowly drifted off to sleep even as silent tears leaked from the corners of her eyes at the thought of a tall, handsome man with silver eyes with flecks of gold in them.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Lisa? You haven’t responded to the email from Kindergarteners,” Leslie Halliday called from her desk through the open door of Lisa’s office.
Lisa rolled her eyes. The woman was a walking organizer.
“Will do, Leslie,” she yelled just to get her off her back as she pressed ‘send’ on her reply to the said email.
Another beep drew her attention to a new email; this one was from Raven Kindersley! Lisa’s hand trembled over her mouse. She had not seen hide nor hair of him in the three weeks since she had left his home after he treated her so abominably.
She had tried to return his convertible to his office but had been advised by a stern, unsmiling dragon-lady that while Mr Kindersley was out of the country, he had left strict instructions that “no one was to receive that car or any other alleged possessions of his from her or anyone else”. It had sounded official enough to make her dizzy.
She had tried returning it to his mansion but there had been no way of getting past the damn gates.
She opened the email. It was a terse, one-sentenced invitation requesting that she personally bring three kids from the orphanage for a weekend retreat at Raven’s mansion. He hadn’t even had the courtesy to sign it himself but had instead handed it off to his secretary.
“You miserable oaf! I will send the three kids alright, but someone else will bring them. You can bet your ass on that,” she shouted at the computer screen.
Reason intruded and she buried her hands in her face, laughing at herself. She was shouting at her computer screen! It didn’t get much crazier than that, and in her book, it was all Raven’s fault. First he had made her feel like the sexiest woman alive. Then he had acted as though he couldn’t get enough of her. Then, just when she was starting to relax around him, he’d rejected her for no apparent reason she could see and brought all her insecurities rushing to the fore.
Her phone rang almost at once and she jerked it out of the cradle and slapped it to her ear, wincing against the impact.
“Lisa?” a hesitant feminine voice said in her ear.
Lisa’s chin wobbled but she staunchly told herself she was not disappointed that Raven wasn’t the caller.
“Yes?” she snapped ill-naturedly.
“Um, this is Melissa. I just wanted to verify your response to our email.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. Efficient didn’t begin to describe good old Melissa, she thought uncharitably.
Her hands tightened around the phone in her hand.
“I’ll send the kids,” she got out through gritted teeth.
“I’m sorry Lisa. But Mr Kindersley also stipulated that the kids will only be welcomed and allowed free rein on the premises if they are accompanied by someone who has been there at least once. I believe you are the only person at Forwardaid who has been to his home?”
Lisa swallowed down nausea at having to face the son-of-a-bitch again. She knew exactly what he was doing too. She closed her eyes, pictured the kids’ happy squeals as they chased each other around and around the mansion. The kids won; she would do anything for them, even face a man she now loathed.
With a sigh, she announced, “We’ll be there. But there are ten kids in my specific charge. I would have to come with all of them.”
“Done,” Melissa crowed triumphantly down the phone line right before she hung up.
***
Raven Kindersley smiled across the table at Lisa, but she met his gaze with a gimlet-eyed stare that told him she still regarded him with about the same level of affection she would reserve for Jabba the Hutt. His house was awash with domestic staff tonight because he knew he would need as many hands as possible to help with the ten kids she had chosen to inflict upon him. The moment he clapped eyes on them, he knew she had chosen the ten most ill-mannered children she could find from the orphanage deliberately.
All night she had been waiting for him to lose his cool, he knew. He grinned to himself as a flying piece of egg hit her square in her chin. The culprit, a bright-eyed tow-headed seven-year-old boy contritely bowed his head in remorse that lasted about two seconds before he was happily throwing more food with the others.
He raised his glass to her in a mock toast and watched the red color steal up her cheeks in self-deprecating humor.
She relented after that and stopped glaring at him every five minutes.
When the kids had wrought their own fair share of damage, they clambered up to bed noisily calling out cheerful goodnights that made Raven grin.
“Will you come down to my study after you’ve tucked them in?” he asked Lisa huskily, holding her wide gaze with his.
She was beautiful tonight in a long gypsy skirt that emphasized the roundness of her hips and a scallop-necked half-top that revealed a tantalizing glimpse of riveting cleavage, smooth unlined skin at her waist, and made his fingers curl into fists at his side. The faint smell of jasmine wafted up from her and assaulted his senses.
“I’ll come right down,” she promised with a smile that hid many secrets.
Raven strolled into his study, wound up. He hadn’t been able to sit still since he left Lisa on the staircase. He wanted to make love to her; he wanted to love her until the world knew she was his! But in the weeks he had been apart from her, he had learned that he had to tell her who he was. It was the only way to keep Ramsey and his pack from hurting her. They were werebears just like him, but they all resented him because he had chosen a life of exclusion away from the rest of the pack. Once they learned he had marked a human as his mate they had determined to hurt her. They would try for the last time on the 17th of May which happened to be tomorrow. After that, they were packing up and leaving the area. Inviting her to his house for the weekend had been the only way to save her.
A sound at the door alerted him and he carefully hid his pensive frown behind a bland expression. She came in, wearing an amusingly remorseful look pretty much like one of her kids at dinner and he couldn’t help himself, he grinned openly at her.
“I missed you Lisa. I am sorry about the way I acted the last time. ”
She shrugged, “That’s fine.”
“It really isn’t,” he said earnestly, rising to his full height, his silver eyes trained on her.
“Why did you?”
“I lost control,” he said slowly.
“Isn’t that what generally happens when people have sex?”
“I’m sorry I spoke to you that way,” he said earnestly, coming closer to her.
“I thought I repulsed you.”
Raven’s eyes trailed her pretty face and figure, “You could never repulse me or any man alive. You have a body made to tempt even a monk! I
have been in a serious sweat since I clapped eyes on you, didn’t you realize?”
Lisa swallowed as he reached up a gentle hand to caress her soft, pale cheeks. Electricity trickled through her just as lightening flashed spontaneously through the dark sky outside. Lisa jumped at the coincidence and Raven chuckled, gathering her up in his arms.
“It’s alright baby, it’s okay,” he crooned as his lips descended ever so slowly to hers.
His lips were soft and warm. They tasted slightly of the whiskey he had indulged in as he waited for her. He slanted his mouth purposefully over hers, sending shock waves of pleasure through her body as he loved her with his mouth.
His lips trailed to her throat, worshipping the soft, smooth column even as she tilted her head back to grant him better access.
“Lisa,” he whispered against her cleavage. “You should stop me baby. Stop me right now or I won’t be able to stop myself.”
“Oh please don’t stop,” she half-sobbed, clutching him wildly. Suddenly, she pushed away from him and sprawled on the cushion in his study, her smooth, milky thighs parting to reveal her lace-covered crotch.
The beast in him sang as his blood started a slow-boil.
“I want this. I want you. Right here, right now,” she declared breathlessly and he was lost.
Raven swallowed her words in another deep, toe-curling kiss that raised her temperature several degrees. His hands urgently grabbed at her tee-shirt, ripping the buttons from their hole in his impatience. Lisa thought his impatience was hot as he caressed the naked skin of her waist. She wound her arms tighter around him, arching her body upwards and into his.
Raven rose to his knees, jerked off his shirt and tossed it away. His hands urgently wrestled with his belt, his eyes trained hungrily on her face.
He stood up for a quick minute and yanked off his jeans. Her gypsy skirt lay around her body in a tantalizing array.
Raven swallowed. She was the most breath-taking woman he had ever seen and he knew he wanted to fuck her hard right then. He had lived for this moment all his life. Raven gritted his teeth, holding desperately to already waning control.
He leaned down to suckle her incredibly soft breasts and she moaned, “Yes! Yes! Oh Raven don’t stop.”
His hand trailed down to the juncture of her thighs and his finger slipped easily between her soft folds. She was tighter than any woman had any right to be and so wet he almost groaned aloud as he felt her juices on his fingers. He was so huge he would fill her snugly given how incredibly tight she was. He was almost afraid he wouldn’t be able to enter.
Unable to wait any longer, he tore a condom from it’s wrapper and put it on before guiding the thick, fat, head of his penis to her entrance, his gaze meeting hers as he slowly and surely began to enter her. She tantalized him, twining her waist this way and that and rubbing his already over-sensitized tip over the opening of her dripping wet pussy. His breath hissed out of him as he went deeper with each slow, agonizing thrust.
She fit perfectly around him, her vaginal muscles clamping down easily on the intruding penis. He groaned, low and hard as he finally sheathed himself in her to the hilt.
“Fuck!” he grunted.
“Well…yeah,” she moaned.
Unreasonably, he started to laugh right in the middle of the best sex of his life. This woman would be the death of him. She joined him in his laughter, her musical voice tinkling like bells.
Laughter fled as their eyes met and held. Raven began to move inside her with incredible, torturous slowness. Lisa groaned long and hard, and thrust harder against him, matching his rhythm. He increased his pace, one of his large palms, covering hers on the bed while the other squeezed one large, soft breast again and again.
“Faster,” Lisa grunted, mindless ecstasy driving her wild as all her inhibitions fled. She felt like a butterfly taking flight for the first time. She felt beautiful and free.
He raised both her legs higher, changing the angle of his thrusts as he began to glide right against her G-spot.
“Yes, there,” she groaned.
“You like it?” he asked, not ceasing his thrusts.
“Yes. Fuck me,” she ordered her gaze holding his as something shifted inside of her. She loved him, she realized, letting the knowledge wash over her as she wound her arms around him.
He increased his tempo, going higher and higher and faster until all her being centered on the mounting tension between her thighs. Lisa gasped as tendrils of pleasure shot through her repeatedly, making her almost dizzy with mounting passion. She felt herself drifting higher and higher until she was moaning and groaning as she began to cum. Fine tremors shook her from the crown of her head to the sole of her feet leaving her sated, spent and weak as a rag doll.
An intense shudder shook his powerful frame and he continued to slam into her deliciously, his hands tightening on her slim supple thighs. Soon, he was screaming her name as he came powerfully; pouring his seed into her tight, wet, willing passage until he was drained completely.
They both drifted back to earth slowly, gasping as consciousness returned. He stared down at Lisa bemused. Her red hair was all over the cushion, spilling behind her head in a mass of riotous waves. Her soft red lips were parted in remembered pleasure and her big, round breasts were heaving invitingly on her chest as though she had just run a marathon. In short, she looked like a woman who had been well and truly loved, he decided with masculine pride. Just looking at her made his dick stir warningly on the insides of her smooth, silky thighs. But she was human, he thought even as his eyes devoured her pliant form hungrily. She would be tired he thought, reluctantly rising to his feet.
“Think we can try out that huge bathtub in my room?” she asked, an inviting look in her sultry gaze.
Raven groaned, so much for good intentions; he was hard as a rock again.
He opened his mouth, intending to say something as he turned to face her but paused when he saw Lisa’s face. She had gone pale as a ghost, her eyes staring at him with horror.
“What?”
“Oh my God, don’t touch me. It was you! All those years ago it was you in the woods! I knew it! You aren’t even human!”
“What do you mean?” he asked urgently.
She pointed a shaky finger at his arm and he followed the trail to where one large furry paw was sticking out where his palm should be.
He had managed to control himself as he came to keep from turning but he hadn’t succeeded completely.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Lisa? Don’t!” Raven pleaded desperately as she thrust her clothes into a suitcase half-sobbing.
“You were the … bear thingy that attacked me in the woods all those years ago! You damn near mauled me to death! I have been having nightmares for years no thanks to you.”
“I didn’t attack you. I was drawn to you because you are my mate. Admit it, there is this pull between us.”
“No there isn’t. Just stay the hell away from me and stay the hell away from my kids!”
“Lisa I would never hurt you! I invited you on this trip to get you away from those men who wanted to hurt you.”
“What men?” she asked, slowing now to stare at him.
“Other werebears. That day in the woods I marked you as my mate for life and only werebears can see the mark. They have been after you since that day I rescued you from that guy in the park.”
“Was he”
“Yes. Definitely. He’s a werebear too.”
“Why would they want to hurt me?”
“Because I chose a human and because I have chosen not to live with the rest of the pack.”
“Why?”
“They were hurting humans and they didn’t have to. We can eat food unlike vampires and werewolves, but they sometimes prefer to just grab and hurt humans for the heck of it.”
“And now suddenly they can’t hurt me anymore?”
“We mated. That makes you one of us in a manner of speaking. They won’t be able to so much a
s come near you,” he assured.
“And for that I’m supposed to thank you?” she spat. “By your explanation you brought this on me!” she yelled, deliberately ignoring his reference to their lovemaking as ‘mating’.
Raven stared at her a beat, then he sighed.
“I don’t know what to say. I couldn’t stay away from you to save myself and I have tried! For three years I just watched over you from a distance.”
Silence reigned as she slowly sank onto the bed, feeling her emotions scattering all over the place.
He knelt in front of her, his hands holding hers as he said, “I love you Lisa. You are the only woman in the world for me and being around you is absolutely terrifying for me because it sets me free and it controls me.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she told him. She could feel the fear ebbing as he held her; an unbreakable connection forging between them.
She slowly raised a hand and stroked the side of his face as she repeated, “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Around you, I can control my impulses. Ordinarily I change into a werebear when I lose control, like during orgasm, but with you it’s different. You are the only woman in the world for me, literally. Once a werebear meets its mate, it’s forever.”
Lisa looked down at him, her heart constricting in her chest. She was almost afraid to breathe. His silver eyes with flecks of gold stared back earnestly at her, open and filled with so much love she couldn’t bear to look away.
The words trembled on her lips. She held them back with a question. “I should probably shed some weight.”
He stared at her, his eyes looking so intensely into her soul as he said softly, “Honey you are a beautiful big girl. I love you just the way you are. The first time I saw you, I almost creamed my pants just staring at your cleavage.”
“When was that?”
“When you were jogging the woods three years ago?”
Lisa chuckled as he rose to sit beside her on the bed and gathered her into his arms.
