“Yes. I really wanted to taste you.”
Shelly exhaled sharply and popped him on the head lightly.
“Don’t scare me like that.” He laughed against her, and she couldn’t help but laugh with him.
“For what it’s worth, I wanted you to as well. Maybe next time.”
“What’s this ‘maybe’ talk?”
She giggled and settled against him again. Their breathing slowed together, matching the pace of one another. She’d never felt so safe and loved.
VI.
Just as sleep overcame her, Aaron jerked his head up and looked around, alarmed.
“What?” she asked, but he quickly “sshhh”ed her and looked around the room.
“Men,” he whispered. “Outside.”
“No,” she said, her heart instantly racing. “No, no! That’s impossible.”
Even as she said it, however, she could hear them outside. In the quiet of the clearing, there was nothing to stop the sound from carrying as they chattered quietly to one another.
Aaron leapt from the couch.
“Stay here!” he cried as he ran toward the back of the cottage.
“Shelly,” Bryant shouted.
“Are you in there?”
“Get out of here, Bryant,” she screamed.
“You slut, I knew you were in there.”
She grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around herself before marching to the front door and throwing it open.
“Get out of here, jerk.”
Bryant stood there, shotgun rested against his hip, with three other men standing beside him.
“Naked. Of course,” Bryant said.
“Come on down. We’re going home.”
“I’m not going anywhere, you psychopath. I suggest you get out of here.”
“Oh really?” he asked, swaying. Was he even drunker than before? The men around him swayed just as bad, if not worse. He likely ran to the nearest bar, stirring up a hornet’s nest, and bringing the worst drunks back with him. What an ass.
“Or you’ll what?”
Shelly rested her hand on her hip. “It’s not me you have to worry about.”
Just then, a great bear’s roar ripped through the night and Aaron came around the corner in all of his mighty glory.
Two of the men fired their guns off into the air out of surprise, but Bryant and the other hunter actually took aim first.
“No!” she screamed and dove down the steps, crashing into Bryant. His rifle fired, and seconds later the other hunter fired as well.
“Get off of me, you fat fu—!“ The word clipped off as Shelly punched him in the nose.
The bear grabbed one of the drunk hunters by the leg and flung him effortlessly through the air.
Another tried to run away, stumbling, but Aaron pounced forward, driving the man to the ground with a heavy “Oof!”
The third hunter ran a few steps, fell and dropped his gun, then picked himself up and sprinted across the meadow.
Bryant found his footing again, dipping this way and that.
“You bitch,” he said, hands pressed to his face. “You broke my nose!”
“Good!”
“Why you,” he said, pulling his arm back to punch her.
Aaron’s bear jaws clamped around Bryant’s elbow and jerked him away from Shelly. Her ex-boyfriend cried out in surprise, so drunk he had forgotten about the bear.
“Help,” Bryant screamed out as the bear flung him one way and then the other. “Help me, please!”
“If my bear lets you go, will you come back?”
“Your bear?”
“Wrong answer,” she said. Then with a snap of her fingers, “Kill him.”
The bear opened his paw wide to snap off Bryant’s head even as the man shrieked,
“No! Okay, I’m sorry, please!”
“Wait,” she said, playing up the whole thing, “I command the bear” act. Aaron played his part beautifully, lowering his head but looking ready to kill in a moment’s notice.
“I won’t come back. I swear.”
“You’ll leave me and my bear alone.”
“Yes.”
“Forever.”
“Forever, I promise.”
“And you have a small dick.”
“I what?”
“Bear,” Shelly said, snapping her fingers.
“No, no, no, okay,” Bryant said, waving his arms at the bear. “I have a small dick.”
“Really small.”
“Really small,” he agreed quickly, looking at the bear.
“How small would you say it was?”
“God, I don’t know,” he said in a drunken snort. Shelly raised her hand, but he quickly said, “It’s the smallest dick in the world. I have the smallest, it’s so small that gnats make fun of me behind my back.”
“Sounds about right,” Shelly said, looking at the bear.
Bryant had the look clear in his eye that he wanted to yell at her again, but the bear looming over him kept his tongue from wagging out of check.
“If you come back, my bear will kill you. You won’t get a chance to talk your way out of it. Am I clear?”
“Yes.”
“Get the hell out of here.”
With one last glance at the bear, Bryant stumbled away at a drunken run.
When he was gone, Aaron shifted back to his naked human form. Blood streaked from his arm.
“Oh my God, you’re shot!” she cried.
“You were amazing,” he said, ignoring the wound entirely.
“We have to get you looked at.”
“You were so fierce. A true match. I would be proud to have you beside me for the rest of my life.”
Shelly furrowed her brows, looking at him and the way he adored her.
“You make me strong. You make me feel confident about myself.”
“Let me do that for you for the rest of your life.”
“All right, but only if we get that damn gunshot wound taken care of.”
Aaron winced as a jolt of pain shot through him, and he nodded. “Deal.”
“We can’t stay here,” she added. “He’ll be back.”
“Of course. I’ll present you to my clan, and then I know just the place for us.”
A week later, the full moon shone down on a hill miles from Aaron’s forest. The clan had gathered to witness him claiming her for his own.
As Shelly stood, appraised by all around her, she felt a sense of pride she’d never experienced before as the shifter females tried to figure out what it was she had that they didn’t.
Some looked at her with jealousy, others smiled, happy for her happiness.
None of them looked at her with ridicule, though.
No one put her down. Here, among these people, she was respected for who she was.
When the ceremony was over, the clan celebrated their joining. All congratulated her and wished them well in their life together.
Shelly smiled and thanked them for their kindness.
She never saw any of them again, as just a couple of days later, she and Aaron were naked on a huge blanket stretched out over the sands of a Caribbean beach.
They made love together, thousands of miles away from where anyone would ever find them.
------- The End ------
PREVIEW OF ‘DESIRED BY THE ALIEN BOSS’ BY ASHLEY HUNTER
Chapter 1
There was a can of worms, open and writhing, deep within her stomach when Andrea found herself shooed in within the office of her newest job.
Despite this being the third job she had been contracted for the past three months, she still couldn’t say she was anywhere close to being used to the whole process. It was maddening how exhausting her nerves made her during these moments, but Andrea was anything but a quitter. It was both a good and bad thing at times.
The temp agency had only been kind enough to give her a brief outline of what this new job was looking for—young, vivacious, clean, orderl
y, can multitask, handle many things at once, etc.—and a date for an interview.
Andrea had been pleased to know that she could carry all the requirements out without a problem and began to wonder what small little office she would be working in this time. Oh, how mistaken she had been.
When she had arrived, in her best skirt suit, she had gaped at the immense skyscraper and glanced back at the directions on her smartphone. Several times she had wondered if she had gotten the address wrong, or that her phone had some sort of a glitch, or something, as she approached her destination. So when she stood in front of the large building, with its pristine windows and impressive foyer, Andrea was short of being convinced she had gotten it all wrong.
Nervously, she had approached the pointy nosed woman sitting at the reception desk, wincing when her shoes made a particularly large scuff mark in the gleaming marble floor.
One question, one distressing sharp scrutiny, and one huffy point in the direction of the elevators later, Andrea was well on her way to the very top of the building. The very air smelled important in the place where she was, and just as the elevator let out a pleasant ding did Andrea realize that she had a stain on her blouse.
The doors opened and Andrea found herself in a very spacious office space. It was tall and gleaming and covered in people dressed in lab coats and fashionable business suits. All too suddenly did Andrea wish she had stayed at home and remain in a safe place, dressed in her sweats and munching on her cereal while her cat, Linus, played with a frayed hem from her pants.
This, Andrea believed, was uncharted territory and she was ridiculously unprepared. Still, her feet carried her in and before she knew it, she met a tall man who silently stared at her when she asked directions to “Mr. Uriel’s office.”
And just like that, she was thrown in the room and told to “just sit there and wait for Mr. Uriel to return.”
After a few minutes of waiting, Andrea felt her rapid heart rate steady into a pounding thrum, and her skirt was damp with the amount of times she had rubbed her sweaty palms over it.
When she couldn’t get enough of the silence, she pulled out her phone and instantly sent a message to her friend, Stephanie.
I’m going to die. She wrote.
A few seconds later, she saw the little bubble of her friend writing back before a message appeared.
How bad is it?
Andrea’s thumbs flashed over the screen. Not sure. Haven’t met my new boss yet.
Where are you? Stephanie responded.
Downtown, by the library and metro.
Close to Orion Space Research Labs?
Andrea pursed her lips and pulled up the directions of the place. A little red pin landed right where the blue bubble that represented her position was located.
Right at the Space Research Labs. Andrea replied.
Oh snap, who did you say you were working for?
Andrea didn’t really know. I was only told the position. I’m going to be the assistant of the owner…?
OMG?!?!
She winced. Is that bad?
No!! I mean, not really, was Stephanie’s response. It’s actually really cool, and I’m seriously kind of jealous! The owner is supposedly wickedly rich and super good looking. God you’re lucky.
The sudden information made Andrea nearly panic. How good looking is this guy?
Super.
Dammit. Andrea nearly slapped herself with her palm.
I’m sure you look great! That didn’t exactly help, but she was grateful for her friend’s encouragement. Nevertheless, Andrea now felt incredibly self-conscious.
To her relief, there was a mirror over the waiting area of this office, and so Andrea took it upon herself to soften the blow.
The image in the mirror was less than pleasing to the eye. Hurriedly, Andrea stood before it and began to straighten her clothes and ponder at the stain on her blouse.
For a moment she considered unbuttoning a couple of the buttons, hoping that it would disguise the stain, but it would certainly expose the robust figure of her chest—the size of her breasts usually was a curse when making first impressions. Not that she was huge or anything, but she was aware of her endowment—and probably leave her with an odd first impression.
After a moment, she undid one button and felt satisfied that the stain was better hidden and her cleavage not as apparent. Her hair was another ill factor.
She had tied the long strawberry blonde locks of her hair into a loose bun behind her head, letting a few strands of her hair to frame her face. But now, her cheeks looked overly rounded, her dark blue eyes looked far too big and her forehead far too large.
Groaning, she yanked the rubber holding her hair back and let her hair down. She ran her fingers through her hair, cringed when her sweaty fingers tugged at a few knots, and tried to make sense of the mess on her head.
She wasn’t very successful by the time the door slid open.
Throwing her hands down to her sides, Andrea stifled a yelp, taking a few steps back to see who had stormed through the room so roughly. What she beheld made her jaw slam shut.
Super didn’t appear to be enough for the level of attractiveness the man had. For a moment, Andrea believed that she had fallen over and hit her head, because the man who entered couldn’t possibly be real.
Dark locks of a curious shade of chestnut fell over his head in an unruly tussle that would’ve looked bad on anyone else. His skin was a deep shade of tan and his eyes were narrow but impressive with their stare. He was built like a swimmer beneath the white lab coat he wore, broad shoulders and slim hips over powerful legs appearing through the slit of the billowing white fabric.
Andrea would’ve kept staring, if she didn’t realize he had looked at her once before walking away. He sauntered off and disappeared behind another door within the room and for a moment, Andrea wasn’t sure whether or not to follow.
She didn’t have to wait long before he returned, ducked his head out and glared at her.
“Do you mind? I’ve got a lot of things to do.”
Andrea sputtered, “I… uh… what?”
He didn’t wait for her to catch up, because he was disappearing behind the door again, this time leaving it open. Andrea blinked several times before stumbling after, hurrying behind him and shutting the door behind her.
The room they entered in was tall, covered in all kinds of mechanical things that Andrea wasn’t sure she could name. It would have been dark save several high windows that were covered in a thin film of a curtain. The light of day filtered in gray pillars of filtered light, bouncing off some of the metal works around them.
The man stepped close to a large desk within the room, rolling the sleeves of his coat up to his elbows before he began rummaging within a drawer. He pulled out a long notepad and slapped it on the desk.
When he glanced up at her, it was in that same glare. It didn’t occur to her of their shade until she caught the color beneath the light of a nearby window. They were a deep shade of… violet?
“Are you going to stand there?” he spoke, his voice gruff, low, and annoyed.
“Or are you going to get to work?”
Andrea felt a jolt through her body and she hurried to close in the space between her and the desk. He motioned to the notepad on the desk with his chin as he tugged his hands in his pockets.
“You’ll be using that to take your orders. I don’t care much on how you write it out, so long as you get your work done.”
Just like that? Andrea picked up the notepad, baffled. The man proceeded, leaning back in his stance to look at her from over his nose.
“The agency that recommended you said you were quick and smart, although that is yet to be seen, I’m hoping that some of that is true. I do not need a bumbling woman who is going to be staring at me because I am “nice to look at,”—I am aware of my features and what they do to women—I need a competent assistant who will be able to meet the needs of the job, and ensure that what I cannot handle is
handled accordingly, agreed?”
“Ah…yes,” Andrea said, swallowing.
“I’m sorry, I was told this was… an interview?”
He raised a brow, “this is your interview. I will give you the rest of the day to take care of the duties I will put out for you. Fail in any of them, and you won’t need to come back tomorrow. How’s that?”
The blood flushed from her cheeks deep into a hole within her stomach, flushed away as though his words had pressed on some kind of lever that left her without any clever thought to retort with. She gave him a mute nod, unable to do much else.
He gave her a nod before he turned in the direction of one of the machines humming in the back of the room. It let out a low hum as he pressed a glowing blue button. She didn’t realize until then but all the machines had glowing blue edges or buttons.
“Very well,” he spoke again.
“I need you to head down to level 2, ask for the Sigma A schematics. Roland, the head scientist there, should be done with the latest tests on the Script Trials.”
Romance: Stranded With The Alpha Bear: BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (Werebear, BBW, Bear Shifter Romance) (Sweet Shifters Book 1) Page 10
