Bound to the Bear

by Kathy Lyons

  How could she not love him?

  “Get a condom,” she said.

  He froze, his weight barely on the bed. “What if it breaks?”

  She smiled. “What if this thing between us is love, not magic? What if you’re not bonded to me, you’re just really good at being in love?”

  “Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t seem like he meant it. “But what if you’re wrong and you get pregnant anyway?”

  “Then I’ll love our child with all my heart.” She arched a brow. “And Simon will be pleased to have a new employee studying shifter medicine.”

  His eyes flashed bright at that, but his words were low and predatory. “I don’t want to talk about Simon.”

  She slowly arched her back, bringing her breasts into prominent view. “Me neither.”

  He was on her before she could do more. His hands on her breasts, his mouth on hers. It felt like she was being completely surrounded by him, caressed everywhere, and all she could do was cling to him as she rode out the tide. He obliterated her thoughts, dropped her straight into an ocean of sensuous attention, and had her arching and moaning like a wild animal in heat.

  It was wonderful. He sucked on her breasts, he stroked her clit, and made her cry out whenever he moved from one part of her body to another. So thorough. So perfect.

  And when he spread her thighs, he remembered the condom though she’d long since forgotten about it. And while she lay there open and panting, he hooked his arms under her knees.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, his body gloriously tight and hard as he waited at her entrance.

  In response, she tightened her legs and pulled herself forward onto him. She didn’t move that far, but it was enough. She saw his nostrils flare and his abdominals tense, and then he thrust hard.

  Impaled.

  Filled.

  She never thought she’d love those words, but at this moment, he was everything to her. His body moved like poetry above her. The stretch of him inside her was like bursting into something new. As if she needed him inside her to become more than she’d been before.

  She gripped him everywhere she could. She held him inside as he thrust against her. And she clung to his broad shoulders and caught his gaze with her own.

  His tempo increased, every impact ratcheting her higher, hotter, hungrier.

  She needed him now. She needed whatever it was she was becoming. And she needed this.

  Him.

  Now.

  Her orgasm burst through her. Like her entire body compressed then vaulted forward.

  Again and again. To the stars.

  He slammed into her one last time then joined her. His body shook, and his eyes took on the light of a thousand suns.

  Beauty. Wonder. Together.

  They soared in a timeless bliss. And when it ended, the descent came by degrees.

  Her body relaxed, languid and weak. He fell forward onto her, covering her with tiny kisses wherever he could touch. Her knees spread, and he let them fall to the mattress. And still he kissed her, adding tiny licks with his tongue.

  Her neck. Her face. The curve of her ear. Even into her hair. He pressed his lips to hers over and over while she rested in the bliss of his attention.

  Until her mind came back online. It was an easy shift, like stepping onto a moving walkway. But once there, she realized there was a special intensity to his kisses. A joy and a desperation she didn’t understand.

  “Hank?” she asked as she stroked her hand across his head. “Hank, what is it?”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too,” she answered, knowing that there was more he wanted to say. But he didn’t speak until she pulled his head up so they could look eye to eye.

  “What’s going on?”

  “The condom broke.”

  She stared at him, the moving walkway in her mind shuddering to a halt.

  “Cecilia? Are you okay?”

  It took her a moment to decide. She had to mentally tally every part of her mind, body, and soul. Was she okay with loving a magical man? Was she okay with having his magical children? Was she okay with experiencing this kind of bliss every night and day for the rest of her life?

  “Yeah,” she said as her smile grew. “I’m wonderful. How about you?”

  “I’ve never experienced joy this perfect before.”

  She touched his face, teased his furrowed brow, then tapped him playfully on the nose. “Silly,” she said. “It’s not joy. It’s magic.”

  “Nah,” he said as he pressed a kiss to her nose. “It’s love. Perfect, awesome, amazing love.”

  When an alpha meets his match…

  Don’t miss TAMING HER MATE, the next book in the Grizzlies Gone Wild series, by USA Today bestselling author Kathy Lyons, available Spring 2019.

  A preview follows.

  Chapter 1

  Duty or survival?

  Detective Ryan Kennedy grimaced as he considered his options. He was soaking wet and stank as he crept through the Detroit sewer system. He had a hunch that the asshole wolves who had poisoned the city water were down here somewhere. All the cops who weren’t at home puking were scouring the water supply for where the crap was being poured in. Ryan was the only idiot looking at sewage because he guessed the damned dogs were using this system to get around.

  He was right.

  Two werewolves trudged just ahead of him. They were men dressed in hip waders and tees, their scruffy jaws working as they groused about carrying boxes of something through the sewer system. Ryan would bet his grizzly hump that the boxes contained jugs of the poison that had been dumped in Detroit’s water system over the last couple weeks. More than half of the city was at home sick, many hallucinating. A bunch more were outside rioting thanks to the aggression the poison caused. But that was nothing compared to what it did to shifters.

  Regular shifters became like the Hulk with aggression and strength to match. Then there were the unlucky few who became hybrids, neither animal nor man but some hideous combination of both. Most went insane within a couple days. And these two bastards were perpetrators who had brought Detroit to the edge of destruction.

  He had to stop them. The only problem was that he was alone down here, his phone didn’t work through all the concrete, and the passageway narrowed ahead. No way could he follow the werewolves without being spotted.

  He’d wanted to see where they were taking the poison. His only hope now was to arrest them and get them to explain the entire operation so he could stop it.

  Which meant he had a choice. Attack them here, without backup, and hope to get answers. Or head back to safety and a cell signal to report what he’d found. Regulations and survival said to head back. There was no guarantee he’d win against the wolves. It was two to one and being able to shift into a grizzly bear wasn’t helpful in the narrow spaces of the sewer system. But if he let them go, he’d lose the chance to arrest them and get information on where and why they were poisoning all of Detroit.

  Duty or survival.

  Duty always won. And right now, his primary duty was to the people of Detroit and preventing more of the poison from getting into the water supply. That meant grabbing those boxes and arresting at least one of the bastards carrying them.

  He pulled out his gun and tried to judge angles. A miss in these tunnels could mean death on a ricochet, but he’d have to risk it. Or maybe the wolves would be smart and just surrender.

  Yeah, right.

  “Police. You’re under arrest. Stop right there!”

  His voice boomed over the sound of the water and echoed impressively. The wolves didn’t care. One took off, box in hand. The other pulled out a gun.

  Shit. Ryan ducked back. But then instead of shooting at him, the werewolf shot through the cardboard box.

  WTF?

  Pale green liquid gushed from the hole in the box. The serum. And the guy held up the box enough to guzzle some of it.

  Oh hell. Ryan had never seen what the undi
luted stuff did to shifters. The guy had no sooner swallowed twice than suddenly he was busting out of his waders in full wolf mode. The thing let out a roar and launched himself into an attack. Ryan got off a few shots—only way to handle a hopped-up werewolf—but then he was out of time.

  His human skin couldn’t take the attack, so he shifted straight into bear mode. He was in grizzly form by the time the werewolf hit him square in the chest. Or what would have been his chest if he’d remained human.

  The werewolf had enough size and speed that Ryan slammed against the curved tunnel wall. His head was forced down, right onto the bastard’s neck, and he bit down with all his grizzly strength.

  The wolf howled and scrabbled with his feet against Ryan’s belly, claws raking through the fur. Damn it, he was about to be disemboweled. So he threw the wolf off him, making sure to slam him as hard as he could against the wall. If Ryan was lucky, the creature’s neck would break.

  He wasn’t lucky, but Ryan was free. The wolf spun around, teeth bared as blood dripped from his neck. Ryan’s belly burned, but he wasn’t ripped open, so he faced off as best he could in the narrow space. He tried to think of a better way to do this. He was excruciatingly aware that the first wolf was long gone, and the jug of poison was still pouring into the water. But his biggest problem was the super-crazed wolf that wasted no time in attacking again.

  The creature was strong for a wolf, thanks to the poison, and Ryan struggled to grapple with him. The creature launched straight at his face, mouth open, claws extended. Ryan kept himself steady, never breaking eye contact. He needed to see if the wolf was rational. The snarls suggested no, but the relentless attack said yes. He could handle a rational werewolf, fight and not kill it so he could question the guy later. But if the creature was all animal, then there would be no end except in death.

  On and on, the wolf kept coming while Ryan grew tired slamming the thing aside and hoping for a lucky blow. The creature was expending ten times more energy than Ryan, and yet still seemed as ferocious as at the beginning.

  Ryan was already gasping for breath as he kept batting the wolf aside. Eventually, the creature would be too beaten up to rise again, at least that was the hope. But so far, the wolf wasn’t slowing down. And it was lightning fast while Ryan struggled to keep up. Worse, his arms ached from the steady impact. His bear claws had scored a half-dozen hits, there was blood splatter all over the walls, but the werewolf would not stop.

  Damn it, why wouldn’t the thing tire?

  Ryan caught the wolf hard under the jaw, slamming him to the side. The impact reverberated in the space as the creature slid to the floor, legs twitching. Was he down? The creature’s eyes opened to slits, and Ryan saw madness there. Damn it, there was no man left. Only an insane determination to keep fighting. That meant—

  Two shots exploded nearby, the echo deafening. Ryan flinched while the wolf’s head exploded in a gory mess.

  Hell. No way to interrogate the guy now, though he was grateful for the reprieve.

  Ryan’s arms dropped to his sides while his lungs worked like bellows for breath. The fight had taken a lot out of him, and he needed a moment to recover. Eventually, his breath eased enough for him to face his rescuer. So he turned only to see a man aim his gun straight at Ryan.

  No!

  He started to shift back to human. He needed to show that he was sane and not a shifter hopped up on the poison, but he didn’t get the chance.

  Two impacts like sledgehammers, straight to the torso.

  He went down.

  About the Author

  Kathy Lyons is the wild, adventurous half of USA Today bestselling author Jade Lee. A lover of all things fantastical, Kathy spent much of her childhood in Narnia, Middle Earth, Amber, and Earthsea, just to name a few. There is nothing she adores more than turning an ordinary day into something magical, which is what happens all the time in her books. Winner of several industry awards, including the Prism Best of the Best Award, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, and Fresh Fiction’s Steamiest Read, Kathy has published more than fifty romance novels, and she’s just getting started.

  Check out her latest news at:

  KathyLyons.com

  Facebook.com/KathyLyonsBooks

  Twitter: @KathyLyonsAuth

  Instagram: @KathyLyonsAuthor

  Also by Kathy Lyons

  The Bear Who Loved Me

  License to Shift

  For the Bear’s Eyes Only

  Alpha Unleashed

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