Maximillian scratched behind his ear with one finger. "There's a lot to explain. Easier to start with where you are right now."
"Okay, fine." She said, exasperated and suddenly tired and scared all over again. "Where am I, Maximillian?"
"Call me Max." He smiled and stepped closer to her.
Her heart leapt.
"Okay," She breathed, adjusting her robe to cover herself more, feeling how it draped wetly over the mounds of her breasts, the way it parted right at her dark cleft no matter how she tried to keep it closed. "Max. Um. Tell me where we are."
He looked around them again, breathing through his nose, nostrils flared. "I’m home."
Tapping her foot against the soft soil, she sucked at the inside of her cheek. "You have this habit of giving me an answer that doesn't answer anything, Mister Riddle Man. We're in the woods, and I hate the outdoors, and I'm scared and I'm angry and damn you, just answer me! Where are we?"
"Somewhere safe. I'll lay it all out for you, I promise, but then you're going to have questions."
"So I'll ask questions." She said. "Just tell me."
Max nodded his big head slowly. His one hand came up to stroke her cheek. She didn't move away. "All right. This place," he said, his other hand resting on her hip, "is a world within a world. It's my home. It's where I came from. You come from the world of Manhattan. Both of these places, this forest and your Manhattan, exist in the same physical location. But, they don't touch each other. To get here from where we were, I had to tear an opening that allowed us to move from your reality to this reality."
"Whoa, whoa, wait." Nicki held up a hand, her fingers beginning to idly trace the lines of his abs, up to his chest, and she knew what was happening and still she kept touching him.
"How do you think what you just said made any sense?"
"I told you that you'd have questions."
"That's an understatement. Two worlds in the same place?" Her hand found the little stub of his nipple and she wished he'd do the same for her. She was panicking, and the way he touched her made her feel better and, damn it, she didn't understand! "So this is what, an alternate Earth?"
He pursed his lips, and Nicki felt hers part gently, begging to be kissed. Then he shook his head as he answered her question. "Sort of. Think of it this way. You hold a piece of paper in your hands—" he took her hands in his, and held them between his palms "—and the paper has a letter written on it. You know the letter is real because you can see it. Now. Turn the paper sideways ninety degrees—" he turned her hands in his "—so you're looking at the paper's edge. The letter disappears, right? It's still there, you just can't see it anymore. From your perspective all you can see is the edge of the paper. That's what we did here."
"We turned the world sideways?" she asked, getting the picture in her head but not really understanding, her mind concentrating on the tingling sensation of his skin on hers.
"Actually it's more like we turned ourselves sideways but that's about the easiest way I can explain it."
"So we're in a different world."
His face brightened. "Yes. Now you got it."
"No. No, I really don't." She closed her eyes, and tried to hold onto reality by grabbing his hands, even as her mind began to spin. She had seen him do exactly what he was describing, turn the world sideways and step them through. How? How could he do that to them? She breathed him in and let him fill her senses and just as she thought her head was about to explode she began falling into him and he caught her tight and held her, and gave her something else to think about.
It felt good, to be in his arms, and he smelled so incredibly masculine. She felt safe with him, which made no more sense than anything else that had happened to her today, but it was true. Sparks ignited deep within her, and she felt a surge of desire sweep into her, making her chest heave, pushing the sensitive tips of her breasts up against his chest, and then she was looking up into his eyes and his beautiful face—
"Oh, your face!" she exclaimed, reaching up to touch his cheek where the red slash marks had been so horrible as they had fallen out of her window.
They were healed over now, thin lines across his flesh the only sign that they were ever there. Then, as she watched, those lines erased themselves from end to end. It was just his face. Like nothing had ever happened.
"How did you do that?" she asked, her breathing coming quicker as the fire inside of her grew hotter and hotter. She pulled her fingers back as electricity hummed across her skin. Every time she touched him, she felt that. An image kept forming in her mind, the two of them making out, him on top of her, every inch of her touching every inch of him, electricity tingling across her everywhere…
"What do they want with me?" she asked. His eyes held hers as questions came pouring out. "You said you should have known they would come for me. There's no way those freaks picked my apartment at random and then you just happened to save me from them. What gives?"
His hands felt up her back, making her arch, putting the V of her crotch tight against his thigh, stoking the fires harder. "You're a very beautiful woman, Nicki Bryant." He said to her, his voice deep and thick with desire.
Damn, she was falling for this man. Her body was already rushing toward a full burn and she didn't know how to stop what was happening between them. Who was he, even? How could she be so incredibly attracted to someone she had just met? What did she even know about him, for that matter? He was tall and strong and drop dead handsome and his touch made her flesh quiver. Oh. And he could jump out of tall buildings carrying naked women in his arms and land on his feet without getting hurt. Not to mention how he could rip holes in the fabric of reality and pop her down in the middle of a forest.
"You didn't exactly answer my question." She said to him, finding her voice again. "What do these Shifts want with me?"
"They only get sent after the special ones." was his answer.
"Damn it, Max!" she tried to scream at him as his fingers found the edge of her robe and began sliding it down her arms very, very slowly. "I'm barely holding it together here and I think I might have to let you fuck me to even be able to think again and you're giving me more riddles!" She gasped as he bent close to kiss the slope of her shoulder. "Um. I, uh. I don't know where I am or what's going on and you need to tell me…where I…am. No. Don't stop. Do that. Please, do that."
He was all she could feel or hear or sense. The world made sense again, in a way that put her over the edge of sanity and made what she did next more than all right. Feeling down the line of his ripped stomach, she found the waistline of his pants, and undid the button, then the zipper, and felt her way inside to find the bulge of his thick manhood. He moaned, deep and resonant, as she pet him there.
"Nicki, I'm not good at explaining things." He said to her. "I'm not good with…you know."
Women. He meant he wasn't good with women. She understood, and it turned her on even more. Leaning back, still in his arms, she looked up into his face. There was so much to ask and so much she wanted to say. She had this nagging feeling that there wasn't enough time. She licked her tongue across her bottom lip, wondering if there would ever be a way to make any of this makes sense.
Or if it even mattered.
His lips kissed the tip of her tongue, and then her mouth. Kissing was different with him than what she was used to with other guys; it was warmer, more sensual and more give than take. Sparks danced on her tongue. The sensation of it spread through her like liquid electricity until it went through every fiber of her body and suddenly she was on her tiptoes and wrapping her arms around his neck and not caring that he had succeeded in pulling her robe open or that his hands were busy exploring her.
Lifting her off her feet, his hands gripping her firmly by the waist, he laid her down on the ground, soft warm soil making a comfortable bed underneath her. Yes, she thought to herself. Oh, damn, yes…do this.
He stood over her and she watched with a fingertip held between her teeth, twisting her legs ag
ainst each other, as he stripped off his shirt, and his boots, and his pants. His bronze skin was dappled by the light and shadow from the leaves overhead, the lines of his muscles rippling as he moved. She might have made a little sound deep in her throat when her eyes got to the outline of his cock, stiff and hard now that her hands had excited him, pressing against his gray cotton boxer briefs.
All the heat from his kiss had slid through her to center deep in her core, the silky crease between her legs hot and wet and ready, making her shudder with every move she made. There was no arguing with herself that she didn't want this. Every part of her wanted this. Even the part of her that might have argued this was crazy and dangerous and she should wait until she knew Max better…even that part wanted him to take her now. Take her now. Take her hard.
She lifted her arms up to him, her hands motioning for him to come closer, to come to her, come inside of her. She blushed at the way her thoughts had turned so lewd so fast. No man had ever gotten her this hot. Max had started a fire in her that could only be put out one way.
And he knew what she wanted. He knelt down inside of her legs, pushing her knees wider with his own. Then he hooked his thumbs into his underwear and slowly, slowly pulled them down his hips, until they were out of the way for his thick, hard erection to spring up to attention.
Nicki gasped. He was simply huge. A two-fisted shaft if ever she'd seen one. So thick that she was worried and excited and eager. White boy had a lot to be proud of. Max saw the look on her face, and smiled wickedly. He was enjoying doing this to her. He might not know how to relate to girls but Nicki was getting the idea that he knew how to do this part better than most.
Leaning down onto his hands, Max settled his weight over her. There was an awkward moment while he was adjusting his position to match hers. She encouraged him by wrapping her legs around the back of his waist and locking her ankles and pulling him to her until she felt his hard length push up and in and oh!
For a moment, she couldn't breathe. It was all she could do to dig her fingers into his shoulders and hold on. They fell into a rhythm quickly and easily, his tanned white skin moving smoothly over her dark black body. She rose to her peak in a rush and then she was coming all over him and crying out with complete abandon and dragging her fingernails against his skin.
He wasn't done. He never broke his stride, never even slowed. If anything, he sped up, thrusting harder, rocking her under him, pushing her to her edge again, both of them having an orgasm together, her body flowing to the sound of silent music timed with the beating of their hearts. And everywhere her skin was alive with tiny electric shocks that caused a rippling echo to her every orgasm.
In the glow of the moment afterward, Nicki wondered if even this was real. Had she really just done that? Yes, yes she had, and she had enjoyed it completely. It certainly hadn't been the longest sex she'd ever had, but it was up there in her top ten for blow-your-mind factor. She would never say she was ashamed of doing something that felt so right.
Her racing thoughts cycled slowly down from fever pitch to a quiet buzzing inside her head. She could look at her situation with a clarity of thought that at least allowed her to know she wasn't crazy. His sex had relaxed her enough to think. She was in another world, with a man who had saved her from demon creatures and she had just had sex with him.
Yup. That summed it up pretty well. Looking at it that way it was hard to be upset about getting suspended from her job. Kind of didn't seem to matter anymore.
Max pushed up from her, threatening to make her go off all over again as he slid out. He knelt back on his heels, panting and smiling. "I, uh, didn't expect that."
"Neither did I." She said, her one hand smoothing down over her breasts and her belly, where she could still feel him on her. "You bring all your dates here?"
That made him chuckle. "Hardly. This is a special place. No one comes here."
"We're here." She said.
"This is my home." He reminded her. "And you're special."
Nicki dragged her toes up the line of his leg. He caught her foot and began pressing his thumbs into her arch in small circles.
A foot rub after sex? Dear God, she thought, where has this man been all her life?
"You promised to tell me where we are." She reminded him, at the risk of distracting him from doing what he was doing. "A real answer this time."
"Stop distracting me and I'll give you an answer."
"I'm distracting you? Really? Fine, then." She said, coyly smiling as her back arched and she got turned on all over again by the gentle pressure of his massage. "Then no more sex for you until you tell me."
"Deal." He smiled. "We're inside the borders of Gallandrien. The kingdom of the Ursallin."
"The hearse-what now?" she asked.
He switched to her other foot, and she was pretty sure that this was close to what paradise must feel like. "I told you there's a lot to explain. The Ursallin are protectors of the Wild. Here, and in other places. Like your Manhattan, for instance."
She couldn't keep the snark out of her voice. "They aren't doing a very good job of it if they're trying to protect the Wild in Manhattan. Unless they think concrete and skyscrapers count as the Wild."
"No. Definitely not." His voice was flat as he said it and with a final, glorious stroke around her right sole he set her legs down and stood up. The view from where she lay was very, very nice.
"So where are these Ersatzlings?" She said, knowing she was butchering the name again but unable to wrap her tongue around the difficult pronunciation.
Max picked up his underwear and his pants and was dressing as he talked to her. His cock was still partially erect, and he sucked in a breath as he put it away. Her eyes felt bright as she watched him. "The Ursallin," He said, "are scattered here and there, doing their jobs. Some of them are back in your world. A lot of them are here."
Nicki sat up, feeling more relaxed and mellow than she probably had a right to, all things considered. The sex had been amazingly satisfying, and then the foot rub afterward…well, she'd had worse days. Even considering what had happened to her back at her apartment.
Her robe was dirty now. She felt ridiculous, out here in the woods with Max and nothing to put on except—
A loud snarl tore through the trees and turned her blood to ice. It was the sound of an angry demon roaring doom and death.
She screamed and jumped back to put Max between herself and the towering dark form that suddenly loomed over them. It was a shadow with claws and fangs and glowing yellow eyes set in a horrible face. A body covered in spiky brown fur.
A bear. A giant, menacing brown bear.
"It's all right." Max told her over his shoulder, interrupting another scream that was trying to push its way out of her. "Don't be scared."
"Sure." She told him, holding tighter to him, staring up at the seven foot tall beast as it huffed down at them. "Why should I be scared of the ginormous death bear?"
The bear laughed.
"That's why." With a little effort Max pulled her out from behind him and held her out to the bear. Her heart thumped and she was sure that running as far and as fast as she could would be the only way to save her life.
Then the bear shimmered, its outline quivering and melting and shrinking, the snapping sounds made by bones cracking and reshaping themselves loud in Nicki's ears. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The bear wasn't a bear anymore. It was a blur of flesh and fur that began to take another shape altogether.
It was shifting. Just like those things in her apartment had done.
Then in the next moment it took a deep breath and with a final morphing of its flesh it became something else entirely. It was impossible, yet…
The bear was now a man.
A tall Black man with wiry limbs and a strong core and a face that was lean and angry stood naked in front of them. It was obvious that he didn't care. Crossing his arms over his chest he growled only slightly less menacingly than when he had been an e
normous, killer bear.
"What are you doing in my woods?" He asked Nicki.
Chapter 4
"You're a Shift!" Nicki exclaimed. One of those things that had attacked her!
The bear man flashed an angry smile at her. "No. I'm not a Shift. I'm an Ursallin."
Feeling insulted but not knowing why, Nicki pulled out of Max's grip. "You say it like I should know the difference." She wrapped her bathrobe tighter. This guy might not have a problem showing off what God gave him, but she was tired of giving the world a free show. "I don't know who you are or what's happening here."
The bear man looked sharply over at Max. The two men were almost the same height, but Max had a good hundred pounds of muscle on the other man. Even so, Max was the one who looked away first.
Simply Bears: A Ten Book Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection Page 29
