MAJOR (MC Bear Mates Book 5)

by Becca Fanning

  He could feel his bear vibrate with the energy her presence gifted him.

  It was like nothing else he’d ever known.

  The feelings he’d had for Juanita slipped away like they’d never existed. Because they hadn’t. Not really.

  Too many years alone, hopelessness had gifted him wings. He’d flown too close to the sun, had suffered for it, but the Goddesses had seen fit to give him a second chance.

  He just didn’t understand why the woman he’d known for so long was suddenly presenting such a scent.

  Mars’s low, gravelly voice broke into his thoughts. “Pip, I know this is going to sound weird but have you stopped going on birth control? Or something like that?”

  She flushed at his Prez’s question, and her embarrassment had him shooting a growl Mars’s way. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was being cut so much slack, but he didn’t care. All he knew was the other man had said something to discomfit his mate… That was all that mattered to the bear.

  “Pip?” Mars prompted softly.

  She ducked her head, hiding her beautiful eyes from him, and murmured, “I had… well, they thought I had PCOS, but I stopped treatment a while back because I couldn’t afford the meds.” What went unsaid was the fact the MC had always paid the bunnies’ health insurance, and her leaving was why she couldn’t afford her prescribed treatment.

  The very thought of her having to do without and for so long made rage bubble in his veins.

  “The symptoms I’d had years before haven’t presented,” she continued then shrugged. “It’s weird as hell, but I can’t afford the doctor’s appointment. I had to use the pill and some other stuff to control it.” She cleared her throat. “Other things with hormones in them, which is what I guess you’re trying to figure out.”

  Major turned to Mars. “Could that be it? Might that explain it?”

  The Prez shrugged. “I’m no doctor, but it could be. Especially if it was strong medication. Saying that, does it actually matter? You’ve got your mate, Major. When and why doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “It depends,” he replied, green eyes fixed on the lovely face of his mate. “On whether my mate will forgive me for not recognizing her before.”

  Pip’s eyelids fluttered in the face of his earnestness, and then she gasped out, “Mate?”

  Before he could reply, she stunned the hell out of him and fainted head on into his arms.

  He could do no less than catch her, as he would continue doing for the rest of their very long lives together.

  Chapter 4

  The minute Pip opened her eyes, she shot up into a seated position. The swiftness of the movement had her cringing as dizziness flooded her. Immediately sitting back, letting the pillows support her, she raised a hand and pressed it to her forehead as the pounding didn’t start to cease after a handful of seconds.

  She sucked in air like it had gone out of fashion as she tried figuring out what the hell was going on. She’d been... Where had she been? The memory flashed at her—Pip had been at work. At the diner. Her feet had already started to ache and her back with it. The knee she’d twisted after her last attempt at running away from her daddy hadn’t started to complain too much, which meant she’d only gone halfway through her shift, not done the full ten hours.

  The bedroom she was in seemed familiar, but at the same time, it was alien. It wasn’t the small studio she’d called home ever since she’d left The Nomads MC behind. It wasn’t filled with her few knickknacks or the battered laptop she’d found second hand on Craigslist but worked like a dream. No, her prized possessions weren’t here, so where the fuck was she?

  When she started to feel a bit better, Pip decided to try to sit up once more. This time, dizziness didn’t assail her.

  Deciding to brave it, she called out, “Hello?”

  Movement sounded from the other side of the room where a door was situated. The knob turned, and she froze, wondering who was about to appear. Then, when Major, The Nomads’ healer appeared, she gawked at him as the afternoon’s events flooded her.

  His tawny hair was disheveled, his eyes a little too bright. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he’d been drinking, but he didn’t have that weird edginess that came from having too many beers. She’d been around enough drunks to know what men were like when they had the wind up them.

  Whatever was riding him, and she figured it was her, it was really working away at his control.

  She blinked at his flushed cheeks, the strands of dark blonde hair that clung to his perspiring forehead, the T-shirt that had settled against a chest that was damp with sweat.

  In his dark navy jeans and heavy boots, the sweat-slick tee and leather cut, well, he should have looked unappealing. Instead, he looked like a thousand-gallon tub of Hagen Dazs after she’d been on a year-long diet.

  She could feel saliva pool in her mouth at the sight of him, could feel her body work its way up to full blown arousal as tingles began to bubble in her stomach, her pussy growing slick with the need just being around him triggered.

  When his nostrils flared, eyes widening simultaneously, she knew he’d scented her reaction. That was the trouble with Bears and Shifters. They could smell all kinds of physiological changes in humans, and when wasn’t a physiological change embarrassing?

  Still, in this, she refused to be embarrassed. This was her body’s honest reaction to his presence, and if what he’d said was true, if he hadn’t been bullshitting her, then that meant she was his mate.

  His fucking mate.

  How was that even possible?

  She’d spent years mooning around him at the clubhouse, whoring herself out to the brothers just to be close to him, just to have a reason to stay here and to be able to see him every day. She’d felt the pull, but he hadn’t. Why hadn’t he? And why was he suddenly feeling it now?

  The pillows behind her suddenly beckoned, and she let herself rest against them once more.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked a little raggedly. “You fainted, but Toni, she’s a doctor, gave you the all clear.”

  “I fainted?” she asked, a little astonished by the fact she might have done something as crazy as pass out.

  He nodded. “I think Mars and I shocked you with what we had to say.” He took a step closer, nostrils flaring once more as he moved toward her with the caution of a hunter armed only with a knife as he approached a snarling wild dog.

  Whether he wanted to gut her or fuck her, she couldn’t discern. The look on his face? Well, before he’d done their family a service and popped his clogs, her daddy had looked like that when he’d gone out with his shotgun.

  Still, considering he’d said the word mate, not her, she had to figure she was safe.

  And hell, she was obviously in his room in the clubhouse, so she was definitely in no danger.

  She’d been here infrequently over the years. It had been bittersweet to know that though she’d wanted him the most, she’d been his least favorite bunny. It had seemed like he’d only settled on her if his favorites were busy.

  Hadn’t that fucking stung? And didn’t it sting all the more now?

  All thoughts of arousal faded away as annoyance and agitation overtook it. “I don’t understand,” she told him simply.

  “Me neither.” His retort was equally as simple but doubly aggravating.

  “You ignored me for years, Major. I was here a long time, and you rarely wanted to see me. Why now?”

  He raised both hands, drawing her attention to the play of his tee as it caressed his muscles which shifted as he moved. She watched as he ran his hands through his hair, making the mess all the more ragged.

  “I don’t know. It must be what you said. The drugs you were on… They must have fucked with your scent. It’s never happened before. Well, not that I know of. But shit with mates is hard to find out anyway. We’re secretive about what goes down with them. We don’t discuss them, and we never share anything that might befall them. Christie being ill today was
a rarity. Mates don’t get sick. We don’t have to go to the hospital. You know that. That’s why I’m the healer. I mop up the wounds, and they’re healed within the day.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

  “I know, but I don’t have anything else to tell you yet.” He blew out a breath. “I’m sorry about this, Pip. I really am.”

  Her bottom lip quivered before she could control it. “You’re sorry I’m your mate.”

  “No!” His bellow had the quiver in her lip stilling and her eyes opening wide at his vehemence.

  She froze, went utterly still against the bed. When he saw her reaction, he shook his head. The move was slow, and she could see the muscles and sinews pull in his throat as tension flooded him and burned off through the slight action. She knew he was trying to calm down, and the sight reassured her. So, when he took a step forward, she didn’t raise a hand to stop him.

  “I would never hurt you,” he stated simply, almost like he knew she wouldn’t prevent him from coming close but needing to reassure her regardless. “You know that. You know me.”

  “Not as well as I would like to,” she confessed. Her fingers began to pull and tug at the sheet covering her. The agitated movements drew his attention, and she immediately stilled, not wanting him to read too much from her body language.

  If anyone had any explaining to do, it was him. Not her.

  She hadn’t been fighting whatever this was all these years. He had.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered on a breath, and she wondered if he’d read her mind or something.

  As he’d said, Shifters were damned secretive. Knowing they were magical creatures at all was amazing, never mind knowing the ins and outs of their culture.

  She wouldn’t put it past the brothers to have hidden the fact they could talk to each other telepathically. After all, why give the humans an advantage?

  Rather than go easy on him, she narrowed her eyes and murmured, “Sorry for what?”

  His jaw clenched. “You know what. For letting you down all these years. For not knowing what you were to me. For not grabbing hold of you when we first met.”

  She studied him and saw the earnest pain in his dark eyes. He hadn’t done any of this to hurt her, so that was something. He hadn’t intentionally gone out of his way to destroy her self-esteem and to make her feel like shit on his shoes.

  Always a positive when coming face to face with one’s mate.

  Trying not to roll her eyes at the thought lest he think the gesture was aimed his way, she cleared her throat instead. “I believe you didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “Of course I didn’t,” he told her, his voice a little husky. “I’ve been waiting longer for you than you’ve been waiting for me, Pip. If I’d known…” His words trailed off and for a second, he looked away then stared her straight in the eye. “I would have claimed you the instant I scented you.”

  “Why did I feel the pull, Major? Why didn’t you?” she asked, agony lacing her tone. She closed her eyes as humiliation filled her. It was hard not to think of all the times she’d gawked at him, mooning over him like he was some kind of Hollywood superstar.

  But then, the thought splintered in her head, why shouldn’t she have looked at him like that?

  He was her mate.

  She’d been right. It was he who was in the wrong. He who had failed to acknowledge what they were to one another.

  The knowledge shored up her confidence and she murmured, “Are you sure I’m your mate?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  His immediate response was gratifying. “How?”

  He stared at her a second then pulled in a deep breath through his nose. As he did, his eyes closed and the look on his face was like her ten-year old niece when her sister pulled out a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

  The similarity had her lips twitching. She highly doubted that anyone but she would ever liken Major to a prepubescent kid in search of a sugar high.

  “Because,” he murmured, breaking into her thoughts. “You smell like home and sex.”

  That had her blinking. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t exactly been that.

  “And that’s how mates smell?” she asked, a little confused by the rather perfunctory explanation as to why she was definitely his mate thanks to her scent.

  A slow smile spread across his lips as he opened his eyes. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Seriously?” she pestered.

  He nodded. “It’s been a long time since I’ve smelled anyone that scented in anyway of home. It’s like you’re kin, except it’s only in a way my Bear can sense. To me, you smell like sex. Except, it’s not arousal, it’s spent sex.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” she asked, starting to get offended. “I haven’t had sex in ages, so there’s no reason why I should smell of sex anyway!”

  A roar suddenly exploded through the room. It seemed to ricochet off the walls and bounce around back and forth until it pinged so hard off her hide it felt like she’d been hit by a dozen tennis balls on the end of Serena William’s serve.

  The sound had everything inside her braking to a halt. This wasn’t fear though, not like earlier. This was something deep inside her reacting to something deep inside him.

  It was his Bear calling out to the part of her that belonged to him.

  It was freaky as hell, but also the inadvertent proof she’d needed.

  This kind of connection was something she’d never realized existed. It went beyond instinct or even awareness. It was bone deep. It was like knowing her own emotions as they were reflected off his.

  He was jealous.

  The Bear was mad she’d mentioned sex with other men.

  She knew she was pushing her luck, but she had to state, “I’m no virgin.” Her chin popped up, righteous indignation making a warning flash in her glance as she took him in. “You know that. I won’t be punished for my past, especially when you’re no saint either.”

  A panting breath escaped him, and it was only then she realized how tense he’d been. He was fighting the Bear as he’d been doing earlier at the diner. His back was bowed over, and he had his hands on his knees again.

  Maybe the lack of control should have concerned her. In a way, it did, but at the same time, it was what she needed.

  In all her years here, in all the fights between brothers, the arguments and the parties, the celebrations and the funerals, she’d never seen a Bear so close to decimating the male’s control.

  It made perfect sense that for that to happen, the beast had to meet its kryptonite, and lucky for her, she was Major’s.

  The slow smile that slid across his mate’s lips should have had him backing off, wary with what it meant. Instead, it gave him hope.

  She’d ceased looking at him with that wounded expression that made him feel like he was about to go insane with guilt. Instead, there was a magical glint at the backs of those gorgeous hazel eyes that said she was fully aware now of the power she had over him.

  In any other woman, he’d have hated that. In his mate, he wasn’t entirely keen on the idea. But when his mate was Pip, well hell, how could he deny her that power when he’d denied their bond for all these years?

  “Please,” he gasped out. “Don’t mention other men.”

  Even saying the words had his Bear riled up. It was like trying to imprison an eagle in a cage meant for a parakeet. It wasn’t working out too well—for man or beast.

  “I don’t want other men. I never have. I’ve always wanted you.”

  His Bear’s response to that was to cease pushing at the bars Major was intent on imposing on him. His senses perked up, ears noticing the calm patter of her heart which sped up a little when he caught her glance with his, her scent ripened by the arousal he triggered in her. If he wanted to, he’d be able to taste her need on the air. The creature calmed at the natural response, and Major could finally stop bending over and stan
d straight once more.

  “I’ve never seen you so out of control,” his mate admitted, voice husky and with that faint tang to it that had him exploding with need.

  “That’s because I’ve never been this out of control before.” It was one hundred percent the truth. He’d never known anything like this before.

  Mars had been right. What he’d had with Juanita had been like drinking water when what he’d needed was a fiery shot of JD.

  There was no comparison, none at all.

  “And I do that to you?” she asked, a tad timidly, as though uncertain of her appeal to him.

  He blinked at her, stunned at the question. Then, he took into account the fact she couldn’t sense the things he could about her body’s reaction to him. She didn’t know how every single part of him was on fire for her. The conflagration was burning him and the Bear up. There was no way to cool down, no way to fight the inferno… no way, save to lie in her arms and douse him in the cool, calm brand of her need for him.

  “You have turned my world on its head, Pip. You need to believe that,” he told her raggedly. His hands fisted again as he fought the need to reach for her, to touch her, and hold her. When the need grew unbearable, he whispered, “I need to…” He shook his head before he could finish the sentence.

  This was about more than just him. This was about her. Hell, it was all about her. She was all that mattered.

  He just needed to prove that to her.

  Christ, he needed that more than he needed his next breath, because without her, there was no oxygen.

  She would soon be his everything, and that connection was already firing on all cylinders before they’d even triggered the mating ceremony.

  “What, Major? What do you need?”

  He shook his head again. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. It matters a lot. Tell me.”

  He stared at her, saw the calm serenity in her eyes, and sensed that she was at peace with what was happening. Maybe there would be moments of uncertainty, shyness, and unease, but for the moment, everything made sense to her.