MARS (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 1)

by Becca Fanning

  “He won’t, Kat. He has you to watch out for him now. If he’s going to meetings, spending his time here when he’s not, and exercising, I think he’s in a good spot. It’s been a while since I met anyone in those meetings that has a drive like his.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said, turning and putting her hands on Briggs’ shoulders. “Briggs, can I ask you a question?” When he nodded, she continued, “If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to. But...what were you doing at Golden Valley?”

  Briggs tensed up, but he didn’t appear to be angry. Kat had been hesitant to ask, but it had been on her mind recently. He wasn’t an alcoholic, or a drug addict – just a man in a bad spot in his life. What could he possibly need at one of those meetings?

  Briggs lowered himself to her couch, and Kat sat next to him, both of their hands locked together. “It’s not something I like to talk about, but,” he started.

  Kat cut him off, “Briggs, really, you don’t have to.”

  “It’s fine, Kat,” he assured her, smiling. “It was the only place I could go to get some help. Ever since I lost my arm, I’d been in a dark place. I’m not proud to admit this, but I suffer from PTSD. It’s not bad, not anymore, but it’s still there. I couldn’t deal with my new life. But the worst thing of all, I had to do it completely alone. At every step of my life, I’ve been alone. It was the one place I could be, where even if those people at the meetings couldn’t help me – I wouldn’t be alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kat told him. What else could she say?

  “Don’t be. People would try to get close to me, really help me out, and I would stop going to the groups. Hell, if you never would have met me and needed my help, I would probably have ran from Toby and the rest at Golden Valley. And I would be somewhere else tonight, either in some other place looking for hope, but never accepting it, or I would be in my car. I don’t want that anymore.”

  “You don’t have to, Briggs. I’m here for you now, and I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to worry. I won’t abandon you. I’ll always be here for you,” Kat told him. She had surprised even herself at the words. They were big proclamations, but she meant every word. She hoped that Briggs believed her.

  “I know,” he told her, then he was kissing her deeply, his lips against her own, desperate and hungry. He needed her, and she found she needed him in ways she couldn’t comprehend. He wasn’t just a test subject, he was a person, someone who had knocked down her own barriers that had kept everyone else out.

  His lips were on her neck, his hand going up her shirt, and – the door opened.

  Kat was pushing herself away from Briggs quicker than she thought possible. She felt his hand slip out of her shirt, then they were both sitting on the couch, trying to look innocent. Toby wasn’t fooled, though. His grin as he shut the door was wider than she’d ever seen before.

  “What are you two doing?” he asked, though of course, he already knew.

  “Nothing, Toby,” Kat said, running her fingers through her hair and making sure it was straight.

  “What’s up, Briggs?” Toby asked, giving him a high five.

  “How’s it going?” Briggs asked.

  “Damn! That’s a slick arm, man! Where’d you get it?”

  “Your sister,” Briggs replied, using it and showing him everything it did. “She did a good job.”

  “Yeah, she did,” Toby admitted. He plopped down on the couch between the two of them, intentionally driving a wedge between them. Kat sighed, heard both Toby and Briggs laughing, and shot them both glares. She would never have in a million years expected those two to team up against her.

  Toby grabbed the remote, flipping the TV on and browsing the channels. There wasn’t much on, so Toby settled for the news. There wasn’t much at first: the weather, budget cuts, but finally, something grabbed Kat’s attention: the HDF.

  “If you haven’t heard, there’s a new movement popping up across the city in the past few weeks. They call themselves the Human Defense Force, or HDF for short. They’re opposing Shifters all across the country, but are focused here, in our home city. Let’s take a closer look at them…”

  “What the fuck!” Briggs growled, getting up. Both Kat and Toby leaned back in their seats, shying away from him. His anger was clear, but Kat knew he wouldn’t do anything else. “They’re even on TV now? What do we do?”

  “Maybe that’s good,” Toby offered. Briggs shot him a glare, but Toby shrugged and continued, “Not a lot of people are going to want to join these guys, as it is. This just gets them out in the open, where people can oppose them easier.”

  “You might be right,” Briggs conceded. He dropped back to the couch. “Still. These guys are everywhere. The bar, out on the streets, the news. How many of them are there?”

  “Most of these hate groups don’t gain enough momentum to do any lasting harm,” her brother said. Kat had to admit he was right. But what kind of damage could they do while they were around? She hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with them much more. Twice had been more than enough.

  “So you been out running, Toby?” Briggs asked. Kat wanted to smack Toby and get him out of the way, and cuddle up with Briggs, but she held back.

  “Yeah,” he told Briggs with a grin. “Well, trying to, anyway. Do a lot of walking, honestly. I figured if I’m not in meetings at night, I’d do best to be out getting in shape. Keep some kind of system, ya know?”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” Briggs responded.

  “Plus, it’s a good thing I was that I was out last night, right Kat?”

  “Toby,” she warned. She was going to tell Briggs about Jay, when the time was right, but now wasn’t it.

  “What?” he asked. “You didn’t tell Briggs?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Toby!”

  His eyes went wide and he whistled. “Whoops.”

  Kat got up. Briggs’ golden eyes were on her, watching her warily, but he didn’t seem mad: just intrigued. “Let’s go to my room.”

  Briggs raised himself up, told Toby goodnight, and followed Kat to her room. When he entered, she shut the door behind him. It wasn’t much, but it was hers. She had a desk, a small bookshelf, a dresser in the closet, and of course, a bed.

  She sat down on her bed, and Briggs sat next to her. He was silent, waiting for her to start. She took a deep breath, released it in a sigh, and began telling him about Jay. “I dated this guy, Jay, for nearly four years. It started off great. I found him through an internship at school. Jay is missing his leg below the knee. That’s what Toby meant by his comment about me always going after guys like you.”

  Briggs grunted.

  “Things were good, at first. But over time, he got verbally abusive. Started yelling at me over the smallest things. Breaking me down and making me feel worthless. The more he pushed, the more I fell into my work, using it as the only way I could stay happy. Eventually, he cheated on me. By that point, things were so bad that I was afraid to confront him, but I did. And he hit me. Once. That was enough. I cut him out of my life, got a restraining order, and changed my number.”

  “Jesus, Kat. You should have said something sooner,” Briggs told her, grabbing her and pulling her close.

  “I am, now. I hadn’t seen him for months. Nearly half a year. But then, I started catching glimpses of his car at the strangest times: in the parking lot at work, or down the street. I kept telling myself it was my mind playing tricks on me, and that he really wasn’t stalking me, but in my heart, I knew. A couple of nights ago, I saw his car outside while taking out trash. Then, last night, he showed up here, right after you dropped me off.”

  She felt Briggs bristling at that. “What? He was here and I missed him? I should have smelled him. I should have known. I should have protected you.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It was!”

  “It wasn’t, Briggs. There was nothing you could have done. By the time I saw him, you were already long gon
e. He was hiding somewhere. But he confronted me last night. He threatened me, told me how he was going to protect me from you. He was crazy. Toby came home and scared him off.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “Yes. I called them this morning and reported it.”

  “And?”

  “And they can do nothing. They have to catch him in the act.”

  “You should have told me, Kat. I could have done something.”

  “I didn’t want to drop all of my problems on you, Briggs. With this arm, you have enough stuff on your plate.”

  “Please, Kat. Next time something like this happens, promise me that you’ll tell me right away.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good. If he ever threatens you again, I’ll kill him. That’s a promise,” Briggs told her. She knew he meant every word he had said to her.

  She felt herself nodding. “Don’t let him hurt me, Briggs.”

  “I won’t, Kat. He won’t hurt you – no one will ever hurt you – again.”

  His hands came up, both hands running over her ears and through her hair. Gently, he pulled her hair back, exposing her neck to him. Briggs brought his mouth down, warm lips touching her skin and kissing lightly. Kat felt goosebumps exploding across her body, sending shivers through her. A small moan escaped her lips. One of his hands came down to her neck, running a finger along the side of it. Another hand was at the bottom of her shirt, pulling it up just enough for him to run his hand underneath it.

  She shuddered again, his prosthetic touching her skin as it slid across her stomach. She closed her eyes and felt his hand squeezing a breast, squeezing around the fabric of her bra. She grabbed the edges of his shirt, lifting it over his head and tossing it to her immaculately clean floor. She swallowed once, knowing that soon, her room wouldn’t be clean anymore – but she pushed those thoughts away.

  Her eyes found his chest. His muscles took her breath away. She ran one finger from one shoulder to the other, dipping down just enough to brush one of his nipples. Then she had one in her mouth, sucking lightly, kissing around it. Her mouth was dancing across his chest, leaving little wet trails and kiss marks wherever she touched. Briggs moaned, his hands running across her body, squeezing and rubbing.

  He lifted her shirt over her head, throwing it – it landed on her desk, but then his fingers were undoing her bra and letting that fall away, too. His hands squeezed her, feeling her softness, fingers pinching each nipple just slightly. He did it soft enough that she could feel it, but not hard enough to bring her any pain.

  He kicked off his shoes and peeled off his socks with his feet, his hands never stopping in their exploration of her body. His real hand was soft on her body, his other different, but no less comforting. She let him rub, squeeze, and pinch everywhere he wanted, content with letting him bring her pleasure.

  She leaned back on the bed and dangled her feet off. Briggs dropped to the floor, taking off her shoes one at a time. Slowly, he peeled off each sock, dropping it out of her view. Then he reached up, unbuttoning her pants, peeling down the zipper, and then pulling them off of her body.

  She lay there as he grabbed her above her knees, sliding her across the bed until her legs were completely off. Briggs used a hand, his real hand, to rub against the fabric of her panties. She could feel her wetness soaking through them, ready to get them off.

  And Briggs was eager to please. He pulled them off, tossing them away, and buried his face between her legs. She breathed out, feeling his lips and tongue against her, kissing and sucking every which way. She knew from earlier in the night that Briggs was a master at that, so she was content to let him work his magic.

  It wasn’t long before she felt another orgasm building, quicker than the first time. She gripped her sheets, her eyes closed, moaning, “Faster, faster,” and Briggs obeyed. His tongue danced over her clit, his lips never stopping, and Kat knew she couldn’t hold out any longer.

  When she came, she had to bite into a pillow to keep from crying out in pleasure too loudly. Wave upon wave of bliss washed over her, spreading from between her legs, in a way that never seemed like it would end. She felt herself tighten over Brigg’s fingers that he had slid into her wetness, a feeling unlike anything she could have imagined.

  After what seemed like hours, her pleasure finally faded and Briggs stood up. Before he could even take a step, though, Kat was sitting up and grabbing his jeans. She undid them in record time, dropping them to the floor.

  His bulge was enormous, barely held in by the tightness of his boxer briefs. She traced a finger along the shape of his girth, then slowly pulled his underwear down. His cock caught on the edge of the boxers – just briefly – then sprung free as his underwear fell to the floor.

  Kat barely held in a cry of disbelief. Briggs had the largest member she’d ever seen. She didn’t know if it was a Shifter thing, or just something lucky he had, but she wasn’t going to complain. She grabbed him by the base of his penis, barely able to wrap her hand around him completely. Then she started tugging, slowly, before placing him into her mouth.

  She opened as wide as she could, barely able to fit him inside of her lips, and smiled at his moans. She felt the head of his member sliding against her tongue, then hitting the back of her throat. She pushed him all of the way as she could, not able to even come close to fitting his entire length in her, and then slid him back out. Her hands never stopped moving over him, sliding over his length wetly and quickly.

  She reached her hands around, grabbing him by his firm ass, and pulled him close to her. She pushed her head down, his cock sinking deeper into her than she thought was possible. She held him like that for a few seconds, running her tongue along the underside of him, and then carefully, seductively, slid him entirely out of her mouth.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice deep and husky.

  Kat leaned back on her bed, crawling backwards using her elbows and feet, and came to her nightstand next to the bed. Briggs came towards her, crawling, a ravenous glint in his eye. On all fours, naked, moving the way he was, Kat could tell that he truly was a Shifter. The way he moved was… dangerous. Bestial. Enthralling.

  He moved over her, hands underneath her armpits, legs between her thighs, waiting. She could tell he was impatient. He may be more like an animal than I thought, she mused with a grin. She slid open her nightstand, digging around with one hand until she found a roll of condoms inside. She grabbed them, making sure they were still good, then ripped one of the packages open.

  She reached out, placing it on him and unrolling it slowly. When it was completely on his length, she reached up, grabbing him again by his ass cheeks. She pulled him down, slowly. Briggs angled himself and she felt his girth stretching her wide, pushing her lips to either side of him. Using one hand, he grabbed himself and angled himself perfectly, then pushed in.

  A loud moan split the air, and she realized it was her. The feeling of his cock sinking into her was heavenly. Even through the condom, she could feel his warmth radiating through her, warmer than she’d ever imagined was possible. He pushed carefully, making sure she was ready for him, inch by delicious inch.

  Then he was entirely in her. He dropped his body close to hers, one hand running through her hair and the other underneath the small of her back, lifting her up just the perfect amount. He dropped his head, kissing her neck, her breasts, and then her lips, all the while pushing deeper into her.

  He pulled out of her, slower than he had first pushed in, and then pushed deeper into her than he had the first time. She broke their kiss, moaning into his neck, kissing and sucking as she did so. With each thrust, she let a small squeak of pleasure escape her lips, each thrust brushing her clit just the perfect way.