“Let me,” he said.
“What … ?”
Smiling, he eased her backward, and she realized what he meant to do.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded, his eyes fixed on the spot between her legs. Blushing, she leaned back on the enchanted grass as he knelt over her. One of his hands gently squeezed her right breast, while the other made circles around her clit with his thumb. Her nub thrummed with pleasure. He bent forward more, and his tongue found her crevice. It made a slow circle around her opening, then licked it with maddening slowness from the bottom up. Then again, pressing deeper into her opening. She moaned and pressed her thighs in, feeling his soft black hair against her tender flesh.
The next time his tongue lapped her, he let it pause at her clit. He circled it now, slowly, then faster, faster, then flick-flick-flick. She gasped and cried out, and the fairies at the edge of the clearing changed color gorgeously, moving faster. They were watching, the little scamps! She felt herself blush deeply. Well, let them, she thought. We’ll give them a show to remember.
“Now,” she told Mike. “I want it all.”
She wrapped her legs about his hips, loving the feel of his muscles against her. His massive cock rubbed up against her crevice, sliding against her clit, and she bit her lower lip. He squeezed one of her breasts again as his cock continued to stroke her, and his thumb caressed her nipple.
“You’re bad,” she panted.
“Bad?”
“My badass … bear … shifter.”
She ran one hand through his wavy black hair and pressed the other against his hard right pec. He was still rubbing his shaft against her clit, toying with her, and she couldn’t take it any more.
“Put it in,” she said, and it was a command.
Wise bear, he obeyed.
He shoved inside her, and she cried out. He was so huge. He pushed into her, slowly, careful lest he hurt her, but she wanted him, all of him, and after a moment she rocked her pelvis against him, trying to admit more of his shaft.
“Jess,” he gasped.
“Mike.”
They locked eyes as he thrust into her again, then again, going deeper every time. He stretched her, filled her. Waves of pleasure washed through her, so strongly that she had to mash her eyes shut. Soft grass rubbed against her butt and shoulders as she leaned back, letting him lean with her.
She rolled her hips, taking him in deeper. There was always more of him to take in. She felt herself throbbing around him, squeezing him, and he grew even harder inside her, pulsing and throbbing back.
She knew she couldn’t last long. Gotta make this last, damn it, she thought. How many chances did you get to do it in an enchanted fairy glade that a unicorn had just walked through? Not only do it, but do it with someone she …
No! Not going there, she thought.
Not yet.
But … maybe … soon.
Twitching her thighs, she signaled that she wanted to change position, and they rotated, being careful not to lose that contact. Now he had his back on the grass and she was straddling him. She rolled her hips slowly, and he thrust up into her, matching her pace. His large hands found her hips and caressed her there.
Staring up at her, he said, “You’re beautiful.”
Smiling, she ran her hands up his hard abs to his pecs. One of his huge hands cupped the side of her face, and she took his thumb into her mouth and sucked on it.
His cock throbbed inside her.
She moved faster. Faster. Delirium washed over her.
“I’m … going …. to …” she panted.
“Me too …”
The pleasure built in her until she thought the great wave would just pick her up and carry her off, maybe to the land of the Fae, and at last she could take no more. Screaming out her orgasm, she gripped his arms hard and shook against him as she came. She shook and shook, as if rattled by a hurricane.
Perhaps her own orgasm had brought him to release, as he moaned and erupted inside her. Jet after hot jet filled her, and she gasped. Still feeling him pulse inside her, she smiled and collapsed onto him, pressing her head to his chest.
“We waited too long,” she said, her voice ragged. “We should’ve been doing this since we met.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Like, we should’ve been doing it on the floor at Abe’s.”
He laughed and nuzzled her neck. “Naughty mate.”
She blinked. Mate. There it was, the problem in a nutshell.
Still gasping, she rolled off him and lay beside him. He curled her up in his huge arms, and she let him hold her in his hot, thickly muscled limbs while the fairies danced overhead and the first stars of evening twinkled in the heavens.
Mate, she thought sleepily. It really didn’t sound that bad.
When they were ready to leave, which wasn’t right away, they dressed and, at Jess’s request, explored the magical glade for awhile. She wished she could see the gateway to the Fae Lands, but she knew she would have to be Turned for that to happen. Imagine that. Me, a bear. It’s what usually happened, she knew, when a bear shifter chose his or her mate. I would never have to worry about being powerless again. And I would be able to see the gateway. Most of all, she would have Mike.
Deep in her heart, she knew she now wanted that. She wanted it very much.
She shivered when they left the enchanted area and entered the real world once again, with all its ice, fury and insecurities. Mike wrapped his arm around her, warming her, and she wrapped an arm around his middle as they left the forest and entered the clearing around the Lodge.
As they came near it, Mike stopped abruptly. A curse snarled from his lips. He was staring at the front door.
Jess looked.
The door hung open, a square of blackness where it should have been. An icicle of dread slithered down Jess’s spine, raising even more gooseflesh on her neck and arms.
“Wait here,” Mike said and bounded forward.
He vanished through the doorway. Heart slamming against her ribs, Jess waited. He didn’t return.
“Screw this,” she said, and followed him inside.
There she found him hunched over a huge form. It was dark, and Jess lit a lamp she found on a tabletop nearby, then another.
Cort sprawled out on the floor, ragged and bloody. Jess jammed a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Mike was checking his pulse and wounds.
“Is … he alive?” Jess said.
“Barely,” Mike said. “Can you heat some water? I’ll get the alcohol.”
She did as ordered, but first she closed the front door. Already the wood floor near it was sopping wet and more white flurries were blowing in. While she waited for the water to heat, she threw a couple of towels on the floor to dry it out. By then Suzy had heard the commotion and was coming down the stairs, yawning.
“I thought I heard a noise earlier,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure.” She wore only her panties and a T-shirt that, to judge by its huge size, she had liberated from one of the other rooms. Maybe it was Cort’s. Jess wished she had put on something less revealing, but when Mike returned from a bathroom bearing alcohol and bandages his gaze was only for his friend.
He knelt by Cort, and Jess joined him. Gently she began cleaning his wounds. She gasped when she saw the long, even marks that could only have come from lion claws.
“Bryce’s pride!” she said. “They found him.”
“Looks that way,” Mike said.
Suzy moved to the door and locked it. “Fat lot of good that will do,” she said. “But it makes me feel better.” Briefly she examined Cort, then left, returning moments later with more towels. “We’ll have to strip him,” she said. “Put him on the towels to soak up the blood, and for cushion.”
Working together (well, Mike did most of the lifting), they managed to maneuver Cort onto a bed of towels, then stripped him and, as a team, began cleaning and binding his wounds. Claw marks had raked him all over his body,
some deep and nasty, some shallow. Blood caked his teeth and under his fingernails, indicating that he’d given as good as he’d gotten—or close, anyway. His eyes fluttered and he jerked as they worked on him. Little by little he seemed to gain consciousness.
At last he snorted and lurched up, chest heaving.
“Steady, Cort,” Mike said. “You’re safe. At the Lodge.”
Cort blinked wildly. His voice, however, was strangely calm, and Jess understood that this wasn’t his first brush with violence. She received the impression that the bear shifters led bloody lives, or at least that they had at one point. “They’re out there, Mike,” he said. “The big cats. Came at me out of nowhere.”
“How many?”
“Five, I think. Hard to tell. It was snowing. I fought them off, but there were too many. Made it to a cliff and tumbled down it. I knew the snow was deep there, but they didn’t. Must have thought I was dead.”
Mike’s eyes glittered savagely. “Or else they tracked you.”
Worry made Cort bunch up his face. “You think I could have led them here?” He slammed a fist into his forehead. “Stupid! Stupid!”
“Enough of that,” Mike said, but his voice was gentle.
Suddenly Cort seemed to realize that he was naked in the presence of two females. A deep flush crept up his cheeks and down his neck. Jess passed him a towel, which he hastily wrapped around his waist. Jess felt her own cheeks burn. If nothing else, Cort was a well-built man, and brave.
“I, uh,” Cort said, then cleared his throat and started over. Without looking or addressing the women directly, he said, “Thanks all concerned for, uh, doctoring me. I’m hardly worth the trouble.”
“You’re worth it,” Mike assured him.
Suzy squeezed Cort’s shoulder. “You’re a tough old bear, aren’t you?”
His flush deepening, his head twisted away from hers. He didn’t answer.
Jess’s gaze moved to the windows. The shades had been drawn, but she could feel the night out there, waiting, watching. Could there be huge, half-mad lions out there, brainwashed to hate bear shifters and willing to do anything to strike at them?
“We should call for help,” she said.
“The police have no business in our affairs,” Mike said, then frowned. “I mean, if it was a danger to you girls’ lives, of course I’d call them. But my crew can handle it. I’ll call the Resort and have them come up.”
He rose and crossed to a landline telephone near a couch. He picked it up, put it to his head, then grunted. “Dead,” he said.
Jess and Suzy exchanged a look.
“They’ve cut the lines,” Suzy whispered, and Jess nodded.
Quickly she dug out her phone. No bars. “Shit,” she said.
Suzy tried with her phone, also, to the same lack of results.
“What now?” she said.
Jess crept to the windows and peered out cautiously, half-expecting to see huge cat eyes glowing in the dark at the edge of the forest. All she saw was darkness.
“I don’t know,” she said, still staring out.
She felt Mike come up beside her. Pressing himself against her, just slightly, he looked outside, too. She relished the feel of him, so strong and powerful.
“Are we under siege?” she said.
“Could be,” he said. “We’d better board the windows.”
Chapter 14
Mike was amazed at Jess’s bravery as they found some old pieces of plywood used for repairs in one of the back rooms and began nailing them across the windows. Most women of his experience would have been shaking in fear, but not her. Her jaw was thrust out and her brown eyes blazed, but it wasn’t terror in her face. It was determination. It was grit. His bear growled inside him in approval. Mike grinned even as he smashed a hammer against a nail head, then another.
Suzy helped, too, but mostly she played nurse to Cort, who was slowly gaining strength. Mike knew he would heal fast, or at least faster than any human, but it would be a while before he was at full strength again, and there was no way he’d be any use in the fight to come, if it came to that. No, Mike was the only source of protection the women had—or Cort, for that matter. But Bryce’s pride had already proven they were too much for any bear caught by itself. Mike wished he and Cort could have faced them together—the two of them might have had a chance against the big cats—but there was zero chance of Mike taking those asshats down by his lonesome. So what the hell was he going to do?
It was Jess who found the answer.
“Can we use these on the windows?” she said, coming up to him.
He turned to see her carrying a pair of skis. “Where did you find them?” he said, hearing the urgency in his voice.
Sounding flustered, she said, “In one of the backrooms. Why?” Then a look of understanding came over her, and she paled. “Oh, no. No no no. Mike, you can’t be thinking …”
“How many sets were there?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe a dozen?”
He hugged her, pressing the skis between them. “Jess, you genius! You’ve saved us all. I couldn't have left Cort, and his skis were damaged.”
Suzy and Cort were coming over, Suzy supporting the big man, or at least being used as a living crutch by him. He had squeezed her under one arm as he huffed and wheezed, trying to keep upright. Suzy did her best to prop him up.
“What’s going on?” Cort demanded.
“We’re going skiing,” said Mike.
Cort looked at him as though he were mad. “You’re crazy.”
Mike laughed, feeling crazy. “The moon is bright. The girls will be able to see if we stick to the broad slopes.” To Jess and Suzy, he said, “The moon bounces off the snow, and it should make enough light for you to see. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m game,” Suzy said, ignoring or not seeing Jess’s look of pleading. Mike saw it, but there was no better option.
“It’ll be fine,” he told her. “I’ll be there for you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “No,” she said, firmly.
“Jess,” he said, exasperated. “It’s the only way down the mountain. We reach the Resort and we’ll be surrounded by my crew. We’ll be safe. Me and the others will come back out hunting for Bryce and his pride. We’ll deal with them and you won’t have to worry about them ever again.”
Sounding wary, Jess said, “Deal with them how?”
Mike scowled. “Let us worry about that.”
“No,” Suzy said. “Tell us.”
There was a look of authority on both women’s faces. Mike sighed.
“We’ll do what must be done,” Cort wheezed.
“That’s not good enough,” Jess said. “I don’t want to be party to murder.”
“Shifter business is between shifters,” Mike said carefully. “If it makes you feel better, if we can capture them alive, we’ll take them to the Council.”
“What’s that?”
“It handles matters between shifter clans and races. If there’s a dispute, or violence, and one clan wants a higher authority to intervene, they take the matter to the Council. They can decide the fate of Bryce and his pals.”
Cort grunted. “I’d rather just take their heads off. You know Connor will, too.”
“It ain’t Connor’s place to make that call,” Mike said. “It’s my mate that’s threatened, not his.”
Jess looked nervous. “I’m not your mate.”
Mike’s stomach did a flip-flop, but he tried not to let her see. “Well …”
“Not yet,” she added, more softly, and he breathed out. “No one can tell me they’re my mate,” she said. “I have to feel it for myself.”
He wanted to ask if she did, but now wasn’t the time. What was more, he wasn’t sure he’d like the answer. He didn’t know if he could take it if she refused him. Just the thought of it made his bear gnash its teeth in anguish.
“Anyway, we won’t kill them if we don’t have to,” he said. “But if we do, I
don’t want you to go to the police. This is a shifter matter.”
There was a pause, then both women nodded.
“I think we understand,” Suzy said.
“Besides, I don’t think you could throw a lion shifter in with regular human prisoners,” Jess said, and wrinkled her face cutely. “That could get messy real quick.”
Mike smiled with relief. “Good. That’s settled. Now all we have to do is escape this place.” He rubbed his jaw. “We’ll need a diversion. You three, get your skis on and go to the back door overlooking the downslope. When the lions strike, I’ll deal with them in the front.”
“How’ll you make sure they go to the front?” Cort said.
Mike straightened and put a growl into his voice. “Oh, they’ll come, you can be sure of that.” He flexed his fingers, then made a fist and smacked it into his palm.
“Be careful,” Cort said.
Jess clutched Mike’s arm. “You can’t do this,” she said, and he loved the look of concern in her eyes; there was hope yet. She added, “You can’t be the distraction.”
“Then who?” Mike said, and shook his head roughly. “No, I’ll be fine.”
“How? If they’re out there, there’s five of them.”
“I only have to last long enough for you to get away. Then I’ll follow.”
He leaned down and kissed her lips, and she kissed back, passionately. A thrill ran through him, and his balls ached.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he said. “Put my skis by the back door.”
He escorted them to the rear entrance, the one overlooking the downslope, and sure enough the moon bounced brightly off the snow. The flurries had stopped. When he asked Jess and Suzy if they could see well enough to ski by, they both reluctantly said that they thought so.
“As long as it’s smooth,” Suzy added.
Mike turned to Jess, who was rigid and pale. “I know you’re afraid,” he said. She hadn’t been afraid of being attacked by lion shifters in the Lodge, but the prospect of skiing—at night—clearly terrified her. He could smell it on her. “Just stay with Cort and Suzy, and I’ll be right behind you.”
Bear Love Page 8
