Bear Outlaw

by Candace Ayers

  Kira arched an eyebrow. "Is that your confession?" She sounded disappointed.

  "I love you, Bentley," he said very clearly. "Don't think that knowledge will help you pass my final."

  His words caused Kira's face to take on a glow he had never seen before. Her skin, normally as pale as the face of the moon, didn't blush so much as seem to glow suddenly and radiantly. She fought to keep her mouth turned down, which resulted in her expression becoming hilariously lopsided from the effort, and she lost the battle, anyway. Soon she was beaming up at him, and the scholastic veneer that Donovan had used to get his own words out fell away. He gazed warmly at the woman in his arms as his thumb came up to sweep the curve of her cheekbone. He leaned into her the same moment she tilted her face up, and he once more gave himself over to kissing his student senseless in the kitchen of his home.

  17

  Kira was starving, but it was more than one hunger of hers that she thought she needed sated.

  After dinner she sprawled on Donovan's couch with a book propped open in front of her face. If she spent as much time reading recently as she actually did pretending to read, she might stand a chance of actually advancing her goals of becoming an English teacher.

  Despite confessing their feelings for one another, this time, Donovan didn't join her on the couch. He sat in the armchair beside his flat screen TV, which was currently broadcasting a virtual fireplace he had found on Netflix. Despite the gravity of their situation, Kira couldn't help but think the effect was hilarious—it was part of the reason she was so distracted from her reading. The other, more pressing reason for her distraction had all to do with the man whose apartment she was staying over at for the second time in what felt like just as many days.

  The rims of Professor Donovan's glasses glinted in the faux firelight as he pored over a campus map he had spread out across his thighs. His leg jogged occasionally as he scanned each pleated square for some clue as to how two male wolves could have existed in the same territory for so long with at least one remaining unaware of the other. His dark auburn hair was parted down the side, and he kept reaching up to idly sweep it back out of his line of vision. An open beer sat beside him on the mantle; Kira had declined one of her own.

  She ached all over, and it wasn't just from the day's harrowing adventure. Every time she looked at Donovan, she was overcome by a yearning so intense that nothing outside of multiple cold showers stood a chance of taming the heat—and she wasn't about to increase his water bill just because she couldn't keep a handle on how she was feeling.

  Think about it, Kira, she reasoned with herself angrily. It's just… 'that time of the month'. Something that, as a female werewolf, you're just going to have to learn to deal with.

  But maybe there were better ways of dealing with it than doing absolutely nothing. They had confessed, they had kissed, but it wasn't enough for her. She yearned for Donovan's closeness, and this time, she wanted more than just a hot make-out session. She wanted him to make good on all of the promises his all-too-obviously virile body had made her in the relative privacy of his office only the day before.

  "You haven't turned a page in the last half hour, Kira. Finish the chapter, at least," Donovan advised her without glancing up from his study of the map.

  "What will you give me if I do?" was her automatic response. Kira winced at the childishness of the challenge, but quickly composed her expression when Donovan glanced up sharply. She couldn't help it—the urge to flirt was too strong. Especially if she thought it stood a change of leading to something else.

  "Very likely a passing grade," was his offhand reply

  She hated it when he switched gears on her. Sawyer Donovan was incredibly accomplished at going from mentor to adversary to lover and back again; he often ran the gamut of all three before Kira could even catch her breath to protest (or encourage) the actions of one. Their romance was still so new and unexplored. Couldn't he leave her with an opening for more than half a second at a time?

  Kira grudgingly hunkered back down to finish the chapter. It didn't help stem the tide of her own sexual frustration observing the constant back and forth between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. She was definitely starting to carry her personal issues over with her into the realms of classic literature. Good. At this rate, maybe she really would have a shot at becoming a professor—most of the instructors she had encountered so far while pursuing a higher education tended to imbue their subjects with all sorts of private meaning.

  When it was finally time for bed, Kira insisted on taking the couch this time. Donovan had forced her into his bed during their last sleepover, and not in a fun or even remotely satisfying away—she had occupied a cold, lonely mattress all night long, and her mind had raced every time she picked up on a sound or movement in the other room. If she had hoped her professor would join her beneath the covers, he never did—he remained chivalrously on the couch, and when they came together again the next morning in the kitchen, they both looked as if they hadn't slept a wink.

  She would be damned if she suffered through another night like that.

  So Kira wrapped herself in the living room quilt, patiently allowed herself to be close-mouthed kissed good night, and waited an hour past the time that Donovan had turned off all the lights. The virtual fireplace burned on the mantle, offering her at least something in the way of a distraction as she counted down the minutes and summoned courage for what she was about to do. Then, when the hour struck midnight, Kira Bentley slipped out from underneath the blanket and began to undress herself.

  It was a hell of a play, and she wasn't sure she could pull it off. Odds were Donovan would eject her from his room before she could even get past the bedroom door. For someone who so incautiously (and continuously!) started things on his own, he still seemed to have some reservations about the nature of their relationship. She hoped to put them all to bed, literally, tonight.

  "Come on, Bentley," the now-naked Kira coached herself. "You can do this."

  She straightened her posture, and padded as quietly and unselfconsciously as she could down the hallway. Donovan's bedroom door was slightly ajar, although no light bled through to indicate that the occupant of the room was still awake. Kira pushed it slowly, and was grateful when it eased open beneath her touch without protest. A few more paces carried her to the bed. She hiked one knee up as she bent forward, placing it on the mattress; the other soon followed. She knew time was of the essence as soon as the bed sagged beneath her weight. If this seduction stood any chance of going off successfully, then she needed to be on Donovan, now. She found the muscular outline of his body beneath the sheets and leveraged one slender leg over his waist to straddle him. When his hands came up out of the darkness the next instant to grab her, he was already too late—outside of slinging her off him onto the floor, she now held the dominant position. Kira settled herself smugly atop his chest.

  "Bentley? What are you doing?" His voice was rough in the darkness.

  "Listen!" she whispered. "I've thought of a plan!"

  "For God's sake, does this plan of yours not involve clothes?" Donovan gritted his teeth. It was amazing how little adjustment time her vision required—she could see him now as clearly as she could by the light of day. His eyes were decidedly not on her face.

  "I'm in heat, Sawyer." The fingers on her waist dug into her flesh in tortured agreement. "What if that's why the male wolf attacked me?" she asked.

  "We've been over this," he replied. "I promised I won't let him get anywhere near you."

  "There might be a way that you can help protect me all the time." Kira leaned forward and caressed a loving hand down the side of his face. "Even when you're not around."

  "What are you saying?" he whispered hoarsely. "What way?"

  "Claim me as your mate."

  There. She had said it. Kira rocked back into a sitting position and grinned as Donovan lapsed into a stunned silent. Maybe it was a crude invitation—she had no way of knowing how a werewolf's mann
ers were meant to differ from a regular human's in this situation—but she couldn't help feeling pleased with herself for having said it. She couldn't rely solely on Sawyer Donovan to take their relationship to the next level, so she might as well try to advance the romance herself.

  The man beneath her choked out a laugh. "This is really how you're going to play this?

  "I'm not playing," Kira said. "I do want to be with you. More than anything. To the point that I can hardly concentrate sometimes!"

  "You think you're the only one?" Donovan muttered mutinously.

  "I'm just saying that the two of us together makes sense," she reasoned. "Right here, and right now. You can protect me by marking me as yours, and vice versa. I mean it, Sawyer. I want this. And if that's not enough, you saw how terribly I study when I'm thinking about you. You're supposed to be making my education easier, not harder."

  "God, don't even say that word." The hands on her hips pushed her lower, and Kira could feel how rigid his erection was beneath the sheets. It felt like there was hardly anything left between them keeping them apart. She wondered if he slept naked.

  Only one way to find out.

  18

  Kira," he moaned as she slipped beneath the covers.

  "Yes?" she asked innocently. His temperature had spiked the moment he saw her standing naked in his doorway, and now that he could feel the coolness of her bare flesh sliding against his own, he thought he was going to lose his mind. Having her so enticingly close, especially when his hormones screamed that she was a viable mate, was testing his last modicum of control. Donovan moaned as she lowered her mouth to nip at his neck, one hand coming up to clutch her as he wrestled the bedside drawer open. His fingers groped blindly until they finally found what he was looking for, and he withdrew the condom just as Kira's head vanished beneath the covers.

  "All right, you she-wolf, as long as we're—Christ!"

  A deep throb of warmth in his abdomen and a thrill at the edge of his senses cut him off as he felt his manhood encased in a taut, damp paradise. He felt Kira's tongue, always so sharp with comebacks, slide luxuriantly along his shaft as she tasted him for the first time. Donovan's hands shot beneath the covers to grip her by the roots of her hair, and he felt it when she hummed a laugh deep in her throat. She began to bob her head up and down, and each movement thrust him back into enveloping warmth of her mouth.

  Donovan groaned and shuddered as he relaxed back into the pillow. To think Kira Bentley, his student, was the one doing this to him—it made his cock twitch involuntarily, and he felt her fingers encircle the base of his shaft in an effort to hold it still. Donovan groaned again as she sucked him harder than he had ever been in his life. He needed her, now, while there was still no release in sight—at the rate she was going, he might surprise them both by bringing their foreplay to a sudden unwanted conclusion.

  Donovan seized her shoulders and yanked her back up above the covers, crushing her mouth against his even as he flipped her over and pinned her beneath him. He tore open the plastic wrapped, never breaking contact with Kira Bentley as his hands worked swiftly to prepare himself. Once he was satisfied that they were both protected, a powerful stroke of his fingers between her legs urged her open, and he positioned himself above her.

  She was slick with wanting, and he glided into her easily. Their slow, explosive cries rang out in harmony as Donovan allowed himself to sink fully into her. Kira arched beneath him in a display of sheer animal ecstasy, her legs winding around his thrusting waist as their pelvises slapped together, again and again. His fever got the better of him, and Donovan didn't go slow; she didn't ask him to. She rode the fervent, bucking rhythm of his hips, and raised herself up each time to meet him. Nature, and their overpowering feelings for each other, took them over completely in the darkness of his bedroom, where nothing was forbidden between them any longer. He claimed her exactly as she requested, and she gave herself to him with his name and his alone moaned on her lips.

  He would give Kira Bentley this much—she was certainly louder in the bedroom than she had ever been in class.

  19

  It was quite a sight that greeted them when Professor Donovan drove her back to campus the next morning.

  Kira was grinning like the cat that ate the canary and barely paying attention to their surroundings. Last night they had consummated their secret, and she was feeling good. They still didn't have a plan for how to track down the rogue werewolf, but it seemed certain that their adversary would rear his head sooner or later.

  It turned out to be a lot sooner than either of them was expecting.

  "What the hell?" Donovan's question roused Kira from her thoughts, and she craned her head to look out the passenger window. As they drove by her dormitory, she noticed two police vehicles parked near the entrance, and several uniformed officers wrestling a man out the front door. Shannon trailed behind them.

  "Oh my God." Kira met Donovan's eyes, before fumbling for her seatbelt. Donovan threw the car into park and they both spilled out of the vehicle. Kira had just made it to Shannon's side when the struggling man's eyes locked onto her.

  It was Dr. Kilman. Dr. Kilman of the English department. For a moment, his gaze flashed tawny yellow, and Kira was at last treated to a look at the wolf hiding within. She stood her ground, glaring him down as she wrapped an arm around Shannon's shoulders. Professor Donovan likewise wrapped an arm around hers.

  "You were supposed to be mated to me!" Kilman exploded. "Why do you think I sired you in the first place?"

  Kira cast a look at Donovan, and watched as his gray eyes widened incredulously at the revelation. She had been right—Donovan hadn't been the one to curse her.

  "Ugh!" Shannon darted Kira a sympathetic and appropriately grossed-out look. It took the latter a moment to process just how creepy Dr. Kilman's comments would sound to the uninitiated. The police officer tasked with his arrest thrust the professor's head under the hood of his car, and Dr. Kilman vanished from sight. The back door of the cop car slammed closed on him.

  "Can you believe it, Kira? I saw him hanging around our dorm room on my way back from breakfast, and I tried to call you… only when I called you, that creep pulled your cell phone out of his pocket!" Shannon pointed at the car and shuddered. Kira broke away from Donovan only long enough to squeeze her friend.

  "Holy crap, Shannon, I don't think you know how much I owe you one," she said gravely.

  "Ma'am, I believe these are yours." Another officer approached as Kira extracted herself from their hug. He held out a plastic evidence bag; inside, Kira could see her missing wallet and phone. "We're taking him down to the station now, but I'm going to need you to stay and answer a few questions."

  Kira shot Donovan a look. "I guess I'm going to be late to English class again today, professor."

  "No excuses, Bentley." Sawyer Donovan smiled broadly, and Kira could see all of the guilt that had been weighing on him for the entirety of their acquaintance was long gone. She smiled back in response, so full of elation that she couldn't even attempt to hide it. She was completely oblivious to anyone who might be observing their exchange.

  "Detention?" she guessed over her shoulder as she was led away by the police officer. Sawyer Donovan watched her depart, hands retired affably in his pockets. She knew he would stay as long as she needed him to see this thing through.

  "You got it," he said. "I'll look forward to seeing you again after class today. Kira."

  Epilogue

  Four Years Later

  Wait up, professor!"

  Sawyer Donovan paused in his stride, and turned to glance over his shoulder in feigned disinterest. Kira Bentley, his student teacher, loped towards him. Her rollicking blond hair was tied up in a ponytail, and it swept the back of her neck as she jogged; she wore dark, thick-framed glasses that only appeared to magnify her warm, gorgeous eyes, while serving the dual purpose limiting her vision to acceptable human levels. His former student looked older and wiser, and ten times lovelie
r than he could have ever believed. Despite seeing her daily basis, Donovan still sometimes felt like he was getting the wind knocked out of him for the first time.

  Not that she needed to know that. Any endearments he conceived, he kept to himself, until he could tell them to her in the privacy of the woods or in the apartment they shared off-campus. Now, Professor Donovan shook out his shirt sleeve and glanced at the face of the watch she had given him for their first anniversary. They didn't have a date officially set for when they had started dating—as with most things, they counted in full moons.

  "You're late," he observed. Kira stopped beside him, and stood a little too closely as she pretended to scrutinize the hands of his watch. When she dipped her head, he was treated to the perfume of her hair, and a low growl of desire rose in his throat. While their situation—that is to say, their forbidden relationship—had certainly changed since her graduation, having her for his student teacher had ushered in a new set of all-too-familiar problems. With Kilman gone, there was no one who knew the true nature of their relationship… although he thought that Shannon Drieling, Kira's former roommate, probably suspected. They both thought it best to continue to keep their secret under wraps, at least for now. Some days were more trying than others.

  "If I'm late, what does that make you?" Kira's eyes flickered upward to fix him from beneath the frame of her glasses.

  "Fashionably late," Donovan answered easily. They were outside his old classroom, the classroom they now shared. Donovan pulled the door open for her, and Kira offered him a poised, polite smile as she entered first.

  It was the start of their first semester teaching together, and with the advent of the school year came a fresh batch of students. As Kira made her way to the table set up beside his desk, Donovan set his briefcase down and crossed to the board to write their names. Kira was already dividing a pile of syllabuses to pass around.