He didn’t want to understand her calling him all kinds of shit because she was mad at him for withholding this secret from her, from all the women.
Kiko was quite content just to have shit hurled at his head. Sticks and stones, and all that.
Though he did find it curious that she was pissed at him, and only him, when there were other bears in the yard, some of whom had shifted after he had.
But they were as naked as he, so Kiko was damn glad her attention was wholly on him. If she’d started gawking at another guy’s junk, his bear would have had a lot to say about it.
He watched as his mate’s glorious cream silk skin grew pink with her fury. It was the first time he’d seen her anything other than composed. She wore her self-control like Tony Stark did his Ironman costume. It was her shield from everything and everyone, but not now. Not with him.
He could feel his cock harden at the thought of her looking like this in the throes of passion. Then, he realized he was naked, and she could see his erection.
Almost as though they were on the same wavelength, her gaze dropped down below his waist. Her eyes grew huge, into enormous saucers, and she let out a whimper.
She sounded almost scared, but he recognized the hot flush that spread across her cheeks and knew it was lust, not fright. Still, when she took a step back, he let her.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her, safe in the knowledge that she didn’t understand him. How he wished she knew what he was saying, that his words of love were known to her, but that wasn’t to be. “So very beautiful. When you’re mad or bored or amused, it doesn’t matter which. Inside and out, mate.” He let out a sigh, wishing he had the right to go to her, cup the back of her head, and pull her to him.
He’d kiss her out of her mad then drag her upstairs until she couldn’t remember her name, never mind what had made her so angry. His lips twitched at the thought, and her eyes narrowed at him. He’d known she wouldn’t understand him, but he had hoped his tone, which had been gentle and soft, would have placated her.
Yeah… not from the look she was giving him now.
Christ, talk about shooting daggers. He felt the stabbing wound of each and every hit.
She glowered at him some more then spun on her heel and stalked off.
As she went, he couldn’t help but study her ass. Christ, he couldn’t wait until he had the right to hold those cheeks and use them to pull her close to him or to urge her into riding him harder.
He groaned, his cock hardening at the thought. Running a hand through his hair, he contemplated shifting once more, but his hard-on was too insistent. He needed to come more than he needed to be a bear at that moment.
He didn’t follow her path but instead went in through one of the patio doors at the front of the clubhouse. The wall was lined with glass doors that opened onto the compounds miles’ long yard. It had been constructed that way in the vain hope that the bears who lived within them would appreciate the openness of their living environments, and it worked. All of the bears appreciated the open, if barren, view of the space they had to play with. He knew because he shared the sentiment, and though it didn’t make up for acres of forest or woods, it was a pleasing alternative—one they’d all missed thanks to the presence of the Ukrainian females on the base.
Thoughts of a particular Ukrainian, one whose stubbornness made his cock all the harder, had him dashing through the bar, down the hall, up the stairs, and to the quarters he’d been given recently thanks to discovering Mischa was his mate.
After Mars’s inauguration as Prez, when mates had started appearing for some of the Bears, there were now mated sections and unmated sections. During Jackson’s reign, it had been a matter of hierarchy. And though that still worked within the two sections—Mars had the biggest set of rooms for example—there was no way mated females would want to be anywhere near the unmated males.
Hell, as a mated male, he didn’t want the others near his woman either.
His bear grumbled at the thought, and he soothed it by patting his chest—a motion the bear would have preferred Mischa to have made—then hurried to his room. Ignoring the bedroom and the seating area, he went straight to the bathroom. Standing over the toilet, he grabbed hold of his shaft and quickly started jerking himself off.
He imagined, as he always did of late, Mischa on her knees in front of him again, that composed face of hers staring up at him, her solemn features softened with the love she felt for him, but the fire within her eyes burning him up so ferociously that he’d never get over the heat of it. She’d scorch him forever.
She wore a mask most days. He knew that. But her eyes told the real story, and he knew that he’d have to get used to looking there, not at her face and her features, for the real tale of what she was feeling.
He liked that though.
He liked her self-assurance, her control. He just hoped that at some point in the future, when they were mated and she knew she could trust him to keep her safe and to never harm her, that she’d lower those walls around him. Because the truth was, walls like those were only constructed by victims. He knew she’d been hurt, and knew he’d have to work doubly hard to make her feel safe.
It wasn’t much of a sacrifice on his part. Hell, he’d walk through fire if it meant getting her to open up to him, getting her to accept she was his.
His.
He groaned at the thought, and then images of her opening her mouth and sucking his cock deep, of lathing the tip with her tongue, of swirling it around the small hole at the glans, filled his mind. He hoped to hell she’d grab hold of his balls, massage them in her palm, maybe even trickle her fingers along his perineum and explore him there… Kiko fully believed in hedonism. There was nothing right or wrong where the body concerned. If it pleased him and his partner, that was all that counted.
He imagined those long, slender fingers of hers... so delicate, almost seeming to have been made to play the piano... slicked with saliva as she burrowed a finger into his ass, seeking and finding his prostate.
Long spurts of cum shot from his dick at the image of her eyes flashing at him, success and smug female pride combining, as she stroked his prostate and gave him an orgasm to end all orgasms. Each touch, each glance, and each taste, all were loaded with possessiveness. Every caress was a claiming of him. Every move she made was done to torture him, to drive him insane, to remind him of who he was and how he belonged to her and her alone.
A low groan escaped him as he milked his shaft. The ache didn’t go away even as his erection settled down. It wouldn’t go away until he claimed her, and he had no idea when that would be, or if it would be sooner rather than later.
It was the not knowing that was driving him insane, but there were so many things he had to go up against. The language barrier for one. He couldn’t explain shit to her without having a fucking brother there to translate. The last thing he wanted was to tell Mischa he adored her secondhand. He wanted her to hear it from his lips, wanted her to know from the sincerity in his voice that she was his, only his, and he was hers.
On top of that was her wariness around men.
Her defenses, as well as the way she scurried around, told him that her wariness wasn’t new. And though he hated it, she was beautiful enough that he knew men would target her. He hated to think of her in danger simply because of her face and body, but he knew men. And he’d seen human males. Their control was pathetic, measly.
Kiko and his brothers were predators—all shifters were. They shared their souls with animals, for Christ’s sake. But they weren’t cruel. Every now and then, an aberration occurred, an abomination, and they were culled from the Clan—as had been the case with Jackson, the old Prez. But humans seemed to let their version of predators roam free.
From the way she flinched at certain noises or winced and shuddered when a man accidentally touched her, even in all innocence like when Mundo had once handed her a bottle of beer and their palms had rubbed, he knew she’d been prey before.
He wanted to rip out the throat of the bastard who had made her scared of men. But then, he couldn’t kill the whole male population, could he? The cartel had wanted to victimize her. And if she left the clubhouse, sneaked off to go and lead her life her own way, God only knew what would happen to her. With no papers, only capable of finding a menial job...?
He groaned, his erection willed away by his thoughts, ones that painted a very bleak picture of the woman who was his queen’s future.
After he cleaned himself up, he turned back to his room, intent on returning to the yard to Shift once more. Annette, Mars’s mate, had taken the women out on a shopping trip, and Kiko intended to take full advantage of their absence. His sojourn outside had been broken up by his mate, a fact he would never complain about, but he wanted to be back in his furs for as long as he could. He had no idea when he’d be able to shift again.
Kiko wasn’t sure why Mischa had returned, but he could guess. She wasn’t the frivolous sort, and even though he’d given her ample money to buy whatever she wanted, it wasn’t her way.
The others had been giddy at the prospect of going to a mall and shopping ‘American’ style, whereas Mischa had looked as if she’d have preferred to be scrubbing the toilets rather than spending time with the other women.
His lips twitched, amused by her as he usually was, but as he turned back to the bedroom, he stilled.
Eyes the color of tiger’s eye stared back at him, glassily gawking at his nude body. She’d watched him jack off. He could tell by the hectic flush on her cheeks. Her breasts were bobbing up and down as her chest heaved in reaction to the stimulus of watching him masturbate.
Truth was, he was glad of her presence. At least now he could see that the situation wasn’t hopeless.
She wanted him. She was just fighting that desire.
He didn’t blame her, but he didn’t have to like it.
He took a step toward her, and Mischa took an immediate step back.
“I mean you no harm,” he crooned to her, hoping she’d hear from his tone alone that she was safe. Even though she’d caught him in a compromising position, a position that a human male might have taken full advantage of, she now knew he wasn’t a human male. He was a Shifter, and everyone knew they worked to their own codes.
Maybe now, she’d realize she could trust him. Because she could. He would protect her until he took his final breath, and he would never stop loving her—not even when the Goddesses made them part ways.
He was hers for her eternity.
Now, he just needed her to realize she was his forever too.
Chapter Two
Mischa couldn’t breathe.
Well, she could, but her lungs were burning, and her heart was pumping like mad. Her stomach was in an agitated state of churning while feeling like a million butterflies had taken root there. Her gaze was glued where it shouldn’t be glued, and her feet wouldn’t move.
Until he took a step toward her, then she remembered how to walk.
Even then, she couldn’t move far away. She couldn’t.
He’d called her mate.
Was that why she had those odd reactions to him? Was that why she couldn’t leave this place no matter how hard she tried?
Was he what connected her to this place?
The thought terrified her.
She knew about Shifters. During the War, huge battalions of them had been based on the Eastern Front. Some of them had been in the town nearest her village.
Their reputations were good, unlike some of the other soldiers—Allied or Axis alike.
It was well known that Shifters worked to their own rules, to their own belief systems, because they were not of the same world as humans, so why would they follow human ways?
Mischa sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and nibbled at the bit that slipped between her teeth.
She had to process this—quickly. But it all kept coming back to the fact he’d called her mate.
Shifters lived for the day they found their mates. Everyone knew that. There was a huge market, even in Ukraine, for romance books with Shifters as the main heroes, recounting the moment when a human female realized they were the mate of a usually powerful, Alpha male. She could even admit to having read a few a time or two.
Back home, tales of some of the locals being taken back to America with their GI mates were often discussed—especially when there was contact between them and the family they’d left behind. Mischa’s grandmother, her Baba, had told her once how handsome all the Shifters had been. They’d worn a different uniform than the regular soldiers, so all the locals had known how to differentiate between battalions. Her grandmama had told her the women had flocked to them, astonished rather than terrified at the news that creatures like them existed.
Baba had said that the people had embraced this new type of person because the Nazis they’d come across had been animals in human skin, whereas the Shifters at least turned into a baser creature, one who existed not with evilness at their hearts, but with magic in their souls.
The German Army had committed so many atrocities in Eastern Europe that they’d been feared more than this new ‘species’ of humanity which had appeared out of nowhere. And throw in the fact that the Shifters didn’t actually work according to country but as a species, and each of them, German, Italian, British, and American alike had come together to fight Hitler’s army. And well, that had only increased their popularity.
Baba had said that even she’d been interested and hopeful in finding a mate until she’d met Mischa’s grandpapa.
And now here Mischa was, a naked Bear shifter before her—a male the women of her grandmother’s generation would have loved to have before them.
A smile longed to beam through the frozen rickshaw of her mouth at the vagaries of fate, but she was still in shock.
His hand had been cupping his shaft moments before, and as cum had spilled from his body, her name had been on his lips.
Her name.
It seemed incredible.
She was his mate.
Mischa shook her head at the very idea because the first notion that came to her wasn’t a charitable one.
Nor was it fair to a man as attractive as Kiko.
But if she was his mate, then that meant she was safe.
Forever.
She knew the stories, stories Baba hadn’t shared with her small granddaughter, the tales of Shifters who loved their mates, who protected them above all else, who would kill to keep them safe.
She could have that.
She could be protected.
The thought had Mischa gulping back tears.
It was stupid to cry, but the idea was so wonderful, so heartwarming that the tears were impossible to stem.
Her eyes started to burn with the heat of them, and she saw Kiko had noticed them because panic had his own eyes widening.
He held up his hand, and in slow, careful English, in a tone that was meant to soothe—the tone he always used with her, she realized—he murmured, “I will never hurt you. You are safe with me. Always.”
He meant it for a reason different than the one flushing through her mind, but it was ironic that their minds were on similar paths.
He thought she feared he’d touch her, come on to her forcefully because she’d walked into his private quarters and watched him do something that any polite person would have walked away from.
KIKO (MC Bear Mates Book 3) Page 3
