by Selena Scott
And if he was seeing her in just a few more hours, he needed to work some of this tension off. He wished Milla was here. She would beat the shit out of him and really make him relax.
But instead, he realized he needed to swim. Swimming in bear form was the fastest way to wear himself out, no question. He found the river in no time and swam methodically upstream for two solid hours before he began to feel like himself again. The zinging, viral energy that had built over the last four days began to subside. And as it did, another feeling started to creep in.
A sleepy feeling. Hypnotic and dozy. Ansel realized that he’d swum so far, he’d gone all the way to Ruby’s lagoon, where Griff had disappeared. Ansel dropped his massive paws onto the river bank and clawed his way up, huffing back onto his haunches. He stared at the waterfall where Griff had disappeared. He was far enough away that he could easily resist the pull of it. But there was an undeniable gravity about this place.
He stayed there for a long time. Thinking. He knew, without a doubt, that what he wanted was to make Ruby happy. He also knew that Ruby’s happiness could only go so far without her brother.
***
“It occurs to me that someone might see my truck parked outside tonight,” Ansel said as Ruby pulled open her front door. He was fresh from a shower and in nice clothes. A button-down shirt and dark jeans. He had a bag slung over his shoulder.
Ruby hooked her hand inside his dark leather belt and tugged him inside. “I don’t care,” she whispered hurriedly, working quickly to undo the belt.
“Hey, now,” he said in surprise as her deft little hands quickly slicked his belt out of the loops and went back immediately to the button on his jeans. He tried to still her hands. “We got all night, darlin’.”
“No,” she shook her head vehemently and dragged him back to the living room couch. The same living room that he’d renovated when she’d first moved in. At his house, he’d gotten used to the fact that he could touch and kiss her. But now, here, in her house, it was suddenly all new again. The accumulated tension of the past four days rose within him again. And Ansel felt out of control.
Ruby shoved him down onto the couch and was instantly straddled across his lap. Ansel’s hands landed on her ass of their own accord. Apparently part of him was very okay with being swept along at this pace.
“Ruby, darlin’,” he tried again to slow her but her teeth landed on his bottom lip, needling it.
“No,” she murmured against his mouth. “I’m not slowing down. I’ve been thinking all afternoon.”
“About what?” he asked, trying to keep his eyes from crossing as she licked at his earlobe.
“About regrets.”
He stilled.
“I left your house with a regret, Ansel.”
His heart stopped.
“And I want to fix it right now. This minute.” With that she slid down Ansel’s body until she crouched on the floor between his legs. He involuntarily spread his legs a little farther, but at the same time his hands came down to her shoulders. He really didn’t think she was ready for all this.
“Ruby.”
“Let me,” she begged, her hands at the waist of his unbuttoned jeans, her navy blue eyes looking directly into his. “Let me.”
Ansel groaned and let his head fall back onto the couch cushions. How could he ever reject an offer like that? A Ruby Sayers blow job? When Ruby Sayers was literally begging to give it to him? Come on. To turn away from that would be to deny who he was and what he wanted most in life. He couldn’t do it.
She took his hesitation for the assent that it was and she greedily slid his jeans down his hips and to the floor. She shucked off his pants and surveyed him.
“Shirt,” she demanded and he instantly complied, pulling it up and off, not caring that he’d definitely popped some buttons.
And then he was there, in forest green boxer briefs, all gold skin and giant body, his hands opening and closing on the couch beside him. Ruby, crouching between his legs, carefully lifted one hand, reverently tracing his cock over top of his underwear.
Ansel let out a violent breath and Ruby ripped her hand away, scared she’d hurt him. Watching his expression and realizing that it was pleasure, not pain, he was feeling, she placed her hand there again, a little smile on her face.
Ansel’s hands dug into the couch cushions as he forced himself to sit completely still. Ruby rubbed her palm along the length of him, traced his outline against his leg. She pressed her thumb, through the underwear, against the tip, her breath as labored as his. He wasn’t prepared for when she lowered her hot little mouth to the head. He could feel the hot wet of her even through the cloth and his vision grew dizzy and concentrated all at once.
He had to look away, control himself, and his eyes found the intricate trim he’d installed in this room. She hadn’t asked for it, but he’d wanted her home to be special and had paid the difference himself, without her ever realizing that it had been a gift. His mind transported him back to that time, when he’d been her carpenter. He’d imagined scenarios like this over and over. Her on her knees in front of him, exploring him with her mouth. His cock surged against the fabric of his underwear and against the heat of her tongue. She gasped and pulled back.
For a moment he thought she was overwhelmed, but then she went straight for the waistband of his boxer briefs and pulled them right down.
His cock popped free and Ruby froze. He thought about saying something. Actually, he fought down the insane urge to apologize for a body part he’d spent his life feeling pretty fucking proud of. But he bit his tongue. Watched her face.
She went from utterly shocked to intrigued very quickly. Ansel watched, completely still, as she leaned down and laid her cheek against his thigh. She stared and stared at his cock, standing straight up between them.
“Wow,” she finally muttered.
He let out a relieved laugh and reached forward to touch her hair for just a second.
“Ruby…” he started again, trying to will himself to tell her that they didn’t have to rush.
“Can I taste you?” she asked, her eyes finding his.
Because his mouth had gone completely dry, Ansel found he could only nod, his hands in fists at his sides.
She leaned forward and her little pink tongue licked out at the tip. Ansel couldn’t fight the vicious, guttural noise that ripped out of him. She smiled up at him and pulled her tongue back into her mouth. The smile fell away as her eyes went heavy and hooded. She reached a hand out and circled him, giving him one tentative pump that had his eyes crossing.
And then, in a move that he would remember until the day he died, she leaned forward and used her tongue to trace the thick, pulsing vein that ran along the bottom.
“Fuck the– Jesus Christ– I’m gonna fuckin’– motherfucker,” he ground out and Ruby grinned again.
“I don’t know how,” she whispered to him, one hand still wrapped around him and her mouth so close that he could feel her breath wash over him.
“You’re doing just fine,” he ground out, but saw after a second that she really was asking for guidance. He quickly wrapped his large hand around hers and showed her the pressure he liked. Showed her that little twist of the hand that wrecked him.
Some of her hair had come loose from her braid and Ansel brushed it back. “Suction is good,” he started. “Try to keep your teeth out of the way,” he gave her a rueful little smile. “Your tongue can do whatever you feel like.”
She leaned forward and paused. “What if I gag?”
He shrugged and traced a thumb over her lips. “Then you gag and we all move on.”
Something about his reaction made her smile but he didn’t get a chance to ponder it because her mouth closed over him. Oh fuck. She had barely started and he knew he wasn’t going to survive this. Her tongue tentatively petted him and then she groaned and sank her mouth further down. He was a large man with a big dick and she was a small woman with a proportionate mouth. She couldn�
�t take very much of him all at once.
“Your hand,” he ground out through teeth that would barely open.
She instantly started jacking him at the same time as she sucked him and his hips lifted a tiny bit off the couch of their own accord.
Ansel’s hand smoothed over the back of her neck, tangled in her hair. “Fuck,” he groaned out over and over.
Suddenly, her tongue began to swirl around the head over and over and he saw stars. She pushed him to the back of her mouth and paused.
“Relax. Your. Throat, darlin’,” he groaned, needing to suck in a breath between each word. And then she did just that. He sunk into her another two inches and felt the back of her throat.
Ansel slammed his eyes closed and his head back. He pictured this as several years ago. Her thanking him after a hard day’s work on her house. Surprising him. Begging him to let her do this. She swirled her tongue before taking him down as far she could again.
“Jesus.” Ansel groped beside him for a couch cushion and found one that for some reason wouldn’t budge.
But then she paused, pulling off him, and he looked down. He watched in stunned fascination as she stared at his wet, bobbing cock in front of her. Not taking her eyes off of him, she licked her own palm before she started jacking him in earnest. A bead of pre-come appeared at the tip and she leaned forward to lick it off. Ansel groaned again and she swallowed him down all the way, her mouth chasing her hand, setting a furious pace.
Ansel’s head dropped back again as he cussed up a storm. He knew he was being crude and being too loud. He finally got that couch cushion up and slammed it over his mouth, blunting some of the brash, uncontrollable words that were pouring out of his mouth.
And then he was racing toward the edge and there was no stopping it, she was sucking him way too well. He wasn’t going to last. He hitched his legs wider and tore the pillow away from his face.
“Ruby, darlin’.”
Her eyes shot up to his, but she didn’t stop.
He laced his fingers in her hair and gave her hair just a little bit of a tug. She still didn’t stop.
“Darlin’, I’m close.” He waited for her to pull off him, but she didn’t. He thought that she might not know what he meant. “Ruby, I’m gonna, fuck Jesus, come in a second.”
She nodded and still didn’t stop. Actually, she doubled her efforts. She was gonna stay on him. She was gonna suck him through it. He was about to come in Ruby Sayers’s mouth while she went down on him in her living room.
The thought had him catapulting into infinity. His hand tightened in her hair as he unwittingly held her on him. “Just like that, just like that, just like that,” he chanted. And then when her mouth sent him flying off the highest cliff of his life, his entire body tensed and there weren’t any more words. There was just ecstasy. Four pent up days of it, all racing itself to rip out of his body. Raging, uncontrollable ecstasy that just kept on going and going and going. He was barely in control of himself as he jerked and groaned and slammed his eyes shut. He was spinning off in another world, another dimension.
When his body finally relaxed, when the most intense pleasure of his life finally waned, Ruby stayed with him. She smoothed her hands over his thighs and petted his cock with her tongue. He, splayed half sideways on the couch, three quarters of the way toward dead, watched as she placed a little, satisfied kiss on the tip and then grinned up at him.
“You’re a little scary when you come,” she said through a smile that just wouldn’t quit.
He reached down, took her by the shoulders and dragged her up and onto him. He cradled the back of her head and looked down at her face. “Scary?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, smiling even wider. “Like the incredible hulk or something. Ansel Smash.”
He chuckled then. “Is that so?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I didn’t feel very strong. I felt utterly and completely incapacitated. We could have been robbed at gunpoint and I couldn’t have done a thing to stop it. That’s quite a weapon you’re packing there, Ruby Red.”
She smiled at his compliment but cocked her head to one side, her eyes flicking over his shoulder. “You need proof that you hulk out when you come?”
“Uh, what do you mean?”
“You broke my couch.”
“What?” Ansel followed her gaze and turned to look behind him. His mouth fell flat open. The entire arm of the couch was ripped clean open, stuffing and loose threads lay everywhere. Welp, that must have been the cushion that hadn’t wanted to budge. “Shit.”
He traced a hand over his completely embarrassed expression.
“Darlin’, I’m so sorry.”
She just laughed and snuggled into him. “You can make it up to me in the bedroom.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ansel laid on his back in Ruby Sayers’s bed. He’d been very surprised that her walls were blue and her comforter was white. He would have put a hundred on red everything.
He watched as she stood at the door of her closet and pulled on a tank top and loose pajama pants with little red tulips on them. God, she was so cute.
“So, I’m shocked,” he said, his eyes glued to her as she moved to her bureau and began to take out her braid.
“About what?”
“Blue and white?” He gestured at the color scheme. “Who are you and what have you done with Ruby Red?”
She laughed a little and turned to him as she finished combing out her hair. “Red bedrooms give you nightmares.”
“Is that so?”
She shrugged and laughed again. “That’s what my mom always said. Even though I begged for a red bedroom as a kid. I guess I could do it now if I really wanted. But a blue bedroom is kind of a way of remembering her, I guess.”
“When did she pass away?”
Ruby paused for just a second as she rubbed lotion onto her face and hands. “Just two weeks after I was nineteen. About nine or so years ago.”
“That’s when you got custody of Griff?”
She nodded and crawled into bed. Ansel was charmed by the fact that she crawled over top of him instead of walking around to the other side of the bed. He lifted the covers for her. “Your dad was already gone by then?”
“No,” Ruby shook her head and snuggled in next to him. He was watching her reactions very carefully, but she didn’t seem too bothered by his questions. “They disappeared together.”
“Disappeared?” Ansel was very surprised at that wording.
“Yeah,” she nodded, sadness passing in her eyes. “They were on a ski trip in Canada. There was an avalanche. They were never found.”
Ansel’s brow wrinkled. That was so strange. First her parents and then Griff, disappeared and never found. He really didn’t understand. Either that was an extremely cruel coincidence that the universe had played on her or…
“My parents disappeared, too,” he told her.
“What?” She covered her mouth with one hand.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Almost fifteen years ago. Up in Maine. That’s when we all moved down here to live with my aunt. She passed away about five years ago.”
“What? I’m sorry to ask because I know how it feels, but what were the circumstances?”
“They were hiking and just never came back.”
“Oh my God, Ansel.” Ruby’s arms were around his neck and he was holding her back just as tightly. She gripped him with all her might and kissed and kissed at the skin at his neck.
“I had no idea, my love.”
He gripped her even tighter, wondering if she’d even realized that she’d called him that.
“God,” she rolled off of him. “What are the odds of that happening to both of us? That is so insane.”
“Well.” Ansel considered his next words. It was very possible that it wasn’t nearly as insane as she thought it was. He scraped a hand over his eyes and just took the damn plunge. “Were your parents shifters?”
She squinted up at him. �
��Of course not. There haven’t been any known shifters since the twenties. You must know that.”
“Right.” He paused and she sat up, staring at him.
“Unless,” she started, very slowly, “you have evidence to the contrary?”
“Um, well. It would just make sense, I guess. That shifters have a documented history of disappearing without a trace and it’s happened to three people in your immediate family.”
She stared at him. “And to your parents, too.”
“Right.” He was distinctly uncomfortable, aware that he wasn’t doing this well at all.
She was glancing back and forth between his eyes, obviously connecting dots. “Ansel, the only reason why you’d bring that up so quickly, it seems to me, is if your parents were shifters.”
“Right,” he repeated.
“Right as in yes?” she asked, her eyes as big as half dollars. “They were shifters?”
“Oh. Ah. Yeah?”
“What?!”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
She turned away from him for a second, needled her knuckles into her closed eyes before she turned back. “Wait. Really?”
He nodded. Cleared his throat. “Right now might be the best time to mention that, uh, I am, too.”
She turned to him blankly. Rejecting it. “You are what?”
He coughed lightly. “Also a shifter.”
She didn’t move, speak, blink or breathe for so long that Ansel got a little worried.
“Darlin’? You alive in there?”
“So many questions,” she finally croaked out of a mouth as dry as paper.
He took a chance and laid one of his hands on her knee, and was extremely relieved when she didn’t pull away from him. In fact, she absently laced her fingers through his.
“Fair enough,” he said softly. “Ask away.”
“What animal are you?” She gestured at the tattoo on his chest. “I assume that it’s not a bear. Otherwise that would just be way too obvious.” She laughed and then went silent, biting her lip at the expression on his face. “Oh. Okay, well, then you’re a bear.” She cleared her throat. “Black bear or grizzly?”
