Bear Love (9 page)

“Jess,” he groaned. “Stop … too
much …”

Smiling naughtily, she released him
from her mouth and ran her tongue up from the base of his shaft, all the way to
the tip, then made a slow, languid circle around the head.
Another
bead of pre-cum welled there, and she licked it off. It was
almost like a game, licking the cum-beads up as soon as they appeared. How many
could she lick up before she won the prize?

“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.”

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.”

She nodded, her spine
straightening, and bent in to him. They kissed again, longer than before, and
finally Mike tore himself away.

“When you hear the fighting, go,”
he said, then, with all the strength he could muster, turned away from Jess and
the others and marched back through the Lodge to the front door. He peered out.
All was darkness. But the pride was out there, he could feel them watching. Waiting.
“Here goes nothin’,” he muttered to himself, and shoved the door open.

Wind howled in, bringing cold and
snowflakes with it, but nothing moved in the darkness of the forest beyond the
clearing or on the broad expanse of the upslope to the side.

“Well?” Mike roared. As he spoke,
he began tugging off his clothes. “What are you waiting for, you cowards? I
don’t have all night!”

With that, he retreated back
inside, where it was dark and hopefully they couldn’t see him well, and
Shifted. His bones snapped and lengthened, his flesh surged, and canines shot
out from his jaw. His bear erupted from him, all teeth and claws and fur and
rage, and it filled the Lodge with its musk. The familiar scent smoothed Mike,
or the part of him that was still in charge. He was still Mike, really, but he
was most certainly different now: he was a bear.

The lions didn’t disappoint.

They streamed in through the door
like silent shadows of death, green eyes gleaming eerily. One leapt for his
face, but he batted it away, sending it hurling toward the fireplace. The fire
had gone out, but the embers still smoldered, and the big cat leapt up with a
scream. Mike rejoiced to hear its pain even as another lion tore into his side.
Mike spun, sinking his fangs into the beast’s shoulder. Two more seized on his
distraction to leap onto his side and start slashing and biting.

Still gripping the second lion in
his jaws, he lifted it off the floor and threw it end over end into the first
lion, whose fur smoked as it exited the huge fireplace. Both went down yowling.

Mike pitched himself onto the floor
and rolled, trying to grind the two that had latched onto him into paste. They
proved too quick. They jumped off him, finding their feet easily, and wheeled
to face him. The other two, raising, came closer. Blood gushed from wounds on
both of them. Mike felt more blood leaking down his torn flank.

The four lions stalked forward.

Four
,
he thought dimly. He was a bear, yes, but he could still count to five if he
concentrated.

One was missing.