Bearilicious - Collection (22 page)

Chapter 5

Two weeks passed before the unthinkable happened. That night they’d made love as had become her favorite routine, but soon after she fell asleep, a noise outside woke her.

Recently Greggory had been complaining of wolves creeping onto the ranch to get at his animals. He’d tried deterrents and traps, even going so far as to call the authorities, but nothing worked.

When she woke and looked over, however, Greggory wasn’t in bed beside her. She whispered his name and listened, but no answer. Slipping out of bed she put a thin robe around her and snuck through the hall.

“Greggory,” she whispered.

Where could he have gone? It was the middle of the night. She checked the spare rooms, bathroom, and even the kitchen, but he was nowhere to be found. For a moment she wondered what she should do. She was far too wound up to just go back to bed.

What if Greggory was out there, hurt? What if he needed her help?

Shuffling on bare feet she checked the front door and found it was unlocked, despite distinctly remembering locking it before bed. Afraid of wolves, she only cracked the door as she quietly called out for Greggory again. Still no answer.

At this point there was no way she could go back to sleep, and she wasn’t going to risk her perfect man lying bleeding out there on the pasture needing help but not getting any.

So instead of doing nothing, she went back to where she knew he kept his guns, grabbed a rifle and put on some sneakers before going back outside.

The moon was full which cast bright blue light over the pasture. The frigid air stuck her lungs for the first few breaths, but she was soon used to it. Rifle held at the ready she walked around the side of the house where she had thought she heard something.

The unsteady light of the full moon made every shadow look like it was moving. A loud crash from the barn made her jump and she swung the rifle toward it. Waiting a moment didn’t produce anything, so she took slow steps toward the barn as she looked side to side frequently.

There was no telling if wolves were out here right now, but if they were, she sure wasn’t going to be taken by surprise. Nervous fingers shook while trying to hold the gun steady as she inched closer to the barn.

With every step, she was acutely aware she was further away from the house and out in the night with wolves potentially anywhere.

As luck would have it, she reached the barn without any trouble. The door was cracked open, so she edged her sneaker inside and pushed the door open a bit. Animals breathed inside, some of them agitated. Without any windows it was pitch black. The occasional set of eyes reflected back the moonlight.

Then, outside any of the pens, a set of large eyes appeared from nowhere not ten feet away from her. There was a surprised grunt that was no horse or goat. It wasn’t even a wolf. A bear had found its way into the barn!

Meredith screamed and pulled the trigger on the rifle.

Nothing.

The gun didn’t even click. Screaming in terror she looked down and realized she never took the safety off. Flicking her thumb across it, she tried to fix it but the damn thing wouldn’t budge!

The bear’s heavy footsteps pounded the dirt as it came towards her, and now the animals inside began panicked cries.

Realizing she was too far away from the house, Meredith looked around and realized she had nowhere to run.

Snarls came from behind her, and she spun around to see three wolves running straight for her. Screaming again she grabbed ahold of the safety and forced it open.

Aiming the rifle she pulled the trigger, but the hammer merely clicked against nothing. There was only enough time to realize she was dead before the lead wolf leapt for her.

Throwing up her arms, she shrieked in horror.

A great roar reverberated in her chest followed by a wolf’s painful yip. Meredith opened her eyes to see the wolf knocked to the ground. The bear was in front of her, roaring and swiping great paws at the other wolves. They all barked out frightened cries, turned tail and ran.

The bear’s great head swung like it was on a hinge and looked at her. It reared up onto its hind legs and before her eyes, the bear looked as though it melted into the shape of a man. And not just any man. Greggory!

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“You,” she whispered, unable to finish the thought.

“Did they hurt you?” he said more firmly and took her by the arms.

“They just… you…” She was vaguely aware of him scooping up the rifle, closing the barn doors, and taking her inside the house.

He was naked and threw a towel around his waist as he made her a cup of hot cocoa. All she could do was sit and watch him move. He was a bear. She saw it.

One moment a bear was fighting off some wolves, and then Greggory stood there. Her brain was trying to convince her that wasn’t true, but she knew it was.

He pushed the steaming cup into her hands and sat across from her in a chair.

“Sip this, it’ll help soothe your nerves.”

“You’re a bear,” she said. She needed to get it out loud before she let her mind convince her she was crazy.

Unbelievably he said, “Yes.”

“You’re a bear,” she said again.

Greggory gently moved the cup to her lips and she took a sip. The sweetness gave her mind something to focus on for a moment, and he continued speaking.

“It’s the real reason I live out here. Alone. I’d tried to have relationships before, but they never lasted. They can’t. You’ve seen me. I’d decided to just live out my life alone, but… it got to me. By myself, day in, day out.”

“ We weren’t meant to live like that. I’d given up on finding love, but thought that what if I could find someone as desperate as I was? If there was a contract, maybe they wouldn’t try looking too closely into my life? Then I saw you.”

“ Your ad stood out from all the others. You were an emerald in a sea of ashes. I sold half my herd just to have you. When we talked, and I heard your voice—as garbled as my phone made it sound—I knew I’d made the best decision of my life. With you here, I’ve never been so happy. I had no idea I could be this happy. I was…” he shook his head and scratched the back of his head.

“Go on,” she said. “You what?”

He looked down and said, “I was hoping I could hide it from you. Maybe if you didn’t know, you… you wouldn’t leave.”

Meredith set the mug of hot cocoa on the end table, the one she had put there.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“What?” he asked as he looked up, confused.

Meredith leaned forward and took his hands in hers.

“You accepted me for who I am. All of me. You’re not alone in how you feel. I’ve never been happier, too. I had been afraid some old sweaty guy would buy me and make me do things I would hate myself for. I never expected to fall in love so completely. I feel like we were meant to be together.”

He squeezed her hands, looking lovingly into her eyes.

“You’re really staying with me? Even knowing what you know about me?”

Meredith took the edge of the towel in her fingers and slowly pulled it free of his body, revealing his nakedness.

“I’m really staying.”

She opened her robe and straddled his lap.

“Oh Meredith,” he whispered, “I love you.”

She felt him harden under her. Reaching down, she guided the head of him to her opening and slowly lowered herself on top of him.

Moaning, she pressed her forehead against his and said, “I love you, Greggory. I want to be with you forever.”

He gripped her by the hips as she slowly moved up and down on him. She tangled her fingers in the hair at the back of his head as she made love to him. Reminded of their wedding night, she leaned forward and planted soft kisses along his face.

Each time she pressed herself down on him, working his hardness deeper inside of her, she placed a new kiss on his face. His fingers traced lines up and down her back, his head rested back against the chair, a permanent smile on his face.

As the pleasure mounted, she increased the tempo of their lovemaking.

The sweetness grew into hot passion. She needed his body, his strength and his muscles. Soon she was rising and falling on him quickly, her legs slapping against his as he bucked his pelvis up to meet her with every down stroke.

They cried out together as their orgasms claimed them, and she rested her forehead on his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him.

This was her man, her bear, and she’d never let him go.

***

The Bear Guard

Ashley Hunter

 Copyright 2015 by Ashley Hunter

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced

in any way whatsoever, without written permission

from the author, except in case of brief

quotations embodied in critical reviews

and articles.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any

person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First edition, 2015

Chapter 1

The first thing Emily noticed after she had gotten over the sheer obnoxiousness of her new home was that she couldn’t stand the annoying doorknobs.

They were immense things; all sterling silver or white gold, with ridiculously designed handles that had so many little metallic hooks and curls that no matter how far away she was, her earphones always got caught in them. Always. It was practically supernatural.

Of course, her mother—being the kind to always find the brightest of sides when there was plenty of money around—insisted Emily just grin and bear it. It wasn’t always one became a step-daughter of an insanely rich business man, and it wasn’t always she was coerced into living in said business man’s ridiculous mansion.

If Emily didn’t have insane student loans, she would have told her mother to kindly shove it. It was one hell of a whiplash though.

One moment she was being evicted from her little scrap of an apartment, the next she was moving what meager belongings she had into a lavish room that made her previous home dwarf in comparison.

Everything around her was beautiful. Beautiful architecture, beautiful furniture, beautiful décor—it was all so disgustingly beautiful. The full blown bitterness in her stomach didn’t really churn until Emily made the mistake of asking her maid (she had a
maid
now) how much one of the glass figurines in her room cost.

Emily nearly dropped the damn thing when the thin woman casually said the price, as if it wouldn’t help someone with her student loans make a huge dent in her debt.

“I hate rich people” had become a mantra for her the following days Emily spent ‘grinning’ and ‘bearing’ the full luxuries. Even more so after she met her newest paternal figure.

Reginald “Reggie” Tiberius Pettigrew-Shawcross was a man with a towering figure and such a serious face, Emily was baffled at how her mother became enamored with him.

Lisa Abernathy—well, Pettigrew-Shawcross now—was such a bubbly person that when she stood next to the man, it was like looking at two very distinct moments in time that had been strangely meshed together. As if it didn’t throw off the balance of the universe or something.

What only made matters worse was that her step-father now insisted on calling her something that wasn’t even her real name.

“Emilia,” Reginald called her—Emily couldn’t help but seethe—as they enjoyed breakfast one morning.

Emily tried very hard to choke down a buttery croissant without feeling like she’s sold out her old life.

“Have you been adjusting well?”

Emily nodded slowly, uncertain how to respond considering he was never a chatty man. Emily’s mom just beamed up at her encouragingly from across the ridiculously expensive dining room table.

“Yeah,” Emily sighed.

“Good,” her step-father said, nodding as though he had heard about some business related factoid.

“I’m glad to hear it. Have you met Spencer yet?”

Emily shot her mother a flat look, “Spencer?”

Reginald raised a bushy brow, “Your step-brother, Emilia.”

Four days of living in this empirical estate and only now did she hear of the existence of her newest family? Her flat stare turned scathing.

As expected, her mother’s smile turned pleading.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well then,” she heard over her shoulder. Emily spun around in her seat, blue eyes wide when she spotted the face of a very smug looking young man—no older than her—strutting toward the table from the main dining room entrance.

Fractured light from the crystal chandelier above played curious figures of his body. His hair was brown and curled, framing his face almost cutely, yet his face was anything but cute. She had to hand it to him, he wasn’t awful to look at.

“How about now?”

Emily raised a brow, feeling strangely self-conscious now that she took in the rest of his appearance. His figure was covered in expensive golf clothes, and his body was shaped rather finely—no doubt bred for years to look as great as it did now.

His expression was nothing short of overconfident. Emily instantly concluded he had probably never struggled for anything his entire life.

She had been so focused watching him that Emily nearly failed to spot the guy walking behind him. This guy was almost a photonegative of Spencer; wearing dark clothes and almost completely black hair that sat combed carefully over his scalp.

He was much more angular, and with sharp edges that made him seem like he was walking in shadows. Emily nearly felt some relief when she spotted him, hoping that he was a little more normal in this ridiculous place.

That is, until she noticed he was covered in extremely expensive clothing of brands she had only seen on her friend’s Vogue magazines. Ugh.

I hate rich people.

“Ah, Spencer,” Reginald stood from his seat, his breakfast poorly eaten despite the excessive beauty it was shaped in, and waved his son over.

Emily fought the urge to scramble to her feet, preferring to set her foot down with this newest guy before he made assumptions.

“Come, meet your step-sister.”

Emily nearly winced at the title. Despite the fact that this was her newest reality, it would take some long time before she got used to the fact that this was her
family
now.

Spencer took sure and wide strides toward the table, stopping to place a kiss to her mother’s cheek—
what the hell??
—and then proceeding to stand by his father.

They looked next to nothing alike, but there were a few details that did make sense considering their relationship. Spencer stood by his father’s side easily, and incredibly smoothly—as though his rightful place will always be at the taller man’s right hand side.

“This is my son, Spencer Bradley Pettigrew-Shacross, and his associate, Mr. Gump.” Reginald explained, motioning to his son and the man at his side. Emily blinked over to look at her new step-brother, disliking the way he looked at her.

“I’m sure the two of you will get along quite well. He’s also a student; however he goes to school to one of the major Ivy League universities. I don’t doubt that you’ll be able to become respectable friends.”

“I’m sure,” Spencer spoke, smiling sweetly. Emily felt her stomach curl unpleasantly.

“Yeah,” she said slowly.

There was a silence that followed where she wondered if she should have said more or attempted to strike conversation with Spencer, but she said nothing and fiddled with an overly shiny fork. Sure enough, the silence turned awkward and Emily pried her eyes away from the three men ahead to stare at her breakfast.

“Emilia,” Spencer spoke and she shuddered.

When she glanced up he was still staring at her, smile broadening, “You know, there’s a party where a group of my friends are getting together. You’re more than welcome to join us.”

No. No way. Hell no.

Emily’s face probably exposed her refusal far before she said it because her mother was clearing her throat tightly just as she opened her mouth.

Glancing at her mother, Emily caught the look of warning within her mother’s baby blues.
Accept the offer.

No way!

Emily.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed.
Please.

Inhaling through her nose, Emily conceded.

“Alright,” she said and forced on a small smile toward Spencer.

“I guess I can go.”