Bearly Hanging On (A Werebear Shifter BBW Romance) (Laid Bear Book 3) (4 page)

But after a lifetime of fluff, Chet finally saw that beauty had nothing to do with any of that shit. He was looking at beauty at that very moment, sitting in a ratty old swing, laughing her head off. She wasn’t afraid of being herself, but she refused to hurt those she loved out of spite. Besides, all the window dressing in the world — be it punk or yuppie — couldn’t hide who she really was on the inside: A funny, caring vixen who’d completely stolen his heart over the course of an hour.

Deep inside, his bear grumbled at him for taking so long to come to the conclusion it had made the moment she climbed into the seat next to him on the ferry. Regret dampened his humor, and he waited until Crystal’s guffaws had subsided to the occasional gulp for air before speaking.

“Crystal, I need to apologize. I was a complete dickweed on the ferry and I’m sorry.”

Her smile faltered a fraction, just barely, but he noticed, and his gut clenched at the idea he’d hurt her. “Don’t worry about it, Tubbs.”

He wouldn’t let her just wave it away. He couldn’t. She needed to know how he truly felt, not what his messed up pride had shown her on the ferry. Hopping down from his swing, he knelt down in front of her at eye level, wrapping his hands around hers on the swing’s chains and capturing her gaze with his.
 

“No, I
will
worry about it, Crystal. I’ll worry that, somewhere deep inside, you’ll think I don’t find you to be the most gorgeous creature I’ve ever met. I’ll worry that you won’t want to spend every waking minute with me like I do you. I’ll worry that you’ll think I’m only interested in sleeping with you. I’ll worry that you won’t know — I mean
know
all the way down to the toes of your soul — that I’m completely and totally crazy about you.”

Blinking at his surprise confession, all she could do was gape. He’d overstepped, moved too soon. He wasn’t even entirely sure why he’d told her all of that or how it was possible he felt it so quickly after meeting her, but he did. The deed was done and the only thing he could do was wait for her to formulate a response.

“Tubbs, I…”

“Well, isn’t this a cozy sight,” came a voice from behind them. “What kind of happy horse shit is this?”

Chet wheeled around to find a very large human male looming over them, and flanked by two other big-ass dudes. His skin rippled with his bear’s rage at being taken by surprise. A light dusting of fur started to sprout from his arms and neck.
Not now
, he thought, trying to calm down his bear.

He stood slowly so he wouldn’t spook the obviously angry bohunk, and kept Crystal safely tucked behind him. “And you are?” he asked quietly.

The guy puffed his chest out and glared menacingly at Chet. “I’m her boyfriend, buttwad!”

~ * ~ * ~

“Shit,” Crystal mumbled from behind Chet. Why was he blocking her view? God, if he’d just get out of the way… She scrabbled out of the swing and tried to step around him but he put an arm out, trying to keep her behind him.
 

“Knock it off, Chet,” she fumed, shoving his arm down.
Was that…fur?
“Derek, what are you doing?”

Storming around Chet, she stepped up toe-to-toe with Derek, trying to melt the behemoth of a redneck with a death stare. It worked enough to get him to take a step or two backward. His toadies weren’t sure what to do, and kept glancing at each other nervously. It tickled her that she had the power to make big boys cower.
 

“I could ask the same of you, Crystal,” he barked back, a distinct whine to his tone. “Who
is
this guy?”

“None of your damn business, that’s who! I’ve had enough of your bullshit, Derek. One date doesn’t make me your girlfriend. It was weeks ago, man. Get a grip!”

“But I love you, Crystal…”

She laughed cruelly. She hated to be so mean but the gentle approach she’d been trying for weeks hadn’t worked. Every time he called, she nicely told him no thanks. When he’d stalk her around town, she’d give him a small wave and walk away. If he tried to talk to her, she’d make some excuse to escape. The dude couldn’t take a hint. Apparently he needed everything spelled out for him.
 

“Love me? You don’t even know me. We talked for all of two hours on that date, Derek. And it was all about how great
you
were. I bet you don’t even remember my last name. I know I don’t know yours. I’ve tried to be nice about it but can’t you get it through your thick skull that I don’t want to date you?”

He looked devastated and suddenly she regretted her harsh words. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him in front of his friends. She was only here for the summer, after all; Derek was most likely going to live here the rest of his life.

Softening her tone, she laid a hand on his arm. “What I mean to say is…you deserve so much better than me, Derek. You deserve a girl who wants the same things as you. One who’s skinnier than me, prettier than me, smarter than me. One who wants to have a million of your babies. Don’t you think you deserve all those things?”

She could feel Chet tense behind her with each word she spoke. It warmed her heart that he was so upset by her little speech but it was just to help Derek save face. Whatever it took to get him to leave her alone.

“Yeah, Derek,” chimed in his nasty friend, Abe. “What’re ya all worked up over this fat skank for? You could get a lot hotter tail than her.”

Derek sniffed — she was pretty sure he was sniffing back tears, but he put on a disgusted face to hide them — and said, “No doubt, Abe. Let’s plow.”

Derek and his buddies hustled away, casting ugly glances backward as if she or Chet made one wrong move, they’d come back and beat their asses. Yeah, right.

Strong arms snaked around her, pulling her back against Chet’s front. She leaned into him, breathing him in. The aroma of Polo nearly bowled her over, but it was what lay underneath the spicy cologne that caught her attention, that tightened her core against all common sense.

Spinning in the circle of his arms, Crystal wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her. Waves of pleasure washed over her as their lips met. This was where she was meant to be, right here kissing Chet. Her toes curled when his tongue slipped past her lips and flicked against her own, challenging it.
 

Looked like he needed another lesson about how she could hold her own.

Digging her fingers into his hair, she ground into him as her tongue darted in and out of his mouth, teasing him. He pulsed against her hip, his heat searing her already sensitive flesh. A little lower, she pulsed as well, wanting him to relieve the pressure that was building inside of her, threatening to spill over at any second.
 

She didn’t normally sleep with a guy so soon after meeting him, but there was something about Chet, something that made her
need
him more than any other guy she’d dated. But where could they go? Her grandparents’ place was out of the question and he’d mentioned that his family’s place was way out in the woods. Maybe she wanted to do the nasty with him, but she wasn’t about to go driving out to the isolation of the boonies to do it. Was she horny? Yes! Was she stupid? Nuh uh!

Her attention was brought back to Chet when he cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing across the tight tip, sending lightning bolts southward. She couldn’t wait any longer, she needed him
now
!

“Chet—“ she started.

“I love you,“ he breathed at the same time.

It was a moment before his words sank into her lust-muddled brain, before she understood what he said. She was so focused on finding someplace private that she almost didn’t hear him at all. No, no, no, she must have misheard.

“Wait!” It nearly killed her to pull away from him, but she needed a bit of distance so her head would clear. “What did you say?”

Goosebumps pebbled her skin as his palms lightly skimmed down her arms until they clutched her hands. “I love you, Crystal. I know, I can’t quite believe it either, but it’s true.”

Anxiety tightened her chest and she pulled her hands free. She’d seen this with her mom far too many times. Too many lusftul moments wrongly interpreted as love. Her fingers twitched at a lock of hair, tugging on it repeatedly, rhythmically, soothing her nerves.
 

“Jesus, what’s with you boys? Didn’t you hear what I just said to Derek?”

Chet nodded, but his smile was self-assured. How could he be so confident? She’d just shot him down! “I know, poor guy. But this is different. And the thing is, Crystal…you feel it, too.”

All she could do was stare at him. In a book, they’d say she was ‘agog’, and that was about as good a description as any. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Some guy she barely knew and had only macked on a couple of times was professing his undying love for her. And he thought
she
was a freak!

The trouble was, he wasn’t entirely wrong. She did feel something for him, something special. But love? It couldn’t be. Okay, so she didn’t know exactly what it felt like, but she knew it couldn’t happen this fast. That was just nuts!

Her heart was threatening to jump right out of her chest, and not in a good ‘he’s got me so hot’ way. Stammering and stumbling backward, she said, “I…um…you…what…”

A girl several years younger than them interrupted their…whatever it was. “Chet, we should jam or we won’t make it back before Mom and Dad get home. Oh, hey, I’m Sandy, Chet’s cousin.”

She stuck a lace-covered hand at Crystal. Why was she doing that? A spark niggled at the back of Crystal’s brain. She was supposed to do something here but couldn’t remember what. Her brain was so foggy and jumbled, it was a shock she could even remember to breathe.
 

“Oooohkay…” the girl breathed as she pulled her hand back, grabbed Chet’s arm and started dragging him away. Blissfully away. Tragically away.
 

Don’t let him go
, Crystal’s heart screamed, while her brain shouted,
Later days!

Chet dazzled her with one last smile before leaving with his cousin. “See you soon, Andie.”

Andie? She was Crystal! Wasn’t she? Yes. She was almost positive her name was Crystal. So who the hell was Andie?! And then her brain regained full function — or most of it, anyway. Andie was Molly Ringwold’s character from
Pretty In Pink
. Blane’s true love.
 

“Thanks again for helping me out this week, Chet,” Uncle Max was saying as he shuffled through a huge stack of papers on his desk. “You’ve been a real lifesaver since Jackie went on maternity leave.”

Rather than sit around the house pining for Crystal and feeling sorry for himself, Chet had offered up his skills — as limited as they were — for his uncle to use at his logging company, Pearce Forestry Products, Inc. He’d pictured himself felling giant trees with nothing but an ax or sending one through the debarker machine. Something rough and manly. Dangerous.

Not once in his fantasy did he envision filing paperwork all damn day.
 

But it gave him plenty of time to think about Crystal, to remember the way her lips felt under his own, the way her heart fluttered madly when he kissed her, the sense of utter contentment he felt in her presence.

He and Sandy had gabbed for hours that fateful night, and several nights since, about how and why werebears and humans should never mate. It was something they’d been taught from childhood and had never thought to question, but now they wanted to know more about the why.

“Maybe I should just ask your dad,” Chet said one evening during an after-dinner ping-pong game in the basement. Sandy responded with a frantic shake of her frizzy blond hair.

“Are you buggin’?! ‘Oh, hey, Uncle Max. Why can’t werebears and humans mate?’ Yeah, like he won’t see right through
that!”

Irritated, Chet slapped the ping-pong ball back with a wicked spin, which Sandy just managed to save. “Fine, what do you suggest then?”

They volleyed for a few rounds while she thought. “I’ll ask mom.”

He laughed coldly. “Oh, and that’s so much better than my idea?”

“Um, duh! I’ll get her talking about periods and sex and mating and stuff. It’ll totally fit right in with the conversation. My mom’s a freak about preparation and education. As if I didn’t know it all by the time I was eight.”

He had to admit, Sandy’s idea made more sense. Though it did vaguely trouble him that she was so well-versed on the subject matter.

“It’s weird here, ya know? In L.A., we can be friends with all the humans we want but they can’t know we’re werebears. Here, it’s the exact opposite. Humans know who we are but we can’t so much as talk to them. Isn’t that fucked up? It is, right?”

She shrugged, reaching for a wide shot and missing. After retrieving the ball, she asked a question that froze Chet in place, winning her back the point she’d just lost. “Do you think
she
knows?”

He honestly had no idea. He’d been working under the assumption that she didn’t, but that was just habit. What if she did know? What if that’s why she didn’t seem all that happy about his profession of love?

“Does, like,
everyone
in town know about us?”
 

“I think it’s mostly the folks that work for our companies, but that’s pretty much all the adults in town. Most of them don’t tell their kids till they come to work for Dad. Only one of my human friends knows. Maybe I’ll tack that on to my list of questions for mom. I’ll throw her some softballs, like ‘Where do babies come from?’ and then a few tougher ones. Keep ‘em confused!”

As it turned out, Aunt Clea’s answers to Sandy’s questions were vague at best and only led to more questions so now he was more confused than ever. All he knew for sure, standing there in Uncle Max’s office stuffing meaningless papers into even more meaningless file folders, was that he’d been profoundly changed when he met Crystal, and that couldn’t be a bad thing.

“Well, Chet? Would you?”

Uncle Max’s words snapped him out of his thoughts. Would he what? He had absolutely no idea what his uncle was asking of him, but he figured it couldn’t be any worse than filing old bills of lading. Besides, the one piece of his dad’s advice that he always tried to follow was ‘Say yes, then figure it out later.’