Billionaire Alpha Romance: The Proposal (Mature Gentlemen Book 2) (247 page)

              “Probably not,” she admitted. She wasn’t sure that any guy who wasn’t her dad had ever said something like that to her.

              “You need to be told,” he said as desire darkened his eyes.

              He plunged his mouth into her cleavage, kissing the tops of her breasts where they revealed themselves at the v-neck of her tank top.

              She ran her hands through his long hair and used her nails. He stopped and moaned, moving his head against her hands. She’d found something that he really enjoyed.

              Dylan leaned onto one side and looked at Amanda.

              They stayed there, looking at each other. Finally, he reached a hand up to her neck and cupped it, running his thumb over her cheek gently. She turned into his palm, but before she could kiss it, his hand trailed down her throat, across her collarbone, and dancing along the tops of her breasts.

              Her nipples tightened in response to his touch. They ached to be touched, to be licked. She’d never experienced that and she longed to experience it with Dylan.

              His experienced hand cupped her breast and squeezed with just the right amount of pressure. She breathed deeply and saw him watch the rise and fall of her breasts.

              “God,” he said to himself.

              He drew his hand down her body and found the hem of her shirt. Slowly, he teased up the fabric, running his fingers across her belly. They delighted and surprised her and made her want all of him.

              Dylan slid his warm palm inside her shirt and made his way upwards in a smooth movement. He cupped her breast that was still shielded from his touch by her bra.

              She felt her hips begin to move. She needed more.

              Dylan sensed it because he lowered his hips to hers and pressed them into her. Amanda’s eyes widened as she felt how hard he was against his jeans. Even though the fabric of both pairs, she could feel his length pushing against her.

              She felt her core blaze with desire. The sensation of him between her thighs was new and she relished every moment of it. They kissed deeply, again and again, their hips grinding into each other as the moonlight poured in through the windows.

              Dylan ran his hand down her stomach and touched her heat through her jeans. She gasped at the pressure of his hand there. Her eyes widened and he stopped.

              “Is it okay?” he asked.

              “Y-yeah,” she stammered, trying to find the words.

              It was as though he had read her mind when he spoke.

              “Have you ever done this with anyone before?” he asked. His words were tender, not judgmental.

              “I haven’t,” she admitted.

              “It’s okay,” he said.

              She paused for a second.

              “Dylan,” she began. “I don’t know if I wanna go—that I wanna do it tonight,” she admitted.

              “That’s perfectly fine,” he said with a grin.

              She smiled back at him. He’d felt so good against her. She couldn’t quite decide what her hang up was. If she was going to lose her virginity, it should be to someone as great as Dylan. He was sweet, thoughtful, hot, and built. He was perfect. She just didn’t think she was entirely ready, though.

              Amanda was lost in thought when there was a crash in the woods near them.

              “What was that?” she hissed, immediately sitting up. Dylan’s posture stiffened as well.

              “I’m not sure,” he said. “Stay here.”

              He grabbed a rifle from the back floorboard and loaded it with some ammunition in a bag beside it. He crawled out of the Bronco and stepped silently onto the pine needles littering the floor of the forest around them.

              Amanda watched as he crept through the night, shining a flashlight here and there, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.

              She darted her eyes around, trying to see something that he might not, so she could warn him, but her realization was too late.

              Suddenly three figures stepped out of the forest from three directions.

              “Dylan!” she yelled.

              “Stay there, Amanda!” he growled protectively.

              All of the figures appeared to be men. The one directly in front of Dylan spoke first.

              “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” he sniffed the air. “Looks like a little midnight rendezvous in the woods, boys.”

              He shifted his eyes to Amanda in the Bronco.

              “Leave her out of it, Sean,” said Dylan. Apparently he knew the men.

              The man named Sean spoke.

              “I’ll do what I want, Dylan. This isn’t your territory anymore.”

              What they hell were they talking about? Amanda wondered.

              “The hell it isn’t,” Dylan said.

              “Why don’t we take a look at little Dylan’s friend, boys?” said Sean and the other two men walked towards the Bronco and got on either side. Amanda felt panic settle on her chest like a weight. Her heart was pounding. One of them opened the driver’s side door and the other opened the passenger’s side door.

              She crawled into the back, attempting to get away from them. She looked to see if there was another weapon in the back. There was a knife.

              Amanda grabbed it and as she turned and tried to get it out of its sheath, one of the men grabbed her ankles and pulled her towards him. She screamed.

              “Amanda!” she heard Dylan say.

              The other man pulled her kicking and screaming out of the Bronco. He clapped a hand over her mouth and held her hands behind her back. He walked her to the front of the SUV.

              Dylan looked at her remorsefully, as though she was caught in the crossfire of a fight that wasn’t hers. Amanda’s heart beat in her chest like an animal frantic to escape the aim of a hunter.

              The man who had hold of her leaned down and sniffed her hair. She recoiled in disgust. He brushed her hair off of her neck and kissed it. She tried to scream again but his hand only clamped tighter down over her mouth.

              Dylan raised the rifle towards the man in front of him.

              “Let her go,” he growled. “I swear to God, Sean…”

              “Or what? Let her go or what?” Sean spat back.

              Amanda bit down on the man’s hand and a moment was all it took. She escaped his grasp and he took a moment to observe what damage she had done as he cursed her out under his breath. She darted around to the side of the car.

              Then something entirely strange happened.

              Dylan dropped his rifle and hit his knees. Had they shot him and she didn’t hear it? But then, Sean dropped to his knees and so did the other two guys. She looked around at the four of them desperate for an answer.

              Scared, she crawled back into the Bronco and locked both doors.

              There was a violent crunching and popping like the sound of breaking bones. All of the men were crying out in pain, but their shapes began to change.

              The three men who had attacked them had shifted into the forms of black bears, but Dylan remained on his hands and knees, his body contorting.

              Amanda watched, breathless.

              The three bears began to circle Dylan and at the last possible moment, his flesh erupted into white fur in the dark night. He stood on his hind legs, a great white bear. He roared at the other three. They roared back.

              One of them jumped onto him and he effortlessly swatted him off. The bear was knocked to the ground and scrambled to its feet, whimpering. The bear that had been Dylan growled at the other two like an invitation to fight.

              The three bears that had attacked suddenly ran off into the night.

              The Dylan-bear turned to face Amanda. She quickly got into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition.

              Amanda looked down at the dash, trying to find the lights. When she did and she looked up, Dylan was standing at the driver’s side window looking at her. She screamed again.

              “Amanda! Let me explain!”

              “What the fuck was that?!” she yelled.

              “Open the door,” he said calmly.

              Amanda thought about it for a moment. She had no idea what had just happened. She couldn’t really even believe her own eyes, she thought.

              She slowly unlocked the door and crawled as far as possible from Dylan’s side of the SUV. It wasn’t like she hadn’t another way back down the mountain tonight.

              He shut the door and leaned back in his seat as though he was exhausted.

              “Okay, so,” he began, still looking straight ahead. “The thing is, I’m a shifter.”

              Amanda looked at him completely clueless. Was that sentence supposed to explain everything? Or even make sense?

              “I change forms,” Dylan elaborated. “My family can become the Kermode Spirit Bear. It’s like a black bear, but white, and much more powerful. We’ve been able to do it for thousands of years.”

              Amanda was speechless.

              “Those guys—that Sean guy, he’s part of the black bear tribe up here. They’ll do anything they can to keep my kind from repopulating the area.”

              Amanda wondered if they’d been watching them all night.

              “I’m sorry,” he said, finally looking at her.

              “It’s okay,” she managed, not even sure of what was coming out of her mouth.

              It was okay, she thought. No one had gotten killed. That didn’t make it any less strange. She tried to accept that this was reality. It felt a little bit like the hallway at school on the day she found out her dad had died.

              “So, does this happen often?” she asked gently.

              “More often than I’d like it to,” Dylan said with disdain in his voice.

              “I’m sorry,” she said, echoing his apology from earlier in the conversation.

              “You have nothing to be sorry about. I shouldn’t have asked you out. This is why I can’t be with anyone,” he sounded like he was extremely disappointed in himself. Amanda wanted to tell him that wasn’t true, that she was different.

              She had faced so much in the last week. This was hardly anything compared to losing her father.

              “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

              Dylan smiled sadly at her.

              “You don’t have to make this your fight,” he said. “You barely know me.”

              “But I want to know you,” she said softly.