Shifters of Grrr 1 (93 page)

The bay, though not huge, was perfectly crescent-shaped. At each end, high cliffs bracketed the white sandy beach. Out to sea were the Mercury Islands, giving a focal break before the horizon.
 

The deck at Ranger’s house almost covered the same area as the house itself. It was edged by massive driftwood logs, and was built all the way to the sand so that there was no demarcation between the man-made structure and the beach.

“This is how I imagine heaven. I love it, you’re so lucky.”

He looked at her, as if to say that she was part of his luck. “What would you like to do? Swim, sunbathe?”

To be honest, Ada was in awe of the surroundings, and Ranger. She knew he was a massively successful hedge-fund manager. A busy man. Funny, sexy as hell, and out of her league.

“Look, I’ve taken up a lot of your time today; trespassing, crashing lunch with your family. I’ve yet to impose on you even further for help to find my car. Perhaps we should get on and do that and I can leave you in peace.”

He took both her hands and turned her to face him. “Ada, I’m doing this because I want to. Because I want to spend more time with you. Everything that happened today has made me feel so content. I’d like to get to know you better, but if you want to go back to your car, that’s fine. I’ll take you. I was hoping, though, that if I can’t tempt you, the beach here might entice you to stay a bit longer. You might not have noticed, but it’s not quite as crowded as Waitapu Bay.”

That made her laugh. They might as well have been the last people left on earth, because there wasn’t even a passing boat to distract them.

This was supposed to be a man-free, non-complicated, two week break from the city, but right now, Ada could think of nothing she’d like more than spending the afternoon with Ranger at his private beach. Surely she was owed a day of living in some luxury?

“If you’re sure.”

“You have no idea how sure I am.”

He had an even tighter hold of her hands, and hell, that way he was looking at her, eyes filled with lust, told her everything he said was true. In that moment, she knew he was going to kiss her.
 

He lowered his head and she lifted towards him, their lips brushing softly. She could hear him breathing over the breaking surf and they seemed suspended in time for that moment. His smell reminded her of the scent of the bush, fresh and earthy, of ferns and moss. Of the waterfall.

Her body seemed to melt into him as he pulled her closer. His kiss went from a soft, cautious sampling, and grew harder, more insistent. She parted her lips, and his tongue thrust into her mouth. The rumbling she’d heard earlier returned.

Suddenly, Ranger pulled away.

“God, Ada, I’m sorry. No, I’m not. I want to do that again, but I didn’t mean to jump you the moment we were alone.”

He still had hold of both sides of her face, and when he dipped his head once more she fell right into his kiss. The man did things to her mouth with his tongue that made her head spin at the idea of what that mouth would do to other parts of her. She’d already seen him naked, and she wanted him that way again.

The hard length of his cock pressed tightly against her suggested he was okay with that idea, too. She remembered he was commando, only pulling jeans and a t-shirt on when he’d dressed at the end of their hike. The idea of nothing behind the denim but Ranger’s willing dick excited her even more.

They separated again, his eyes flashing rich amber. This was a different Ranger than the teasing, joking guy she’d been with earlier. Now he was hard passion. She knew she couldn’t break from the strength in his arms that held her to him, and she didn’t want to. Not one bit.

Arousal snaked through her, settling in a thickening pit at the base of her stomach. She rubbed against him, and he groaned into her mouth.

Pulling back, breaking the kiss, he lifted his chin, shut his eyes and sucked in a long breath. He stepped away, holding her at arm’s length, fixing her with a heated gaze. “Ada, you’ve bewitched me. We need to take a moment to talk.”

He led her towards the sun-loungers, and more than anything Ada hoped he was going to throw her down on one and have his wicked way with her. Except he wanted to talk. Perhaps he was going to tell her all the filthy things he had on his mind. That would be hot, like verbal foreplay before he put his mouth to better use.
 

The way he turned her insinuated she should take a lounger, so she eased herself down.

What guy had ever wanted to talk after the type of kiss they’d just shared?

Unless…
Oh, shit, married.

Duh, why hadn’t she thought of that before? Perhaps that was what the hints and hidden messages from his mother were all about. Maybe Ranger had a habit of rocking up with stray women he’d found in the bush and, after fuelling them with a great meal courtesy of his parents, he swept them away to his little love nest on the beach to burn off lunch with a solid round of fucking. All the while his wife, and probably a couple of darling children, were swanning around the boutiques of Parnell, making up for his infidelities by squandering his money.

Yep, that was it.

“Ada?”

Oh, god, he’d been speaking while she’d been lost in the let-down scenario.

“Ranger, yes.”
Here it comes.

“There’s no easy way for me to say this.”

Definitely married. Loser.

“I’m not what I seem. Well I am, but I’m a bit extra, too.”

Whathefuck? Does he have two dicks? No, she’d seen his equipment and it looked brilliantly above average. Nothing extra, beyond more length and breadth than she’d experienced before.

“Which bit, exactly?” she asked slowly.

“Hear me out without freaking, okay? Here, turn around, I need to see your face.”

He pulled her up into a seated position on the lounger, facing him. He grasped both of her hands, his knees resting on the outside of hers. He certainly was tactile.

“You know the bear you saw..? That was me.”

Ada waited for more, but that was all he said. “You’re going to have to give me something else, Ranger. I can see by your face that you’re either serious, or you have the best damned poker face around. But you can’t just say that you’re a bear.”

“Good. You want to hear more. That’s good. I’ve never done this before, so I’m a bit nervous. I’m what’s known as a bear shifter, a werebear.”

Sideswiped, much? This was a lot to take in. Ada turned towards the sea, because the want in the way he looked at her was doing her in. Why couldn’t he just be hot Ranger guy? Why did he have to be, a what? A werebear? There was a reason she’d made the celibacy vow before she came away on holiday; premonition that it would all turn weird.

“Say something, Ada.”

“I’m stunned. I don’t understand, but I guess you’re serious. So, you’re a shifter, like in some of the books I’ve read. Books that were fiction.”

“Oh, good, you’ve read those books. I believe they’re pretty hot. Yeah, that probably sums me up.”

“Given what I saw today, you can do that shifty thing whenever you like?”

“Pretty much. This morning I needed to release some bear energy, so I took a run out to the falls. You weren’t meant to be there, Ada. I’ve never seen anyone there before, so that’s why I felt comfortable doing that.”

Now she was starting to understand. He was keeping her here, telling her this in case she rushed back to Auckland to write a story about the bear she’d seen on the Coromandel Peninsula, thus blowing his cover. That sort of publicity would kill his hedge fund. Finding out she was a journalist had spooked him. Well, she wasn’t going to hang around for a buy-off.

“It’s okay, Ranger, your secret is safe. I won’t tell anyone. If the offer’s still there, I guess we should go and get my car.”
 

He grabbed her arm so quickly she jumped. Werebears had lightning fast reactions, too, it seemed.

“Nothing’s changed. At least, I hope nothing’s changed. I still want to spend the day with you. It’s just that you have to know about the other side of me, in case we take this any further.”

“Further? You mean sex? You don’t like, do the shifty thing when you have sex, do you? Because I’m so not into that.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Happy as I am that you’re thinking about sex, too, I can assure you I don’t
do the shifty thing,
as you put it, when I fuck.”

That was a relief. He was tugging on her arm, and she sank slowly back onto the lounger.

“Ada, I’m safe to be around, and I’d never harm you, okay? Probably more safe than any guy you’ve been with. Dad’s a shifter. Ma is from a shifter family, and although she doesn’t shift, she has a lot of bear instincts. Things like heightened senses, and she shares this weird ability we have, to kind of know each other’s thoughts when we’re tuned in.”

“I’m struggling, here, to believe this.”

“Would you like me to shift again, and show you?”

Ada considered the idea, but decided against it. She didn’t want him to think she was viewing him as some object of curiosity. “No, I just need to get my head around the fact that you can do it in the first place.”

He stood, and as she looked up from where she sat, she could clearly see the impressive bulge in his trousers that told her he didn’t necessarily want to despatch her back to Waitapu in any great hurry.

“All this talk probably sounds a bit pre-emptive, especially as we’ve only just met.”

Ranger was pacing back and forwards across the deck, his hand massaging the back of his head, his focus off to one side as if he was thinking over a problem. Ada could imagine him in his office in Auckland doing the same thing. Probably wearing a suit. She ran with the picture of Ranger in a business suit because it was slightly less distracting than Ranger naked. Slightly.
 

“Shifters are straightforward, we don’t play games. We’re forthright, and genuine, especially when it comes to fated mates. We move quickly when we find our mate, because the bear in us can’t see the point in going through an elaborate game of denial for months when we can barrel into a relationship immediately.”

“Hold up a minute, what’s this about fated mates?”

He came back at her with that special look that threatened to melt her.

“You and I, we’re fated mates. Destined to be together whether we want it or not. It’s out of our control, Ada, and it’s something bears recognise the moment they come across the person they’re supposed to be with.”

She hadn’t come to Waitapu looking for anything beyond a holiday in the sun. Only two days in, and she’s met this guy who, apart from being successful, hot, and a bear, now told her their future was with each other, just hours after meeting.
 

“Ranger, that connection between us is palpable, but fated mates? I struggle to see how you know you’ve met the person you can spend the rest of your life with after only a few hours.”

He crouched at her feet, his hands on her thighs, and immediately her body sprang to life, all but screaming
yes, please, slide those hands all the way up my legs; I’m ready for you.
She found it hard to concentrate near him. He wasn’t the only person bewitched. Was there something in the air up by the waterfall that had affected them both?
 

“It doesn’t take a few hours, it’s instant. The moment I caught your scent I was pretty sure, and when I saw you, well, I knew.”

Maybe she’d misunderstood the concept of the fated mates thing. Perhaps it was more about actual mating than being mates for life. That was more likely; he probably saw her and wanted an afternoon of lying about in the sun interspersed with bouts of wild sex.

That sounded okay, too.

CHAPTER FIVE

~RANGER~

His bear was giving him hell. Basically, he’d been permanently hard since he’d seen Ada at the waterfall. Now she looked confused.

As he’d tried to explain about shifters and fated mates, he’d watched her carefully, and she’d been affected by a raft of emotions. At various times he could smell her arousal, and that’s when his bear became most difficult. Other times, she’d been curious, then sad. Trying to hold himself back, trying not to rush her until she had a good idea of exactly what she was in for was difficult. Whenever her sadness overcame her, she asked to be taken to her car, and that told him she didn’t really want to leave.
 

The long ties of her bikini were visible at the neck of her shirt. She’d left Waitapu this morning with an intention to swim.

He held out his hand. “Come with me, let’s have a swim.”

Ah, there was that beautiful smile. He handed her the daypack she’d carried.

“I’m guessing you have your bikini on, and I’d really love it if you’d lose the shorts and t-shirt, and wear that sarong. It’s only fair. After all, you’ve seen me in it, now I want to see it on you.”

“I’ve also seen you naked, Ranger.”

“I wasn’t going to push it, but, yeah, I think you’re going to have to even up that side of the ledger, too.”

She pulled her sarong from the pack and placed it on the lounger. Ranger found he was holding his breath as she lifted her t-shirt over her head. He let his bear rumble, because, hell, tits. Fucking awesome tits. She gave him the cutest smile when she caught him looking.