So Much To Bear (A Werebear Erotic Romance) (13 page)

They left the woods and walked into the
new town, and Jennifer felt a wave of apprehension. She had her
wallet with her—they had plenty of money at their disposal for the
moment—but would they have heard about the “creature” and would the
people of this town connect Jennifer’s appearance with a man in
worn, weathered clothes with that incident? She took a deep breath
and held onto Damon’s hand tighter, hoping that the news hadn’t
managed to travel this far, and that even if it had, it wouldn’t be
the kind of thing that anyone thought much of. “Let’s find a hotel
to stay at,” she suggested.

“I’ve never stayed at a hotel,” Damon
said with a slight smile. “Obviously, I know what they are—but they
always seemed strange to me.” Jennifer laughed.

“They’re really quite normal if you’re
used to them. Comfortable beds, for the most part.” She led him
into the main part of the town. Jennifer tried to avoid making eye
contact with the people of the town that they walked past, while
trying not to look like she was avoiding eye contact either. Damon
seemed much more at ease than she felt, which confused Jennifer; he
had never really left the woods he had grown up in—he should, by
all rights, be alarmed by the new town, by the sights and smells,
by the strange people around them. But when she glanced at him, he
was walking serenely by her side, his gaze directed at the
buildings rather than the people, taking things in with interest
but no remarkable wonder on his face.

Chapter Nine

Jennifer found a small hotel, more of
an inn, that she knew was operated by one of the longstanding
families in the town. She had stayed there on more than one
occasion in her wilder college days, sleeping off a night of
partying before she went back to her own home. The owners were
discreet, and there was nothing remarkable about Jennifer arriving
to stay the night. The long trek through the woods had taken them
into the afternoon, and in a few hours, it would be full night.
They would have to do something about food—Jennifer didn’t know
just how Damon would feel about a restaurant or even
takeout.

They went up to their room together,
and for a moment, Damon’s façade of calm completely evaporated as
he looked around. “This is… wow.” He tested the bed, pushing
against the top of the mattress; he walked around the little room,
taking in the pictures, the carpet, and wandered into the bathroom.
Jennifer smiled to herself. Damon came out of the bathroom a moment
later, shaking his head. “This seems very comfortable, but really
strange. I mean, I know about bath tubs, and toilets… but I never
thought I’d really…” he shook his head again.

“You’re telling me you never took a tub
bath in your life?” Damon shrugged.

“When my family was alive, we had a big
tub—I think it was copper, it had been in the family for ages. But
it took so much effort to heat up water for it and to fill it that
we mostly just bathed in the river.” Jennifer shivered at the
thought; the river, even in the middle of summer, was fairly
cold—fed by snow melt and rain.

“You’re in for a treat then,” Jennifer
said with a grin. She stepped into the bathroom and flipped on the
light, walking straight to the tub. It was long and deep—more than
capable of holding both her and Damon. Jennifer’s smile deepened as
she moved to the faucet and turned on the hot and cold taps,
sitting on the ledge and looking at Damon.

“Wow… we never really could get running
water to work in the woods,” Damon said, with a faint flicker of
amazement in his eyes. He approached the bath and slipped his hand
under the torrent of water, smiling with interest. “This… you’re
right, this is a treat.” Jennifer stood and stripped out of her
sweaty clothes, casting them aside without a second glance; she
could feel Damon’s gaze on every inch of her body as more and more
of her skin was exposed, and could sense the hunger in
him.

“There’s enough room for both of us,
you know,” she pointed out, raising an eyebrow and gesturing for
him to get out of his clothes. Damon’s eyes widened and he stood
quickly, shucking his faded, weathered clothes off, watching her
watch the bathtub fill up. They climbed in together and for a long
moment, Jennifer was content to enjoy the hot water and the
closeness of the man she had fallen in love with; by his groan of
satisfaction, it was clear to her that Damon felt the same way.
They floated in the hot water together, letting it draw the tension
out of their bodies, and Jennifer slipped back into Damon’s arms,
resting her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes.

“There are some things about human
society that are really, really convenient,” Damon said idly, his
hands beginning to move over her body through the water. There was
something stimulating—not quite arousing, but soothing and
pleasant—about the way that Damon caressed her, his touch
carelessly proprietary. Jennifer thought to herself lazily that she
was, unquestionably, Damon’s. She couldn’t imagine herself with
anyone else. If he had died, she would have had to move on—but
knowing that he was alive, that he cared about her as much as she
did him, made it impossible to think of ever loving anyone else,
even though they hadn’t known each other for very long.

“You haven’t even had a hot shower
yet—those are almost as good as this, but in a different way.”
Damon chuckled, cupping her breast in one hand and giving it a
light squeeze.

“I can’t wait to see what that bed is
like with you in it,” he murmured lowly, his voice taking on the
gravelly, rumbling sound of a growl.

“First we get clean, and then we test
out the bed,” Jennifer told him primly. She sat up in the bath and
reached up, grabbing a wash cloth from the towel rack nearby. The
hotel provided complimentary toiletries, and while she hated the
idea of masking Damon’s natural musk, she relished the idea of
getting to know his body better through washing him. She lathered
up the washcloth with soap and began at his shoulders, rubbing and
massaging as much as she could as she scrubbed, taking her time.
Damon moaned out as she kneaded away knots of tension with her
fingertips, her hands slick from the soap. She made him stand and
scrubbed him from head to toe; as she ran the washcloth and her
hand across his back, she found the scar from where Robert had
stabbed him. Jennifer shook her head, amazed that it had healed as
well as it had. She knew that Damon said it wasn’t as deep as it
had seemed when it happened, but it was still amazing to her that
he had managed to live through that, as well as the fall. She paid
attention to every part of his body, and then laughed at his
eagerness to rinse off, moving aside as he plunged under the hot
water.

Damon returned the favor, starting out
with washing her hair. His strong, long fingers threaded through
her wet tresses, rubbing against her scalp with a loving gentleness
as he worked the shampoo through every last strand, bringing her in
for a long, hungry kiss. Instead of scrubbing her with the wash
cloth, Damon lathered the soap between his hands and used the
slippery suds as an excuse to massage and caress every inch of her
body, exploring her even more thoroughly than he had the night they
had been in bed together. Jennifer shivered at the slight chill,
arching into his touch, feeling deliciously turned on and soothed
all at the same time. Damon let her rinse all of the soap off of
her body and they emptied the tub before filling it once more,
content to lounge in the luxurious hot water for a little
longer.

“We should probably think about eating
something soon… if we can ever manage to get out of this tub,”
Jennifer suggested, as she relaxed against Damon’s lean, muscular
body. He chuckled.

“I can think of some other things I
want to do much more than eat.” Damon’s hand slipped down between
her legs to caress her inner thigh slowly.

“Obviously,” Jennifer said, beginning
to tremble as Damon’s attentions stirred up the lust deep inside of
her. “I am more than happy to do those things, too… but we will
eventually have to eat.” Damon chuckled, nibbling along the line of
her neck as his hand moved upward slowly, teasing her on its way to
her slippery folds.

“And how are you going to manage that
for us, Jenny?” he asked her, dragging the rough expanse of his
tongue along her throat. “I don’t know how you town people do these
things.” Jennifer shivered, biting her bottom lip to try and
focus.

“We can order room service. There’s a
kitchen… a kitchen that is part of this hotel. We can order
anything on the menu.” Damon murmured softly against her damp skin,
his rough beard brushing against her, a contrast with the softness
of his lips, the sharp pleasure of his teeth grazing
her.

“It won’t be as good as that stew we
ate.” Jennifer laughed, arching back against Damon as his fingers
finally slipped along the folds of her pussy.

“No, it won’t, but it will… oh—mmm… it
will fill our stomachs, and it will be good. But I’m not really
that hungry anymore, somehow.” Damon rose up, holding onto Jennifer
carefully, keeping her body pressed to his. Jennifer could feel his
hard cock pressing against her back, telling her all she needed to
know about his intentions toward her. She slithered free of his
arms to pull the plug from the drain, and turned around to face
him, looking up into his face with eager eyes. “You clean up pretty
good, you know,” she said, rising up onto the balls of her feet to
kiss him hungrily. Damon wrapped his arms around her waist tightly,
clutching her close as his lips pressed more firmly to hers, his
tongue slipping into her mouth, darting and exploring and tasting.
His hands began to move everywhere at once, caressing and teasing
her, their passage along the curves of her body aided by the fact
that they were both still drenched. Jennifer reached out blindly
and grabbed for a towel, rattling the rack as she snatched it
free.

Damon grabbed it from her hands,
wrapping the plush fabric around her, tousling her hair lightly in
the process. He grabbed the second towel from the rack and lifted
her carefully out of the deep tub, depositing her on the rug long
enough to dry himself off quickly. Damon lifted Jennifer into his
arms and carried her into the bedroom proper, letting the towel
fall from her body without making any effort to pick it up before
he tossed her onto the bed.

He launched himself on top of her,
carefully avoiding crushing her under his greater weight. “We have
all the time in the world right now, don’t we?” he asked her, his
golden eyes glimmering in the artificial light.

“Oh, yeah… nobody knows who we are. We
could take all night if you wanted to.” Damon chuckled lowly,
dragging his lips along the column of her throat before bringing
them back to her mouth, kissing her with rapidly rising desire. His
hands slipped the towel away from her body and then moved over her
curves slowly, teasing and tickling. Jennifer’s hands trailed over
his back and shoulders, trying to reassure herself that he was
real, trying to find some indication of the injury he had suffered
at Robert’s hand. She thought she felt the faintest trace of a
scar, a roughening of the skin underneath her fingertips, but that
might have been her imagination. Damon nipped and nibbled along her
throat, moving downward from her lips slowly. Jennifer was
trembling all over, hot and cold thrills of sensation working
through her body as she writhed against him, hungry for more of his
body against hers, desperate to feel him inside of her.

“You’re so impatient,” Damon told her
with a laugh, nuzzling his rough beard against her neck. Jennifer
smiled as his hand dipped down between her legs, caressing her
inner thighs on its way upward to the already-slick folds of her
pussy. He stroked her slowly, his fingertips feather-light against
her drenched skin. “Then again, now that I know how good you feel,
I can understand.” Damon rubbed her slowly and steadily, pressing
his fingers deeper between her labia to stroke her firmly. His
fingertips found her clit and Jennifer cried out softly at the
tingle of pleasure that shot through her in a jolt straight from
her pussy outward, making her whole body tense.

“If you think I feel good,” Jennifer
said, panting slightly. “You have no idea how amazing you feel.”
Damon smiled against her skin as he trailed his lips downward along
her collar bones, to the tops of her breasts. Damon cupped one of
her breasts in one hand and brought the nipple up to his mouth,
sucking and licking until Jennifer cried out with pleasure, her
pussy somehow getting even wetter. Damon’s fingers continued to
play against her clit, dipping down to tease her soaking wet inner
labia as he worshipped her breasts, taking his time to lavish each
one in turn with attention from his mouth, kissing every inch of
the skin and then claiming one nipple and then the other before
switching back. Jennifer was writhing underneath him, squirming,
her attention torn between the two competing sensations that
coursed through every nerve of her body. She loved the roughness of
Damon’s tongue, the softness of his lips, and the coarse brush of
his beard against her skin as he nuzzled her.