Too Much To Bear: BBW Shifter Romance (Shifters of Spellholm Forest - The Bears) (3 page)

“It’s in the past. Why don’t we concentrate on the future?” He lifted his hand, and stroked the inside of her arm, sending thrills through her body.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, taking a step away from him.

“What two people do when they’re attracted to each other.”

“Get away from me. I am not attracted to you, and I never will be.” Planting her hands on her hips, she looked at him defiantly. “And you sure as hell have never been attracted to me.” Suddenly she caught sight of the very thing she had been avoiding. His thick, hard length. Boy was it hard, proud and erect in front of him. She licked her lips nervously; he took it as a sign she was attracted to him.

“If you want a taste, you can get on your knees right here and wrap your pretty mouth around me.”

Her eyes flew up to his face, her brain trying to forget what was there right in front of her. “I do not want a taste. And I will never get on my knees for you.”

“Sure. You know you want me. You’ve always wanted me. I know how these things work. Play hard to get, make me chase you. Well let’s cut that part out shall we? Why waste time?”

“Are you drunk?”

His voice grew to a low growl. “Not drunk enough. I know what I want, Jenny, and I aim to get it.”

Panic fluttered in her chest. If he wanted to overpower her, he could, but why would he? She was not his type. He preferred slim women, women experienced in the ways of the flesh, something of which she was completely innocent.

“Beck, please. You’re frightening me.”

“You should be frightened. There is nothing that can stop me getting what I want.”

“Beck. Go home,” she said, taking another step back. Her thoughts turned to running, of getting out of there as fast as she could. However, he would always be faster than her. He was long limbed and fit; her curves were no match for his powerful muscles.

“Do you think this is what I want? That I chose to feel this way about you?”

Closing the gap between them, he pressed his face so close to hers she could smell the liquor on his breath. He was drunk, his emotions spiralling out of control as he wrestled whatever demons were fighting to be set free.

Something in his words flittered around her brain, and while she fought her rising fear, she tried to pick it apart. Then the whole thing fell into place. Shock hit her, and for a moment, the fight went out of her.

“I’m your mate!”

He reeled back from her words, for once looking vulnerable, not the hard man he convinced everyone he was. Her resolve faltered, perhaps she should show him some compassion, but she could not forget, and could not forgive how he had treated her in the past. If ever she was going to exact her revenge on him, this was it.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” She laughed, and now she understood what Wes had found so funny earlier in the bar. When Beck passed her on the road, he had seen her for the first time through the eyes of a mate. The reason he swerved up the road so obvious now. He had been battling to control this primal urge, the need to be with the one he recognised as his mate. “That is just too funny.”

“You don’t feel it too?” he growled.

“No. And even if I did, I would fight it with every fibre of my being. I don’t care what you want, or what anyone else thinks. I will never be your true mate. I will never lie in your bed. You will never feel what it is to be whole.”

“But when you change, you won’t be able to resist me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Beck. You forget how you treated me. I never thought I would get my revenge, but now I can. I will never be yours.” Triumph rang in her voice; she had a hold over him, one he could never escape.

“Do you think I want this, do you think I wouldn’t fight it if I could?”

“Yes. I believe you would, after all I know how ashamed you must be to have me as your mate.”

“That’s not true.”

“No? Then why did you taunt me? Why be so cruel to someone? Do you have any idea how bad you made me feel? I have never forgotten what you said.”

He held his hands out, imploring her to give him a chance. “Jenny, I’m sorry. I know I can’t take it back. But let me spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

His open honesty shocked her, for a moment she wavered, and then it passed. She did not feel the same way he did. Worse, she hated the fact that in a couple of days, she might, and then he would win for the final time, she would mate with him and be his forever. If she were ever going to stop that from happening, she had to make him keep his distance, forever.

“Give me a chance, Jenny.”

“Goodbye, Beck. Leave me alone.”

“I can’t. I will make you love me Jenny.”

“There is nothing you can say or do that will make me love you.”

“If you are so sure about that, then make me a deal.”

“Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t give me a chance, we are both going to spend the rest of our lives being miserable.”

“Always thinking of yourself, aren’t you Beck.”

No, I’m thinking of you. You are my mate Jenny. I want you. It kills me to stand here and not be able to touch you, to make love to you right now. But worse, I can’t bear the thought of you making yourself miserable to spite me.”

Listening to him speak, he sounded so earnest, but she could not believe he would ever feel that way about her. Nevertheless, when he came towards her, she let him. When he brushed her hair from her face, she did not push him away.

“Let me prove myself to you. If I can make you love me by the time you come of age, promise me you will not fight our future together.”

“You can’t make me love you,” she said quietly but firmly, although the Beck she knew from before always got his own way.

“I know. I don’t want to make you, forcing you to do anything is out of the question. If it wasn’t, then I would force myself on you right now, don’t think I haven’t considered it. But that won't make either of us happy. So let me show you, persuade you that I’m not so bad.”

“Impossible.”

“Then what have you got to lose? If you think I don’t have a chance, then take the deal. If I fail, then you can tell me to leave, and I will.”

She held out her hand. “Deal.”

His hand slid into hers, and she couldn’t ignore the way his touch made her feel. It was then that she knew she had made a deal with the devil, and the game was already stacked in his favour.

He should be relieved; after all, she had agreed to his offer. So why was he so unsure of himself? Because as far as he was aware, no woman had ever fallen in love with him. So to expect Jenny to fall in love with him, when he had treated her so terribly in the past, was the craziest thing he had ever set out to do. And he had done some very crazy things in his life.

When he released her hand, and watched her walk away, he had been so tempted to follow her, to make every second count. Because there was not enough time to seduce her until she came of age on her birthday.

Instead, he decided to give her a little space, and allow himself some time to gather his thoughts, and make a plan. When he could no longer see the outline of his mate walking away from him, he moved back to the shelter of the trees. He still had an incredibly hard erection, and the temptation to go the private bar in the woods where shifter whores used to hang out was too tempting. They were women, and some men, who would do practically anything to be taken by a shifter, especially a bear.

“Yep, that thinking is really gonna win you a mate, you dick,” he said aloud. However, he needed something to get rid of his frustration, so he shimmered, his essence disappearing, before returning together in his other form. This bear wanted to run, and with a roar, he took off into the forest, tearing up the undergrowth as he ploughed along.

Young saplings bent before his headlong charge, nettles brushed at his coat, their sting no match for his thick fur. Once, breathless, he stopped, and reared up onto his hind legs, slashing and thumping with his huge front paws, he brought down an ancient oak, the crash reverberating around the forest.

Eventually, tired and exhausted, he made it back to The Den, and changed form again. None too quietly he went inside, and collapsed into bed. Sleeping until late morning, he woke, having dreamed about Jenny all night, his cock hard and unsatisfied. Damn, this was going to take all his control. The pull of release made him think again of going to the shifter bar.

In the end, he settled for a cold shower, to work on the seed of a plan that had come to him. He only hoped she would appreciate the effort he was going to go to. Because the whole thing went against his nature.

“What do you mean you gave Beck a job on the farm?”

Jenny had been up in one of the high meadows all day checking on the sheep and mending a fence. She had volunteered for it this morning, needing some time away to think. Now she got back to find her dad standing in the kitchen, breaking the news to her that the man she swore to avoid was going to be practically living on the farm.

“He came by at lunchtime, said he needed to earn some cash, and was I hiring.”

“And you had to say yes?”

“He’s a bear, Jenny. Do you know how hard they work? Look,” her dad said, pointing out of the kitchen window to a pile of wood across the yard. “He did all that in an hour. Now he’s mucking out the pigs.”

That was the only part of the whole thing that gave her any amusement. Beck, workshy and lazy, doing dirty manual work. It was a sight she wouldn’t mind seeing for herself. All those rippling muscles of his, perhaps he might even have taken his shirt off.

“Jenny?”

“Hmm?” she said, snapping back to reality.

“You're OK with it then?”

“Dad, he’s a troublemaker.”

“A rather good looking one though if you asked me,” her mom butted in; entering the kitchen with a handful of carrots she’s pulled fresh from the garden.

“Looks aren’t everything,” Jenny countered.

“I know, but it’s sure better to watch a good looking man work than an ugly one.”

“Nancy, that is not helpful,” said her father.

Jenny smiled, obviously her mom had hit a nerve, and she took the opportunity to leave them to it. Listening to them spar with each other, had been the soundtrack of her life so far. They had always been the same, her mom’s quit whit always leaving her dad hanging. Despite their words, she knew they loved each other deeply. They were both swans in their other form, birds that mated or life. It seemed to make their bond stronger than any other mated pair she had ever known.

Whereas bears, didn’t they get their mate pregnant and then leave her to do the maternal thing alone?

Out in the yard she admired the large stack of firewood, chopped and neatly piled ready for winter. He must have worked hard to get through that lot. It would have taken her dad all day to do it. Then her dad wasn’t all muscles and brawn.

The thought of seeing those muscles and brawn at work drew Jenny into the barn. There he was, pitchfork in hand, the strong muscles in his back flexing while he bent down, and his bulging biceps straining to lift the loaded fork into a trailer, which had been reversed into the barn.

Staying in the shadows, she watched him work. She had to admit he was perfectly matched for this job. In no time at all they would have the farm back up together. Things had been slipping lately, their old farm hand having left at the end of the winter. Only yesterday, her dad told her didn’t know how they were going to cope when the harvest needed bringing in.

Beck kept working, and she let herself slip into a daydream where she ran her hands over his back, teasing him with her touch. Beck would turn to her, his eyes full of desire, softened by his love. Their lips would meet, his hands sliding over her bottom and pulling her close so she could feel his arousal. Then he would lie her down in the hay, and make love to her.

“You gonna stand there staring all day?”

His words cut through her daydream, Beck now stood facing her, a smile on his face. He looked very pleased with himself, but then he would, he thought his plan was working.

“Quality control. If my dad is going to pay you, I want to see that you aren’t ripping him off.”

“Ripping him off. Have you seen the amount of wood I cut up this morning?”

“Yes. But I wanted to check you didn't slope off once you were out of sight.”

He laughed. “I am ankle deep in pig shit. If you think this is sloping off then go ahead fire me.” He stood with his arms outstretched, the points of the pitchfork resting on the ground.

“No. It’s OK, I think it suits you.”

“You’re meaning being?”

“That you’re so full of shit, you’re probably in the right place.”

He nodded, smiling. “You really are going to make me work for this, aren’t you?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about?” she said, feigning innocence.

“Of course not.”

“Are you implying you only asked for this job so you could see me?” Now those words would have sounded plain crazy to Jenny only yesterday. The thought of Beck, foul mouthed and offensive, wanting to put in a hard day’s work just to get close to her, the girl he loved to torment. It was insane, yet here he was.

“You know why I took this job.”

“Does my dad?”

“Does your dad what?”

“Know why you came sniffing around his farm, and his only daughter. I mean you have a reputation, and he has a shot gun.”

Beck laughed again. “Funny, you think your dad would shoot me if he knew I was your mate?”

“I think he would if he thought you were making it up.”

“But I’m not.”

“You can’t prove it. And I’m his little girl.”

“What’s your point, Jenny?”

“That if you step out of line, just once, I will tell him you tried to force yourself on me.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” He put the pitchfork down, and came over to her, his face covered in his naked desire for her. If she had been thinking what it would be like to touch him, to feel him respond to her, then Beck’s daydreams were infinitely more lust fuelled. “Would you lie to them to get rid of me?”