Alpha Rancher Bear: BWWM Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (Bears of Pinerock County Book 3) (5 page)

"Where?" Charmian asked, moving to the window.

Alec leaned in, his hip brushing hers. "There," he said, pointing. "See? Up on the hill behind the house."

"Oh." She'd seen it earlier, but she hadn't realized it was a windmill. She had thought it was a cell tower or something. He'd taken off the blades, so all that was left was a sturdy-looking tower structure, about fifteen feet high.

"The trouble is, we get really high winds up in these mountains." The vibration of his voice shivered through her as he spoke. "Storms come screaming down out of the heights, and tear up or blow away anything that's not nailed down tight enough. We're always having to fix the roofs and patch up the sheds. So the trick is finding something lightweight enough to spin easily, but durable enough to stand up to the wear and tear."

"Resilient but tough," Charmian murmured.
Like you,
was her first thought, but then she thought of all the ranch families she dealt with in the course of doing her job. Single widows holding together their husbands' ranches all by themselves. Tough farm wives and the men they loved. Sheriff's deputies and tow truck drivers who had to go out in screaming blizzards to rescue stranded motorists.

They were a tough breed, the people who lived in this rural country. They had to be. And especially people like Alec, running a cattle ranch in the back end of nowhere.

She admired that kind of backbone and strength. Admired it—hell, might as well admit that she found it drop-dead sexy. Maybe that was what got her panties damp whenever she was near him. It took one hell of a guy to do what he did every day, and do it well. And she could tell from the way he talked about the windmill, and about the ranch, how much he loved it—how committed he was to making it work.

She admired that, too.

She tipped her head back to look up at him, intending to say ...

No, she wasn't sure what she meant to say, because one thing she
did
know about guys like Alec was that you couldn't go feeding their ego too much. Instead she found him looking down at her, which meant his face was suddenly
much
too close for comfort.

Or not close enough.

This close, she couldn't help cataloguing all the little details of his features: the dusting of five o'clock shadow on his chiseled jaw, the soft-looking lips in utter contrast to the hard planes of the rest of his face. Those blue eyes, so intense and so interested in her ...

She couldn't get her breath. In that moment, she wanted him, more than she had ever wanted anyone or anything in her life.

And she saw the exact moment when his control over his wilder side snapped, and he gave in to it.

Blue heat flared in his eyes, and he moved forward, pushing her up against the wall. She pushed back, rising to meet him as he leaned down and those full, kissable lips met hers.

He kissed her with the same intensity that he did everything else, his whole being focused on her, as if there was nothing else in his world, nothing that mattered, except her. He took her mouth with fierce and ardent passion, and she kissed back with every fiber of her being.

His arms went around her, and she clung to him, clutching at the back of his shirt. His body was as hard and ripped as it looked; he had the kind of muscles that you didn't get from a gym, but from throwing around sacks of feed and wrangling cattle. He was so big that his arms engulfed her, made her feel like she was buried in him.

Oh God, how she wanted
him
to be buried in
her
. The tingling between her legs was driving her half-mad with desire. She'd been riding a low-level wave of lust ever since she'd walked into his house, his den—no, more like since he walked out onto the porch, or maybe even since her first sight of him in the clinic. And now she had her arms around him, and his tongue in her mouth. She writhed against him, arching her back and grinding her crotch against his. Compensating for their height difference, he'd bent his knees to bring himself down to her level, so she could kiss him without standing on tiptoe—and feel his enormous erection pressing between her thighs, straining against his jeans. God, if his cock was proportionate to the rest of him, it must be huge. She could already anticipate the way it would fill her.

With a low groan, Alec pulled back. His pupils were blown with desire. "I can't," he gasped. "We—"

Charmian wasn't having any of that. She fisted her hands in his hair and pulled his head back down to hers, so she could capture his mouth again.

He seemed slightly startled, and it took him a moment to start kissing back. That's right: alpha grizzly. He had probably been bossing around everyone on the ranch for his whole adult life.

Well, Mr. Big Bad Alpha Bear, now you've met your match.

Alec's entire life had been a struggle between his cautious nature, and the fierce, wild urges of the dominant alpha bear inside him. He had only given in to it a few times, usually in dominance struggles with the other bears on the ranch. His whole life was about control: keeping his bear down, and keeping everything on the ranch in perfect shape so the whole operation ran smoothly.

And then Charmian had come smashing through all his barricades, and now he was kissing her up against a wall of the shop. The woodshop smells of sawdust and machine oil couldn't overwhelm her powerful feminine scent, driving his bear to distraction.

Even in the throes of his passion, he was careful of her smaller, more fragile human body. She was strong for her size, though. He was startled by the strength she used to push back against him, and his urgency as he kissed her was met with equal vigor by her own.

He had expected her to be intimidated by him. Most humans were. They didn't even understand that they were responding to the presence of a dominant alpha grizzly on an instinctive level, but they automatically gave him space and deferred to him. Even his brother's human mate Tara, while she didn't quite understand the unspoken rules that the bear shifters obeyed and occasionally violated his den privacy without meaning to, had instinctively settled into a subordinate position in the clan hierarchy—probably without realizing what she was doing. Humans simply didn't challenge him. They recognized and responded to the presence of the predator in their midst.

But not Charmian. He'd never met a human who pushed back like she did.

And she was pushing back now, kissing him like her life depended on it. He'd never been this turned on. His erection pushed against the crotch of his jeans, and when he pushed forward, she ground her crotch into his.

He ran his hand under her shirt, feeling her body flexing, her stomach muscles rippling as she thrust her hips against him. Her breasts were small but perfectly shaped, and she moaned into his mouth as he rubbed his thumbs over her erect nipples. She began fumbling with his shirt, parting it so she could get her hands on his chest. Firm, strong little hands, caressing his chest and stroking across his washboard abs. Even the touch of her skin against his drove him wild.

It had been so long since anyone had touched him, and no one had ever touched him like this.

With any other human woman, he might have worried that he was pushing her into something she didn't want. It was possible for a dominant shifter to coerce humans in the same way they could push other shifters around, except that shifters usually realized it was happening, and either accepted it or pushed back against it. Humans didn't have any defenses against it, because they couldn't consciously sense hierarchy dominance the way shifters did. It was how Saffron's cruel alpha Creed had been able to dominate her hometown for so many years. The local humans had allowed Creed's shifter gang to dominate them without even realizing it was happening, while the local shifters had been too intimidated to fight back.

But he had no fears of anything of the sort with Charmian.

If there was one thing he had no doubt about, it was that Charmian knew her own mind. Knew what she wanted.

And right now, it seemed, what she wanted was him.

Charmian gripped his shirt and pulled it down his arms, baring his shoulders. Alec took his hands off her body just long enough to go ahead and peel his shirt off. Charmian pulled back, breaking the kiss so she could quickly strip out of her sweater, leaving her in a red satin bra with a bow between her breasts. Alec caught his breath at the red satin gleaming against her brown skin. She reached behind her for the bra clasp, but he put his hands over hers, and unhooked the bra himself.

He wanted to do this. He wanted to unwrap her like a present.

Charmian's chest rose and fell as she panted. Her lips were parted, her eyes dark with need.

Alec dropped her bra on the floor and cupped her breasts in his hands. The small, dark nipples stood up at attention. He licked and nibbled them, flicking his tongue across their hot nubs, and she gasped in reaction.

As he sucked first one nipple, then the other into her mouth, he dropped his hands to the waistband of her jeans and undid the button. Charmian's small hands settled on his, helping him push her pants down. Under them, she was wearing lacy red panties that matched the bra.

He trailed kisses down her belly and mouthed at her through the satin crotch of her panties. The hot feminine musk of her arousal was driving him crazy, and she was so damp she was already soaking through the thin fabric.

She buried her hands in his hair, holding him there as he opened his mouth over her satin-covered mound and flicked out his tongue. He could feel her clit through the fabric, stiff with need. His cock was so hard it hurt.

Still, he kept himself under control. As much as he wanted to just rip off her clothes and have her right here on the shop floor, he wanted even more than that to make this good for her.

***

Charmian had never responded to a man like she was responding to Alec. Her knees were water and she couldn't catch her breath.

She was glad she'd worn her sexiest underwear, seeing Alec's reaction to it.

Why fool yourself, Charmian? You know what you came up here for.

But right now, she mostly just wanted
out
of it. He mouthed at her through her panties, and her insides were on fire with the need of him. She was so hollow she ached. She needed him so desperately, needed to be filled with that enormous cock she'd glimpsed the outline of, straining against his jeans.

"Alec," she gasped. She hooked her thumbs into her underwear and pulled it off. "Alec. No more teasing. Take me." She turned around, pressing her hands against the wall of the shop and presenting her bare ass to him, tilting her hips up so he could see the pink folds of her waiting entrance. "Take me,
now
."

"Bossy," he murmured, stripping out of his jeans and underwear. His cock stood up in its nest of dark curls, the tip beaded with moisture. "Tell me what you
really
want, little human."

"You," she gasped. She burned for his touch. It was all she could think about. "You. I want you. Need you."

He closed on her, and she arched with anticipation, but he didn't enter her; instead he kissed and nipped at her neck and shoulder. She was on fire with need, each touch sending thrills through her. Still, she was aware when he hesitated for a moment over the soft junction where her neck met her shoulder. His lips closed over it, and there was a brush of teeth that sent little thrills through her—and then he pulled back.

She didn't understand it, but she was too aroused to care. She tipped her hips up, rubbing her crotch against his, feeling the hard heat of his erection press against her buttock.

"Now," she insisted, rubbing against him.

He laughed softly, a huff of breath against her neck. "Since you asked so nicely."

The tip of his erect cock brushed against her wet entrance. Lightning flickered through her. How could it feel so
good
? No man had ever been able to draw these sensations from her, but right now she felt like she could come just from Alec looking at her.

The head of his cock pressed inside her. He was trying to go slow, maybe afraid of hurting her because of their size difference. She didn't want slow. She wanted him to bang her; she wanted to be pounded. As he started to slide inside gently, she gave her hips a powerful thrust, taking him all in a single movement. She was so wet and open already that he slid inside with hardly any burn, huge as he was.

And—oh. For an instant she just stopped like that, filled with him, glorying in that perfect instant of union. She was feeling so much—if he moved, if either of them moved, she was afraid she'd explode.

Alec wrapped an arm around her front to touch her breasts, and that got her moving again, her hips snapping back and forth. With each thrust she pressed her hips into his crotch. Now he was starting to move too, slow thrusts at first, but as he gained confidence in her ability to take him, he began to pound her harder and harder.

Charmian braced her palms against the wall. Her head hung down, sweat dripping off her face. It was like a workout—like the best workout in the history of anything ever. Her whole body flexed with each thrust as she pushed back at him.

His breathing was rapid, brushing across the back of her neck with each harsh exhalation. He was getting close. His body quivered against her with the effort of holding himself back.

She was so close, mounting the wave, each thrust drawing her nearer and nearer to the edge. She was hardly in control of the noises she was making, little gasps and moans. And she could feel Alec responding to them, each of her soft cries making his next stroke harder, his next breath harsher.

She wasn't even sure exactly how, but it was as if she could feel his pleasure along with her own; she could feel exactly how close he was to his own climax, and could time her thrusts perfectly so that ... the next time he ...

White heat burst through her, and he arched back and came in the same instant. She shuddered with the explosion of light and heat, and shivered through the waves as he pulsed rhythmically inside her. Surge after surge of pleasure filled her, until finally she began to relax, tingling all over.

Alec eased his softening cock out of her. Wordlessly Charmian raised her hand and caught his arm, still wrapped around her front. She didn't want him to let go. Sensing her wishes, he held her gently, and lowered his head so his forehead rested against the sweat-damp back of her head.

So huge, so fierce ... but so gentle. She would not have thought him capable of this kind of tenderness, any more than she would have expected to fling herself into his arms without reservation.

The reservations were creeping upon her now, a whole galaxy of afterthoughts.

This is a bad idea. What am I thinking, getting involved with a shifter? They aren't like dating human men. Especially an alpha. He'll be possessive and needy. I've got a life in town. I love my life. I can't just move to the mountains to be with him ...

All of these thoughts whirled through her head in a swirl like the snow falling outside. Snow ... She raised her head and gazed out the window at the sliver of pasture visible from this angle. It
was
snowing. "Look, Alec," she whispered. "The snow's falling again."

Alec rubbed his big hand across her shoulder and kissed the back of her neck. "It's beautiful, isn't it? I never get tired of watching it."

And for a minute or two they just leaned against the wall, his arms around her, and watched the snow fall. Finally she let out a little sigh and said, "I hate to break this up, but I guess this isn't the most comfortable position for snuggling."

"Yeah," he admitted. "So ... you want to see the rest of the house?"

She choked on a laugh. "We never even made it past the first room you showed me, did we?"

There was another of those soft, huffed laughs, and when Charmian looked up, he was smiling at her—
really
smiling, all the way, his electric blue eyes warm and bright. "Imagine what could happen if I show you the bedroom."

She burst into laughter. She couldn't help it. She just felt so
good
, so happy. All her second thoughts could wait for another time, when she hadn't just gotten a whole bucketload of feel-good chemicals dumped into her bloodstream. As a medical practitioner, she understood better than most people exactly what was going on with her body chemistry right now.
I'm full of oxytocin and endorphins. That's why I feel so good. I'd probably say yes to anything right now.

But it didn't matter. The important thing was that she did feel good, better than she'd ever felt. Smiling at Alec, she gathered up her scattered clothing. "Yes, please show me the bedroom. I'd love to see it."

Neither of them bothered to dress, although now Charmian was starting to feel a slight winter chill on her sweat-damp body. Carrying their clothes, they went through the living room and climbed a flight of stairs into a hallway that was decorated with pictures. Charmian stopped to look at a few of them. Family photos, going back decades. She found that she could recognize Alec in every picture in which he appeared, without fail. It was the eyes. Even when he was a child, the intensity of those blue eyes was unmistakable.

"The master bedroom is mine," Alec explained. He pushed open a heavy wooden door. "It used to be my parents' room after the new upstairs addition was built."

"That's the same time the shop was added?"

Alec nodded. "Yeah, the original house was just the downstairs and kitchen. The old downstairs master bedroom is a guest bedroom now that we have all this space upstairs."

The master bedroom was dominated by a king-sized bed in a bedframe that looked handmade, so massively overbuilt that she would have laughed if she hadn't known it was built by and for bear shifters. Charmian set her clothes on a chair by the bed and then padded barefoot to the window. She pulled back the curtain and looked out. Through the falling snow, she could see most of the ranch from here: the cattle barns and the little house across the yard, even a glimpse of the new house that Remy and Saffron were building.