Bear Down: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (3 page)

There was rain coming in through the cracked window above her head, and someone saying her name. April groaned, peeled her hands off the back of her head, and looked up.

I'm alive
, she thought.
Somehow
.

Big warm hands were touching her, rubbing her shoulders, cupping the side of her face. "April?" Nathan said anxiously. "April, say something, please!"

"I'm okay," she managed. "I think. I guess." Though she felt a sharp pang of regret when he pulled away from her and stretched past her to push the door open.

A wash of rain came in, sharp and stinging and cold. April yelped. Nathan slammed the door shut, after taking a look outside. The plane, April realized, was tilted halfway on its side, propped up on one wing—or, she amended, peering through the brush pressed against the downward-facing window, the
remains
of one wing. It was more like half a wing now. The front of the plane was crumpled, and, stretching out of her seat and looking out the window, she saw the tail was twisted, too.
I can't believe we're alive. Thank God for seat belts.

"Mayday, mayday," Nathan said into the radio. "This is Polar Air, registration number—aw, shit, it's no use." He clicked the mike repeatedly. "Dead. No wonder. Our electronics are basically toast, and we probably ripped the antenna off, too."

April's stomach had finally been settling down after that wild ride, but now it plunged again. "You mean we're stuck out here?"

"I wouldn't say
stuck
. There's still the emergency radio, remember?"

Nathan crawled awkwardly over the back of his seat into the compartment behind them. There was very little room to maneuver in the half-crushed cockpit, especially for a big guy like him. April heard him rustling around behind the seats. She undid her seat belt and braced a foot against the side of the pilot's seat to keep from falling against the downhill door.

"Oh,
fuck
," Nathan swore.

"What?" she asked, trying to peer back into the dim interior of the plane.

"Our emergency radio? The batteries are dead." He threw it aside with a grunt of frustration. "We just got a new set of 'em this spring. Satellite uplink and everything. And completely, utterly
useless
."

"So we're stuck."

"For now," he pointed out. "Until we're missed and they send out a search party."

"How soon will that be?"

Nathan sighed. "Thinking you might want to land and walk around on the tundra, I told Lee we might be out all day. We won't be missed until late—probably
really
late, since the all-night light means that we wouldn't have to come back at dark. I doubt they'll get worried enough to start looking 'til morning."

"So we're going to be here for awhile?"

"Overnight, at least."

"Great." April rubbed her shoulder, where the seat belt had bruised it. That seemed to be her only injury, and as far as she could tell, Nathan wasn't hurt at all. At least they had
that
going for them. Rain drummed on the outside of the plane and dripped in through a dozen cracks. She felt around until she found her camera, and was relieved to find that it had survived the crash with just a few dings.

Just on the off chance that it might work, she checked her cell phone, but of course there was no reception. The tundra wasn't exactly bristling with cell towers.

"It's not as bad as it sounds," Nathan said, crawling back into the plane's tail. "We have survival gear back here, and I brought lunch, remember? We'll just have to make it stretch a bit."

"I have granola bars in my backpack."

"See?" he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "We'll be all right. All we have to do is stay warm and dry 'til help comes."

The survival gear turned out to consist of a sleeping bag and a couple of tarps, all tucked into a bright-orange rucksack. Nathan crawled out the door and stretched one of the tarps between the wing and the body of the plane, then laid the other tarp down on the wet ground. He unrolled the sleeping bag on it. When he was done, it was a rather cozy little shelter, almost like a tent.

"What do you think?" he asked, sounding anxious, like he was really worried she wouldn't like it.

"It's nice. Like camping out." She handed down the cooler and her backpack, then crawled down to join him in it.

They sat side by side on the sleeping bag and shared two of the sandwiches from the cooler. Peeking in, April saw he'd brought lots. Of course, a big guy like him must eat a lot. Nathan cracked open a bottle of water, took a drink, hesitated briefly and then handed it to her. April smiled at him and drank too, her lips on the bottle where his had been a moment before. She could still feel the warmth of his fingers where they'd brushed hers when he handed it to her.

Rain was still pattering on the roof of their shelter, and occasional gusts of wind rattled the tarp. Inside, however, they stayed perfectly dry, though it was chilly. After the warm morning, April wouldn't have expected how quickly the temperature could drop. Ice on the wings of the plane! At least there was no ice now, but it felt like autumn instead of the middle of summer.

As if he was reading her thoughts, Nathan said, "Our biggest concern is going to be staying warm until they find us. You can take the sleeping bag—"

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "It's plenty big enough for two." And it was: enormous, warm and fluffy, scaled for a guy of Nathan's size. Or even, she thought, a guy of Nathan's size and a not-so-tiny girl who might slide in with him.

They were so very close together in the little shelter. It wasn't big enough to move around in without bumping into each other. Every brush of his arm, every semi-accidental bump of his leg sent a little jolt of electricity through her.

Does he feel it too?
she wondered, looking at him from under her lowered eyelashes as she finished her sandwich. Surely he must. It couldn't just be her. She'd never felt such electricity with anyone before. Maybe this was what people meant by "chemistry". The first moment she'd seen him, she'd wanted him, and every time he brushed against her, the ache grew. She could feel his warmth just sitting next to him. She wanted to stretch into it, to lean her whole body against him, let him cover every inch of her with every inch of him ...

Even sitting down, he was taller than she was, a full head higher. This placed her on his chest level, which meant every time she reached for something from the cooler or shifted to tuck down the edge of the tarp, she brushed against his chest, his shoulders. It was driving her wild.
How can he not feel this? Or does he? Come on, Nathan, do I really have to make the first move here?

Tipping her head back, she saw he was looking down at her with eyes as deep and brown as the shadows under the trees in a midsummer forest. Dark limpid pools that she could fall into, be lost in, forever.

"April ..." he said. His deep voice was husky with need.

She leaned forward, stretching up to him, just as he leaned down. Their lips met, at first just a tentative brush, a question more than an answer—but it sent an electric current down her spine, sparking a hot rush of
want
between her legs. She surged up and met him full on, mouth open, wet and hungry and wanting. His kiss was hesitant at first and then, increasingly sure of his reception, he began to take control, exploring her mouth and then trailing kisses across the corner of her mouth and down her neck to her collarbone.

"I thought ..." he whispered into her neck, and his breath on her skin made her shudder. "I thought you felt it too. But I didn't know—I wasn't sure—"

"Yes," she said into his hair. "Yes." She slid her hands under his shirt, ran her palms across the firm, toned muscles of his shoulders and chest, then slid her fingers down to run them beneath the waistband of his jeans, across his hips and the hollows above his fine ass.

He let out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan. She felt him working free the tails of her shirt, and then his hands wrapped around her waist, one on each side, big and warm, skin against skin. It felt just as perfect as she'd thought it would.

Nathan brought his hands up, beneath her shirt, to cup her breasts, one for each. He kissed his way down her chest, across the fabric, and took one of her nipples into his mouth through the shirt.

She gasped. His mouth was wet and warm, bringing both her nipples to instant erect hardness; they pushed against her shirt. She pulled her hands back from his waistband and began fumbling with her buttons—she needed the shirt off, she wanted more,
now
—but he gently moved her hands away and unbuttoned her shirt and then her jeans himself. Carefully, as if she was the most precious thing in the world, he slid the shirt off her shoulders. She was left kneeling between his legs with her jeans undone and her ample breasts barely contained in her bra.

Nathan paused, holding her in place with his hands on her hips, to gaze at her. She looked up at him, wondering what kind of a sight she made: her hair mussed, face flushed from need and arousal. The look in his eyes was one of open wonder and delight.

"You are so beautiful," he breathed.

"Less talking," she gasped. "More ... everything." She was so wet, her panties damp. If he didn't take her right now, she was going to climb him like a tree.

He broke into another of those amazing smiles and leaned down to capture her mouth with his own. As he kissed her, he cupped a hand around each breast and rubbed her hard, sensitive nipples with his thumbs. She could feel each stroke as a small, delicious shock between her legs, spreading through her sex.

April moaned into his mouth and placed her hands on his thighs. As he continued to rub her nipples, she fumbled with his zipper and got his jeans open. He was rock-hard and ... okay, wow,
enormous
. He was a boxer guy, it seemed. She rubbed him through the loose fabric and had the joy of feeling him shiver in pleasure at her touch.

He undid her bra and let it fall away, then laid her down on the sleeping bag. Her whole body thrummed with anticipation. She spread her legs and he knelt between them, bending over her. As he kissed her and fondled her breasts, she reached up to undo his shirt buttons—
more skin, more touching, more everything
. He broke away for a moment to peel it off, exposing that gorgeous body she'd so admired at the airplane hangar. His nipples were hard too, she saw, and she spread her hands across his powerful chest, rubbing her thumbs across his nipples as he was doing to her. He gasped and made a growling sound deep in his throat; she could feel it rumble in his chest. His eyes were dark with arousal, pupils blown wide.

"Please," she whimpered, lifting her hips. She had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this.

Nathan worked her jeans down over her hips and then pulled down her panties. He took each of her ample buttocks in an enormous hand and lifted her hips to bury his face between her legs.

The first touch of his tongue was a gentle flick. She was so sensitive and so incredibly wet that she jerked all over and let out a small cry.

With more small flicks of his tongue, he teased her closer and closer to the edge. His tongue moved down, caressed the soft folds of her sex, then came back up, one stroke at a time, to tease around the hot, quivering nub of her clit. The ache built in her; she writhed her hips against him, but he held her still, guiding her with gentle touches until the sudden shock of orgasm arched her spine. Through the shocks, he lapped at her, driving her onward into wave after cascading wave of pleasure. She'd never come so long before, and even as she began to relax down from it, quivering with aftershocks, she knew the best was yet to come.

He rose on his knees to push down his jeans and underwear. His cock sprang free, the whole great length of it. She moaned aloud as he pushed between her legs, filling her as she'd never been filled before. He plunged deep, pulled back, plunged again. She could tell he was close; the sight and smell of her ecstasy had driven him to the edge. Already her next climax was building in her, as he grunted with each thrust and built toward his own. "Deeper," she gasped, "harder," and he gave her more and more, thrusting into her as she rose to meet him with each stroke. His whole body arched as he came, and the final thrust sent her over the edge too, white-hot pleasure coursing through her body and then slowly letting her back to earth.

They held each other through the aftershocks, twined together, damp with sweat.

"That was ..." he whispered into her hair. There was still a hint of growl in his voice. "Amazing."

"I think that's my line." April sat up and untangled her feet from her clothing, kicking it to one side on the tarp.

Pushing himself up on hands and knees, Nathan unzipped the sleeping bag and spread it out. She climbed into it and he lay down with her, then zipped them both in. Just as he'd fit perfectly in her, so they both fit perfectly in the fluffy bag. Warm, cozy, and not a care in the world.

A part of her wondered if she was going to regret this when she got back to civilization. It all seemed so sudden. She wasn't normally one to jump into something like this. She hadn't even come here looking for a relationship, or wanting one!