Bear Love (2 page)

He examined the wrist, grunted
again, and released Suzy. “I don’t think it’ll bruise,” he said. “If it does,
it’ll be small.”

“Thank you,” said Suzy.

“Who was he?” Jess asked. “Bryce?”

“Oh, just some rich asshole come in
to ski," Mike said. "Those guys with him are his buddies. Probably
they all met at some frat house back in college. You get a lot of jerks like
that in the on season. I should know. I’m a ski instructor.”

Jess tried to restrain a laugh, but
couldn’t quite do it. “A
ski
instructor? You?”

He looked mildly offended. “What’s
so funny about that?”

A
werebear ski instructor!
It was too funny. And damn sexy, too.

“Nothing,” she lied. “Only … I
don’t know how to ski.”

He eyed her up and down, and she
liked the expression in his blue eyes. She felt a tingle thrill all the way
through her.

“Come up to the slopes, then. You
can find me in the Pine Ridge Ski Resort. There’s only one.” He paused. “I
could
give you some pointers tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not? I could take you out to
the slopes under the moon. Nothing like a snowy mountain under the moonlight.
And it’s nice and bright. We’d have plenty of light.”

Yeah,
but for what?
She wanted to say yes—ached to say it, really—but she made
herself shake her head. “No thank you.”

Suzy had been watching all this
with great interest, and now she chipped in to say, “She’s got to drive me home,
Mike. That’s your name, right? But I’ll work on her. She could use some lessons
… in
something
.” She giggled and bumped
Jess’s shoulder, and Jess felt herself flush.

“Alright, then,” Mike said, his
eyes moving from one woman to the other. Tipping his head again, he ambled
away, and Jess admired the way his jeans hugged his behind, which she could
just see below his jacket.

“Woo,” Jess said, fanning herself
with her hand. “That was intense.”

“You’re tellin’
me
.” Suzy’s eyes sparkled. “How could
you say no? Oh, he’s a dream!”

Jess let out a long breath. “Like I
said. I’m just not ready. Trust me, if I was …” She grabbed her bottle of beer
and downed it. “I can’t take any more excitement, and after another beer I’ll
be too tipsy to drive, anyway.”

“Let’s go.”

Mike watched the women leave sadly—especially that Jess. She
hadn’t introduced herself, but he’d caught her name when her friend mentioned
it. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but he was powerfully interested in her—his
bear practically screamed for her—and hadn’t been able to resist paying
attention to her while she sat with her friend. The truth was he’d noticed her
as soon as she came in. Hell, he’d positioned himself by the ladies’ bathroom
to be there when she came out. Not the most romantic way to meet a woman, he
knew, and kind of creepy, but hell, she was hot. More than hot. Something just
felt
right
about her.

Could she be … ? From the way his
bear was growling inside him, he suspected it might be so. He shook his head
and pounded back his beer. It wasn’t to be, he told himself.

“What’s eatin’ you?” Rick said
beside him. Rick was one of Mike’s fellow ski instructors, a friend and member
of his bear shifter crew.

“Nothin’,” Mike said.

“It was that curvy woman, wasn’t
it?” Rick chuckled. “Huh. Definitely a city gal. What’s so interesting about
her?”

Mike shrugged and flagged Abe down
for another drink. Once he was slurping it, he said, “Mind your business, Rick.”

Rick scowled. “You just avoided one
fight. You want to start another?”

“I didn’t
avoid
it. That jerkwad ran out before I could finish it, that’s
all. Besides …”

“Yeah?”

She
wouldn’t have wanted to see me like that. And if she knew I was a shifter …
.
“Nothin’.”

Rick regarded him strangely. “You
sure have a lot of
Nothin
’s tonight.”
Sudden understanding dawned in his features. “Say, you don’t think she’s your
mate
, do you? That curvy
city
gal?”

“Leave it be, Rick.”

Rick grabbed his shoulder and half
turned him around. “Mike, if she’s your mate—”

“Let go of me!”

“If she’s your mate—”

Mike reached up and pried Rick’s
hand loose. “Let
go
of me, damn you.”

Rick looked ready to punch him.
Mike hoped he would. A fight would be a lot more preferable to where this
conversation was headed, anyway.

Sudden movement caught his eye. He
spun to see Jess and her friend—Suzy, Mike thought her name was—cut their way
through the crowd toward the door.
She’s
leaving
, Mike realized.
She’s leaving
and I’ll never see her again!
His bear growled mournfully inside him.

“Shit, pard, you’ve got it bad,” Rick
said. “I didn’t mean—well, hell. There’s only one thing to do.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to go after her.”

“She’s already rejected me. Twice.”
Mike shook his head. “Naw, if it was gonna happen, it already would’ve.”

Jess and her friend paused at the
door. Mike saw her crane her head and pick him out at the bar. For a wild
moment he thought she might come over, or even just wave. If she had waved, he
would have gone after her right then.

Instead, she just looked away
sadly, pulled her jacket on, and followed Suzy out into the night. Cold air
blew in when the door was opened, and Mike shivered, even all the way at the
bar. Maybe not entirely because of the temperature.

“There’s still time,” Rick told
him. “You can get her before she gets to their car.”

“And what? Be some stalker that
follows women in parking lots?”
I was
already creepy enough earlier
. “Naw.”

Rick brightened. “That guy! That
rich asshat.”

“What about him? He back?” Mike
cracked his knuckles.

“No, you idiot. You could say you
were coming out to make sure he wasn’t still there. You’d be protecting her,
then. It wouldn’t be stalker-ish at all.”

Mike considered. “That’s not a bad
idea. Surprisingly. For you.” He let out a breath. “I mean, if I were
interested in being rejected for a third time.”

“Mike, if you don’t go out there,
I’m going to go get Jason and send him out there for you, and if she says yes
to
him
I’ll never let you forget it.”

“Fuckface.”

“Retard.”

Mike grinned. Suddenly he felt a
lot better. Rick was right. It was just the excuse he needed to give Round
Three a try.

“What about my beer?” he said. “I
haven’t paid yet.”

“I got it,” Rick said, rolling his
eyes. “Now go, you fool, or it’ll be too late.”

Mike moved toward the door.
Please
, he thought.
Don’t have gone already.
He couldn’t stand it if she had left. His
bear thrashed and clawed his soul inside him.

He shoved the doors open and
staggered out into the night. Snow streamed around him, lighting on his hair
and instantly melting. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see against the harsh
lights of the parking lot. All else was blackness.

There! A sedan pulled out of the lot.
Inside he could see the two women.

“Wait!” he said, forgetting even as
he did that he was supposed to be offering to protect them from that blond
bastard. He ran toward the road, waving his arms. “Come back!”

The women didn’t seem to hear or
see him. As the car vanished into the blackness of the howling night, Mike’s
bear raged inside him.

Jess was beginning to wonder if she’d made a mistake. Maybe
Suzy was right. Maybe she shouldn’t let her bitter experience with Andrew color
a new relationship. She hadn’t expected another man to come along so soon,
especially not one that touched something inside her like Mike did, but one
had. And it had only taken a few moments, really. Amazing how quickly life
could turn around.

No
,
she told herself stubbornly.
It’s too
soon.

Like Suzy said, she had to stand on
her own two feet. She had to get her mojo back before she could jump back into
the dating game properly.

She frowned. Something about Mike
didn’t seem like a
game
. With him,
somehow, even though they’d only exchanged a few words, it seemed more serious.
She thought of his blue eyes and his confident, alpha-male smile. Then she
thought,
A werebear ski instructor!
She giggled in naughty delight.

Behind the wheel, Suzy threw her a
glance.

“You know, Jess, we can go back. I
mean, he’s probably still there.”

Jess was mortified. “Am I that
transparent?”

“Well, I hate to tell—
shit!”

Suzy stomped on the brakes. A light
dusting of snow covered the road, and the car skidded, threatened to hurl
itself off the asphalt into the much deeper snow to either side. Jess’s stomach
lurched and she held on tight, one hand wedged against the dash, the other
against the door. The car righted itself and grated to a stop … right before a
large, shaggy pine tree that had fallen across the road, blocking it. Jess
hadn’t even seen it through the snow.

“Goodness!” she said, sucking in a
deep breath.

Suzy was wild-eyed. “Fuck fuck
fuck
!”

“Good thing you saw it in time.”

Swearing, Suzy climbed out of the
car and moved toward the tree. Jess hesitated, then joined her. The chill of
the mountain wind raised gooseflesh on the back of Jess’s neck, and cold snow
settled in her hair. To the right, the mountain plunged away in a series of
snow-covered slopes. To the left a rockier slope mounted toward the peak high
above.

Suzy kicked the tree. “What the
hell
?”

“Must have been the wind, or maybe
the weight of snow settling over time,” Jess said. “Made the tree leaned over
till it pulled the roots up and fell.”

“Damn it all, the other way down
will take much longer,” Suzy said. “I guess we should just feel lucky we
survived.”

“That’s the spirit. Let’s get back
in the car and get that heater going.”

As they started to move back toward
the car, a pair of headlights stabbed the night from the other side of the
vehicle, and a large SUV—a black Hummer—that had been cloaked by darkness and
snow pulled out from the shoulder of the road, where it had been camped with
its lights off. The SUV blocked the road, trapping the women between the fallen
tree and the Hummer.

A shiver coursed down Jess’s spine.

“Oh no,” she heard herself say.

“This … it was a … a
trick
?” Suzy said, and belatedly Jess
realized that she was right. Whoever was in the car must have caused the tree
to fall in order to lay this ambush. To Jess, Suzy said, “I’ve got a bad feeling
about this.”

A shape emerged from the Hummer.
Then another. And another. Soon five men had stepped out and were making their
way toward the girls. The men were just silhouettes against the glare of the
headlights.

“Assholes!” Suzy said, kicking snow
at them. “You knocked down that tree!”

“We did,” said one of the men, and Jess
recognized the smooth, accent-less voice of Bryce Manner.

“You could’ve killed us!”

“That would’ve been a shame.”

Suzy crouched, ready to fight. “If
you try anything, you’ll regret it.”

“Why, what are you going to do?”
There was a sneer in Bryce’s voice. “What
can
you do?”

Suzy made her hands into fists.
Raising them, she let her rings catch the light, and Jess watched the headlights
glitter on her diamond pinky ring. That thing could sure cut some flesh, all
right. Pride and admiration for Suzy filled her. Her friend was tough, that was
for sure.

“What do you want?” Jess said,
coming to stand next to Suzy. She wouldn’t cower behind her friend for
protection. If these men tried anything, they would damn well have hell to pay
getting it.

“You, of course,” Bryce said. He
stalked forward, and his buddies fanned out to either side of him.

Jess was dumbfounded. “Me?”

“Naturally.”

She swallowed. Summoning her nerve,
she said, “Look, you rapist bastards, if you try anything, I’ll jump down that
slope.”

“Into those woods? At night? You’d
freeze or impale yourself on a tree.”

“Try me, jerk.”

He moved forward more, turning
himself at an angle now so that the light illuminated his handsome face and
dancing green eyes. His face looked surprisingly warm, even kindly, and that
confused her.

“I don’t want to rape you,” he
said. “Both of you, calm down.”

Suzy didn’t lower her fists. “Get
lost, you creeps.”

“When I saw you with that bear
shifter, I knew I had to stop you from making a mistake.” Bryce spoke to Jess,
completely ignoring Suzy.

“Why?" Jess asked. "Are
you some kind of shifter hater?”

Bryce actually laughed. So did the
other men, the whole line of them, and for the first time Jess noticed
something odd about them—the whole lot of them. They were all blond and
handsome, almost like brothers, but not really, and they moved with eerie grace
and power. And all of them boasted those same almost glowing green eyes.

“We’re not shifter haters,” Bryce
said. “We’re shifters.”

“I … I …
what?”

“That’s right. And we don’t want to
rape you. We want you for our mates. Well, me and Vale do. The rest are still
looking.”

One of the other men stepped
forward, smiling at Suzy. “I want her.”

Bryce nodded. To Jess, he said,
“Get in the Hummer. Both of you.”

Jess made herself stand tall. “Get
bent.”

A beat of silence passed. Snow fell
from the dark sky.

“I think we should show them,” said
the man that must be Vale.

“Let’s do it,” said Bryce.

Without another word, the five
handsome men started unbuttoning their shirts, revealing firm pecs and
washboard abs. That done, they pulled off their expensive shoes, pants, and
briefs, and stacked them neatly in the car. Despite herself, Jess was impressed
by all their lithe muscles, tight asses and long, gleaming hair. The cold
didn’t even seem to shrink their cocks, which were sizable. But the men were
still scary.

Together, the five fanned out
again—and Shifted. Jess had never seen a shifter change before, and she gasped and
drew back at the sight. Air blurred around the five men, and their bodies
blurred, changing shape fluidly, quickly. Golden fur erupted along their arms
and legs, and their long golden hair grew even longer and thicker. Dropping to
all fours, they stood there, five gorgeous lions, breaths steaming in the snow
that settled in their thick manes and melted on their long red tongues. Their
beautiful green eyes flashed in the night.

“
Lion
shifters,” Suzy breathed. “I don’t believe it.”

The lead one, Bryce, stepped
forward, toward Jess, and she marveled at how his muscles rolled and bunched
beneath that silky golden fur. He was a bastard, but he was gorgeous, and he
wanted her.

She scooped up a ball of snow from
the ground and hurled it at his face. The snow exploded right in his eyes. He
flinched back, a threatening cough coming from his throat.

He started forward again, the other
four with him—

A bear erupted from the woods. Huge
and black, covered in scars and rolling slabs of muscle, the eight-hundred-pound
behemoth swiped a huge paw and blasted one of the lions backward. It struck the
Hummer with a screech of groaning metal and slid to the ground.

Jess stared at the bear in
amazement. It was so huge, so primal, so full of wrath—but also, clearly, the
urge to protect her and Suzy. Could it be … ?

The remaining four lions wheeled to
face their enemy.

With a demonic growl, the grizzly barreled
into them, swiping left and right with its wicked paws. A lion leapt onto its
flank, claws digging into the shaggy hide, but the bear didn’t stop in its
drive toward Bryce. Another lion lunged at it, but the titan knocked the feline
away. Before it could reorient itself, both Bryce and the fourth lion leapt on
the bear together.

Jess felt the blood drain from her
face. The three lions mauling and slashing at the massive black animal, while
the bear raged and growled, biting and swiping and stomping, was the most
jaw-dropping sight she had ever seen. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Mike,
is that you?
she thought. Then:
Oh God,
don’t let them hurt him!

“Come on!” Suzy said, and grabbed
her hand.

“What can we do?” Jess said. They
didn’t have any weapons, and they were still blocked in. And if they waited,
and the bear didn’t win the fight, the lions would be sure to drag them back to
their dens for mates.

“It was your idea!” Suzy said, and
hauled her toward the side of the road. “Run!”

She was right, Jess realized.

Swallowing a gulp of air, she followed
Suzy down the slope and into the dark, snow-covered forest while the battle raged
behind them.