Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears Book 4) (9 page)

“Clinton, for the last time, I’m begging you…just take off the gym socks.” Eight in the morning, and Beck was already about done with this day thanks to the ridiculous man standing before her.

Clinton had done everything she’d asked: fixed his sandy colored hair into a stylish mess on top of his head, trimmed his facial scruff so it looked designer, and he’d even cleaned and polished both his chainsaw and his brand new white Ford Raptor, which she was pretty sure he bought just to compete with Mason’s truck. He’d started testing her with the jeans she’d asked him to wear, though. She’d said “sexy, with well-placed holes,” and Clinton had decided on redneck lookin’ cut-off jean shorts with a hole in his crotch that clearly showed his dick. And then to top off his look, a pair of atrocious yellow and white knee-high gym socks clung to his hairy legs. If the smile he was wearing was anything to go by, this had been the plan since he’d made the deal to take a picture for the calendar.

“Can we edit the socks out?” Beck asked the photographer, a sweet, mousy woman named Drea.

“It would be easier to just add jeans to him later.”

“No!” Clinton barked as he hit another ridiculous pose. He held his chainsaw up in the air, splayed his legs and yep, his giant dick flopped right out of the hole in his jean shorts. “Are you getting this one? This one will sell millions.” He was trying to contain his laughter, and Beck wanted to claw that stupid smile right off his stupid face.

Behind her, Harrison, Bash, and Kirk were chuckling, and it was all too much.

“This is shoot one out of twelve today. Twelve! And already we’ve wasted an hour staring at your dick!”

“Hey, I manscaped it, just like you asked!” Clinton yelled.

“I meant your chest,
Clinton
,” she gritted out. “This isn’t an R-rated calendar. Harrison,” she pleaded, turning to the alpha, “can you talk to him? Please.”

“Oh, no.” Harrison’s blue eyes sparked with amusement. “I don’t have any control over that asshole. I’m fine sitting back and watching someone else try to handle him for a while. Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

She let off a screech that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. This was just great that Clinton was already working up her animal.

“Hey, you’re eyes are pee-pee yellow.” Clinton pelvic-thrusted and revved the chainsaw up in the air, waggling his eyebrows not-so-seductively, and she wanted to kick everything.

The photographer stopped clicking away on her digital camera with the long lens and arched her eyebrow at the images she reviewed. “I mean…we’d have to cut half of him out of the pictures. There’s not really a good angle for the shape we need for the calendar.”

Beck turned her hands into little claws as she gripped her daily planner to her chest. With a frozen, feral smile for Clinton, she said too shrilly, “It’s okay. Everything is okay. Clinton, you’re out of the calendar!”
There, take that, ass.

“Finally,” Clinton muttered. He lowered the chainsaw to the ground and hooked his hands on his hips. And then, dick out, he said, “Anyone want to get drunk and eat pizza rolls up at Bear Trap Falls with me?”

Bash raised his hand like he was a giant school boy. “Well, I want to—”

“No!” Beck hollered. “No, no, no. Clinton, you can go do whatever you want. You three are coming with me.”

“But”—Bash pouted—“he’s making pizza rolls.”

Harrison was grinning like this was the funniest thing he’d seen in his life, Kirk was laying on the ground, hands linked behind his head and definitely snoring, and Bash was now asking, “When’s lunch?”

“It’s eight in the morning, Bash. Didn’t you just have breakfast?”

Bash shrugged like that was a silly question. “Yeah,
first
breakfast.”

Beck blinked hard, shook her head, counted to three, and opened her daily planner again. “Bash,” she said, forcing a calm voice, “you’re up next. Your setting is the Boarlander woods. Somewhere pretty and mossy with lots of shade. Do you know a place that is close?”

Bash pointed to the tree line behind the trailers, twenty yards away. “That’s good.”

Clinton had sucked the wind straight out of her sails, so Beck sighed and said, “Great.”

She marched toward the woods, leading the others, and let Drea have the reins on Bash since he was much more open to direction. And while the behemoth was rubbing moisturizer over his rippling muscles, Beck let off a little sound of relief. Bash would take a better picture and not give her the mountainous pile of shit Clinton had.

And now she had to figure out an extra picture since she’d been depending on Clinton for January. She’d spent hours sketching out ideas and imagining how this would go, and in all the time she’d worked on this project, losing their first model right out of the gate hadn’t even crossed her mind.

She shook her head as she looked over the list of months.

January –
Clinton, bear, Boarlander

February – Bash, bear, Boarlander

March – Harrison, bear, alpha of the Boarlanders

April – Kirk, silverback, Boarlander

May – Creed, bear, alpha of the Gray Backs

June – Matt, bear, Gray Back

July – Beaston, bear, Gray Back

August – Tagan, bear, alpha of the Ashe Crew

September – Haydan, bear, Ashe Crew

October – Bruiser, bear, Ashe Crew

November – Brighton and Denison, twin bears, requested shoot together, Ashe Crew

December – Damon, dragon, king of the motherfuckin’ mountains

Meet Robbie tonight at Sammy’s, 9:00

“Crap,” she muttered. She’d been so caught up in everything here, she’d completely forgotten about her meeting with McFartFace. Irritated, she scribbled devil horns on Robbie’s name while she tried to work through who she would shoot for January. Everyone on her list was all the ones who had agreed to be in the calendar. Everyone else was a hard no. And she couldn’t split up the Beck brothers or they would bow out of the project. Theirs was going to be a music shoot with their guitars. Still shirtless and sexy, but their fans would be ravenous for a spread of both of them together.

“Hey,” Mason murmured right beside her ear.

“Aaah!” Beck yelped, jumping nearly out of her skin.

Mason backed away, barely saving the trio of coffees in his hands from spilling, a big old grin on his face. On his beautiful, shaven face.

“Mother of pearl,” she murmured as she dragged her gaze along his clean-shaven jawline. Dark eyes said his animal was content, a straight, strong nose, sensual lips lifted in a smile, and his chiseled jawline belonged on a model. And the deeper his smile grew, the deeper two sexpot dimples became.

“Beck.”

She wanted to swim in those dimples. She wanted to dive into them and backstroke around in them, then snuggle up and take a nap and wake up and squish her cheek against the sides of her dimple bed…

“Beck?” Mason said again, looking concerned now. “Are you okay?”

Will you marry me? Stop it. Breathe and stop being weird. He looks worried. Say something smart.
“I saw Clinton’s dick.”
Freaking perfect.

Mason’s dark eyebrows lifted slightly. “Everyone has seen Clinton’s dick. He’s real proud of it.”

“Mine’s bigger,” Bash called from where Drea was positioning him against a tree.

“Y-your ummm,” Beck stammered, gesturing to Mason’s perfect jawline and lips. “Your face is my favorite.”

“It’s my favorite, too,” Bash chimed in.

The worry in Mason’s eyes morphed to amusement, and was that a blush in his cheeks? “I roughed up your face last night and felt bad. Figured I’d shave for you so you don’t have to flinch away when we’re kissing.”

So he planned on more kissing! Eeeee!
Beck cleared her throat coolly and murmured, “I really appreciate it. I loved you bearded, but this…” She lifted her fingertips to his face, hesitated for a moment, then brushed a light touch down his cheek. “This is a good surprise.”

Mason pressed her hand against against his jaw, nuzzled her palm, then laid a soft kiss on her wrist. “I brought coffee. Figured you could use it after all the not-sleeping we did last night.”

She giggled, deliriously happy now that her mate was here.
Her mate
. God, she couldn’t believe this was happening. “Three coffees?”

“One for me and you, and one for the photographer willing to put up with the shit she’s gonna have to deal with today. I hope you’re paying her well.”

“I am. Cora Keller hired her with the budget from donations that have been pouring into her site. She’s also been selling shifter T-shirts, mugs, pens, hats, the works to raise money.”

“That woman is amazing.”

“She really is. She has all the Breck Crew working around the clock to help with PR, but she didn’t have enough pull here.”

“And that’s where you came in,” Mason said proudly, handing her a fancy disposable coffee cup with a lid.

“Yep,” she said, taking a burning sip of the delicious wakey-wakey nectar. “Ooooh, heaven. Drea, coffee is here when you want it.”

“Thanks, Beck,” Drea said, reviewing shots she’d just taken of Bash.

Emerson was here now, pregnant belly pushing against her T-shirt as she plucked a fuzz off Bash’s dark facial scruff. And if her ears were on point, she could hear Audrey and Ally talking and giggling and headed this way to help. Today was about to get easier with their back-up.

Bash turned with a grin and said something low in Emerson’s ear, cupped her belly affectionately, his tall stature as strong as the tree he stood next to, muscles flexed as he talked to his mate.

“Drea,” Beck whispered, then jerked her chin at the couple.

“You want some candid shots?” Drea asked through a spreading grin.

“Yeah.”

Drea didn’t have to be asked twice. Immediately, she began snapping pictures of Bash cradling Emerson’s belly. Emerson was laughing, her hands on Bash’s chest like they were the only ones out in these woods.

An unexpected emotion washed over Beck as she watched them, and she rested her hand on her chest to stop the fluttering.

“What’s wrong,” Mason asked, resting his fingertips on her lower back.

“Nothing. They’re beautiful.”

Mason frowned from her to Bash and Emerson, and then back to Beck. “You never had that, did you?”

She smiled through her emotions. Unable to speak, she shook her head. Robbie hadn’t been happy over the news that she’d become pregnant. Wasn’t happy with their shotgun wedding. Wasn’t happy with her.

Mason pressed his hand on her stomach and lowered his lips to her ear. “If I was there, it would’ve been different. I would’ve taken care of you. I hate that I missed it. I saw your stretch marks last night, and it gutted me that I wasn’t there when you got them. I’m sorry I can’t give you that.”

“You silly man. Don’t apologize for stuff neither one of us can control.” She swallowed hard and rested her cheek against his chest. “And thanks for being nice about my stretch marks. I used to be really self-conscious about them.”

“Because of Robbie?”

A nod of her head was all he would get. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the pain she’d felt time and again at Robbie’s revulsion of her body after she’d had Ryder.

“I love them,” he admitted low. “I’m not just saying that either. If this is all I get from you being pregnant, it’s enough.” Mason brushed his finger up under her shirt and across the marred skin right near her hip. “Warrior stripes.”

She laughed thickly and lifted up on her toes, kissed him and reveled in the smoothness of his face. Easting away, she promised, “Now we’re gonna be making out all the time.”

Mason pumped his fist and murmured, “Yes, woman.”

They watched Bash’s shoot for a while before Mason asked, “How did Clinton’s shoot go?”

“I have a feeling you already know.”

“That bad?”

“I’m having to cut him, and now I don’t know who to get for January. I already had to beg a couple of the Ashe Crew to participate.”

“I’ll do it.”

She bumped his shoulder and shook her head. “You can’t, Mason. You’ve kept your existence here a secret for a long time, and for a reason. You don’t want your boar-people finding you, and neither do I.”

“Nah, I have an idea that will keep me out of the calendar but get you your January shot.”

“What idea?”

Mason’s eyes crinkled with his wicked grin. “Clinton’s easier when he drinks, and he’s hitting the whiskey hard right now. And also, he’s competitive. Just have your photographer ready for whatever he gives you.”

****

“What is he doing?” Drea asked as Mason pulled his black Raptor right up next to Clinton’s white one.

“I think he’s luring one hard-headed little bee to some honey too sweet to ignore,” Kirk answered behind Beck.

Huh. Beck settled in behind Drea, who was changing out the lens on her camera. Mason revved his roaring engine, then got out of his truck.