First Bear: BBW Shapeshifter BWWM Werebear Paranormal Romance (Wild Alpha Shifters Book 1) (9 page)

Brandon opened his eyes. It was no dream. Jada stood on the edge of the stream that fed the pool.

“Jada. What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you, too.”

“No, I mean, it’s great to see you, but I’d heard you went back to work.”

“I did. But then I decided I needed a little more time. Amanda’s covering for me.”

“But why are you here. At the spring?”

“I don’t know. I was just out for a walk, and then, I guess I came here. I suppose it feels like it’s our spot.”

Our spot.

The words lit his soul on fire. Did she really just say that? Was there hope?

“Brandon,” Jada said. “Tell me what happened thirteen years ago. Tell me what this personal issue was that made you stand me up for prom?”

“The whole truth?”

“Everything.”

“It was my bear,” Brandon said quietly. “When people like me mature, their bear comes out. They need to learn to control it. My bear came out at exactly the wrong time. I was so excited to go to prom with you I suppose something switched over inside of me. Prom night was when my bear came out for the first time. I couldn’t shift back. I was trapped in my bear form for the next two days. After that, I was so embarrassed at what had happened I begged my parents to let me finish out the school year in the city. I couldn’t face you, Jada. I tried. I picked up the phone again and again, but I was too ashamed to call. I’ve thought about it many times since. Tried to think how I could fix the situation, but the more time passed, the less I wanted to bring it up again. You have to understand, Jada, on that night, there was nothing I could do.”

Jada seemed to process what he had said. She smiled. “Nothing except showing up like a young buck grizzly bear,” she said. Then she tossed off her shoes and waded into the hot spring.

************************

Finally, after all these years, Jada felt like she was getting somewhere. Hearing Brandon’s explanation made a kind of sense to her. It made sense like something can only make sense after years of thought when just no other explanation would fit. She knew that Brandon had said he’d had personal issues, but she hadn’t understood the magnitude of them until now.

He had stood her up to hide his bear.
 

Brandon was an Alpha, but thirteen years ago he wasn’t yet a man. He would have been confused at the very least. Maybe even frightened. Jada remembered getting her period, and it certainly had freaked her out a little. Turning into a bear for the first time? That would take some getting used to.

Jada sat on the ledge above the hot spring and dangled her legs in the water. “I’m here to listen, Brandon. But you need to answer my questions. No more secrets.”

Brandon looked up at her, a hint of vulnerably in his blue eyes. “Okay, Jada. No more secrets.”

As they sat there apart yet together, Jada realized the ball was in her court. No time like the present. “Okay, the bear thing. How does that work?”

“Our species are called shifters—people who can transform into animals and back again. I’m of the ursine subset. Bears. We’re rarer than wolves but more common than some of the others: foxes, cougars, and the like. There hasn’t been a lot of study put into why we shift, just that we always have. The Native American people are probably the ones with the best understanding of it, but there are shifters worldwide. So far we’ve kept a fairly low profile. Given that we’re so greatly outnumbered, most shifters believe that we have to keep a low profile to survive.”

“So you just
change
into a bear?”

“Basically. I can feel my bear within me when it wants to get out. All grizzly shifters are Alphas. It’s not a compulsion that’s easy to control. When I’m in bear form, it’s hard to describe… I can dream and think as a human but also as a bear. I would compare the feeling with being out of breath or physically exhausted. All the trappings of civilization fall away and it’s just me versus the physical world. That’s what it’s like being my bear. It’s a simpler, more honest way of being. That’s part of the reason I came back to Wild Summit. There’s room to move here. I can be closer to who I am. Closer to my bear.”

Jada waded a little deeper into the pool, edging nearer to Brandon. Her skirt was getting wet at the hem, but she didn’t care. Brandon was talking softly and she didn’t want to miss a single word. “So that’s the reason you came back? To be closer to your bear?”

“It was. Yes. Until I saw you. But once I smelled you, Jada, once I had your scent, I knew the real reason I had come back. You had been calling to me.”

Jada liked what he was saying. But she wasn’t going to fall under his spell. Not until he had told her everything. “Really? I don’t remember calling.”

“There have been bear shifters in Wild Summit for a long time. I come from a family of shifters. My father is one. We can sense others with bear blood, however diluted it might be. Even from the city, I sensed you.”

Jada considered the implications of what Brandon had just said. “So you’re saying…?”

“Yes, Jada. Somewhere in your past, you have a shifter relative. You have bear blood. That’s one of the reasons you’re a large woman. Bears crave women with curves because we know you’ll be able to carry our cubs.”

“Really? We’re already talking about cubs?”

“I know this is a lot,” Brandon said. “I’m just explaining how it is. You may not be able to shift, but you have bear blood. I can smell it. The scent of your blood is what we shifters use to identify a suitable mate.”

“You really don’t believe in taking it slow, do you?”

“If you want me to stop, if you don’t want to hear this, I understand.”

“No, Brandon. I’m here. Tell me everything.”

“Bears mate for life, Jada. And that means forever. We live for a very long time. Barring disease or some other rare disorders, some think we’re immortal. We heal very quickly, too. That’s why being grazed by that gunshot did so little to hurt me. And because we live so long, that’s why picking the right mate is so important. When we claim our mates, we bequeath them with the gift of long life. They can’t shift, but they will live for hundreds of years, maybe longer, just as we will.”

Jada slid into the pool. The hot water came up to her waist, her cotton skirt clinging to her shapely hips. She stood across from Brandon. There was a gulf between them, and even though she wanted to touch him, she didn’t dare. Not yet. After all, there was more for her to learn. Apparently she had a relative who was a bear. Which would have sounded crazy not that long ago, but after the things she’d seen, she was willing to listen. And as far as this business of being Brandon’s mate went, she was willing to do more than that.

“Explain how you claim your mate,” Jada said.

Brandon was an Alpha. She knew that. But she was a strong woman, too. She suspected that’s why he had chosen her. And if they were going to go down this path, she wanted to know exactly what she was getting into. Every bit of it.

“To claim our mates we need to make love, Jada. We need to have sex, no condom, flesh on flesh, and then I’ll mark you. I’ll bite you on your neck, or maybe on your inner thigh. The wound will be minor. It will heal almost instantly, but it will let other bears know that you’re mine and that I’m yours forever. There is no going back from it, the mate mark bonds us for all time. That’s why we need to be sure, Jada. My bear’s instincts are strong. I’ve learned to trust them, but you, you need to decide for yourself. There’s no backing out of forever.”

Jada moved closer, staring deep into his clear blue eyes. “Is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Then shut up and claim me, Brandon.”

“You’re sure?”

“Mark me and make me yours.”

Chapter Eight

Jada saw a change in Brandon. Certainty flashed through his eyes. She knew now he was a man of principle. Not only that, he wanted her. She could tell that he wanted her, but he wasn’t going to take her unless she wanted him just as badly. An Alpha didn’t impose his will. Not without consent. But he had her consent, and the thought sent a tingle up her spine. She felt her pussy tighten between her thighs as he came to her, crossing the pool for her and her alone. She knew at that moment that she, too, was crossing to a place that she could never come back from, and the prospect made her giddy with desire. It made her realize that this Alpha, the only Alpha she had ever wanted, would be hers, and hers for all time.

Brandon approached until he was close enough that she could feel his breath on her body, hot and fresh. He was so tall that she could see his towering flesh just below the surface of the water, pointing at her, guiding itself toward her. Brandon reached for her, placing his powerful hands on her waist and hitching her skirt up above her thighs. Her skin quivered with excitement as he picked her up by the hips, lifting her high above him, like no other man had ever had the strength to do.

Jada was in another world now. She tingled at his closeness, her honeyed cream leaking out of her hot sex into her tight cotton panties. Brandon brought her close, burying his perfectly cut cheekbones in her crotch. Jada felt just a little bit of tooth as he licked up her inner thigh. Was he going to mark her now? The thought made her delirious. He licked under the fabric of her panties with his dextrous tongue before tearing them back with his teeth. Jada felt a little nibble and then he sank his tongue deep into her warm crease. Her pussy constricted, vibrating with pleasure.

“I want you, Brandon. I want all of you.”

He jammed his tongue into her wetness, licking all the way up to and around her throbbing clit.

“I want you forever,” Jada moaned.

Brandon held her there, her thighs on his shoulders, her hot folds in his face. He licked up and down, swirling around her nubbin with his raspy tongue. Her toes dipped into the hot water as he brought her farther forward on his shoulders, her hands grasping his sinewy biceps. He was more mountain than man, more pyramid of muscle than mortal, and she felt every flex of his tendons, every movement of his tongue as he groaned below her, licking up and down her glistening sex.

Then his tongue reached up and he took her entire clit into his mouth, sucking on her engorged nubbin, making it his. The ripples of pleasure felt like a vibrating wave, radiating out like rings of fire. The pleasure threatened to overwhelm her. She heaved forward, thrusting herself into his face and he responded by sucking her harder. She didn’t know how much more she could take, how much more she wanted him to take as he probed deeper, licking her nubbin with faster and faster strokes of his tongue until she didn’t think she could stand it any longer.

“No more, Brandon, no more.”

The tension was wound so tightly within her she thought she was going to pop. She wanted release. She needed release. She wanted his hard cock now. She needed it so badly that she felt herself reaching down his chest with one hand while she reached for her own nipple with the other, grasping for him, drawing him near.

“Take, me, Brandon. Take all of me.”

“Wait, darling, you need to be ready.”

“I’m ready. I’ve been ready since I walked into this pool.”

“You need to be ready for my mark.”

He sank his tongue deeper within her and this time he hit her spot. The spring had been wound too far. The tension that had been building inside her let go. She felt an explosion rushing out from her core. She shut her eyes, or maybe she didn’t. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she came and came. The forest whirled around her, a hot breeze rustling the treetops. Birds sang. Frogs croaked. She didn’t know her body was capable of accepting such pleasure.

“Give it to me, Brandon. I need to taste it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Give it to me, now.”

In a perfect dance of mutual need with her mate she pushed away and he set her down on a low ledge. She reached for him without even looking, micro explosions still reverberating through her core. The earth was moving. Hell, the tectonic plates had parted and she doubted they’d ever come to rest again. The water was shallower here and her man was so large, so tall and so wide, that his member jutted free from the surface of the pool. She pulled him between her voluminous thighs and grabbed his wet tip, lubricated and silky smooth with anticipation.

Then she bent low and took the whole head into her mouth, licking around the tip in one lone gulp.

“Uhh,” Brandon growled.

She worked her way down the veined shaft, up and down, and up and down.

“Now. I need to be inside you now.”

Jada looked up into Brandon’s unrelenting blue eyes.

“Now, my mate!”

Jada licked her lips. He tasted good, so good that she ached for him. Like a void waiting to be filled, she wanted him to complete her, to make them one. She wrapped her legs around him and drew him near, locking her ankles so there was no way he could escape her.

“Are you ready?” Brandon said.

“Mark me.”

He rubbed himself all the way up the long folds of her slick heat. The tease was almost too much, the head of his dick splaying her lips open, so close but so far. Then he took her by the hips and lifted her, turning her around. Jada knelt on all fours before him, her hands and knees in the soft grass. Brandon’s strong hands sank into her ample flesh. She put her head down in the grass, turning her neck to the side, ready for him, waiting for him. Desperate for him to enter her.

Brandon stepped out of the hot spring and slid up behind her. Then Jada felt him, not his shaft, but his fingers. Two massive fingers probed inside of her, rubbing her clit. Did he want to drive her off the edge? She couldn’t take it anymore. She reached behind her, grabbing his thick cock.

“Take me, Brandon. Take me now!”

No sooner had the words escaped her lips than she felt him driving inside her. He plunged all the way up her tight channel with one powerful thrust. The air rushed out of her lungs as he filled her. She felt skin on skin, flesh on flesh, nothing between them at all.

“Yes, Jada!”

“Brandon!”

“Yes.”

Brandon thrust into her again, pumping inside of her, her tight walls grasping his cock.