Hollywood Bear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (7 page)

So she’d just lie here a bit longer, enjoying the warmth of his hip against hers, the weight of his arm lying over her, the soft hair of his calf brushing against her leg. She took in a deep breath, snuggling tighter against him. He murmured sleepily and shifted position. His hand drifted up her belly to her breast. His fingers closed around it—and her nipple hardened.

“Uhn,” she murmured.

She tried to smother it, but his face turned, barely visible in the faint light from outside the windows. Its planes altered as he chuckled deep in his chest.

“You can’t be hot again.” His tone caressed her with its pure admiration, that impossibly sexy husky voice speaking low. “Damn you are amazing.”

“If you’re tired,” she began.

But his fingers were playing with her nipple, which was already deliciously sensitized from his earlier attentions. Zings and zaps of heat shot straight down to her pussy.

“Uhn,” she said, louder.

“And to think I never had dessert,” he murmured, his bristly chin scratching over her shoulder to her other breast.

He spent a little time with each breast, but clearly had a different intent, as he began pressing kisses over her ribs, then her belly, pausing to tongue her belly button before moving lower, trailing heat.

He nudged her legs apart and knelt between her thighs, stroking with his fingernails lightly from her knees upward as he printed butterfly kisses on the hollow inside each thigh. Sheet-lightning zapped up and down her body to ignite deep inside her, urgency mounding and building like one of those storms over the mountaintop. She was wet and hot before his tongue licked tenderly inside each fold before plunging deep inside her.

He closed his lips on her clit, flicking it with his tongue until she began to writhe, hips tilting upward. The intensity of need made her grab his head in her hands as he sucked and flicked.

The storm tightened into the world’s biggest tornado and she gasped, “I want you inside me!”

Fighting back the crest, she sat up, sliding her hands down his chest. He let her push him flat as she took hold of his cock, as hard and ready as their first round.

She lifted herself and lowered onto his cock. It was her turn to tease, going as slowly as she could. He felt so very
right
inside her, filling her completely. With a languorous grind of her hips that brought a delightful gasp out of him, she began to buck and grind, riding him hard.

His hands came up to her breasts, and she arched her back as she moved. They found a rhythm, rocking together faster and faster until she exploded in a shower of starfire, which spiked him into coming in long, shuddering waves.

After that, he relaxed, his eyelids shuttering as he smiled, utterly spent. She slid off him and leaned on her elbows to enjoy just looking at him. Sleepiness nearly overwhelmed her, but this was his space, not hers. She had only last night’s clothes, and daylight would bring the inevitable buzzing of his phone, the pressing schedule, the crowds of people. She was so not facing that.

Rule One. Graceful exit. No demands, no expectations.

She lifted herself with infinite slowness, and reassured by his deep breathing, picked up her things. The suite was enormous, with two bathrooms; she used the far one so she would not disturb him. Then she got dressed, and slipped out to go back to her motel, pack up her stuff, and get on the freeway before the morning traffic.

***

Mick’s bear rarely entered his dreams.

He only appeared at times of emotional peaks or valleys. That dream was a definite peak. In his dream, Mick wandered through the woods, sniffing in the dappled sunlight. He scented the sweetness of honey, and listened to the slow whisper of evergreen branches overhead.

His grandfather had said it would be that way—when his bear was happy, they would both be in balance: human happiness during human time, bear happiness during bear time. When the bear knew best and the human foolishly tried to ignore that, for inexplicable human reasons, the bear would fight to come out, take over, and solve things the bear way. The direct way.

Mick’s bear had never been more content since his first rising when he was a youngster. So though Mick didn’t sleep long, he slept deeply until the dream shifted. His bear stilled, the sky darkening, and cold winds rising. The smell of danger drifted on the wind, and his bear uttered a low moan.

Mick stirred restlessly, reaching for the good dream again. His tired body needed rest. But the buzz of his alarm shattered the dream. For a few breaths his mind drifted below consciousness, like the deep, cold waters at the bottom of a lake. The insistent buzz brought him upward into shifting lances of sunlight, memory lingering contentedly on images and sensations of his incredible night.

As he neared consciousness his mind shifted to awareness and began running possible plans, beginning with breakfast together.

He smiled as he turned his head—to find the other pillow empty.

He sat up. Her things were gone.

She
was gone.

***

“I figured someone had to,” Jan said. “So I did a little digging about Mick Volkov.”

“You already told me
Variety
reported that his divorce was final,” Shelley said.

She was back in L.A. again, having spent the day catching up with all her chores. She refused to be depressed. How stupid was that, after what amounted to one date and one  . . . whatever that trip up the mountain was?

Besides awesome
, that inner voice whispered, and she shivered.

She and Jan sat in their favorite Japanese restaurant, where they could talk without being overheard by gabby roommates.

“That’s his third,” Jan said.

“He’s been married three times?”

“Yup. Three.” Jan held up three fingers, in case Shelley had missed the number the first two mentions. “None of them lasted longer than a few months. And between the bridezillas, it’s been a revolving door.”

“Well, I can understand the revolving door tactic,” Shelley muttered. “That’s what I’ve been doing since Dominic the Dickwad. That’s what Rule One
is
.”

“Yeah, but yours is defensive. His is offensive.” Jan poked the air with her chopsticks.

Jan’s helpful dose of reality made Shelley feel even more depressed. “He’s offensive?”

“No, not offensive like a serial killer or anything like that. ‘Offensive’ like
Full Metal Jacket
, you know, a
military
tactic.
Guys
have revolving doors so they don’t have to commit.
We
do it defensively.”

Shelley poked at her rice. “How do you know he doesn’t do it defensively?” She considered Oona, whose gorgeous face was plastered all over billboards, advertising her latest picture. “Maybe they dump him.”

Then she recalled his deep voice rumbling through his chest, the expertise of his hands, his gorgeous cock . . .

She shut her eyes, shook her head, and let out her breath. She could not imagine anyone dumping
him
. But maybe he was a total dick out of the bedroom? Yeah, that was the way to think. Remember the glower. Remember Bearzilla. That was the smart thing to do, the sensible thing to do.

Only it felt so damn
wrong.

But this feeling that she had lost something precious would pass. Her grief over Dominic had lasted less than a week, and she’d lived with the sleazy con man for nearly two frigging years. She just had to keep busy.

It was reasonable, it was mature.

. . . And it didn’t work.

As one day turned into two, then a week, then two weeks that felt like eternity, she got a bit part doing laundry with the wrong soap in a commercial, and another fat suit shoot falling down in a pizza joint while some product supposedly whizzed around the room blasting people right and left.

Between those she wasted a lot of time trying not to check up on Mick Volkov, which wasn’t easy because his name seemed to be everywhere. Or maybe she was seeing it because she was trying hard not to see it.

The eternity ended when the mail brought a cleverly designed invitation to the wrap party at the studio.

She didn’t realize she was standing by the kitchen counter staring down at the thing until Jan came up beside her. She cocked her head, looking like a Dutch robin, then said, “I notice you haven’t flung that into the trash.”

“You would be correct.”

“Though you should.”

“I should.”

“Going would probably be a very bad idea, judging by how much gloom has been hanging over this apartment building for the past fifteen years. Did I say years? I meant days. It’s felt like years.”

“Centuries.”

“Revolving door,” Jan said. “Rule Number One. Have fun, move on.”

“Right, right. Right.”

Jan crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “You’re going to go, aren’t you.”

“What should I wear?”

***

For Mick, the world had turned to ash.

His film schedule needed another four days of principal photography at the location, and then some last pickup shots to be finished up at the studio.

He got the location finished in three. Everyone else was galvanized into efficiency and productivity by the sight of the Russian Bear, who now appeared to be ten feet tall and five feet across the shoulders, with eyes like lasers and voice a whisper of precision.

Not that he lost his temper. That was the most terrifying aspect. He never so much as raised his voice. But even the top star, who had been high maintenance all along, cooperated meekly, giving flawless performances on the first take. The other stars fell right into line.

On the fourth day, everyone arrived at the studio to find memos in bullet points laying out exactly who was going to do what to finish. Mick himself had vanished.

Everyone knew he had some kind of man cave up in the mountains somewhere. Wife number two had complained bitterly about that on Oprah. What kind of man would prefer spending his free time in some mountain dump, even a state-of-the-art dump, when he could afford to take his wife shopping in Paris? Or renting her a house at Cote d’Azure? Or buying a luxury yacht to take her to Antibes? Or anywhere but some cabin in the woods outside of hippie-dippie Idyllwild?

But off he went, and apparently alone. Probably, the news gossips surmised, to read scripts and figure out what his next fifty million dollar blockbuster would be, and who would star in it.

Mick knew what everyone was thinking because he forced himself to watch the news and read the insider gossip online. He did it to try to get his head straight. He was lucky enough to work in a profession he loved, he had earned respect and admiration and tons of money. He also had tons of responsibility and expectations. He was the last person who should be mooning around because of a woman he barely knew.

Mate
, his bear said, forcing his way to the surface. Again.
Mine.

She doesn’t want me
, he told the bear.

She’d made that crystal clear by leaving without so much as a note. Or even a text. And though he’d furtively checked for messages a few hundred times, there had been nothing.

His office had all her data, of course, but he hated the idea of being a creepy stalker.
She
hadn’t given him the info. Therefore he wouldn’t use it.

Mick tried to ride out his mood, but all that did was throw him back in memory to the intense pleasure of riding side by side with Shelley, in bed with Shelley, kissing Shelley. The first sight of Shelley in that leather biker getup. The even hotter sight of her naked.

The sound of her low, breathy laugh. The smell of her tea tree shampoo.

The taste of her on his tongue, sweeter than honey.

So he parked his bike and prowled around his hideaway house, surrendering completely to his bear. For days he wandered all over the mountains, letting the bear revel in the immediacy of bear life, experiencing all the sights and sounds of the forest in the hope of getting his bear—and his memories of Shelley—out of his system. Once he managed that, he could reclaim his rational mind and get back to work.

That seemed to be going fine . . .

Until the afternoon he found himself at the rustic cabin, sniffing for traces of Shelley’s scent. Then he knew that his bear would never stop looking and longing for his mate.

Mick transformed back into a man. And then he had a very, very long hike across the mountain, until he came to his house again.

Okay
, he told his bear.
You win
.

He drove down the mountain the night before the wrap party.

Shifter shapes keep you honest, if you let them
, his grandfather had said.
Be good to your bear, who sees the world simply. He will be good to you, and the both of you will live a long and happy life side by side with your mate.