Romance: My Bear Boss: BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance (BBW Shifter Romance, Paranormal Shifter Romance) (3 page)

Chapter 5

Nightmares ruined her entire night.

Talking about it brought everything back to the fore and that bear chased her through her dreams.

When she woke the next morning, she felt like she hadn’t slept in days. All her body wanted to do was close her eyes and make her exhausted mind get some real sleep. Unfortunately, she had to work.

Tired, dreading what Richard would say or how he would act, Melody forced herself into a decent outfit and went into work.

As she rode the elevator up, she reminded herself about what had happened the last time she was so worried about coming into work. That time she’d gotten a coffee and realized she’d been silly to be so scared.

The memory perked her up, and she told herself she was being silly. There was no way her telling him about what had happened to her would…

The elevator doors opened, and there was no coffee. Not only that, but the lights were out.

Taking her phone out of her purse, she used the display for light as she found her way to the wall and flicked on the light switches.

Now more unsettled than ever, Melody booted up her computer and prepared for what was sure to be an awkward day. 

A full 45 minutes after he should’ve been in, without any warning that he’d miss his early morning meetings, Mr. Drysdale strolled in. This wasn’t the Richard she’d come to know.

This was Mr. Drysdale. It was in his eyes, the way he didn’t look at her when he said, “Oh. You’re here. Push back my 9 o’clock to 9:30.”

“You could’ve let me know you were going to be late,” she said as she wrote a note about the meeting.

Mr. Drysdale stopped and looked at her with eyes as cold as the dead of winter. The warm affection he’d had for her was gone.

“Do I answer to you?”

“No,” she said, looking down.

“Do I answer to you? Do you pay my salary? If you don’t walk through that door, does the company lose money?”

Melody worked her tongue around. If she opened her mouth, she’d cry. Instead, she just shook her head.

“Push back my 9 o’clock. If that’s a problem for you, there’s the door.” Without waiting for her to reply, he walked back through the double-doors to his office.

Melody, not knowing what else to do, picked up the phone and dialed the client.

When the man answered, Melody said, “Hello. This is Melody calling on behalf of Mr. Drysdale. I’m calling to inform you that your 9 o’clock meeting with Mr. Drysdale has been pushed back to 9:30.”

“He’s postponed our meeting for three weeks now,” the man answered angrily. “

What possible reason could he have for pushing it back half an hour? It’s a bit early for the day to have gotten out of control. This is just an insult at this point!”

Melody closed her eyes, the tears that had welled in the corners sliding down her cheeks.

“Sir, I agree. It’s insulting. There’s no good reason for it. He’s an ass. Come in or don’t, but either way he’s going to be double-booked for 9:30 because I’m leaving. Good luck.”

As the man started yelling about the double booking, Melody slammed the phone back on the base. Shoving all of her things into her back, she closed out the computer. That was it, she couldn’t do this anymore.

Before she left, though, she was going to get an answer out of him. Setting her bag on her desk, she marched through the doors to his office.

“I’m working,” he said before she’d even started speaking.

“What is wrong with you?”

“I’m working. Do you see the pen in my hand? See these? These are papers.”

Melody shook her head, unable to believe what was happening. “I quit. I’m leaving. I never want to see you again.”

“Good,” he said and looked back to his paperwork. “Nor I you.”

The tears came fast, stinging her eyes. Refusing to cry in front of him, she ran from the office, taking her bag on the way out.

Chapter 6

The next two days, Melody stayed in her apartment, heartbroken. She wasn’t sorry for what she’d seen that night, but she hated that it had somehow ended a relationship with the most amazing man she’d ever met.

None of her friends supported her, all of them saying she shouldn’t have told him that stupid story. But it wasn’t stupid! She knew what she saw.

The night of the second day, there was a knock on her door. Richard stood there. Richard, and not Mr. Drysdale.

His face was puffy, his eyes red and swollen. Had he been crying?

“No matter how much I try, I can’t stay away from you. I should never have slept with you that night, but I just couldn’t help myself. I shouldn’t even be standing here now. You have this hold on me. I can’t think. I knew it was a bad idea, but I did it anyway. I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I shouldn’t have gotten so close to you… not without telling you the truth about me.”

He looked away as his face twisted in anguish.

“Richard, what are you talking about?”

“It was me!”

Melody’s mind froze. There was no telling how long it had lasted. All sense of time was gone. No thoughts, no function. She stood, dumbfounded.

What did he mean? What could he possibly mean? She didn’t need to ask.

“I was the bear you saw in the alley. It was so dark, I didn’t see you. Sometimes I lose control of the shift, but it’s still me. When you screamed and ran, in my mind… I still feel like a man, sometimes. I chased after you to tell you it was okay, not to be scared. It wasn’t until you were gone that I realized what had actually happened and how it must’ve looked. I’m so sorry. After we were together, I knew you’d never accept me in my real form.”

“Richard,” she said cautiously, “this isn’t funny. I was serious when I told you that story.”

“I’m being serious,” he shouted, grabbing her arms.

Then without warning, he pushed her into her apartment and turned into a bear. Melody fell back onto her couch, staring up at the beast before her.

Instead of feeling afraid, she looked up into its eyes and saw Richard staring back. As quickly as he’d changed, he was back to his human form.

“I know we can’t be together. I’m a monster. But I had to tell you. You had to know that I didn’t think you were crazy. You’re not crazy.”

Richard turned to leave, but Melody jumped to her feet and grabbed his arm.

“Don’t go.”

He swung his head to look at her, the same way the bear had done that night.

How had she missed the similarities before?

“I love you. Don’t go. That monster I’d been so afraid of, I didn’t know him. I know you. The bear I saw just now was you, not a beast. I’m not afraid of you.”

Richard swallowed and turned his body to face her.

“Really?”

To answer his question, she reached up and pulled him in for a kiss. Richard returned the kiss with a burning passion. They’d been away from one another for only a couple of days, but it felt like an eternity.

To be together in one another’s arms again, for everything to suddenly make sense, they couldn’t touch one another enough.

Their clothes were off in an instant, but this time she pushed him down to the couch and straddled his lap.

They kissed deeply, full of love and affection. Reaching down, she guided his hardness inside of her and lowered herself onto him. They moaned together and resumed kissing.

She lightly caressed his cheek as she moved her hips in a gentle rocking motion. The slow rhythm built rapidly. Under her, he bucked up into her, thrusting deeper inside as she pressed herself down.

As they made love, he locked his mouth around her nipple and sucked. As he did, he reached up and fondled the other breast while wrapping his other arm around her middle.

Holding her close, he forced her down onto him harder. Melody grabbed onto the back of the couch and used it for leverage. Soon she was slapping down on top of him.

As they both reached their orgasm, their moans echoing throughout her apartment, she knew she’d found the man she was to be with for the rest of her life.

This was her bear.

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Stranded With The Lion

Ashley Hunter

 Copyright 2015 by Ashley Hunter

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced

in any way whatsoever, without written permission

from the author, except in case of brief

quotations embodied in critical reviews

and articles.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any

person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First edition, 2015

Chapter 1

When Indrid Liander was six years old, she had witnessed a terrible event in front of her own home. While—at the time—domestic disturbances weren’t out of the norm and even common in the area she grew up in, the situation was permanently glued to her mind.

Memories of red and blue lights flashing through the curtains of the living room, the sounds of screaming, the eventual silence before hours passed and the matter was all but gone. Ingrid’s mother had told her specifically to stay inside and not interfere, and obedient, Ingrid did as she was told.

The event concerned some of her neighbors. A man and a woman whose screams often woke up their family in the middle of the night. Some people just fight a lot, her mother had explained, even though it had become a nuisance. It had escalated that day, to the point where their screams took them outside the house and the sound of shattering glass and wood followed hard enough to spark alarm.

The man had struck the woman hard enough that she bled. This Ingrid has seen through the window. She may have been ordered to stay inside, but she couldn’t help her curiosity to see what was going on. She had peered out the curtains and pressed her nose flush against the cool glass to see a police officer pull the woman away by her arms, blood poured from her forehead and down her face, and she struggled and screamed herself hoarse.

Ingrid could never forget the sight of so much blood, the wild feral look in the woman’s face as she shouted at the man. The man was eventually handcuffed, dragged away, and the lights flashed and faded away. Not long after, her mother returned through the door of their house, looking somber and exhausted.

Ingrid had approached her with slow caution, wide eyed and hoping for answers she knew she might not receive.

When she had meekly mumbled out a small, “Mommy?” her mother glanced at her with a soft smile before crouching down and pulling the young girl into her arms.

“There are always two sides of a story, Ingrid,” her mother had said into her ear after a long while. Ingrid was confused but listened anyway.

“Remember that, alright, sweetheart? There are always two sides of a story… you must never judge or take sides until you’re sure you know both sides of the story.”

Why her mother had said that, Ingrid didn’t know and she never really found out.

Years later, the event had become a simple recount of something common that occurred where they lived and Ingrid moved on with her life.

Yet she never forgot her mother’s words and as she grew, she was able to understand what her mother had meant with her words and the lesson she was trying to teach.

The words had shaped Ingrid for most of her adolescent life, allowed her to enter adulthood with an understanding mind. She wasn’t fond of confrontation and because of her desire to find out both sides to stories told, Ingrid became specialized as a small town advocate for wrongfully imprisoned people.

She was the youngest officer in the small town to become such a professional. Unfortunately, there was only so much idealism could get you in life and Ingrid soon discovered the hard way, that sometimes getting both sides of a story wasn’t enough.

At first, she had enjoyed being able to help people, assist in any way possible. But there was a difference between helping someone, and swaying that person’s favor. Opinions once sealed in stone were the hardest to break and it didn’t matter how much evidence there was to prove someone’s innocence.

Once a side of the story leaked out and first impressions set, people picked sides and stuck to them with a frightening resolve that had left Ingrid locking her door at night and staying up until the early hours of the morning.

She had only done her job…

That wouldn’t be enough, it seemed.

Soon, it became almost impossible to walk around without having someone throw you a scathing look for helping a man walk out of jail. Even her own co-workers hated her, or so she believed.

There was only one of them… her name was Linda. She seemed to be the only one who really cared.

“You know,” Linda had said one afternoon at the firm.

“You should disappear…”

Ingrid blinked up at her startled. The blonde shook her head fervently, wiping away some juice from her lip.

She placed her can of orange tang down before leaning over the dark haired woman’s desk, “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, take a sojourn… like just take a break from this god-forsaken town, y’know?”

“I can’t do that, Linda,” Ingrid sighed, returning to the appeal forms now blotted in ink.

“There’s too much to be done.”

“And what reward is that getting you, eh?” Linda stressed, reaching over to press a hand over Ingrid’s wrist. Ingrid blinked up, looking into Linda’s concerned baby blues.

“When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep?”

Ingrid frowned lightly, before looking away and returning to her writing.

“It hardly matters… if I were a man, things would be different.”

“But you’re not, Ingrid.” Linda said, taking another sip of her fruity beverage and glancing out the woman’s window.

“I have this cabin… up in the woods. Way up in rich man’s land, if you know what I mean… no one around here would bother you and it’s far enough away that you could find some peace of mind.”

“Linda, I told you I can’t—”

The other woman shook her head, “Just think about it okay? I’m worried about you.”

Ingrid watched her friend give her a strained smile before leaving and for a while she honestly hoped that she wouldn’t need to. But of course… things couldn’t be easy and they wouldn’t get better.

It had taken several more broken windows and hurtful messages to make Ingrid consider the idea of taking a break, lay low, maybe have an extended vacation until things cooled down.

But in all actuality, who knew how long it would take? Three weeks and she put in a word with her boss, asked for a vacation and surprisingly, the man said yes.

“Perhaps it’s best if you do leave town for a little while,” Craigson had said, rubbing at the stress lines on his forehead.

“Maybe then the press will cut us a break.”

“Wait—you mean this whole situation is because of
me
?” Ingrid asked, baffled. “
You
were the one who told me to take that case! How is any of this my fault?”

The older man sighed, “No one said anything about fault, Liander. But for some strange reason you seem to be the obvious scapegoat everyone wants to take out.”

“I helped an innocent man out of death row!”

Craigson gave her a soft smile, “It takes more than that to prove his innocence. The public isn’t convinced… Take this vacation, Ingrid. Take as long as you possibly need… hopefully this whole thing will die down.”

There was a pained silence and Ingrid could feel tears threaten to burn her eyes and the force choke her throat. “…And if it doesn’t?”

Craigson’s words made the decision final. “That’s why I said hopefully.”