Shared By The Alpha Bears - Complete (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

I woke up the next morning alone.

I sat up in bed, and looked around the empty room. “Jake?” I asked aloud to nothing but air. I saw that the door was open slightly, and I could make out the indistinct sound of Jake’s voice coming from somewhere else in the cabin.

My first impulse was to look for my clothes before I remembered that I’d left them on the floor in his kitchen. Realizing there wasn’t much point in modesty now, especially since I hadn’t seen him wear anything yet, I didn’t see a problem in just heading downstairs naked.

I put my feet on the floor, yawned and ran a hand through my ruffled hair. Did Jake even have a comb or something I could use? Mornings had never been my prettiest time. I stood up and stretched and opened the door.

Emerging onto the second floor landing, I discerned not one but two men’s voices, including Jake’s. “Did she say anything about her plans for today?” the second voice said. “Like is she leaving soon?”

“She mentioned she was probably going home today, but she didn’t seem all that happy about it.” That was Jake’s voice.

I stepped up to the rail and looked down, seeing Jake standing in the room below conversing with a second man, who was just as naked as he was. He had a similarly large build, but with shorter, darker hair and darker eyes. I allowed myself a moment to just stand there, looking down, drooling over the sight of two buff naked men in the same room before Jake looked up and saw me.

“Oh, good morning Billie,” he grinned. “Come downstairs, I’ve got some breakfast for you.”

So I did. I headed downstairs, my attention focused on Jake’s new visitor, who similarly had his attention fixed on me. When I reached the bottom, Jake stepped up to me and put a hand on my back, ushering me forward. “Billie, this is Max.”

I instantly recognized the name. “The other alpha bear?”

“That’s right,” Max nodded.

“Well, that explains why you’re both standing around buck naked,” I shrugged, quite obviously looking over Max’s impressive musculature, and definitely not overlooking the equally impressive item he was packing downstairs.

“What’s your excuse then?” he grinned back at me, quite obviously checking out my own nudity right back.

“Come on,” Jake said, gesturing to the table, where a very tempting plate of bacon, eggs and toast had been set out for me. I smiled brightly and eagerly sat down.

“Wow, that looks delicious!”

Jake dished up a second plate and sat down beside me as we began to eat. I turned to look up at Max, who hadn’t joined us. “Don’t you want some?”

“I had my own breakfast,” he said. “But I’ll sit with you the same.”

Max took a seat across from Jake, with me at the end between the two of them. As I ate, I kept checking out Max, who just sat there watching me eat with an intrigued look on his face. A look I didn’t doubt I was reflecting.

“You know, a guy could get jealous,” Jake eventually commented.

“Says the guy who had her all day yesterday,” Max said.

“He has a point,” I put in. “I’m allowed to browse, aren’t I?”

Max seemed to like that.

After we finished breakfast, Jake collected our dishes and took them to the sink to wash them. That left me at the table with Max. “So,” I said, “you’re an alpha bear too. How does that work exactly? How do you get that title?”

Max scrunched his face in thought. “Well, it’s a little hard to explain. Part of it’s genetic, like you have to have alpha in your blood or something to begin with. If you don’t have it in you to dominate over the natural bears out there, you’ll never be an alpha to the shifters. But that’s not enough by itself. To really be called an alpha, you have to earn it.”

“Earn it how?”

“We’re usually pretty solitary,” Max continued. “But once in a while the bears in the area will gather to determine who the strongest among them are.”

“And you determine this by…?”

Jake looked up from his dishes to answer, “Basically getting big and furry and wrestling each other to the ground. It’s pretty barbaric.”

“It’s the law of nature,” Max said. “Creatures follow the strongest among them. Jake and I basically outmuscled the other bears in the area the last time we saw them all. We’re just the biggest and baddest.”

“Oh, I believe you,” I smirked, checking out his pectorals some more.

“So what about you, Billie? Jake tells me you’re in a bit of a tough spot lately.”

“Yeah…”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t find it so bad.”

“You live out here in the woods,” I pointed out. “Everything’s subjective I guess.”

“I like it well enough to take a trip out there whenever the mood strikes me,” Max said. “And I don’t do it in a rusty old clunker that’s been sitting out in my front yard since before they invented cellphones,” he added, looking pointedly at Jake.

“So I’m not a city lover and I don’t drive much,” Jake shrugged.

“Or ever,” Max dropped in.

“So what do you drive out to the world in?” I asked Max.

He grinned at me proudly. “A Hummer.”

My eyes widened. “Wow, you
are
a big bear!”

“And I drive one, too. You should feel the leather on it.”

“So do you have a Mrs. Big Bear?”

“Nah, never really gotten serious with a she-bear, unlike this guy,” Max said with a gesture to Jake. “Most of the ladies I’ve dallied with have been human. And most of them didn’t last more than one night. There were a few that I kept coming back for, or that kept coming out here to see me, but sooner or later they all moved on. The country life wasn’t for them.”

“And the city life wasn’t for you,” I concluded.

Jake finally came and sat down again. “So Billie,” he said, “when do you need to go back home?”

Internally, I groaned. Home. That seemed like an odd thing to call that apartment I was struggling to hold onto. The one I felt positively ill at the prospect of going back to. But… “This afternoon,” I said. “I gotta start looking for another job before my landlord drops the axe.”

“Stop me if I’m wrong,” Max said, “but you don’t seem like you’d really miss the place if that happened.”

“Well, no, now that you mention it, I can’t really say I would.”

“So would it really be such a bad thing if you stayed another night?” Jake asked.

Impulsively I grinned. It may have been against my better judgment, but the idea sounded too wonderful to say no to. “No, it wouldn’t,” I said through an ear-to-ear smile.

“Glad to hear it,” Jake grinned, putting his hand on mine.

“Me too,” Max said, looking me up and down some more.

“Just one thing, though,” Jake said, “I’ll need to find us something to have for tonight’s dinner if you’re going to stay.”

“That’s all right, I’ve got some more food back at my cabin,” Max offered.

“Yeah, but I should still go get some hunting done anyway.” Jake rose from his chair and started heading for the front door. “Hey Max, while I’m gone, why don’t you take Billie on a hike back to your place? How does that sound?”

Max looked the question back at me. “What do you say?” he said.

“Sounds like a plan,” I nodded.

I hopped up from the chair over to the sofa, where Jake had folded up my clothes and stacked them for me. I was just picking up my shorts and was about to put them on, when I stopped and thought again, looking back and forth between the two naked men in either direction. We were still miles away from civilization; no one would be around to see me.

At least no one I didn’t want to.

“Oh, fuck it,” I said, dropping my shorts back down. I put on my hiking boots and left it at that.

Max looked happy about that decision.

All three of us stepped outside. “I shouldn’t be more than a few hours,” Jake said, stepping away from us. “I’ll join you back at Max’s cabin later.” And as I watched him, Jake suddenly grew into the huge, hulking, furry shape of a bear, falling forward onto four big legs. He turned his big bear’s head back to spare a glance at us, before wandering off into the woods.

Max placed a hand on my naked back, guiding me in another direction. “Come on,” he said. “This way.”

I’d enjoyed my hike through the woods yesterday. I’d always liked hiking, and I’d always loved the forest. But yesterday I hadn’t been naked, and I hadn’t had a big sexy naked man walking next to me. In fact, I couldn’t recall having ever gone outside naked before at all, and I had to admit, it felt pretty liberating. And exciting, too. The gentle wind blew through the leaves felt like a feather-light caress all over my skin. The sunlight trickling through the trees warmed me in places I had never felt the sun’s warmth before. And then there was Max’s hand occasionally falling on my back… I was getting chills down my spine.

“I feel so jealous of you right now,” I said. “You actually get to live out here! This place is so beautiful!”

“It’s got its charms,” he nodded. “But it gets kind of lonely sometimes.”

“Didn’t you say you bears are solitary creatures?”

“I’m a little more in touch with my human side than Jake is,” Max said. “I head out into the city usually once a week or two, whether for food or other stuff or just to see some people. I do actually have friends who live in civilization. If Jake leaves the forest more than once every month it’s an event.”

“I can’t say I particularly blame him,” I said.

We continued to walk for maybe an hour or so. Then Max suddenly stopped, looking off to the side. “Oh, wait,” he said. “One of my favorite spots is just around here.” He took hold of my arm and started pulling me along. “Come on, this way.”

He led me along a path past some thick bushes, until we finally came to the base of a giant tree with a pair of huge moss-covered roots going in perpendicular directions, forming a welcoming cradle of the clearing of ground beneath it. More moss-covered roots and logs surrounded the area, some of them coming up almost above my head. It was like Mother Nature had built a perfect little hidey-hole to kick back.

And Max immediately did just that, turning and lying back against the base of the tree, putting his hands behind his head like a tourist on vacation in Maui. “Come on, have a seat,” he smirked.

I gave him an amused grin, rolling my eyes a little and sitting down beside him. Impulsively, I pressed myself against his side, using his arm as a pillow. I stared up into the trees, watching the leaves rustle in the wind, letting little streams of sunlight shimmer through them. I watched birds flutter about and squirrels scurry from one branch to another. “Now this is the way to relax,” I commented. “Way better sight to look up at than any ceiling.”

“Not to mention the company,” Max added. And then came the inevitable arm around my shoulder. Okay, I could deal with that. I sighed, pressing myself harder into his side, and closed my eyes. I let myself be immersed in the sounds of nature around me, as well as the soft beating of his pulse beneath me. I luxuriated in the feel of the soft, moist moss beneath my back, and the feel of Max’s flesh pressed against my own.

Then I heard another sound. A soft whimpering sound. I opened my eyes and looked around, spotting a tiny fur-covered snout poking its way around the corner of a root, leading to a pair of little eyes looking at me. I began thinking the small animal looked familiar, and when it cautiously moved far enough forward for me to notice the slight limp in its hind leg, I was sure of it.