The Bear In Me: A BBW Bear Shifter Romance (7 page)

“Figured that too. My knee is swelling. Don’t worry, you idiot, I’ve got rations and blankets and the inside of the cockpit. I’m fine for days. Get out of here and find her!”

Sam gulped and stood up, his naked torso flexing with adrenaline and gave the old man a short nod as he pivoted and willed himself back into Form. The smell of the hunters was strong from the northeast. He started off at a low gallop.

His worry for Emily had increased, and blended into the regret he now felt.
I should have said no when she asked to help
, he thought. It was all his fault that she had gotten into this mess. He could understand the panic of the hunters, as well. Most of the hunters he took into the wild were green city-types that had never spent a night alone in the bush. Put them face to face with a full-grown bear and anything could happen. He dug in his claws deeper and increased his speed. A growing sentiment started to form in his brain. He would do whatever it took to save Emily, no matter the cost.

It was a hard choice, one he’d had to make in the Army numerous times. It was the reason he couldn’t stay there. It was too hard to compromise your moral compass, even if it was the ‘right’ thing to do. And now, here he was, right back in the same sort of situation. He was full of self-loathing and didn’t even notice as branches and snags tore at his thick hide. He bent his head low and fixated again on the only thing that mattered.
Emily.

As he neared a large clearing in the hillside caused by a mudslide he lifted his nose and got another whiff of human, this time much closer. They couldn’t be far off. He hurried down a steep slope toward another small creek that was burbling between the rocks. Above him he could feel the tension in the atmosphere, and a slow darkening as the storm came ever nearer.

When he reached the bottom his heart stopped for the second time that day. He heard a loud crack issue through the forest, and stopped, his ears pricked. It wasn’t thunder; it was too sharp. It had to have been a gun.

He growled and pushed through the undergrowth, making no effort to lessen his impact or the sound of his coming. Around another aisle of cedars he could finally make out a small human form. There were two of them, and one of them was limping. Sam hoped it was from the crash of the plane, and not from Emily. If she had accidentally wounded them when she was running away, they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her.

From his vantage point it looked as if they’d cornered her against a small bluff. She was fully in Bear form and making a pitiful growling sound as she tried in vain to scale the stone escarpment, only to fall back down again. Anger bubbled up in Sam when he saw one of the hunters with a thin mustache and sideburns raise the barrel of his rifle toward her.

“You brown bitch!” He shouted. “This is for taking the girl!”

Emily turned, her big brown eyes full of fear. She seemed to cower back against the wall, expecting the worst – to die alone, here, at the hands of two hunters. She made a small growling sound that tore at Sam’s heart.
Emily, I’m here
, he wanted to shout, but instead it came out as a muffled bark. He was close enough that both hunters turned in their boots toward the sound.

What they saw was a massive dark shape lumber tirelessly out of the thicket, its black eyes locked on them with murderous intent. One of the hunters tripped backward and as he did the gun flew from his hand, hitting the stones beside him and going off. A terrific boom rocketed the small alcove. Both hunters cringed at the sound, as did Emily, who hid her head with her paws. The only one who didn’t flinch in the slightest was Sam. The bullet whizzed past his left ear, burying into a dead tree behind him.

“Christ, what the hell is it?” One of the hunter’s shouted.

Sam let out a low blood-curdling growl.

“Shoot it.” The other hunter said to his friend.

His friend fumbled for the other gun, and Sam’s head turned toward him. He was on top of the hunter in moments, his giant paw scattering the gun into the bush. The hunter wept as Sam leaned over him, his jaw open and teeth bared, his snout pulled back in a grizzled sneer.

Sam took one step back, allowing the hunter to scurry out from under him. Then, as if emphasizing his domain, Sam stood up. His massive black haunches buried into the dirt as he stood up on his hind legs and opened his wide paws and growled. It was a growl unlike anything the hunters had ever experienced. It ripped from Sam’s throat like the thunder above, and a thin drizzle of rain plummeted down from the skies as he bellowed, long and hard.

When he fell back on all fours, the hunters had taken the hint and ran back the way they’d come, tears in their eyes. Sam waited until they were gone and only then slowly approached Emily who was still shaking in her Bear form. He nudged her gently, and she relaxed, all her muscles collapsing at once, partly in relief, partly in exhaustion. In a moment she had reverted to human form. Sam watched her from behind his big black eyes – her naked form strewn elf-like on the moss, the small cut on her forehead, her eyes shut tightly. Still in Form, he nudged her naked body gently until he managed to drape her over his broad furred back. She instinctively clung to his fur, her fingers strung through the brown hair.

Rain started to come down again, and Sam loped slowly and dutifully on all fours deeper into the woods.

CHAPTER SIX

When Emily awoke, it was very dark. She had to blink several times to ascertain where she was. The dank smell of granite inundated her, and past her feet she could make out a lighter circular hole, and it took her almost a minute to realize it was the entrance to a cave. Outside, fresh green scent of cedar lilted in like a perfume, and a steady sizzle of rain was beating down on the forest.

She turned on her side and realized she was naked but somehow the inside of the cave was warm. Someone had dragged a long carpet of moss and put it underneath her. She felt her elbow sink into is as she tried to sit up.

“Go easy.” She heard a voice whisper from behind her, “you bumped your head.”

In the dark she could make out the silhouette of a man, and she knew almost at once that it was Sam. She touched her forehead where a very thin shallow cut had already scabbed over, and it all came flooding back to her. The plane had suddenly run into trouble – Al had shouted at them to take cover and brace for impact. It was all a flurry of images and sensations after that. Then, a horrible crashing sound as they dragged across the ground, then the dashboard rising to meet her. Then, fear.

“What… what happened?” She murmured.

Sam moved closer, and she saw that he too was naked. He reached toward her and rubbed her cheek and she felt like crying. “You crashed and then you turned. The hunters with you… they thought, you were a Bear. I mean, a wild one. They tried to hunt you down.”

She nodded. Slowly it was coming back, like dredging memories from the bottom of her subconscious, waterlogged images that floated toward the surface of vision. “I remember… running. I was afraid. Someone was chasing me,” she looked up suddenly at Sam and saw his eyes glint even in the darkness. “They were going to shoot me! But… you stopped them. You saved me.”

He bent low and kissed her forehead gently. “Always.”

She suddenly panicked and sat up straight, her back poised. “What about the hunters?! And Al??”

“It’s okay,” Sam said, holding out his hands, “I scared them but that’s it. I saw them head back toward the crash site. And Al’s okay, too. The search and rescue team are on their way. They’ll all be okay.”

She shook her head. “How… how did you find me?”

Without a word he scooted forward on his knees and touched her bare shoulder. His touch was warm, familiar, and all the terror she had felt before suddenly dissolved like sugar in water, and she leaned against his broad chest. He smelled like the rest of the cave, damp and warm and safe. He held her, both arms wrapped around the curve of her back, for long moments. Outside the rain rose in a sustained shush, and she closed her eyes.              

“I’ll always find you,” she heard him whisper, and ran the broad side of his palm over her head soothingly.

She let out a little purr of satisfaction, and pushed off his chest with both hands so she could look at his face again. The strong edge of his jaw stood out in the dim light, and she pulled herself closer to him, forcing him onto his back.             

“Do you love me?” she asked, holding the last vowel until it blended into the dark around them. He reached out and brushed a lock of hair over her ear.

“Always,” he replied again.

She bent and kissed him again passionately, drawing her mouth over his and he wrapped his hand behind her head and kissed back. Emily’s breasts brushed over the coarse hair of his chest and she felt a sliding pleasure move between them as she pressed her nipples into him and kissed harder.

His hand moved down, over the small dimples of her back, and cupped her buttocks as she reached out and dug her fingernails into the whip-cords of his shoulders. Gently, at first, she began to rock on top of him until she felt him stiffen under her legs. His long penis thrust upward, flattening against the flesh of his pubis and she bucked her hips, rubbing herself against him. She let out another little moan. Sam exhaled erotically, feeling himself grow turgid against her. Emily started to move faster, arching her waist so that the head of his member ached against her clitoris.

“Uhhh,” Sam murmured, “god you’re beautiful.”

“You are too,” she gasped, her breathing suddenly rapid. “Fuck me.”

He kissed her again, his arms tight around her shoulders and Emily reached down between their crotches, found him fully swollen and ready, and slowly guided his member upward. She stiffened slightly and her mouth opened as his penis prodded upward, sliding into her with a wet cluck, like a tongue pondering an afterthought.

Same grit his teeth, trying to restrain his desire as Emily’s vagina relaxed slowly around him, and she pushed off his chest again until she was straddling him erect, her hands reaching behind to brace herself against his knees. In the dark she moved her hips slowly, both of them matching the each other’s movements. Sam reached up, both hands on her waist and guided her faster. She opened her mouth again, and her eyes had gone cloudy with a kind of sleepy eroticism.

Sam smiled, the same dreamy look across his face, and moved his hands slowly up her waist, over the pendulum of her hips, and placed one palm flat against her navel. She put her own hand on top of his and cried out as he thrust upward, probing her even further, alive with some primitive urge to explore every part of her, to make it part of his own understanding of what it meant to love.

“Harder,” she whispered, taking his hands and moving them to her round breasts, which swayed to the sound of the rain. “Harder, Sam…fuck me,” she half-whispered, closing her eyes.

A low growl, like the kind he had uttered at the hunters, something that tore from his throat like a dark eroded instrument, overtook him. He gently pulled her down beside him and onto her side so that her round glistening buttocks, now shimmering with the dampness of the cave and their own mingling sweat, jutted sensually towards him.

This time it was his turn, and he wrapped one arm across her chest, fondling her breasts as his other hand fixed his penis. Emily had always imagined that to be with another like her kind, a Bear, a creature so intimately belonging to the wilderness, that it would be rough, quick. But as Sam struggled against her, his mouth and tongue moving across the side of her neck, she had never known such gentleness.

She opened her legs slightly as he spooned her and he reached down, found her already wet, the insides of her thighs moist with both their excretions, and moved into her again. She opened her legs wider and pushed her belly out, feeling the pressure mount on the inside of her vagina, the hood of her clitoris folding back and suddenly unbearable.

Sam reached over and his hand settled over her hip, grappling for purchase as he moved into her again and again, her buttocks slapping against his crotch with each movement, and both of them nearing the apex at the same time. His other hand squeezed tightly on her breast and she reached behind her, sinking her fingers into his hair as she let out a little scream and covered her mouth with her other hand.             

“I’m coming,” she choked, shivers already moving up her abdomen.             

Sam replied by bucking into her reflexively, causing her to orgasm immediately, a fresh spasm racing up her body. Her legs tightened and relaxed as if she was being electrocuted.  She shuddered into Sam who continued to hold her tightly. She felt him leaking out of her and her muscles turned to a liquid of their own as she folded into the embrace and her gasping abated.

Sam leaned over and kissed her, and when he saw how she was smiling he wrinkled his eyebrows at her again, an expression she had learned well in their short time together. She reached up and brushed her thumb over his lips.

“Thank you for saving me,” she said at last, turning over so she could face him. The moss under them lifted its deep earthy scent and covered them like a blanket. Outside the rain was dying down, only the lingering, dropping sound of rain stepping down the branches of old-growth. The cavern Sam had brought them too seemed to glow with their entwined bodies.

“I guess this weekend really turned to shit, huh?” He said.

She pressed her head against his chest again.

“What will we tell people when we get back?”

“About… us?” He said, misunderstanding the question.

“I mean, about the plane wreck?”

He shrugged. “I was out looking for you. I found you. That’s all there is to it. I think though, I’m going to take a little break from hunting tours.” he smiled, “and stick with renting cabins.”

She sighed and leaned into him again. “I love you.” She whispered, closing her eyes.

“I love you more.” He said.

Outside the weather’s slog kept them company, and Emily reflected on how far she had come. She sincerely doubted that if she could meet herself in the past, it would be hard to recognize that person. It wasn’t just a result of finding friends like Lily, or a lover like Sam. It wasn’t even about finding people who could appreciate her for who she was – inside and out. She was a Bear, yes, but she was also a woman.

For the first time in a long time – perhaps the first time ever – she had found something she’d been looking for, without ever realizing she’d been looking for it. A single word that rolled around in her mind like a ball of clay between two palms, even after she fell into a deep sleepless dream in Sam’s arms. It was a word she had never understood the depth of until this moment.

The word was
home
.