The Bear Who Loved Me (16 page)

“Like an animal?”

She nodded. “I don't mean to be offensive.”

He snorted. If she thought this was offensive, she hadn't met any of the crass members of the community. “These are normal questions. The kids ask all the time. I just…” He shrugged. “It's hard to explain.”

She looked down and fiddled with her empty ice cream bowl. “Oh. Okay. Forget I—”

He touched her hand. “No, I'll explain. It just may not make any sense.”

“You transform into a bear more than double your weight. I think we left rational behind a while ago.”

He nodded. “It's like opening a cage door inside and just letting it have free range. The bear takes over, and I sit in the back and kind of watch. The body change is secondary. Suddenly, everything's instinct and action. What words I have are simple. Want. Need.”
Kill. Destroy
.

She tilted her head as she looked at him. “You sound as if you're two different people.”

“That's how it feels. There's me, the one sitting here talking to you. I'm the one who plans and strategizes. Who acts as Max and watches over the kids.” He leaned back in his chair. “And then there's him.”

“The grizzly part of you?”

“Sometimes he's so close to the surface, I worry he's going to explode out of me. It used to happen all the time as a kid. Now it's just…”
A constant war.
“A balancing act.”

“It doesn't sound like balance,” she said. “Actually, it sounds like what Theo was talking about with his friends.”

“A bear under his skin?”

“Not the words he used. His football coach told him it was hormones. All that aggression and lust.”

“I can relate.”

“So it's like adolescence, only forever? Like your hormones take physical shape?”

He'd never thought about it like that. “I don't know,” he said honestly. “I've always been a shifter.” But he spent a great deal of his time with kids, especially boys. They all had the wild inside them. Shifters just had to be extra careful when and how the wild got loose. “But I don't want you to think I can't control the bear. You're safe here.”

Becca released a huff. “Why does everyone keep reassuring me that I'm safe? I never thought I wasn't. Well, except for when you kidnapped me, but that was just at the beginning.”

He looked at her, his heart filling with emotions he couldn't control. “But what about this morning? What about…” He gestured vaguely to the front yard. He vividly recalled the way she'd turned from him.

“You protected me this morning. Me and the rest of the Gladwins. From what Alan said, Nick has been a problem for years.”

“But weren't you afraid?”

“Not for me.” She stroked her thumb across the back of his hand. “Were there others who haven't felt safe around you? Did someone get hurt?”

How to answer that without spilling his entire heart and soul? “We're all raised from birth to keep this quiet. Sure, we have normal friends, but we don't talk about shifting. And once we start dating…”

“It's a closed community,” she finished for him. “Only look at girls who can shift.”

“Or grew up around shifters. It's dangerous to share this stuff. Normal people tend to freak out.”

She nodded her understanding. “Paranoia probably gets ingrained early.”

She didn't know the half of it. “Our kind have been hunted since the beginning of time. But it goes the other way, too.” He sighed. “People have a reason to fear. When shifters go feral, they destroy everything in their path. It's insanity at its most brutal and violent.”

“You're talking about Mark.”

He shook his head, his tone firming. “He's not there. Not yet.” But he might be any minute now.

She flipped his hand over so that they could touch palm to palm, and that gesture pulled him out of his dark thoughts. “He seemed in complete control to me.”

He flashed her a grateful smile. “He's strong.” Then he forced himself to return to the main topic. She needed to understand the reason for all that paranoia. “We've all broken the rules at least once. We've told an outsider and had them lose it.”

“Told them you can shift into a bear? Like you told me.”

“Yes. You don't know how rare it is for someone to take it as well as you did.”

She stood up, picking up their dirty dishes and carrying them to the sink. Her mouth was pursed as she moved, her expression drawn into one of concentration. “I did freak,” she said, quietly enough he had to strain to hear. Then she returned to the doorway. “But you're not violent or insane. You're just people.”

“I'm ‘people.' My grizzly is a bear.”

“Don't be ridiculous. You two are one and the same.”

And here was the crux of her confusion. “No, we're not. Not really. Because if the bear slips its leash, it's my job to kill it.” His gaze shifted to the window. Miles away his best friend lived with that certainty. One day he would turn too much a bear and would go insane. And it would be Carl's job to put him down.

Then he felt her hand on his cheek, gently but firmly guiding his gaze back to her. She was standing above him as he sat in his chair, and she used the superior position to emphasize her words. “You are the same person,” she repeated. “Bear or human, you are one person.”

“You don't understand.”

She sighed. “So explain.”

“The grizzly is a wild creature. The man keeps him under control.”

“Two entities in one body?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I don't believe it.”

He stared at her. He couldn't fathom the audacity of her—a completely mundane human—telling him the details of who he was or how he functioned. It robbed him of words. And in the silence, she issued him a challenge.

“Can you let him out?” she asked. “Without shifting, I mean. Just let me talk to him if he's someone different.”

He stared at her. Did she know what she was asking? “He's dangerous.”

“You think he'd hurt me?”

“Absolutely not.” The words were out immediately and emphatically. “He worships you.”

Her brows arched, and her lips curved into a smile. “Wow. I don't think I've ever been worshipped before.”

“You were last night,” he said.

“Oh, yes.” Her cheeks pinked. “Well, that was fun.” She frowned. “That was the bear?”

“No, that was me. And him. Together.” That made it clear as mud.

“See,” she said, touching his face. “You're the same person.”

“We're different,” he repeated.

Her expression shifted as she bit her lower lip. “Please?” she asked anxiously. “Is it possible? I'd really like to talk to him.”

“He doesn't talk.” He pulled her closer to him, thrilled that she let him to wrap an arm around her hips. “He's instinct and action.” And when she still didn't understand, he squeezed her bottom. “He wants you, Becca. And he won't be subtle.”

He could see her process his meaning, but she was undaunted. “You want me to understand this shifting thing. You want me to feel safe with you.”

He nodded.

“So show me. Let him out of the cage, Carl. I trust you to take control again if things get out of hand.”

She trusted, but he didn't. Good lord, did she know what she was asking? “Last time I tried this, I lost control. Became a grizzly and tore apart my girlfriend's bedroom.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen.”

“And how did she react?”

He snorted. “Tonya shifted, too, and we…” He cleared his throat. “Well, she didn't get pregnant, so we were lucky about that. But there wasn't much left of her furniture when we were done.”

“Hot and hormonal. But you already shifted today. So that won't be a problem, right?”

He nodded. That at least was true. “This still isn't a good idea.”

She leaned over him, stroking across his cheeks with a feathery touch. “I need to meet him, Carl. If you're two people, then I need to meet the other half.”

“He doesn't talk,” he repeated.

“Then it'll be a short conversation.”

He could see that she was determined. And to be honest, he wondered if he could manage it. He hadn't tried to do this since that disastrous time with Tonya over a decade ago. But inside, he couldn't stop the dread that filled him. What would happen when she saw he was just a grunting, horny bear? Would he lose what little chance he had with her?

“It's not me who feels unsafe,” she said softly. “It's you. You don't trust yourself.”

“Because it's playing with fire.” He looked into her eyes. “People have been burned. Badly.”

“What people?”

“My mother.” The word was out before he could stop it. Damn it, this is what Becca did to him. She made him lose control and words—secrets—came tumbling out.

“What happened?” she asked, her entire body stilled.

“My uncle was Maximus then. He was brutal, like most Maxes of the time. But he seemed to enjoy it.”

She waited, her body stilled as it pressed against him, but not in fear. She was simply listening and he found he wanted to explain.

“He was being cruel. He liked baiting children, torturing them until they got angry enough to shift.”

“Does that work?”

“Only if the kid is ready to shift anyway. For anyone under the age of fifteen, it's just sadistic.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Was it you? Was he torturing you?”

He shook his head. “Alan.” The boy who was so human they knew it even when he was a toddler. But that hadn't stopped his uncle.

“How awful.”

“She went Mama bear on him. She was a shifter, but not a strong one. She changed only three times in her life. That was her third.”

“And he killed her for it?”

Carl nodded, feeling the burn of tears in his eyes. He still remembered the sound of them fighting. His mother's roar of fury. His uncle's lower, angrier, growl. And then blood. Oceans of blood. And he'd been powerless to stop it.

“My uncle was mean, but even he had limits. He didn't plan on killing his brother's wife, but she attacked him.” The words clogged his throat, and he pressed his face against Becca's breasts. They were full and soft, and smelled of the food she'd cooked. Lost in her softness, he was able to say the rest. “My father heard the noise and came running, but was too late to save her.”

“What about you?” she whispered. “Where were you?”

“With Alan.” He'd shoved his younger brother into a kitchen cabinet, then cowered nearby, planning to distract his uncle when the creature turned on them. “My uncle's bear was a monster,” Carl said.

“Sounds like he was the monster—human and bear.”

Maybe. Certainly. But in his mind, Carl had always associated the bloody death of his mother with the grizzly bear, not the man. “My father challenged him that day, but he was smart, too. He knew he couldn't beat my uncle bear to bear, so he called in the police to help. It was a human cop who shot the ‘rabid' bear attacking my father. By evening, my uncle was dead and my father became Max.”

He felt her hands on his face, stroking his cheeks as she pressed kisses to his forehead. “I'm so sorry.”

So was he. And how awful to relive it even in memory. Except that it hadn't been so bad. Not with her holding him. Not with her hands on his body and her warmth cradling him. He ought to feel ashamed for burrowing into her embrace like a child needing a blanket. But he wasn't ashamed. And he needed her solid strength right then. Not for him, but for the child he'd been who had watched it all and had been powerless to stop it.

“That's why,” he finally choked out. “That's why I don't trust the bear.”

“But that wasn't you.”

He shook his head. “Doesn't matter.”

“It does matter.” Then she stepped back far enough for her to angle his face up toward hers. “It matters,” she repeated. “You aren't bad. Your grizzly isn't vicious.”

“You were here this morning, right? You saw—”

“I saw you protecting your family. Yeah, all that blood freaked me out, but that wasn't you.” Then she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. He would have deepened it. He pulled her tight again to try to take her in the most human way possible, but she refused him. She held herself apart after one single kiss and she stared him in the eye.

“Enough,” she said the firmest voice he'd ever heard from her. “Let me talk to your bear. Now.”

How could he say no? He would give her everything. So with a swift, silent prayer that he could keep things under control, he stepped back from his brain. He pulled away from the rational, human side, and opened the door to his grizzly.

It was there, ready and waiting to be freed. He was too tried to shift bodies, but mentally, the switch was a simple choice. Carl stepped back. The grizzly pushed forward. And in a split second of mutual accord, they both swore that Becca would remain safe no matter what.

But the grizzly made no promise to stay civilized.

B
ecca watched closely, so she saw the change, though physically it was subtle. The clearest shift came in his eyes, which went from green to a dark brown. Then his nose seemed to stretch a bit, his neck and shoulders might have thickened, and nothing at all changed with his mouth. At least not until she caressed his lips.

He licked her. A long twist of his tongue around her first two fingers, and her nipples tightened in reaction.

Okay, so his bear was lust-inducing. That wasn't new. But the way he was looking at her was. Carl was right when he said the bear worshipped her. His eyes were fixed on her, steady in their absolute attention. There was no demand in his gaze, not that she could see. No thoughts either. Just pure…emotion?

She touched his face, stroking gently across his cheekbone. He turned into her caress, closing his eyes in appreciation but doing no more.

Carl had said that his bear was all action. He'd suggested that the creature might just take her to bed without thought or gentleness. But there was no forceful seduction here. Nothing beyond a quiet appreciation. And in that realization, all her fears faded away. Truthfully, she hadn't even known she was afraid, but now the release of tension was like dropping a heavy blanket from her shoulders. She took a deep breath for the first time since he'd come home.

“I told you I was safe with you,” she said.

She'd barely gotten the words out when he changed. His eyes flickered and where before there was an unnamed focus of emotion, now she read yearning. He released a low moan of pain. The sound was heartbreaking and she immediately searched him for an injury.

“Is something wrong?”

She'd stepped closer to him and his arms wrapped tightly around her hips. He was still sitting, she standing, and he dropped his head against her chest, his breath shuddering in and out. She touched his hair, feeling coarse strands where before there had been only silky softness. Another manifestation of the bear, she supposed. But mostly what she felt was the way he held her, rumbling low and deep inside.

Carl had said the bear couldn't communicate, but he was wrong. There was language here, just not the human kind. She made it her mission to understand. She had a guess, but she had to see if she was right. So she pulled back from him. It was hard, because he wasn't going to let her go. But she insisted and eventually his arms eased. That gave her enough room to kneel down in front of him. And when their eyes were on a more even level, she touched his mouth. He licked her fingers again, but lightly. More of a hello than anything more.

“You have a mouth. You can talk. Tell me what you want.”

“Becca,” he said.

She smiled. “There you go. That's a start. Now tell me why you're so sad.”

He clutched at her again, but she didn't let him reel her in. He was strong enough to override her wishes, but he didn't. He just ducked his head, another low moan pouring out of him. And when she pulled his face back up to hers, there were tears in his eyes.

It slayed her to see him like this. Carl was the definition of large and powerful. To see his eyes wet with pain made her chest tighten unbearably. But she didn't give in to the need to hold him. Not yet. He had to explain and eventually he pushed a word out.

“Alone.”

She frowned. Did he want her to leave? Of course not. Which meant… “You feel lonely, don't you? Carl locks you tight inside, only letting you out to beat up on things.” Okay, so she might be feeding into this idea that he was two separate people, but identities got sectioned off all the time. Sometimes she thought of herself as a mother and nothing else. Other times, she was a baker and a small business owner. Different parts of herself functioning separately, but she still knew herself as one person. Carl, on the other hand, was taking this to an extreme. “But you're part of him, aren't you? And you need to be more than just a brute.”

“Need you.” He caressed her arm, squeezing it as if for emphasis.

“Why?” She had to know if this was just a mating drive or something more. But that was asking for complicated expression out of a bear. It just wasn't happening.

His hand trailed up to her mouth. “Becca.”

So it was up to her to figure this out. No problem. She'd been dealing with a monosyllabic teen boy for a while now. She touched Carl's chest, flattening her palm there as she spread her fingers. She felt the ripple of his muscles beneath her hand and she imagined she felt his heartbeat. It was probably more her own, but she didn't care. Especially when he managed two more words.

“Love me.”

Well, that was clear enough. And the startling truth was that she did. She loved the aching loneliness in the man before her. She adored the power that he contained and the gentleness with which he wielded it. But most of all, she loved the man who split himself in two so that he could manage the demands of his mind and the needs of his heart. And the bear, she now saw, was his heart.

“Becca?”

“Yes,” she said. Then she kissed him. She pressed her mouth against his and teased his lips with her tongue. He waited just a moment—frozen as if in shock—and then he changed again. His mouth opened and he devoured her. Hot and hungry, his tongue invaded her, branding her lips, her teeth, even the roof of her mouth, with his need.

She purred against him, already arching into his embrace. That seemed to be all the encouragement he needed because he scooped her up in his arms. Still with their mouths fused, he carried her to his room. Once there, he set her down on the bed and when they separated enough to breathe, he began to pet her everywhere. Large strokes, whole hand, absolutely everywhere. There seemed to be no preference for any part of her body. Her hair, her shoulders, her belly, her breasts. He even palmed her ankles while she stripped out of her clothes. And once she was naked, she rushed to help him.

He was impatient with his clothes and the business of taking them off. His attention was on her and when she forced him to move his hands away from her while she pulled off his shirt, he leaned forward to put his mouth on her. And when that was impossible, he rubbed his legs against hers. He wanted to touch her everywhere and with every part of his body. And once all the clothing was dispensed with, she happily succumbed to his needs.

He stroked her everywhere and with every part of him. It was a rollicking tumble all over his bed, and she began to giggle with delight. He liked their legs entwined every which way. He liked her torso in his hands. Not just her breasts, but spanning her rib cage and tracing her spine. He wanted to lick every inch, but inevitably found his way between her thighs. She'd thought he'd been thorough before, but he seemed to revel in it now. There was no skill in the steady build to orgasm, just sheer delight as he tasted her every which way.

Her orgasm—when it happened—was almost an afterthought to the way he was owning her. And though she came with a cry, gripping his shoulders with her thighs as she bucked beneath him, he just kept licking, his large palms squeezing her bottom as he feasted.

On and on it went until she lost track of individual sensations. Her entire body was pleasure, almost without form. Just touching and throbbing. Pulsing and laughing. And it was all joy.

Pleasure as his penis thrust inside her.

Happiness as she gripped him, her orgasm pulsing around them both.

Joy when he exploded inside her.

And ecstasy when he did it again and again.

Becca woke slowly, her body settled deep in Carl's arms and his heartbeat steady against her ear. She was resting on his chest and he held her half on top of him, half wrapped around his hip and thigh. Even their feet were touching.

She felt him press a kiss to her forehead and she released a low purr of delight. Then she murmured, “Good morning.”

“Sorry to wake you.”

She smiled. Of all the ways to wake up, this was now her all-time favorite. His hands were brushing across her shoulder and back. Long strokes that were less soothing petting and more a “wake up and love me.” She was okay with that, and so stretched against him, lifting her mouth to press a kiss against his contoured chest.

A low rumble rolled through his body into hers and she smiled. But then he tightened his hold and gently pushed her back a half inch. “I'm sorry. I have to get up.”

He was already up. She felt his penis thick and heavy against her hip. But she knew what he meant, so she reluctantly slid off. He rolled the other way and sat up, rubbing his face as he went.

She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and studied his profile. All human, complete with a Roman nose and shoulders that were broad without being thick. Also, the way he moved was more efficient, less fluid. As if everything in him were locked down again.

“You need to be the bear more often,” she said, startled by her own words. It wasn't like her to boldly tell someone what he should and shouldn't do with his life. But once started, she couldn't back away from the message. It was too important. “You've locked all your emotions away with him, and that's not healthy.”

He turned to look at her, his eyes fully green in the muted dawn light. “He's gentle only with you.”

“Bullshit. He's you, Carl. Your emotions and your instinct caged in a little box labeled Bear. They're part of you. You pull them out when you think you need them, but they're all you. And they need to be expressed.”

“He doesn't talk.”

“He talked plenty last night.” And she'd heard him when he'd expressed loneliness and need. And he taught her about the joy of reveling in each other's physical bodies for the simple pleasure of being with each other.

Carl dropped his hand into his lap. “Even you talk about him as a separate person.”

“Only because you do. Because you've locked that part of you away.” She pushed up to a seated position. “Your bear is wonderful, Carl.”

His expression lightened and he touched her arm. A single stroke that was both longing and connection. And then he spoke, his words shocking her into reality.

“He also didn't use a condom.”

Becca froze, the words echoing in her brain. Mentally, she pulled up her calendar, trying to remember when she'd last had a period, but she didn't know. There'd been no need to keep track. Meanwhile, Carl squeezed her arm.

“Don't panic. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it. Whatever you want, I won't abandon you.”

She looked into his eyes. Abandonment wasn't her fear. It was everything else. The choices, the possibilities, and the moral weight of it all. Could she fit a baby into her life? Did she dare consider giving it up for adoption or something worse? What would Theo think? And how the hell had she let this happen?

And yet, even as those thoughts scrambled for purchase, another wholly instinctive part of her settled into a purring contentment. Was this the animal part of her? If so, it was happily knitting booties and settling into Carl's bedroom as if it were a den made just for her and their child.

“Becca, really. There's no need to panic. Odds are nothing happened.”

“That's what my sister said and nine months later, Theo was born.”

He touched her chin, drawing her gaze up to his. “We both have plenty on our plates right now. Don't add more before you have to.”

“Good advice, except that life still keeps happening.” She closed her eyes and dropped back against the headboard. “Jesus, I'm supposed to be the responsible one. I didn't even think. Last night, I just felt.”

His voice was quiet, but she heard him clearly. “And how did it feel, Becca?”

She opened her eyes. “You know it was wonderful, Carl. But…” She swallowed. His question had been about more than just the night. It was about who they were together. “This whole situation is out of control. I have a normal life back in Kalamazoo. I have a business and a son.” And what was she doing creating babies when Theo was missing?

He turned away, his expression carefully blanked. The bear in him was completely absent, which meant his emotions were locked down. “I need to shower before Tonya gets here. Then I'm going to find Theo and everything will be fine.”

Was that even possible anymore? She didn't think so. So much had happened since Theo's disappearance that she wasn't sure she could find normal again. Not in a world where her adopted son was a bear shifter. And she was potentially pregnant with another.

She bit her lip, fighting the frustration. Every time she thought she had her life under control, something happened to destroy her peace. First it had been her father's abandonment, then her sister's pregnancy. Next came the deaths, Nancy's and her mother's, leaving her and Theo to find a new balance together. And now? Now everything was off-kilter again.

She couldn't take it. It was too much.

“Becca…”

She held up her hand, stopping him from talking. “First things first,” she said. “Find Theo. I can't deal with anything more.”

She didn't even look at him, but kept her eyes closed and her head down. She wouldn't look up until he was gone.

Twenty minutes later, she got her wish. He showered and left without another word. But once the door thudded shut behind him, she finally took stock. What was on today's plate? She would deal with that. Sadly, the only thing she had to occupy her time was meaningless chores and endless worry.