The Hawk and Her LumBEARjack: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (5 page)

Felicity laughed. "Now you sound like my mom."

"Hey, Mother knows best, right? Go on. Head out early. I'll hold down the fort, and tell everyone you're incommunicado."

At any other time, she would have politely brushed off Melinda's offer, and finished her work. But her mind kept slipping back to the previous weekend, to the heat of Hunter's touch and the hunger of his mouth on hers. "All right," she sighed, tossing her pen down on her desk. "Twist my arm."

Melinda grinned and made shooing motions toward the door. "Go, go. Before anyone sees you. I'll square things away in here."

Felicity giggled, grabbed her jacket and purse, and was out the door before she could change her mind.

She didn't bother stopping by her apartment this time, just drove north in her work clothes. She'd be out of them soon enough anyway, and she couldn't fly with an overnight bag.

But as she drove, she couldn't help thinking that this was a temporary, stopgap solution at best. She couldn't live her life half-assing her job and sleeping alone in a big, empty bed, dreaming about Hunter, able to indulge in his fiery touch only on weekends.

Would Hunter be willing to move to the city for her?

Could she give up her company, her dream, for him?

She didn't know.

Hunter ended up working all day on Friday, which at least kept him from hanging around the cabin, daydreaming about Felicity's shapely thighs and teasing smile. Work on the logging crew was on-again, off-again, and they were just getting started after the winter's inactivity. Most of the day was spent on a lot of fiddly little tasks, getting the equipment in good shape and ready to go for the season's work. It kept him occupied, at least, and if he didn't come home sweaty and exhausted—well, that was better anyway, if Felicity would be coming up to the cabin tonight.

When he drove into the yard, he was startled to find smoke curling from the chimney and a warm light in the cabin window.

Could it be Felicity? She'd hardly even have gotten off work yet. Of course, it
was
her company, and if she wanted to take time off, she could ...

The truck's tires had barely stopped rolling before he flung the door open and jumped out. He bounded up the steps to the cabin's porch, then stopped, got control of himself, and opened the door with more restraint. It might be a friend, after all, or even a lost hiker.

But it wasn't. The cabin's interior was warm, lit with lamps and the fire's glow. And there on the furs in front of the fireplace, Felicity was lounging, naked and turned toward the fire so he had a compelling view of her lush, round behind. She had one of his books open in front of her.

"Ah, there you are," she said, stretching. "I would have called, but I left my phone in my other—mmph!"

She didn't even have time to get the full sentence out before he'd crossed the room and swept her up in his arms, silencing her with a deep, hungry kiss. Then he picked her up and carried her to the bed.

"Ack!" she squealed in delighted surprise. "Put me down!"

Hunter obliged. He dropped her on the bed and followed her down. She was wonderfully responsive under him, a luscious armful of naked female bounty. All week he'd been losing himself in thoughts of her smooth skin and the way she arched with pleasure beneath him. Now she was here, and he couldn't get enough of her. He kissed his way down her chest, between her ample, bare breasts. Felicity was already unbuttoning his shirt.

His bear surged forward. Deprived of his mate all week, the bear wanted to take her, to claim her, to make her his own. But Hunter wanted to make it last—to make it good for her. Although his control did falter a little when he felt her hands working at the button and zipper of his jeans. She freed his rock-hard cock, wrapping her fingers around it. He almost came right then and there, especially when she rubbed her thumb across the head, caressing the sensitive skin.

From her teasing grin, she knew
exactly
the effect she was having on him.

"Not so soon," he said huskily, covering her hand with his own to stop the movement. "Lie back. I want to look at you."

She sprawled atop the bed, a study in curves and smooth, soft limbs. Her lips were parted, expectant, waiting for him; her eyes burned with desire. God, she was gorgeous, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"You should be carved on the wall of a cave," he breathed, running his hands over her smooth thighs, wrapping them around the curve of her glorious hips. "People should worship you."

Felicity laughed delightedly and her hips jerked in his hands, rising, legs spreading. He smelled the hot musk of her arousal and her warm, rich female scent. "I don't need people worshipping at my feet. I get plenty of that at work. Right now, the only person I want worshipping me is you!"

"Never doubt that," he whispered, and lifted her hips off the bed, one big hand cupped under each lush buttock. She was swollen with arousal, so wet the insides of her thighs were slick. She lifted her legs willingly, hooking one over each of his shoulders, leaving no doubt at all about what she wanted.

Hunter dipped his head forward to lap at her waiting folds, and was richly rewarded with her small, gasping cries. Her thighs clenched, tightening against his neck. She jerked with each stroke of his tongue, the musk of her arousal growing stronger until it inflamed his senses. He was so hard that he ached with need.

As she quivered on the edge, he lowered her hips back to the bed, and licked and nibbled his way up from her soft mound, across her stomach and breasts. Felicity rubbed against him, her breathing rapid. Her head was raised so she could watch his advance with bright eyes. As soon as she could reach him, she slid a hand between his legs and grasped his cock firmly. This time, he reveled in the firm grip of her fingers around his hard shaft, the brush of her thumb across the head.

Soon
, he thought.
Soon
.

Hunter growled playfully and nipped her lightly on the neck and shoulders. She loved that, throwing her head back to expose her throat and the soft skin where her collarbones dipped toward her breasts. All the while she kept her hand firmly wrapped around him, guiding him lower, until he pressed into the wet, waiting heat of her entrance.

Her eyelids fluttered, eyes half-closed in pleasure, and her lips parted as she gasped his name.

This ...
this
was what he'd been waiting for all week. Hunter pounded into her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, moaning in ecstasy. With every stroke, they both climbed to new plateaus of glorious sensation.

"My mate," he gasped. "Mine!"

"Yours," she panted, twining her fingers in his hair. "
Hunter
—"

He felt her tighten around him as she rose toward climax, heightening his own pleasure until he could hardly bear it. Then her body arched and she cried out, and he came with a roar that seemed to shake the walls of the cabin. Hunter collapsed over her slowly, relaxing, shaking with a pleasure so intense it hardly seemed real.

He propped himself on his elbows above and watched her lovely face as she came back, slowly, from that private world of delight where she too had gone. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled up at him.

"It's good to be back," she whispered, and kissed him softly on the lips.

He was still tangled up in his clothes—his jeans down around his ankles, his shirt half off. Hunter sat up and finished stripping them off.

Felicity wriggled closer and wrapped an arm around his waist. "Don't go anywhere," she murmured sleepily.

"Not planning on it."
Not ever.

As he drifted off, wrapped up in his mate's arms, Hunter realized he hadn't thought about Christine all week. Not even once. And not ever again, he hoped.

Christine was the past. Felicity was his future.

They made love again in the morning, gentle and lazy this time, and lounged around in blissed-out pleasure until Felicity decided that home-cooked bacon and eggs wasn't what she was in the mood for.

"Hey," she said, prodding Hunter's bare shoulder until he blearily raised his head. "You said there's a town near here, right?"

"Falls Creek," he agreed. "You want to go there?" His tone implied
Why?

"I'd like to see it," she said. "As nice as it is to stay in, I don't know if I want to stay in the cabin the whole weekend. Are there restaurants there?"

"Just two," Hunter said. He yawned and stretched lazily—very much like a bear, giving Felicity a tantalizing view of his broad chest and muscular shoulders. "There's a diner and the Falls Creek Pub. The diner makes a good lumberjack's special, though it's probably not as good as what you can get back home."

"Stop it, you." She poked him again. "Don't tell me I wouldn't like it 'til I try it, okay? I haven't lived in the city all my life; I grew up in a small town. As nice as it is to have five breakfast places within walking distance of my apartment, I remember the charms of having one restaurant where the waitresses all just ask if you want your usual. I'd like to see your little town, Hunter."

Hunter raised his eyebrows. "And are you planning on walking around my town stark naked?"

"Oh ... crap." Usually this wasn't something she had to worry about. She stayed in her hawk form all weekend and then changed back into whatever she'd left in the car. "I, er, don't suppose there's some sort of outside chance you might have anything that'd fit me?"

Hunter grinned at her. "Maybe from when I was eight years old."

"Oh, knock it off. I'm not
tiny
. I'm only small compared to you."

He sat up reluctantly and pushed back the blankets. "I've got an idea. If you don't mind wearing one of my shirts for the drive, we can go down to Bill and Lacey's place. They're my neighbors down the hill, and they're shifters too, so they'll understand the problem. Lacey's things would probably fit you."

"What kind of shifters?" she asked.

"Bill's a fox, and Lacey is a mallard duck." Hunter passed her one of his clean shirts.

Felicity held up the shirt thoughtfully and then pulled it on. She felt like a child playing dress-up. The shirttails came almost to her knees. "Fox and waterfowl," she said as she rolled up the sleeves. "That is a meeting of opposites, all right." So people around here might be understanding of her relationship with Hunter. That was a definite plus. "Are there a lot of shifters in the area?"

"There are quite a few," Hunter said. "It's a really mixed bunch. We don't have any big wolf packs or deer herds around here—none of those large, homogenous shifter populations. Mostly it's just people who drifted in for one reason or another and found there were already some shifters living here, so they stayed. We've got a few big cats, a couple of Lacey's deer cousins, a mink or two ..."

"Other bears?" Felicity asked.

"A few, sure. No birds of prey that I'm aware of, though, I'm afraid."

"Well, you can't have everything," Felicity said, and she smiled. "I grew up in a small town with a bunch of hawk and falcon shifters, though. If I want to hang out with birds of prey, I can just go visit Mom and Dad for a while."

***

Bill and Lacey were very welcoming, and Lacey's borrowed clothes fit Felicity like they'd been made for her, though the worn jeans and sweater weren't her usual sort of style. She also met the shifter couple's children—two fox cubs and two ducklings, running around their feet and playing while the grown-ups chatted. In human form, the kids had fluffy heads of hair like dandelion fuzz, two redheads and two blonds.

This would be a nice place to live,
Felicity thought.
A good place to raise a family.

As Hunter jolted on down the rutted road toward the town, Felicity rolled her window down. Hunter had already done likewise, hanging a tanned arm out the window. She remembered the woods in their winter-dead state after the ice storm, but in the last week, spring had broken out everywhere. She smelled flowers and fresh-turned soil and the indefinable green scent of the forest itself. Hunter pointed some birds out to her: a kingfisher perched in a tree, the darting flash of a blue jay, and a swirling vortex of swallows rising above a field, newly returned to this north country along with the insects they fed upon.

The town, when they reached it, was small, quaint, and cute. Everyone knew Hunter, and wanted to stop and say hi to him, and meet the young lady with him. Hunter introduced her with a shy air that she found charming. It was like he couldn't believe she was really here, with him.

After breakfast, he walked around the town with her. There wasn't a whole lot to see, but it was very pretty and scenic, especially with spring flowers bursting out all over. Her favorite part, she had to admit, was when they stopped on the bridge over the creek and Hunter took her in his arms and dipped her as he kissed her. This produced some cheering from the parking lot of the diner up the street.

"Knock it off, you guys," Hunter shouted in their general direction.

"Friends of yours, I take it?" Felicity asked. She was still breathless from the dip-and-kiss.

"Some of the boys from the logging crew. Who are really being too nosy for their own good."

"Hey, Hunter!" one of the other guys hailed him. They were all big, burly, outdoorsy guys, though none, she thought, were quite as big as Hunter—or as handsome. Not that she was biased or anything. "We gotta go over day-off schedules for the next couple of weeks. Not to interrupt you or anything ..."

"Go on," Felicity said, giving him a little push. "It's business. I understand that. I'll be waiting right here."

She leaned on the railing and watched Hunter stroll over toward his friends, falling into the rough male banter.

It was so remarkably peaceful here. Not a single car passed on the road. The only sounds were the voices of Hunter and his friends, and the rushing of the creek under the bridge. Such a far cry from her busy city life, with its constant pulsing backbeat of voices and city sounds.

Normally, even if she were stopping for a few minutes like this, she'd have her phone out to check her emails, rather than looking at the world around her. But her phone was miles away, at her car with her clothing and the rest of her things.

As she leaned on the railing in the sun, her eyes half-closed, drifting in a state of peaceful contentment, a thought came to her.

Could
she run her business from here?

It seemed impossible at first. But the more she thought about it, the more she began to wonder. Melinda was more than capable of handling the day-to-day operations of the company. And a great deal of Felicity's business was done by phone and email anyway. She could do that part just as easily from here as she could from her office. She still had business meetings and brainstorming sessions with her design team, but she could keep the apartment in town, and fly down a day or two a week to handle that kind of thing.

And the rest of the time ...

She'd gotten into the design business because she loved designing clothes. But increasingly, over the years, the business-related aspects of the company had consumed more and more of her life. When was the last time she just sat down with a sketch pad and let her imagination run wild? These days, all she seemed to do at work was struggle with things like that wretched advertising campaign, or answer business emails, or look at the company's sales figures.

The idea of spending most of her days in the cabin, with nothing but her sketching supplies and fabric swatches, sounded like heaven. When she needed to get out—to go out to dinner, to talk to people, to be surrounded by the business world she'd gotten used to—she could fly down to Minneapolis for a little while.

She was roused from her contemplations by Hunter's arms sliding around her from behind. "Penny for your thoughts, beautiful," he murmured in her ear, in a throaty voice that set up sympathetic vibrations in her chest and between her legs.

Felicity turned around and stretched on tiptoe to wrap her arms around his neck. "I was just thinking about a possible solution to our problems."

"We have problems?" Hunter asked. He looked suddenly worried.

Felicity pulled his head down and kissed him on his nose. "Not like you're thinking, you lovely romantic idiot. No ... the problem is that I live in the city, and my business is there, and you live up here."

"Oh." Hunter's jaw clenched, and she could see him bracing himself. "I could ... move. There. For you."

"Hunter," she said. Unexpected tears stung her eyes. "You couldn't. I know how much you love it here. I wouldn't ask you to."

"For you," he repeated, and bent his head to kiss her, long and deep. When they broke apart, he said, "I lived in the city for a while, a long time ago. I know I could learn to like it there, if you were there."

Felicity brushed at the betraying tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "I'm hoping you'll never have to," she said. "I was just thinking about ways I could run my business from your cabin. I can go back once or twice a week for things I just can't do from up here, but ... I really think it could work, long-term. Assuming I'm welcome to move in with you?"

Her answer was another dip-and-kiss, this one so long and intense that she was gasping for air when he finally set her upright again. This got them a round of applause and cheering from a group of teenagers passing by in the bed of a pickup truck.

"Okay," Felicity panted, breathless and laughing. "The neighbors are going to take some getting used to."

"Luckily the
nearest
neighbors are two miles down the road," Hunter pointed out. "If there's one thing I've got a lot of, it's solitude. Are you
sure
you're okay with this?"

"It'll definitely be a change," she admitted. "But I think I've been wanting a change, deep down. As much as I enjoy running my business, I spend the whole week thinking about the weekends, when I can get away and fly around the woods—and that was even before I met you."

She glanced up at him again, not sure how he'd react, but his face was a study in pleased delight. "I've been meaning to build an addition onto the cabin for awhile," he said. "What would you think of a studio of your own? I could put in lots of windows for light."

"That sounds amazing. Though it won't be immediate, you understand. There's a lot I have to wrap up, and lots of logistical stuff to figure out. We might have to keep doing the weekend thing for a little while."

"I don't mind if it takes a little while for the details to get straightened out." Hunter kissed her again, gently this time. "I'm in this for the long haul."

"Me too." She looked up into his gentle brown eyes, and warmed herself in the love and desire reflected there. "You're my mate, my one true mate. The one I always hoped I'd find and feared I never would."

"Yours," Hunter agreed. He stroked one fingertip across her lips and then took her mouth with his, very softly. "And mine."

"Yours," she whispered, and rested her head against his chest, cradled in his arms.

***

A note from Zoe Chant

Thank you for buying my book! I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to be alerted by email when I release my next book, please
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Please consider reviewing
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Cover art ©
Can Stock Photo
.

***

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