Bear to the Rescue (Bear Claw Security Book 3) Page 8

  She bit her lip, shocked by his statement, and he turned around to look at her with serious eyes.

  “I can see why you don’t think well of bears,” he said. “I know from experience it’s hard to think well of people, shifters or not. I don’t even know how to explain what happened to you.” He crossed over to the counter, leaned on it with his elbows, and looked into her eyes.

  She could feel the warmth moving between them, the intimacy that seemed to be ramping up every hour they were together.

  “But I know one thing. If you were mine, I’d never hurt you. Never do anything like that.”

  She nodded at him. “I’m sure you’d take care of whoever you were with. I just don’t think it can be me.”

  He stood up with a huff. “So you say.” He sent her a sneaky glance. “But we’ll see how you feel after you taste the best pancakes in the entire world.”

  She laughed and rolled her eyes. “You think sex can’t convince me, but pancakes can?”

  His blue eyes darkened as he lowered his lids slightly and leaned forward again. “I’m hoping to use a combination.”

  She blinked as lust rolled through her like wind rushing through trees on a mountain. She tried to remember what she was supposed to be thinking or saying as she registered the proximity of his body, the nearness of his perfect lips. She looked from them to his beautiful eyes, like a sunny day on the ocean.

  She licked her lower lip slowly as he watched her with hot eyes.

  “All right,” she said. “I guess I better try those pancakes.”

  Chapter 9

  Bronson tried to ignore the stirring in his pants as Regan let out another moan at the taste of his pancakes.

  He shifted position and stabbed into his own, but even though they were amazing, the taste of them was nothing compared to the taste of her he’d had the previous night.

  He chewed slowly, watching her face contort in pleasure with each bite.

  He wanted to give her pleasure forever, whether it was feeding her, protecting her, or sexing her; he couldn’t imagine not being able to watch those green eyes roll back in ecstasy or that caramel skin flush in pleasure or those curls damp from rolling around together.

  When she finally finished her pancakes, she sat back in her chair and looked at him with a glazed expression. “Damn, you were right about the pancakes. They make a girl want to get downright domestic.”

  He grinned. “A man can hope.”

  Then she straightened in her chair and said the words he’d been dreading. “Now tell me about your family. A deal’s a deal.”

  “Sure you don’t want more pancakes?” he said, starting to rise. “I made extra.”

  She reached across and grabbed him by the shirt to tug him down. “Not so fast, big guy. It wasn’t exactly easy to talk about my shit, but I did. So now your turn.”

  He sighed and slumped into his chair. She looked gorgeous in the evening light coming from the slits in the blinds on the windows all around the kitchen. He wished he could take her out on the back porch and watch the evening light stream over her beautiful dark hair with its little highlights.

  To him, she was already precious, and he hated anyone had treated her as anything but.

  But talking about his family was something he never did. With anyone. Even Limes knew it was a hot button and a sure way to get Bronson riled up.

  And Bronson was aware other people saw his family as perfect, the best situation one could hope for. Respected, rich, pure-blooded.

  Only Bronson knew what went on beneath all of that. Corruption. Greed. Elitism. Breeding.

  “What do you want to know about my family?” he asked, feeling his whole body tense in response. He took a couple deep breaths to calm himself.

  “Wow, they messed you up, didn’t they?” she asked softly, looking him over.

  He swallowed. It was weird how she already saw that after so little time with him. “Yeah. They did.”

  “What did they do?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about that. Anything but that.”

  “Why did you leave?” she asked. “Can I ask that? I mean, other than that, I don’t know what to ask.”

  He swallowed. “I just… hated it there. I didn’t like their assertions that we were better than others. I didn’t like their treatment of people they felt were beneath them. I didn’t like what they expected me to do with my life.”

  “Run a company?” she asked. “Enjoy unimaginable privilege?”

  “Privilege that came with a price,” he said. “One I wasn’t willing to pay.”

  “Okay,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Then what should I ask?” She let out a long breath. “Do you have siblings?”

  “One,” he said quietly. “A brother.”

  “Do you still talk to him?” she asked.

  “No. He’s still connected to the family. He doesn’t know about what happened.”

  “Younger brother?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Bronson said shortly.

  He saw frustration in her face but didn’t know what to tell her. This was just who he was when it came to his family. Clipped. Short. Unhappy.

  “How old were you when you left home?” she asked.

  “Eighteen,” he said. “That’s when I joined the army. And that became my home.” He sighed. “Honestly, sometimes I do miss my brother, but he’s so caught up in that world he’d never see why I did what I did. Plus, my father never wanted the same thing for him that he did for me.” Bronson shrugged. “Maybe one day we’ll catch up again, but not now.”

  “Maybe you should go talk to him,” she said.

  “I can’t risk that,” Bronson said. “For now, I trust him not to tell my father where I am. But if he were to find out…”

  Regan shook her head. “That’s fucked up. You think they’d come after you? I’m really not getting this.”

  “They wanted to breed me,” Bronson said, standing angrily and setting down his napkin. “They had someone all picked out, and I was just supposed to go do my duty. I guess you, being someone who doesn’t want to settle down, couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want that. I guess this is the part where you call me a hopeless romantic. Where you say I just fucked up and ran off when I shouldn’t have.” He folded his arms and dared her to say something.

  But for the first time, he felt she was seeing the man beneath the muscle. The vulnerable one who’d been brokenhearted when he’d found out he was sold off for nothing but his blood. The teenager who didn’t understand what’d been happening to him.

  She swallowed. “What do you mean breed?”

  “I mean they’d found a woman who wanted pure-blooded bear shifter offspring and sold me off to her.” Bronson shrugged. “She was ready to make a powerful investment in my father’s company in exchange. It was just business. And in our world, to mate with anyone not of pure blood is catastrophe anyway.” He blinked rapidly, suddenly feeling like the room was too hot. Like it was spinning.

  “I’d already hated my father growing up,” Bronson said, unable to stop the words flowing out of him like lava, scalding him as they went. “He sent me away to boarding schools when I was young, and when I returned home, I hated being there. And my brother hated me for being gone. My guess is he had to deal with more of my dad’s coldness.”

  “And your mom?” Regan asked.

  “Absent,” Bronson replied. “For all I know, she was just someone bred to my dad for the purpose of cubs.” He scowled. “I’m just giving you an awesome impression of bear shifters, aren’t I? But I guess I should just keep going. I shouldn’t stop now.” He paced the kitchen anxiously. “Even if you look at me differently at the end of this, I don’t think I can not tell you.” He paced to the window and looked through the slats at the yard behind him.

  “When I was done with school, my father told me. I was shocked. I said no. I was still stupid enough to think I had some control, some leverage. After all, I’d been raised to take over his c
ompany. I thought I was… important in some way. Even though, being at school, I’d learned things that made me think I was going to change how the family did things. I was going to make things more egalitarian. I wasn’t going to let my family feel above others.”

  “Then what happened?” Regan asked, looking a little pale.

  Bronson shrugged. “They drugged me and delivered.”

  Regan went quiet. “Your dad did?”

  “And his workers.” Bronson clenched his jaw. “I don’t know if anyone else in the family knows. Probably my brother doesn’t.”

  “So they delivered, but you got away?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I escaped. Even drugged, the bear in me wasn’t totally out. I could sense something was wrong when I woke up at a new house. There was a woman standing over me. Called me her fiancé.” He laughed hoarsely. “What a joke. I knew then my father had betrayed me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told her no. I thought maybe she’d been forced into this, too, and we could both get out of it. But she was older than me and quite sure she wanted it,” he said.

  “What did she do?” Regan asked angrily. “She didn’t…?” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  “No, I fought. I was huge, even then, and she had guys try to hold me down, but the bear in me was furious. I guess you’ll make fun of me for being romantic, but that woman was not my mate, and I knew it.”

  “What happened?” Regan asked, her hand at her throat, her whole body clenched in tension.

  It warmed him a little that she even seemed worried for him. She’d never looked at him that way before.

  But when this was over, was he going to regret telling her?

  “I ran,” he said. “To a friend’s house. I didn’t tell them what happened. I think, as a guy, I was confused. I wasn’t sure anyone would feel bad for me. You know, guys are just supposed to want sex. But I didn’t. Not with her.” He gave Regan a rueful smile. “I guess you could say I’m the opposite of a player. I’m almost lame in my lack of play.”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

  “We’re certainly a pair, aren’t we?” he asked, slumping in his chair again, feeling exhausted from talking. “Anyway, after that, I didn’t talk to my dad again. I enlisted at eighteen and never looked back. Except a couple times when I checked in on my brother to make sure my dad didn’t pull the same thing with him. I might have sent him a note detailing what would happen to him if he did.”

  “I see,” Regan said, looking as exhausted by hearing the tale as Bronson had been from telling it.

  He wondered if she was disgusted by him. What he’d just admitted made him look weak, made him feel sick.

  But to his surprise, she stood and walked over to him. He started to stand to face her, but she put both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down into his chair.

  “Sit,” she said, and he did. “Good. This is a one-time thing, but I’m going to make you feel better.”

  He nearly made a snarky remark, but then he felt her hands dig into his tired muscles and let out a groan of relief. “Regan…”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I know. I’m pretty good at this.”

  He sighed and relaxed into her hands, loving the way his troubles and worries melted away as she touched him, accepted him. He could just imagine more nights like this, together at his house.

  If he told her that now, she’d just chide him for being overly romantic. Maybe he was. Maybe he liked the idea of there being one mate for everyone. One person to spend the rest of your life with.

  One person you could trust no matter what.

  “Regan,” he said quietly as his muscles relaxed under her strong, capable hands. “Let me do something for you, too.”

  “You already have, silly. You trusted me and let me into your house, protected me and told me your secrets. Even your deepest, darkest ones,” she said.

  “I don’t know about that,” he muttered.

  “I just… Let me do this for you,” she said.

  “All right,” he relented, resting back and closing his eyes. “If you say so.”

  Chapter 10

  Regan loved the feel of Bronson’s muscles under her hands. He was huge but easily giving in as she worked him over. She loved that easygoing trust he gave her.

  She loved that after what he’d been through, he could still trust at all, especially women.

  But he had the ability to see not everyone was the same, whereas she had been stuck alone, unable to prove to herself everyone wasn’t.

  But wasn’t Bronson already showing her he was nothing like her father or any of the men that came after her?

  Probably none of them would have objected to being sexed by a gorgeous, pure-blooded female bear shifter.

  At least, she imagined the woman was beautiful. Even as rage at someone daring to touch her mate made her entire body heat with furious fire.

  As she’d watched him talk, seen the hurt and betrayal in his eyes, she’d felt more than ever before that this man was hers in some way.

  Some way she didn’t want to think about or really acknowledge on any level. But she couldn’t help it anymore. Not when hearing someone had tried to hurt him made her almost physically ill with rage.

  But was that because they were starting to be friends now that they’d shared more of themselves with one another? She could already feel her brain trying to distance itself from her heart, telling her she should think it over, not be caught up, not be tricked.

  But it also didn’t seem like Bronson was tricking her. After all, he didn’t honestly seem like he was able to.

  He didn’t seem like he’d even wanted to say what he said, but he had. Like he hadn’t been able to keep it from her.

  She was sometimes struck by the honesty she saw in his eyes. And she couldn’t deny she was starting to trust him. It was in the proof of how she’d clung to him after she’d seen her apartment was wrecked. The way she’d trusted him to fix it. She’d never trusted anyone but herself to do things for her.

  Damn, something was happening between them. Something she didn’t really want to be true. She ran her hands over his chest and played with the buttons of his collar, and a low rumble sounded from his chest.

  “I don’t know if you want to do that right now,” Bronson said. “I’m feeling a little off, and if we start something, I might get a little…”

  “A little what?”

  “Dominant,” he said in a low voice.

  Her heart thrummed, and she let out a pent-up breath at the thought of Bronson above her, pinning her down. During their last experience, she’d been in control, over his mouth, riding him. But the other side of that, him being on top and taking her, was hot as well.

  “Dominant could be good,” she said.

  He looked up at her, blue eyes burning, long jaw taut. “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded again and leaned down to his ear. “As dominant as you can get, I want it.”

  He let out a growl and was out of his chair in a second, lifting her in his arms like she weighed no more than a plastic bag. He hefted her against his chest and strode for the bedroom with long, pounding strides.

  She held on to his collar and felt herself get wet in anticipation of just what he was going to do to her. Anything, anything at all would stop the burning ache inside her that had been going ever since they’d been alone together. The ache she’d tried hard to ignore but that had burned bright even through their conversation.

  She’d thought in talking to him about their lives, she’d feel even more alienated, both by remembering why she didn’t want to commit and seeing he’d run away from his old life.

  Instead, she’d realized life was just too complicated to think of in that way. And sometimes, someone could do the wrong thing for the right reason.

  She couldn’t hold any of that against him.
In reality, she was the one who ran away and had been running ever since. Deciding to rub his back was her first active move in their relationship, and she was scared for what that meant in the long run.

  But right now, she just wanted to see him, raw and rough and making love to her, totally exposed.

  And feel no one but her would ever see him that way again. She’d kill them if they tried.

  He kicked open his door and threw her on his bed, kissing up her neck to her ear, which he bit lightly before running his tongue over the entire shell of her ear in a way that made her curl up with pleasure.

  She felt her hands jerked over her head and held together in one of his as he straddled her easily with his huge thighs. For once, he wasn’t trying to make her feel comfortable with teasing and fun remarks or hiding his strength.

  He was letting her see all of him as the male he was. Strong and virile and frightening, probably to everyone but her. For her, even with all that height and those incredible muscles, he was only reassuring. Maybe because with his hot gaze on her, she knew all of that strength was only for her. To protect her. To be with her.

  His lips came down over hers in a harsh claiming, his tongue swiping inside to meld with hers, twisting against her over and over in a hot, passionate embrace that increased the ache between her legs.

  His free hand came down to cup against her there, making her groan against his mouth as his finger pressed hard at her center. Even over her clothing, she writhed at the near agony of the sensation, how close he was already bringing her to release.

  “Bronson,” she said, “I’m… close.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m going to take you there over and over.” He flicked open her pants and slid down the zipper. Then he lifted his weight off her so he could pull off her pants in one slow motion and toss them aside.

  He looked at her silk panties as a lock of hair fell over his forehead. He looked like a Greek god sitting over her, and she desperately wanted to get her hands free and run her fingertips over every bulging, sweaty ridge of muscle.