Bearly Begun (BBW/Bearshifter Romance) (Bachelor Bears of Yakima Ridge Book 1) (13 page)

She shot into climax. Intense paroxysms rippled through her. Len’s hips rose. He held her tightly to his pubes and came and came. She collapsed onto his chest until he lifted her.

“Gotta be careful with this,” he whispered a reminder as he got up to dispose of the little sack of semen.

How could she not love him? And surely he must love her? Surely he would ask her to marry him soon?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Blow was waiting in the empty house across from the country bumpkins’ place. Fucking assholes must’ve put a hundred grand into that dump. What the fuck did they want with them boys?

Pretty obvious what the asshole fucking Erin wanted. He wouldn’t mind a piece of that before he taught her a lesson. Or after. He wasn’t particular. He sniggered at his own joke.

It was fucking freezing in here. Why couldn’t that bitch have a job with decent hours? He looked at his cell. Four fucking a.m., and the bitch wasn’t home yet. Still, this was the best time to do them. One of the bumpkins had taken off—he didn’t care where—which left only one to handle. Best odds he was going to get.

Mr. Fucking Asshole was gonna answer for the pain in Blow’s knee. Two weeks and still wasn’t no better. But as soon as Erin came home and the house was asleep, he was going to have his revenge. Fun and games.

Erin’s little grey car pulled up to the house. Front door of the house opened and the big asshole walked down the path barefoot and bare chested. In fucking November. Likely only had his jeans on lest the neighbors complained. Miss Erin was gonna get some tonight. He just had to wait until they were fast asleep before he made his move.

* * *

Len was restless with Erin down the hall. How was he supposed to sleep with all that lusciousness just a step away? But he knew there wasn’t any point to his horniness, not with those two cubs in the house, likely listening out for him to start the mattress polka with their sister. He sighed and reminded himself that soon he would be married up to his lovely mate and they could spend all their night times as they pleased.

If only he knew how to tell her about his bear? He turned ideas this way and that, but it was no use. His nostrils were full of the sweet scent of Erin and his memories of this afternoon’s love play were driving him hard. And he still didn’t have a single idea of how to bring up the subject of bears.

When she had come downstairs this afternoon dressed in her ridiculously ill-fitting tee-shirt he hadn’t even registered her ugly clothes. He couldn’t be fooled by oversized and boxy garments—not on his Erin. He knew too well the zaftig beauties that lay underneath those stretched out men’s tees she wore.

Not that she would wear them a day past saying yes to his proposal. He purely longed for the day he would have the right to buy her pretty clothes to complement her full figured beauty. He stripped her bare in his imagination and dressed her in scraps of lace. Erin had come into the kitchen and smiled hesitantly into his abstracted face.

“Hey, lover,” she whispered. “What’s for lunch?”

“Bratwurst,” Len told her deadpan.

“Yum.”

Well, she certainly seemed to think so when she saw it. But when she took off her own jeans and turned to pick them up off the floor it was his tongue that clove to the roof of his mouth. Her naked and rosy bottom was bisected by a single ribbon of red lace into two pert and delicious globes.

He wasn’t even thinking when he grabbed them and pulled her hard against himself and let her feel his erection against that bitty piece of lace. Her chuckle at his eagerness told him she meant that thong for a surprise. Well it was a surprise and it roused up his bear to recklessness.

He had set her down on all fours on her mattress and shoved the scrap of lace aside and rammed his cock into her slick and welcoming furnace and shown her what surprise was. But his darling met his bear passion with a fierce and mewling lust of her own. Her strong inner muscles squeezed his love stick tightly and matched him thrust for thrust. He thought he had remembered to press her love button, but he could not be sure. Maybe he had been too busy kneading that pearly flesh that had so befuddled him.

But he was certain they had come together. Her shriek and his roar still echoed in his ears. And then he had fallen prone on top of her. Had he dressed his senseless one-eyed snake before he rushed Erin? He purely could not remember. Well, if he had got her pregnant, he wouldn’t care, but it was no way to treat his love.

He had done better afterward when he had taken his time lapping up her sweet juices from her fragrant honey pot. The thought of how her round thighs clamped down on his head to lock his rooting mouth over her sex made him hard all over again. Right now he wanted more of that delicious honey that had flowed when he brought her to climax after climax. This was no way to get to sleep.

He got up and wandered into the main bathroom in just his skivvies. There was enough light coming from the window, so he didn’t bother turning on the bathroom light. He was coming out when he heard the footfall in the house. Tracker growled low from behind the boy’s closed bedroom door.

Len peered into the hall. A large man came up the staircase and started creeping slowly down towards the master bedroom. The man looked into Lenny’s room and aimed his gun. When he saw the empty mattress, he shook his head slightly and kept going past the boys’ room. Len caught the scent of his attacker and his lips firmed grimly.

Well, damn. He had no gun. He had no knife. He was just about naked and weaponless, and Erin lay defenseless behind the door that the armed intruder was so stealthily approaching. Without conscious thought, Len took bear and leapt from the bathroom to the burglar’s back in a single powerful bound.

The villain landed face down. His forehead connected with the floorboards with a resounding thunk. Their combined bulk shook the house. Propelled by the momentum created by seven hundred pounds of heavily muscled Black Bear, Blow continued to slide along the polished wood until the solid oak door stopped him cold.

Skull and door made violent contact. The door shook but didn’t open. The revolver in the intruder’s hand flew off into the darkness. Len heard it crash into the baseboard and spin. His captive was limp and motionless. Lenny backed off him making guttural noises. With an effort, he mastered his overwhelming urge to take a chunk of this man who had threatened his mate. He began to take human form again.

Tracker barked. The hall light flicked on and Hunter’s unsteady tenor announced. “We’ve got a bear.”

Cord shouted, “It’s got Blow. I’m getting his gun.”

Simultaneously, Erin opened her bedroom door. Her face was creased and her hair disheveled. She had only a long, baggy tee-shirt on. She looked out into the hallway. Before her disbelieving eyes a massive Black Bear was metamorphosing into her lover.

She swallowed her scream, but her voice was strangled when she spoke. “What’s going on?”

Hunter and Cord took in shaking breaths. Cord said comfortingly, “It’s just Mr. Len. It’s okay, Erin.”

Len was fully human again. But now he really was naked. He backed off of his prisoner. Tracker appeared at his heels and growled at Blow.

“Boys, go put your robes on. Get some jeans or something for Lenny to put on. I’ll call 911.” Erin sounded rattled, but coping. She ducked back into her room.

“Get some coaxial cable to tie this feller up,” Len called. Well now, the cat—or the bear—was out of the bag. Erin had seen him shift. The boys too. If bear shifting was a step too far, his courtship was dead in the water. Despite the adrenalin rush from the brief skirmish, his spirits sank.

Cord and Hunter returned with the spool of cable he had requested and a pair of clippers. Together they tied up Blow. He was still unconscious, but Len was taking no more chances with this thug. Erin was still in her room.

“Boys, the police will be here soon. I jumped this here burglar. And knocked him out. No reason to tell the officers about bears.” He looked sternly at the twins.

“Wouldn’t believe us anyway,” muttered Hunter looking suspiciously between Cord and Lenny.

Len put a big hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “Well, they wouldn’t. And if they did, it wouldn’t be better.” He looked down at his nude body. “I got to put some clothes on. You guys can get dressed too—or you can speak to the cops in your pajamas.”

* * *

“If Blow’s in jail, why do I need to be here?” Erin asked. It was midmorning and she was packed and heading for the front door, when she should have been sleeping so she could work third shift.

Len took her little nylon bag out of her hand and reached for the grocery sack in her other hand. He tried to think up reasons for Erin to remain in his house, but nary a one entered his brain. His mate had decided that she couldn’t deal with his bear. He swallowed his fear and disappointment. Hard.

“What’s the rush?” he asked. He winced at the defensive note in his voice. Dang near whimpering he was. Charming. Not. “Don’t you want to wait until the boys come back from school?”

“I’ll pick them up and take them to our apartment today,” she said. Her voice and face were strained.

“We were going to finish off the mudroom this afternoon,” Len protested feebly.

“I’m sure you can manage faster without them.”

So she didn’t trust her two darlings to a bear. He stood dumbfounded in his own hallway with luggage dangling from his big hands. He wanted to grab Erin and shake sense into her, but that would hardly make her think he was safe to be around.

“I’d never harm those boys,” he managed through numb lips. “What exactly bothers you about my bear?” he asked.

“The part where you become a bear!” Erin snapped.

“You can’t think I’d hurt you.” He dropped her bags and pulled her against his chest. “You seemed to like my kinfolks right enough.”

“Are they all bears too?” Erin was beyond disbelieving. “Maddie, Hannah?”

Len thought. “Well the Enrights are sure enough shifters. And Hannah and the Malcoms. Bascoms too. Only family you met that isn’t a bear was Maddie.”

“Shifters? Is that what you call yourselves?”

Len hugged her. “It is.”

“How’d you all turn into bears?” she asked suspiciously. “Did you get bitten by werebears or something?”

Len chuckled. “Werebears! No darling, it’s genetic. We are born like this. At puberty we start to be able to take bear form. Most men in my family can take bear. Lots of women too.”

Should he tell her about her darling brothers now? Probably not. Even if he hadn’t promised Cord to keep the secret.

“Do you live like bears?” Erin asked fearfully.

“Nah. We’re people who sometimes become bears. We like to live close to nature. And we like a little space, but other than that we’re just folks. Larger than most, but that’s about it.” Len kissed the top of Erin’s head.

“I want you to marry me,” he said desperately. This rushed proposal wasn’t what he’d planned at all but he didn’t know what else to do or say.

“Live with me on Yakima Ridge, and let’s have us some babies.” His voice was urgent, pleading. “Boys too, of course, I know you wouldn’t feature leaving them behind, and I wouldn’t ask it of you.”

But Erin had been thinking. “Is it because of being bears that your family is full of twins and triplets?”

Len squeezed her. “Yeah, that’s seems to be how it works. We do sometimes have singletons, but it’s rare.”

“So you’re asking me to go live in the backwoods and have five or six kids?” Erin demanded her voice rising even higher.

Len winced. “If you want to put it that way. You left out the part where I want to make you happy. And the part where I love you and you’re the only woman for me. Fact is, sweetheart, us bears is one-women men. If you turn me down, I’ll just be a lonesome, melancholy, old bachelor forevermore.”

“I can’t marry a bear,” said Erin, softening her declaration by snuggling a little closer.

“Sure you can. Look how happy Maddie is. I’d sure try to make you as happy as she is.” Len bent his head and kissed her gently. “You convinced yet?”

“It’s too weird,” she said. “I can’t seem to take it in properly.”

“It’s just a part of me,” he said. “Can’t change it, at all, at all.” He kissed her again. “We make good husbands,” he said. “We don’t stray, and we don’t get tired of our mates.” He punctuated his words with little kisses.

“You make it sound like the most natural thing in the world,” she returned. “But who ever heard of a family of people who are part bear?” She opened the front door and he trailed after her to her little car. She ducked inside so he couldn’t kiss her again.

Len opened the back door and set her bags inside. He closed the door softly and watched bleakly as his woman drove away.

She was right that installing the cabinets in the mudroom went faster without having to explain every step aloud to those two youngsters. But Len still missed them. He had been planning to show them again how to line up the new cabinetry he and Joe had made, where every line was square and true, in an old house that was all odd angles and settled floors and nothing was plumb.

He deftly screwed the custom cabinets he had made to the interior walls of the mudroom. There were cubbyholes for boots and mittens. A wardrobe with a hanging rail. A row of hooks above a bench that held more storage. The floor was tiled in the same porcelain as the kitchen. It only needed a coat of paint to look as inviting as one of them magazine photos.

Hunter had done a good job with the floor tiles. No one looking at them would guess a lad of eleven had laid them. They were straight and level and the grout lines were neat and even. Lenny was proud of the boy.

Cord had finished the insides of the cupboards and there wasn’t a drip of glue on the satiny wood. He had drilled the holes for the hardware too, and the handles were level. He had handled that tricky job well. Seemed a shame they weren’t here to take satisfaction in all their hard work.

Tracker got up from his spot in the hall and went to the door wagging his tail. The door opened. Cord’s happy, excited voice called, “We’re home, Mr. Lenny. Erin wanted us to go to the apartment, but me and Hunter told her we had stuff to do.”