Geek Bearing Gifts (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance): A BBW in search of love + A sexy shifter who secretly loved her = Smokin' Roaring Romance (Paranormal Dating Agency Book 2) (13 page)

“I plan to. I might break some speeding laws to get there but I’ll see her soon. ”

He ran out of the building and hopped in his jeep.
He’d reach Nita and hopefully get her to listen to him.

* * *

Nita drove like a bat out of hell. She finally slowed down once the visibility turned low in front of her due to the large amounts of rain.

“Stupid big sexy bastard,” she growled. “Does he think he can just lie to me and get away with it?” She gripped the wheel. “Make me fall in love with him and not tell me who he was,” she mumbled
, pushing back the urge to cry. “He is so dead.”

She’d finally given up waiting around trying to figure out what the hell possessed
Ky to not tell her who he was. Instead, she was going to confront him head on. Only thing was the weather kept slowing her down. Stupid rain. Why did it have to come down in buckets now that she’d decided to go over there and see Ky face to face.

By the time she arrived, it was dark. She shoved the pepper spray in her pocket out of habit and searched for an umbrella. There was none. The lights in his cabin were on, but nobody came out. Growling
internally at the lying bear, she hopped out of her car. Pellets of rain slid down her arms and head. She was soaked before she got a foot away from the car. The pretty dress she’d worn in order to tease the bear clung to her like a second skin. The thing had probably turned see-through.  Hair plastered on her skull, she skidded through the mud and grass toward the cabin.

Knowing
Ky was usually in the back, she ran for the kitchen entrance and found it locked. What the hell?

She knocked repeatedly. Went as far as yelling but nobody seemed to be around. Then she thought of the
creek. It was possible he was there. In his bear body, he wouldn’t care about the rain like a woman with frizzy curly hair would. Her hair was like a separate entity with a mind of its own. She didn’t want to think about the hours it would take for her to dry it, then tame the ‘fro into submission. That was what she’d gotten from her ancestors: gorgeous brown skin and a brillo pad for hair that took herculean strength to keep under control.

Squinting against the harsh drops of cool water, she turned toward the
creek and slammed into a body.

She glanced up to meet a very angry face. The
apology died in her mouth. She took a step back, but the guy grabbed her by the arm.

“Hey!” She tugged but the guy squeezed harder.

“You’re his female. I scent him on you.” The guy’s voice sounded low and angry. “I’ll show him to fuck with me.”

She glanced down where he gripped her arm. His fingers were claws, digging painfully into her flesh.
“What the hell are you doing? Let me go!”

“No. He shamed me in front of my guards. I won’t let it go. I’ll teach him a lesson with you and then kill him,” the man growled.

A car approached from the distance. She couldn’t see who it was, but either Ky was finally home, or someone was coming to visit.

She tugged on her arm again. “Let go you jerk
. If he shamed you then you did something to deserve it you asshole!”

Instead the guy pulled her arm
harder. She swore he’d torn it out of the socket for a second before he dragged her down the path by the baby cabin.

“You’re coming with me
,” the guy yelled. “He beat me in front of my clansmen. I’ll kill you and him.”

What the hell? She glanced over her shoulder, watching another body appear in the distance. She slapped the brute but he didn’t stop.

“Ky!” she screamed his name at the top of her lungs, hoping that it was him who’d just arrived.

The man jerked her harder down the path, pulling her toward the river’s edge. She slipped on the mud, her feet covered in wet earth through her open sandals. Wearing the pretty shoes and dress had been the worse idea she’d had that day.

“Ky!” she hollered as loud as possible.

A massive roar sounded at her back. Then another. Closer. The guy hauling her stopped. He shoved her out of the way and she fell on the mud with a splat. Rain thundered and fell harder.

“I’ll kill you,” the guy yelled at Ky. “I’ll do what my men didn’t when they came to your cabin. I’ll destroy you. Your river will be mine,” he bellowed.

“I let you live last time. I won’t make the same mistake twice
,” Ky said through the booming rain.

The moonlight allowed her to make out what was going on. A roar sounded from the stranger and he tore through his clothes with his shift into a big brown bear.

She crawled back and away from him. A glance to her left showed an even bigger black bear running toward them. Ky.

There
was no hesitation. He growled and threw himself at the other bear. They tumbled midway down the hill and stood. She got up, rushed to them and watched from a safe distance.

Both men were covered in mud. She only knew
Ky by size. He was bigger and louder with his roars. He slapped the other bear hard on the face. She winced at the sound of bone cracking.

The smaller bear bit
Ky’s arm and shook his head as if trying to tear a piece of him off. Fear exploded in her chest. She wanted to help Ky. But how? She didn’t have a death wish. She was the human out of the three of them and would most likely die for getting in the way.

Nita
toed the sandals off her feet. Creeping closer to the fighting bears from the side, she pulled out the pepper spray from her dress pocket. She couldn’t stop staring at the fighting giants. The brown bear was in deep shit. His muzzle was in Ky’s mouth. And Ky was biting down. More sounds of crunching could be heard coming from the two. They clawed at each other’s arms. Huffing and growling, the two bears continued to battle.

The brown did something at that point. He raked a claw over
Ky’s muzzle and got him to let go. Ky grunted and roared again. The brown charged. They fell to the ground in a heap of arms and kicking legs. The brown bit the same spot on Ky’s shoulder he’d done before.

Nita winced. She knew that had to hurt. The sounds of pain and anger from both worried her. She might be angry at
Ky, but she didn’t want him dead. Oh no, she wanted him very alive to make him grovel and pay for lying to her. Plus she loved sex with him. Hell, who was she kidding? She loved him.

Standing there watching the crazy fight only sealed the deal in her mind.
Now he just needed to hurry up and kick the other bear’s ass so she could give him a piece of her mind.

They were on their feet again. Shoving and tugging back and forth.
With each movement, they got much closer. It wasn’t safe for her, but she’d decided she had to help somehow. The brown careened forward, pushing Ky straight into a massive tree a handful of feet away from her. Ky fell on his back. Before he had a chance to stand, the brown turned toward Nita. He didn’t charge, there was no need, it wasn’t like she was trying to run from him. He stood in front of her, roared and lowered his giant head level with her face. She didn’t think. His beady eyes stared angrily at her. She raised a hand and sprayed the pepper spray into his eyes. The bear reeled back and bellowed. He shook his head repeatedly, waving his paws around.

Ky
tackled the bear from the side. He held him down on the muddy ground and bit down the brown’s neck. The attack didn’t stop. Even when the brown slowed down, his movements tired, Ky continued to bite and tear at the other bear’s neck. He didn’t stop until the other bear quit moving altogether. A cold chill ran down her spine along with a thread of fear. She watched Ky stand and turn to her. Still a bear and still looking mighty pissed.

There were cuts and gashes all over hi
s fur. She couldn’t tell how bad they were from the lack of light and the sheeting rain. He met her gaze and prowled toward her. Instinct told her to run, to get away from him. He had a dangerous look she’d never seen before. The beast controlled him.

She eyed the muddy hill. It was going to be impossible for her to get up there.
She’d just keep sliding back down, making a fool of herself if she tried. Then he was there, in front of her. She glanced up and gasped. He lowered and opened his arms for her. She held on to his furry neck. There was no fear as he lifted her legs in his arms, careful not to dig his claws in her skin. Still very much in his bear body, he carried her in the direction of his cabin.

It was easy for him to use the tree limbs to climb back up the hill. When they reached the
creek, she wiggled in his hold.

“Put me down!”

He did so, gently.

“You come back to your human body. I need to talk to you,” she demanded.

She stepped away from him, waiting for the shift. In his human body, she saw his cuts with more clarity. He had bruises but nothing appeared to be life threatening.

“Nita!”
he called when she turned away. “I’m sorry.”

She whipped around to face him again,
inhaling hard and ignoring the harsh raindrops stroking her body. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was stupid,” he said, stepping closer.

“Don’t give me that crap!” she threw back. It was hard enough to keep her eyes from straying down his body. Now he wanted to feed her some corny line. “We both know how intelligent you are. Why didn’t you tell me we knew each other?”

His gaze dropped to the ground, his chest heaved from the shift and the fight.
He looked so good wet.

“I didn’t want you to judge me based on the awkward kid I used to be,” he admitted.

Maybe he really was stupid. Her mind and body struggled for dominance. She wanted to tackle him and rub herself all over his naked body and at the same time slap some sense into him.

“Are you serious?” She turned away, blood boiling with frustration. “I can’t do this.”

She marched toward the car, trying to ignore the icky feeling of the mud sliding in between her toes. She’d only gone a few yards when he grabbed her arms and tugged her around to face him.

“What do you want from me?” His face was soaked. Water streamed down his body from the pouring rain.

“I want the truth!” She didn’t know what possessed her to scream at him, but she already knew her feelings. There was no going back after this. If they had any chance at all they had to be honest with each other.

“The truth? Fine.” He jerked her close into his arms. “The truth is I knew from the moment I saw you seventeen years ago that you were the only one for me.” His gaze bore into her. The raw honesty in his eyes kept her unmoving. “At first it was an attraction, a pull, I couldn’t understand. When we started spending more time together it was clear to me that we had a connection that went beyond the physical. Yes, I was attracted to you back then. Even with how shy you were. Despite my inability to say a full sentence to you without stuttering from nerves, I knew you were my one.”

She swallowed at the dryness in her throat. Her stomach twisted in knots with every word that came out of his gorgeous mouth.

“How do you think I felt, the kid that
everyone picked on because I was skinnier than anyone in the clan? I wore braces and probably the ugliest glasses in the world. I had minimal self-esteem. But when I was with you, I was on top of the world.”

She blinked back the tears filling her eyes. She knew
firsthand how hard school had been for a kid that was picked on. She’d lived it. Emotions overwhelmed her. Hope. Sadness. Pain. All of them swirled around in her chest filling her heart to near bursting. She heard the raw honesty in his words. Saw it in his eyes. They had more than most people ever dreamed of, a connection since the first time they met as kids. She struggled to swallow back the knot in her throat.

“
Ky—” Her heart ached. Tears burned in her eyes. So much had been suffered by both already.

“Let me finish.” He lowered his head a fraction. “Do you know it broke my heart when you moved
away? You never even told me where you were going. You just left.”

“I’m...I’m sorry.”
She loved him so much at that moment. He’d told how he felt and stood in front of her, still wanting to be with her. It was time to stop fighting it and find their happily ever after.

“No. I did not tell you who I was when I woke up in my kitchen floor with you leaning over me. At first I was in shock. Do you know how many times I dreamed of something like that? But when I realized you didn’t recognize me I thought it was for the best. I’m not the insecure kid I used to be.” He licked the raindrops
that continued to fall off his lips. “Although you can reduce me to a hormonal teenage boy, I am a different person today.”

She shook her head
, ignoring her soaked state and the clothes clinging to her like second skin. “No. You’re not. You’re still the sweet, nice boy I fell in love with back then.” His eyes went wide and she smiled. If he could open up about his feelings then she could too. “Yeah. I had a crush on the geeky boy that tutored me. That connection you speak of? I felt it too! And now...” She glanced down at his lips then back at his eyes. “Now I’m in love with the adult version of Ky Stone.”