Target: BillionBear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (9 page)

“Not Noah,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “He’s far more likely to invent mecha, if mecha were useful for anything more interesting than duking it out with each other.”

“Tell me about your friends,” he asked. “I have a feeling this town is much more interesting than it seems.”

She gave him a round-eyed look. “What makes you think that?”

“Anywhere a guy is generally known as Thunder-Chicken can’t be boring. Even if it’s just from some TV show.”

She let out a breathy laugh that sounded distinctly relieved, then she said unnecessarily, “Oh, we’re everyday people. Here we are.”

They walked through the back door of Flying Cranes. Jameson dropped onto the couch, watching with pleasure the way her neat, quick hands put together her brushes, paints, sponges, and other tools before she set her canvases out.

But she had not even dipped her brush when she looked up at him, and their eyes met. His breath hitched when he saw the heat in her gaze, her soft, perfect lips parted. When her tongue darted out just long enough to touch her upper lip, heat ignited in him like he was fifteen.

“I know we should take it slow,” she said. “Get to know each other. But  . . . just one kiss?” she whispered, and he was up from the couch and next to her in two seconds flat.

The brush clattered on the table as she took his chin in her hands, and when her mouth opened under his, he groaned, burying his fingers in the lush silk of her hair as he took utter possession of her mouth.

She kissed him back frantically, breath shaking as they moved, and she pushed him back against the wall beside the couch, and they kissed again, tongues searching dueling, clash and retreat, teeth nipping.

“One kiss?” He laughed, his breath as unsteady as hers.

“Okay, two,” she whispered, and ran to the back door to turn the lock. “Or twenty.”

“The owner?” Jameson asked.

“Off with her grandson to look at a new ceramics shop for vases.”

“Then why are we whispering?”

Kesley glanced doubtfully at the clean but obviously old velvet-covered couch, then tipped her head and blushed as she admitted, “All night. I kept dreaming. You and me. Having brain-rattling sex. It doesn’t count if we don’t lie down,” she added.

Hilarity chased through him, followed hard—oh, excruciatingly hard—by need. This time he held her against the wall, but only to steady her as they kissed again, his hands roaming over her delightful curves before slipping under her layers to her warm, enticing skin.

“I can make that happen,” he whispered when they broke apart again, and knelt down to unzip her pants.

Her hands tightened on his shoulders as he lowered her pants to her knees, kissing every inch of skin he revealed. She began to tremble as he cupped her mound and slid fingers into her—she was already gloriously, generously wet.

In less than a minute he had himself unzipped. In two shakes she kicked off her loose pants and panties, then he stood up, slid his hands under her butt, and hoisted her up.

She wrapped her legs around his waist as he slid home. God, how perfectly they fit—she writhed, tipping her hips into him, and he began to thrust hard as he buried his face in her neck, biting that sweet curve before her shoulder.

She came hard, clenching on him with such strength that he came with the force of a freight train. If she hadn’t been holding on tight he’d have feared he might drop her because his limbs felt loose as string, as life beat around them in a supernova of ecstasy.

He slowly let her down, and she leaned against his shoulder, laughing quietly. He felt a flutter of laughter, and smiled down at the tousled top of her head. Now, just as strong as the flash of coming, but far more enduring, tenderness welled up in him as he said, “Which was better, the dream me or—?”

“You,” she said, bending to pick up her clothes. She was still laughing as she slipped into the bathroom behind them.

When she came out again, her clothes were straight but the bright, dreamy look in her eyes and the curve to her lips gave her away. She looked adorable.

He laughed silently to himself as he took his turn in the bathroom. When he came out, he was ready to keep the joke going about brain-rattling sex, when he saw her texting on her phone—her expression serious, even stricken.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Maddy says Noah didn’t have to do anything sophisticated—there’s a kit that tests for about fifty substances in a few minutes,” she said. “One of the pills showed traces of something called sodium azide.”

“Poison,” he said—then wondered how he knew that.

“Yeah,” she murmured, her thumbs working fast. She sent her text, and a minute later, said, “Maddy says, can we bring the bottles up to the lab?”

“I’ll go get them,” he said.

“I’m going with you,” she said in a gritty voice.

Chapter Eight

Kesley waited for him to laugh, to say it was none of her business, to do anything but what he did, which was to give her a tender smile. “Going to protect me?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” she said, her stomach churning. Though her core still pulsed with the echoes of pleasure, all the joy had leached away, replaced by worry.
Poison?
Her raccoon was frantic to build a safe nest and hide. Hide
him.
“But I just think, if you aren’t alone, maybe  . . .”

“Thanks,” he said, with that sweet, flashing smile that lit his otherwise cool, chiseled face with its jagged scar.

They didn’t talk at all as they hurried the back way to Aunt Julia’s hotel, but she sensed him  . . . not stiffening. She saw absolutely nothing but the familiar Primrose, seen all her life, but somehow the man walking next to her had gone all stalky. His head was up, his eyes narrowed. Geez, he looked, well, dangerous. And she stupidly thought
she
could protect
him
?

The hotel was a two-story building with rooms opening off a long balcony, the single rooms upstairs, the family suites downstairs. She and Jameson climbed the stairs and walked down the balcony. They’d just dodged around the cleaning cart when he stilled.

At the other end, a big guy with a razored scalp and a Nazi swastika tattooed on his neck charged through the door at the other end, stopped, then called, “He’s here!”

A gang of huge guys blasted through the door and thundered right at Jameson and Kesley. She froze for an endless heartbeat as the world slowed to the booms of her heart. Jameson stepped protectively in front of her, then turned sideways as the first, biggest guy reached them. A piston-fast elbow jabbed up under Nazi Neck’s jaw, then Jameson’s foot snap-kicked the guy’s knee.

A high keening sound registered: Grandpa Amir, as usual in his parrot form, screeching like an air raid siren.

Nazi Neck fell into the guy on his heels. They hit the ground, but the next pair dodged around them, sliding at Jameson from both sides. The last one held back, grinning as he played with a knife.

Thugs One and Two attacked, one bumping against the other and cursing. Jameson feinted at One, then in a blur of speed cracked a roundhouse kick into Thug Two’s gut. He ducked One’s lunge, sidestepped and punched him fast in the ribs and the kidney. Thug Two staggered back, horking for breath.

But the guy under Nazi Neck was up, joining Thug One, and Jameson shrugged his bad shoulder in a way that flashed warning through Kesley’s numbness.

Think! Kesley looked around wildly, and her gaze lit on the cleaning cart. She plunged her hand into the canvas sack holding the used towels, and with the practice of years of defense against cousinly teasing at the beach, snapped the towel expertly at Thug One’s face.

“Shit!” the guy howled, rubbing his eyes. Oops, the towel was loaded with soapy water.

That gave Jameson the second he needed to palm-heel the last guy in the nose and then punch him in the solar plexus, and he landed with a crunch on top of moaning, writhing Nazi Neck. Squinting against soap suds glinting in his eyes, Thug One leaped over them to grapple Jameson as Knife Guy’s grin turned nasty.

He took a step toward Kesley, who backed a step and another, dimly aware of the sound of delicate little trotters charging down the balcony—and 150 pounds of beautiful pink pig plowed into Knife Guy’s legs from the back. Aunt Julia to the rescue!

Knife Guy did a spectacular parabola, the knife spinning away to clatter near Kesley. The guy landed with a thud on the back of his neck, and lay groaning.

Kesley kicked the knife over the edge of the balcony. Aunt Julia vanished down the back stairs as Sheriff Odom’s siren wailed from the street.

Three of the guys got to their feet and staggered toward the back stairs. Jameson looked around sharply. Kesley understood at once he was looking for her. Warmth filled her heart as she smiled at him, and he smiled back, relief relaxing his face for a moment.

Jameson held out his arm, and she moved to his side, her shoulder fitting under his as if they had been made for each other. She felt tension trembling through his body as he wiped the blood from the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. The other hand slipped around her waist as if he never wanted to let her go.

Sheriff Odom appeared a half a minute later, pistol out, followed by Abe Rosen, his part-time deputy.

“What happened here?”

“They attacked him,” Kesley said, pointing with shaking fingers at the big, leather-clad guys lying on the ground. All their tats were about violence and hate. “Three ran off.”

“We’ll take what we can get,” the sheriff said grimly, cuffing Knife Guy as Abe helped with Nazi Neck. They each only had a pair of handcuffs, but the sheriff spotted a laundry bag cord on the cleaning cart, and used that on the third.

“Know why?” the sheriff asked Jameson.

“No idea,” he said.

The sheriff nodded. “Go wash off that blood. Questions can wait—and these bozos can use some time in my lockup, once we shift the cows out.”

“Don’t sweep the floor in the barn,” Kesley called, her voice high and trembling.

Abe grinned back at her. “Wouldn’t think of it.”

He and the sheriff muscled the thugs away, the two loudly alternating between empty threats and whiny complaints, every other word some version of ‘fuck.’

Just before vanishing back through the lobby, Abe’s voice floated back: “Yeah, yeah, I get it, we’re hicks and you’re badass. But you’re still going to spend a night in cow plops.”

Jameson’s grip tightened around Kesley. “You okay?”

“Of course,” she said, trying to calm her frantic heartbeat. “You?”

He smiled a little. “Fine . . . But I could use a breather.”

His knuckles were red and puffy as he slipped his hands into his pants pocket and retrieved the key. He looked like his hands hurt, so she took the key and unlocked the door to his room. Silently he held it open for her, and she walked in.

The room was spotless, of course, having just been cleaned. She stood in the middle, arms crossed, aware only that this was his space, though there were no signs of him save an expensive carry bag on the bureau, next to the three pill bottles.

He walked into the bathroom, leaving the door open. She heard the sound of water running. He came out a moment later with a wet towel pressed to his face.

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He flexed his left hand and stared bemusedly at the knuckles, where the angry red was already fading. “In the middle of it I kept getting images. Nothing I could make sense of. But I’ve been in at least one fight before.”

He wiped his face, blinked, then said, “It’s always fragments.” He turned his gaze toward the pill bottles, and grunted. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that I’m not being paranoid.” He rolled the nearly-healed shoulder and winced. “Must have jarred the broken bones. I seem to heal really fast, but even so.”

“Bones take time.” She moved toward him as if drawn by an invisible cord of light, air, and heat, her hands eager to communicate all the things she had no idea how to say. His gaze lifted, the light from the window striking golden flecks in his eyes.

He stilled, and the air around them charged with promise.

“Massage?” she asked, her voice coming out husky.

There was his blinding smile again, in spite of everything. “What else are you offering?”

“Anything you like,” she whispered, deliberately dismissing all carefully thought out and logical cautions. Her entire body tingled with heat again, more urgent than ever—as if she could love away all the danger threatening him.

She would do her best to try.

He dropped the towel on the floor, crossed the distance to the bed, and sank down. And then, wincing, pulled his shirt off.

Oh God, he was beautiful. She looked at his tight abs, his broad, strong chest, his muscular arms, and swallowed against the jolt of heat rising from deep within her. Her head swam—she couldn’t believe it, twice in a morning? She had been lucky to have sex twice in a month before this, and none of them, ever, had been as amazing as Jameson.

Two steps and she was already wet. She climbed onto the bed and eased behind him, kneeling. The moment she laid her hands on his warm flesh, he sighed. New bruises were fast blooming on his back. She began to knead, covering as much of his smooth skin as her palms and fingers could reach, while avoiding the new hurts.

He breathed deeply, harshly, then groaned and captured one of her hands in his. “Kesley.” His whisper sent more lava shooting downwards.

He turned, and though her mouth was too dry for words, he must have seen the answer he sought, for he reached up to capture her face gently between his hands, and kissed her carefully, searchingly, as if he needed to memorize every part of her lips, the soft inner lining of her mouth, her tongue.

A commanding swipe of tongue melted her bones and set her flesh on fire. She opened to him, loving the way he took utter possession of her mouth, demanding and tender by turns, teasing and thrusting, withdrawing to invite her to venture exploratory licks and soft bites, and the next thing she knew she lay back on the bed, their fingers entwined as he took more time to kiss her thoroughly.

She let her hands roam over his chest, arms, abs, ribs, questing and caressing, massaging and smoothing. He responded with his own careful touch and they lay together exploring one another in a wordless conversation—
does this hurt? Let me heal you. Ah, that feels good
—tenderness the overriding emotion where earlier at the Flying Cranes, it had been all about heat and hammering pleasure.

Kesley rejoiced in how expertly Jameson learned her body while loving it—finding all her pleasure points and lingering there, until her back arched, and her breasts—tender from his attentions the evening before—responded with delicious intensity to the mere whisper of his lips.

And the urgency was back, a living force around them. She would close him behind these loving walls if she could, but at the sudden impact of their bodies together, and the long, slow dance that heated gradually, inexorably, to match the rhythm of thundering hearts, she forgot all about attackers and fake journalists. The world contained only the two of them . . .

They climbed higher and higher, muscles asking and answering until they crashed through the walls and tumbled slowly, slowly, through space until they lay breathing hard, limbs in sweet tangle.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Bandit, are you in there?”

Disappointment flashed through her. “Way to ruin the moment, sis,” she whispered.

Jameson smiled down into her face. “Tonight?”

“Yes,” Kesley said, and inside, her raccoon echoed,
Yes!
“Taking it slow was gone forever—even now, boneless with bliss, she knew she would never stop wanting him. “My place. On the top of Sunset Hill. You can’t miss it—the first little house after the blue ranch house with the long porch. Those dirtbags don’t know where I live.”

“Deal,” he murmured, picked up his shirt, and went to the bathroom.

McKenzi banged again. “Hey! Are you okay? Everyone’s going crazy out here!”

Kesley called, “Five minutes!” and joined Jameson in the bathroom.

He had the shower going, the water already hot. For some reason she succumbed to giggles, and collapsed in his arms. They showered quickly together, soaping each other, then coming out to towel and dress in haste.

Kesley cast one look at the hair dryer, then shrugged. As if McKenzi didn’t suspect what had been going on.

They opened the door together.

McKenzi’s wide gaze went from Kesley to Jameson, then she grinned, hand out. “I’m McKenzi, Kesley’s big sister.”

“Jameson.”

“Glad to meet you. Maddy sent me over here to fetch you and some kind of poisoned drug?”

Kesley picked up the bottles off the bureau. “Right. Let’s get these to her.” She sent a questioning look Jameson’s way, and he gave her a tiny nod.

He pocketed his keys. As they filed out, she thought how odd it was that they’d known one another two days, and already they could have an entire conversation in two looks.

Not odd at all, if he was her mate, right? For the first time she mentally probed that idea—tentatively, cautiously, like one tongues the place where a tooth was, expecting pain—but there was no pain.
Yet,
she said mentally, as they approached the VW. She didn’t dare let herself believe.

Kesley climbed into the cramped back seat, leaving the front to Jameson. Kesley gave her sister a short summary of the attack while she drove the back streets to Noah’s place on the eastern edge of town.

They piled out in front of the garage-lab, McKenzi looking around suspiciously as if the old eucalyptus trees and the tangle of roses hid an army of spying bad guys.

Madison, a tall, thin blonde, came out to meet them. She wore a lab coat over her jeans and tee. “Come inside the lab,” she said.