A gray pickup truck in the distance is heading my way, so I sprint toward it, waving my arms and screaming at the top of my lungs. I stick to the center of the street so the driver has no choice but to stop.
His hard eyes lock onto mine through the windshield and the fear inside me just washes away, replaced by something else… Something I’ve never felt before. I don’t even know the words to describe it. Love? Yearning? Lust? Relief? Fulfillment? None of those are quite right. The word circling through my tingling body over and over again is ‘finally,’ but I’m not quite sure what that means.
He seems as shocked by the feeling as I am because he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. My screams for ‘Help!’ turn to screams of ‘Stop!’ until he suddenly realizes he’s about to run me down and slams on the breaks. The truck squeals to a stop in front of me, only a few inches from my chest.
The man just sits there staring at me in complete awe and shock as he grips the steering wheel with tight fists. I’m not doing any better. I’m staring back at him in the same way.
Dark eyes, dark hair, dark beard… then why do I feel so light?
My heart is racing. My skin is tingling all over.
Looking at him is like looking into a mirror and seeing a different reflection gazing back at me. I can’t explain it any better than that. It’s surreal.
It must be the adrenaline from being in so much danger that has hijacked my brain, or maybe I’m just so desperate for some help that I’m overreacting to seeing this guy, but my whole body is screaming at me to go to him.
His door opens and he steps out.
I swallow hard when he walks around his door and his whole body comes into view. He’s enormous. But none of it is soft curves like I have in abundance. It’s all hard sculpted muscle.
His thick muscular legs fill his jeans nicely and I slide my eyes up them to his hard stomach and massive chest. I can see his muscles moving and rippling under the t-shirt that doesn’t seem to want to put any space between it and his skin.
This view is spectacular and I can’t look away. There are three men catching up behind me and I can’t even seem to convince my eyes to take a look at where they are. I’m lost in his beauty.
His sleeves are tight around his round biceps that each have sexy tattoos running down to his thick wrists. I want him to take his shirt off so I can study every inch of him. It’s all I can think about as he walks up to me with that stunned look on his face.
He stops in front of me and inhales deeply. The sight makes my pussy clench and I squeeze my thighs together.
“It’s you,” he says in a breathless tone.
He’s speaking to me like he recognizes me, but I don’t want to tell him that he’s mistaken me with another girl. Another extremely lucky girl.
I hear footsteps rushing up behind me and I quickly spin around and back up toward the guy. The three young men are grinning and enjoying the look of fear on my face.
“Is this your boyfriend?” the one with the blond hair asks with a sneer.
The man steps forward as a low rumbling sound rips out of him. It sounds almost primal, like a growl, and it makes my nerve endings come alive.
“A fucking bear?” the blond says with a laugh as the three men begin to separate and circle him. “Are you kidding me?”
“She’s mine,” he growls as he stares him down.
I gulp as I see his torso begin to grow. His large back muscles were already big, but now they’re fucking huge.
“No way,” the guy with the AC/DC shirt on says as he shakes his head. “We saw that sweet ass first.”
“If you’re lucky, we’ll let you have a taste of that pussy when we’re done,” the third guy says.
“That pussy,” he roars, “is mine!”
He rips his stretched shirt off, shredding it to pieces as he charges them. I barely get a glimpse of his muscular back before it’s suddenly sprouting brown fur and growing even larger.
The guys finally seem to realize what they’re up against because their laughs and smirks turn to looks of panic and concern. But it’s too late to run.
A giant grizzly bear explodes out of my savior with a vicious roar. He slams into the blond guy and sends him flying. He’s still in the air while the bear turns and leaps onto his friend with a snarl.
My mind feels like it’s short-circuiting. What the hell is happening?
I’ve heard of bear shifters before, but I’ve never met or seen one in real life.