I take one last look at her, unlatch my hands from around her, and start to get up. But she stops me with her hand on my chest and my name on her lips. “Ray.”
I should get up. I should go find food. I should be doing anything except for what I do. I cover her hand with mine and look down at her head resting on my chest. “Yeah, honey?”
I don’t know where that softness comes from. I’m not soft. I’m gruff, aloof, and usually can’t stand people. But she’s different, and she makes me want to be different.
She lifts her head and looks up at me. “It stopped snowing but there’s a lot of it out there.”
I can only nod, entranced by the look in her eyes. There’s something she wants to say but isn’t saying it.
She lowers her eyelashes and then looks at me wide-eyed. “I can’t ask you to carry me down a mountain in this. You’ll freeze in the time it takes. Leave me here. You can send someone to come get me.”
Does she really think I would do that? “I’m not leaving you.”
“But…”
I shake my head forcefully before putting my hand to her cheek so she’ll look at me and understand. “I’m not leaving you. We both go… together.”
She stares into my eyes for the longest time. I can see every emotion cross her face, and I realize she’s not even trying to hide it. Fear, loneliness, surprise, and eventually desire. The way her eyelashes flutter, the way she licks her lower lip and the way her nostrils flare, I don’t have any choice. One kiss. I just want kiss and then I’m going to let her go.
I don’t know who moves first, but when our lips meet it starts off soft and turns into a frenzied battle of emotion that overpowers me and my bear. I touch, taste and devour her, deepening the kiss until I’m not even conscious of the fact that we’re on a mountain, in a cave in a blizzard. She’s moving and before I know it, she’s lying across me and my chest starts to rumble, my skin starts to thicken, and I know my bear wants out. He’s thrashing on the inside wanting to claim her. I’m stunned. I’m a bear shifter. She’s human. I shouldn’t be reacting this way.
As gently as I can, I slide her off of me and jump up. My cock is erect and heavy between my legs. My skin feels like it’s crawling, but I can’t just walk out.
I walk to the fire to build it up. Neither one of us says a thing as I work, but the few glances that I give her, I know I’ve hurt her. Fuck! That’s the last thing I want to do.
I try to be as normal as possible. “I want to make sure we have enough to eat in case we have to stay in the cave. I need you stay here while I go hunting. If any animals come into the cave, use a log as a torch to frighten them away.”
She won’t look at me, but she nods her head.
I turn to leave but stop myself, unable to keep hurting her. “I stopped because of how badly I want you. That’s all, no other reason except for the fact that there are things you don’t know about me. Things that, if you knew, you wouldn’t want to be with me. That’s all.”
She’s watching me now, and I know she sees my erection, and she knows that I’m not lying: I do want her. She opens her mouth but closes it again quickly.
I get to the opening of the cave and turn back to her. “Remember, if an animal comes…”
She holds her hand up. “I got it.”
I nod and walk away from her, welcoming the cold brisk air as it hits me in the face. I’m hoping it’s a wake-up call and zaps me out of the trance, but it doesn’t. My desire is still there. I still want the human in the cave behind me.
Once I’m out in the snow, I smell an animal nearby, but the scent is indistinctive. I shift into my bear form to better figure out what it is I’m smelling in case it’s an animal we can eat as food.
I get down a path a few feet when I see it. A mountain lion.
Chapter 6
Keri
My heart is racing a mile a minute. I cover my chest with my hand as if that’s going to calm it. He’s worried about a wild animal coming in to get me, but he doesn’t realize that he can hurt me more than any animal.
When I woke up in his arms, I knew then. All night long, I had vivid dreams of our future and what it could be if we were together. Some of it was hazy and I didn’t quite understand, but the feeling it gave me, well, I woke up with it, centered right in the heart of my chest. There’s wasn’t any questioning it, not even now.