A Pina Colada At Trader Vic’s
After their weekend of sheer bliss, Isabelle rode on the back of Devon’s Harley, holding on to him tightly. She had enjoyed their time together, but she was starting to feel the nagging self-doubt again. She didn’t deserve to be with this young, handsome guy. In fact, she should be ashamed of herself for wasting his time!
She prepared herself for the inevitable – or what she thought was the inevitable – the whole ride back to San Bernardino and her car. But, once they got there, she couldn’t tell him how she felt. When she looked at him, all she felt was happy, fluffy, heart-pangs of affection for him.
Was it love?
Fuck, it’s not that bad, is it?
“Thank you for this weekend,” she said to him. “I enjoyed it tremendously.”
Devon smiled at her and opened her driver’s side door for her. He did not need to do that at all, but he didn’t care. He was being nice. The last thing she needed right now was for the bad boy she’d found to be nice to her. It was just going to make things much harder in the end.
“I’ll text you,” he told her. “Please text me too, okay?”
It was ridiculous for this to be so normal.
“Okay,” she replied, nodding at him. She carefully got into her car and he closed the door for her.
As she drove herself back to L.A., she tried to think of the best words to send to him. She had to let him go. She just wanted to let him down easily. After all, it wasn’t him. It was her. She was too old for him. How could he not see that?
Of course, wording that message was not going to be easy. And it seemed so cowardly to do it via text, and not in person.
She decided to just let things settle back down to normal, focus on her work, and maybe talk to Ramona about it first. Her friend was more experienced with the intricacies of this whole situation. Ramona had never been married, but she’d gone on plenty of flings with werewolves, etc., if what she had told Isabelle was true. Right now, she was probably the only person she could trust about this.
“Why do you want to break up with him?” Ramona asked her, surprised and pouty. “He sounds like quite a catch.”
Isabelle sighed. They were chatting over Skype, which was not ideal, but she was doing what she had to to get the advice she needed. “He is quite a catch, but for someone much younger.”
Ramona scoffed. “You act like you’re fifty already. You’re not so old. He’s less than ten years younger.”
“But just barely!” Isabelle feared that she was getting nowhere with this.
Days passed, and she could not bring herself to send the Message of Doom to Devon. They texted each other little flirty pieces of conversation. Mostly ‘hello’s and ‘how are you’s. Isabelle felt guilty the whole time, but she did not want to hurt him. And she also had to admit… She didn’t want to let him go. Not yet. He was the bright spot in her life at the moment. He let her feel special and loved. She didn’t want to go back to feeling down in the dumps.
One morning, she woke up, determined that it was going to be the day. She would let Devon down easy, and then try to move past it. Unfortunately, as soon as she got out of bed she had to rush to the bathroom.
“Oh shit,” she said, looking at herself in the mirror as an entire nine months of pregnancy seemed to have hit her all at once. She had grown tremendously, especially around the stomach. She felt sick and tremendously hungry all at once.
Isabelle was not going to be telling Devon that things were over. At least, not yet. For now, something major was just beginning.
She called in sick to work. That was obviously only a partial truth, but she couldn’t likely tell them that she was pregnant with a werewolf’s baby. Her divorce was known about by everyone who knew her, and she didn’t want to be judged for running off and getting herself knocked up with the first new man who entered her life.
But that was what had happened, and she hated herself just a little more because of it.
Lying in her bed, she next called Devon. She didn’t think she’d be interrupting him. After all, she didn’t know what his job even was. Riding around on his motorcycle? That was hardly a job.
He answered right away. She knew he was only too happy to be talking on the phone with her. “Isabelle,” he said excitedly. “What a pleasant surprise! How have you been?”
“I’ve been better,” she said a bit shakily. All of a sudden, she started to cry.
“Aww, what’s wrong?” he asked, sounding so sweet to her. It only made it harder. “I’m not doing anything right now, really. Do you want me to come over?”
Isabelle felt like she should say no. “Yes,” she said, going against her immediate thought. “Yes, please… I’m fine. I’m just. I’m pregnant.”
There was a long pause. At first, all she could hear was his breathing. She wondered if he was angry about it. They had not used protection. At the time, Isabelle thought it would be fine. She took birth control pills and she was always so good about taking them at the same time every day…
Apparently, werewolf babies could not be stopped by pills.
“I’ll be right there,” he told her. Devon didn’t sound angry at all, actually. He sounded almost… happy.
It would figure. The young wolf would be happy and excited about this; meanwhile Isabelle would be stressed and scared about it. That right there was just another sign.
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” she said. “You’re too young for me.”
There was no response from the other end of the call. Because Devon had already hung up.
Isabelle hit herself on the forehead with her cool, metallic cell phone. This was going to be completely unavoidable now. They were going to have this talk in person.
Making an effort to clean herself up, Isabelle took a shower. The warm, soapy water did help to lift her spirits, though she still couldn’t get over how much weight she surely must have gained in no time at all. There had been no warning signs. She had not even had time to take a pregnancy test. But there was no denying that that was what had happened. She had been impregnated by Devon.
One she had showered, she slipped on a loose black baby doll dress, and brushed her black hair. She felt ashamed of herself for letting the whole weekend play out the way it had. She should have been more upfront with him from the start. Isabelle was looking for a quick, easy thing. A rebound. She wasn’t trying to start something new… She wasn’t trying to get pregnant by Devon.
She hoped that he wouldn’t be upset that she was so shocked and upset by this. She just did not know how to feel. She didn’t want a baby. She’d never gotten that far with her ex, and now that this was happening, she thought that maybe she wouldn’t have wanted to get this far with anyone.
There was a knock at her front door about an hour later. Isabelle didn’t get very far with cleaning, but she doubted that it would matter too much. He was bound to see her in a messier state down the road. That is, if they stayed together. She still fully intended to give him an out.
She opened the front door. Devon took one look at her and grinned. He hugged her before she was expecting anything. “Come on in,” she said.
He came into the apartment and seemed to be unable to take his eyes off of her. “You look beautiful,” he told her.
Isabelle scoffed. “Now you’re just kidding with me.”
Devon shook his head. “No! It’s true. I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re even more beautiful than I remembered.”
“That wouldn’t have anything to do with me being pregnant with your baby, would it?” Isabelle sat on her couch, putting her feet up on her coffee table. Before, she hated it when anyone did such a thing to her precious furniture. But now that she was so far along in this sudden pregnancy, she needed to relax. Her back was killing her.
Smiling, Devon sank onto the couch beside her. “It is partially to do with that, sure. I was hoping for an excuse to see you again. This one is a great one.”
“Is it?” she asked him. “How are you so sure?” Looking over at him and admiring his baby face, she felt even worse. “When I was with you last time, I kept thinking that I’m ridiculously old for someone like you. There’s almost a decade between us. I’ve already been married and gone through my own heartache…” She sighed. “I think you should be with someone better. Someone younger who can keep you on your toes and build a life with you.”
Devon blinked at her. “Are you crazy?”
Now that he asked that, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t.
“Crazy for letting you go? Possibly, but it’s for your own happiness. You deserve to be with someone more like you.”
“More like me?” he asked, chuckling and shaking his head. “That’s a laugh. There aren’t many people like me around here. And as you’ve seen on ComeShift, they’re not so great to hang out with.”
She sighed. “There are surely young girls out there who would be interested in you.”
Devon shook his head even more. “I’m not interested in them. I’m only interested in you.”
He moved closer to her before she could protest and took her hand in his, gently squeezing it. “I know that a lot of this is just because you’re scared. You’re probably scared that you’ll get hurt by me. But fuck that. I love you. You don’t need to be pregnant to get me here to see you… It’s a nice perk, but it’s not the only reason I was happy to come.”
Isabelle raised her eyebrows at him. She was the size of a tank and she felt like she might burst at any moment, but something about the way he spoke to her turned her on. “Happy to cum?” she repeated.
CHAPTER FIVE
I’m Lost And I’m Found
Taking Devon by the hand, Isabelle led him into her bedroom. She sat on the bed and slipped out of her black dress. “I don’t know how kinky this is going to be, but I want to make you cum since you’re so happy to do so.”
He smirked at her and threw off his clothes. His gray eyes shifted into their golden wolf version. She wondered if he would be able to stay relatively tame this time. Grabbing her, he pushed her gently so she was on her side. Lying behind her, he inserted his cock into her from behind and started slowly thrusting, working up a rhythm.
“Ohhh,” he moaned. “Is it bad that I want to fuck you even more now that you’re pregnant?”
She smiled, biting her lip. “Of course not. That’s exactly what I want to hear.”
Reaching forward, he grabbed her swollen breasts and gave them slight squeezes. They were throbbing because they had grown overnight, but it felt nice to feel them teased and groped like that.
After a few moments of slowly moving in and out of her, getting her prepared, Devon grabbed her right leg, and held it over his hip almost as if she was a ballerina. He sped up his movements, grabbing onto her hips as he slammed himself into her.
“Ahhh,” she sighed, licking her lips and closing her eyes. She imagined that she was still her usual weight. She didn’t want to imagine a wolf fucking a whale… “Are you sure about this?”
“What?” he asked, laughing softly. “Of course I’m sure. It’s a little too late to not be sure.”
She smirked and slowly, carefully rolled herself over so she was facing him. “I mean about us being together… dating. It’s not too late for you to turn around and go. I wouldn’t blame you.”
He suddenly pinned her down harder, bringing his big cock deeper. “That’s what I meant too,” he said in a low growl. “It’s too late. I’m not changing my mind. I love you!” He howled the last part as he came inside of her again.
There was no worry about a baby this time. He’d clearly worked himself up into a frenzy already.
They kissed each other and he fingered her until she saw fireworks, and convulsed with a heavenly orgasm of her own. There was no question, in Isabelle’s mind. Devon was the sexiest man she had ever been with.
Later, when they’d cleaned themselves up and gone back out to her living room, Isabelle finally felt struck by the full force of the truth. She was not going to have to say goodbye to him. He was refusing to leave. And the thing about it was that she did not make a convincing case for him leaving… She didn’t want him too. Not deep down. Not really.
“My ex and I never really talked about it before,” she told him as they cuddled on her couch. “Babies, I mean. We never got that far because we never got close enough. It’s hard to think about babies when you’re already thinking about divorce a year in.” Isabelle sighed.
“Hey,” Devon said, using a finger to gently move her head so she had to look him in the eyes. “You spend entirely too much time worrying about things you can’t change. It’s over with him. He’s a dick. And you’re not too old for me. No one is too old for anyone, as long as that spark is there.”
Isabelle smiled. “Don’t tell twelve-year-old me that,” she said. “I used to think I was destined to marry Jeromy Irons.”
He laughed loudly at that. “See? Why does it matter so much now, if it didn’t matter then?”
“Because then it was a fantasy.”
That just made Devon grin at her and give her a devilish look. He morphed back into his human form. “And I’m not a fantasy to you?”
“Well,” she said with a laugh of her own. “When you put it like that…”
They kissed each other deeply.
Once Isabelle gave in to the idea that her boyfriend was staying with her, she started allowing herself to enjoy her time with her sexy young werewolf instead of letting things like doubts and prejudice get in the way. Society was not going to rule her. Society didn’t know the half of it.
“Of course, you’re going to need to stop working,” Devon pointed out to her.
She hadn’t thought of that, and she wasn’t too fond of him stating it like it was such an absolute. “Oh?” she asked. “I was going to keep working until my symptoms made it too difficult.”
Devon shook his head. “You can’t go into work like this. People will know something is up. No one should know about this. I want you and the baby to be safe.”
Isabelle frowned at him. “So what would you have me do? Pack up my things and move into hiding until our kid’s in college?”
He smirked. “Leave this place and your job, and come be with me in my cabin by the lake. You liked it, didn’t you?”
It did not take any convincing. Of course she liked his cabin. The time she’d spent there that weekend, was some of her favorite time she’d spent anywhere… “But I can’t stay in a paradise like that forever. What about you? What do you do when you’re not living the life of a cabin-dweller, riding motorcycles and being gorgeous?”
“I guard the land there,” he said. “I keep unwanted animals away from the populated areas. I guess you’d say I’m a park ranger, kind of.”
Isabelle laughed. “That’s better than what I expected.”
Because the young wolf of hers was dominating her body and soul, she did as he requested and resigned from her job in an email the following morning. Isabelle did not exactly sight a reason why she was quitting. She simply said she’d found something better for herself, in a position for which she was better suited.
After that, she and Devon packed up her most important possessions and moved them out to the lake house. It felt weird to her to drive in a car behind him, not on the back of his motorcycle, but he had snapped at her when she mentioned the idea.
“It’s too dangerous,” he’d cautioned, his face growing dark at the suggestion. “No risk is worth taking right now.”
Isabelle didn’t know if it was just his possessiveness taking over now that she was fully his, or if he was full of extra bite because she was pregnant with his cub. But either way, she found it sexy that he was such an alpha towards her now. Her ex-husband had been such a passive person. She had grown used to it, but that only made Devon’s attitude more thrilling.
He never spoke too unkindly to her and he never struck her. The dark looks he gave her was all it took to make her do his bidding.
When they arrived at the lake house, they moved her things inside. She was to sleep in his bedroom, obviously. They set up a nursery next door. Devon seemed to know something she did not.
“What’s with the hurry?” she asked him as they positioned a black wood cradle in the room. She had placed it near the center, by the wall, and he had moved it so it was right by the window.
Devon looked at her and smiled. “It’s going to be a full moon tonight,” he said.
Isabelle did not take long to figure out what that meant. “Does that mean I’m…?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Not definitely. Though werewolf births do happen more often in conjunction with the full moon. Don’t get yourself stressed about it.”
She stretched and rubbed her lower back. “My back is getting stressed. I’m going to go lay down.”
Going out to the living room, Isabelle plopped herself down on the sofa, kicking off her shoes. This pregnancy had been a whirlwind. It was not so unlike her relationship to Devon Howard in that regard. It seemed like only yesterday that they were hitting on each other via a dating app, and now here they were.
Things moved faster with werewolves. Ramona had declined to let her know that useful bit of knowledge.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she texted her friend. “I have a lot to catch you up on, but I’m having werewolf’s baby. Big as a house right now. Hope to see you again soon.”
It was not long after she’d sent that message that the contractions started. “AHHH!” she shouted, clutching her belly. “DEVON!”
The young wolf rushed into the room. “What is it?”
“What do you think??” she asked. The contraction pain was making her lash out at him. That seemed relatively normal. It was weird to find normalcy in all of this.
“Okay,” he said. “Uh.”
His wording reminded her of his age and she threw her head back. She was going to have a cub with a cub. But he was strong and he was capable. He came into the room, and lifted her up into his arms as though it was nothing even though she was pretty sure she weighed over two hundred pounds now.
“Do you want to have him on the bed or outside?”
Isabelle looked at him as if he’d gone insane. “Outside?” she asked, breathing steadily. “Where would I have him outside?”
The corners of Devon’s mouth twitched a little bit and then he smiled. “You could have him in the lake… I was born in the lake.”
She looked at him, surprised. “Then… Then why aren’t you the creature from the black lagoon instead?”
Devon laughed. “Because we’re not in a 1950s horror movie. Now tell me what you want.”
Isabelle could tell that he was pulling for the lake. It made sense, if he was born there. She’d never thought about having a water birth. But, then again, she’d never thought about having a birth at all until a few days ago.
“The lake,” she said. “Argh and hurry!”
She clutched his open leather jacket as Devon carried her out the cabin’s back door and slowly walked, with Isabelle in his arms, into the lake. The water was cold enough to send a shocked shiver through his body.
“Be prepared,” he said. When he realized he’d echoed Scar – a Jeremy Irons character – he smirked at Isabelle, but she was a trifle preoccupied at the moment.
She let out a shriek and a squeal as he brought her into the water. He let her down onto the sand and rocks, getting her into the correct position for having a baby. She lay on her back, knees bent, looking up at him as his head was haloed by the stars.
And the moon.
The big, beautiful moon.
Isabelle had never noticed how stunning the moon was when it was full. She imagined that she would have ample reasons to appreciate it now.
Finally, the moment arrived where all Isabelle could do was push and try not to murder Devon. She pushed and shouted and he worked to make sure their baby came out in one piece, with all of his fingers and toes.
“It’s a boy,” he announced, grinning and getting emotional. Somehow, they had already known that. They’d been referring to their baby as a boy all evening.
The baby started to cry as he was brought up from the water and Devon held him so Isabelle could see. “A beautiful boy,” he added.
She was crying, both from the pain of the delivery and the fact that they really had a son now. That had happened. Devon placed the baby into her arms as she sat up in the water, still wearing her black dress, but not caring about how wet it was.
“What do you want to name him?” Devon asked her. “Keep in mind; he’s a shifter so he should have a bad ass name that makes people fear him.”
“Like Devon?” she asked, smirking at him. She looked from the bright moon to her son’s face. “Jericho,” she said, gazing at him lovingly and petting his small face with her fingertips.
That was a name that meant moon city. She’d done her research.
Then, satisfied, she looked back up at him and added, “Jericho Devon Howard.”
Devon knelt beside her, smiling at his girlfriend and their baby. “I like it,” he said. “And I love you.” He kissed her softly, and then kissed Jericho’s head.
“Can I ask you something kind of random?” she asked.
He looked at her as though he was not sure if he should be afraid or not. “Yeah…?”
“When we went out the first time, I was wearing a Jem and the Holograms shirt. Do you even know what that is?”
Devon scoffed at her. “Of course I do. It’s a band, isn’t it?”
Isabelle sighed a little, feeling slightly disappointed. Her feelings were still somewhat valid.
“A band on the show called Jem,” Devon added. He narrowed his eyes at her as she looked at him, pleasantly surprised. “I have the internet, too, you know.”
She let out a laugh and kissed him. He’d passed her silly little test.
THE END
Bear Protector
CHAPTER ONE
ComeShift With Me
“Good riddance!” Sabrina shouted, slamming the door and locking it, even though she knew that no lock could keep a werewolf out for long, especially not one as young and strong as Victor Esparza was. Her now ex-boyfriend was handsome and sexy as hell, with raven hair and piercing blue eyes that were ice when he was angry. He was a terrific lover, but he was too possessive of her. He was half dog, so go figure.
They’d had some great times together, though. Sabrina couldn’t lie: she was going to miss sex with Victor. There was something so much hotter and dangerous about sex with a shifter. Ever since she started dating the werewolf, she hadn’t wanted anything else.
Now that things with him were over, she knew what she did not want, and how to find what she was interested in. She knew that Victor would most likely be back, and she also knew that it would kill him to see her with someone else. As soon as Victor was out of her home and, for all intents and purposes, her life, she went onto the ComeShift dating app and sifted through the thousands of possible mates. Make no mistake, she still wanted a shifter. Sabrina just wanted a shifter who would treat her like she was her own person.
Sabrina hadn’t dated Victor for that long, by normal standards. It had been about a year since she had met him in a bar. The fact that he was a werewolf had been a shock to her at first, but it had turned out to be anything but scary. Breathtaking in a completely great sort of way. She supposed that she should feel worse about things ending, but she didn’t want to be bossed around anymore. She was twenty-three years old and she had a curvy figure, big blue eyes, and long, blonde curls. Why wouldn’t other men want to look at her?
Victor should have been proud, instead of trying to keep her all to himself.
What she decided she needed was a werebear, not a werewolf. Bears were known for being aggressive as well, but they were also known for being more cuddly and fun than werewolves who were all about rules and jealousy.
She checked off what her specifications were, and looked through the results. That was how she found Jacob Priestly. He was a buff guy, with shaggy brown hair and big, brown eyes. His face just begged to be kissed. She imagined that he was the sort of bear who loved honey, and she felt slightly wet just thinking about the kinds of things she’d like to do with him…
Had she been spoiled by dating shifters? Probably. But she was not about to stop. Not if she could help it.
She sent him a message to let him know she was interested, leaving out the stuff about the honey. She would have to see what kind of honey he turned out to be, first.
SabbyCat93: Hi! I couldn’t help noticing that you lived close to me. Wanna get a drink or something sometime?
He didn’t look like the sort of guy who expected long words or beating around the bush, so Sabrina just went right for it, hoping that she’d been correct in that assumption.
Once the dice had been cast, she decided to go around her apartment and clean up the place. It looked like a hurricane had been through it. Hurricane Victor. She could not remember the last time she had been allowed to breathe in there without his say so. Reorganizing the books on the shelf, she realized that it had been too long since she’d even last been able to read a book… It was not good to be so wrapped up in someone that she forgot to be who she was.
Yet here she was, trying to do it all over again.
What she knew of werebears, though, was that they were nowhere near as territorial as werewolves. After all, there was a reason that Baloo was known as the friendly character in The Jungle Book. He was protective, but friendly and fun loving.
Yeah. That’s what Sabrina wanted. She wanted something familiar, but different in all the ways that mattered to her. She hoped that Mr. Priestly could live up to these not-so-lofty desires. But if not, well… There were plenty more shifters where he came from.
Jacob was relaxing in his house after a long day at work. He tilted his head from side to side, letting his neck crack. In college, he was an all-American quarterback. Now that he was twenty-seven and in the ‘real world’, he was a security guard at a prison. He still got to tackle people, and sometimes he even got to use his gun.
But he was a good boy, deep down. He was tall and muscular, but not the sort of guy who beat up people who were weaker than him for laughs. That was part of how he got the job. The other part of why, he suspected, was because he turned into a bear when he was angry.
Nothing would make a convict shit his pants quite like a guy who was a man one second and a growling, snarling bear the next.
He did his best to keep this side of him in check, of course. Aside from scaring people who needed to be scared, Jacob had inadvertently scared away a lot of women in his life. He was hoping to do better on that front. That was why he’d signed up for ComeShift, even though he thought it was pretty ridiculous. His friend Alvin told him that it would be a good way for him to meet chicks, and he was not going to argue with Alvin, the guy who had a sexy new chick on his arm every week.
Jacob would settle for just one. Preferably the one.
Reclining into his sofa at home, he looked at his phone, flicking through several of his apps and notifications to see if there was anything to entertain him. There was a notification from ComeShift. He clicked it open and read it over. It was from a girl with the username ‘SabbyCat.’ That intrigued him. He wondered, at first, if she was a cat shifter or something, but her profile revealed that she was one hundred percent human.
She was also one hundred percent hotty. He wanted to get lost in her voluptuousness, if she would let him.
JacoBear89: Yay, someone else in Providence! There’s a restaurant with a bar in town called Smokey’s. Want to meet there in about an hour?
She mercifully did not take very long to respond.
SabbyCat93: I’ll see you there, Mr. Bear. ;)
The good news was that he now had plans with a gorgeous girl for the night. The bad news was that meant he couldn’t relax on his sofa anymore. With a smirk, he stood up and stretched. “Lazy ass,” he said before going into his bedroom to put on a more decent shirt for the date. And maybe comb his hair a little.
Sabrina beamed at her phone. Handsome bear boy had said yes. This night wasn’t going to be a complete waste after all. She went into her bedroom and changed out of the jeans and blouse she’d been wearing. She needed to wear something that was alluring and showed off more of her body.
She decided on a red dress, and added a fun, red hairclip to her head, keeping her bangs off of her face. It had a little red feather on it. She felt like she belonged in a movie set in the 1920s. Hopefully Jacob would find her as pretty as she felt.
The place that he’d chosen was just up the road from her apartment building. There wasn’t any reason she couldn’t walk to it, especially on a nice evening like it was. She grabbed a red purse that would match her outfit well enough and left her apartment. She used the phone on her GPS to make sure she knew where she was going.
Smokey’s did not look like much from the outside, but it was full of loud, catchy music when Sabrina went inside. It seemed like it was an 80s ‘best of’ kind of night. She took a stool at the bar and did her best to reserve the seat next to her for the man who was supposed to meet her there.
Hopefully, he would look exactly like he did in his pictures. Though probably not too exactly like the picture of him in his football jersey. She did not want to be dating a boy, even if he was a bear. She wanted a bear, not a cub.
“Is this seat taken?” a low, deep voice asked from behind her.
“Uh, actually…” She jumped up off her stool and was about to try and prevent this stranger from taking a seat beside her when she recognized his face. She instantly smiled at him. “Jacob?”
He grinned back at her. “SabbyCat?”
She laughed and sat back down on her stool, feeling silly for becoming so territorial. “Sabrina is fine,” she said, smirking at him.
Jacob sat in the stool next to her, now that she wasn’t attempting to block him off. “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for coming here. It’s not the best place, but it’s better than a lot of the dumpy bars around town.”
“It seems pretty good to me,” she replied. “Thank you for meeting me. It’s nice to meet you, too.”
The bartender came to their end of the bar and took their drink orders. She ordered a mojito and he ordered a dark lager. When the bartender went away again, they were finally able to have more of a conversation.
“So, what brought you to the ComeShift app?” he asked her curiously. Most girls who used it happened to have a particular kink when it came to werewolves, werebears, etcetera. If they weren’t weres themselves.
Sabrina smiled bashfully at that. It wasn’t the sort of thing that she normally talked about, especially not in public like this. “I’ve used it in the past and it seemed like a fun way to meet people.” She wasn’t going to bring up her ex on their date. For all she knew, Jacob had been able to pick up the scent of Victor already anyway. “You?”
He chuckled a bit, and gratefully took a swig from his glass of lager as soon as it was brought to him. It embarrassed him, kind of, how much he felt like he needed the app. In this day and age, it was not a big deal to utilize dating websites and stuff like that, but Jacob wished that he was just one of those people who could grab someone’s attention all on his own. “My friend got me into it, actually,” he answered. “He’d had success with it and thought it would be good for me, too.”
She leaned an arm against the bar, looking him in the eyes. She couldn’t deny that she was thinking about having sex with him later, but she was also realizing just how sweet he was, and just how kind his eyes were. Maybe she had picked out someone who was going to be worth more than a one night stand.
But she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. After all, this was just meant to be a bit of rebound fun. Nothing serious.
“And how has it been so far, do you think?” Sabrina innocently took a sip of her mojito, batting her dark lashes at him.
“I think it’s been pretty good so far,” Jacob said. “Especially this time.”
He had lucked out and managed to meet a beautiful date for the evening. He just hoped that it would go well and he would not scare her off.
CHAPTER TWO
More Than Expected
After chatting over a few more drinks, Sabrina had the great idea that they should go check out a nearby karaoke place. “It’ll be fun!” she promised him. “You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to. I hardly ever do. It’s embarrassing.”
Jacob smiled at her. She was hard to say no to, especially after several drinks.
She led him out of Smokey’s by the hand; a familiarity that she would not have used if she had been completely sober. The karaoke place turned out to be a dance club that also had a stage. A large, horribly outdated TV set sat on a table there, along with a big projection screen so that everyone else could see the cheesy, Asian-styled graphics that were displayed there for each song.
Who didn’t want to sing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with scenes of beaches and waterfalls behind them?
Well, for starters, Jacob didn’t. He was plenty amused just watching others embarrass themselves. And he noticed that Sabrina continued to touch him and hold his hand while they stood there on the dancefloor together.
He felt kind of guilty, actually. Would she be acting this comfortable around him if she hadn’t had quite so many mojitos? Jacob had to wonder.
Finally, when a classic song by Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark came on, Sabrina turned towards him. She’d been doing her best to resist it, but now she just had to dance with him. She loved this song too much not to.
“Please dance with me?” she asked him, taking his hands and placing them on her waist before he could even answer. “I love this song.”
Jacob smiled at her, gazing into her blue eyes. Besides being gorgeous, she was awfully cute. “How do you even know this song?” he asked with a laugh as they started to slow dance to the song. “You were born in the 90s.”
She looked at him quizzically. “But everyone loves Pretty in Pink, right?”
“You have a point,” he said with a shrug.
As she leaned into him with her head against his chest, Sabrina realized that it had been easy for her to forget that Jacob was not just some guy. Within him, there was a beast. She was surprised that he did not act more like the werebear she’d been expecting… She hadn’t come out to be with just some guy. She joined ComeShift to be with a fiery, lustful shifter!
But she couldn’t deny that he was sweet, and handsome. His body felt like it was made of muscle. She closed her eyes and took in his scent, imagining what he looked like while changing in the locker room.
“Sabrina?” he asked. “Sabrina?”
She realized that she’d been lost in her thoughts for so long that the song had ended and it was on to something new. They were slow dancing to an up-tempo song now. Her thoughts made her feel slightly dizzy. Actually, she knew that it wasn’t just her thoughts.
“Do you want to come back to my place?” she asked him. “It’s just up the street.”
It felt sudden to him, but he supposed that this invitation was what she had been planning all along. He had to admit that some quiet time alone would be good, now that they’d gotten to know each other a little better. The music was starting to give him a headache anyway. It was louder for him that it was for her.
“Sure,” he said. “Good idea.”
Once they’d climbed the stairs and gone into Sabrina’s apartment, she tossed her keys onto the kitchen counter and kicked off her heels. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked Jacob with a smile. “You probably don’t want more alcohol, but I do have vodka and Jack Daniels.”
He laughed shortly. “No no, that’s okay. Um, do you have juice?”
She grinned at him. “What do you think the vodka’s for? I’ve got grape juice, orange juice and apple juice.”
“Ooh, you’re a health nut.” Jacob sat on the couch in her living room, keeping his attention on her as she walked around the kitchen a few feet away. “Grape juice, please. I feel like I haven’t had that since I was in elementary school.”
Sabrina took out the jug of grape juice and poured him a generous amount into a tall glass. She poured herself some as well and carefully brought the glasses over to the living room, sitting beside him before handing one glass to him. “And I didn’t even spill!”
Jacob put his glass down on the coffee table directly in front of them and applauded. She widened her eyes and let out a laugh. She hadn’t expected actual applause. She nodded her head in a slight bow to him. “Thank you, thank you. I’m here all night. And hopefully you are, too.”
She somehow managed to seductively sip her grape juice.
“I haven’t been this turned on since second grade,” he quipped.
Sabrina threw her head back and cackled. He took a sip and then both glasses were placed on the table and they were looking into each other’s eyes. She felt like she’d made a mistake back there in the karaoke club. He was not just some guy. He was just a nice guy. She deserved a nice guy, after all of Victor’s bullshit.
She moved over and got into his lap, straddling him. The big bruiser moved with her as if he’d been fully aware that she was going to do that. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her even closer to him. He met her lips before she was completely ready, and soon he was forcing his tongue into her mouth.
Moaning, she brought her hands up to his face and stroked his cheeks with her fingertips. She’d thought that he looked cuddly before, but now she knew that cuddly could definitely be hot.
After several moments of making out on the couch, Jacob scooped Sabrina up in his arms and carried her to her bedroom. She could only assume that he found it based on his keen sense of scent, because it was off down the long hallway next to the entryway and she hadn’t shown him around yet. They had not gotten that far, but already he wanted her in the bedroom.
He did not carefully place her on the bed but instead set her down next to it. “Take your clothes off,” he said, his voice husky from the lust he now felt. This was the sort of thing she had been expecting. And the fact that it came from such a good ol’ boy made it even better.
Sabrina enlisted her help in taking off her red dress, and then she quickly slipped out of her panties and bra. He admired her as she stood there naked before him, then he fumbled with his fly and pulled his pants off. It was clear that he was going to keep his shirt on when he turned her around and bent her over onto the bed.
Jacob pushed his cock into her from behind. “Oh my god!” he shouted with a dark chuckle. “You’re so tight.”
She laughed a bit, gasping as she felt the sheer size of his member inside her. “Do you like that?”
“Yes,” he said, slapping her ass. “I’m gonna pound your pussy.” He started thrusting. It was all that she could do to not simply fall forward all the way and lie flat on the bed. She held herself up on her elbows, biting her lip and moaning as he moved within her, stretching her.
Leaning forward, Jacob kissed her back and she smiled. There was something so amusing about him acting tender while also threatening to pound her and slap her…
“Ohhh,” he moaned. She could tell that he enjoyed this position. It made her grow even wetter to know just how horny she was making him. Suddenly, he grabbed her and spun her over so she was on her back. She slammed onto the bed again, grateful that the mattress was soft so she didn’t injure her back or something.
“Fuck yeah,” he said, placing his hands on her boobs and squeezing as he continued thrusting once he’d mounted her. He lowered his head down and sucked her left breast, biting her nipple until she was sure it must be bruised and bloody. “Is this what you like, baby?”
She nodded, looking up at him, completely under his spell. “Mmmhmm.”
“Yeah,” he growled. “You’re a little slut, aren’t you?”
He slapped her side and reached his hand down, gliding his fingers against her clit. Sabrina’s eyes widened at the sensation. “I’m whatever you want me to be,” she told him, hissing her words out through her teeth as she could feel the euphoria building up inside of her. She was ready to burst, but she didn’t want to until he did.
Just then, he placed his other hand over her mouth and started thrusting and rubbing her clit at the same time, starting to move rhythmically. Sabrina was not going to be able to wait for Jacob to come at this rate. “Oh goddd!!” she moaned against his hand.
He thrust himself so deep inside her that suddenly she was seeing stars as she came. He moved his hands to her hands and held onto them tightly as he came along with her, releasing his seed deep within her.
“JACOB!” she bellowed, unable to keep quiet.
They stayed together, him on top of her and her below him, for a few minutes while their pulses slowly went back down to normal. Then he smiled at her. “I hope I wasn’t too rough,” he said.
Her chest was still heaving, but she was starting to calm down as she looked at him. “No rougher than I was hoping for,” she said with a wink.
With a soft laugh, he slipped out of her and went to the bathroom, coming back a moment later with some toilet paper so she could clean herself up a little.
As soon as they were cleaned, Jacob led Sabrina back out to her kitchen as if he owned the place now. She wondered if that was how it was supposed to be with werebears. She was so used to strict Wolves that she was not aware of what the differences could be. He went back to the coffee table and brought the grape juice into the kitchen so that they could keep drinking it at the table together.
Sabrina looked at the clock. “It’s two in the morning already?” she asked, shocked.
“So it is,” he said with a smirk. “You don’t work on Saturdays, do you?”
She shook her head. Fortunately, she was an admin assistant at an office, not the kind of worker that was forced to work an ungodly schedule. “You?”
“Only if I want to,” he said. “And I never want to.”
Looking at him over the glass as she took a sip, she wondered what he was like to date continually. Now that they’d made love, she realized that the idea of having Jacob Priestly as her boyfriend was not a totally bad one.
“Will you be here in the morning?” she asked him in a quiet, slightly hopeful voice. “I may have started this out as a kind of one night stand thing, but now…”
“Shh,” he said, shaking his shaggy head at her and smiling. He was so fucking adorable to her again. She was afraid that she might love him if she wasn’t careful. “I promise I will be here in the morning. And every other morning, if you want.”
Oh, she wanted. She really wanted.
CHAPTER THREE
Silly Old Bear
Sure enough, Jacob was true to his word the following morning. Sabrina slowly and lazily opened her eyes at ten a.m., a reasonable time to get up on a Saturday, and saw that he was still in bed beside her. His eyes were closed, but when she quietly yawned, he smiled.
“Good morning,” he said. His brown eyes opened and he fixed them on her, still smiling sleepily.
“Hi,” she said back, stretching a little. “Now that I know I’ve still got you, what do you want to do today?”
Jacob shrugged. “What were you thinking of doing?”
Sabrina appreciated that he was not as bossy as her ex. He was much more laid-back, and thankfully was receptive to her ideas. She thought over what she most felt like doing on this, their second day together. “Art museum?” she suggested.
“Nice,” he replied. “Okay.” He got out of bed and stretched. She admired his athletic body, remembering what it looked like naked and blushing lightly. It felt almost like she had dreamt last night. “Do you want breakfast first?”
Nodding, she got out of bed along with him. She’d gone to sleep in an old, ratty t-shirt, but she changed into his shirt instead so she would look more attractive while they ate together. She worried about looking cute to him still. He worried about her still liking him now that they’d had that one night stand she’d been after.
He went through the pantries and the fridge in her kitchen to pick out something for them to eat. “French toast with—” He looked in the fridge again to make sure he’d seen it right. “—blueberries and honey?”
Sabrina bit her lip. “You’re not making it easy for me. I keep wanting to make jokes about you being a bear, but I don’t want to offend you.”
That seemed to amuse him. “I’m not a delicate flower. I can take jokes. I have been known, on occasion, to wander around in a red t-shirt and nothing else.”
“Oh my god, I want to see that!”
Jacob smirked. “French toast with blueberries and honey?” he repeated.
“Sorry,” she said. “Yes. That sounds yummy.”
He made breakfast for them, proving that he was adept around the kitchen. When Sabrina took a bite, she let a moan escape her and he grinned proudly. “I know from last night that that sound means you like something.”
She blushed and laughed.
Dating him was surely going to be fun.
After they finished their breakfast, Sabrina hopped in the shower, and was pleased when Jacob joined her. She took a bar of soap and lathered it all over his body until she found her way to his ever growing cock. Fuck, it was a gorgeous specimen, and she wanted it bad. Just when she reached out to touch it, he turned her around and squeezed her milky breasts with his large hands. Her nipples had never been harder. When he slid in from behind her and began thrusting, Sabrina knew she was a goner. She climaxed just when he whispered, “I am going to cum inside you my sweet Sabbycat.”
“Hey Sabrina, I forgot that I don’t have any clean clothes here. I guess I’ll go back to my place and change, then we’ll meet back here in about an hour?”
Sabrina agreed and cleaned up while he was gone. It amused her that he’d forgotten that he didn’t just live there already. It must have been a bear thing. He was so chill about things; it would not surprise her if he did just start sleeping over at her place every day.
She wondered what sort of place he lived in. Certainly it was not a cave. Though it was probably a man cave.
She giggled as she took off her robe to put on her outfit for the day. The dress that she wore last night was great for a first date, but Sabrina decided to go a little more casual for their next day together. She put on some blue jeans and a cute purple t-shirt with an outline of a cartoon cat on it. She brushed her long, blonde hair and then put it up into a ponytail. Then she threw on some flip flops.
Now that she had seen what a beast Jacob was in bed, she couldn’t wait to see what he was like when he became a bear. Victor had been all about turning into a werewolf when it was time to have sex… He had a biting fetish. When she looked at the massive hickey that Jacob had given her on her boob, she remembered that. Not that she really ever forgot it. The difference was that she suspected that Jacob would stop hurting her if she asked.
The hour passed faster than she had anticipated, and she was giddy when she heard a knock at her front door. She practically skipped to the door and then pulled it open, beaming.
“Miss me?” Jacob asked her with a smile. He was also wearing jeans, along with a long-sleeved, V-necked shirt. It wasn’t a t-shirt like hers, but it was still slightly less casual than last night. She was glad that he had been thinking along the same lines.
“Funnily enough, I did,” Sabrina answered.
She collected her purse and they headed out. They would be driving this time. It was not a short walk to Brown University, where the art gallery was housed. Jacob had a cute blue Beetle that he’d most likely bought used, unless it was gifted to him from his parents.
He was even a good boy while driving, conscientious of other drivers. She was used to aggressiveness in the car, much like everywhere else. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that Victor was not a good example of a were-boyfriend. He’d been sexy to be with, but otherwise his personality was mostly humorless and even mean at times. She realized that she did not simply want to be with someone like Jacob, she deserved to be with him.
The art gallery they went to was full of portraits and paintings of ships from the 1700s. Sabrina worried a little that Jacob was bored by what they found there, but every time she turned to ask him how he was feeling about it, he gave her such a sweet smile that she didn’t want to even assume such a thing.
Weeks went by like that. Every date Jacob took Sabrina on was charming and fun. He did not get jealous when other men spoke to her. He did not treat her like she owed him her time. She felt like he was worth her time, in newer and better ways than she was used to.
One day, she woke up feeling sick and he gave her a breakfast of soup and bread in bed. “What do you think it might be?” he asked her sympathetically, putting his hand on her forehead to check and make sure that she wasn’t super hot.
“I think it could be…” She blushed a little. She’d been wondering for a few days now, but this sudden nausea seemed to confirm it. “I think I might be pregnant.”
He gaped at her, surprised, but then his mouth twisted into a smile. “Pregnant?” he asked. “Do you want me to run to the store and get a test so we can be sure?”
“Yes, please,” she said. They kissed and he grabbed his keys, happy to go off and get a pregnancy test for her. She hadn’t expected such a gleeful reaction to her theory. She wasn’t feeling so glad about it. She was nervous, and really hoping that it was Jacob’s bear seed and not Victor’s wolf seed… She’d been with Jacob for a little over a month now, so she liked to think that there was no chance that it was Victor’s, but stranger things had happened to her.
As soon as Jacob returned with the test, she used it and they sat on the couch together and waited, watching it to see if two lines appeared or just one.
When two appeared, she was glad that bears weren’t known for howling, because he certainly would have. Instead, he stood up and hugged her. “This is the happiest moment of my life!” he said. “Are you happy?”
She nodded at him and smiled faintly. “I am. I’m just… I’m hoping that I’ll be an okay mother.”
He kissed her and held her in his arms. Of course you will be. You’re already the best girlfriend, so I’m sure you will be the best mother a kid could ask for, too.”
“You have a lot of confidence in me,” she told him, cuddling against him.
“Hey,” he said softly, practically cradling her as he held her, he was so burly. “A guy like me doesn’t get a lot of chances to be with a girl like you. When we first met, I thought for sure that you’d be frightened and not want anything to do with me after a night. That’s how it always used to be. You’ve made me feel like I can be trusted. You’ve made me feel… human. Which is something I don’t exactly deserve, but it’s nice.”
She smiled at him a bit tearfully. “Why would a werebear want to be like a human? You’re special.”
He shook his head. “I’m special for a human. I’m not much of a were.”
Looking at him, she tilted her head a little bit. “Speaking of that, you’ve never even shifted in front of me. Are you shy?”
Jacob blushed. “I only really do that when I’m angry, and I think I’ve forgotten how to be that now that I’m with you.”
Sabrina made a face. “Don’t make me barf. Remember, I’m feeling nauseous.”
He laughed. “Sorry. But it’s true.”
“Well, we’re going to have a baby together. You should stop hiding your whole self from me. I won’t run screaming or call up an angry, torch-waving mob, if that’s what you’re worried about. I promise.”
He appreciated that she was so interested in his shifter nature. A lot of the girls he’d been with had only liked the sex aspect of it, but when they actually saw him become a giant, snarling bear, they didn’t want to be near him anymore. Sabrina seemed to be different, but he still worried that everything would change once she saw the beast that the tall, muscular quarterback became.
“I don’t want to endanger you,” he said. “But I can show you pictures, if that will make you feel better. Then you’ll really know what I’m like when I’m mad. And hopefully you’ll never see it in the flesh.”
He logged on to her laptop and did a quick Google search, bringing up images from a news story about a record-sized black bear tearing up a mall. Sabrina stared at the screen in horrified shock. “You were the Pine Tree Mall bear??”
Jacob nodded. “One and the same.”
“But I thought they killed that bear.”
“Tranquilizers,” he explained, pointing to a small scar on his neck that she thought was from an old sports-related injury. “Someone on the force knows my dad and knows what I am, so they spared me. They let me convalesce outside like a good bear and then gave me a five hundred dollar fine.”
“Jeeezus,” Sabrina said. But she seemed impressed, not bothered by this information. “Well, I have to say, you are a very attractive bear, too.”
Jacob didn’t know what to say to that. He called and ordered pizza to celebrate their baby news. Sabrina meanwhile started to wonder if maybe their small family would be the thing she wanted most in the world, even though she had never known that. Maybe subconsciously her mind had pulled her towards a werebear so she could meet him. Her ex was very much a product of his species, but Jacob was not like any of the bears she had read about online. Well, except for a certain mall-destroyer…
CHAPTER FOUR
Won’t Let Go At Any Price
Unsurprisingly, Sabrina’s coworkers were delighted at her news. They did not know the full extent of it, of course, but everyone loved to hear about a new baby that was on the way. She referred to it as a ‘cub’ and they simply thought it was a cute nickname, not what it actually was.
She went onto the ComeShift app, the plan being to delete her profile. There would be no more need for it now. She was pretty sure that Jacob was planning to propose to her any day now, though he hadn’t said anything. He could be so shy sometimes, which she thought just made him even cuter.
It was weird and wonderful how Jacob could mix cute and sexy, often at the same time. Sabrina supposed now that her fetish for wicked good looks had been just a phase. As she clicked around, trying to remember why she had found this app so addictive, she ran across Victor’s profile. He smirked back at her and the sight of his roguish handsomeness gave her just the slightest pause. He had clearly moved on from her. That was good.
She didn’t expect him to spend the rest of his life alone.
And it also meant that he was going to be leaving her alone.
Sabrina clicked the link to close her account and let that be the end to it.
When she arrived back home, she found that she’d beat Jacob. His shifts at the prison were sometimes longer than either of them would like, but she was proud of him for having a job that was important and put his unusual powers to good use. No one wanted to mess with him when he was in his human form, so she could only imagine what it would be like if he turned into a bear on anyone.
She changed out of her work clothes while she was waiting for Jacob to arrive. She was feeling achy in her lower back and her chest, so she opted for a relaxed, loose outfit. He was going to have to get used to seeing her in yoga pants and big t-shirts for a while. She put on some black yoga pants that were tight nearly everywhere but had a string that allowed her to tighten or loosen the waistband as much as she needed.
Along with the comfy pants, she put on a pink shirt with one of the monsters from Where The Wild Things Are on it. Sabrina laughed a little when she looked at her reflection. She looked like a teacher or a school librarian after work hours, because in her mind that was the sort of thing they wore when they weren’t at work. References to work.
Oh god, she realized. I’m eventually going to have to think about school again. She hadn’t thought about school since she finished her masters, but now she was going to have a little person who would need an education. She wondered slightly bitterly if there was some kind of clause that would allow her and Jacob to get out of that.
Heh. Bear clause.
Just then, when she was trying to calm her worrying, there was a knock at her front door. That was odd. She’d given Jacob a key. Had he lost it already?
She rolled her eyes, chuckling under her breath, and went out to the apartment’s foyer to open the front door.
But Jacob was not there. Victor was.
Sabrina gasped and stepped back instinctively, but then grabbed ahold of the doorway in order to prohibit Victor from coming in. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I noticed that you were still on that dating app,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
He suddenly sniffed the air around her and his eyes darkened. “You smell like bear. What have you been doing without me? Dating a dancing bear?”
“Get away from me!” she shouted.
Victor pushed his way into the room, not afraid of her in the slightest. Honestly, she had no way to defend herself against him. Werewolves could not be treated like standard brutes. “Or what?” he asked her, growling under his breath. “You’ll sic your bear on me? He’s probably so dumb and slow moving…”
“Shows how many bears you’ve known.” A sudden laugh came from the doorway. Sabrina turned her head and saw Jacob. She was so relieved! He was not too far behind her.
Her ex sized up her new boyfriend. Even when he wasn’t a bear, Jacob was tall with broad shoulders. Victor was a much more sinewy type of muscular. Werewolves were built to be lean and fast, unlike werebears who were more prone to lumbering along and ripping animals in half. Both were fearsome and deadly, and right now Sabrina was hoping that Jacob might unleash some of his unchecked deadliness before Victor forced them apart.
“Is this guy bothering you?” Jacob asked her. “I can kick him out, if you want. And have him arrested for breaking and entering.”
Sabrina’s face fell. “I opened the door for him, Jacob,” she said, unable to lie about the truth. He had rushed into the room, but he hadn’t forced the door open. “This is my ex-boyfriend, Victor Esparza.”
For a second, it looked like Jacob hadn’t heard her. He continued to smile at her, not looking at the other man who was now trapped between them in a way that clearly agitated Victor and made him uncomfortable. “Your what?” Jacob finally asked, sounding confused or as if he had heard her wrong.
“Her ex-boyfriend, you idiot,” Victor snapped at him. “Clean the sap out of your ears!”
Brown eyes widening, Jacob looked from Sabrina to Victor and back again. It was of course not unusual for her to have an ex-boyfriend. He was just shocked that she had chosen to be with this werewolf at one point. Well, at least she was not with him anymore. But what was he doing in their apartment?
“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and not get angry as the insults were thrown at him. Sabrina could tell that he was starting to get mad, and part of her hoped that he would get angry enough to shift. She wanted to see him change so much that she would put up with her ex being in her apartment as long as it caused him to do it.
“I came here to see Sabrina,” Victor said. “But apparently I’m barking up the wrong tree.”
With that, he left the apartment, slamming the front door behind him. Sabrina felt slightly disappointed, though she was glad that no one had gotten hurt. Victor could have easily started something. She believed that he just wasn’t ready for that sort of thing… At least not yet.
Jacob rounded on her. “You dated that asshole?”
She nodded slightly. “For about a year, unfortunately. He wasn’t always like that…”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Jacob said. “Anyway, how are you?”
“Well, disturbed now. I didn’t realize that he was thinking of me, let alone trying to get me back.”
Jacob took her over to the couch and they sat down, cuddling each other. Now that he was home, she felt much better. She’d been having a great time with him, and now she was worried that it was going to all be ruined by her ex.
“Are you crying?” he asked her, looking at her. “Aww, you are. Don’t cry… I’ll protect you from him. You don’t think I can take him? I’ve broken men twice his size.”
Sabrina smiled at him through her tears. “You look awfully sexy in your uniform.”
He was dressed like a cop, and she supposed that that was kind of what he was. He was an unofficial cop, keeping the prisoners out of trouble, no matter what it took. He even had a gun, which made her laugh a little.
“What?” he asked, smiling.
“A bear with a gun,” she said. “That sounds like something a kid made up.”
After some discussion, they decided that it would be best that they left her apartment and moved into his place together, at least for the time being. Jacob didn’t want there to be any risk of Victor showing up unexpectedly again. It was not good for Sabrina, and it definitely wasn’t good for their baby for there to be so much stress in the air.
They worked together to pack up her things and left. He drove her to his house. When she realized that he had his own small house, she hit him on the shoulder.
“Ow,” he said, laughing. There was no way that little her could have hurt big him. He said it out of wanting to humor her a little. “What was that for?”
“I didn’t know that you lived in a house,” she exclaimed. “All this time, you’ve been staying over at my place; meanwhile you live in a house.”
Jacob smiled at her. “You never asked.”
He brought her inside. It was a modest, one bedroom house. It wasn’t exactly a palace, but it was much better than she’d been anticipating. It was even fairly clean. Wherever there was dirty underwear or a random sock lying on the floor, he rushed and cleaned up, tossing the offending pieces of clothing into the laundry machine.
He had a freaking laundry machine.
“Now I wish that Victor had come over sooner, if only so I could have learned about this place.” Sabrina looked around, grinning excitedly at the place. It may as well as been her new home, though they had not made that official. The plan was just for them to stay there for a while, until they felt they had the all clear from any more home invasions.
But this little house would be a better place to raise a cub than back in her small apartment. It may have been one-bedroom, but it was one bedroom with lots more space than what Sabrina was used to.
“You’re doing quite well for yourself,” she said approvingly.
Jacob beamed proudly. “You’ll be safe here.” He gently placed his hand on her small tummy that was only slightly starting to show. Werebear cubs developed faster than human babies. Not quite as fast as werewolf cubs, she’d been told, but still. It would be fast enough for her. She was continuing to feel like she didn’t know what she was doing, but that was mostly because she didn’t.
Suddenly, he brought her close as they stood in the entryway. He kissed her softly and she knew that a great many things were on his mind. “Are you going to be my guard bear now?” she whispered, looking into his soft, sweet brown eyes.
“Oh, I’ll become a grizzly,” he answered. They kissed again and then he sang into her ear in a whisper, “I touch you once, I touch you twice, I won't let go at any price…”
CHAPTER FIVE
When He’s Angry
Sabrina took time off from work as soon as she started to show enough for people to notice, especially because right around the time her pregnancy was noticeable by one and all, her side effects became worse and worse. Jacob insisted that she stay home and take care of herself. “This is your first cub. It’s better if you take it easy now.”
She scoffed at him, resting in their bed in his house. “You say that like I’m planning to have another of these hell spawn.”
His over-protective boarding on possessive tendencies started to show themselves when she had fully moved into his place. He had a high-powered, high-tech security system installed in and around the perimeters of his house. “This way I can guard your security while I’m off at work, being a security guard.”
Sabrina wondered if she should view this as a red flag, or just take it for what it was portrayed to be: a protective boyfriend trying to make sure that his girlfriend and unborn baby would be safe.
One day, while he was at work, she reclined on his large, black leather couch and played on the internet. There was nothing better for her to do. She’d already napped until noon, which made her feel guilty. She entered the sort of hole that was difficult to get out of once it started. She started watching videos.
She searched for the black bear who went crazy in Pine Tree Mall. She wasn’t disappointed. The videos of Jacob when he went on his violent rampage were largely filmed with cell phone cameras. They were blurry and shaky, but they showed him breaking through glass storefronts and roaring at people – including children – and knocking over every cart and sign that was in his path. In some of the videos, she could see that he had blood on his fangs. He had not simply roared at people. He’d clearly mauled at least one person.
Suddenly, she felt bad. She never asked him what had angered him so much. She’d been so surprised and excited when she found out who he was that she’d never thought to ask about why he had felt so angry. She realized now that it had to have been something important to have caused such a visceral feeling. Jacob was such a sweetie. It would take more than a minor tiff to turn him into a monster like that.
When Jacob returned home, she felt like asking him, but he was so tired and happy to be with her again that she didn’t want to dredge it all up again. “I need to take a shower,” he said, giving her a kiss. “I think I’ve got the smell of prison shit all over me.”
He went into the bathroom and she started to wonder how safe it would be to be with him when he got mad. Originally, Sabrina had thought the idea of him shifting into a werebear would be the definition of sexy. But now she was starting to realize that, more than anything else, it was something that made him different in a way that he maybe didn’t like…
That was probably why he didn’t like just shifting on a whim. It scared people. And he was most likely afraid that it would scare her away, too.
Just then, in a flash, she noticed something that was picked up by the surveillance cameras outside. She had it up in a small window on her screen, but she maximized it so she could get a better view.
A gray blur went past on the screen.
She thought she had a pretty good idea who that was.
Victor.
Sabrina sprang from the couch and did her best to silently pad down the hallway to the bathroom. She could hear the water blasting in the shower. The front door was locked, but front doors couldn’t stop an angry werewolf.
She knocked on the bathroom door to try and alert Jacob that something was up, but she went inside the bathroom to let him know with her voice, as well. “JACOB,” she shouted. “Victor’s on the surveillance!”
The water turned off and Jacob pulled back the shower curtain. “What?”
“Just now, on the surveillance footage, I saw Victor. It was just a flash; I don’t know what he’s doing.”
Jacob didn’t even bother with a towel to dry off. He came out of the shower, dripping. Sabrina glanced down at his cock and then looked away, not wanting to bother with any thoughts about how her hot man was there to save her.
Was it just her or was he harrier than she remembered?
He crept out of the bathroom and to the living room, where her computer was. Sabrina followed him, trying her best to remain as quiet as he was. He looked around at all of the windows he could see, but he could not see any sign of the bastard.
There was a sudden crash from a window near the front door as Victor came leaping into the house. He was quick and agile in ways that Jacob could never be. Letting out a low growl of warning, Sabrina’s trusty werebear shifted in front of her very eyes. He grew in height and his hairiness grew thicker and covered all of him until at last an enormous black bear stood where Jacob Priestly had been.
This black bear was Jacob Priestly.
He lurched forward and took a huge swipe towards Victor the werewolf, but Victor was fast and expecting it. The wolf avoided the blow and made for Sabrina, who ran into the kitchen to arm herself with something, anything that might stop him and possibly even gravely injure him.
She was going through the various knives that were on hand while Jacob ran after Victor, biting and swiping his mighty paws as he approached the wolf.
Victor slowly made his way into the kitchen, moving in a way that let her know that he might pounce at her at any moment. “You belong with me, you BITCH!” he howled.
“Get over yourself,” she snapped at him, holding a butcher’s knife tightly in her hand. If he made a move on her, she was going to aim for his heart. She was not afraid of killing him. In fact, she was more afraid of what would happen if she didn’t. She was starting to feel completely controlled by this fear.
Victor’s golden eyes narrowed, and he smirked in a way that normal wolves certainly couldn’t. “Good,” he said. “Give in to your fear. Fear is what kept you with me.”
“Leave her alone!” Jacob bellowed, finally making contact with a big swipe that cracked Victor over the head and made him land on the floor, dazed and disoriented for long enough to Sabrina to get away and protect herself behind her bear boyfriend.
“Ahh,” Victor said, collecting himself again and returning to his paws. “I suppose you work together well. But do you really think you can give her what she wants, bear? What she needs?”
“What I need is for you to get out of my life and stay out!” Sabrina shouted. “Go find someone who doesn’t mind your selfishness and your rules. You don’t want me. You don’t want someone who can’t even stand the sight of you anymore.”
Victor flew into a rage and jumped at her, mouth wide and aimed at her throat. Jacob caught him on the jaw with his giant paw and sent the wolf slamming to the floor yet again.
“When are you going to learn that I’m bigger than you?” Jacob asked him pityingly. “When are you going to realize that you are beaten?”
“Never!” Victor spat, getting to his feet again.
Sabrina could tell that his strength was weakening. All it would take was one more thing to take the bite out of him and he would be history. Hopefully for good.
She remembered that she was holding the knife and hid it behind her back, so Victor wouldn’t see it. He was so distracted by Jacob’s taunting that he barely even seemed to notice her anymore. They’d briefly forgotten what their feud was over. The only thing that mattered now was that they hated each other.
Holding the knife up, she let it fall, hitting Victor in the furry white chest.
“NOOOO!!” he cried.
At the same time, Jacob lunged down at him and bit at his face. There was so much blood all over the cream-colored carpet. At first, Sabrina couldn’t be sure if they had killed him or if they’d just happened to get him in a particularly blood-filled spot.
But when Jacob pulled away from Victor, she could see that her ex was still alive, but just barely. He was back in his wolf form, clutching at his chest with one hand and his face with the other. He was a bloody mess.
Jacob had saved the day. But she had helped. She felt proud of herself, and so glad that she was dating that rampaging bear. This was something that their cub would surely be proud of.
They offered to call for an ambulance to come for Victor, but he declined. If he had still had his tail, it would have been between his legs. “No,” he said. “I’ll see myself home. This is what I deserved.”
Sabrina was not sure that this was the last they would see of him, but she hoped so. He knew that he had been beaten, and he was not one to let such a thing happen more than once. A wolf could not possibly stand up to a bear and a butcher’s knife.
Jacob was riled and wild even after Victor was gone. Sabrina did her best to soothe him with cuddles and kind words, but nothing worked. He was apparently going to be stuck in his werebear form for a while.
She lay in his arms, smiling up at him and finding his magical power so attractive, even still while he was covered in wolf blood and panting a bit. “I was watching videos today,” she told him. “Of your little rampage in the mall.”
“Oh, fuck, not that again,” he growled.
She wanted to laugh, but his anger made her worry that he might turn on her next. She didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him, or judging him or anything like that. “I’m sorry… I just wanted to see what you were like when you shifted. I guess I should have been careful what I wished for.”
“Why would you wish for this?” he asked. As she looked at him, she noticed that some of his black fur was disappearing and his face was taking on his human form again. He was finally settling back down.
“I want to be with you because you’re sweet and gentle, but also strong and protective when I need you to be.” She placed her hand on her stomach. “When we need you to be.”
His transformation back into that of a tall, burly quarterback was nearly complete. All that remained was his bear nose and some whisker-like hairs on his cheeks. “But I’m a monster.”
She smiled at him. “Maybe. But you’re my monster…” She finally decided that it would be okay to ask him. “That day in the mall… I should have asked you this. I’m sorry for not even thinking of your feelings. What were you so angry about?”
Jacob looked into her eyes. His gentle, brown eyes were back to normal. All of him was back to being the way she knew and loved. “My ex-girlfriend had just broken up with me.”
Sabrina’s heart melted a little, even as it also broke a bit for him. “And why were you bloody?”
He appeared to be extremely guilty. She worried that he was going to say he had killed his ex. Maybe she shouldn’t have ever asked. Maybe it was never an appropriate question and some things were better left not talked about…
“I bit my tongue,” he said.
She looked at him, surprised and relieved.
He suddenly smirked a little. “I do that a lot, when I lose control.”
Letting out a laugh, she kissed him. “You do more than that.”
THE END
Papa Bear
CHAPTER ONE
The Man Child
“How has the job hunting been going?” Maggie asked her fiancé Tony.
He answered her with a shrug, not even looking over at her when she came in the door. Typical.
Maggie Bullock worked full time – plus a lot of overtime – as a customer service representative at a toy company. It sounded like it would be so much fun when she first got the job, but now that she was struggling to pay the rent for her and her deadbeat boyfriend, it was nothing short of draining. She spent eight-plus hours every day responding to stupid people and their stupid questions, only to come home and deal with Tony the couch potato.
Tony Deburgi was an artist, though Maggie was starting to think that he was actually an “artist.” His easel always seemed to be empty, ignored off in a corner somewhere. She bought him a really fancy set of paints for Christmas recently and he’d barely touched it. He claimed to be in a dry spell. “I have lost my muse,” he had told her.
“Well, maybe you should make video games your muse, since you’re so attached to them,” she had replied.
“No,” Tony had argued. “My art is not fan art. It’s abstract!”
They’d had many fights like that lately. Maggie wanted to support his art and help inspire his creativity, but she also wanted him to be realistic and apply himself more.
“I know it’s not ideal,” she said, going into the kitchen and fixing herself a drink. “But I really think you ought to start looking into more options. Painting houses is still a form of art.”
Once she had poured herself the perfect mixture of Scotch and Coke, Maggie carried her glass out to the living room and sat beside Tony, who was sunken into the couch, as though he had molded himself into it. Game controller in hand, he stared at the screen, blasting away werewolves or some other type of shifter. Maggie couldn’t keep track. They all seemed the same.
All of the games he played involved shooting shifters. He never played the cute, colorful games where he could save princesses and collect coins. He always played some form of murderous hit-man against an army of vicious monsters. Tony hated shifters, and Maggie thought he was ridiculous. He’d never even met one before. Video game monsters were not the same thing as living, breathing beings.
At first, Maggie had seen his video game heroics as a sign of his manly, caring nature. Now, however, she saw them more for what they were – another way to slack off.
“Is this all you’ve been up to today?” Maggie asked him. “I was gone for eight hours, and you’re still wearing your pajamas.”
Annoyed, Tony paused the game. He finally turned to look at her, but it was a glare. Not at all the appreciative look Maggie expected or felt she deserved. “I’ve told you, it’s a dry spell,” he said.
Maggie did not want to fight with him about it anymore. She was tired of nagging him and trying to get him to contribute. She was tired of feeling frustrated at him all of the time. She was just tired.
“Whatever,” she said with a sigh, knocking back a large gulp of Scotch and Coke. “I just don’t want to keep coming home after a long day and finding you just sitting here, playing games. When’s the last time you showered?”
“Ugh!” Tony shouted, throwing the controller down on the table and standing up. “Fine, I’ll go take a shower. I wish you’d stop acting like you’re so much better than me. You can’t rush art. And you hate your job. Don’t take it out on me.”
With that, he stormed off to the bathroom. Maggie heard the water start running. She turned off the TV and looked over at the abandoned easel. It would make things easier if he just tried to even pretend like he still cared about working.
Maggie was twenty-five. Tony was twenty-seven. They had met in college and they shared a mutual love of a lot of things, including video games. Initially, everything seemed blissful and perfect. He did all sorts of really captivating paintings in the beginning, while she worked hard in customer service. He had even entertained the idea of someday being an artist for video games, which she would then help sell at her company. It all seemed pretty great…
Until that slowly turned into him just sitting on the couch, playing the games like some kind of mindless zombie himself. There was market research and then there was just making excuses.
Maggie was tired of excuses most of all.
“I don’t know why you’re even still with his lazy ass,” her friend Trish told her over the phone.
After his shower, Tony had switched to a computer game that involved lots of intense silence when he wasn’t shouting commands at an unseen person who spoke to him over a headset. Maggie hated that game, but she capitalized on the fact that he was completely absorbed in his own world. That was the best time to complain about him to her friends.
“I don’t know either sometimes,” Maggie said, sounding a bit sadder than she felt. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s just that I love projects.”
Trish laughed. “Girl, if he’s your project, he is not your best work.”
“You should see the Tell-Tale Easel.” Maggie chuckled a little. “He’s not even trying to hide his lack of progress. He just leaves it out for all to see; blank canvas, paint barely even touched, brushes cleaner than they were when I bought them. Oh, and I bought them. Let’s not forget that.”
Trish tisked. “You should break that blank canvas over his head.”
“I would if I hadn’t paid for it.”
“What, his head?”
Maggie laughed. “Practically. I have supported that creative noggin’ of his for three years now.”
“You should try and get your deposit back.”
It was all well and good to make jokes about things like that. But even though Tony annoyed the shit out of her, a lot of the time… Maggie still loved him. He was her college sweetheart. He was still the reason she got up in the morning and worked so hard.
She just wished she would get a ‘thank you’ now and then.
“Hey, honey?” Tony suddenly asked her, removing his silly, large headset. He resembled an air-traffic controller when he wore that thing.
Maggie swallowed her annoyance. “Yeah?” She even managed a smile at him. She was glad to have his attention at last.
“Do you want to play Zelda with me?”
She rolled her eyes a little, but she continued to smile. At least playing with him was better than him playing without her all of the time. She moved the phone back so Trish could hear her. “I gotta go for now. We’ll talk again soon – hopefully with good news.”
“Bye, Mags. Hopefully the good news is that you’re leaving that f—”
Cackling, Maggie hung up on her friend.
Friends did not let friends date douches. But friends also did not let friends give up.
Tony was not really a hopeless case. He just needed a lot of pushing.
They played the fantasy video game for a while, and then he left her to it while he went to his easel and began covering it with yellows and greens. Maggie glanced over at it and smirked at him. “I thought you said you didn’t paint video game characters.”
“This is just inspired by it,” he said, indicating that it was similar colors but not actually any shapes that were specific to the game. No fairies were to be found. “It’s also inspired by you.”
Maggie paused the game. She got up and went to him, wrapping her arms loosely around his shoulders. They kissed each other. “I don’t know why you’ve gotta be such a pain in the ass all the time,” she murmured against his neck. “I just want you to reach your full potential and be happy.”
“I know, Magellan,” he said, using that silly nickname he’d been calling her since their awful and boring eight a.m. history class four years ago. “I’m sorry for sucking. I promise I’ll go check out some jobs tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay,” she said with a smile, petting his thick, brown mop top. “I love you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t care so much.”
They kissed each other again. At last, she felt like she was getting through to him.
Maggie went to work the next morning, feeling confident that Tony was going to get the ball rolling with some job interviews. He left the house when she did, wearing a suit and everything. “Good luck,” she said, kissing him. “I love you.”
He smiled at her. “I love you, too. Thanks.”
They headed their separate ways, her in her car and him on foot. The home painting company was literally up the street from their apartment. It seemed quite perfect, but Maggie felt some sense of dread about it that she could not shake. She hoped Tony would not ruin his chances somehow. Hopefully he would not let his inherent laziness show through.
She drove to her office building in the middle of Baltimore. Once she was parked, she adjusted her makeup in the rearview mirror, not that it mattered what she looked like, really. The customers were not more or less rude to her because she dressed well.
Her wavy red bob looked good, but her cinnamon-colored eyes appeared exhausted. Maggie was always exhausted. Tony was correct when he said that she hated her job, but she kept it up because she was responsible and it paid well. After applying some extra eyeliner to make her appear less sleep-deprived, she got out of her car and went into the building.
Most of what she did involved placating irate customers who either bought something they did not know how to use or broke something and wanted a refund. In person and over the phone, on a headset not unlike Tony’s ridiculous gaming one. At least he got to have some form of fun on his. None of the yelling on Maggie’s headset was to achieve a mutual goal, really.
“I am sorry, Mr. Johnson,” she said into her headset while her line grew longer and the clock slowly moved toward her lunch break. “We cannot accept your return because our policy says that it needs to still be in the box. I know, but if we cannot resell it, then it is no use to us. I know, it is unfair, but I do not make the rules… You may talk to my manager, but I want you to know that he will say the same thing.”
It took everything within Maggie to not say the expletives that went through her head as she talked to customers.
When her half-hour lunch break came at last, she was determined to enjoy the shit out of her fast food burger. She always went to the same place: a fast food joint right next to the toy store. They served pretty shitty food, but at least it was the kind of shitty food that she could receive and eat quickly.
Someday, your business acumen is going to be worthwhile, she told herself as she sipped her Diet Coke through a straw. Someday, you will not work in customer service at a corporation that kills its employees in the name of children’s entertainment. Someday, you’re gonna be somebody.
Maggie repeated the same mini-mantra every day she was at work. She was sick and tired of waiting for someday. She was sick and tired of taking responsibility for a man child. She needed things to change.
She looked at the clock on the wall. Two minutes left. She wondered how Tony had done on his job interview. “If he does not get this job, I am pretty sure I’m going to have a nervous breakdown,” she muttered to herself, finishing up her atrocious burger.
Having goals and things to work for was a good thing, but Maggie could not carry the weight all on her own. And she should not have to.
Fortune smiled on Maggie when she returned to work. Her boss decided that she did not need to stay the whole day, since things had slowed down considerably in the customer service department in the afternoon. “Take the rest of the day off,” he said. “Or, better yet, move to Maui. These people are brutal.”
She chuckled. “Thanks, Derek. See you tomorrow.”
The drive home was the happiest, most awake drive she had experienced in a while. She felt like she had been released early from school for the summer or something. And she planned to celebrate the extra time with Tony.
However, when she got there, he was already celebrating… with another woman.
He hadn’t even locked the door. Maggie came into their apartment and found Tony sitting on the couch like usual, but naked and on top of someone else, which wasn’t usual. Instinctively, she blushed and looked away. But then, regaining her composure, she looked hard at him. “Hello, Tony.”
The movements immediately stopped. He looked up at her, horror-stricken. The woman he was with had to be younger than both of them. By the looks of the discarded clothes, she worked at one of the places he had been sent to apply. A gold nametag pinned to her blouse appeared to say Lacey.
I bet she is.
“Shit,” Tony said. He graciously got disentangled from Lacey and came over to Maggie.
She thought about how she had never seen him naked in a bad moment until now. Had his penis always seemed so shriveled, or was he just scared? Maggie did not feel like giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“Maggie, this is not what it looks like,” he said. “Well, it is what it looks like, but she means nothing to me.”
“Ugh!” Lacey interjected. She got off the couch and began to put her clothes back on. Maggie realized, with another sickening feeling, that this woman worked at the painting company. They had probably been together for hours.
Maggie shook her head at them. “Get out,” she said. “Both of you.”
Lacey did not need to be told twice. She was hightailing it toward the door, one high-heeled shoe not even on her foot yet. Tony, on the other hand, looked at Maggie, wide-eyed and completely panicked.
“Don’t kick me out, Maggie. Let’s talk about this,” he tried to reason with her. He was always trying to reason with her, give her excuses for why he should stay. For years, she had put up with that and let him goad her. Well, no more!
Maggie had not anticipated feeling this calm. “Get. Out.”
Tony turned back to the couch and scooped up his clothes, stepping into his boxers. He was crying a little, putting on a real performance.
When he was in the doorway, he turned to her. “But I don’t even have a car. And where should I go?”
Maggie shrugged. “Take a bus.”
She slammed the door in his face and then leaned against it.
It felt strange to her, to feel this relieved and this happy. She brought a hand up to cover her mouth as her thoughts whirled around in her head. The fucking cheater. The fucking scumbag had had the nerve to cheat on her, after everything Maggie had worked for, after everything they had been through.
The worst – or was it the best? – part of it was that Maggie only felt relief, like a massive, video-game-playing monster had been lifted from her back. She did not have to carry him anymore. She did not have to think about him anymore.
As she looked around the scattered objects in their living room, she noticed that the video game he had been playing was still paused on the screen. Even Lacey did not get the courtesy of him turning his games off. Maggie smiled slightly. She went over to the gaming system and wrenched the game completely out of it, hoping that he had not saved his progress. She threw the game in the garbage, followed by the whole system itself.
She was not going to stay in this apartment. Maggie did not actually know why she had kicked Tony out when she was not going to stay. Maybe it was just the thrill of humiliating him. She went into the bedroom with a renewed sense of purpose. It was like her boss knew that this was afoot and had sent her home to discover it. It was as if Derek was giving her a tip.
Packing up her things did not take as long as she would have thought. Maggie realized that she did not actually own much of the stuff in the apartment. She had planned all of the necessities. Of course she had. All the rest was just things. Tony’s things.
Short of setting his things on fire, Maggie left her key on the counter. She knew that her leaving was going to crush him. He had no job. There was no way he would be able to keep the place. And that was why it was all his now. She was free.
Already in her car and on her way, she called Trish. “I have the good news you have been waiting for,” Maggie said, still smiling. She had not stopped maniacally smiling since she tossed the games in the trash.
“I hope you haven’t been reading my cues wrong,” Trish replied, amusement in her voice. “If you’re pregnant, that ain’t good news. But if you’ve left his sorry ass…”
Maggie laughed, nodding her head even though Trish couldn’t see the gesture. “I left his sorry ass,” she said. “I kicked him out, but then I realized that he deserves to fail miserably. He can have the apartment. He can have fun trying to keep up with the rent and the bills on zero fucking salary.”
“Woo hoo! Amen!” Trish said, ecstatic. She was always so supportive. Maggie needed that right now. As the big, scary world reached out for her, Maggie needed all the support she could get.
“Could I move in with you?” she asked, turning momentarily timid.
“You do not even need to ask, girlfriend,” Trish replied. “We are gonna party tonight!”
Maggie truly did feel like partying. She also felt like sleeping for as long as she damn well pleased.
CHAPTER TWO
Hot Shifters
Safe and happy at Trish’s place, Maggie emailed her boss and quit her hated, draining job at the toy company. She enjoyed a day of relaxing and drinking margaritas with her friend. “The weirdest thing about all this is how it feels like I wanted it to happen. I wanted this excuse to kick Tony out for good.”
Trish sipped her drink, and then licked her lips. “Not weird, Mags. You wanted things to end but you’re so nice that you were desperate for an out.”
Maggie thought it was more than that… She was desperate for a complete change. She just did not know what that was yet. She wanted to do something crazy. Something that would make Tony annoyed and maybe even a little jealous. She wanted him to be miserable.
While Trish was gone at work the next day, Maggie hatched her plan. She would join the dating app for shifters. It was kind of an underground thing, but one of her good friends, Phoebe, had recently shared a picture online of her new shifter baby. He was adorable! Maggie was not looking for anything quite so serious, but she was looking for a change and this had to be it.
She created an account, and then made sure to take a handful of sexy pictures of herself. Werewolves were hot as hell, and the dangerous kind of fun. Tony had often warned her about them, which was part of why she felt the call to action now. Under the guise of trying to protect her, he had told Maggie to stay away from werewolves. But the closest he had ever come to meeting an actual werewolf face to face was in his stupid video games.
Maggie was going to one-up him.
Once her account was set up, she sifted through the shifters, looking for the sexiest badass she could find. Maggie had to admit right off the bat that these guys were sexy as all hell. Finally, her gaze fell on this werewolf shifter named Keith Suffield. He was twenty-eight years old with black hair and gold-brown eyes. He looked like a wolf in human form. Maggie wondered how anyone saw this guy and did not know about his capabilities.
She sent him a message to see if he wanted to meet up. A one-night stand would be fun. She was ready for a break from responsibilities…
Hey, handsome, we should meet up and see where the night takes us.
Maggie took a shower and put on the sluttiest outfit she could find. This Keith guy liked them slutty. She could tell by the things he put in his profile. She put on tight, black pants and a black crop top with some stilettos. Teasing her red hair with a comb and some hairspray, she added a lot of eyeshadow and eyeliner to her face, making herself look like the dark vixen she felt like being tonight.
When she went back out to the living room, her phone’s screen flashed with a notification light. She swiped the screen back to life and looked at all of the messages she had received, smirking and tickled that she had garnered so much attention in such a short amount of time.
The sexy young Keith had messaged her back.
Meet me at Transform on Summit Avenue. It’s a shifter club, so be prepared. I don’t doubt you will be.
It was a date!
Maggie decided that driving there was probably not the best idea. She did not want to drive if she had a lot to drink, and she did not want her car to end up in a strange area, unattended, so she decided to take an Uber instead.
Even the Uber driver could not stop staring at her. Maggie felt good, like she was on top of the world right now. She hoped that going out on a date with someone new would not diminish these feelings. The last thing she wanted was to go from one frustrating relationship to another frustrating relationship.
No, she planned to keep things light with Keith. No promises, no obligations. Just a bit of fun.
When her driver pulled up at the curb outside of Transform, Maggie thanked him and hopped out. She clutched her black purse to her side, not that a thief was really what she was afraid of. Stepping into the club full of shifters, she gulped and took a deep breath in order to stay calm. A lot of male eyes were on her. The shifters were all drinking and loud, which was something she was used to in normal bars.
Suddenly, Maggie locked eyes with the one and only Keith. He waved her over, and she sat down across from him at his table. He smirked and shook his head, moving to the chair directly next to her and then inching it ever closer.
“You’re even sexier in person,” he growled, into her ear. His breath smelled like three different kinds of beer.
“Thanks,” Maggie replied, feeling shy but not wanting to act like it. Keith liked the more brazen type, and she wanted to give him what he wanted. “You’re pretty smokin’ yourself.”
He laughed a dark, frightening laugh, like he had just murdered someone and was really glad about it. Keith did not strike Maggie as someone who was known for his sense of humor.
“What’ll you have?” he asked her then.
“Oh, uhh…” Maggie looked at the list of drinks displayed on a small, laminated menu. “Could I get a mojito, please?”
Keith nodded and stood up, going over to the bar to order their drinks. Maggie looked around, noticing how the place did not seem any different from what she was used to, and how it was actually calming her down to see that. The men all laughed and shouted at each other. Sports were even on the TV screens, though it was boxing, not baseball like she normally found in bars.
A few minutes later, Keith came back holding a glass in each hand. He handed the mojito to Maggie and sat back down in his chair, beer sloshing out of the top of his glass when he set it down on the table.
He downed it like a champ while Maggie carefully sipped at hers. It had been a while since she had indulged in a drink like this. She usually just mixed soda with things like rum or scotch. She hadn’t gone out for drinks for some time. That was what came with being engaged to a man who could not provide anything …
“So,” she said, trying to strike up a conversation now that they were settled. “What do you do for a living?”
Keith narrowed his light brown eyes a little. “I fix motorcycles,” he said. “It says that on my profile.”
Maggie nodded. “Right. I have to admit; I was more interested in the pictures than reading a bunch of words.”
Saying such a thing might have been an insult, but he took it as a compliment. She could tell because he placed his hand on her leg and looked into her eyes. “I can live with that,” he said, boozy breath now amplified thanks to his new round of beers.
Before she knew what hit her, Keith was kissing her. Maggie blinked in surprise and thought about fighting him off, but she did not want to cause a scene. And, besides, wasn’t this what she had come here for?
Keith forced his tongue into her mouth and, reaching up, groped her boobs. She felt pretty icky that this was just happening, right there in the crowded shifter club. Maggie didn’t know what she had been imagining, but it wasn’t this. He tasted like beer, just as his breath had forewarned. She assumed that she tasted like mint or something, because he would not extract his tongue from her mouth.
He finally released her and let her take more sips of her drink, but he stayed right there with his arm around her, casually squeezing her right breast like it was his property now. She had not signed away all rights to her body. Maggie was mildly annoyed, but she had been told that werewolves were dangerous. Really, it was a no shit kind of thing. Who did not think that linking up with a werewolf was dangerous? Linking up with any strange man in a bar was unsafe.
Maggie had wanted to throw caution to the wind, but she was starting to get a bad vibe from this guy. She wanted to have sex with a stranger and make her ex jealous. She did not want to be raped.
She thought of something that she probably should have done in the first place. She was going to call Trish and let her know where she was and who she was with, in case anything happened and she needed help.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Maggie said, shrugging away from Keith. “I’ll be right back.”
She stood up, but he grabbed her arm.
“How about you come back to my place instead?” he said.
“It’ll just be a minute…”
Keith stood up. His grip on her arm tightened. She could feel his nails digging into her skin and she wondered, fleetingly, if he was going to shift into a wolf right then and there. “You should come home with me tonight. I thought that was what you wanted.”
“No,” Maggie said, trying to sound strong but her voice was quavering. “What I want is to use the restroom right now.”
“You can use the bathroom at my place.”
“I don’t want to!” she shouted, her voice more raised than she intended. She attempted to wrench her arm free, but he only held it tighter. His nails were starting to slightly break her skin, so she stopped resisting.
Keith’s eyes flashed from his light brown color to full-on gold. She could tell that he was angry. Maggie hadn’t wanted to make him angry, but she also did not want to be rushed into things, especially when she was already seeing about a dozen red flags about him. If she went to his place, she was not sure she would come out alive.
He let out a growl, and Maggie felt like he was about to carry her bodily from the establishment. That was when a big, older shifter stepped in.
“Hey,” this new stranger said. His voice was low, but firm. “I don’t think you understand. This lady here is saying that she does not want to go with you.”
“Why don’t you mind your own business, pal?” Keith snarled.
The tall, broad-shouldered man narrowed his eyes a little at Keith, but then he gave a wry smile. “I’m no pal of yours. Now let go of the girl.”
Maggie could see that Keith really wanted to fight this guy, but he was shorter and much less physically imposing. Also, he was considerably drunker. Suddenly, he released his hold on Maggie, practically throwing her arm away from him as if it repelled him now.
“Fine,” he growled. “Have it your way. But I’ll be back for you. I’ll deal with you later. This fucking bitch doesn’t need a daddy.”
With that, he quickly walked out of the club.
Maggie turned to look up at her rescuer. He was large in many ways, tall and wide of chest. He had graying brown hair and blue eyes that turned toward her as soon as the werewolf was out of sight.
He reminded Maggie of the Beast from the Beauty and the Beast. Minus the bad attitude. This guy seemed nice.