Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (17 page)

I took a deep breath, holding it in for a moment before letting it out in a shuddering exhale. “I think,” I said, carefully and slowly, not wanting to do any damage I couldn’t repair. “I think that... we both have healing that needs to be done. I thought I was over Liam, I thought I was ready for someone else to love me.”

“But?”

I lifted my head, pushing a fallen curl out of his eyes, back behind his ear. “I hate what I’m about to say.”

“I hate what I just said,” he answered.

His eyes flickered again, the shadow marking the cleft in his chin, and the tattoos along his cheekbones emphasized his sharply cut, statue-like features.

“I hate it because it isn’t fair to ask you what I’m going to ask, and because someone else did it to me once.”

“I’m a big boy,” Orion said with one of his smirks that could drop the panties off a mannequin. “I can handle it. And remember – I’m not joking about this fate business. The second I saw you, I knew that... somehow, I just
knew
that you were for me. Whatever you need, whatever you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”

I gulped. I knew he meant what he said. And knowing
that
? Just letting myself believe him was a pretty huge thing, at least for me. Sounds like a little thing, but believing people has never been a strong suit of mine. Or at least not after Liam.

“I want to heal with you,” I said. “I don’t want to rush, I don’t want to—”

“You’re asking me to wait?” he asked. “That’s what’s going on here, right?”

I bit my lip and looked down at the ground, focusing on the tips of my Mary Janes. I couldn’t believe that I’d just told him that, but at the same time, he was still right in front of me. That was a good sign, at least.

I felt a finger underneath my chin, lifting my face up. “Look at me,” he said. “Look at my face. Do you see these scars?”

Slightly embarrassed that I hadn’t actually noticed them before just then, I nodded. “What are they from?”

“Fire,” he said. Orion grabbed my hand and flattened my palm against the spider web of scars on his left cheek. “My father burned me. Sort of like a brand. He wanted to prove that he owned me, that I was nothing without him. Without the gang.”

I curled my fingers against the puckered skin. It looked so much like the rest of his tattoos that I hadn’t noticed, but touching them, yeah, it was completely different. I swallowed again, my throat clicked. “You’re so much more than that,” I whispered.

Orion shook his beautiful head. He looked down, closed his eyes tightly shut for a moment and then opened them again, staring straight into mine.

“He never proved anything. I never needed him. Never needed the gang. Mitch Samuelsson never owned me, no matter how hard he tried to prove that he did.”

I had a feeling what was going to come out of his mouth before he started to form the words. That was good at least, because it gave me a little time to prepare myself.

“You claimed me the first time I saw you, Clea,” he whispered. His breath caressed my neck, but his words? They caressed my soul. “Fate, fortune, luck, whatever you want to call it, it claimed me. Took me for its own, right then. I won’t rest, I won’t stop, until I make you mine.”

Yep. Yeah, even with the couple seconds lead in, hearing him say the words made them real, and made me ache. From deep inside the core of my body, a wave of heat pulsed through me. Goosebumps crept down my arms, my scalp clenched slightly, and my sex yearned to have him – even if it was just another make-believe session.

“You mean that?” I asked, with a smile. “You’re really going to chase me? Why do you care so much?”

“Because,” he said, those eyes burning holes through me and the hands against my back making me quail. “Because you’re mine. In this life, in this world, I’ve barely got anything. I have a backpack with a couple of books, and I have this necklace.”

The tiny golden pendant was hidden under his shirt. He fished it out, producing a delicate, paw-shaped pendant. “It was my mother’s,” he said softly. “She gave it to me right before she died. And now?” He unlatched the thing with so much gentleness that I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

Slowly, carefully, he hooked the chain behind my neck and flattened his palm against my chest, on top of the pendant.

“I can’t take this,” I said. “You can’t... it’s your mother’s.”

Orion shook his head. “The Samuelsson bears have a pretty terrible past. My grandfather started the Devils and my father took it over. We haven’t always been like that though. My mother, she was different. She had a head on her shoulders that wasn’t full of gasoline and rage. She knew all about the clan, way before the Devils. This necklace,” he twirled a finger around the chain. “This is older than her, older than my grandfather. This is the necklace that Samuelssons have given their mates for a hundred years, maybe more.”

I gulped.

“What I’m saying,” he said, “is that I’ll wait, if that’s what it takes. But you better be ready for me to chase you, too.”

Without another word, Orion grabbed my hand, led me the few feet to the motorcycle, and helped me on.

“Hold on tight,” he said, turning halfway around and grabbing my hands, wrapping them around his waist. “Gotta hurry. Can’t make those cubs wait, right?”

I was glad for the wind going through my hair, partially because it felt really awesome to blast along a deserted road at a speed well above a reasonable rate.

But really? I was glad because it dried the tears before they could hit my shirt.

––––––––

I
f having Orion show up and sweep me off my feet was a weird way to start a morning, the way he reacted to a room full of squealing cubs pushed me one step further over the line into surreal.

“I am... I’m kinda dumbfounded,” Malia said. “I didn’t expect him to be totally terrible at this, but I really didn’t expect...
this
.”

“Aaaah!” Orion shouted, grabbing Millie out of the air and swinging her around and onto his shoulders for what must be the eight hundredth time since we showed up about three hours before.

At first, I had tried to be my normal, controlled, calm, schedule-observing, type-a self, but the whole pack was so excited it felt like I was fighting gravity. Orion hung out on the fringes of the room for a few minutes, but when Millie walked in fifteen minutes after we got there, that whole plan went to hell.

Orion met her parents, acting very humble and reserved, but after they left, the giant bear really came to life.

She saw him, she screamed, and she ran at him, burying her head in his stomach and wrapping her little arms around his waist as best she could. For a while, she was understandably weeping – after all, this guy
did
save her and me from being impaled by a tree – but then out of nowhere, I turned around to see her and Leena Lee crawling all over him.

“How did I not notice this thing before?” Malia said, as we watched Orion wear out yet another cub. He’d managed to roughhouse the panda triplets, the raccoon twins, Leena and just then, Millie, into a nap.

If there’s one thing that makes me count a day as successful, it’s a day where all the little ones take a nap. Those days are also about as rare as a unicorn. Well, as rare as a unicorn anywhere except Jamesburg, anyway.

“It’s... oh, this,” I said, not really wanting to have a long sit down discussion about the intricacies of my dumb love life. At least not right now, not without a
real
big glass of wine or two.

“You’re beaming,” she said.

So I was. Oops.

“So, what happened, you naughty thing?” she was giggling and I was blushing. “That big, sexy hunk of a bear showed up to get you this morning and you gave in to his seductive wiles?”

I mean, yeah, that
is
sort of what happened, but not in the way she was insinuating. “No,” I said. “Well, kind of. But not like that!”

Malia curled her mouth into a mischievous smile. “Uh-huh,” she said, flatly, putting a hand on one hip and turning one of her feet sideways. “You guys want to double?”

“Whoa, whoa, you’re already throwing a mate-swap invitation my way? Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”

It was Malia’s turn to blush and giggle uncontrollably. “I mean, not that I’d
mind
, exactly,” she said, loudly enough to make sure Dean heard. He shot her a nasty, playful glance. “No! Double date. We’ve been meaning to find some more couple friends, and, well, this one just sorta fell into my lap. I mean, we already do everything together anyway.”

Yeah
, I thought.
And now I won’t feel like an awkward third wheel.

Everything was just falling into place, somehow. Except for the part about me not actually being his mate. But the fact that I didn’t say anything to correct her assumption spoke a whole lot of words without any actual talking.

I watched Orion lay Millie down on the napping pallet. Immediately, she crawled over to Leena and the two of them instinctively curled up in a pile, snoring as bear hair appeared on their arms.

“She’s been doing that thing where she was valiantly refusing to fall asleep for like ten minutes,” Orion said, coming over to us and noticing the way Malia was looking at him. “What?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

She shook her head. “I invited you two out for a double date but for some reason, your girlfriend thought I was inviting you to a mate swap.”

Orion scratched his head, obviously confused.

“Uh, wait just a second with all that,” I said, pulling Orion to the side. “She thinks we, uh, well, she thinks we’re mated already.”

A grin spread across Orion’s face. The gesture even seemed alien to him, like he hadn’t smiled or laughed, or much of anything except looked real grim for a very long time.

“What?” I asked. “What’s that look for. I expected you to be irritated.”

“Irritated? Why on earth would I be mad? The whole morning I’ve been planning my approach, trying to figure out how best to woo you and make you fall in love with me, and now I don’t have to bother. Seems pretty much a win-win to me. Well, for me anyway.”

I watched his face, studying it for any sign that he was joking or maybe a clue that he was actually serious. But those stormy, beautiful, striking eyes gave nothing away.

Then he barked a laugh.
A laugh!
This was just about a hundred percent turnaround in half a day. From brooding, to laughing at my embarrassment. “Are you okay?” I asked. “Sounds like you caught a cold.”

He laughed again, a booming, round sound coming out of his huge chest. Orion’s deep, powerful voice resonated through my bones, even though he wasn’t laughing
loudly
, he was laughing honestly.

It didn’t take long before the infection caught. Like in a movie when the cast starts cracking up and it’s so funny they just leave it in, Dean looked over, and furrowed his brow. He had no idea what was going on, but listening to Orion got him going. And then it spread to Malia, who was well aware of what she’d done, so she doubled over laughing so hard she started turning purple.

Watching my best friend turn into a grape Popsicle got me right in the stomach. Watching Orion smile, watching him laugh, warmed me all the way through. All the pain, all the fear he’d obviously felt and buried, right in that moment it didn’t seem to matter so much. When I told him to come play with the kids for a day, I had no idea I was giving all that agony an outlet.

He’s a killer
, I thought.
Or at least a fighter. He’s a warrior, an enforcer. What am I doing here? Why am I fighting to heal this man’s heart?

Watching him though, I didn’t see any of that. There wasn’t a shred of violent brutality in his body, at least not that I’d ever seen. But I had to face the reality that there was a shadowy, dark side to this man who I’d accidentally let into my heart. He was going all red in the face, and something about watching him apparently learn to laugh again, it made me feel safe, like all his talk about fate and all that was really... true? Could it be?

I’ve never been one to think about things like that. For me, life is pretty much just what it is. Good things happen, bad shit happens, sometimes even worse shit happens, and then it all turns back around.

But now? With him? I wasn’t so sure. With Liam it was every day at a time. Some days were bad, some were good, some were great, but it never,
ever
felt like this. Dean and Liam had never gotten along, and he thought Malia was a dumb space-case. I could have cried watching Dean and Orion lean on each other, propping one another up to keep from falling over they were both laughing so hard.

Was this it? Was it really like he said? Had I somehow, against all odds, wandered into a man who was going to love me the way I’d always been told I deserved to be loved? It was all so unbelievable, all so incredible, and then once again, the fear clenched me. The fear that said it was too much, too soon, that it was too good to be true.

After a long time with a lot of laughter, everyone started to calm down. Orion was the first one to speak, which surprised me – although nothing should have at that point, to be honest.

“So,” Orion said, casually throwing his arm around my shoulder. “Mini-golf at eight?”

I stared at him, not really know what to say or what to do.

Turns out? Sometimes,
nothing
is the best thing to say.

*

A
garbled, almost incomprehensible text message from my bear quasi-boyfriend informed me that he was either going spelunking on Mars, or would be by to pick me up at seven. It was an hour early for our double, but am I really going to complain about spending an extra hour with a perfect man who is so perfect he won’t even kiss me without permission? With a guy who’s body was so gorgeous that every time I saw him the first thing on my mind was how awesome it’d be to wrap my long, lean legs around that waist and...