Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (30 page)

“Oh hey!” I giggled. “Watch where those hands are going! Hurt or not, fresh is still fresh.” He smiled and poked my cheek where my left dimple popped up, but only when I was
really
serious about smiling.

“Tell me,” he said. “What’s got you twisted up?”

I didn’t want to. I really, really, didn’t want to tell him that I was a dumb girl in love with a guy I screwed up a relationship with. Especially not with him hurt this badly. I fought it with every shred of willpower in me, but then it all came out anyway.

What a surprise. Me with my heart on my sleeve, even when I thought I was
so good
at being guarded and closed off. Well, maybe with anyone else, sure, but not with Damon.

“How do you continually make me admit things that I’d never admit to anyone else?” I asked, absently stroking the side of his neck with two fingers.

“Would you accept ‘werewolf magic’ as an answer?”

Damon’s smile, I thought with a giggle, needed to be licensed as a lethal weapon.
God, those cheeks!
I wanted him so bad to grab me in his big arms and squeeze me and kiss me and ravish every inch of me with affection. I wanted him to kiss
all
over me, throw me against the wall and have his way with me, I – really needed to calm down.

“Remember,” I said, desperate for something to break the tension between us, “when you forced me to leave the house and go to the sophomore prom?”

A smile danced across Damon’s face. “It was the least I could do. You were so upset about your parents, watching you hurt just killed me.”

“It was just so sweet... you brought me those lilies because you’re a cornball and you had that dress I bought right before my meltdown. I’d never had anyone do anything like that for me before you.”

“You have no idea how much it hurt when you left. I deserved it though.” He looked away for a moment. “I mean, I never blamed you. I know it was my...”

I touched his lips with my fingertip. For a moment, we just stared at each other. The flush on my cheeks was painfully obvious, but luckily it’s hard to see blush in a cave light only with a campfire.

“Anyway,” Damon whispered, breaking the silence. “What’s bothering you?”

Playfully, I shook my head. “I’m learning to believe a whole lot of wild stories, but I think that might be stretching it even for my newly open mind about all this Fox Mulder stuff.”

“Who’s that?”

I laughed a little. “Not much for 90s television?”

Damon twirled a lock of my hair around his finger, pulling just a little. That little tug sent a thrill creeping down my back. I needed him to get this all over with, no matter how embarrassing it was to admit, or I’d be the world’s biggest mess.

“You’re not going to get out of this, pretty lady.” Damon pursed his ruby red lips and kissed me right in the sensitive spot behind my ear.

I could have straight up died. The ache between my legs had me so hot that I was a vaguely afraid of jumping his bones and breaking this giant of a man in two with over-eagerness.

“Talk,” he whispered into my ear then sucked my earlobe gently, clipping his teeth together when he pulled away. “Or I’ll torture you until you
do
.”

I purred. I
never
purr.

“I bet you would. But are you sure that’s a good idea with you all busted up?”

Damon let out a loud laugh, followed immediately after by a groan and a wheeze. “Oh God, yeah probably not. I can still tease you though, right?”

The last time you lost me it was because you wouldn’t even go that far. Or was it me?

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Is the only reason I’m here because I have to be? For... destiny or whatever it is? Or is it because you actually want me here? You can be honest. I’d rather know the truth now than have it come out later when—”

He kissed the question right off my lips. With his tongue slowly exploring my lips, then diving down and running behind them, there was nothing I could do. I was utterly, completely powerless to this man, and even if he didn’t know it, I sure as shit did.

“Damon,” I said softly, “I... I don’t know why I gave you up the first time.”

“Because I was scared of going too fast. I was afraid that if I really fell for you, and we did all this stuff back then, that I’d become, well, this.” He gestured down his body, indicating the thicker-than-normal hair on his muscled legs.

“Poko says you’re going to be in control of it,” I replied. “He says that once you go through the big transformation ordeal, you’ll be able to shift back and forth and that’s how you’re supposed to,” I swallowed my words before I said ‘fight Devin’ because I really just didn’t want to admit that reality to myself.

Damon shook his head, taking a second to kiss me again before he did. “I just don’t know. But back then, I was really scared. I didn’t have anything to go on. My dad told me some stories, and then just kinda left me to figure it out on my own.”

I opened my mouth to protest, which Damon stopped with another deep, sweet kiss.

“He didn’t do anything wrong. That’s how my people work. They raise me, and then they give me over to the elder. Poko told you all that stuff though. I’m not sore at my dad or anything. Anyway, that’s not what we were talking about. We were discussing you, I think?”

His fingers curling against the back of my head was just so comfortable, so right. I never wanted him to stop.

“I just,” I trailed off, massaging his shoulder. “I don’t want to ruin it again. I’ve got you, and I think that’s what I want.”

“You’ve got me, yeah,” he said softly. “Can I admit something to
you
?”

I ran my fingertip along the razor-thin scar that stretched almost all the way between Damon’s eye and his top lip. “Anything.”

“I thought you were going to leave.”

“Why would I –”

He put up a hand. “You seemed spooked by that whole fated destiny, soul-mate business, and I couldn’t blame you if you were. When I went berserk, or well, one of the times I went berserk, I was panicked. I thought for sure there was no way you’d stick around. And you know what? I wouldn’t go after you.”

“But Damon,” I protested, “if what Poko says is true, that’d be the same as dooming yourself to these uncertainties, to shifting back and forth and all that. Why would you endure that kind of torture?”

Damon let his hand fall from the side of my face to his shoulder, and he pulled me close against his chest. “Because I would never hurt you Lily, not even if it meant losing my humanity. I’d rather live in the constant agony of waking up cut to pieces and not remembering what I’d done or where I was than cause you a moment of pain.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but my breath and my voice caught in my throat.

Finally, I answered. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Then don’t say anything.” He stroked my hair, tucking it behind my ear and kissing my cheek before turning my face to his and staring straight into my soul. “You don’t have to say anything. I’ve always loved you, Lily. From the second I saw you when I moved here, I knew I’d either have you or I’d have no one at all. This whole werewolf business just got in the way.”

Kissing his lips, then his chin, I rested my head against his chest. “Only you, Damon King,” I said smiling.

“Only me what?”

“Only you could be casual and flippant, and somehow unbearably sexy when you talk about turning into a wolf. And one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“The only reason I
didn’t
run?”

I twisted in his arms, turning to face him. I drank in his eyes, his face. I wanted to remember every single detail.

“Is because it’s you.”

Special excerpts from some of MY favorite authors.

H
e's the big bad Alpha husband she never wanted. She's a sharp tongued tigress with really dangerous curves.

Laura Hisch can't believe she's marrying him. 
Him!

She's not cut out for the brutish, tough talking, tattooed head of the Denali werebear clan. If only she wasn't bound by a pesky old treaty with an arranged marriage clause...

One look at the voluptuous lady from Tiger Bay drives James Roark insane. Obsession, passion, and hunger only have one cure. He's got to make the sweet stubborn werecat at the altar his wife for real.

If only he knew marriage is just a ruse for her real mission. Get close to him, find his weakness, and then give Tiger Bay everything it needs to drive the bears away once and for all.

Easy, right? Wrong. Yielding her heart to this bad boy means betrayal, and either James or her clan are going to pay big time.

Will James turn a sham marriage into something beautiful - or will loving Laura lead to all out war? And if that's not complicated enough, there's a jealous female werebear standing by to make sure these fated mates never become one.

Note: This BBW shifter romance is packed with love, betrayal, and language wilder than a tiger-bear brawl! Curl up with something comfortable and furry. These fated mates have got a long, stormy road ahead...

H
ow can you fall in love with the shifter you've been sent to kill?

Wren and Chief were the youngest, most talented shifter assassins at the secret Center for Shifter Elimination. But after a panic-botched job on a wolf shapeshifter, Wren quits. Chief can put down any other shifters out there; she's done.

Except one year later, the CSE calls again - there's a werebear shifter out there. He's killed half a dozen civilians.

And he killed Chief.

When Wren throws herself back into her work, she's looking for one thing: revenge.

She's not looking for love. Mr. Right is about to pop the question.

She's not looking for family. Her parents are doing just fine in Chicago, thank you very much.

She's not looking for a new home. She's a city girl, and Maugham is too small a town to lose yourself in. Even if the hunky park ranger DOES walk around shirtless...

But things you're not looking for have a tendency to sneak up on you, in the worst possible way. And as Wren steps closer to the truth, the small town harboring a dark secret waits... and watches...

With everything to lose, Wren races to find the werebear before it kills again. But what she doesn't know can hurt her... and her next job will be her last.

This is a standalone shifter romance novel with explicit sexual content - for mature audiences only!!!

Did you love
Bearly Breathing (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)
? Then you should read
Bearing It All (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance)
by Lynn Red!

From USA TODAY best-selling author Anya Karin writing as Lynn Red comes a steamy, seductive, hilarious and delicious alpha werebear romance.

Curvy, witty, carrot-topped Violet Larue is a fox shifter with a goal – she NEEDS to find herself a mate before she goes absolutely nuts.

After a string of bad relationships that left her heartbroken, and a bunch of dates that were more pie-in-the-face than swept-off-her-feet, Violet is just about ready to throw in the towel. She wants someone to chase her, to possess her, to make her his mate.

Somehow convinced to attend the only cage fight she’s ever seen, Violet has no idea that she’s about to lay eyes on just the bear for her.

Muscled, inked-up and one of the most dangerous fighters in the world, “Crag” Morgan is the bear of Violet’s dreams. With a dark past and an even darker present, love is nowhere near the top of Crag’s to-do list... until he’s looking around the crowd and catches a glimpse of a redhead with eyes that make his heart skip a beat.

He is everything she ever wanted. A self-assured, massively powerful alpha with a waist just perfect for wrapping her legs around? Uh, yes please! But little does Violet know that in the split second Crag spied her in the audience, she stole his heart. The bad boy fighter decided then and there to do whatever it takes to claim her... forever.

Note: THE JAMESBURG SHIFTERS is a series of standalone novels each featuring a unique hero and heroine and a satisfying HEA ending. No cliffhangers here! Books can be enjoyed in any order you like!

Read more at
Lynn Red’s site
.