Beary And Bright (Fire Bear Shifters 6) (11 page)

Ten minutes later, Carter climbed into the passenger seat next to Clara. Another extended silence fell over them as Clara turned the car in the direction of the cabin. Carter noticed a clanking sound coming from under the hood, which he didn’t remember noticing the night before.

“Did your car just start making that noise?” he asked.

“That clanking? No, it’s been doing that for a month now. I have no idea what it is, and I don’t really have money to take it to a shop.”

“You know that just ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away, right?” Carter said.

Clara sighed, not looking at him. “I know.”

“I can take a look at it, if you want,” Carter said.

“Really? That would be awesome.”

“Sure. I can’t promise I can find the problem, but I can try. I know a little bit about cars, and I have a few ideas about what might be causing that.”

Clara looked immensely relieved, and Carter realized that she had probably been trying and failing to push the worry of the car noise out of her mind. He had a feeling that any of the smokejumpers could have helped her with it, but that she was too proud to ask. Clara seemed like the kind of girl who preferred not to admit it when she needed help.

“So, what’s your deal?” he asked her, before he could think better of it. “You move from Alaska to California by yourself, and just randomly settle down in Red Valley?”

“It wasn’t random, exactly,” she said. “I needed to get out of Alaska, because clan wars there had destroyed my chance of a peaceful life. I was planning to go to Los Angeles, but my car broke down in Red Valley. Not this car. A different one. Repairing it would have cost a fortune, which I didn’t have at the time. Still don’t actually. But, anyway, I decided to stay here and work until I had enough money to keep heading on toward Los Angeles. Then I scrapped my plans for Los Angeles when I met the smokejumping crew, and became friends with them. I have no reason to leave at this point.”

“Must be nice to have such a big group of friends,” Carter said, wistfully.

“It is,” Clara agreed, then glanced over at Carter. “You say that like you don’t have that.”

Carter snorted. “No, I definitely don’t. I lost all of my friends years ago to a bad breakup. They all took her side, for the most part. And I lost touch with the few friends I had left when my construction business started taking off. I just got too busy. My fault, I guess.”

Carter glanced over at Clara and saw her frowning.

“Well, there’s no reason you can’t be friends with the smokejumpers. Now that you know about shifting, and are accepting of it, they’ll be happy to have you around.”

“And what about you?” Carter asked, his voice turning serious. “Will you be happy to have me around?”

“Yes,” Clara said, staring straight ahead at the road in front of her. “Do you think I would have rescued you if I didn’t want you around?”

Carter shrugged and tried to look nonchalant, although his heart started racing again at her words. He felt like the pounding in his chest was so loud and fast that Clara must be able to hear it, but she continued to stare straight ahead. If she did notice anything out of the ordinary about Carter’s demeanor, she didn’t acknowledge it.

“How did you know where I was?” Carter asked. “And more importantly, how did you know I was in trouble.”

Clara sighed, although she still didn’t glance at him. Carter didn’t necessarily blame her. She was reaching the point where the road narrowed and became curvy, so keeping an eye on her driving was probably the prudent thing to do.

“I knew something was wrong when I didn’t get a bouquet of flowers yesterday. So I went to the flower shop and found out who you were.”

Carter’s felt his cheeks turning red with embarrassment. “Oh, yeah, surprise, by the way. I’m your secret admirer.”

Clara laughed. “I guess that wasn’t quite how you envisioned your secret being revealed.”

“No, not exactly. I’m glad you discovered it was me, since it helped you find me. But I can’t believe the flower shop told you who I was. I gave them strict orders not to tell you if you asked. It was my secret.”

“I’m not sure ‘asked’ is the correct way to describe it. More like insisted and threatened. But let’s not waste time on the petty details,” Clara said, waving her hands as if to wave away a minor fact.

Carter laughed. “Okay, okay. So what happened next?”

“I looked your house up online. Stalkerish, I know, but I didn’t know how else to find you. When I got to your house, a neighbor of yours told me where you had gone to work. An old lady, with a really loud toy poodle.”

Carter couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’d be Miss Edna. She’s a trip.”

“So, long story short, I drove out to find you, was forced to turn into a bear to get the beam off of your leg, and here we are. Now I know your secret and you know mine. The end.”

Carter laughed. “It’s not that simple, though. You’re leaving details out. How did you know, just from a missing bouquet, that something was wrong? I would’ve expected you to just chalk it up to the guy getting tired of his little game, and leaving it at that.”

Clara didn’t speak for a long time, and Carter held his tongue, sensing that she had something important to say but wasn’t quite sure how to say it. When she finally did speak, she didn’t answer his question. Instead, she asked a question of her own.

“Do you still feel all of those things you wrote in the notes you sent with the bouquets? I would understand if you didn’t, now that you know that I’m a bear shifter.”

Carter reached over and put his hand on Clara’s thigh. “I still feel all of those things. I would venture to say I feel them even deeper now, that I’ve been privileged enough to see a deeper part of you. I will admit that it’s a lot to take in and understand. But knowing how unique and special you are only deepens my affection for you.”

Clara fell silent again, but Carter had a feeling that it was because she was fighting to keep her emotions in check. After several moments, he saw a single tear escape from her right eye and roll down her cheek.

“Hey, don’t cry,” he said softly, reaching up to brush away the tear.

“Sorry, it’s just that I had begun to think that no one would ever want me again. The clan wars I mentioned were pretty rough on the soul. That’s another long story for another day, but suffice it to say that it was hard for me to even find friends in Alaska, let alone a man to care about me.

“I may not understand what it’s like to go through clan wars,” Carter said. “But I understand what it’s like to be lonely and not have friends, or love. The holidays are the hardest time of year for me. I feel like everyone around me is so full of joy, and is having such a great time with their family and friends. And then here I am, by myself, with no one in my life to celebrate. Honestly, it’s why I wanted to do the bouquets for you in December. I was hoping to sweep you off your feet just in time for us to enjoy Christmas together.”

Clara had reached the cabin at this point. She pulled up next to Carter’s truck and put her car in park.

“I hate spending Christmas alone, too. But I thought I would never find a man brave enough to be with a woman who is half bear. You asked how I knew you were in danger. Well, shifters believe that we are all fated to be with one person. That person is our lifemate, and our souls are tied together. A shifter can feel the energy of his or her lifemate when that person is within a certain geographic proximity. When I didn’t get the bouquet, it set off warning bells in my soul. The feeling kept getting stronger, and I recognized it as the pull of a lifemate. I could feel that my lifemate was out there, and in trouble. The missing bouquet was just the first clue, but my heart told me the rest. I knew I had to find you, even though I didn’t know it was you at the time.”

Carter stared at Clara with wide eyes, unsure of what to say. “Wow,” he finally managed to get out. “So you feel like you’re fated to be with me?”

Clara finally looked back at him. “Yes. I know you are my lifemate. I’ve been attracted to you since the day I met you, but I pushed away the feeling because I thought you weren’t interested in me. Then, at Zach and Mindy’s wedding, I realized you were interested in me, but I thought you would never be okay with my bear side. It wasn’t until I realized you were in danger that I finally let myself experience the depths of my feelings for you.”

Carter leaned back and ran his fingers through his hair. He couldn’t deny that everything he had learned in the last twelve hours or so was a lot to process. But none of it made him change his mind about wanting to be with Clara. If anything, it made him want her more. Instead of trying to explain all of this to Clara with words, he took her face in his hands and leaned in toward her. He kissed her, with passion and urgency. He let his lips meet hers, saying with his touch the things that words could never adequately express. He wanted her. He needed her. He may have only heard the term “lifemate” a few minutes ago, but he already knew that she was his lifemate, and he was hers. They were fated to be together.

He felt himself growing hard from the heady sensation of his mouth touching hers, and he started to pull back from the kiss. He didn’t want the excitement in his groin to become too obvious. She deserved a romantic first time with him, complete with candlelight and soft music and rose petals. He would never let his passion make him forget his gentlemanly manners enough to ask her to consummate their relationship in a car in the middle of the woods.

But if he had thought Clara was one to let things like a lack of candlelight stop her from getting what she wanted, then he was about to be surprised again.

“Get in my backseat. Now,” she ordered.

“Clara, are you sure? We can pick this up when I’m back in Red Valley tonight.”

“I said,
now
,” Clara repeated, crossing her arms in feigned anger.

“Okay, okay,” he said, raising his arms in surrender. He climbed over the seats and into the backseat, and Clara followed him. As soon as they were both back there, he began kissing her again, slipping his tongue deep into her mouth. She had made it clear what she wanted, and he was going to give it to her. No more holding back.

Their tongues danced for several minutes, and Carter’s penis stood erect, rock-hard and throbbing, begging to be allowed into the beautiful woman he was holding in his arms. Clara’s skin was glowing with the faint sheen of perspiration as the heat of her excitement grew. Carter reached for her hoodie and the t-shirt underneath, pulling them up and over her head. Then he unclasped her bra, moaning as he caught his first glimpse of her two perfect breasts—full, supple, and round. Her nipples stood hard and alert, waiting for him to caress them, to lick them, to nibble on them. He did all of that and more, spending several minutes teasing each nipple, causing Clara to arch her back and beg for more of his touch.

“You want more of my touch?” he asked “I’ll give you more of my touch. How about I touch you like this?”

He slid his hand inside her yoga pants and panties, and started massaging her clitoris with his pointer finger while sticking his middle finger deep inside of her. Her moaning grew louder and more urgent, until she exploded into an orgasm around his fingers, the muscles of her vagina squeezing his hand over and over. She called out his name as the tremors continued to pass through her, and a delighted, satisfied smile pulled up the corners of her lips.

“That was amazing,” she said. “But I want more. I want that enormous dick of yours that keeps poking me to poke itself deep inside of me. Let me feel you filling me.”

Carter happily obliged her. He shimmied her yoga pants and panties down, and then pulled down his own sweatpants. There, on the backseat of her tiny car, with both of them struggling to fit but not even noticing the awkward angles their lovemaking required, Carter and Clara bonded. He lowered himself into her, feeling her moist warmth as it enveloped his penis. He slid his shaft up and down inside of her, hitting every square centimeter of her inner walls. He felt her arms wrapping around him, squeezing tighter and tighter, as she called out his name over and over, with greater urgency each time. And then he felt her exploding all around him again, this time clenching around his dick as she came for him. As soon as she came, he let himself go. With a loud cry, he released a hot stream of passion into her body, relieving the pressure that had been building in his own body with one glorious burst of heat and ecstasy.

They lay together, panting and happy. The air outside was still cool, but inside of the car it was as steamy as a tropical rainforest. When they finally disentangled themselves from each other, Clara looked over at him and gave him the most adorable shy smile.

“Are you sure you’re not a shifter?” she teased. “Because you’re definitely a bear of a man.”

Carter felt his chest swelling with pride at her words. “I may not be able to physically change into a bear, but I’m strong, and large, and I know how to treat my woman right.”

Clara’s smile widened, and then faded somewhat into a look of concern. “You don’t feel threatened, then, by the fact that your woman is a literal bear and you’re not?”

Carter laughed. “I don’t feel threatened. I feel damn proud, that’s what I feel. I like my woman to be strong and fierce. I reckon that makes you pretty much perfect for me.”