Beary Merry Winter: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Shifter Seasons Book 1) (4 page)

“Oh, do you always carry around extra ugly Christmas sweaters?”

“You can never have too many ugly Christmas sweaters, and this one has its charm,” I snickered. “Wait here, I’ll go get it.”

Zane gave me a bemused expression. “Alrighty, then.”

I chuckled inwardly as I turned to head for the door. Bad boy Zane wouldn’t look like such a hottie in the silly snowman sweater. But then I remembered where I’d parked. Even the prospect of seeing Zane in the silly sweater was not worth walking back to my car to get it.

“Shit, I forgot I had to park the car a couple blocks away, Zane. It’s killer walking in these heels.”

“That’s no problem, I’ll carry you there.”

“Carry me?”

Before I had a chance to protest, Zane picked me up and scooted me out the front door. He lifted me as if I was light as a feather.

“God, you’re strong.” I really didn’t want to boost Zane’s ego. I was sure he was already pumped up enough, but the words just slipped out. I couldn’t believe how easily he was carrying me.

“It’s one of the perks of being a shifter. Of course, when I’m in my bear, I’m stronger and faster.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, I can lift over a thousand pounds in my bear and I can run twice as fast.”

I looked at Zane. He didn’t sound like he was bragging, just stating the facts.

“Let me show you. Where’s your car?”

I pointed in the direction of where my car was.

“I’ll take you the rest of the way in my bear.”

Before I had a chance to say anything, Zane put me gently on the street. My eyes widened as his body started to grow and he burst out of his clothes. I saw flashes of skin, bones elongating, fur emerging, and then suddenly a massive, hairy grizzly bear was in front of me.

“Oh my God!” I stepped back and almost tripped on the curb.

Zane let out a low growl, and in a flash he was behind me, preventing me from falling. He lifted me up with one paw, grabbed his clothes with another, and ran with me down the street. In seconds we were at my car, and Zane placed me back down on the ground.

Zane’s back was to me as he transitioned from his bear back into his man. Despite the shock I felt, I couldn’t help but admire his firm, solid ass as he yanked his jeans on. I wondered what the view looked like from the front.

Zane turned around. His jeans were covering his lower half, but his chest was muscular and ripped. Despite the cool winter air and his lack of clothing, he looked totally comfortable.

I tried to calm myself by making small talk. Here I was behind a deserted building at night with a half-naked bear shifter. It was frightening and exciting at the same time.

Zane could see I was nervous, and he asked me about my work. We chatted a little about his band, the Hogwashers, and his move to Nashville. When I was feeling calmer, I reached in the car and pulled out the snowman sweater. Zane seemed so nice. I almost felt bad…almost. I held it out to him.

“So, you would have me wear this?” Zane asked, staring down at the sweater.

“Uh huh.”

He winced, but then he looked at me and grinned. I had to admit he was a good sport.

“It’s pretty bad. But heck, if you want me to, I’ll wear it…but there’s one condition.”

“What?”

“If I have to wear the ugly sweater I want to wear your lips first. Give me a kiss.”

Without asking, he wrapped his arms around my waist. He pressed my body next to his and kissed me, a long, hard kiss that made me dizzy and sent butterflies through my stomach. It felt so good. Maybe, maybe this could work. Maybe I could have a relationship…a thousand thoughts ran through my head.

But then, his voice grew low and throaty. “I want to fuck you.”

I yanked my body away from his. Here I was, thinking he was a nice guy. No, he was a player like the rest of them. He just wanted one thing—to get his rocks off.

And suddenly, something clicked in my brain. Men like him used women for sex. Why not reverse it this time? Why not use him too? Not to get off, but to make a baby. I mean, maybe it wasn’t the perfect scenario, but he would never have to know. In order to make a baby, I was going to have to have sex with a man. Why not this one? I mean yeah, I would much prefer to have sex with a guy that I loved and that loved me, but how horrible could it be having sex with this buff, handsome man, when I knew that a baby could be the result? Just how bad could it possibly be?

I cleared my throat. “Fine.”

Zane’s eyes widened. “Fine?”

“You heard me. I said fine.”

“Well, um...”

“You sound surprised?” Geez, I could hardly believe my cockiness. There had to be
something
to that ‘baby maker potion’.

“Well, I didn’t think you were going to say yes.” Zane’s normal self-assured look was replaced with confusion.

“Oh, well then why did you ask?” What was he saying—that he suddenly didn’t want to have sex with me? “So, you don’t want to have sex?”

“No, no, I want to—very much,” Zane grinned. “So, where do you want to go—my place, your place…a hotel?”

“Why not right here?” I asked, surprising myself with my own brazenness. It was dark and isolated where the car was parked. There was no one around. Why not just do it and get it done?  That’s what he needed to get his rocks off, and that’s all I needed to have a chance at making a baby.

Zane raised his brows. “Here? Are you sure? Well, ok then…”

If he was surprised at first, he sure got used to the idea quickly.

“I guess we should get in the back seat.” I started to open the door to the back of the car, but Zane put his big hand on top of mine to stop me.

“Let me adjust the front seats first,” Zane said. He climbed into the car and adjusted the front passenger and driver seats so they were as far forward as they could go. “There that makes the back seat so roomy. It’s nice and comfy now,” he said, stepping back out of the car.

It was obvious this was not Zane’s first rodeo.

“Okay, well let me put this on it.” I grabbed a folded blanket I kept in the car and draped it over the back seats.

“Cute,” Zane said, motioning at the ladybug print.

I stood outside the car next to Zane, staring down at the blanket for a moment. Was I supposed to just lie down on it?

“Come ‘ere,” Zane said huskily. He wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned his body against mine so I was pressing against the back of the car near the open rear door.

I felt a little shiver race down my spine. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this.

Zane ran his mouth along my neck. Surprisingly, for such a big man, his lips were soft and tender. Little butterflies chased one another in my tummy as he caressed my skin.

“Mmmm, you smell good Anne.”

I had to admit he smelled pretty damn good himself. He had a musky, earthy, woodsy smell.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and lightly returned his kisses. Initially, I’d planned to keep this all very clinical and exchange as little physical contact as I could. But really, if I was going to do it, I may as well go all in and enjoy it. After all, I reasoned, the more relaxed I was, the better my chance of conceiving.

“You feel a little warm. How about we take this Christmas sweater off of you?” Zane asked throatily.

“What, you don’t like my pelicans?” I joked nervously.

“I like what’s underneath much better.” Zane reached his hands under my sweater, and when I didn’t protest, he lifted it up and over my head and tossed it in the car. 

My tank was sticking to my skin, but that didn’t seem to bother Zane.

“So sweet,” he massaged my breasts over my tank. “Do you mind?”

I shook my head as he pulled my tank off. Pitching it on the car seat, he buried his lips on my breasts. He swirled them around his mouth, paying extra attention to the tips.

My nipples perked up and goosebumps shimmied across my skin.

“Mmmmmm, you are so verrrrry delicious.” He slithered his tongue along the top of my breast to my collarbone.

His words and that hard working mouth of his sent a jolt of excitement through my spine.

While Zane’s tongue was working my top half, his eager hands roamed their way down my belly. He pulled the zipper down on my slacks, paused for a moment, and looked at me, his dark eyes flashing.

“You ok with this?”

I nodded, shivering. I’m not sure what he would have done or said if I’d said no. I could smell the primal animal within him and I knew he was too far gone in his urge to pull back.

Zane yanked my pants the rest of the way down and I stepped out of them. All that was left between me, the breeze, and Zane’s roaming hands was a tiny pair of pink panties and my high heels. Oh, hell yeah, I was doing ok… I couldn’t believe I was outside, practically naked, and in minutes I was pretty sure I was going to be feeling this man deep inside of me.

Zane put his fingers between my legs and gently rubbed the area through my panties. “I love feeling you. I need more of you
now,
” he groaned softly. 

I steeled myself, almost salivating with lust and the sheer wanton need of what was to come.

He pushed me into the rear of the car so my legs were splayed open and I was leaning back on the seats. I watched, wide eyed, as he unzipped his jeans letting them drop to the ground. I could see his bulge pressing against his boxers and I knew all the rumors I’d heard about shifters were true. Even without seeing it, I could tell he had an enormous cock.

Zane climbed in the car and leaned towards me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. His mouth eagerly sought my lips as his other hand moved down my thighs.

“That feels so good,” I managed to whisper as his hand moved from circling the flesh of my inner thigh up to my breasts and back down again. The feel of his hands on my body set me on fire.

I extended my high-heeled foot so it rested on the back of the driver’s seat and bent the other towards the rear view window. Now I really was totally open and ready for Zane’s seed.

Zane zeroed in on my pussy, his fingers gently pulling my mesh panties aside as he rubbed my folds. He dipped several fingers inside me.

“You’re so wet and juicy,” he groaned. Then he moved his hand to my lips, pushing his sticky fingers in.

I licked his fingers, one by one, then hungrily sought out his lips.

Zane kissed me deeply and moved his hand down my leg. He moved his lips away from my mouth and down to my thigh, kissing it. Lifting my foot off the driver’s seat he licked my toes, then licked back up my leg and down again, caressing my calves.

My nipples were turgid and I could do nothing but lie there and pant as the nerve endings in my toes shot up to my brain and back down to my groin.

“Push your legs back.” Zane bent my knees and pressed my legs backward towards my neck.

As I pulled my legs back over my head, Zane pulled my panties up and almost off. They were dangling over the edge of my foot.

“God, I want you.” Moving one of his legs outside of the car, he hunched down in front of me. With a growl, his muscular arms held my thighs back and open as he dove into my pussy with his tongue. The bear man was relentless as his tongue worked me thoroughly.

“It’s so damn good!” My pussy was throbbing and I grabbed tufts of his hair to quell the pressure as it swept over me.

As he licked and licked his animal was coming out with a vengeance and I steeled myself, anticipating with lust and sheer desire what was to come.

Right when I was on the verge of exploding, Zane shifted away from me and pulled off his boxers. His cock was huge! He repositioned himself so he was directly on top of me, one leg outside the car, his other leg bent towards me.

“Oh God!” I moaned with pleasure as his thick shaft found its way inside my wanting pussy.

There was no holding back. He plunged in deep, his rock hard dick filling me to the brim. He pummeled me with long, fast, deep strokes.

“You’re so fucking tight,” Zane groaned. “I can’t take it.”

“Oh God I want you so bad, fuck me!” I screamed. “Fuck me, fuck me!”

“I’m coming,” Zane’s face was tight as the intensity of his orgasm washed over him. I could feel his sticky baby making cum filling me and creaming my thighs. Yes! This is exactly what I wanted.

And then I had to let go. All the pressure and intensity had built to the point where I couldn’t hold back any longer. I screamed as I orgasmed. But then I felt it. An intense, piercing pain in my neck, and I screamed even louder.

Zane bit me! That fucktard bear man bit me!

Pregnant. I was pregnant. I still couldn’t believe it. But a few days after having sex with Zane, I’d just had this feeling something was different. I purchased pregnancy test strips at the drugstore. I repeated the test multiple times just to be sure, and every time I’d gotten the same results. I was going to have a baby. I was shocked, but excited all at once. Just one time with Zane—that’s all it took…and now I was pregnant. Though I wanted to scream it from the rooftops, I knew I needed to keep it low key. But I’d known I was pregnant for a couple days now and I couldn’t keep it a secret anymore. I just had to tell someone, and I trusted Susie.

As Susie and I cleaned the glass on the jewelry cases at Courtland’s, I decided now was the time. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to tell her I was pregnant and she was going to be the Godmother!

“So, umm, Zane and I got a little friendly at Janet’s party.”

“Got a little friendly? Yeah, I saw the two of you making googly eyes at each other, like you could eat each other with a spoon.”

“Well, we, ah, got friendlier…”

“What do you mean ‘friendlier?’ What did you do?” Susie eyed me, her pretty blue eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“Well, we went to my car to get the ugly Christmas sweater for him to wear.”

“Right…I remember seeing him scoop you up and take you out the door the night of the party. I thought about making sure you were ok but I could see from your face you were into him and I didn’t want to disrupt the mood,” Susie grinned.

“So we, ah…we went to my car and we…well we…”

“No!”

“Yeah, we did…”

“You didn’t…outside in the cold!” Susie exclaimed.

“Yeah.”

Susie’s eyes bulged in disbelief. “You…you had sex with Zane Harlan in your car?”

I nodded. “Yeah…the passenger seat,” I swallowed as I remembered his hot touch and how my body ached to feel it again. 

“But that’s so not you.”

“I know. It was crazy…just a really wild night.” I reached up to touch my neck. Though it had been over a week since Janet’s party, the flesh was still tender where Zane had the nerve to bite me.

“I’ll say. I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me before.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, I think I was in shock myself, and besides, it hasn’t been that long since the party.”

Susie shook her head. “I can’t believe it. You’re usually well…well, a bit of a prude,” she wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.”

“I know I am, I know! It was the potion,” I said.

“You mean the potion from Serena’s Gifts and Treasures?” Susie’s forehead creased. “You used the ‘baby maker potion’?”

I lowered my eyes. “I couldn’t resist trying it.”

“And you didn’t tell me!”

“I didn’t believe you when you said it would work…but it did! Susie, the potion really worked.” I was normally a shy, quiet person, but the night of Janet’s party, I barely recognized myself. I had sex with a guy I barely knew and in a car no less. Admittedly, the guy was hot as hell and the area was deserted, but still—that was just not me. I really, really wanted a baby, but even so, it wasn’t like me to do what I did. There
had
to be something in the potion that affected me like that.

Susie grimaced. “Ugh, I hate to tell you Anne, but, um, it uh, it wasn’t the potion making you act like that.”

“Of course it was. It must have that pheromone stuff in it you were talking about. And Susie…it worked!”

“It worked?”

“Yes, it worked!” I tapped my stomach.

“Oh my God! You’re pregnant!” Susie grabbed me and gave me a long hug. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you,” I said softly. “So you see, that potion worked! It did something to my brain and my body to make me do what it took to have a baby.”

“Well, I’m happy that you got what you wanted,” Susie tapped her chin. “But it wasn’t the potion that affected you. It was Zane...and it’s no wonder. He’s quite the hunk.”

“So how do you know it wasn’t the potion?”

“Well, yesterday I went over to Serena’s Gifts and Treasures. I was going to take back the ‘baby maker potion’ and exchange it for the ‘get rich’ one.

“Okay...”

“But the store had a closed sign on it even though it was the middle of the day.”

“So, maybe she went on lunch break or had to run an errand?”

Susie shook her head. “There was a news crew near the door, so I asked them what was going on. They were doing some kind of investigative reporting into the potions she was selling. One of the station managers had bought one, had it analyzed, and found out it wasn’t anything special. He’d sent out a team to ask her why she was ripping people off. When I got there, they’d just finished interviewing her, and…”

“What’s in the vials?”

“It’s, umm,” Susie grimaced, “it’s blue food coloring in water.”

“Oh my God! I knew it was all bull crap!”

“Well,” Susie gave a light tap to my tummy, “is it? You’ve got a baby in your belly, after all. So when are you going to tell Zane?”

“I’m not.” I felt stupid. It wasn’t the damn potion that made me feel so free the night of my encounter with Zane…it was my sexual desires raging out of control.

“What?! You’re not going to tell him! Don’t you think he has a right to know?”

“Susie, this was all my doing. It was something I wanted. I plan to raise this child by myself and do a damn good job of it.”

Susie shook her head. “Well, I don’t think it’s right not to tell him.”

“You better not say anything!” Susie had a tendency to blurt things out and I really didn’t want Zane to know. Thankfully, Zane had disappeared after our heated night together. I hadn’t heard from him at all.

“Anyway, he’s probably boinking some other chick right now. I haven’t seen or heard from him since the party.” Of course I should have been happy. After all, I had just been looking for a sperm donor, but in a way it hurt a little that he hadn’t called me.

“You haven’t heard from him?” Susie said, widening her eyes. “When I saw the two of you talking at Janet’s party he seemed so into you.

“Right, but that was before we had sex. Men only want one thing. He got what he wanted and moved on. I’m not interested in him anyway.” Zane was just another user loser like the rest of them.

“Hmmm, well I guess that means you don’t want to wait on him?”

“Huh?” I followed Susie’s gaze to the front store window to see Zane outside.

“Why is he coming in? Didn’t he already get a ring for his mom?” I asked, frowning.

“Duh, he’s coming in to see you, of course.”

“Shit! Well, I am going to go to the back and just make myself scarce if you don’t mind.”

“Go, go,” Susie waved me off. “I’ll take care of him.”

I walked briskly to the back of the jewelry store. No way did I want to see Zane. But as I neared the back office, I turned around. Why should I hide away? I was sure I would run into Zane off and on in our social circle now that he’d attended one of Janet’s parties…there would be others he’d be invited to also. May as well face the music and act polite like it was just any other one-night stand. And if he ever saw me pregnant—he would never have to know it as his.

Susie’s brows shot up as I walked back. “Changed your mind, huh?”

“You take care of his business. It’s really too busy this time of year to just leave you alone on the floor.” Sam, our boss, was out for an essential doctor’s appointment so it was only the two of us. “Just tell him I’m busy working on orders for other customers.”

As I said the words, the door to the shop opened and Zane walked in. I felt my heart flutter as I looked at him—he was so handsome. However, today he looked tired. I busied myself behind a jewelry case and pretended not to notice him.

Susie walked quickly over to him. “Zane, it is good to see you again. What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to Anne,” Zane looked over at me. “Anne, could you give me a few minutes? I…I really need to talk to you.”

My heart started to race. Despite my decision to use Zane strictly as a sperm donor—and why not when I knew he was using me—I had to admit I found him very attractive. I’d enjoyed the time we’d spent talking and more than enjoyed the time we’d spent in the car. He looked so forlorn.

“Of course, Zane, what do you need?”

“Can we talk in private, if you don’t mind?”

I was afraid, afraid to be alone with him, afraid of what I would do…how I would act.

“Please, Anne?”

I rubbed my neck and deliberately stroked my finger quickly along the side. “I don’t need anymore bite marks. Susie’s a friend. You can just say what you need to say in front of her.”

Zane let out a sigh. “Alright, Anne, I…I’ve been trying to stay away. You made it pretty clear you were just into the sex. But I want you…”

I gasped. “
I
was all about the sex?!”

Zane nodded. “Well, you made it pretty apparent what you were after.”

Oh, if he only really knew that I had been looking for a sperm donor and not sex. Well, I wasn’t about to tell him that. I rolled my eyes. “You bit me, Zane. You fucked the hell out of me and then bit me!”