Billion Dollar Bear: BBW Paranormal Billionaire Romance (Bad Boy Alphas) (5 page)

      Jericho
smiled wryly. “Believe me, the last thing I’d want is to have to shift while on
vacation. That would be a fine mess to have to explain to the hotel staff.”

      Becca
laughed. “Good point.” She paused. “Can you shift when it’s not half-moon?”

      “Yeah, I
can, though it takes longer, and is quite painful without enough of the moon’s
strength.” He glanced up at the crescent himself. “The fuller the moon is, the
easier the shift is for us.”

      Becca
considered that for a moment. “Does that mean that even after the half-moon
passes, it’s still easier for you to shift throughout the rest of the month
until the moon wanes again?”

      “Yes.
That’s one advantage we have over our lupine brethren.”

      Becca
laughed at the smug smile on Jericho’s face. “You’re just too cute sometimes,
you know.” Surprise jolted her as the words slipped out, mirrored in Jericho’s
cobalt eyes, but then he threw back his head and laughed heartily before she
had time to regret the slip.

      “I don’t
think I can remember the last time anyone’s ever called me ‘cute’,” he said
when his chuckles had subsided. “In fact, I doubt anyone has other than my
mother, when I was still a cub.” His mirth faded a little as his eyes became
tinged with sadness.

      “Is your
mother still alive?” she asked, then winced at the intrusiveness of the
question.

      A dark
cloud seemed to pass over Jericho’s countenance, and he looked away. “No,” he
said quietly. “She died while I was still quite young.”

      “I’m so
sorry.” Becca took his hand in both of hers this time and squeezed his fingers,
wanting to comfort him. She could feel his pain as keenly as if it were her own
because… well… she had a tragedy similar to his. “My mother died before her
time as well.”

      Jericho’s
eyes filled with compassion and understanding of his own as he met hers. “Then
we have something in common there as well,” he murmured, placing his free hand
atop hers and squeezing in return.

      Warmth
rushed through her, chasing away the lingering sadness, and she drew closer as
the same desire lit in Jericho’s eyes, drawn like a moth to his cobalt-blue
flame. The air between them thickened with heat and desire as it had in the
opera house, but this time she seemed powerless to turn away. There was nothing
here to distract, no works of art or architectural marvels to draw the
attention away from the want that seemed to burn fiercely between them.

      “Has
anyone told you just how beautiful you are?” Jericho whispered, brushing a
stray curl of hair from her cheek. The warmth of his hand flowed through her
body, and her eyes fluttered as she fought not to sway into him. It was
difficult though; the heat from his body rolled off of him in waves and into
her, as enticing as the flame of his eyes.

      She met
those eyes now, reveling in the depths of desire she saw within them –
desire for her. “I’ve heard the sentiment,” she said, breathing shallowly, “but
it’s never sounded quite the way it does when you say it in that deep, sexy
voice of yours.”

      His eyes
seemed to burn even brighter at the acknowledgement that she did, in fact, find
him attractive. “‘Peaches and cream skin over a face lovingly carved by God
himself,’” he whispered, “‘And eyes dark with the promise of delicious secrets
within.’”

      Becca’s
peaches and cream cheeks bloomed read at the flowery praise. “You’re not trying
to compose a sonnet for me, are you?”

      Jericho
chuckled ruefully. “No, I’m afraid not,” he said with a sigh, his eyes losing
some of their intensity, though he did not drop her hand. “I stole those lines
from a book I was reading on an airplane.”

      “Oh
really?” Becca arched a brow, giggling. “And what kind of book would you be
reading with such… purple prose?” she asked, borrowing a term she’d heard a
writer friend once use to suggest writing characterized by excessive use of
adjectives, adverbs and metaphors to craft showy and ornate prose.

      Jericho chuckled.
“I’d forgotten to bring a book on the plane, and an elderly woman seated next
to me decided to take pity on me and lend me one of her historical romance
novels.” He’d promptly looked up the genre once he’d gotten off the plane and
his phone was in hand again, wanting to know just how many of these novels were
written and if very many women bought them. And, had found both numbers to be
astonishingly high. “Having nothing better to do, I read it.” His expression
softened as he gazed upon her again. “I have to say, the thing that’s been
throwing me for a loop ever since I caught sight of you is that you look just
like I envisioned the heroine in the book looked.”

      “Do I?”
Becca gave a startled laugh that died off as she noticed his eyes had caught
fire again. Clearing her suddenly dry throat, she straightened her shoulders,
and lifted her chin. “Do I do justice to your mental image of her?”

      “Oh, she
has nothing on you,” he said, rubbing slow, lazy circles across the back of her
hand with his thumb again. “You’re breathtaking.”

      Becca knew
it would be best to pull her hands from his, to nip this flirtatious
conversation in the bud before it went too far. But the excitement of it all
was rushing through her veins, and she couldn’t quite curb herself. “What’s she
like, your fictional heroine?”

      “Strong-willed
and sassy, with a huge streak of independence,” Jericho said, his lips curving
into a smile. “Like someone else I know.” He stroked the backs of his fingers
along the curve of her cheek.

      “Mmm,” she
said, fighting against the impulse to lean into his hand and purr like a
shameless little kitten.
If his fingers felt this good on her cheek, how
would they feel as they roamed other places?
A lick of heat stroked against
her lower abdomen at that thought, and she shivered a little. “And just what
did the hero in your story do, after he spoke those words to his strong-willed,
sassy heroine?”

      “Just
this.”

      Jericho
pressed his mouth against hers, and she gasped. His lips were warm and soft and
gently demanding as they moved over hers, coaxing the flicker of heat in her
belly into a ball of flame with just that simple touch. Eyes fluttering closed,
she swayed into his embrace, and he caught her, pressing her gently against his
chest as he continued to kiss her. The muscles beneath his shirt were
wonderfully warm and hard, and she wrapped her arms around his neck so she
could press herself more firmly against him, and soak in his heat as well as
the spicy, masculine scent that enveloped her.

      Jericho growled
as she kissed him back. It had been a bold move, taking the opening she’d so
neatly presented him, and he hadn’t been entirely sure she’d meant to offer up
her lips for the taking. But here she was, crushing her breasts against his
chest as she enveloped him with that addictive vanilla-cinnamon scent of hers,
and a fierce hunger took hold of him, a hunger that demanded he taste her, that
he possess her fully.

      The bear
within him stirred, its primal growl rumbling in his chest with encouragement.
The fact that both of his halves were in agreement with taking Becca only made
her that much more desirable to him. Ravena and the clan be damned, there was
no way he wasn’t having her at least once before he returned home.

      Even if it
meant he had to leave a part of himself behind with her when he left.

      He slid
his fingers through her silky curls so he could cup the back of her neck, then
angled her head so he could slide his tongue inside her mouth and deepen the
kiss. She offered no resistance at all, her mouth opening in a groan that spurred
him forward, and he took all that she had to give, plundering her mouth with
reckless abandon.

      Becca
clung to Jericho for dear life as he devoured her with a kiss so intensely
passionate she felt like he was laying claim to her soul. A spark of fear tried
to ignite in her chest, but it was swept away in the whirlwind of desire and
passion ripping through her, pushing aside all rational thought and doubt, and
leaving nothing behind except a raw, aching need for more. She didn’t know how
far she was prepared to go with this, but she knew that there was nothing on
earth that could make her stop, not now, not with his tongue in her mouth and
his hands in her hair.

      She leaned
her head back a little, trusting the weight of her skull to the firm hand that
still supported it, as Jericho nipped her lip and began tracing a path down her
neck with his tongue. She whimpered when his hot, wet tongue found a sweet spot
near the hollow of her throat, and he stilled. For a moment there was no
movement at all, and then he bit down and suckled on the sensitive spot,
wresting a cry from her lips.

“Jericho!”

Oh God
, Jericho thought. He’d hardly done
anything yet and she was already crying out his name. If she kept that up, it
wouldn’t be long before he ripped her jeans off and claimed her as his own. His
cock was throbbing so hard he could barely contain himself.

He licked gently at the bruise he’d made
on her peach-colored skin, and then lifted the hem of her shirt so he could
nibble at the soft skin of her abdomen. She squirmed beneath his lips,
murmuring incoherently, gasped when he dipped his tongue into her navel, then
stilled when he reached for the front clasp on her bra.

Jericho lifted his head to gaze up into
her heavy lidded eyes. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen from his kisses,
and yet… “Is something wrong?”

Becca’s heart was drumming so loudly in
her chest it was a wonder she could even hear Jericho’s voice. “I…” she
struggled to put the heavy feeling in her chest to words. “It’s just, I’ve made
it a point to avoid one-night stands my entire life. Because I don’t want to
end up like my mother.”

Jericho’s eyes darkened with
understanding and anger. “Your father… he abandoned you?”

Becca shook her head, glancing away. It
felt odd to have this conversation while they were in such an intimate
position… and yet it needed to be said. “I doubt he ever knew I existed. It was
just one foolish night, during one of my mother’s wilder episodes. And she had
no idea he was anything other than human until the first time I shifted, when I
was just six weeks old.” Becca chuckled weakly. “According to her, one moment I
was just a little baby suckling at her nipple, and the next I was a bundle of
fur and tiny claws. Freaked her the fuck out.”

Jericho shook his head. “I can’t imagine
how that must have been for her,” he said, then moved away from her, to give
her space. She felt a moment’s disappointment at the absence of his warm hard
body – a disappointment that she knew she shouldn’t feel, since she’d
essentially asked him to stop – and then he surprised her by gathering
her into his lap, and cradling her against his chest. She could still feel his
rigid cock beneath her, but other than singular expression of his lust he
seemed content to just sit there with her.

“I wish you’d had your father, or at
least someone who could teach you the ways of being a shifter,” he murmured in
her hair. “I imagine your life might have been a little bit easier then.”

      She lifted
her head and gazed into his eyes, astonished at the sincerity burning in their
cobalt depths. “It’s incredible that a shifter would even think to say such
things to me,” she murmured, brushing the back of her hand along his stubbled
jaw line. She enjoyed the rough texture against her skin.

      He gave
her a lopsided grin that simply melted her heart. “Yeah, well, I’m no ordinary shifter.”

      She kissed
him again, unable to help herself from wanting to feel those soft, sculpted
lips against his. He responded immediately, his arms banding more tightly
around her, and she lost herself in the sensations engulfing her – the
delicious warmth pouring off him and into her, the heady, addictive scent that
filled her sinuses, the current of energy that seemed to run like a live wire
beneath the skin covering his wonderfully hard muscles.

      Jericho
groaned aloud as Becca shifted in his lap, her thighs moving apart, and
bringing her heated core into direct contact with the bulge straining against
his zipper.
Christ, he wanted her,
and he could tell she wanted him by
the heady scent of arousal wafting from her. But just because her body was
crying out for him didn’t mean her mind was ready to follow just yet.

      And
besides, she was wise to worry about pregnancy. It would be an utter
catastrophe for him to return home and mate with Ravena, only to discover that
Becca was carrying his child. Yet even that horrific thought wasn’t enough to
purge the burning lust from his body.
There had to be a way…

      “Let me
please you,” he rasped hoarsely against her mouth.

      Jericho’s
husky words barely penetrated the cloud of lust fogging up Becca’s mind. “Huh?”
she said blankly.

      “We don’t
have to go all the way.” He nipped at her bottom lip. “Let me touch you. I just
want to feel you, to taste you on my tongue.”

      He traced
the lower edge of her lip with said tongue, sending another hot shiver of
desire through her. In answer, she simply kissed him fiercely, grinding her
aching core against the steely bulge in his pants. He growled in response,
wrapping her legs firmly around his waist as he rose from the couch and carried
her up the stairs.