Colby (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 3) (6 page)

He wasn't hurting them.
 
He wasn't trying to kill them.
 
He was fully animal but he maintained control.

Until Gemma stumbled back another step, pocketing her phone.
 
She backed directly into the arms of the third man.

She'd never even seen him move.
 
Gasping, she drove an elbow toward his ribs, but he moved easily.
 
His arm crooked around her neck.
 
Automatically, Gemma dropped her chin into the V of his elbow, giving herself breathing room.
 
Her hands went up to either side of her face, grabbing his arm.
 
She'd bite, she'd kick, she'd –
 

Freeze, when the gun cocked, directly beside her ear.

"Beast!"

It wasn't the word.
 
It was the sound of the gun that made Colby stop moving.

"That's good.
 
That's a good dumb beast."
 
The man behind her stank of cologne and beer and gun oil.

Gemma retched.
 

"What's the matter, little girl?
 
Don't like humans anymore?"
 
He jammed the barrel of the gun into her temple.
 

Gemma rocked with the force of the blow.
 
The world slid away and back again.
 

Colby slid away and back again.
 
Almost human.
 
She saw his cheekbones and lips emerge from the fur and the black outlined mouth.
 
She saw the fury in those golden eyes, saw the fur turning back to hair.

She wanted to beg him not to.
 
The man would kill him.
 
He was only waiting until Colby wasn't a bear.
 
That much she was sure of.

Colby was too.
 
She thought.
 
Because he went halfway back to man, his hands emerging from paws, held up before him, placating.

The man with the gun laughed.
 
The gun swung toward Colby.

In the split second Gemma saw Colby look directly into her eyes.
 
His meaning was clear.
 
Don't move.
 
Let me do this.

In that same second, he moved.
 
The gun swung toward him.
 
The man's trigger finger whitened under pressure.

Colby surged away from the man.

Colby the bear moved faster than the man, spinning out of reach of the gun.

The muzzle flashed.
 
The world rocked with concussion of sound.

The man holding Gemma flailed, trying to bring the weapon to point at her again.

He never got the chance.
 
Giant paws grabbed him, talons sliced into his forearm, his shoulders, his chest.

His throat.

The man who had attacked them slumped to the ground.
 
Red gore splattered the black version of the
No Shifters
t-shirt.

The shifter stood over him, human again, holding Gemma.

"We have to get out of here," she said, when she could speak again.
 
The shivering had started the same moment he stopped asking if she was all right.

The same time he'd stopped kissing her.

Only seconds had gone by.
 
But people would be coming.

"Come on," Colby said, and took her hand.
 

No sign of Owen when they went through the arena and the underground structure.
 
They kept away from the bodies, left the dead man crumpled in a little used storage area.
 
The other two men had fled.

They found Owen getting ready to ride.
 
He came out of the locker room and nearly ran into both of them.

"What's happened?"

There was blood on Colby's shirt.
 
Colby wasted no words telling Owen what happened.
 

"It doesn't tell us much we didn't know," Owen said, when he put down the phone. He'd called someone, though Gemma couldn't imagine who, to collect the body.
 
A report had come back instantly that the man wasn't identified or recognized.
 
Now Owen paced, furious, full of energy.
 
"The shirts, the symbols – we knew what they meant."

Colby said, "Now we know at least some of them are actively doing something about the No Shifters policy."
 
His voice was bitter.

Gemma suddenly stood and reached into her back pocket.
 
The men stared at her.
 
She held out her phone.
 
"I've got photos."
 
She hoped.
 
She'd been shooting fast and pretty freaked out.

"Good," Owen said and Colby took her phone, turned it on, scrolled.

"I know this guy," Owen said.
 
His voice was the distant of someone trying to remember where they'd seen an actor before.
 
"Good job."
 
He looked at both of them.
 
"You look beat.
 
Gemma, you mind if Colby runs you home?
 
I'd just as soon you're not alone tonight.
 
On the ride," he added.
 
"Cole, take her car, so she doesn't get broken into and they don't get her address."

Gemma shuddered.
 
"Do you really think -- ?"
 
But Owen had already turned away, back on his phone.

She turned to look at Colby.
 
"Do you mind?"

He gave her a grin had had already forgotten the bloodshed.
 
Or at least put it aside for the time being in favor of more important things.
 
He smelled muskier than before.
 
"I'd be honored to drive you home."

They didn't make it that far.
 

There wasn't any reason to rush out of the arena. The events were going on for hours.
 
The two men who'd attacked them had fled.
 
The third was being taken care of.
 
No one was going to call the police.
 
No one was looking for Colby.

There were no sticky questions to avoid.

Just heat, rising between them.
 
When they left the office where Owen paced, on the phone with Holden by then, Colby held his hand out and she slipped hers into it.
 
He coiled his fingers against her palm, making her lightheaded.

They stopped just out of sight of the office.
 
He pinned her to the wall.
 
His mouth came down over hers, hot as his hands were.
 
His tongue traced her lips, then slid between her lips.
 
She met it with hers, tasting the animal scent there.
 
But when her hands traced his face, he was all male.
 
All human.

Her hands continued up, into his hair, knocking his cowboy hat off onto the dusty concrete floor.
 
His hands slid up from her shoulders, along her throat, cupped her face, tangled in her hair and removed the clip, throwing it down after his hat.

Her long, cinnamon colored hair came down, curls filling his hands.
 
He pressed it to his face, breathed in, mouth slightly open as he tasted her scent.

Gemma let her head fall back against the wall, her hands grabbing his shirt to pull him hard against her.
 
One of her legs snaked behind his.
 
She wanted him pressed against her from head to foot.

Colby bit her throat, licked the hollow between her collarbone and down into the V of her blue shell.
 
The fabric shredded under his hands.
 
She blinked, looked, but they were human fingers, human hands, now spreading open her shirt, exposing her black lace bra,

They were only in a concrete underground hallway.
 
Anyone could come at any time.
 
The thought just made her press herself harder against him.

One huge, rough, calloused hand moved down from her throat, found her breast and squeezed, cupping it, squeezing, his thumb playing hard over her nipple.
 
Gemma groaned and spread her legs, widening her stance.
 
Colby moved into the space she'd made, sliding one thigh between her legs.

That wasn't close enough.
 
She moved one leg upward, suggestively, and he took her up on it.
 
"Is that what you want?"
 
His voice was a low growl, a chuckle.

He scooped her up, his hands under her ass.
 
Gemma, pressed against the wall, wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed her core against him.

Colby slid one hand down between them before she could properly grind against him.
 
She pouted at him.

He laughed.
 
"Just want to feel you, darlin'.
 
Oh, girl, you're wet, clear through.
 
I can feel your heat through your pants."
 
He leaned forward and bit her ear, licked it with a hot wet tongue and whispered, "I can smell you.
 
You smell like want."

She bit at his chin as he pulled back.
 
"I can smell you, too.
 
You smell like an
animal
."

His eyes were dangerous.
 
"You ought to know what you're getting into."
 
But as he spoke he pulled his hand away.
 

She ground her wet, hungry core against the front of his jeans.
 
The package she'd seen outlined earlier was huge, hard as a rock under the denim.
 

"I know what I'm getting into."

"Do you?" he purred.
 
Teasing. Licking.
 
Biting.
 
"I'm not like other men.
 
Think you can handle it?"

"Oh, hell, yeah," she said, and pressed harder against him.
 
Her legs were starting to tremble, the cut starting to throb.
 

He eased her back onto her feet.
 
Knelt at eye level with her core.
 
Second time today he'd done that.
 
This time she felt wild, carnal, anything but embarrassed.
 
She thrust her hips forward.
 
"Do you know what
you're
getting
in to?
" she teased.

"I'm about to find out."
 
He grasped her totally ruined linen pants in both hands and tore them from the waist, shredding them off her body.
 
Gemma barely had time to react when he had plunged his face into the sopping wet black lace of her panties.
 

"God, you smell so good."
 

She arched her back, self aware for an instant, then grabbed handfuls of his curls as he yanked aside the lace and plunged his tongue far into her.
 
His fingers followed, spreading her wide, exposing her clit, her pussy, his tongue following the line of her opening, dipping deep inside and lapping forward like an animal, pausing to suck like a man on her clit, making her buck and moan.
 
She clutched his hair, ground herself in his face.
 

"More," she moaned.
 
"Take me.
 
Take all of me."
 
Her eyes were closed and the scents of hay and horses and cowboys filled her senses.
 

The scent of bear.
 

His thumbs came down over her clit.
 
She bit back a scream, pulled on his hair.
 
"I want to touch you.
 
I want to taste you."

"Patience," he muttered into her.

She didn't have any.
 
She pulled away from him, trying to get to his jeans, his fly, her fingers grazing his cock through the denim but he was too strong.
 
He spun her around, making her laugh, said, "Not yet, my lovely," and pressed his still clad cock into the crack of her ass, pressing aside the last of the black lace, making her pant and moan.
 
Her breasts pressed hard into the wall and she rubbed them there, seeking every sensation, every feeling.
 
Her own hand traveled down the front of her body, her fingers sinking into her own pussy.

"Yeah, show me where you want me," he growled into her ears and she wanted to laugh, wanted to run her hands over her entire body to show him what she wanted.

She heard the zipper on his jeans, and turned back.
 
"Not fair.
 
Not yet.
 
Not without me seeing."

He grinned, gold eyes blazing.
 
"You are greedy."
 
He sounded impressed.

She answered with her own growl, tearing open the snap button denim button-down and exposing his chest.
 
The muscles weren't ripped – there was a layer of insulation over the muscles, making his chest amazingly thick, strong, hugely muscled, like a classical statue.
 
She ran her hands over it, then ran her nails over it, hard, leaving trails, following the red lines with her tongue, leaving him shiny with her saliva even as she worked his belt buckle, grinding her backside against the wall for lack of sensation.
 
His jeans parted.