Lonely Bear: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Bear Bluff Clan Book 6) (3 page)

“Some bears are just inquisitive. He wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“You make it sound like bears are friendly.”

“Some are. Depends on their nature.”

“I see. Anyway, thank you again. I’m sure my father would offer you some kind of payment in thanks.” Or maybe not. He might have been happier to get rid of her, but she knew deep down that wasn’t true. Her relationship with her father was more complicated than that. He had been so hurt when her mom died, so deeply haunted, that he had coped in a way that had pushed Chloe out, at a time she needed him the most.

His face clouded, “I don’t want payment. Not for this.” His voice held a tinge of anger, and she wondered what she had done to upset him. Maybe she had hurt his pride.

“I’m sorry, I guess I sometimes struggle to think that anyone would do anything for me without it being for money.” She smiled weakly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

His face softened. “You didn’t. But I don’t need your money. Your thanks is enough. Now I’m going to get that poultice.”

Nate left the room, giving her a chance to take in her surroundings. It was a small room, but cosy just the same, inviting and warm. Staring at the fire, she thought how wonderful it would be to live in a place like this, with no real responsibilities. Nothing but the need for food and warmth.
And Nate
.

Pushing that away, she concentrated on the cabin again. The furniture was all carved from wood. Chloe imagined he had made it all himself; well, what else do you do stuck up here all year round? As she smoothed her hand over the intricate detail of the hand rest on the sofa she lay on, her mind slipped into dream mode. Chloe imagined his strong, capable hands carving out her desire, making it into something he owned, something he moulded.

“Ready?” he asked, coming back into the room with a steaming bowl of water.

She jumped, feeling guilty. “Yes.”

He knelt before her again, lifting her foot so that it rested on his thigh. Those same strong sensations spread out, warming her insides, setting her heart thumping in her chest. Did he feel it too? If he did he kept it hidden, his eyes down, concentrating on her ankle, which already looked bruised and swollen. With the lightest of touch, he wrapped a warm piece of cloth around her ankle, the smell reaching her nose. Herbs of some kind, plants he must gather up here in the mountains and dry, ready for damsels in distress.

“Do you live here alone?” she asked, needing to fill the silence.

“Yes. I’ve lived here for six months. Before I used to use it for hunting, but now I live here full time.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

His eyes flicked up to hers and held her gaze, searching for something, but then he turned away and she wasn’t sure whether he had found it or not. Instead, he just replied, “It suits my nature.”

“Don’t you like people?” she asked, knowing she was prying but still needing to know all she could about him.

“It’s not that I don’t like them.” He hesitated, that same look in his eyes. “It’s just sometimes it’s easier to be away from them.”

“I see. And I understand. Especially family. Too many questions, too many expectations.” She touched her engagement ring again, wanting to take it off. But she knew how it would look, as though she were coming on to him, and his every movement, every look, told her he was not interested. So the ring and the lie stayed firmly in place.

“There,” he said, tying the bandage off. “How does that feel?”

She flexed her ankle. “Much better, thank you.”

“Now you should eat and have something warm to drink. Try to relax.”

Oh, I’m very relaxed
, she thought. But to him she said, “Are you sure? I hate to be an inconvenience.”

“You aren’t,” he said, and to Chloe, his eyes told her she could never be.

Confusion mixed in with all the other feelings that were swamping her body, One minute he was telling her he wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible, the next his eyes told her of his deep, dark desires. Well, of course. He was a man in his prime, living up here all on his own. So he must experience some kind of sexual frustration. Right?

A whole new thought struck her. Maybe that was what she needed, to get over Jerry, to make her feel wanted, like a desirable woman instead of the doormat she pictured herself as now. Jerry had cheated on her with a pretty, skinny woman, and Chloe needed to wipe that from her memory. Maybe by replacing it with a new, exciting memory, one that involved a certain hunky woodsman.

“I hope you like this,” he said, coming back into the room with a big bowl of stew. “I made it earlier and have just heated it up. And I made coffee.”

“It smells wonderful,” she said, the aroma of the stew making her mouth water. “Do you grow everything yourself?”

“No,” he said, sitting on a chair opposite her with a mug of coffee of his own. “I trade for food. The soil is too thin up here for most vegetables to grow.”

“So you go down to town often?” Did she really sound that excited at the prospect of one day running into him again?

He certainly thought so, because his eyes darted to hers, once again trying to read her thoughts. “Not too often. Every couple of weeks.”

“What do you trade?” she asked, taking her first mouthful of the piping-hot stew. It was delicious, even if, despite blowing on it, it burnt her tongue.

“I carve things. Animals mainly. Or walking sticks, I take orders. It makes me enough to live on. That and the foraging I do. Nuts, fruits, they are abundant at this time of year.”

“Why?” she asked, letting his stew warm her and his eyes excite her. “Why do you live up here like this all alone?”

He took a sip of his coffee and turned to look at the fire. “Something happened, and I needed to get away.”

She laughed ironically. “I can certainly sympathise with you there. Sometimes I think there would be nothing better than to get away from it all.”

“Aren’t you happy? With your life?” He frowned and his eyes flicked to her ring, his full attention on her now.

“Sometimes, things don’t always turn out how you expect them to. Do they?” She held his eyes, trying to see if he could understand what she meant.

But he dragged himself away, getting up abruptly and leaving the room. “I’ll get some blankets. You can have my bed, I’ll take the sofa.”

She ate the rest of her stew, watching the fire as it happily consumed the wood in its hunger to burn bright and long. Just as she thought her love for Jerry, would always burn bright and long. But already, after being here with Nate, that future was dimming. Maybe she hadn’t loved him as much as she thought. Instead, she had been in love with the future they were going to build together.

She knew why. If she looked very hard, she knew exactly why. It was to replace the family she had lost when her mom died of cancer. Because her family life had been torn from her at that point. Her father never tried to rekindle it. Instead, he took a new wife, and the warmth had gone from her life.

Jerry had offered her a fairy-tale ending. One where the wicked loneliness was replaced by a husband and kids to love. A tear trickled down her cheek, which she quickly brushed away. She really was one messed-up jilted bride.

He went to the bedroom, big mistake, because all he could think of was how wonderful it would be to lay her down on his bed, the bed he had carved himself, and make love to her. He could just imagine pressing himself inside her warm sex, of feeling her come around him. And he was sure she felt something too, the scent of her arousal tickled his nose.

But the ring on her finger was like a talisman, warding him off. She was not his to take; she belonged to another man. Until she took that damn ring off, she was not his to touch, not his to kiss.

Opening the closet, he took out a spare pillow and blanket. Then he grabbed an extra one to place on the bed. She didn’t have his warm bear blood, and the fire wasn’t lit in here. He didn’t want her to get cold.

But he could warm her with his body.

No. No, he couldn’t. Nate firmed his resolve. Tomorrow, he had to find the willpower to carry her back down the mountain and permanently out of his life. He needed to remove the temptation that was Chloe. His true mate.

Back out into the living room, he found her staring at the fire, an air of sadness around her. Missing her man, he suspected.

“Come on, I’ll carry you through to the bedroom. I expect a good night’s sleep will do wonders for you. Then tomorrow we’ll get you home.”

She didn’t brighten when he said that. Once more, she confused him. If only he could read her mind.

“Are you sure? About me, having your bed? You look too big for the sofa.”

“I’ll manage. I can always sleep on the floor.”

“Now I feel even worse.”

I could always share the bed with you. Make love to you all night, and erase the very thought of your fiancé from your memory.

“I insist.” He came to her, but before he picked her up, he asked, “Is this OK? If I carry you? Or I could help you walk.”

“No, I don’t think I could take another step.”

Nate bent down and lifted her, cradling her gently against his chest, feeling her soft, sweet breath on his neck. Her head rested on his shoulder and she took a long, contented sigh. In his pants, his cock stirred, growing harder, until it was painfully pressed against his zipper, begging to be released.

Trying to quell any thoughts of Chloe naked in his bed, he took her to his bedroom and practically dumped her on the bed as if she burned him. She looked a little startled.

“Sorry,” he said, with no more of an explanation.

“Do you have a shirt or something I could wear? It’s just that my clothes are filthy and I don’t want to get your bed all dirty.”

You could sleep naked.

“I’ll grab you something.”

He went to his closet again, and fetched her a shirt. Placing it on the bed, he looked down as she struggled to undress, her hands stiff and sore.

“I didn’t treat your hands.”
So much for caring for her.

“They aren’t so bad.”

“No, let me bathe them and then bandage them. I have some ointment that will take the pain away.” Once more, he left her to fetch a bowl of hot water, and then he went to the bathroom and got the ointment. By the time he came back to her, she had her shirt unbuttoned, her breasts so beautiful in the light of the candles.

If it was possible, his cock swelled even more, and he licked his lips, wanting more than anything to taste her plump flesh.

But she gathered the fabric of her clothes together, and covered herself up. The message was clear; she belonged to another man.

Why did he excite so many forbidden sensations in her body? She was in real danger of making a complete idiot of herself. When he walked back in, she would have happily thrown her shirt on the floor and begged him to kiss her breasts. Her nipples had already turned to hardened peaks of desire, and so she covered herself up so that he wouldn’t see her foolish behaviour.

“Sit down on the bed, and I’ll bathe your hands.”

She did as she was told, holding her hands out for him to see. He cupped each one in his, making her wince as the warm water entered her cuts. He worked meticulously to remove all the dirt and small stones that had lodged in them. Whatever was in the water slowly took the pain away.

“It’s an herb I gather high up on the meadows. It is a great analgesic.”

“I can tell; the pain is almost gone.” She wanted to ask him if it worked on broken hearts too. But when she looked at him, at the concentration on his face as he worked to make her hands better, she knew that
he
was probably the best thing for her broken heart. He could heal her pain with his soft touch and warm eyes.

“There. Now, we’ll wrap them in clean bandages and by tomorrow they should be feeling a lot better.” He smoothed ointment over them and then wrapped them up, which of course posed another problem.

“I can’t finish undressing,” she said. Her hands were now almost immovable.

“I’ll help, if you want?”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded and began by removing her shirt, his eyes lingering on her breasts. She wanted to offer them to him, and feel his mouth on them. His warm lips on her flesh, his mouth sucking in her nipples so he could roll his tongue over them each in turn.

But he instead reached for his spare shirt and helped her dress, covering up her quivering flesh. Next, his hands went to the buttons of her jeans and opened them deftly, slipping them down over her rounded thighs. She wondered if he could feel the heat of her desire as he helped her step out of them, one foot at a time.

He breathed in her scent, she knew he did, a long shuddering breath traveling through his body. She swallowed her desire, not knowing what to do. If she touched him, if she gave him any come-on at all, would he lay her down on the bed and make love to her?

He rose slowly, their eyes meeting, and what passed between them was not hard to understand. In that one moment, they were connected on a deeper level than she had ever felt with another human being. Her tongue slipped out, moistening her lips. He was going to lean forward and kiss her; she knew it.

A faint warmth as his breath covered her cheek, he was so close now, she could feel his desire, palpable in the air. Closing her eyes, she opened her lips imperceptibly, waiting for the moment when he would press against her and taste her for the first time.

Instead, he pulled back and said, “Good night, Chloe. Sweet dreams.”

And then he left, her arousal so strong she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. That she would toss and turn, every minute of the long night filled with thoughts of him, next to her, inside her.

Yet she was wrong. As soon as her head touched the pillow, her eyes closed and she slept, her dreams filled with a big bear, who stood and watched over her. And in the morning when she woke, she felt more herself and knew that she needed to get away from him, or he would drive her insane. He was so sexy, so incredibly desirable, and yet he had shown her repeatedly that he had no interest in her.