ROMANCE: Forbidden Bear Obsession (Werebear Shifter Taboo Paranormal Romance) (New Adult Contemporary Paranormal Romance Short Stories) (2 page)

2

It took half a day for the sensation to
finally leave my body. I felt like a live wire. I struggled to focus on my
work, and the day rolled by in a jagged line. By three I was only halfway with
the deadline memos that I had to get out to the board. I knew I had to finish
it up, but I had to get home if I wanted to be there before Lashan. I couldn’t
afford being late.

I knocked on the door that led to Mr. Ring’s
office. Charlene beckoned me in. The office was divided up so she had an area
that she could call her own, and it doubled as a waiting are for his clients.

“I have to get going, and I’m not nearly
finished with these,” I said. “I can’t get them out today.”

“Don’t stress about it, I’ll send a memo
around that this will only reach the directors tomorrow.”

“You’re a star,” I said, giving her a quick
hug.

When I walked out the front door into the
crisp early morning, I breathed in deeply. The cold hair burned my lungs. I
loved it. Here, away from the confines of my own home, was the one place I
really felt like was free.

A strange sensation swallowed me before I saw
him, and when he stepped onto the curb next to me I connected the dots.
 

“You’re leaving early,” he said to me. We both
stared across the street in front of us. Somehow the fact that we weren’t
facing each other made me feel like we were more equal than before.

“My hours are nine ‘til three,” I said, even
though I didn’t have to justify myself.

“I didn’t pin you for the type that would
leave mid-project.”

I frowned and glanced at him quickly before
pulling my eyes away again. Mid-project?

“Are you referring to the memos?” I asked. He
didn’t answer. I was angry immediately. Who the hell was he to tell me who I
was and what I needed to do with my time? He wasn’t my boss. He wasn’t anyone’s
boss. He was too new for that.

“I answer to Mr. Ring at the end of the day. I
believe if there’s a problem he’ll address it.” Smooth. I was proud of myself
for staying calm.

Donald stayed quiet next to me for a moment. I
hoped I’d shut him up. Being in his presence was unnerving.

In the distance I saw the shuttle that would
take me home. Two shafts of light fell on the road in front of it, lighting up
the tarmac. Just as the shuttle pulled up in front of me, Donald put his hands
on my wrist. His fingers curled and locked around me. I looked up at his eyes,
and when I looked into the pools of black a shudder ran through my body.

His hands were so big he could snap my wrist
in half if he just clenched a fist.

“Unhand me,” I said hoarsely, but the command
came out more like a question.

“You’re capable of
so
much more than you give yourself credit for,” he said. His words
burned inside of me. What was he talking about? He dropped my wrist and turned
on his heel. I stared after him, watching the way he moved. He carried himself
with pride. His big body moved with languid grace, but I didn’t doubt for one
second that if he had to jump into action he would be as deadly as he was
regal.

“Are you coming?” the shuttle driver asked. I
nodded and climbed into the shuttle. When I sat down, I rubbed my wrist. I
could still feel his skin on mine.

The shuttle stopped on the corner, and I got
off. It was a quick walk to our house. After changing into a floral
housewife-dress, I cleaned up, swept, wiped down a counter or two, and prepared
a meal. I made sure there was a lot of raw meat for Lashan. I’d stopped at the
butcher the night before.

When Lashan came home, he didn’t kiss me, not
even on the cheek.

“How as your day, honey?” I asked.

He groaned and sat down at the dinner table. I
put his plate in front of him and took my own seat across from him.

“It was hell. The merger is a rotten mess, and
they’re not budging on the negotiation.” I vaguely remembered him telling me
something about his company merging with their competition.

“What does Monroe say about it?” I asked.
Monroe was his boss, and the one name that I remembered.

Lashan took a bite of his meat. He opened his
mouth to speak, but then glared down at his plate.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Fillet,” I answered, cutting my own meat into
neat little squares.

“It’s not fresh.”

“No, it’s not.” I was very careful not to look
up from my plate. “I got it from the butcher yesterday. He’d slaughtered the
day before.

“Dammit!” Lashan dropped his fork on his
plate. “I have a horrible day at work and I come home, hoping that my wife will
understand. And this is what you give me?”

“Lashan, don’t be—“

“I’m going to the office,” he said, cutting me
off. He left me alone at the dinner table, and disappeared into his office. I
looked down at my plate. I had suddenly lost my appetite. I got up and cleared
the plates, scraping the food into a container and putting it in the fridge. It
would probably spoil long before Lashan decided my food was worth eating.

My skin itched. I felt like it was too tight,
shrinking against my body. I untied the apron around my waist and let it fall
to the floor. I leaned against the window, pressing my cheek against the cold
glass. The night was calling me. I looked at my watch.

It would be sunrise in less than an hour. It
was dangerous for me to be out that close to dawn. If I got stuck, I had a real
problem. A lot of the creatures we mixed with could handle sun, but vampires
weren’t that lucky.

In the bedroom I dressed into my running
clothes. I had to get out of the house. The walls were closing in on me. I felt
like I was suffocating. When I broke free of it and ran into the woods that
started at the perimeter of our property, I felt like I could breathe again.

I ran, my shoes beating a muffled tattoo in to
the mulch underneath my feet. I jumped between trees, reducing myself to the
animal inside of me. I relished the open air, the trees that wouldn’t judge me.
I ran until my muscles screamed and my lungs cramped and I became sufficiently
numb. I ran, leaving behind a perfect life that didn’t want me.

When I couldn’t run anymore, I stopped. I
leaned my hands on my knees, trying to breathe around the searing heat that
twisted through my lungs. My legs trembled. I was in a part of the forest I
hadn’t been in before. It was live with birds, singing a welcome song to the
dawn.

The light was already changing. Instead of the
inky black that colored the trees into shadows of the night, it was a silvery
gray now, making the forest look like something out of a story book. I knew I
had to get home, but there was something magical in the air, gluing me down,
keeping me there.

I noticed a dark shadow in between the trees.
At first I thought it was a clump of underbrush, something like a handful of
berry bushes. They were scattered throughout the forest. But then the shadow
moved. I was rooted to the spot, staring at the bulk of darkness that moved
slowly through the trees. I strained my ears, but it wasn’t making a sound.
Somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice told me to run, to get out of
there. But there was a magnetic quality to the air, something that bound me to
the forest and kept me there.

The shadow moved closer to me, and I started
making out it’s against the brighter light of the impending dawn. The black
mass took shape. Strong shoulders, thick brown fur, and a muzzle.

It was the biggest bear I had ever seen.

When it saw me, it blew hot air through its
nostrils, no doubt picking up my scent. Its lips curled back, revealing a row
of sharp, pointed teeth. I had to run. I knew I had to. But I was stuck. It
dawned on me that the magnetic attraction, the inability to run, came from this
bear. It wasn’t an ordinary bear. It used magic to catch its prey.

And I was going to be the next meal.

The bear roared a sound that rumbled form the
deep recesses of its bowels, and tearing through the forest. It whipped around
me, every fiber in my body numb with fear.

When the roar stopped, everything was quiet.
The birds had stopped singing. An eerie silence filled the forest, thick and
palpable. I couldn’t breathe. Shrewd black eyes stared at me from the mass of
brown hair.

The bear moved toward me, so fast it closed
the gap between us in less than a second. It towered over me, pinning me
against a tree. I gasped for air, the magic wrapping around me like a wet
blanket. I couldn’t breathe. This was the end. This was where I was going to
die.

But then the bear started to change. The hair
on its body shrank away from its skin. The muzzle shrank, and teeth blunted.
The black eyes held my gaze all the time, but it became smaller and smaller. I
was riveted. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the transformation.

I’d grown up with mystical creatures, but I’d
never actually seen a shift.

And when I blinked, it was over. The bear had
shifted into a man. And not just any man.

It was Donald Crowe.

He stood, his body still towering over mine,
but as a man’s now, large and capable. He wasn’t wearing much, only a torn pair
of pants. I wondered vaguely where it went when he was a bear. He stood over
me, panting. His eyes were dark and black and mesmerizing, and he looked at me,
into me.

The atmosphere was still charged, but with
something else now. Something hot and heavy. My hand moved by itself, without
me remembering that I told it to. I put it on the bear skin on his chest. It
was hot, slick with sweat. His chest rose and fell under my fingers. Something
passed between us.

He leaned in, and kissed me. His lips hard and
strong against mine. The power of his magic surged through me, but not to
paralyze anymore. It was strength, surging through me. I wasn’t prey, not now.
I wondered when the last time was that I felt like that. If I ever did

His tongue pushed into my mouth, and he pushed
his body up against mine. My hands slid up and around his neck, my fingers
knotting in thick brown hair on his head. Somewhere at the back of my mind I
was telling myself I was being a fool, I was kissing a stranger. I had a mate.
I shouldn’t have been doing this. But the urgency in my body, the ache to be
consumed by this man, overrode any other thought, and I let it go.

3

“What’s wrong with you?” Lashan watched me at
breakfast. I was disorganized and uncoordinated. Nothing like my usual self. I
tried making myself a smoothie as I always did, but after I sliced open my
finger with a knife and dropped the milk container on the floor, I gave up.
That wasn’t what had Lashan suspicious though.

I’d put a plate of fresh rabbit on his plate.
I’d caught it the moment the sun was down.

I hated killing. The smell of fresh blood, as
much as it tweaked my appetite like it would for any other vampire, also
nauseated me. I didn’t like taking a life. But Lashan needed a wife to take
care of him. He deserved that much from me.

“I thought you’d be happy,” I said. “You were
compl
aining so much last night.”

He frowned and watched me for long enough to
make me squirm, but I put on a blank face and cleaned up the milk on the floor.

Eventually Lashan stopped and started eating.
He made little grunts as he did, and it grated me. I push the irritation away.
Lashan was happy. That was what mattered.

When he left for work, I didn’t walk to the
bedroom and change my appearance so I would fit into a business world I was
hiding from him. I fetched the mop and cleaned the kitchen, polishing until it
sparkled. Next I tackled the lounge and worked my way through the house. The
bathroom, the office, the bedroom, everything Lashan thought I was doing every
day.

I didn’t need to go to the office. I had been
wrong all these years to go behind Lashan’s back. I told myself it wasn’t
because I felt guilty. Donald had just opened my eyes to who I really should
be. I squeezed my eyes shut, and ignored the flutter in my stomach. I felt his
hands on my skin again, his lips against my neck. His strong body covering mine
and reducing me to a trembling puddle of urges and cravings.

I shook my head. No, not that. I didn’t want
that.

I managed to stay away from the office for
three days before Charlene phoned and asked what was wrong.

“I’m sick,” I lied. “I’ve been in bed with a
terrible virus.”

“IS there anything I can do?” she asked.

I shook my head to convince myself. “I’ll be
alright.”

“When are you coming back?”

I had to at some point. Even if it was just to
wrap up the loose ends. I couldn’t stay on, of course. That just wouldn’t
do.
 
“I’ll be back after the weekend.”

The weekend was hot and heavy, with nights
weighed down with humidity and low clouds that only threatened with rain, but
nothing came of it. The entire time I was hot and bothered, and I struggled to
be the model wife around Lashan’s friends. I found their conversations boring,
pointless, self-centered. I found their company empty. And when I looked at
Lashan it was like I was looking at a stranger.

When Monday finally rolled round, I was
relieved to see him walking out of the door. I felt like I’d been smothered.

The moment he was gone, I walked to the
bedroom and went through the motions I’d gone through for four years. I got
dressed, did my make-up, changed myself into the woman they knew at the office,
and walked out the door to meet the shuttle on the corner.

“Good to see you back,” the doorman said and
smiled at me. I was painfully aware of his lack of fangs. Sometimes I wondered
how so many predators could get along without a fight.

I kept a sharp eye out, but to my relief I
didn’t see Donald anywhere. Charlene hugged me when I stepped into my cubicle
and handed me a stack of papers. She’d been covering my shift while I was gone.

“Thanks for this,” I said. “What’s been
happening?”

“Oh, the normal. Ring is out on to kill, as
always. He’s talking about taking down the next company. I don’t know how he
sleeps at night.”

“What are the other directors saying about
it?” Mostly the directors didn’t really agree with Ring but he was the boss so
they let him dictate to them. But now and then there was a ripple when one of
them actually said something.

“Oh, they’re okay about it. I think they’re
too scared to cross him, if you ask me. Only that new guy, Donald.” My skin
broke out in shivers at the mention of his name, and my stomach did an
involuntary flip. “He’s been a grumpy old bear.”

I smiled at the analogy. Charlene had no idea.
The speaker on her desk went off and we heard it all the way across the hall.
Charlene rolled her eyes.

“Better go, that’s Ring summoning me.”

I nodded and watched her walk away.

The day went on without much excitement, and
towards the end of it I fell back into my normal routine. I loved my job, and I
hated the idea that I would leave it soon. It was an escape from my life, and I
knew I needed one. The few days at home had gotten to me more than I thought.
Being back in the office was like breathing fresh air again.

“I was wondering when you’d decide to crawl
out of your hole again,” a deep voice rumbled behind me. I was alone in the
copy room, trying to get the damn machine to work. I spun around, seeing Donald
in the door. He blocked the whole thing with his frame.

“I have nothing to say to you,” I said in a
calm voice, even though my heart was going wild and I suddenly felt short of
breath.

“Where were you?” he asked like I hadn’t said
that. I turned my back on him and focused on the machine again. A wave of heat
surged from him and circled me. In predator-prey relationship the lesser didn’t
turn its back. But I didn’t see him as my superior. That morning in the woods
he’d changed all that by making me an equal.

I forced the thought out of my head. I wasn’t
an equal, not if I wanted this to go away. I closed my eyes and steeled myself,
and I turned around again.

“I was home, doing my duty. As a
wife
.”

If Donald had any kind of thought about the
last bit, he didn’t show it. In fact, he looked more amused than anything else,
and his eyes traveled slowly over my body. It made me feel exposed. And at the
same time it made me want him to reach out to me and touch me. My skin screamed
for him again.

I pushed it away.

“I am busy,” I said, hoping he would get the
hint that I wanted him to leave. He didn’t. Instead he leaned against the
doorpost and jammed his hands into his pockets.

“Come out to dinner with me,” he said.

I couldn’t believe he was being that
straightforward.

“I’m married,” I said. “I don’t want anything
to do with you.”

“It didn’t feel that way in the forest. I
distinctly remember—“

“Will you shut up?” I said, trying to look
around him to see if anyone heard. I felt a blush creeping up from my collar. I
ignored the flame that ignited inside of me when he referred back to our
interlude and crossed my hands over my chest like I was trying to cover up.
“That was a mistake. I don’t even know what happened there.” Donald
straightened himself out and took a step towards me. I could feel his presence
like a physical force. I swallowed and focused on the words I was trying to
say. “I am married with a husband that deserves my loyalty.” Donald took
another step forward. He was so close now I could smell the cologne on his
skin, the animal scent that clung to his skin, the wilderness that was a smell
that belonged only to him.

“Don’t,” I whispered, because I knew I wasn’t
going to stop him. He reached back without looking and knocked the door so that
it swung shut. The lock turned by itself, like he’d locked it with him mind,
and I could feel the tingle of his magic in the air.

“You can’t use your magic on me,” I said. I’d
felt it in the forest, He’d hunted with the magic that trapped his prey in a
force so he didn’t have to go through the trouble of the hunt. “It may have
worked before—“

“I never used my magic on you,” he said. His
voice was deep, a low growl in the back of his throat. He inched ever closer to
me as he spoke, and I felt my resolve weaken.

“In the forest,” I tried again. “You made me…”
I couldn’t finish my sentence. His face was so close to mine, his black eyes
staring into me, and I lost my train of thought.

“I didn’t nothing in the forest that you
didn’t want me to do. Just like you want me to do now.”

He was reading my mind. I felt offended.

“You can’t just read my mind, that’s invasion
of privacy,” I said but my voice didn’t sound nearly as defensive as I wanted
it to. Instead it was thin, more of a question than a statement. I had to tell
him to stop. He had to get out of my head, because the fact was that my body
wanted his. Every fiber of my being cried out for him, the magnetic pull so
strong I couldn’t fight it. I shifted to the other leg, my thighs rubbing
against each other. It didn’t help my cause at all.

I was hot for him and his body so close pushed
me over the edge from want to need. I glanced around the copy room. The blinds
on the windows were all down and turned so no one could look in.

Donald reached out, putting his hand on my hip,
and pulled me to him. He kissed me, and I didn’t hesitate or try to stop him. I
kissed him back, fiercely, my body betraying the hunger I’d tried so hard to
hide with my words.

So much for staying away so long. It was like
time hadn’t passed at all.

He leaned against me with his body. He was
strong and lean, and I could feel the muscles ripple under his skin, through
his shirt, when he pushed me back against the machine. I surrendered myself to
him. He was demanding, and I submitted. Not because he was a wild predator and
our hierarchy demanded it, but because I wanted it. I wanted to be his.

He knew what I wanted. I could feel his mind
inside mine, his conscious mind probing the corners of mine. His hands slid
over my body, tracing the contours of it. I was against the copy machine – I
couldn’t remember how that happened – and his body was against mine, all over
me. It was exactly where I wanted to be.

He burned with intensity when his hands found
spots on my body Lashan hadn’t touched in years. His eyes were open and he
looked at me, and I fell into them because I knew he would catch me.

Thoughts raced around in
 
my mind feverishly and I kept remembering in
the back of my mind somewhere, that
I was still married.
 
I pulled away. Donald's eyes burned through
me but he kept his composure.

I, on the other hand, felt like my world had
been rocked off its axis and I didn’t know how I was going to act normal for
the rest of the day. I fixed my pencil skirt and buttoned up my blouse.

“You should redo your hair,” Donald said. I
knew I looked like the hot mess I felt.

Donald turned and unlocked the door, using his
fingers this time. He opened the door, and glanced back at me before he
disappeared. I was left behind in the wake of destruction. The air in the copy
room was thick, emotions hanging in the corners like fog, and the smell of
betrayal, lust, and freedom all mingling, pinching my nose.

I shuddered and walked back into the real
world.