Sentinel: Bravo Bear: (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (The Agency Book 1) (11 page)

So Maddy knew she would go to Genesis Valley, and that she would probably never see Connor again.

“Do you ever, um, go back?” she asked. “On vacation or something?”

He smiled, pulling her tight. “I’m generally there for two to three days a month, sometimes more,” he explained. “Normally when we extract someone from the city, one of the four of us goes with them all the way to ensure they stay safe. We do that in rotating shifts. We’ve only been here fighting them for two months now, but I’ve been back six times so far myself.”

Maddy nodded, but she was frowning. “If that’s the case, how come two went with my dad?”

“Contingency.” He shrugged. “If we were ever to get ambushed like we did getting your father out, we were all to go. That way they wouldn’t know the faces of any of the others, only the ones they caught.”

“Ah,” she said. “I wondered why they didn’t jump off the train and come back to fight.”

Connor nodded. “Trust me, they wanted to. I would have wanted to as well, if I were in their place. But we have to look at the greater good here. If they catch us, that puts a serious dent in the Underground’s abilities to get the city shifters out of here.”

“But when you leave, won’t you all be gone?” she asked.

“For a short while, yes. But Jared, our leader, should be back tomorrow. So there won’t be much time where no one is around. The rest of us will get back as soon as we can.”

Maddy fell silent. She had another question she wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure how to phrase it.

Connor took that moment to lift her chin with his fingers, until she was angled back just enough for him to kiss her.

She inhaled sharply as his lips pressed against hers, their mouths opening slightly as they explored. His tongue flicked out quickly, and she responded. It was like a game, but one that awoke something within her.

“Wait,” she hissed, kissing him hard before pulling back.

“What? What did I do?” he asked, looking worried.

Maddy shook her head. “I need to ask you something, before…” she trailed off, not wanting to verbalize it in case it jinxed anything.

“Ask away,” he said. “I have no secrets from you.”

Taking a deep breath, she asked the question she needed to know. “Why did you end up in Genesis Valley?”

Connor hesitated.

Maddy sat up in surprise. She didn’t force him to keep speaking, but his body language told her that this wasn’t something he had intended on discussing just then. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. She braced herself for whatever he told her.

“When I was younger,” he began, looking up at something only he could see. A distant memory, perhaps. “I was not a good person. I wandered the country, taking what I wanted, when I wanted it. Food, clothes, things like that. Petty crime. At one point, I met a girl. We talked a lot, flirted, and began to spend time together. We had to be careful though; her parents were wealthy, and didn’t want her spending time with a homeless boy, let alone a shifter.”

He snorted. “I actually think they would have preferred if I were just homeless.”

Maddy smiled.

“Anyway,” he continued. “One of the other boys caught us, and threatened to tell her parents about her spending time with me, and doing things teenage boys and girls do. We ignored him, thinking it was bullshit. So one night, I was late for our meetup. I get there, and she’s nowhere to be seen. I found her scent and followed it. She’d been there. I found her just in time to see her take a gun from her purse, and shoot this other guy. I ran to her. She was shaking, and her clothing was torn up. This guy had been trying to get what he knew I had, in the worst kind of way.”

She felt her hands rise to her mouth as he continued to speak, telling her the story of his youth. The pain in his voice was so thick it reached out and slapped at her. Maddy hadn’t meant for this to be a traumatic retelling of his childhood. She figured he had beat someone up or something.

“The sirens sounded so fast,” he said softly. “We had seconds, perhaps. The other guy was on the ground, screaming in pain. So I did the only thing I could think of. I kissed her, rubbed some of my spit on her face to leave DNA, told her to run, and then I shot her in the arm. Then I shot him in the head. I led the police on a merry chase, ensuring they knew I was behind everything, taunting them about how I had kidnapped the girl, forced her to do what I wanted.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Her parents had threatened to disown her if she saw me again. To cut her off from their money, put her out on the street, all that. She told me she was okay with that, that she loved me enough to do it, but I knew the truth. I cared for her, but I was only sixteen. I didn’t know where I would be the next week, let alone the rest of my life. I loved her, but she wasn’t the one. So I made a cover story as best I could, that she was innocent, and that I had done everything, in a way that wouldn’t get her disowned.”

Connor licked his lips. “Last I heard, she was running a company that helped kids on the street gain life skills and enter the workforce. She was doing pretty well with it. So something good came out of all that, in the end.”

“Oh.” It was so inadequate of a statement after all that he had just told her, but Maddy was at a loss for real words. She had to say something though. Anything. “So you gave up your life to protect her?”

He smiled ruefully. “As it turned out, I think I actually only started my life after that. I dodged the police and headed for Genesis Valley, which was a place I’d only heard about from other shifters once or twice. When I got there, I got put into the training program. Twelve years later, here I am.”

“But why did you shoot him again?” she asked.

Connor’s eyes hardened. “She wasn’t the first girl he had put his hands on. I just didn’t have any proof until then, but there were at least six others I was positive of. Two of whom he killed.”

Maddy shuddered.

“I didn’t like it, but I would be lying if I said I regret it. The world is a better place without him in it.”

“There is a lot more to you than I imagined,” she said at last, digesting the information dump about his past.

A part of her had known that Connor killed. She had, after all, seen it in action that first night. Or at least she had heard it happen. But to know it in the back of her head, and then to hear it first hand from his mouth, were two very separate things indeed. If it weren’t for the honesty and conviction in his voice, she would probably have felt very different about him. Connor knew that he was good at what he did, but he only did it if it was
right
. That was what she had gotten from the story.

He did what he had to, to protect the girl, to make her look innocent, even going so far as shooting her in the arm. That seemed a little extreme to her, but then again, at sixteen, it may have seemed like it was necessary. She wasn’t there, and it was very easy to judge something like that in hindsight. But to be there, in the moment, it may have felt necessary to make her look innocent.

“And here I thought you were just some street creep who liked to stare at me,” she told him, smiling to lighten the mood.

“What?” he looked at her in shock. “A creep?”

She laughed, the noise sounding good after such a serious conversation. “You stared at me for a good long time on the side of the street. I thought you were some creep! Then to my surprise, an hour later you’re at my door, trying to rescue me.”

To Maddy’s surprise, Connor flushed a deep red as she laughed.

“Are you
blushing
?” she exclaimed.

“I didn’t mean to be creepy,” he told her through his embarrassment, not acknowledging her question. “It’s just–”

He stopped abruptly.

“Just what?” she prodded, leaning in closer to him.

“It was your eyes,” he said, the blue in his eyes flaring even brighter as he spoke, the intensity of his emotions seeping into his gaze. “I’ve never seen any more beautiful before.”

Her giggling died abruptly as he spoke.

“It was your eyes that I noticed,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation. “They’re so blue. I noticed them right through your mask when you came to my door.” She paused. “I still notice them every time you look at me like that,” she finished, feeling slightly out of breath as she continued to stare at him.

The tension was no longer awkward between them. It was electric. Madison could feel the power almost crackling in the thin hairs on her arm as the skin there neared his.

“Connor, I—”

His finger pressed against her lips as he continued to gaze at her, their eyes saying nothing, and yet speaking volumes at the same time.

“Where did you sleep last night?” he asked.

She frowned slightly at what seemed to be a random question.

“Flint gave me keys to a room.” Her voice grew very quiet as she realized where he was going with it.

“Show me,” he commanded.

Breathlessly she nodded, taking his hand and pulling him along. Madison felt as if she were floating as she showed Connor to her room, neither of them speaking a word as they went, so obsessed with each other they ignored the world at large.

She fiddled with the key, taking far longer than should have been necessary to finally turn it in the lock. The room itself was sparse. There was a small bed in the back left corner. A little dresser with four drawers to the right of it. A chair and a small desk completed the windowless room.

It was perfect.

Connor entered the room after her, his large presence immediately making it feel smaller.

No, not smaller
, she corrected.
More intimate.

There was no avoiding him now. Not that she wanted to. Madison felt herself actually initiate, by reaching out to press one hand gently on his firm stomach, feeling his abs through the material of his shirt. Was she really doing this? Was this actually about to happen?

Connor’s hand slid across her waist and onto her rear, cupping one of her cheeks and pulling her closer to him. Instinctively her hands braced herself on his chest, fingers splayed across the broad muscle. Even her long fingers couldn’t cover the muscle on their own; that’s how naturally big he was. It wasn’t bulky, awkward muscle either. It was just his natural powerful size.

An image of him easily holding her up against a wall flashed through her mind, causing Madison to blush, despite neither of them having said a word.

Whereas before when they had kissed, Madison had always felt a stillness and a desperate need to preserve the moment, this time there was none. It was a flurry of hesitant but frantic motion as she tugged off his shirt seconds before he removed hers. Madison hissed in delight as strong, warm hands cupped her breasts as Connor removed her bra. Skilled fingers played across her nipples, causing her back to arch slightly as she pressed into him.

Connor lowered his head back to hers, hungry lips searching for each other as they explored each other. Her hands finally touched each and every muscle and part of his body that she had seen earlier, though she still didn’t dip below his waist. Madison was eager to feel and see what his boxers had been hiding the day before, but she was too preoccupied with kissing him to proceed just then.

A soft moan slipped from her mouth as one large hand quested below her belt, fingernails dragging lightly across the jeans she wore as he ran it up and down her inner leg.

Madison shivered in response, but she didn’t stop him. Connor continued to tease her, inching ever closer between her legs, but never quite going far enough to give her what she really wanted.

“Not fair,” she begged a few minutes later as her clit began to ache for attention, scattering all her other thoughts.

Connor just grinned, taking the moment to nuzzle his head into her neck, his teeth gently nipping at the skin there. With his lips on her neck, one hand playing with her nipple and the other tantalizingly close to dipping between her legs, Madison couldn’t take it anymore.

Pushing his hands aside, she dropped to her knees, eager to have some fun of her own. Running her fingers across his jeans, she easily found the bulge of his cock. Using both hands, she traced the outline of it repeatedly, always leaving at least half an inch between her fingers and his cock.

Fair is fair.

When he began to growl in helpless frustration, Madison looked up at him, batting her eyes innocently. At the same time her fingers found his belt and took it off. She saw hope blossom on his face as she peeled his jeans from him, leaving only his boxers.

Almost immediately his cock sprang toward her, straining eagerly against the much thinner and stretchier material of his boxers. Madison found herself biting her lip as she eyed it in size. Putting her hand up against it, she spread her fingers wide, noting that it was longer than the distance from her outstretched pinky all the way to the end of her thumb.

He was big.

Eager to see just how big he was, she ignored her earlier plans to tease him some more, and pulled his boxers down, easing the waistband out and around his cock. Her hands paused at his knees as she admired his length. Sensations of just how his girth might fit inside her threatened to make her weak in the knees.