Bear Naked (9 page)

Then I was shattering all over again, stars exploding behind my eyes. My back bowed and my entire body trembled, my senses on overload.

“’Lina,” Leif panted. “Oh god, ‘Lina. Can’t hold out — so sorry—“

He groaned, body stiffening over mine, and then I felt the hot flood of his come deep inside me as his thrusts became wild and shuddering. A moment later, he collapsed on top of me, and I went limp under him as the ceaseless orgasms seemed to finally die off.

I sucked in deep, long breaths, trying to re-orient myself. My entire body throbbed and felt twitchy. The slightest touch, and I felt like it’d set me off all over again. The deep, terrible aching was gone, like a toothache that had been soothed. It seemed to linger just below the surface, though, and I knew from hearing others talk about their personal heat experiences that it’d take more than one round of sex to rid myself of the feeling.

But I clung to Leif’s body, enjoying the press of his skin against mine. He was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration, his body damp. His control had been shot to hell by my wriggling and insistent touches. Poor man. I smoothed a hand along his back, feeling the muscles and tendons that twitched under my touch.

He struggled to his elbows and looked down at me, panting hard. There was a dazed look in his expressive blue eyes. “‘Lina…you okay?”

I gave my body an experimental, testing wiggle. I didn’t hurt, though I suspected I’d probably feel like hell in the morning. “I’m fine. How are you?”

Leif gave a small, wry laugh. “I’m not the one in heat. Speaking of, are you…?”

“It’s going to take more than just one round,” I told him. “I can still feel it in my body. You have time to catch your breath before we go again, though.”

He gave a wry snort and moved off of me, and the small cot creaked as he moved to my side. “Why do I have a feeling you’re going to work me into a boneless puddle before the day is over?”

I didn’t correct him. Even now, I was fighting the urge to roll over and pin him down on the bed and take what I needed from him. “Did I exhaust you already?”

Leif rubbed a hand on his face. “It’s not that. It’s…I don’t know.”

I frowned, rolling onto my side to face him. The movement pushed my breasts against him, and I thrilled at the contact of our skin. “What is it?”

“I…I keep thinking of the first time I saw you here on the island. I didn’t think you were real. I’m still half afraid to touch you for fear of hurting you.” A haunted look crossed his face. “Hurting you again,” he corrected. “I hate that I did that to you.”

I ran my fingers over his breastbone. “That was as much my fault as it was yours. I didn’t realize just how…feral you’d be.” Or completely out of your mind. “Once you realized what you were doing, you stopped.”

“After you kicked your way free,” he grumbled, and there was self-loathing in his words. Apparently it still weighed heavily on Leif’s mind. “If you hadn’t been strong enough—“

“But I am,” I reminded him, and slid my fingertips over to one of his nipples to tease it. Were his as sensitive as mine? A light furring of chest hair darkened his skin on each pectoral and met across his breastbone. It was fascinatingly soft, and I tickled the hairs with my fingers as I explored his body. “I’m just as strong as you, so there’s nothing to worry about.” It wasn’t a total lie - I was much stronger than a normal human girl, but a were-bear male in his prime would always be stronger than a were-bear female. Still, he’d know what I meant.

As I watched, his body twitched in response to my light, exploring touches, and he reached out to grasp my hand. “What are you doing, ‘Lina?”

“I’ve never touched a man before. Can I?”

“Never?” He released my hand and placed it back on his chest. “I thought you were promised to someone…” His brow wrinkled as he tried to recall.

“I was,” I said. “Ramsey Bjorn. Remember him? When he was fifteen, he was exiled for breaking the laws, and he never came back. After that, everyone just seemed to kind of ignore me.”

My few attempts at dating human boys had encouraged such scorn from my father that I’d given up. Better to be lonely and accepted than reviled, right?

“Poor ‘Lina,” Leif murmured. His hand brushed my hair off my cheek, and he couldn’t resist touching my nose ring again. “He’s a fool for leaving you behind.”

I shrugged, inwardly pleased at his words. “I was just a gawky girl when he left. He probably wasn’t thinking about me at all.” But that didn’t explain the later years, when I’d grown into my adulthood and still Ramsey hadn’t returned, despite knowing full well that there was no mate for me if he didn’t.

It had been incredibly selfish of Ramsey to leave me behind while he took off to live a life of exile, and I still burned with the resentment of that.

“He’s in your past,” Leif said, and there was a possessive note in his voice. His hand brushed over mine. “And you’re welcome to touch me any way that you like, though I’ll probably need some time to recover my stamina before pleasing my woman again.”

I giggled, the sound high and girlish.
Your woman?
But instead, I just said, “Is it because you’re so old now?”

Leif gave a mock growl in his throat.

I tangled my fingers into his chest hair and then slid them lower down his stomach, following the darker trail of hair down his stomach. It arrowed down to his belly button and then widened again, and I slid my fingers even further down, exploring his groin. I enjoyed his sucked-in breath, and my experimenting grew bolder. I reached down and cupped his balls, fascinated by the softness of the skin that covered them, and the heat of his body. Touching Leif felt good.

Then, I brushed my fingers over the soft length of his cock, now flaccid against his leg, and watched as it stirred to life. “Well now,” I said in a low voice. “That’s interesting.” The heat between my legs had begun to pulse again, excitement flicking through my veins.

“I think my body likes you,” Leif mused, and his hand began to smooth over my shoulder, caressing my skin.

His words ruined my teasing mood. His body was responding to mine because of the pheromones I was throwing off. That was the heat, not me.

Uncertainty leapt up again and I pulled my hand away. “Leif…you know that this will mean a baby, right? We’re not using protection and I’m not on the pill.” And females only went into heat when ovulation was assured. That was why a female shifter’s heat was such an important event in her life - they didn’t come often. My own mother had only gone into heat once in her life - and I was the result.

“I know what this means, ‘Lina,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about that.”

“But…I just want you to know,” I began, then paused. The words tore out of my throat haltingly, as if they didn’t want to come. “You…it doesn’t mean you have to be the father, though.”

He tilted his head, frowning up at me, as if trying to understand where I was going with this.

“I mean, you
will
be the father, of course.” I felt my face become red as I tried to put the words out into the air. “Just that you and me…right now…it doesn’t mean you have to be involved in the baby’s life if you don’t want to be. I can do it on my own. I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

Leif stared up at me for so long that I began to get uncomfortable. His blue eyes watched my face, and I wondered what he was thinking. I had the distinct impression that I’d angered him.

And that made me unhappy and nervous. “What?” I snapped. “I’m just trying to give you options, here. I—“

His hand went to the back of my neck, and I fell silent mid-thought. Leif said nothing more, just rested that hand on the back of my neck. I flexed and tensed, waiting for him to do something.

It came a moment later. He surged off of the bed, likely intending to roll me onto my back. However, the cot was so creaky and the bed so narrow that we ended up tipping it over, and both of us rolled to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs and blankets. I winced as Leif’s weight thumped on top of me.

I expected him to apologize again for startling me, but he didn’t. Instead, he crawled over me, his heavier weight pinning me to the cold wooden floor. His blue eyes were intense as they watched me. His head dipped low to my neck, and I felt his mouth press against my skin, hot and delicious.

I moaned, desire flaring through my body. “Leif—“

His hand tightened on the back of my neck. Before I could question what he was doing, I felt his teeth sink into my skin, and he nipped me at my neck.

Hard.

I gasped in shock as the bite deepened. He had the blunt teeth of any human, but for some reason, I felt the scoring of his teeth on my skin like a brand. A moment later, I realized what this was — a mate mark.

Leif had just claimed me as his.

Startled, I clung to him for a moment longer as he continued to bite me, cementing his claim. The mark would show, livid as a bruise, for a few days, and then would fade into a faint scarring that only a shifter could sense. But after this, no male shifter would ever think to touch me again, because Leif had declared me as his property.

To say that I was stunned by this was an understatement. “Leif,” I said softly, stroking his now-short hair as he licked at my neck, over and over on the place that he’d left the bite. “You don’t have to—“

He moved up, then, kissing my jawline in a tender caress that left me aching with need. I forgot my protests as his mouth moved up and covered my own, and my tongue greedily accepted the return of his as he kissed me.

“Foreplay now?” Leif asked, his voice low and husky when his mouth pulled from mine.

I blinked at him, startled. “Huh?”

He took my hand and guided it back to his groin. His cock was as hard as a rock, and I could practically feel it throb in my grasp. Leif leaned in and kissed me again, and when his tongue thrust back into my mouth, I felt him thrust against my hand. It sent a spiral of excitement through my body in response, and I whimpered a protest when he pulled his lips away from mine once more. “Foreplay now?” he asked again.

I nodded.

“You’ll tell me if it gets to be too much for you?”

Again, I nodded, not trusting my own voice to be more than a series of breathless mewling sounds. I watched him as his big body propped on his side, and he kicked the blankets - my poor, torn up sleeping bag - aside so he could stare at my body. My breasts were decent but nothing spectacular, the nipples small and so pale a pink that they almost blended in with the rest of my pale skin. But Leif studied them with great intensity, and after a long moment of consideration, he brushed his thumb over the tip of one.

A zing of pleasure hummed through my body, and I couldn’t resist the moan that escaped my throat. His fingers on my nipples felt…incredible. Why had I skipped foreplay before? I was clearly out of my mind.

Pleased by my response, Leif cupped my breast and his thumb began to circle the tip in a gentle motion that both aroused and tormented. The tease of his rough fingertips against my soft skin was an incredibly erotic sensation, and before long, I was panting and arching, pushing my breast against those teasing fingers. But Leif ignored my silent begging, and his hand moved to my other breast to give it the same ministrations.

I could feel my sex throbbing in response, the slickness between my legs returning along with the mating scent. I was aching again, but I didn’t want to tell Leif and ruin the exquisite sensations he was bestowing upon my body. I loved his touch.

Once both of my nipples were teased into twin aching peaks, he leaned in and lightly tongued one nipple with his mouth.

I cried out, my body clenching in need. My hips flexed, but there was nothing between them to ride, and my cry turned into a needy moan. My hands dug into his hair and I pressed his mouth against my breast, wanting more.

“Sweet ‘Lina,” he murmured, and I felt the fan of his hot breath against my skin. Felt the tickle of his lips on the curve of my breast as they moved. “I love your body.”

I made a sound of pleasure in my throat, letting him know how much his touch - and his words - delighted me.

His mouth descended on my nipple again, and as his tongue swirled patterns onto the peak, his hand slid over my belly, exploring me the way I’d explored him. I felt his thumb graze my belly button and then traveled lower, and I whimpered again, parting my legs in anticipation.

Please
, I begged silently. I wanted him to touch me where I ached the most.

He made that same, possessive growl in his throat that made me so wet, and his big palm cupped my mound.

I gasped at the sensation.

“This is mine,” he told me, pressing down with his hand. “I’ve claimed you.”

“Yes,” I breathed, stunned by his words. Was this my easygoing, artistic Leif? This possessive, dominating man who was claiming me for his own? It was everything I’d ever wanted - but had scarce hoped to dream for.

“My mate,” he rumbled, the feral edge returning to his voice, and his fingers parted my wet folds, gliding through them and exploring my flesh.

I cried out at the touch, only to be silenced into a gasp by the bite of his teeth on my nipple. The feel of his mouth on my skin was shockingly decadent. I wanted it everywhere.