Bear Pause (BBW / Bear Shifter Romance): A Billionaire Oil Bearons Romance (Bear Fursuits Book 6) (16 page)

“Are you ready?” he asked, as if he had not spent two hours priming her earlier.

She felt disappointed, but she was wet and slick and her pussy ached for him. She nodded.

“Can you do it?” he asked. His arms bulged and his tattoos expanded. His hands did not shake, but his voice was urgent and hoarse.

She groped for his cock and its thickness was too much for her hand to encircle. How the hell had it fit inside her before?

“Part yourself,” he instructed, “And I’ll let you down nice and slow.”

She separated her folds and guided him into her. True to his word, he let her down so slowly only the most sensitive first inch of her inner tissues enveloped his sensitive glans. He shuddered as her entrance tightened hard. “More?” he groaned.

“Yes,” her voice was husky.

He let her down another quarter inch and lifted her back up again. The next descent was even slower, but she had her feet on the mattress and had a little purchase. “Are you ready to canter?” she asked.

“Have mercy, sweetheart,” he begged. “Anything but cantering.” His face was hard and glistened with sweat.

She laughed, feeling powerful and feminine. “I want to ride you, cowboy,” she said distinctly and bore down. He slipped in almost to the hilt. She levered herself upright, feeling strong and sexy. Steve’s groans were muffled by her forehead.

He let her control the pace. The muscles of her thighs and calves were inured to hours in the saddle, and she set a brisk cadence that excited her. The pleasure was stronger this time than before. Her passage was rippling and threatening to finish but she suppressed her climax wanting to drag this out.

Steve’s broad shoulders were wet and she could smell him in the room. A raw, male essence of Steve Holden compounded of musk, masculine sweat, and some intangible extra something.

He whispered into her ear. “I’m done sweetheart. I can’t hold off.” She tightened her passage rhythmically and sank down all the way so their deltas tangled and blended. He filled her a second time and toppled sideways taking her with him.

“Lord have mercy, Laura,” he said into her hair. “I’m a dead man.” His eyes shut and his hands relaxed completely and he was instantly asleep.

His flaccid babymaker slipped out of her passage. Some half-remembered fact came back to her. It was important to stay supine after insemination to insure that conception happened. Was lying on her side good enough? She fell asleep facing him before she had decided.

* * *

She still wasn’t too sure of him, Steve decided after a sideways glance at Laura’s pensive face. She was wondering what that little episode at the motel meant. It meant that they were married was what it meant. Just as if they had actually got to the courthouse.

He sniffed deeply. She was still ovulating. Twins ran in his family as well as hers. His sister had been stillborn, but he too had been a twin. Laura’s lost twin was a constant and deeply felt grief. But maybe they could both heal if their baby was a two-fer.

But one cub or six, it was all the same really. He would love whatever they wound up with. And he knew that his mom and dad would want to be grandparents to his children, just as they already were to his sisters Cassie and Emma’s kids. Laura was going to have her family circle expanded by a whole new clan. His woman was going to have to come to terms with her repressed inner bear.

It was an astonishment to him that she had no appreciation of how intoxicating she was. How could she not think that her lush body and beautiful features added up to loveliness? Those assholes in college had done a number on her for sure. It made old Clive’s decision to throw his great-granddaughter into the arms of a fortune hunter remarkably cruel. Too bad the old SOB was not around to be dealt with appropriately.

Not that he had any moral high ground left to stand atop, himself. When he had come into Denver last week, he had provided a DNA sample to Thompson, Thompson and Willis. He had had his sperm count checked, like he was only a goddamned sperm donor. He was as bad as that old fart, taking Clive’s money when he despised him.

Laura’s soft daze had vanished after their shower. He had put his clothes on and turned around to look at his goddess to see a calculating light in her blue eyes. She had been fully dressed with her shirt tucked in, and he had known her skepticism was back.

“Where’s your ring?” he asked.

“Oh my god,” she said. “I left it in the bathroom.” She dashed out of the bedroom to search for it. But it must have been easy to find, because it was on her finger when he walked into the sitting room.

“I’ll just get the beer and we can head home. Want to drive?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s too late to go to the courthouse now.”

“We can always go into Acton,” he reminded her.

“The judge sits every Tuesday and Thursday.”

“We can drive in Thursday afternoon,” Steve said. “But there will be gossip. In Denver, there was a sporting chance that you wouldn’t be noticed. In Acton, not a hope. On the other hand, this marriage isn’t going to hold up in a court of law if there’s anything secretive about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only way this marriage is going to get your cousins off your back is if it is a for real marriage. Wedding, honeymoon, setting up house. The whole nine yards. Suppose they challenge our marriage on the grounds that it is just a sham? They could tie you up in court for years.”

Laura felt panicky. Why hadn’t she realized that her marriage would be more than her and Steve? If he left her. When he left her, she was going to be publicly humiliated. “I suppose you want to send an announcement to the papers?” she snapped.

Steve laughed. “We’ll start by putting an announcement in the Denver papers. Be a big deal one of you B&B Bascoms getting hitched. Shouldn’t be surprised if we have to give interviews.”

“Dear God.”

“And we will have to follow it up by having us a big shindig. My people won’t think our marriage is real if we don’t have a bit of a bash. As it is, my mom is going to be very hurt that I got married without her being there. But I don’t think we can get my folks out to Colorado by Thursday afternoon.”

“Daddy won’t like it either, if he’s not there.” Laura’s voice was very soft. Steve thought that she had not considered that their marriage was something more than a deal between the two of them. But marriage was always more than a couple.

So here they were on the road to the ranch, Laura’s competent hands on the steering wheel and all her attention on the road. There were no streetlights out here, so attention was a good thing. The road signs all warned of deer in the vicinity. This heavy pickup would survive an impact even with a full grown buck, but it would be a serious accident all the same.

“I’ll drop you at your cabin,” she said. “You can install those cameras tomorrow.”

“I have to sleep by myself?” he asked mildly.

“Your things are all at the cabin,” she countered.

Women cared more about clean underwear than men. Fact of life. “I can pack my kit in about a minute,” he said.

“Huh.” They drove on. “Well, okay. You can move in tonight.” Her eyes swung sideways to his face for a brief inspection.

“Why, thank you,” he drawled. “I look forward to sleeping in your bed, Miss Laura.”

It was dark in the cab of the truck, but he thought she blushed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Laura eased the truck down the drive, her foot barely touching the gas pedal. Rosa and Carlos’s house was just a dark block above the glittering stream. She couldn’t see Lance’s smaller bungalow through the trees. She set the handbrake on the slight incline outside Steve’s cabin. A soft glow illuminated his windows. She began to open her door, but Steve’s hand was on her wrist, and his face was carved from granite.

“Probably nothing,” he said in a low, hard voice that barely carried. “But I want to check first.” His chin indicated the cabin. “I don’t waste electricity,” he said.

He produced a tiny penlight. “Stay here,” he instructed in that same compelling tone. His hand went briefly to the light above the rear view mirror. When he opened the door, the cab stayed dark. Laura knew a command when she heard one. She kept her seat.

Steve crouched and walked bent double to the stand of little trees and bushes that screened the back door of the cabin. Despite her excellent night vision, Laura could barely make him out. She watched him go up to the front door and try his key. He turned the knob and slipped inside. The lights blazed suddenly and she got out of the truck. He met her at the porch looking grim.

“That cousin of yours was in here earlier.” His voice was clipped.

“Piper?” She had thought Piper had left the ranch.

“The same.” He waved a big hand around the tidy cabin. “She messed with my stuff,” he said. He was plainly pissed.

It looked the same to her. Ready for a surprise inspection. “Are you sure?”

“She sat or lay down on my bed.” He was outraged. “And she looked through my things.”

The quilt was perhaps a shade less taut and the pillow had a small dent in it. Laura suppressed a smile. Piper was in such shit. “What on earth for?” she asked.

Steve found a black nylon duffel and began to empty the dresser drawers. He briskly tucked neatly folded stacks of clothes into the bag, before heading to the bathroom. He returned in a moment with his shaving kit in a black leather box.

“Smell that,” he demanded. He was quietly furious.

Laura sniffed. Piper’s heavy perfume mixed with her cousin’s personal scent overlaid a smell of shaving soap.

“She was rootling all through my stuff.” He moved over to the bed where his Mac was charging and picked it up. He pressed buttons. “Tried to get into my notepad,” he said. His voice became even colder. He put the Mac on top of the other things in his duffel, added his reader, and turned back to her. “Let’s go,” he said.

“What was she looking for?” wondered Laura.

“She was plenty pissed at me the day we met,” said Steve. “But there was no reason for her to break into my cabin and wait for me. Nothing between us and nothing for her to find.”

Laura eased the truck along the route home, mindful that the other residents of the ranch would be asleep this late. “I don’t know what she was after,” she said thoughtfully. “Although Piper is a touch spoiled. She may have heard rumors about you and me. Perhaps she wanted to check them out.”

“So she broke into my home and rifled through my stuff?”

“Well, she wouldn’t think it was so awful since you are an employee,” Laura explained.

Steve’s snort was all the answer she got. There was a porch light on at the Big House. And the living room windows were lit up too. Daddy had waited up for her. Just as if she had gone on a date with Steve, and was seventeen all over again. She didn’t know whether to feel exasperated or touched.

She drove around to the back where she usually parked and got out. The light above the back door was on too. Daddy was making a fuss. What an old softie. Steve grabbed his bag, checked the lock on the topper of the truck and joined her.

“Lock the truck,” he said in his command voice.

“Okay.”

“Ten grand worth of equipment in the back and your cousin may have sticky fingers.”

“Hmm. Let’s be quiet. Daddy may have dropped off waiting for me,” she explained.

“Your daddy waits up for you every time you go on a date?” he whispered against her hair. Amusement was back in his voice. He kissed her head.

Laura shook her head slightly. “I don’t date,” she reminded him.

Steve dropped his bag in the hall and together they went into the living room. Her cousin Patrick was reading in an armchair. He sprang up as they came into the room. Immediately his shoulders squared and his eyes narrowed. He did not smile.

“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t know you were coming, Pat.” She moved towards him with her hands out. “How’s it going?”

Patrick deliberately set down the papers he had been reading and laid his pen on top. He was wearing a polo shirt and chinos and his left arm was bandaged from wrist to elbow. He rose and gave her a tight hug, evaluating Steve over the top of her head.

“I heard you were thinking of getting married,” he said curtly. “I came to meet your bridegroom.” Laura flinched. The last thing she wanted was a pissing contest. But Patrick, who was usually the most urbane of men, was spoiling for a fight. He examined Steve as if he wanted to rip his head off.

“This is Steve Holden,” Laura said softly. She showed Pat her ring. “We’re going to get married.”

Patrick took her left hand in his and rocked it from side to side as he examined the diamond. His eyes went to Steve. “Nice stone,” he said levelly. “Did you pay for it yourself, Lauralee?”

“Patrick Bascom!” she chided. “Shame on you.” She peeked at Steve. He was standing at ease, but an alertness in his posture informed her he was ready to rumble.

“Seems like it’s the question of the hour.” Pat did not let go of her hand, and his tone was belligerent.

Laura touched his bandaged arm. “You got hurt,” she said. “How’d you hurt your arm?” She kissed his cheek. “Welcome home.”

Patrick shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said dismissively. “Just a bit of shrapnel. I’m fine.”

“How did it happen?” she asked him. “Were you injured in combat? Does Uncle Jeremy know?”

“He does not. I haven’t seen him since I got back.” Patrick’s brown eyes were still raking Steve.

She stroked the bandages on his forearm. “Well, I’m glad you’re home safe, Pat. Have you seen Zeke?”

He stopped his masculine posturing to grin at her, but he kept her in the circle of his arms. “He sent his love. And I just sent about a million photos of your godchildren to your phone. They are huge. Walking already. Zeke and Jenna want to know when you’re coming to visit.”

Laura chuckled. “I don’t know that I have time to go out to Yakima Ridge until after roundup. How long were you there for?”

“Five days,” he said shortly. He gave her a last squeeze and let her go.

“Five days in the backwoods, Patrick Bascom,” she teased. “After seven months in Syria! And now you’re in rural Colorado. You must be pining for the fleshpots of Denver.”