Bear Shapeshifter Romance: Her Bears' Desires (Shapeshifter Werebear Romance)(BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance)(Shapeshifter Menage Romance)
Authors: Callie Hartwood
HER BEARS’ DESIRES
CALLIE HARTWOOD
Copyright© 2015 by Callie Hartwood at RomLiaisons Books.
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Property of Callie Hartwood at RomLiaisons Books 2015
Callie Hartwood at
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The car jarred as it rolled over loose stones and packed gravel. Jazzy lurched up from her seat as she drove up the windy road leading toward Silver Lake. One hundred feet below the road was a twisting river that ran from the lake down toward Mountain Pass. The sunlight glittered on the water's surface, warping and reflecting brilliance as if it were a stream of molten mirror.
Despite the beauty of the day, Jazzy couldn't help but feel a bit apprehensive. Just last night, she'd received a rare opportunity that signified the very reason she drove up this treacherous path.
It'd been five o'clock in the evening when Jazzy received the phone call. She'd set down the ornate, filigree teacup from her grandmother's old tea set and picked up the cell phone resting just a foot away. It'd been odd. She hadn't expected any more calls from modeling agencies. With a nervous bite of her lip, Jazzy touched the Talk icon and rested the phone to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hello. Is this Jasmine Solberg?"
The voice didn't belong to any of the people Jazzy had spoken to throughout the week. This was an unfamiliar voice.
"Yes, it is," she answered.
"Hello, Jasmine. This is Victor. I work with Mack Nordskov. He's a local photographer here in Mountain Pass. He saw your portfolio online, and wanted to inquire if you were still looking for work."
Jazzy's stomach swarmed with sudden butterflies. This call was unexpected, but exactly what she'd waited for. She tried not to sound too overly thrilled. "Yes! Yes, I am still looking for work."
"Excellent! We do most of our work up in the forest. How about we meet next Tuesday at noon at Cabin 8, Silver Lake for a beginner shoot?"
She nearly scrambled to right down the date, time and place on the napkin beside her teacup, nearly knocking over the china in the process. "S-Sounds perfect," she replied hastily as she finished the address in harried penmanship. "I'll be looking forward to it, Victor."
After ending the call, Jazzy was giddy with excitement. For so long she'd wanted a career as a model, and this was a chance worthy to jump at.
As Jazzy recalled Victor's words, she tried to calm her nerves by then focusing on how many times agencies had turned her down claiming to be for plus size models. It was always that she was "
too
big" or that they were looking for models "a little thinner." It made no sense to Jazzy.
Why advertise for plus size women when all the models under contract were only size tens? Jazzy had never been very confident about her weight, but she'd grown comfortable with the thought that she would never be thinner, and never really had been growing up. It was just one of those parts of life that she had to make the best of.
But this... This was an opportunity that she couldn't pass up. She had no idea what kind of photo shoot it was going to be, but had done a little research on Mack Nordskov before taking off in the morning. According to his webpage, Mack was an unsung professional of the world of photography. His work heavily emphasized nature and wildlife. It seemed out of the ordinary, as Jazzy was so used to contacting modeling agencies and photographers fixated on fashion and figure.
An hour later, she'd reached Silver Lake. It was a secluded camp ground with nearby rental cabins along the lake's bank. Up along the northern horizon were the looming Arrowhead Mountains, still lightly capped with white, even in mid-summer.
The trees were lush with green hues, and even from a distance, birds sang from their branches Silver Lake was a pretty place, but Jazzy had always avoided coming here to vacation in the past, as the rental company claimed there were always multiple sightings of bears throughout the season.
She drove past most of the cabins and then pulled into the driveway of number 8, parking in front. The building was a two-story log retreat with a garage and a long walkway leading up to the front door. Foliage covered many areas of the cabin, and ivy climbed up along the walls and circled the windows.
Jazzy stepped out from the car and took a deep breath, ready to stride to the entrance and knock.
Just before she could, however, someone rounded a parked pickup from the corner of her eye. She turned to look. A man with a young, wiry frame had stepped around the truck. He was a few inches taller than Jazzy and well-dressed, with a mop of blond hair and kind blue eyes. Jazzy's heart fluttered a little, and she felt a tad excited. Was this who would be working with her? He was very attractive.
The man offered a hand to shake, smiling to her brightly. "I'm Victor. You must be Jasmine Solberg."
Jazzy accepted his gesture. "Yes. It's nice to meet you."
"Likewise," said Victor with another charming grin. "Mack is around back. Walk with me?"
Jazzy followed him with an enthusiastic hop to her step. Not only had she finally been accepted to do a modeling shoot, but she got to work with a very good-looking twenty-something as well.
"What exactly will we be doing?" she had to ask. She'd never had a chance for real photo shoot. She'd practiced, of course, but mostly it had been interviews and nothing else. No one had cared to actually take any real pictures of her.
"Mack and I are wildlife supporters. We take photos of models surrounded by nature to capture the essence of natural beauty," Victor explained.
That was very admirable to Jazzy. She smiled a little. "That sounds nice. Do you usually shoot plus size models?"
As they stepped around the back of the cabin, a small incline made up the back yard, leading down toward the lake. Another man stood a number of yards away checking on camera gear. There were two women just a few feet away from him with kits, mirrors, and a stool.
"Oh, we take models of every body shape," Victor answered. "Men and women."
The other man down by the cameras straightened and glanced behind him to see the other two. As Jazzy met his gaze, her legs slowed to a stop, and she froze in place. He was a tad rugged in appearance, with visible stubble across his jaw. His hair was darker than Victor's, and he was much more built throughout his body. But those eyes... There was something electric about the amber in them that just made Jazzy's heart wish to leap out of her chest.
The surreal pull had her feeling like she'd just stepped into a fairytale. This man spoke of authority, determination, and a wild abandon that domestic life had never been able to tame.
Victor stopped walking, looking back to Jazzy. "Is everything alright?"
Jazzy didn't wish to break the connection she had with this other man's gaze. There was just so much fire... So much mystery.
"Ms. Solberg?"
Jazzy finally snapped her eyes to Victor, and the connection broke. That bizarre pull was lost in the light breeze that floated through the trees, and the heavy thudding of her heart finally tamed its tempo.
"Mack, this is Ms. Jasmine Solberg," said Victor, turning to look at the man walking up to meet them. "Our new model. Ms. Solberg, this is Mack Nordskov."
He shook Jazzy's hand, and she found herself locked in another trance with those amber irises. "It's nice to meet you," he breathed. His voice was low and powerful. It was the voice of a kindhearted warrior.
"Y-You too," Jazzy heard herself utter.
"I'll have you resting along those rocks," he said with a point of his finger at the lake bank. There were several large stones arranged in a manner in which someone could lay on. "Why don't you go ahead and meet with the costume and makeup crew, and we'll get going before we lose too much of the afternoon light?"
Jazzy let go of his hand in a slight daze, realizing she still held onto it. "Right, yes."
As Mack turned from her to go back to his gear, Victor led Jazzy down the hill to the two women. "Is everything alright, Ms. Solberg?" he asked, peering at her curiously.
"Yes, I'm fine," she answered. Now that the bizarre magnetism had broken once again with Mack, she slowly found herself coming back to reality, able to think clearly again.
Taking a deep breath, Jazzy met with the two women who made up the costume and makeup couple, and they fitted her with a forest fairy-style leotard with fabric flowers running up in streams across its front. After applying her makeup and resting a pretty wreath over her blond crown, Jazzy stepped over to the rocks and waited for Mack's instruction. Although she'd had practice modeling before, every photographer was different, and she didn't want to barge right on set without any particular direction.
"Go ahead and take a seat on the blanket on the biggest stone. We'll run through a few practice frames to see how the camera likes you, then go from there. Just go ahead and give me the poses you think capture your beauty the best," Mack directed.
Jazzy took her place on the blanket that kept her exposed thighs from burning on the hot rock, and then took a deep breath. Mack moved to his camera, and she ran through her favorite positions as the sounding snaps of the photos mingled with the birds chirping all around them.
"So how long have you been a model?" Mack asked after the practice round was over.
Embarrassment suddenly rose as a knot in Jazzy's stomach. Truthfully, she'd never been a model until now. This was her first successful job. Did she tell the truth? Or did she lie? Figuring lying was probably a bad idea; she swallowed her anxiety to answer him.
"Actually, this is my first official job. I... haven't been very successful."
"Really?" Mack wondered as he placed a filter over his camera lens. "That surprises me. You're a natural."
The compliment swelled Jazzy with pride. She knew she could do it! And a compliment coming from such and entrancing, handsome guy? Some deep part of her hoped this all wasn't some big, elaborate joke.
"Thank you. That's the first time anyone's ever said that to me."
Mack glanced up from his camera after taking another frame, and his eyes met hers in a spark again. He gave a subtle smile, and the smoky expression on his face turned Jazzy's cheeks pink. "Well then I suppose they don't know what true beauty looks like."
The comment left Jazzy in a swirl of dreamy emotions for the rest of the shoot. After that, she couldn't recall which poses she'd used, but Mack's satisfied expression as he clicked through the pictures on his laptop proved to her that he liked what he saw.
"Maybe we can talk about some possible future shoots," said Mack, glancing up from his monitor to gaze at her.
Victor took her hand to help her off the rock so that she could go dress back down into her street clothing. "You mean... You'd like me to be your model full time?"
He nodded as she walked behind the set up curtain and let the costume seamstress helped her out of the leotard.
"What do you say to a discussion over dinner in Mountain Pass?" Mack's voice filtered past the blockade. "I have a favorite bistro there."
Jazzy smiled, fitting back into her regular clothing and thanking the seamstress for help. "Sure, that sounds great. What time?"
Mack watched her walk out from behind the curtain. His intent stare caused her body to tingle. "Five o'clock tomorrow night. I'll meet you at Carboni's."