Bearly Interested (3 page)

Her beauty ripped his words right out of his throat. He just stood there gawking.

“I see that your bear remembers me,” she said with a smile. He looked down at his massive chest vibrating. His bear was purring loudly. Nobody stopped to look like they did back home. New Yorkers were great at keeping their heads down and ignoring any strangeness around them.

“He’s been missing you since you left,” he said, as she sat down on the bench next to him. “So have I.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch up there,” she said. “You just caught me by surprise.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “You can be as bitchy as you want. I’m just happy to see you.”

She looked down the street in the opposite direction to hide her reddening cheeks.

“Have you been waiting here all day?” she asked.

He nodded. It hadn’t been too bad. There was always something to look at on the streets of New York City.

“Did you eat?” she asked.

“Not for a while.” There had been a hot dog cart on the corner that Sidney had visited every time he was hungry but the man had closed up hours ago when Sidney cleaned his cart out. The man was happy that he got to go home early.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Starving.” She stood up and glanced down the street. Sidney leaned back on the bench to check out her ass. “There’s a pizza place up ahead.”

Pizza sounded perfect. “Let’s go.”

Angie walked beside Sidney with her pulse in second gear. He pointed something out on a building and she glanced at his large biceps and gulped. He was so big. Even bigger than she remembered. She still couldn’t believe that he had managed to fit inside her.

She had always dated skinny lab rats before him and was mesmerized by his muscles. It wasn’t something that she normally went after but holy fuck they were impressive. He lifted her as easily as a flower. His strength and the fact that he was a bear shifter awoke something primitive in her.

She shook the thoughts out of her mind. She was an academic. An intellectual. Surely she was past listening to the monkey part of her brain. She glanced at his large back muscles jutting through his t-shirt and swallowed hard. Maybe not.

But it wasn’t just the muscles. He was sweet. Dim witted and frustrating as all hell but sweet. He had waited ten hours for her. Nobody had ever been so excited to see her that they waited ten hours. A tingle swept up the back of her neck and across her face just thinking about it.

But she had work to do. She had a career to keep on track. She didn’t need him coming in here and derailing all of her hard work.

It was time to set him straight.

“Look Sidney,” she said, stopping on the sidewalk. “I don’t know what got into me that night at the cabin.”

“When we mated?” he asked.

She looked away and bit her lip, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. “Yes. When we…you know…”

“When we mated?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she snapped. “I just want to say that I don’t normally do that kind of thing.” She took a deep breath. “It’s just a relationship is not something that is in the cards for me right now. I’m working on a huge project that is going to rocket launch my career and I’m hoping to get a job in Switzerland when it’s over.”

“Switzerland,” he said, jerking his head back. “That’s like a four hour drive.”

“No, Switzerland the country. If everything works out than I’ll be moving to Europe.”

He looked at her with a confused look. “But we’re mates.”

“No,” she said, placing her hand on his pec. A tingling shot through her hand down to her sex. She snapped her hand back as if she had just touched a hot stove. “No we’re not mates. We had a drunken, one night stand a month ago. That was it. No relationship. Just a one night hook up.”

“Can I just ask you one thing?” he asked.

She looked up at his chiseled face. He looked handsome as the street light lit up his rough features. “Sure.”

He cupped his huge hands on her cheeks, swallowing her head in his palms, leaned down and kissed her.

Angie’s first instinct was to pull away but as soon as his lips hit hers, her body melted. A moan escaped her throat as his tongue grazed hers. She had forgotten how good of a kisser he was. He was dangerously good.

He pulled away and smiled at her as her head was swimming dizzily. “How did that feel?”

She licked her lips and shook her head, trying unsuccessfully to clear it. “Doesn’t change anything,” she said.

He just smiled knowingly. “Let’s get that pizza.”

He walked ahead and she reluctantly followed.
Damn
. Why did he have to be such a good kisser?

“Two pieces of each,” Sidney said, to the guy behind the counter who was staring at him like he just ordered in Swahili.

“Of which one?” the man asked in an Italian accent.

“Of all of them,” Sidney said. What was so difficult to understand?

“Sidney there’s about fourteen different pizzas here,” Angie said. “Can you eat that much?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “It’s been two hours since the last time I ate. I’m starving.”

The man shrugged and started piling the pizza slices into a box. Angie ordered her piece and they left, off to eat their dinner.

Sidney carried the box, his stomach groaning impatiently at the smell, as they walked to a spot that Angie said had a spectacular view.

“It’s a little park with beautiful views of the West Side and Hudson River,” she said.

“It’s nice,” Sidney lied. He didn’t see anything spectacular about it at all. There were no mountains or tall trees or even any stars. Just a bunch of bright lights.

He sat on the grass next to Angie and snuck a peek at her face, lit up in the ambient light.
Well maybe it’s not so bad.
Angie always prettied up the view.

He handed her a piece of pizza and grabbed one for himself. “Uck,” he grunted, picking off the pieces of pineapple and flicking them in the grass. There was a reason that Hawaii wasn’t known for their pizza.

“So I heard that Grace moved in next to you,” she said, wiping her greasy fingers onto her jeans.

“She’s so happy,” he said. “She’s a really good painter.”

“I’ve been meaning to visit,” she said, gazing out at the dark Hudson river.

The lights from across the shore were shimmering on the surface. Sidney glanced at her side profile. She was so angelic. His heart skipped a beat.

“I’ve just been so busy,” she said.

“We’re all wondering when you’re going to move out there,” he said.

“Ha!” she snorted. “Not in this lifetime. Although I do miss those stars,” she said, looking up at the sky. “You can’t see anything out here.”

“You’re not really going to move to Switzerland are you?” he blurted out. He couldn’t stomach the thought of her leaving him. He would follow her but his bear could never live in a city. A bear shifter would go insane living in a concrete jungle. Plus she hadn’t invited him.

“If I get the job,” she said. “I’ll be gone in a heartbeat.”

His heart panged. “What about me?”

She bowed her head to the side, looking at him and smiled. “What about you?”

“Do I really have to explain this to you again?” he asked.

“Do I really have to explain this to
you
again?” she responded.

“Alright,” he said, wiping his greasy hand on the grass. His stomach was in knots and he didn’t feel like eating anymore. He got up and tossed the box of pizza into a nearby garbage can. He walked back and stood in front of her with his arms crossed. She looked so little sitting on the grass. So perfect. “Challenge accepted.”

She chuckled. “What challenge?”

“I have to make you fall in love with me before you leave.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “You’re better off trying to be the first werebear on Mars.”

He stuck his hand out. “Challenge accepted then?” he asked.

She slapped her tiny hand in his. “Challenge accepted.”

three

Angie was having a blast. Sidney insisted on walking into every open bar, cafe and pub on the street. Places that Angie had walked by every night on her way home from work, hearing the laughter and good times coming from within but never joining in.

Well tonight she was a part of the laughs.

First up was a karaoke bar filled with possibly the worst singers in the state. People who came to New York to make it big because their mothers told them they sung like an angel, even though they had no formal voice training. Sidney quickly made friends with a large table of Japanese men who bought them round after round of sake bombs.

Angie was crying laughing as Sidney serenaded her with a drunken, off-key version of On Bended Knee by Boys II Men with the swaying Japanese men providing the squawky background vocals. The whole karaoke bar joined in, singing to her in a clusterfuk of earsplitting pitches, confused tones and messed up lyrics. At the end of the song she was standing on her chair clapping and cheering.

Sidney ran up to her and swept her off the chair and out of the bar to a round of thunderous applause. He placed her on the sidewalk with a smile. She stroked his arm slowly as she let go, feeling lightheaded and breathless. She glanced away, feigning interest in something across the street, a mailbox, a streetlight, anything but the sexy bear shifter in front of her that was making the hair on her arms raise.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the next spot. It was a comedy club. The comedian stopped in the middle of his act when they walked in and stared at them holding hands. They must’ve looked like quite the couple.
No not couple. Definitely not a couple.

“Look at these two,” a skinny comedian who was already fully bald even though he didn’t look older than twenty five, said. “An Internet meme, live in person.”

Angie slunk behind Sidney as the whole audience of about a hundred people turned to look at them.

“How have you not split her in two?” he asked. The entire audience laughed. He continued. “How does it feel to have the whole place picturing you two having sex on their minds?”

“You’re so bald that I can see what’s on your mind,” Angie yelled out. The crowd laughed harder at her joke.

“Oh shit,” someone called out.

“A bald joke,” he said, rubbing his head. “That hurts.”

“Would you prefer a skinny joke?” she asked. The whole audience was watching her with smiling faces, curious to see what she was going to say next. She stood in front of Sidney and stared the comedian down. “You’re so skinny you have to run around in the shower to get wet.” The whole crowd laughed and looked back at her for more.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” she yelled. “Nobody can see you behind that mic stand anyways.” Sidney swept her up and in his arms and he walked out of the club to a backdrop of claps and cheers.

They stepped outside onto the sidewalk and she had to stop herself from kissing him as adrenaline coursed through her veins. She had never done anything like that before.

He pulled her into the next spot, a packed club with music so loud that it made her eardrums thump to the beat. He held her hand, pulling her to the bar and ordered two shots. It was sour like lemonade. He said something but she couldn’t hear over the music. He guided her through the packed, sweaty crowd, the sexy people parting before the big man, all the way to the dance floor.

It felt good to be out of the lab. To be doing what normal people her age did.

He brought her in close, his hand tight on her lower back, and swayed his hips to the beat of the music. She held her breath at the masculine scent of him and the tightness of his muscular body. Her mouth became moist, her nerve endings tingling and stirring at his every touch. As frustrating as he was, her body definitely responded to his in a major way.

Angie moved in close, erasing all distance from him. Her hips moved in sync with his as they danced. Her fingers brushed along his back as she moved, her touch lingering on his taut back muscles.