Bear's Baby (Bear Heat Book 4) (5 page)

“Lindy,” he
whispered, searching her face. “Something's bothering you.
What is it?”

She shook her head. “It's
nothing.”

“You look...sad.”

“I...”

“Talk to me, Lindy.”

She took a deep breath and
met his eyes. “You are a great guy, Baxter. You...you're my
perfect guy.”

“I am?” His eyes
rounded before a grin split his face. “No one has ever said
that to me before.”

“Really?” This
time it was her turn to widen her eyes at him.

“Yeah.” He
leaned in and kissed her tenderly on the lips. “I'm not
perfect, Lindy,” he said haltingly, hoarsely. “But I
want to be perfect for you.”

Lindy felt her breath catch.
She cupped his face in both hands and stared into his intense, gray
eyes for a long moment.

“You are perfect for
me,” she said softly. “I guess I've always known it.”

He opened his mouth but she
cut off his question with a deep, searing kiss.

“Be mine,” she
murmured against his lips. “Just be mine tonight.”

CHAPTER
SIX

Baxter held her tighter,
rubbing her arms, her back, and kissing her hair, her eyelids and the
tip of her nose. He heard the sadness in her words, and he knew what
she was thinking. She thought that this would just be a one night
stand. Some of the women he had been with had wanted more with him
as well. They wanted more than just sex. They wanted his heart, his
love. They were nice girls, and he didn't want to lead them on and
hurt them. He could give them sex, the best sex of their lives even,
but nothing more. His heart and soul, his love, his life would only
be given to one female. His mate.

But he had long given up the
idea of ever finding his mate. He just wasn't one of those lucky
bears.

So why was it that this
little human woman was making his bear all growly and territorial?
The beast was roaring to possess this female, to take her and
mark her as his. His bear had gone mad, stark, raving, roaring mad.

Lindy was perfect, that was
for sure. He liked her. Liked was an understatement. He loved and
admired everything about her. He saw that she was dedicated to her
work, and from the glimpse that he'd caught of her writing on her
legal pad, he had a good idea what she did for a living. It only
racked up his esteem of her a good couple of notches. She was smart,
sensitive, independent. She stayed in a good neighborhood, and her
house was well-kept and cozy. She was highly successful in her
career, yet sweet, soft and vulnerable on the inside. The woman had
brains, beauty and a hot, curvy body. Could he get any luckier?

He might be the luckiest bear
after all.

Mine!

His bear wanted to stake its
claim. Baxter had always been happy to go along with his bear. So
why was he holding his bear back this time? He swallowed hard as he
gazed down at her beautiful face.

It was because she was too
darn important to him. He didn't want to risk his bear messing
anything up with her.

He didn't want to lose her.

Baxter breathed in the
intoxicating scent of her need and arousal. Her scent called to him,
sparked something fierce in him.

He dipped his head and
suckled her hungrily. He growled against her breast when she arched
her back. They both wanted and needed more.

Baxter teased and tormented
her stiff, erect nipples until she cried out and jerked off the
mattress. When he pushed her legs apart and lapped greedily at her
glistening pussy, she moaned and fisted the sheets. Her lust and
desire was wild and consuming, and he couldn't hold back any more.
He wanted to take her, be inside her and feel her tight, pulsing heat
envelop him completely.

Baxter flung her legs over
his shoulders and nudged his cock into her slit. She gasped and a
sob of pleasure escaped. “Please...” she rasped. “Give
me more, Baxter.”

He inhaled a ragged breath.
He would give her everything, all of him, every inch, every drop of
him.

Holding her lush, fleshy
hips, he drove himself into her, and his entire body shuddered at the
explosive pleasure. Her body was so hot and tight. He pushed deep
into her, feeling her walls ripple and clench around him, sucking him
in greedily. She felt so good, so amazing, so damn right.

“Lindy, baby...”
he whispered as he stroked in and out of her body. He moved slowly,
rotating his hips to feel every wet inch of her channel. He didn't
want to just thrust like a rutting beast between her thighs and be
done. He wanted to savor her, feel her, make love to her.

He slid in and out of her
body steadily, gazing into her eyes as he took her. She had her arms
around his neck and her legs around his hips. Baxter touched her,
teased her and stoked her lust. He prolonged her pleasure, took her
to the edge and made her scream.

Lindy was beautiful, so
beautiful when she climaxed. He wanted her to come for him every
night. He wanted her to belong to him completely.

The beast in him reared up
and he clamped his teeth down on her shoulder possessively as he
plunged into the swirling, pounding ocean of ecstasy with her. This
hot, curvy female was his, and he would stake his claim. Baxter
surged into her body and his release ripped from him in a deafening
roar. He poured himself into her, and kept moving even after she had
wrung him dry.

He didn't want to stop,
didn't want to let her go.

Holding her close, he kissed
her everywhere until her shudders subsided. Their breathing was loud
and ragged, and the scent of sex lingered in the air. He wished his
bedroom could smell like this, like her, every day.

Lindy's eyes gradually
fluttered open. She smiled up at him and touched his face.

“Ten years,”
Lindy whispered at last. He saw tears shimmering in her eyes but she
blinked them away quickly. “I can't believe...”

Baxter propped himself up on
one elbow and stared at her. “Lindy,” he said slowly.
“Have we...met before? Ten years ago?”

She winced and bit her plump
lower lip. “Yeah. In a way,” she replied with a
lopsided smile. “You can say that.”

“Say what?”
Baxter frowned in confusion. “Are you saying that we did meet
ten years ago?”

Smiling shyly, she nodded.
“We did. Or rather, I did. I met you, but you didn't meet
me.”

“That doesn't make
sense.” He scowled. “How could we have met ten years
ago when I never saw you? I would remember seeing you. Trust me.
And 'meet' means two or more people actually
meeting
. Hi, how
do you do, pleased to meet you, that kind of stuff. So how...”

That drew a laugh from her.
“Meet means coming into the presence or company of someone. I
was in your presence and I saw you. But you didn't see me.”

He sucked in a breath and
blinked. Something clicked in his mind and his jaw dropped. There
were always people walking in and out of the Black Bears office.
Clients, reporters, city officials, police officers, business
partners. “No kidding,” he muttered.

“No kidding.”

“Well, fuck me.”

Lindy smirked. “I just
did.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

With her head on his chest,
Lindy told him that she had seen him ten years ago at the office of
the Black Bears Group. She could even remember what he wore, what he
said and what he did that day. But she left out the fact that her
boss was present as well, and who her boss was. Baxter didn't probe,
and seemed to accept her story that she had just been waiting for a
friend at the reception area.

When she finished, Baxter was
speechless for a full minute.

Finally, he rubbed his chest
and muttered, “What a bloody fool I am. If only I hadn't been
such a pompous prick, making all that bloody noise and swaggering and
bellowing like an idiot, I would have seen you.”

“You weren't...”
she began but there was a loud, piercing beep.

Baxter cursed and jerked off
the bed. He grabbed his phone from his trouser pocket and scanned
the incoming message.

He blew out a hard breath.
“Something's up at Skyflame Casino,” he told her. “I'm
in charge of the Skyflame contract. I have to go.”

“Skyflame Casino?”
Lindy sat up. “That's owned by the billionaire Liam Skyworth,
right?”

“Yes. Liam is one of
our clients. The Black Bears provide security services and personnel
for his casino and a number of his other business organizations,”
Baxter answered as he threw on his clothes.

“Hmm.” She
nodded as she watched him dress. “Tell me something.”

He buckled his belt. “Yeah.”

“Is the rumor true?”

“What rumor?”

“You know, the rumor
that Liam Skyworth is a dragon shifter.”

Baxter chuckled and came to
kiss the top of her head. “The saying holds true.”

“What saying?”

Baxter winked. “There's
no smoke without fire.”

“Ha. Ha. Dragon, smoke
and fire. Very clever.” She rolled her eyes.

He was about to kiss her when
his phone sounded again. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips as he
glanced at his phone.

“Gotta go,” he
mumbled and raced out of the bedroom.

Lindy sighed. She should
have known. This was just too good to last. Well, at least she had
one glorious, unforgettable night…

She gasped when she heard
thundering footsteps pounding back towards the bedroom.

Baxter burst into the room
and said breathlessly, “Sorry! I have to go, Lindy. It's an
emergency. But I want to see you again.”

“Oh...okay.”

He grinned. “You said
okay. That means you've agreed to go out with me.”

“I...” she
stuttered.

“No backing out now.”

“I wasn't...”

He raised a finger.
“Tomorrow night. Dinner. I'll bring a bottle of wine,
and...maybe you'll get lucky.”

“Oh, you wish!”
She threw a pillow at him. “You wish
you
would get
lucky, again.”

“I am lucky.”
His grin turned sheepish. “I do, Lindy, I do wish,” he
added softly.

Lindy blushed. “You
gotta go, so go. Be safe.”

“I'll pick you from
work tomorrow evening.”

“Do you know where I
work?”

“Do you feel
comfortable letting me know where you work?”

She cocked her head. She did
feel very comfortable with him, and she realized that while Baxter
had been open about himself and his work, she had basically not told
him anything about what she did. It was good to be careful, but it
was good to trust as well.

She took a deep breath and
said, “I'm an investigative psychologist at the B.A.D.”

“Behavioral Analysis
Department,” they said together.

She looked up and saw that he
was smiling a little.

“You knew.”

Baxter stuffed his hands in
his pockets and shrugged. “Well...I didn't exactly buy your
story that you were waiting for a friend in the Black Bears office
ten years ago. And—I saw what you scribbled on your legal pad
back at the diner. Not much,” he said quickly when her eyes
narrowed in suspicion. “Just a sentence, or part of a sentence
actually. But it was enough—for me. I'm an investigator, a
tracker in my clan. I can pick up clues and details that others
often miss.” He wasn't bragging or taunting her, just stating
a bare fact. “In fact, I'd say that our work is very similar.”

She nodded and quirked a
smile. “You're right.”

“So...I'll pick you up
at six tomorrow.” The slight inflection at the end of his
sentence told her that he wasn't sure their date was still on. It
was more a question than a statement.

“Make it six-thirty. I
don't want to keep you waiting.”

“I love you, Lindy!”
The words rushed out as he ducked out the door.

She heard the front door open
and close swiftly and he was gone.

Pulling on a robe, she padded
out the bedroom and went to check the locks on the front door. She
peeked through the curtains and saw a brief flash of brake lights as
Baxter's car turned out of her street and onto the main road.

She stood at the window for a
while more, looking out at the empty street. Snippets of the case
she was working on floated through her mind and she shivered
involuntarily. Wrapping her arms around herself, she made her way
back to bed.

Baxter's scent lingered on
the pillow, the sheets, all over her. She snuggled back under the
covers and hugged the pillow.

Her work at the Behavioral
Analysis Department involved darkness and violence. She was a
criminal profiler, and she had to analyze the psychology and methods
of the most inhumane criminals and try to anticipate their moves. It
was a taxing, difficult, dark task. Her department had to delve into
the minds of killers, rapists, violent, savage criminals. Their job
was to help the police nab the perpetrator, hopefully before another
victim was snatched off the streets.