Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (22 page)

“W
e’re outgunned and outmanned.” It was a statement of
fact. Jarrad didn’t expect Jack to come up with a solution. He just felt better
saying aloud what they both knew.

Muzzle flashes erupted all around them. Bullets flew
in every direction, all aimed at Jack and Jarrad as they sought protection
behind a few rocks that had been brought to the surface during the bunker
excavation some years ago.

“Spider’s going to have to look after himself for now.
We’ve got our work cut out for us staying alive and getting the hell out of
here.” Likewise, Jack only voiced what they both knew to be true.

Elle. I need to find Elle.
But now wasn’t the time to be a hero. He was no good
to her dead. They needed an exit strategy.

“What did you two do to piss these guys off so badly?”
Jack asked during a brief lull in hostilities as the shooters reloaded.

A fresh burst of automatic fire from all around them
highlighted their dire situation.

They looked to each other, their faces set determined.
“Time to Hotel Alpha,” Jarrad called it first. It was time to
haul ass
for sure.

“How? We can’t shoot our way out . . .”

Jack paused for a beat, trying to formulate a plan.

“Unless . . .” Jarrad encouraged him to continue.

“Maybe we can outrun them.”

Realization gleamed in Jarrad’s eyes. He slapped his
hand on Jack’s shoulder. Probably the nearest thing to affection he’d ever
shown another man. “Let’s do it.”

In unison, they dropped their weapons and let their
bears have free reign, shifting from their human form as they ran into the
forest, toward the gunmen who were unlucky enough to have stood between them
and safety. Their glee at having their prey run into their line of fire turned
to dismay as the running men morphed into enormous, fearsome bears, complete
with thunderous paws pounding the earth and bared teeth snarling and ready to
tear them apart.

Both bears took a few rounds, fired in haste by the
panicked shooters, but they did little damage thanks to the thick fur and slabs
of powerful muscle that lay beneath. Within seconds, the bears were upon them
and screams rose from the forest like the other cartel gangsters had never
heard before and in their line of business, they’d heard a lot of screams.

Then the screaming was cut short and an earie silence
fell over the forest as gun smoke wafted in the breeze. The only sound they
heard was the heavy drubbing of the bear paws as the two bear shifters ran to
freedom.

“W
hat are you staring at?” Spider was plainly concerned
that she was staring because she’d spotted another bullet wound or some other
injury that he wasn’t aware of.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Erin tore her gaze away from the chiseled six-pack
that had first caught her attention, past the superbly developed pecs that
capped his broad, thickly muscled chest up to the cute cleft of his chin then
to his handsome face.

Until now, she’d never really looked at him closely.
But his body. Her mouth was dry and she found herself licking her lips to
moisten them, and then realized she looked like a salivating dog on heat.

Bad girl
, she admonished herself.
Very, very bad girl
.

When she’d seen him earlier, all she noticed was that
he had broad shoulders and a narrow, trim waist. That’s all she could discern
when he was fully clothed. But now, half naked and standing only feet away from
her . . .

“Where’s all the blood coming from?” she asked, trying
to change tack and stop drooling like a hormone crazy teenage girl.

There was blood. Plenty of blood in fact, but no
bullet holes or vicious exit wounds like she had been expecting to see. Just
blood and even that was starting to dry into a crust, as if it had suddenly
stopped flowing.

She circled him warily, examining him for bullet
wounds. She found none.

“How . . .” Her voice faltered. She couldn’t find the
words. If his Adonis like body didn’t make her breathless enough, the fact that
his bleeding had stopped and no wounds appeared to be the source of the
bleeding left her speechless. Not something that Erin experienced very often,
maybe never.

“Let me get cleaned up and I’ll explain,” Spider
offered. “There’s a creek out back, I’ll get some water. You look for something
to clean the blood off with.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, he turned on a
heel and headed straight out the door before things got any more awkward.

S
he was still rummaging through the medical kit looking
for gauze pads to clean his wounds, or whatever he had, when Spider came back
with a bucket of water. “Water’s colder than a witch’s tit, but at least it’s
clean.” He smiled at her, the dimples either side of his face looking even
cuter than she had seen previously.

Grrr! Cute and buff. Bad combination.

Fisting a handful of pads from the medical kit into a
makeshift sponge, she took the bucket from him and began to wash the dried
blood from his skin. Slowly. She was in no rush.

“You saved my life back there, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Are you kidding me? Those guys couldn’t hit the side
of a barn with a shotgun. You weren’t in any real danger,” he scoffed.

“You threw yourself over me and got hit for your
trouble. I’m not stupid, you know.” She fixed him with a stare that challenged
him to contradict her. He didn’t dare.

His bear stirred at her close proximity. The scent of
his mate filled his nostrils and awakened his primal mating urges.
Not now,
boy
, he commanded his bear.

“What was that?” she asked, her sparkling green eyes
widening as she cocked her head to one side.

“What was what?”

“That look that crossed your face just now. And your
eyes, I swear they changed . . . like they changed color or something. Then it
passed. What the . . .?”

It was time for some military tactics. Distract and
avoid. Spider fell back to what he was used to and being examined by a gorgeous
girl was definitely not on his list of things he was used to. He did the only
thing he could think of.

He kissed her.

A
t first he crushed his lips to hers, seeking only to
interrupt her flow of interrogation and to throw her off balance. She’d been
asking too many questions and piecing things together. Then his bear took over
and before he knew it, he was pressing his large, strong body against her
smooth curves and he felt himself hardening against her belly.

Worried that she’d not take too kindly to having his
plus size boner poking her in the stomach, he arched his back to make a gap
between them. Almost instantly, she pressed herself against him, firmly and
deliberately closing the gap, as she ached to feel his hardness against her
once more.

Her lips parted, inviting him to explore her. Begging
him to explore her. All feelings of shame and brazenness dissipated as her
hormones, to which she had now surrendered complete control, surged throughout
her body, bringing with them a clawing need to be taken by this brave, strong
specimen of a man. She felt like she was melting where she stood and the liquid
heat that surged within her pooled below her belly, where his hardness pressed
hungrily.

Running her fingers through his stubble of close
shaved blond hair she broke their deep, eager kiss to press her mouth to his
neck and breathe in his mucky, masculine scent. His was an intoxicating, heady
aroma that served no other purpose than to inflame her wanton desires even
more. She was long past the point of thinking that such primal lust was
inappropriate.

That horse had well and truly left the barn.

C
urling her leg around his, pulling him tighter and
closer to her, Erin tore at Spider’s expanse of back and shoulder muscles as
she sought to feel every one of the undulating muscle groups with her probing
fingertips. She’d never felt anything like it. He was rock hard, but at the
same time, there was softness beneath her fingers as he rippled and flowed at
her touch.

Bringing her mouth back to his, their tongues sought
each other and twirled and snaked together, performing a mating ritual of their
very own. Spider snatched a handful of Erin’s hair, pulling it hard as he
kissed her possessively, plundering her mouth like he couldn’t get enough of
her.

The urges threatened to overwhelm her. She broke away
again, breathless.

“What are you doing to me?” she sighed in his ear.

“If you have to ask
that
, then we really should
stop.”

“No . . . I mean
how
are you doing this to me?
I don’t do this. This isn’t me. Why do I feel like I’m so . . .”

“Horny?” he ventured.

She slapped him on the arm. “No, you idiot, not horny,
but drawn. That’s what it is; I feel drawn to you, like this is
right
,
somehow. But part of me says I shouldn’t be doing this. I don’t even know you.”

“Trust me,” he said into her mouth, “trust yourself. I
feel it, too.”

And so does my bear!

As he kissed her, more gently and sensually this time,
she became aware, once more, of the heat pooling between her legs and she
pressed her sex against his hardness, seeking the pleasure of his mighty
erection. It’s length stretched from her belly all the way down to her moist
mound. She wanted him. Wanted him to fill her and take her like he couldn’t get
enough of her. She wanted to feel him crave her as she desired him. Profoundly
and deeply.

His hand slid from her lower back to the thigh she had
wrapped around him. His fingers found every curve along the way and still it
felt like he wanted more of her as he explored her butt and midriff before
sliding his long, firm fingers lower to her waiting pussy.

Shuddering with anticipation as his hand approached,
she willed it to move faster. She wanted, no, needed him to touch her there
before she exploded. So strong was her desire to be pleasured by him that she
actually felt like she could come just at his touch.

As his fingers slid across the fabric of her pants
ready to cup her sex in the warm palm of his hand, he stopped.

“No,” she keened wistfully. “Please . . .”

But Spider wasn’t listening, at least not to her. He
cocked his head slightly, his acute bear instincts having been piqued by a
distant sound. Feet, wait . . . paws pummeling the damp forest floor as they
ran. Large paws. Two bears.

“What is it?” Her selfish pleasures were shunted aside
as she picked up on Spider’s focus being fixed on something she wasn’t yet
aware of.

T
wo minutes later Spider made his way to the door. He
hadn’t reached it when the door shoved open and a breathless Jarrad and Jack
tumbled through the opening. Erin noticed that they both appeared unharmed. And
unarmed. Strange.

“We were hoping you’d be here,” Jarrad said with a
smile. “Those guys are real pissed and I think they mean business this time.

“This time?” Jack probed.

“I second that,” Erin added for good measure.

Erin and Jack looked to each other, each recognizing
that on different levels they were both outsiders and there was more to what
was going on that either of them had been made privy to.

“Okay, if I’m going to be shooting guys —”

“And I’m getting shot at —” Erin interjected

“As I was saying,” Jack continued with a sharp glare
to shut Erin up, “if I’m going to be shooting guys who are shooting at me, then
I ought to know what I’m getting myself into. I’m not a local, remember.”

Jarrad and Spider looked at each other. Jarrad tilted his
head discretely toward Erin. They both looked to Jack.

The awkwardness was broken by Erin.

“It’s time you boys manned up.” She looked at all
three of them, one at a time. “I’m not going anywhere, it’s like a zillion
degrees below zero out there, so I won’t be
stepping out
while you have
your secret squirrel
boys club
meeting, so you might as well spill the
beans right now. I almost got killed today because of you all and I’ve got a
right to know.”

“You nearly got killed because you were being nosey
and spying on people you had no right to be spying on, Miss . . .”

“Erin,” she submitted. “My name’s Erin Parker.”

Nice name
, thought Spider, wishing they’d taken the time for introductions before
they started . . .

“Great,” Jarrad’s voice dripped with sarcasm, “now
that we’re all buddied up, Spider, do you want to tell the story?”

With a heave of his chest and a sigh, Spider shoved
off the wall he’d been leaning against and stepped into the middle of the room.

“Okay, I’ll catch the two of you up as best I can.” He
looked at Jack and Erin, wondering how much of the story to tell.

In the end, he told them everything. Everything but
the three of them being bear shifters. He didn’t think Erin was ready for that
on top of everything else.

Maybe she’d never be ready.