My Bad Boy's Secret: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (156 page)

I love it when the big strong bear gets all mushy,
the doctor thought, barely able to hide her amusement. A while ago, this kind of attitude would have turned her off. Commitment was not something she had wanted out of a partner.  But this man… she was willing to go all the way with him, and whenever he’d show her a vulnerable side, it didn’t bother her. And the sex… the sex was beyond incredible, whether it was with him or with Jasper. Or with both at the same time.

“Don’t be silly, my oversized teddy bear,” the doctor finally answered, planting a passionate, chocolate flavored kiss upon Rick’s lips. “Joining up with the Raging Ursine was the best decision of my life.” Her husband now appeared somewhat relieved, but Kate didn’t let the first sign of success discourage her from continuing what she wanted to say.

“Honey, before I got here, I was a mess. Sure, I’ve worked for an impressive paycheck, and I’ve obviously eaten well, but I had next to no idea about what I wanted to do with my life. Besides colleagues, I had no real friends and I couldn’t connect with anyone romantically, and I filled that hole with one-night stands.”

Softly, she caressed the beard that Rick cultivated on his chin before continuing “Something was missing from my life, and I didn’t know what it was. Now I’ve learned, but not by myself. You showed me; you and the rest of the Raging Ursine tribe.” Letting her husband think about what she said, Kate took the last piece of ice cream with her spoon, placing it into her mouth and letting the wondrous sensation lead her to enjoyment.

When she was done, she turned toward Rick and, right after kissing him again, she resumed her story. “I was not made for what they had over there. The coldness, the rules, the emotional distance; all of it had killed me. But you… you’ve succeeded at reinvigoratingthe shell that civilization had left behind. And now here I am, yours to do with as you please.”

“Mine and Jasper’s,” Rick finally replied after a somewhat long silence.
Ah, yes,
Kate reminded herself. He was never keen on the Primacy rule, but followed it regardless. The pack leader had Primacy over everything that the other members of his pack possessed. They had to share it, and even act as if it was their pleasure to provide. The pack leaders themselves were subjected to the same rule by the tribe’s Alpha. Some of the bears enjoyed it. Rick didn’t.

“But honey, isn’t that your way of life?” Kate asked, trying to calm her man’s bottled fury. Sometimes, it appeared as if the reserves of rage within the man were endless, though.

“It is, Kate. It most definitely is.” He looked through her now, his mind having left the moment and flew far away into the future. She didn’t like it when he did that. Rick was fierce, loyal and wild, but also way smarter than he seemed. As much as it seemed that she was misplaced in her world, sometimes her husband seemed like a stranger here.

“Know another thing about our way of life?” He finally spoke, grim determination coloring his voice. Slightly worried about what it might mean, the doctor nevertheless felt herself getting aroused by its primal tone. Not waiting for her to respond, he met her gaze with his own before speaking again “Pack leaders do get challenged from time to time. Especially older ones like Jasper.”

His attitude surprised her. Jasper was old indeed, but everything about him always appeared so spry and virile. There was no way he was going down easy. Unintentionally, Kate smiled.
He might not have been made out for this, but Rick has adapted just fine.

“You’re not implying-“

“I’m not gonna do a thing,” Rick cut her off. “Not now, not soon. But one of these days, months, years, the old man is going down.” Fiercely, he rose, extending the palm of his right hand to Kate, just as he did when they’ve first met. “And then, my love, you will be mine and mine alone.”

Wild, aggressive, and smart to boot,
Kate thought, pleased at the jackpot she hit. Not saying a word, she extended her hand in response, allowing her man to demonstrate his power by helping her up.

Oh, I’ll test your strength in numerous other ways tonight, lover boy,
her wild side roared within her as she rose to her feet.

As you and your pack leader will test mine.

THE END

BONUS BOOK 1

BONUS BOOK 2

Hunting For Love

Shifter Romance

By: Jodie Springer

Hunting For Love

Far within the woods of northern Minnesota, a shivering woman scrounged through a pile of chopped wood. As cold and dark as it was in this time of the night, this was by no means a place for her.

“Just what did you get yourself into, Josie?” she asked herself out loud while pulling out a sizeable chunk, a second before turning and tossing it into the fading fire located in the center of the encampment.

Like anyone’s going to answer,
she heard her own silent reply.
They are out cold from the beer, all of them.

Turning around, Josie scanned her surroundings, as she did many times that night. Three tents, one larger than the others, made up the entirety of the encampment. She knew that her husband had expected her to join him soon, but instead she chose to use this opportunity to get more in tune with the outdoors. The night was beautiful, and Josie did not want to miss it.

Eager to get some warmth back, the woman quickly returned and sat close to the campfire. Bolstered by the piece of wood that was thrown into it, that beautiful little miniature sun started emanating heat again, drastically decreasing the amount of Josie’s shaking.

You actually enjoy spending your night this, George?
She silently posed another question, this time directed toward her husband, her gaze pointed toward the largest of the three tents.
Another unnecessary question,
she knew.
George lived for his hunting trips.

Josie sighed.
If he cared about me as much as he did for these things, I wouldn’t even have to be here.
Almost immediately, she shook the thought from her head.
Relations were only over once you stop caring about them,
she remembered. This trip was her attempt at bringing the two of them closer.
Then why,
she posed another question she knew the answer to,
do I feel farther away from him than I ever did before?

Depressed, she remembered the way the two of them were, years before. Physically, they didn’t change a bit: Josie still had her natural auburn hair and tight, shapely body, while George was as delicately handsome as a man could hope to be. Their relationship, unfortunately, couldn’t have become any more different.

Having noticed how her thoughts were focusing on the bad side of everything again, the woman consciously redirected her mind toward the brightest of their memories. With some effort, she conjured up an image of her husband, as elated he used to be when she entered his vicinity. The smile that would grace his lips when the two of them were together filled her heart with more warmth than the campfire did.
If only there were more of that now.

There you go again. Stop it!

The recollection of their first home crept into her mind, dearer to Josie than the luxurious mansion they (mostly she) inhabited today. The smell of that old place still filled her nostrils, invoking a strong feeling of nostalgia.

She remembered that overwhelming feeling of hope they both shared when her husband’s entrepreneurial project was about to take off. The business soon became immense, culminating with unmatched elation when they both realized that they were now rich.

Our problems were over,
or so she used to think.

In a way they were, she reminded herself. Josie’s unsuccessful dabbling in classic art soon became unnecessary, and she became free to enjoy everything the good life had to offer.
Too bad that my husband’s attention wasn’t part of the deal.

Indeed, as his business grew, George had to commit more and more energy to it, leaving on trips for days at a time. When he’d come back home, he was dead tired more often than he was not, and Josie started feeling alienated from her husband.

What was it he would tell me after I complained of boredom?
The answer came to her almost instantly.
Sorry, Josie,
he would say,
I’m afraid you’re going to have to help yourself.

Then came the big changes. Money stared pouring in in quantities neither of them ever imagined, and with it, new possibilities. George began buying her gifts, expensive pieces of clothing, perfume, and everything else she ever desired. It wasn’t long before the both of them moved into a humongous building most people never even see, let alone get to live in.

For a while, all of the pairs’ troubles came to their respective ends. They were happy, content, and completely lost in each other. Their love live exploded to where it matched and exceeded what it used to be.

“Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever,” Josie spoke out loud again, completely uninterested in her surroundings.

As quickly as it came into existence, their newfound fascination for each other got snuffed out by another set of obligations. The business wasn’t going to run itself, and George again needed to commit to it completely, leaving Josie to inhabit their luxurious home by herself.

And I’ve been haunting that old mansion ever since,
Josie though, chuckling bitterly at the humorous side of her situation.

However, there was one thing her husband always found time for: the hunting excursions he took with his new rich friends. George insisted they were good for two things: one, keeping him in good relations with his business partners, and two: letting him blow off some steam from all that talking and sitting down.

Needless to say, Josie didn’t share a shred of his fascination, finding the practice abhorrent.

Yesterday, however, something happened that did not occur before: Out of the blue, George asked her to take the next trip with him. Josie refused at first of course, but, after some out of the box thinking, she changed her mind and decided to join in. At the very worst, she would have herself a bad weekend. At best, she could come a bit closer toward understanding her husband’s strange pastime.

Or so she thought, anyway.

In practice, the excursion turned out to have been nothing but a boring and unpleasant romp throughout the woods of northern Minnesota. To add insult to injury, George decided to bring two of the most unpleasant hunting buddies he had available: Carl and Trevor.

Carl was a loathsome little rat who enjoyed eyeing Josie when her husband wasn’t looking almost as much as he liked flapping his mouth about whatever was on his mind at the time. Trevor, on the other hand, was a ridiculously oversized, obese lug of a man who barely ever had anything to say. As far as she knew, they were both married and extremely well off.

Do their wives have to face the same ordeals I do when George leaves me alone?
The thought disturbed her. Josie’s husband was an exceptional man with little time to go around, while these two… she shuddered at the thought of the women who’d patiently wait for
them
to return home.

I’m getting off track,
she reminded herself. The last thing she ever wanted to spend any time thinking about was the matter of George’s friends, but now she was stuck with them on this…
What did they say they were hunting? Bears? Right.

If George was to be believed, and Josie saw no reason not to, the bear is the most ferocious creature one can hunt. Resourceful, deadly in close quarters and extremely difficult to take down, this animal represents nature’s most brutal killing machine.
Disregarding, of course,
her philosophical side reminded her,
the human animal.

Once in a while, her husband would gather everyone willing and able, and they’d go out hunting whatever was on season at the time. The honors one would get from hunting down a bear, however, by far exceeded the prestige potentially gained from any other animal, and whoever held the record of killing the largest ursine was considered head honcho of George’s extended little social group.

For a good while now, Josie’s husband held the title. It was one of the things, aside from his humble origins, that made him stand out among his clique. Last year, however, another hunter beat his goal, scoring a bear that exceeded the mass of George’s record by almost ten percent. Her husband was furious, and his displeasure was evident in all parts of their private lives.

By this point, George barely even talked anymore. All he ever had on his mind was how to get his prestige back.

All of a sudden, however, he seemed to lighten up. He lowered the frequency of his business trips and even treated his wife the way he did before. For a good while, she believed that he actually managed to find comfort in her arms.

This, of course, turned out to have been something else entirely. An anonymous tip, costing George a significant amount of money, had given him the location of an area that bred the largest bears in the States. He finally got a chance to regain his former glory, and he had no intention of letting the next season pass him by.

One thing was different this time though. Her husband seemed to have become genuinely aware of what his wife meant to him, standing by his side at his brightest and darkest hours. Full of passion, and with a new kind of respect, he had decided to share his next adventure with her.

If helping George hunt a stupid bear is what it takes to keep our fire going,then that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

When it comes to fire,
she immediately thought, reminded by a fresh onset of the shivers,
the one before me just about to go out.

Her movements sluggish from the cold and being lost in her own head, Josie rose, turning toward the pile of chopped wood. The previously short walk seemed significantly longer than the last time, probably due to grogginess kicking in.

Suddenly, in the shadows behind the pile of firewood, something moved. Completely frozen for a short moment, Josie considered the options.
Probably a small rodent,
she tried reassuring herself, but her body refused to move regardless.

Shake it off, woman, and move!
Whatever that thing was, standing exposed like that was just about the worst thing she could possibly do.

While forcing herself to take a relaxing, deep breath, Josie scanned her surroundings as accurately as she was capable of under the combined light of the moon and the fading campfire. The animal stopped moving.
Maybe I imagined it.

Remaining completely still, she spent another minute in her position. Still, nothing moved.

Is it a man?Maybe I should wake George and the others.

Almost immediately, Josie rejected that idea. Giving everyone a false alert over something akin to a large rat would be the final nail in the coffin of her plan to get better at this. If this was indeed nothing important, she had to make sure of it.
Besides,
she reminded herself,
this little guy is more scared of me than I am of it.
In high spirits, the woman took a quiet step forward, and almost immediately regretted it.

From the small dented space between the chopped wood and the tall grass behind it, right where she previously saw movement, a gargantuan figure rose from a prone position. Easily over seven feet tall, the creature was covered in thick fur and black as the night. Making no noise whatsoever, the thing merely sprang toward Josie with a speed no one would ever expect from something so big.

Having immediately gone completely numb, Josie tried to scream, but her shock was so profound that no sound would leave her throat. Clumsily, she tried turning away to run toward the large tent, but it was already too late. The creature’s trunk-like arm had wrapped itself around her waist, preventing any and all escape. Firmly, the figure turned the woman’s lithe body around, forcing her to stare at its visage.

Now finding herself face to face with what could only be the gaping maw of a gigantic black bear, Josie found her vision blurring. A mere second later, the woman’s consciousness escaped from her body, leaving it behind for whatever horror fate had in store.

                                                                                    ***

She awoke an indeterminable amount of time later, covered in branches and leaves, with absolutely no idea about what had happened to her. At first, Josie merely moved her eyes around, wrestling with disbelief, hoping that what she experienced was a dream, a hallucination, or anything of the sort. What happened next, however, proved that it was all quite real.

The very moment she started showing minor signs of consciousness, the figure that took her from the camp immediately rose from its prone position, barely a couple of feet away from her.

Having heard all she needed to know about bears, Josie felt her body starting to betray her again. Her fingers and toes went numb, and that lack of feeling  quickly spread over her limbs. Her vision blurred, and she might as well have fainted again had the figure not started shrinking before her very eyes.

It all happened within a couple of seconds. At first, the gargantuan black bear lost a full foot of its height. The hair disappeared next, apparently having been reabsorbed back into the body. The creature’s face, initially a monstrous mass of hair and teeth, reshaped itself so fast that by the time Josie became fully aware of what was going on, she found herself staring into the eyes of a ruggedly handsome male figure.