The Witness and the Bear: (Werebear Shifter Romance) (8 page)

Tossing a look over her shoulder, Hannah caught Riker watching her with a worried look on his face.
I’m okay
, she mouthed. She’d never get used to his inhuman hearing. She wouldn’t burden Jenny with how Marian’s death had stripped her to nothing or how she’d given up on her dreams and goals in order to focus solely on surviving the disaster that started the night Lance had brought trouble to her sister’s door. That kind of weight was only one she’d share with Riker, whom she knew was strong enough to handle it without pitying her.

The door flew open and slammed against the wall so loud, Hannah yelped and dropped the dish in her hands. It shattered across the floor, pieces of broken plate
landing as far as the pointed toes of Merit’s eye scorching red heals.

And
the fuming woman wasn’t alone.

Three men stood behind
Merit with somber expressions, and one of them Hannah recognized as the man with the clipboard from yesterday.

Jenny had crouched beside her, and Riker stood to his full height with
churning angry eyes focused on the intrusive woman.

“You said tonight is my night, and you’re disrespecting my time, Benson,”
Merit said primly. “I waited for you to come to me all day and when you didn’t, I tracked down Cameron and some of the other council members. You’re breaking laws denying me. I’m claiming my night now.”

Riker’s nostrils
flared as he inhaled deeply and exhaled just as slowly. “Cameron.”

Mr. Clipboard stepped into the room.

“What is the meaning of this? I have until the summer solstice.”

“Sorry, sir, but Merit has a point. She says you told her tonight was her night.” The slender man shrugged as if uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

“Riker,” Hannah said, heart dipping to her knees with the idea of him leaving for Merit’s bed. “It’s okay.”

He tore his eyes away from Cameron, chest heaving with emotion. Rage flashed in his eyes and she swallowed the pathetic sob lodged in her throat. Today had been almost perfect.

Oh, she wanted to tell them he’d already chosen her. She wanted to scream that Merit was chasing something that would never be hers and spit the words Riker had told her as ammunition against the horrid woman. But this wasn’t the society she knew, and she was helpless to ride the tide of rules she didn’t understand. What if she made everything worse for him?

“
Wait outside,” Riker ordered quietly.

Merit braced her legs and crossed her arms. One dark
and perfectly groomed eyebrow arched as she glared at him. “She’s already cut into my time with you enough.”

“Wait. The fuck. Outside, Merit. That’s an order and if you question me again, your punishment will be swift.”

With a huff, Merit spun and slammed the door behind her, rattling the picture frames on the walls. Cameron stood in the entryway like he wished he was anywhere else on the planet and Jenny melted into Blaine’s arms in the living room.

Riker stalked
Hannah, and the dangerous glint in his eyes had her backing up until her tailbone hit the counter. His mouth crashed onto hers with the fury of the Bering Sea, and his hands tangled in her hair, pulling at her scalp until she whimpered under his anger.

“Fuck,” he growled against her swollen lips.
“I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to fucking do this.” His words tapered into a snarl and he dropped his forehead against hers.

“I don’t want you to either.”
Stupid traitorous tears burned her eyes. She wanted to stab them with tiny daggers for giving away her misery. Her roiling emotions would only make this harder on him. “But you have to if you want to keep your clan. People do this all the time. They start dating but they aren’t exclusive yet and they are still seeing other people. It’ll be fine.”

“Don’t.” His head rocked back until the thick tendons of his throat tightened. “Don’t pretend we’re less than we are to justify any of this. You don’t deserve that.”

“I thought sex meant something different to you than me. Something more casual. I’m just trying to make this easier.”

He slid a slate gray star
e at the door and sighed. “Yeah well, I wish I still felt that way.”

“Just get it over with.” Geez, why was she encouraging this? His profile was tense, rigid, ready for a fight
, and a muscle danced in his jaw. Why? Because she’d never felt this way about a man. Because he was fighting a raging war within himself to spare her feelings after knowing her such a short time. And because he was changing the way he thought and looked at the world because of what she’d said. More than hearing her words, he listened to them. She cared about him enough to want the best for him, and if a night with Merit paved the way for him to keep alpha, which obviously meant the world to him, then she could put her possessiveness aside and abide by the rules that governed him and the rest of his clan.

“Do me a favor?” His hands clamped onto her shoulders and he held her gaze with his, wouldn’t release her. “Don’t think about what’s happening. Just stay here with Jenny, stay busy, and I’ll be back as soon as I can get away.”

“Okay.” Empty promises. She was already immersed in imaginings.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was strained, tortured, and he turned for the door. His shoes made hollow sounds against the floor boards, and the quiet snap of the door closing echoed an utterly lonely sound.

****

Bending, Riker pulled a limb from the trail and chucked it into the woods.
If he had to watch Merit’s skinny ankles roll one more damned time in those stupid shoes, he was going to rip them from her feet and throw them into the dark with the branch.

“You can go now,” he said, dismissing Cameron, Rod, and Mitch, who
trailed behind them.

Cameron shook his head apologetically. “Merit’s asked us to witness.”

He stopped walking and stared in horror at the approaching man. “Stop fucking with me, Cameron, and leave.”

“She’s concerned you won’t follow through and she says she doesn’t feel safe.”

His frown of utter frustration was so deep, it hurt his facial muscles. Rubbing a hand over the stubble on his jaw, he laughed, a cold sound that echoed through the trees. “Merit, please tell me they’re joking.”

“No joke,”
she called over her shoulder. “I want witnesses.” Her ankle hit another ninety degree angle over a root and she righted herself and continued to stab the earth with her spiked heels.

With a growl, he scooped her up and stomped toward her house.

“Oh Riker,” she breathed, slipping her hands around his neck.

Twisting his
head at the clammy feeling the touch of her hands caused, he growled, “You and I both know this is just a formality, Merit. My bear has chosen and it isn’t you.”

Her eyes, blue and glowing in the moonlight
sparked with challenge. “We’ll see about that, Benson.”

Her house was on the edge of the clearing nearest the cattle fences. Much too close to his home by a lot and the driving reason he didn’t want Hannah going home until he was finished with the one minute technicality fuck he was going to give Merit.

Dammit, he didn’t want to do this. Even the stink of her perfume was giving him a headache. Setting her upright on her porch, he shoved through the front door and muttered, “I need a minute.”

And that minute was spent glaring at himself in the bathroom mirror and hating himself for how bad he was about to hurt his bear and his mate. Fucking clan laws. As soon as he got
through this, he’d push the council to revisit ancient laws and beg them to reconsider the ones that kept bear shifters in the dark ages.

Hands clenched against the cold sink, he wanted to rip it from the wall and tear the whole damned house to the ground. His bear roared inside of him, urged him to go back to his mate and bed Hannah until she screamed his name.
He closed his eyes and fought against the remembered moans that drifted from her lips as he’d tasted her slick folds. Hannah had no place in this house. Not with what he was about to do.

Turning away from his disgusted reflection, he threw open the bathroom door. Merit stood in the soft lamp light of her tidy bedroom with a black, transparent lace nighty and nothing underneath. Her heavy breasts pressed against the thin material and she spread her legs slowly as his gaze drifted down her tiny waist, drawing his attention
to her sex.

His cock twitched to life, the traitor.

Cameron and the others filed in and sat in a trio of chairs Merit must’ve set up against her bedroom wall. Well, this wasn’t awkward at all. “Do they really have to be here?”

“Yes.”

He ran his hands through his hair until his scalp tingled, then pulled the zipper of his pants. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Oh, no,” Merit said with a seductive crimson smile. “If this is the only night you’ll allow me, there will be no getting it over with.”

A snarl ripped through his throat and he wanted to choke the life out of the woman. Hannah was back with Jenny thinking God knows what, and he’d witnessed the heartbreak in her eyes when he left. Merit was wasting his fucking time.

Stripping in record time, he kicked his clothes into a pile and
ripped into the condom he kept in his pocket.

“Is that necessary?” she asked, glaring as he rolled it on.

With Hannah? No. Bears didn’t pick up diseases and she smelled clean, sexy, and delicious. He loved the feel of her clamped around him. Fuck. He could tell she was clean, and a pregnancy with a human was pretty near impossible. Jenny and Blaine were proof of that. They’d been trying since they met. But if he could protect his skin from touching Merit’s, then yes, the condom was necessary. And from the disgruntled grimace that lifted her lip, he’d say the condom wasn’t part of her plan of seduction and it felt like a tiny win.

Pointing
to the bed, he gritted out, “Let’s go.”

“No, alpha. Tonight you’ll submit to me.” Merit pushed his chest with her red clawed finger and he fell backward trying to rid himself of her touch. His bear writhed uncomfortably inside of him and he steadied his breath. He could do this. Just ignore the men staring at his dick. He wouldn’t dishonor Hannah by imagining her during sex with Merit, but he sure as fuck was going to imagine he was anywhere but here.

“Tell me you want me,” Merit said, straddling him and lifting the hem of her lingerie.

Canting his head and shooting her a cold stare, he said, “I want you.”

“Mmm mmm mmm.” She waved her finger. “That kind of behavior won’t get you rewarded. Say it like you mean it.” Her hand found his shaft and she took a long slow pull upward.

Straining against the feel of wrong and right, he clenched his hands. “I want you,” he repeated, more believable this time so she wouldn’t ask again.
She slid over him, rocking slow and making little sounds of pleasure that sounded suspiciously rehearsed. He closed his eyes and gripped the sheets of the bed as she pulled at him, teasing him. Apparently that stupid dick of his just jumped to attention in the presence of any naked woman. He was pissed at it for reacting to Merit at all. Grunting at the building pressure, he waved his hands over her hips and remembered himself, clenched them to her thighs as she rocked.

He groaned in utter frustration when she lifted off him right before he came.

“I want to play a game,” she mused, sauntering to her bedside table and pulling the drawer. Out came a set of ties and she went to work at complicated looking knots against the posts of the headboard.

“That’s not going to work for me,” he growled, trying his damn
edest not to look at the men in the corner. He hoped they were taking notes on how to avoid women who mess with men’s heads.

“It works for me,” she said with an arrogant shrug. “And if you want this finished, it’ll work for you too.”

Red rage filled him as she lifted his arm and tied it tightly in place. He felt at a disadvantage and his bear rumbled discontent inside of him.

Before tying the next, she mounted him again and tugged on his cock slowly, torturing him. “Oh, Benson,” she moaned, closing her eyes and arching her delicate neck. Her breasts bobbed with her movement and slowly, she leaned forward and pulled the tie against his other wrist. Lowering herself until her breasts brushed his chest, she whispered in his ear. “Tell me you choose me.”

His brain was fogged with the haze of lust and anger and confusion. The snarling bear inside of him didn’t make thinking straight any easier, and her words were muddled, bouncing around in his head as he strained for release. He thrust his hips harder but Merit scolded him.

The ties were too tight. Cutting off his circulation. Hurting him.

“Say it,” she hissed, rocking against the impossible pressure building inside of him.

“What?” he panted.

“Say you choose me. Say it loud enough for the witnesses to hear it and I’ll end this. I’ll let you come inside me.”

Her words made no sense. Why would he say that? He didn’t choose her. Oh God, he was so close.
It was almost over. Half delirious, he pulled on the ties, testing their strength against his. He just wanted to pull her hips down hard on him. Twice and he’d finish.

“Say it,” she commanded. “Say it now.”

“What?”

“Say you choose me. Choose me!”

His numbing hands, the grating of her voice and fury at the realization of her plan were what snapped the bear from him. Human skin ripping, he tore apart from the inside out, the beast roaring as he destroyed him.

Merit screamed.