River Bear (BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (Blue Bear Rescue) Read online

  A low growl sounded deep in his chest, a rumble that vibrated against her just as Jake dipped low to take her mouth with his. She kissed him back eagerly, already wanting more of him. Wanting to give him more of her. Just like he’d asked.

  She’d never had someone ask her like that before. Jake, so strong and dominant and hard to reach, had asked her to give all of herself. He could’ve taken it. She wouldn’t have stopped him. In fact, she’d been on edge with the waiting and would’ve skipped happily to the part where he took what he wanted from her. But instead, he’d asked. Seeing this caring, sensitive side of him just made her want him even more.

  His free hand roamed over her. First, just his fingertips brushing her cheek and jawline, but then lower. His palm brushed her already hardened nipple, and she squirmed, tingling and desperate for more.

  She sighed audibly against his mouth, arching into his hand, and Jake growled softly, kissing her harder now. She rolled her hips against the erection swelling against her stomach. Just like she’d suspected earlier, he wasn’t holding back anymore. And she didn’t plan to either.

  Jake nipped at her bottom lip, and Delilah’s lips parted, giving him more access. His tongue darted out, licking and teasing her lips and tongue, his hand moving over her chest before dipping lazily lower. His hand trailed over her belly and then down to her folds, barely brushing her before he moved on to caress her thighs.

  “Jake,” she whispered, breathless and burning fast toward a fever pitch. Her nerves stood on end. Everywhere he touched left tingles and a shiver that sent shudders up her spine and into the darkest, wettest places of her body.

  Jake’s mouth was greedy now, taking and tasting and offering just as much in return. His body was carved granite against hers, and she let her hands roam free over the curve of his shoulder and across his broad back down to where his waist tapered into a sexy V-shape. She cupped his ass lightly, reveling in the tight muscles that bunched and tensed underneath her grip.

  Jake moved over her, both hands now exploring. One tangled in her hair while the other dipped low over her hip and below her navel. His fingers found the soft button just above her wet folds and kneaded there, sending her bucking.

  “Jake,” she managed on a moan. God, she was already close, and he wasn’t even inside her yet. She rocked her hips, encouraging his hand to find her again. When he slid a finger inside her, she arched back, her eyes closing on a wave of pleasure. She rocked against the rhythm of his hand, climbing as he took her up.

  He slid a second finger inside her, and she pushed into his hand, hungry for it. Hungry for him. In and out, he set a rhythm, his fingers sliding into her wetness and his mouth working hers until she was frenzied with the need for him.

  “So close,” she said on a soft, building cry.

  Without warning, he eased his fingers out of her, and she sank heavily onto the mattress in a cry of protest. He took his time licking her juices from his fingers and then smiled lazily down at her. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen, and she squirmed against him, her nipples almost hurting, they were so hard. Straining for his touch.

  “Not yet,” he said, readjusting so that his erection hovered over her. His hard length pressed against her entrance and she panted, impatient for it.

  “Please, Jake,” she begged.

  Yep, she was begging, and she didn’t give a flying crap about it, either.

  He hooked his hand behind her knee and drew her legs around him, guiding her until her ankles locked, trapping her center against him. When his head pushed into her, she tightened her legs around him, straining for more. Just like he’d asked of her, she wanted all of him.

  In a swift motion, he drove into her hard and fast, and then slowly pulled back until she had to rock her hips forward to keep from losing him. He grinned, still a tease even as his chest heaved with labored breaths. He pushed into her a second time, hard and fast, and then slowly back out. God, it was excruciating and amazing.

  Frustrated and straining for more, she reached up and yanked him down to her, pulling him all the way inside her. She cried out in pure ecstasy at the feeling of being so full with him. He paused, waiting for her to adjust. She rocked against him, letting him know she could take it.

  He set a steady rhythm that had her writhing and straining beneath him, their bodies fitting together like they’d done this a thousand times before. His hands cupped her breasts, kneading and flicking at her hard nipples as he moved inside her.

  She’d never been touched with so much hunger before. She clutched desperately at his neck and shoulders, the pressure inside her building fast. So close now. His size filled her so completely, and the pressure was delicious, building fast toward climax.

  “Now, you’ll come for me,” he said, his hand reaching around to cup her ass and hold her tight against him as he drove into her.

  And just like that, she did.

  Her orgasm rocked through her, sending them both up and over at the same time. Jake went rigid, and she felt the first wave of warmth pooling inside her. She cried out for him, her legs locked, her insides absorbing the aftershock of both their orgasms. Jake’s mouth stayed on hers, swallowing her moans, until finally, they were both still.

  She smiled up at him, watching the rise and fall of his chest as they both worked to catch their breath. She’d just broken her first and only professional rule, and she couldn’t bring herself to feel a shred of guilt over it. Not when he was staring down at her like that, all heavy-lidded and sexy and sweet. Her polar bear… She couldn’t believe it.

  Jake had been right. Maybe some rules were meant to be broken after all.

  Six

  Jake breathed deeply, reveling in the scent of Delilah’s perfume mixed with the scent of her body and sex that lingered in the room. The night was almost over, and neither one had slept. His exhaustion was finally catching up, so he rolled off her and hooked his arm around her midsection, drawing her close with heavy-lidded eyes.

  He was still reeling a little from the strength of that orgasm. Delilah had felt different from the moment he’d laid eyes on her but still, the sex had been like nothing he’d ever experienced. His urge to claim her somehow—to spill himself inside her—wasn’t something he’d ever felt before.

  Even now, after he’d finished with her, he still had to fight the overwhelming sensation to mark her somehow as his in a way that would let the world know. But doing that with a human was dangerous. Delilah was much more fragile than she knew. A bite like that would turn her. Or worse, kill her when she failed to change.

  He’d have to talk to Xavier about that. Hell, he’d have to talk to her about that. Tomorrow. Right now, they needed sleep. Already, he felt her relaxing against him, her breaths evening out as she drifted off beside him.

  He rubbed absently at her breast with his thumb and she sighed in contentment. “I’m glad you’re still here,” she murmured.

  He tightened his hold on her, drawing her in against his side. “I’ll always protect you,” he said, his words slurring as he drifted off.

  A few short hours later, his phone woke him.

  He reached for it, barely managing to snag it before he knocked it to the floor. Xavier. He sat up, feeling hung over until he remembered everything that had happened last night. That asshole Tim from Lyle’s bunch had tried to set him up—and almost hurt Delilah in the process.

  He glanced over at her sleeping form as he answered Xavier in a low voice. “Hang on,” he said simply, barely above a whisper. He threw the covers back and crept to the bathroom, shutting himself inside before he resumed his conversation with his alpha. Over the line, he could hear the buzz and background noise of papers shuffling that let him know he was on speaker.

  “Okay, yeah?” he said.

  “Noticed you didn’t come home last night,” Xavier began. “Just checking on ya.”

  “Yeah, wanted to make sure you weren’t getting chopped up on the side of a road somewhere,” Nash called out, clearly fi
shing, and Jake rolled his eyes. He didn’t wake up just to be hassled.

  “Nah, he’s not roadside. He’s bedside,” Harley put in.

  “You sleep okay out there at the love motel?” Lucas asked, and Jake shook his head.

  “Funny, guys. I actually didn’t sleep much at all on account of someone trying to kill our new PI last night. So if that’s all, I’m going to get back to sleep.” He emphasized the last word, not willing to admit anything even if they already knew.

  “All right, all right,” Xavier said over the sounds of laughter and good God, kissing noises. He suspected Nash. “Listen,” Xavier said. The phone line clicked and then cleared, and he knew Xavier had taken him off speaker phone. “I looked into that address you found on the Wanted flier. It’s up north, top of the peak. Google shows a cabin there. Probably abandoned for the season, but who knows. Anyway, we’re all stuck here answering questions all day for the sheriff’s office. Since you’ve already given your statement, can you drive over and check it out?”

  “I’m on it,” he said, already calculating how long it would take to get up there. “What about Lyle? Anyone check him out yet? He left Mack’s with Tim,” Jake pointed out.

  “No sign of him at his place. Looks like he didn’t come home last night. We’ll keep an eye out for him and the other two.”

  “Let me know if you spot him,” Jake said.

  “And Delilah?” Xavier asked. “How is she after last night?”

  “Sleeping right next to me,” he admitted. “She was shaken, but I think she’ll be fine. Long as we get the bastards who put those fliers out.”

  “We’ll get them, Jake,” Xavier promised. “Call me when you get there,” he added, and the call ended.

  Jake found Delilah already up and dressed when he walked out. She stared at him, open-mouthed for a full ten seconds before he remembered he was still naked. He grinned as he turned away to slide his pants on. She liked what she saw. Good. So did he.

  “I need to take a ride,” he told her, already spinning ideas about where he could drop her for an hour.

  She pulled on a shirt the color of summer grass, and he caught the green in her eye, glinting back at him. “Sure, where are we going?”

  “Not we.” He shook his head, bending low to yank his boots on. “Not after last night. Besides, you can sleep a while longer. I’ll come get you for breakfast when I’m done.”

  She glared at him, and the green in her eyes brought out by the shirt turned deadly, like acid. “Don’t even try it. This is my job. You’re not doing it for me. I’m coming with you.”

  He sighed. She was right. He couldn’t argue with letting her do her job. In fact, Xavier probably fully expected him to let her tag along. He’d hired her to look into this very problem, after all. And hadn’t Jake protected her last night? She’d be safe with him. He wouldn’t hurt her. And he damn sure wouldn’t let anyone else hurt her either. She had her job; he had his.

  “I wondered if things would be different today,” she muttered, turning away to rifle through her bag.

  That did it. He strode over to her, took the hairbrush out of her hand, and kissed her full on the mouth. She stood stiffly at first but then she sank against him, panting by the time he pulled away. He gave her hair a self-satisfied tug.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  He handed her back the brush. “Just in case you thought I’d want something different today than I did last night. Come on, woman,” he said and led the way to the truck.

  They’d slept longer than he thought, he realized when he glanced at the clock on the dash. Mid-morning traffic clogged the main street leading out of town. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the wheel as he waited for a line of pedestrians to cross and let him pass.

  “Busy today,” Delilah said from the passenger seat.

  “Tourists,” he grunted and hit the gas as the way cleared.

  “You don’t like tourists.” She cocked her head. “Aren’t they your job security?” she pointed out.

  She had a point.

  He hated to admit his dark mood had nothing to do with the damned tourists. He was grumpy because she’d chosen to sit so far away. His bear didn’t even like the two feet currently separating them. He wondered vaguely what the hell he was going to do when she finished her job and got on a plane bound for halfway across the country. He didn’t want to think about that right now. Like she’d said, the future was too uncertain. All he had was now. And what he wanted right now was to have her back in bed underneath him again. And maybe some breakfast.

  “Just ready to see what’s waiting up in that cabin,” he said, making a right onto the narrow road that would take them up the mountain.

  “Whatever it is, we’re dealing with it together, right?”

  He could feel her eyes on him, assessing. “Apparently,” he mumbled. He glanced over and found her smiling at him. “What?” he demanded.

  She slid across the bench seat until she was thigh to thigh with him. “You’re really cute when you’re grumpy,” she said, planting a quick kiss on his cheek before facing the road again.

  Jake’s frown relaxed by a few degrees.

  “I’ve been wondering something,” Delilah said after they’d driven in silence a few miles.

  Jake tensed. “What’s up?”

  “You and Xavier mentioned when we first met that you hired me based on a previous job I’d done. For someone you knew. I get privacy and all that, so if you can’t tell me, that’s one thing. But it seemed more like you didn’t want to. I was wondering if you could talk about it now.”

  Jake debated, but in the end, he knew this was easier than explaining his other secret. The vision Nash had of him killing her wasn’t something he was ready to share. After how open she’d been with him last night, he could give her this.

  “You did a job for the courts,” he began, and she turned to stare at him, brows furrowed. “Locate a man, a father of two boys.”

  “I don’t remember anyone with the last name River,” she said.

  “Jonah and I took Mom’s last name after my dad split.”

  “I thought you were in foster care?” she asked.

  “We were. Dad split, and Mom couldn’t handle it. She offed herself a few months later.”

  “God, Jake, I’m sorry,” she said, but Jake ignored her and kept on with the story. If he stopped every time she wanted to offer pity, he’d never get through it.

  “After Mom died, the courts hired you to locate Dad. We’d gotten word he lived in the city. Your name was on the report I smuggled from the social worker. I remember thinking how ironic it was, the PI they’d hired being only a couple of years older than me. That name on paper was already an adult, and yet I was still stuck in the damn system.” He shook his head, remembering how frustrated he’d been to realize that.” He took a deep breath, eyes on the road, memory a thousand miles away.

  “I did some grunt work for the courts when I first opened my business,” she said. “What was your dad’s name?” she asked quietly.

  “Williams,” Jake said, anger coating the word.

  Delilah nodded but didn’t say more. She remembered.

  Jake went on, determined to get it all out. It wasn’t something he could quit halfway through. “My dad always had a gambling problem. Cards, roulette, you name it. It only got worse as Jonah, and I got older. When I was thirteen, my dad finally left. I knew it was for the best, but my mom didn’t see it that way. She was fragile. Jonah was just pissed.”

  He blinked away the memories of what that had been like. Being so relieved to have that pressure gone and still having to hold it inside while his mom grieved for a dad that he’d come to hate. “Anyway, Jonah and I were separated. We spent the next five years in foster care. He moved away when he turned eighteen.”

  “Williams,” she repeated finally. “I do remember that. He was… I tracked him to a dive bar known for high stakes gambling. I… found his body in the alley.”

&nb
sp; Jake nodded. “Cause of death was listed as suspicious. That’s it. No formal investigation. Why bother, right?” He snorted and shook off the ugly fury that came with remembering that bit of paperwork he’d come across in the file he’d stolen. True, the guy had been a shitty father, but he was still a person deserving of justice, right?

  She slid her hand around his arm and squeezed. “I’m really sorry for your loss, Jake,” she said. “I wish I’d known.

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “For what it’s worth, I would have changed my name too,” she said. “River—it suits you. The water, the mountains here. It’s who you are. River Bear.”

  He didn’t answer, too touched by how clearly she saw him. A part of this place. Jonah had left, needing space and distance from the memories. Jake couldn’t fault him, but he also couldn’t imagine giving up the family he’d built for himself here. Despite everything that had happened with his parents and the nightmare of foster care after, Blue Hole was a part of Jake. Delilah was right. He was River Bear.

  Jake rounded the last bend and spotted the gravel drive leading to the cabin Xavier had said would be here. No mailbox, but he knew the spot. It was damn close to another cabin he knew all too well. Probably what had stirred up all those feelings from back then to begin with. The cabin of the last foster home he’d lived in had its own set of nightmarish memories.

  It made him wonder if Delilah’s foster care experience had been just as bad. God, he hoped not.

  A pit of unease settled in his stomach as he parked and studied the cabin for signs of life. Whatever happened next, Delilah knew him. The real him. Fucked up parenting and all. It was more than he’d ever shared with anyone outside his crew. He wondered if she understood how much of himself he’d already given to her. And how much more he stood to lose if he lost her now. His bear had chosen her, despite the danger of Nash’s stupid vision and whoever was coming after them now. He couldn’t leave her. He’d bonded to Delilah in a way he’d never connected with anyone before. She was his now. All of her. All of him. Not just today but always.