Big Bad Bear: Billionaire Shifter Romance Read online

  Big Bad Bear

  Billionaire Shifter Romance

  Linda Mathers

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  About the Author

  Copyright © Fiery Desires, 2017

  * * *

  Linda Mathers has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  * * *

  Fiery Desires

  32 Woodburn Dr

  Gloucester, Ontario

  K1B3A7

  1

  Her eyelids fluttered in the wind. She could hear it rush all around her, how it tickled the long branches and make the trees shudder. The sun’s dying rays were nearly eclipsed over the tops of the forest. They covered the green in gold and amber, so blinding she squinted. Still she didn’t know where she was.

  An arm squeezed around her midriff, pulling her into a hard, chiseled body - yet one that she could somehow intuit as being not entirely human. Her body swayed in the breeze like a ragdoll, but the arms of the man at her back felt protective.

  Safe. Secure. In a manner she'd been craving for nearly as long as she could remember, and in a manner no one had been able to make her feel before. Even though she remained completely disoriented by her circumstances, being in the arms of the - whatever it was - set her completely and totally at ease.

  Her heart beat like a drum, but as she remained cradled in the beast's arms, her pulse gradually climbed down and her shoulders slumped. She didn't have a care in the world. Slowly, now that she was no longer afraid of anything, she opened her eyes.

  She was in a clearing in a forest. Toes sinking into the mud, pine-scented air filling her lungs. Her attention returned to the arm around her midriff. As soon as her mind was back on it, the fingers squeezed against the fabric of her dress, and she let out a little whimper. It should have hurt, but instead it felt strangely pleasurable.

  For the first time, she allowed her eyes to lift upward instead of down, and she craned her neck the remainder of the distance to be able to see properly. As she'd suspected, the face was not a human one. It was a bear. Coarse dark hair and a long nose.

  A pang churned in her stomach and pushed up her spine, but then she settled. Her anxieties eased. The bear returned her glance, its dark majestic head turning toward her. She couldn't help but let out a small gasp as their eyes met. A tremor ran through her, and her fingers curled deep into the fur of the beast's mighty arm.

  The bear’s nostrils flared at her, and she found herself totally captivated by its eyes. She kept looking deeper and deeper, getting lost... She couldn't decide what it was, but something was different about them.

  And then she realized – they were human eyes. The eyes of a man, peering out from the body of a beast.

  Before she knew it, the creature had climbed with her to the very top of a thick tree, his arm still clutching her protectively.

  It was invigorating, being at the top, gazing out at the forest. It was normally so much bigger than her, looming over her at an impossible scale as she walked near the roots. But up here, she felt powerful, above it all. And she knew it was purely by the graces of her captor that she was permitted to feel such freedom in his security.

  She turned her head to look at the beast, and acknowledge him.

  When she looked, he was gone.

  He was human now, his beastly shape having given way to that of a man. A tall, dark, and handsome man, hair rippling in the wind. His body completely and utterly exposed to her.

  She looked down to see that she too, was naked. She hadn't been before, and couldn't remember getting undressed. But it seemed completely natural somehow, and she didn't question it. Nor did she question how, all of a sudden, the two of them seemed to be moving toward one another, walking through space, despite being perched upon the highest, narrowest part of the tree.

  The distance between the two of them continued to shrink, and she could feel her skin prickling in anticipation for his touch upon her. They were inches away from one another now, his body heat sizzlingly tangible, making her heart beat faster and faster. He was lifting a hand up to touch her, and his fingers pressed against her face made her woozy.

  She peered deep into his eyes and realized they were the same eyes of the bear.

  “I need you,” he said, in a deep tone.

  She tried to speak, but her voice was gone at this altitude. Instead, she simply closed her eyes and allowed him to move in toward her. Their lips met.

  Sensations rang through her body, and he pulled her into him. His hand was on the small of her back, their nude bodies pressed together. He was hardening against her, and she was growing more and more aroused by the second. He was ravishing her, taking her like the beast that he was, and she was surrendering to him, melting between his fingers.

  “Oh yes, yes, yes...”

  Flick.

  Something hit them. Something small and insubstantial, but enough to get them to take note. They waited a moment, but the burning in their loins was too intense for it to get them to stop. They smiled at each other, and then dove back into one another's faces, picking up where they left off.

  But then, flick. There it was again.

  This time when they pulled apart, she held out a hand, palm upward toward the clouds. “Is that hail?”

  But then, there it was again. Several flicks this time. She caught some of it in her hand.

  Popcorn...

  “No feeding the animals!” Shouted a crass voice that destroyed the illusion of the moment in one fell swoop. She turned, and saw a familiar male face; a face she might normally have enjoyed seeing, but it was twisted and deformed. Demonic. She was looking out at him through a set of bars that had suddenly appeared around her, like those of a cage, and he was launching handful upon handful of popcorn at her, cackling as he did so.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” she cried, and she could feel the man in her arms disappearing from her grip.

  Brooke awoke with a start, shaking and covered in sweat.

  “Jesus,” she heard Becky saying. Brooke could see her, dimly, shaking her head through the grogginess of sleep. Brooke batted her eyes, trying to piece everything altogether. She looked up, and saw that she was covered in stale popcorn, pieces of the stuff covering her like a blanket, one or two having fallen down into her cleavage. She picked it out and threw it onto the floor, then turned to give her roommate a look that could have frozen the heart of anyone who wasn't a sociopath.

  “What the hell, Becky?” She asked, rubbing a palm across her sweat-stained face. “It’s pretty clear that you don't want me around, but you don't have to freaking abuse me while I'm sleeping to prove your point.”

  “You were having a nightmare or som
ething, and I didn't want to have to touch you to wake you up,” said Becky, shrugging her shoulders. “Besides, it's noon. You need to get your ass in gear and open up the classifieds section if you ever want to stop waking up every day on my couch covered in junk food.”

  “Screw you,” said Brooke, sitting up with a considerable degree of effort, her head feeling like it would burst. A small avalanche of popcorn came sliding from her lap onto the carpet as she brought her legs over to the floor, and she let out a disgusted sigh. “I'm not cleaning this up, you know,” she said.

  Becky cocked an eyebrow at her. “The hell you aren't, if you don't want to be kicked out flat on your ass into the streets. Do you realize how lucky you are that someone's letting you live rent-free in their home in a city like this? My generosity only extends so far.”

  “Oh, yeah, I wake up every morning thanking God that I can spend another blissful day in your presence,” said Brooke grumpily, not at all ready for a fight this early after waking. She was still reeling from the dream, bizarre and strangely erotic as it had been. She wished it hadn't been cut so short. Its trajectory had looked so promising up to the point of its ending. She begrudged Becky all the more for having brought the curtains down on it prematurely.

  Now Becky was in full on bitch mode, yanking open the living room curtains so that blinding noon sunlight came flooding in.

  “God damn it, Becky!” She swore, bringing a protective hand to her eyes.

  Becky, seemingly having been awake for hours and not bothered by the sunlight, responded simply by tossing a newspaper onto the coffee table in front of her, and casting Brooke a patronizing glare.

  “I'm leaving for work now. When I get back here, you're going to have classifieds circled, phone calls made, and applications sent. This actress bullshit of yours is getting you nowhere, and you need to accept that already. I'm putting you on notice. You get your butt off my couch in two weeks or else I'm kicking it off.”

  “Ugh,” Brooke moaned, clutching her ringing temples, feeling as though she'd been put through a wringer.

  Becky cast her a resentful look and shook her head. “You're pathetic,” she said by way of goodbye, and headed toward the door.

  “Yeah, you have a good day too, sunshine,” Brooke said sarcastically. The slamming of the apartment door sent an additional spike of pain jetting through her skull.

  The worst part of it all was that she knew, deep down, that Becky was right.

  Brooke laid back down on the couch after having swept away the scattered popcorn, hoping that sleep might return to her as well as the fantasy vision of her forest lover. She was too awake now, though, and all she could think of were the many truths to the things that her roommate turned benefactor had screeched at her.

  I really am pathetic.

  Born in a small town with very few friends, but with massive ambitions of a better life in the big city, things had not gone Brooke’s way. She'd always had ambitions of becoming a famous stage actress, and had been naïve enough to believe that she actually had what it took to make such a dream into reality.

  So far, she'd at least managed to make the big move toward the desired geographical territory, but all of the fame and success she'd imagined coming alongside that move had so far eluded her.

  She'd been in the city for months now, having no luck whatsoever with just about anything she did. She was single, living in a city full of ineligible, horny men. She was jobless, after her auditions for plays had all tanked. She'd been fired from her low-paying job as a waitress, too overwhelmed by the big crowds that came with a big city.

  She'd been paying rent living with Becky up to that point, but since losing her job she’d been replaced. Her old room was now occupied by a male friend of Becky's named Jeremy. A friend with benefits, Brooke discovered. She often heard the two of them screwing through the thin walls of the place, moaning as they slammed hard into the bed. Yet Jeremy kept his room to himself, frequently having other female company, so Brooke couldn’t sleep there.

  She supposed, by some accounts, that she truly was lucky. Becky had given her the couch even though she hadn't paid rent in months. But Becky had been holding it spitefully over her head ever since, treating her like shit all the time, and their relationship had deteriorated further and further as time had gone by. Even being in her presence these days was unbearable.

  Brooke knew that it was time for her to make an effort toward getting back on her feet, but it felt like a hopeless prospect. She doubted her own abilities, and feared she might never be able to make it in a city like New York. That's what her mother had told her, up to the very moment she left.

  “That place will eat you alive,” she had said, but Brooke had remained defiant and stubborn all the way, feeling a burning need to prove her mother wrong. She'd been so adamant about it, however, that returning back home now, tail between her legs, seemed like it simply wasn't an option. She simply couldn't fail. Couldn't let it all blow up in her face so quickly. Her self-esteem might never recover from it if she did.

  With these thoughts on her mind, she at last mustered every last ounce of willpower she had to pull herself up from the couch, and commence taking action. She showered, vacuumed up the popcorn shrapnel, and poured herself a cup of cheap coffee that tasted like piss. Then she sat down, skimming through the want ads, circling anything that sounded even remotely possible so that she could at least have something to point to when Becky came home.

  She sat there for hours, squinting at the tiny black letters, imagining herself in any number of roles that seemed completely ill-suited for her. There were no promising employers as far as she could see, and her resolve weakened and weakened as she made her way through the paper.

  At one point, she came across a section full of ads for paid escort services, which she knew full well to be a thinly veiled advert for “prostitutes.” She scoffed at them aloud, but inwardly considered the possibility. She wondered if she could even do that sort of thing. Whether anyone would be interested in her. After all, she was fond enough of screwing, and not half bad at it, either. All it would take would be finding a nice upscale client or two and she would be all set.

  But she hadn't even been able to get laid for so long now... If she couldn't even give it away for free, what the hell made her think she could get someone willing to actually pay for it? And God, what sort of victory would that prove for her mother if she called her up one day and announced she'd undertaken a new and promising career as a hooker.

  This all just felt pointless.

  Her self-esteem plummeted lower and lower, and she felt at the end of her rope for the day. Sighing in exasperation, she was just about to close the paper and take a nap, when a listing caught her eye, one that she'd overlooked before.

  “Caretaker position desired, no experience needed. Live in required.”

  Live in! That would be perfect. No one could be weirder than Becky, Brooke thought. She could get off Becky’s couch and from under her narrowed-eyed gaze and start a fresh chapter in life. She circled the ad and pulled out her phone, her hand shaking as she prepared to dial the number.

  2

  The next day, Brooke was up and out, having woken up well before noon that morning. She'd called about the caretaker ad yesterday afternoon, and had been invited to an interview at 2:00 the next day. She'd spent hours that morning trying to decide what to wear, and nothing she'd put on had felt quite like it was good enough to impress her potential new employers.

  Brooke was a curvier girl, and had been since her childhood. This had long proven itself a roadblock to her self-esteem, and the self-consciousness had extended well into her time in the city. It was true; you saw people of all shapes and sizes here, few of them seeming self-aware or ashamed of their bodies. And Brooke, though she felt some contempt toward her curves, knew she was an attractive girl. She was certainly more beautiful than those who walked around the city wearing barely anything, leaving nothing to the imagination.

  But sh
e never seemed able to loosen up about her appearance, and frequently doubted herself in the presence of other girls. In reality, she had sleek, blonde hair that flowed down her back. She had a round, cherubic face with blue eyes and a dazzling smile. Her curves fell in all the right places, and despite her low self-esteem, she knew that men frequently looked at her in passing.

  She still didn't know what her potential new employer wanted out of her or what exactly her job would entail. It felt just as imperative that she make as great a first impression on her interviewer visually, as it did to ace the job interview. She needed this job. She needed some hope to overcome the feeling that her move to the city hadn't been a complete and total bust.

  She needed today to go well for her for once, to save her from having to scurry back home again in defeat. It was something that she simply couldn't let happen without a fight.

  It was nerve-wracking to have so much pressure to succeed bearing down on her, and to make matters even more stressful, she had an audition for a play later on in the evening. Normally, she would have killed for such an opportunity, but she cursed whatever twist of fate had landed both the interview and the audition on the exact same day, mere hours apart. She had trouble deciding which she should be more anxious about, and decided that she should take them one at a time. She would remain as optimistic as she could do until reality gave her some incentive to feel otherwise, and then she would simply move on from there.

  Her mind had been wandering so much that she'd scarcely noticed herself rounding the corner to the building where she was to be interviewed. She was surprised by the neighborhood, realizing that she could end up working (and living) in one of the plushest and expensive parts of the city, rent-free.

  With her heart in her throat, she buzzed on the door, and was invited up by a British sounding voice. Trembling from head to toe, she stepped into the elevator, and rode it all the way to the penthouse suite. She held her breath as the doors slid open, and the man who'd buzzed her up stood there before her to greet her.