Bear Mated: A BBW Bear Shifter Paranomal Romance (Pine Ridge BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance Series Book 2) by Belinda Meyers Page A

altogether.
    Rick had swum over to a boulder
sticking out of the water, and he pulled her up beside him. Together they lay
side by side, panting. He was still naked and turned on, and there was a lusty
glint in his eyes when he angled his face toward her.
    “I bet they’re far away by now,” he
said, leadingly.
    She raised an eyebrow. “You mean
out of hearing distance?”
    “Exactly.” His grin turned into a
wicked leer, and she laughed, feeling a tingling sensation run all through her
body. Here was a hot naked guy who clearly wanted her even after they’d already
done it twice, which was all she’d ever thought he really wanted despite his
big talk of mates. Why did she keep turning him down?
    “No time,” she told him. “We’ve got
a—what was it?—a convocation to catch. Hey, that’s kind of catchy. Ha!”
    He groaned. “You are such a tease.”
    She patted his chest, letting her
hand linger on a huge firm pec . “Help me nab these
assholes and I promise, Winnie, as Luke as my witness, you’re gonna get laid
big time.”
    “I’m going to hold you to that.”
    She shivered in secret delight. You better . “All right, then,” she said,
trying to make her voice sound brisk and composed but hearing the crack in it
just the same, “then let’s set about it.”
    They swam back to shore, and she
gathered her gun and holster, along with the item she’d seen over Rick’s
shoulder earlier—the item that had sparked her plan—and they set out into the
forest once more. Barb’s clothes were wet again, so, reluctantly, she had to
remove them and tie the arms of her shirt around her middle. Rick slung her
pants over one broad shoulder, drying them as they walked.
    She shook her head in amusement.
“Two naked people without any ammunition—almost—or other weapons trying to
catch a band of thieving eagle shifters. This is one for the books, all right.”
    “Is there a book?”
    “There will be after today.”
    He laughed. His hip brushed her
side as they maneuvered around a tree, and she swayed into it, loving the feel
of him, the size of him, the confident gleam in his eyes. Hell, she loved
everything about him, even the wild bear that lurked inside him. The wild bear
that only she could tame.
    She thought about what he’d said
repeatedly—that she was his mate. Could it be? Was she ready for that? It had been awhile since she’d been close to a guy.
Rick had said that he’d found it hard—well, impossible—to meet a girl that
could handle his bear. It was the same for Barbara in a way. She’d found very
few guys confident enough in their own masculinity to handle being with a lady
cop. It just wasn’t something most guys seemed into. Heck, most of them seemed
to think she was a lesbian. A few had even seemed to find the idea hot, and
she’d almost hated to burst their bubbles, but she had. Instantly they had lost
interest. Oh well.
    And now here came Rick, all brawny
and awesome, but he seemed to expect a bigger commitment than she’d been
prepared to make. In the privacy of her own mind, she’d accused him of being a
one-and-done man, but was she really a one-and-done woman?
    No. Not with Rick, anyway. He was
someone she wanted to be around for a long time. Maybe in truth forever. But to
throw Forever at her on what amounted to a first date was kind of a heavy load,
and not one she’d prepared for. Heck, she’d pretty much been on the verge of
preparing for a life of loneliness and celibacy, and now her world had been
flipped upside down. It was just all so … sudden. What was a girl to do?
    “I hear something,” Rick said,
snapping her out of her reverie.
    He motioned with his hand, and they
crouched down, waiting. Presently Barbara heard noises through the undergrowth
of the forest. Soon she saw movement in a clearing ahead—people in throwaway
clothes carrying sticks and radios, arranged in a line. Some called her name.
Another, probably the group leader, spoke into a radio, his