Hard To Bear by Georgette St. Clair

and running alone.
    He took his wallet and cell phone out of his pants pocket, and then handed the pants to her.
    “I’ll be right back with a towel,” she said. “Then I’ll go in the kitchen and make you some hot chocolate.”
    “Did you say hot chocolate? I’m in,” he said.
    She took his clothing to the laundry room and dumped them in the dryer.   Then she pulled the pants out and went through his pockets to make sure he hadn’t left anything in them. And, all right, because she was nosy.
    Sue me , she thought, I’m a reporter. It comes with the territory.
    Crumpled up in the pocket, wadded into a ball, was a receipt.  Shame on me , she thought, un-crumpling it and reading it and not feeling the least bit ashamed.
    It was a receipt for nine millimeter bullets…silver coated.
    Thanks to recent federal legislation, only police officers and  Enforcers were legally permitted to carry silver coated ammo, which was lethal to not just humans, but other shifters.
    Shock rippled through her, but it a lso made sense.  He was a cop or an Enforcer. Or a criminal? No, then he wouldn’t have a receipt for the bullets, he’d have bought them on the black market.
    He hadn’t just come back to town to restart his family’s business. He’d come for some other reason.  Could it be connected with the disappearances?
    And what should she do with this information?
    There wasn’t much point in confronting him with it, she decided, as she dumped detergent into the washing machine and turned the dial.  If he hadn’t told her the truth yet, he certainly wasn’t going to spi ll any details just because she’d found that receipt.
    What did this mean for her and the bear?
    Nothing, she thought firmly. It was even more reason to avoid him.
    She grabbed a towel, and found that Flint was already in the kitchen, making two cups of hot chocolate for them. He’d gotten the whip cream out of the refrigerator and sprayed it on top.  He was as naked as the day he was born, completely comfortable with his nudity.   His rock hard erection pointed straight at the ceiling, thick and proud.
    “Thank you. And I appreciate you staying here,” she said , looking only at his face and trying not to blush again.  He made her blush a lot. “I do feel safer.”
    She held out the towel, and he wrapp ed it around his waist, and they stood by the counter sipping the sweet, hot liquid.  She shivered in the cooling air; the rainstorms always brought the temperature down.
    He set his hot chocolate down on the counter and reached out to rub her arms, and when his firm, strong hands gripped her, she felt a tidal wave of liq uid lust washing over her.
    “Don’t,” she gasped, bu t she made no move to pull away from him.  Her knees turned to jello, and she leaned against the bank of kitchen cabinets so she wouldn’t sway where she stood.
    “Why not?”
    “Because…because I’m not interested.” Her breath was coming out in pants, and she felt the juices of her arousal oozing between her legs.
    “Liar.” His voice was husky. How had he gotten so close to her?
    “Am not.”
    “Kiss me, and if you aren’t interested aft er that, I’ll sleep in your armchair without a word of protest.”
    “Okay,” she murmured. In her lust-dazed state of mind, that seemed to make perfect sense.
    The huge bear shifter cupped her face in his hand and tipped it up, and then he bent down, and his luscious lips melted onto hers.  Her lips parted, and she was lost.  She felt his towel dropping to the ground and let his free arm circle her waist and pull her up against his massive, hard body without protest, and she let out a helpless whimper of pleasure as his tongue thrust into her mouth and firmly swirled around hers.
    “ Mmmm.” She moaned into his mouth as he probed the caverns of her mouth with his tongue, leading her tongue in a slow, intimate dance.  She drank in his sweetness and the wet heat of his plundering tongue, and felt her knees go