A Date For The Bear: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (Bear Brides Book 2) (2 page)

Terri gulped, and dragged a
shaky breath into her lungs. She found herself taking a step towards
him, her eyes drifting down to that sexy mouth that had up to this
point in time, been nothing but brash and sarcastic towards her.

How would his lips feel
against hers? She had this insane urge to nibble that strong,
tightly clenched jaw and run her fingers down his chest and arms,
just to feel those solid muscles ripple and tighten under her
fingertips.

“Morning, everyone!”
Abby and Cole burst into the kitchen, beaming and blushing.

With that, the spell was
broken.

Terri stepped back with a
gasp, and allowed Abby to hug her and fuss over her.

“Did you sleep well?”
Abby asked, smiling. “I see the boys have prepared breakfast,
but if you'd like anything else...”

Terri smiled back. Her
friend's chatter and the boisterous teasing and laughter around her
simply washed over her. She couldn't trust her voice, and she
honestly couldn't trust herself at this point.

God, what had she been about
to do?

What was she even thinking?

She was thinking of kissing
and seducing Tony Jameson, that surly werebear with a snarky, caustic
wit and humor.

Terri shook her head hard.
There must have been something in that damn coffee.

Terri took her place at the
dining table beside Abby. Thankfully, Tony didn't take the other
seat next to her. He sat at the end of the table, as far away from
her as possible.

Terri thanked Cole as he
piled her plate with eggs, toast and sausages. Cole treated his
wife's best friend as his guest of honor. Anyone who loved his
beloved Abby was family as far as Cole was concerned, so he looked
upon Terri almost as a sister. Terri chuckled when Cole began to
load his younger brother's plate with food as well. Brad huffed
good-naturedly, but it was clear that no matter how old he was, Cole
would always see him as his baby brother.

Cole was a good big brother,
a good Alpha, a good man. Seeing how happy Abby was, Terri knew that
her friend had made the right choice. She had found her Mr. Right.

Terri swallowed the sudden
twinge of envy and concentrated on shoveling food into her mouth.
She was thirty-one years old, had a good job and an active dating
life. She wasn't looking for Mr. Right.

The last part was a lie, and
Terri knew it.

She dated extensively and if
she was really honest with herself, indiscriminately. She dated
humans, shifters, half shifters, playboys, leeches, stalkers, losers,
you name it. She was currently dating a bear shifter back in the
city. Silas was pleasant, polite, a little too clingy for her taste
but they seem to get along fine. They had been going out for a
month, but she had never invited him back to her place. As a bear
shifter, Silas was beefy and well-built but for some reason or other,
she just didn't want to sleep with him. Maybe she was getting old
before her time and her sex drive was on the wane, who knows?

Despite her string of
hopeless dates, Terri hadn't given up entirely on love. And with her
best friend now happily mated and married, her fading hope of finding
her own Mr. Right had been kindled anew.

Something told her that her
Mr. Right was sitting right here at the breakfast table with her.

As everyone continued eating
and chatting and passing food around, Terri straightened up and
chanced a glance at Tony.

His knife and fork was moving
mechanically as he cut his sausage and bacon, and raised his fork to
his mouth. She could almost hear his teeth grinding as he chewed,
but his eyes were locked on her.

His scowl was back.

He was glowering and scowling
at her as he ate.

Squaring her shoulders, Terri
took a big bite of toast and returned his death stare.

He wasn't attracted to her.

Her hungover brain had been
playing a mean trick on her.

She had imagined everything.
She had mistaken his contempt and hostility as desire and passion.

Tony was still being a prick.

A very handsome, hunky prick.

Damn him.

And damn her crazy libido
which had chosen this time to sit up and pay attention to the wrong
guy. Why couldn't she feel the same scorching sexual attraction
towards Silas, who was a much nicer man than Tony?

Heck, the average man on the
street was much more agreeable than Tony Jameson. Yet no man had
made all her nerves come alive with just one look in a long time.

It was maddening and highly
frustrating.

Terri chomped the top off her
sausage and tore savagely into another slice of toast.

Was it too much to ask to
have a nice guy take her out on a fun date, have wild, passionate sex
after, fall in love and get married—perhaps not in that order,
but yeah.

Terri heaped more food on her
plate.

All this angst was making her
hungry.

Tony swallowed the piece of
toast which felt and tasted like sand in his mouth. It wasn't
Dalton's fault. Dalton had buttered and toasted the bread to
perfection. It was crisp and buttery, and at any other time, he
would have gamely complimented his big brother's culinary skills and
fought his cousins off to get at the last slice. Dalton had no
talent whatsoever in the kitchen, but he did his best. His signature
dish was buttered toast, so there you have it. But Tony knew that
Dalton always strove to do the best by him. Tony had been barely
twelve when their entire clan was wiped out, massacred by a rival
clan. Only the four of them had escaped the fire and the bloodbath.

Dalton and Cole had been
eighteen then. Dalton had tried to be everything to Tony—father,
mother, brother, friend. Tony would eat everything and anything that
his elder brother cooked. It might be charred, tasteless and harder
than a rock, but Tony would swallow every morsel and declare it the
best thing he'd ever eaten. He would do the same thing for his
cousins, but Cole and Brad were great cooks. He'd never had to eat
charred and tasteless food whenever his cousins took to the stove.

But this morning, he just
couldn't appreciate the delicious spread on the dining table.

Not when there was something
much more delicious sitting just a few chairs away and glaring
daggers at him.

Terri Quinn, that
insufferable, infuriating, intoxicating human woman.

Her jet black hair was pulled
back in a messy ponytail, leaving tendrils curling down her neck, and
she was wearing a black striped pajamas. Maybe she was going for a
jailhouse look but with the stripes undulating all over her soft,
curvy frame, she just looked so cute and sexy. Her tangled,
hurriedly-tied ponytail completed the look of a sleepy, contented
woman who had just padded out of bed.

Tony wanted to see her like
this every morning. Sweet, rumpled and smiling.

He suppressed a low snarl.
What the hell was wrong with him?

Why would he want to see her
in the morning, on any morning? Terri was going back to the city
this very afternoon and he was driving her back. She had to work
tomorrow. They all had to work.

His bear seemed to have other
ideas. His bear had been cranky and out of sorts ever since he
caught sight of Terri. His bear wanted to get closer to Terri, but
the man wasn't going to let the animal get its lusty way. His bear
had a big appetite, but Tony refused to indulge his animal this time.
Of all the females in the world, why did his beast have to lock its
sights on Terri?

Terri with her raven black
hair, large gray eyes and soft, luscious curves. She was smart,
funny—and human.

Oh, Tony knew human women all
right.

They were fun in bed,
coquettish, provocative and frisky. But they'd only stick around for
the good times. When the going got tough, they got going. They
liked to be wined and dined and pampered with expensive gifts, but
they couldn't be counted to stick around when things got a little
bumpy. He would prefer his mate to be a werebear like him.
She-bears were tough, resilient, brave. Unfortunately, they were
also scarce. They would stay and fight for their families, and die
for their loved ones. Unlike weak, little humans who would turn and
run at the first sign of trouble. None of his human ex-girlfriends
had stayed by his side when his clan ran into some trouble with the
other shifter packs in town. They had been saccharine sweet when
they wanted lavish gifts from him, but they only looked out for
themselves. They wouldn't stay and fight. They just liked to be
pleasured and pampered. He couldn't blame them, he supposed. They
were only weak, defenseless humans. But it was tiresome to pander to
whining, petulant human females who gave nothing of themselves, and
Tony secretly swore that he would never date another human female
again. He'd had quite enough of backstabbing, gold-digging,
spineless little schemers.

He had gone along with Cole's
ridiculous, albeit well-meaning plan of signing the four of them up
at an online dating site. His Alpha was hoping that they would find
their mates and boost their clan's numbers. Tony understood Cole's
rationale. The Nightfire clan was young and relatively small,
compared to the other shifter packs and clans in Moonstone Creek.
They had to grow, reproduce, groom the next generation of members and
leaders in their clan. But the next generation was nowhere in sight.
Their clan couldn't be seen to be ageing and shrinking. Predators
preyed on the old and weak. An ageing, weakening clan would be
targeted and attacked. Cole had the interest of the Nightfire clan
in mind when he signed them all up for that dating site.

The plan had worked—for
Cole.

Abby had seen Cole's profile
and had bravely traveled all the way to Moonstone Creek to look for
him. Tony had to admit that Abby wasn't like most human women he'd
encountered. She was plucky and tough, and Tony genuinely liked and
respected her. He was happy for his Alpha, but that didn't mean he
was going to follow in Cole's footsteps and get himself a little
human mate.

Tony had simply typed
gibberish in his online profile on that stupid dating site. And he
had put on his most forbidding and menacing look when the camera
snapped his picture.

But just when he thought he
was safe, who should come blowing into Moonstone Creek like a
lightning cloud but Terri Quinn, Abby's best friend from the city.

Tony almost groaned aloud.
The moment his bear scented Terri, it had reared up and given the man
a good, hard shake.

No female had riled his bear
up like this before. Terri aggravated and aroused him. She
challenged him, taunted and teased him right back. She wouldn't take
shit from him and she gave as good as she got. And she wasn't even a
shifter. The infuriatingly delicious female was human.

But she was—different.
She was pretty, but she wasn't obsessed about her looks and figure.
He'd been observing her since she arrived in Moonstone Creek. Her
face had been devoid of makeup when she first arrived, and when she
officiated at Cole and Abby's wedding ceremony, she had chosen an
overflowing get-up that covered almost every inch of her sexy,
curvaceous body. It was clear that she was simply concentrating on
the task at hand and wanted to make damn sure that her friend was
properly married.

She was a woman on a mission.
She looked out for her best friend's interests, and she was loyal
and gutsy. It didn't help that she had a sparkling personality as
well. Her laugh was hearty and infectious, and her eyes lit up when
she talked. She had a rapier wit and a snarky sense of humor.

Tony suspected that not
everyone could take her brand of humor, and some might even find her
too bold and brash. But Tony found her frankness and droll humor
refreshing. She could be sarcastic without being cruel, candid
without being rude.

In fact, if she wasn't so
pretty, Tony might have thought that she was his Jiminy Cricket, a
personification of his conscience.

But he had no doubt that his
conscience would look exactly like him, a grouchy thirty-two-year-old
going on ninety.

“You hungry, Tony?”
Abby's voice made him cut his eyes to her.

“No. Why?”

“You're staring at
Terri like you want to eat her.”

Tony growled. “I
wasn't looking at her.”

“Oh?” Abby
raised a brow. “You could have fooled me,” she muttered
and winked at him.
But you
didn't
. I know what I
saw.

Tony
rolled his eyes. No wonder Abby and Cole were such a good match.
They even thought alike. They were both hellbent on matchmaking him
with random women. Only Terri wasn't any random woman. She was
Abby's best friend. And Tony couldn't believe Abby would want her
best friend mated to a grouch like him. Yet, his new cousin-in-law
seemed to be encouraging him and extolling his non-existent virtues
to Terri.