Bear in a Billion: EXPOSED (#1) (9 page)

No, not your tongue.

Then, as if he had only tasted her to make certain she was ready, he gently rolled her hips around so that she now lay on her belly.

Oh, yeah, baby.

Haley tucked her legs underneath her, raising her ass in the air. She knew she was as ready as she ever was. As ready as she ever could be…

And he thrust inside her in one powerful plunge.

No tease.

No toying with her pussy.

Just a masterful drive home.

Haley gasped as he filled her up. She knew her channel was slick, but she still didn’t expect that she’d be able to suck him back the way she had. She did, though. Their bodies fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. Ethan pulled out, but this time, she was ready for him. Before he could thrust back inside her, she rocked herself out to meet him. He took hold of her hips.

“Harder,” she moaned.

And he thrust inside her again. Haley balled the sheets up in her fists and he drove into her again.

“Deeper,” she said.

He was already balls deep and Haley didn’t know how much deeper he could go. But he could try. She thrust back to meet him and he plunged in again, faster this time, and then he did it faster and faster. Haley felt the pulses of energy circling in her core. They were already tingling her insides with their tendrils of pleasure, growing in scope, in size. She knew she wouldn’t be able to contain them much longer. As the rhythm of their bodies picked up more and more, the tiny pulses of pure bliss tickled and pleaded to get out. She didn’t think she’d be able to hold out and she was sure he couldn’t either.

“Oh, Ethan…”

“Yes, baby?”

“Are you ready?”

“Are you?”

They were in such a frenzied rhythm now Haley couldn’t answer. All she could do was moan. She felt the pulses of pleasure twirl around and around inside her, like a fireball that was getting bigger and bigger until it was all too much.

“Ethan!”

Ethan drove inside her with such force she thought she would go right through the bed. And her fireball broke free. Flames of white hot passion coursed through her veins. Her extremities were rendered limp as she felt her essence slick her channel. Her orgasm obliterated all that had come before it. He continued to thrust as he released, his cock pulsing inside of her. Finally, he collapsed on the bed beside her, pulling her near.

“Did I get you there, baby?” Ethan asked.

“You know you did,” Haley said, and she meant it. No man had ever brought her to orgasm like Ethan had. It was as though he knew exactly what she needed.

He kissed her and then sat up.

“Let me clean you up,” Ethan said.

“Relax. There’s time for that.”

“You’ll feel better after I wipe you down. Maybe give you a massage.”

“Ethan.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Is there anything about you that isn’t perfect?”

He laughed. “I’ll take the compliment, but trust me, there are a lot of things, Haley. A whole lot of things.”

He kissed her again, softly on the lips, and ambled off to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Haley smiled. Her evening hadn’t gone as planned, but it sure hadn’t gone poorly. She may not have gotten her interview with the shifter, but she’d connected with Ethan. She’d gotten even closer to him than before. Gotten to the point where she felt like she could trust him, and he could trust her. She luxuriated on the soft, pillow-top bed, taking in the rich paneled room. The shifter was no pauper, that was for sure. A beach house like this must have set him back a pretty penny.

She supposed he was probably like all the other billionaires living in their expensive beach houses. With one important difference, of course—he could transform into a ravenous grizzly bear. The thought of it still frightened Haley a little, but she had to admit, she was getting used to the idea. Think about something enough and eventually it begins to feel normal. Truthfully, it was the size and splendor of the shifter’s house that had Haley’s mind buzzing. Haley came from a poor family. There had never been enough money growing up. But she hadn’t let it define her. Her parents were both hardworking; her father was a union man and her mother worked for a cleaning company. Money may have been tight, but they were solid, decent folk.

Haley couldn’t, however, imagine the mindset that would allow an individual to accumulate so much. Inherited wealth, she supposed, stood to reason. But a self-made billionaire? Who were these guys? She felt her reporter’s instinct spring to life. An end table containing a set of drawers sat at the side of bed. Even lying there naked, she was curious. Too curious to pass up the opportunity. She idly opened the wooden drawer.

There wasn’t much in it. A couple of paperback novels, a few odds and ends, what did she expect—a manual on how to get rich without really trying? She reached all the way to the bottom of the drawer, where she found a picture frame lying face down. She pulled it out, imagining a picture of the shifter fishing marlin, or a picture of him sitting in a fancy car.

Instead, she saw a picture of Ethan. He was standing there holding a tennis racket.

That was strange. Maybe Ethan was closer to the shifter than he let on.

Now she was curious. She opened the second drawer. This one was stuffed full of papers. What was she doing snooping around? It wasn’t even Ethan’s house. She should mind her manners. She closed the drawer again. But as she did, something fell out. More photos. Five or six of them. Haley reached down to pick them up.

She wasn’t prepared for what she saw.

More pictures of Ethan.

Ethan swimming in the shifter’s swimming pool. Ethan wearing a suit in an office. Ethan in a fancy car. Ethan sitting on the shifter’s leather chair. Ethan grilling over the barbecue, a feral look in his eye.

Wait. Something was wrong with the picture.

Something was off, but Haley couldn’t quite make it out. Ethan was flipping the steaks. Oh, my gosh, what was that? Haley felt a giant lump form in her throat. Ethan’s hands in the photo, his hands weren’t hands at all.

They were paws…

… Furry paws with long nails.

 “Hey, babe, can I get you a glass of water?”

Ethan walked out of the bathroom naked as the day he was born. Haley wasn’t sure what she felt in that moment. Horror? Dread? Fear? Yes. Buckets of fear. Fear enough to set the tiny hairs on her arms on end, fear that sent chills down her spine. Ethan saw that she held the photos in her hand. She could tell from the look in his eye. She felt an immediate impulse to hide the photos from his view, to pretend she hadn’t seen them at all, but what use was that now? Besides, she had to look at them again to be sure.

Or maybe she shouldn’t look at them. Maybe that was just a waste of valuable time. Maybe she should run. But she had no clothes on. She wasn’t wearing shoes. Could the situation be any worse? Yes, the situation could be worse. Ethan could show her those animal paws. He could become an animal right there in the bedroom in front of her.

Haley’s eyes were locked on Ethan’s. She wasn’t sure what she saw there. She didn’t trust herself anymore. But knew she needed to pull her gaze away. Even though she didn’t want to see it again, she knew she needed to look back down at the photo to be sure. Haley forced her eyes down to the glossy image.

It was just a snapshot. Nothing special. But her eyes hadn’t deceived her. There was enough detail in the photo to actually see the long, coarse, brown fur sprouting from his wrists, covering him all the way down to his hooked yellowed claws. Somehow, he managed to still hold the spatula, but there was no denying what she was looking at. It was no Halloween costume. No trick.

Ethan’s hands were paws in the picture. Actual bear paws.

And there was only one explanation for that.

Ethan was the shifter.

Haley felt herself gasp. She fought for shallow little breaths, all the while doing her best to seem unaffected by what she had just seen. Was she thinking straight? Was it even possible? But it was possible. She knew it was. She was staring at photographic evidence. Ethan was the shifter.
Come on, Haley. The clock is ticking. What are you going to do?
She felt her hand reaching down off the bed, reaching for her sandals.
One sandal, two  sandals, good.
She reached across the bed with her other arm for her shorts and top.
No sudden movements, Haley. Keep it easy. Keep it relaxed.

“Haley, I can explain.”

No, Haley thought. I don’t think you can. She rose slowly, so as not to provoke him. Whatever she had been feeling about shifters, whatever notion she had about their presence eventually feeling normal, whatever Ethan was, it didn’t feel normal right now. It felt terrifying, and Haley knew only one thing. She needed to get out of there, fast.

“Wait, Haley. It’s not what you think.”

This was her moment. He could already see she was leaving. No use pretending she wasn’t. She tore toward the bedroom door, wrenching it open.

“Haley, please.”

No, no, no. Stay where you are.
She heard footsteps behind her.
Don’t follow me. Please don’t follow me.

“Stay away!” Haley screamed.

She gasped for breath, streaking down the long hallway.

“It’s not safe out there,” Ethan shouted.

Haley didn’t listen. There was no way she would ever listen to him again. She ran all the way to the back door and kept on going.

**********************

Ethan cursed his stupidity. He hadn’t wanted Haley to find out like this. True, there was no good way to tell her that he had been misleading her as to who he was. But for her to find out like this, after sex, for her to find out that the man who acted as if he loved her had been lying to her all along was a shocking blow. And to find out because of that stupid picture…

The photo she had found had been taken by one of his shifter friends as a joke. They had been horsing around. Ethan said a good steak brought out his bear. He partially shifted to prove it and the photo had been snapped. Ethan knew that he should have destroyed it. That kind of photographic evidence of their species wasn’t something that should have been allowed to float around. But he had forgotten about the picture and Haley had found it.

Haley.

His mind rushed back to her. He couldn’t let her walk home alone. Not given the rioting outside. But he couldn’t exactly offer her a lift, either. She wouldn’t get into his car. Hell, after tonight, he’d be lucky if she deigned to share a time zone with him. So Ethan did the best he could under the circumstance and stealthily tailed her back to her cabin.

Once or twice Haley looked behind her, and Ethan desperately wanted to reveal himself. To go to her. To explain everything. To lay his soul bare. But something stopped him. He knew it would be too much for her to process too soon. Instead, he simply ensured that she got home safely. Fortunately, the demonstration had died down, and she arrived home safely, but it did nothing to fix the situation at hand.

 Ethan had screwed up. Majorly. Everything had been so perfect. Why did he have to bring her back to his house? She hadn’t been ready. That much was obvious. In the event that they might at some point go back to his place, he had hastily taken down the photos of himself, but he hadn’t exactly locked them in a vault. He had to ask himself again, why had he brought her back to his home? The demonstration, of course. But that wasn’t the real reason. On some level he had wanted her to know the truth. He knew he did.

Ethan had never planned on lying to Haley about his identity. His shifter status, yes, that was something he couldn’t reveal to her up front, but the part about him being a surfer, that had just happened. Ethan often tried to blend in with the crowd. He really was a surfer. And a cameraman. He had started out that way, anyhow. It wasn’t an entirely conscious decision that his passion had spawned a multi-billion-dollar company. No, things had simply fallen into place. His love of photography and innovation had spawned an idea for a unique portable camera product. The product was designed to capture great hands-free imagery of action sports, and when he had shared the prototype he’d hobbled together with his venture capitalist friends, everything had come together.

Business came easily to Ethan. He didn’t, however, have any desire to live in the limelight. In fact, he fiercely protected his anonymity. That’s why he attended the protest as just another protester. Staying a few nights in his van, the one he’d owned since before he’d even started his company, was no hardship in consideration of the freedom it provided him. After all, he wasn’t famous outside of tech circles. People didn’t recognize him. And then, when he had met Haley, he had seen no reason to tell her who he truly was.

In any case, his plan wasn’t to come out as the shifter in the near future. The interviews he was releasing were part of a long-term strategy. Yes, he believed that it was time that shifters came out of the shadows. Yes, he thought it only fair that they be able to live among humans openly and without fear. But he also knew that people would take some time to get used to the idea. The interviews were a way to do that. A way to smooth a transition to a world where shifters could live without having to keep their identities a secret.