Husband Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire Book 1) (12 page)

His chin dropped, and his gaze lowered to the mass of red on his ribcage. For as strong and confident as Ian was, being marked by the struggles of his existence obviously bothered him. Elyse sat up and ran her hands lightly over his chest and the muscular curves of his arms, then down to his ribs to the scars. Pressing forward, she pursed her lips softly against the uneven skin there. “This,” she whispered, “means you’re still alive and here with me. Whatever happened and however you got it doesn’t matter.” She kissed it once more and looked up at him, then unbuttoned the top clasp of his jeans. “Have you shown them to anyone else?”

He huffed a small breath. “How could I explain them away to a bedmate?”

“So then they’re only for me.”

His face softened from a steely expression to one of thoughtfulness.

She kissed his ribs again and said, “This is mine, and you are mine, just like I’m yours, Ian. Don’t regret them. I love them. I love everything about you.”

“Even the animal?”

The rip of his zipper was loud in the silence that hung between them. “Especially the animal.”

“Why?” he asked quietly as she carefully pushed his pants down his hips.

“Because without him, you would’ve been settled with someone else long before you found me.”

Ian’s oversize, calloused hand cupped her cheek gently, and his eyes filled with some emotion too big for her to understand. Elyse leaned forward and kissed just beside his belly button, then bit him gently on the strip of defined muscle that covered his hip bone. A shudder took his body as she pushed the elastic band of his briefs down, unsheathing his long, thick erection. It was every bit as intimidating as when it was shielded behind his jeans, and the nervous flutters were back in her belly with a vengeance.

She blew a soft breath over the swollen tip, and it throbbed once in a sexy reaction that drew a smile from her lips. Ian put his hands behind his head, gripping his hair as if he were trying to control his urge to hold her instead.

“You can touch me. Tell me what you like.” Because sure as shit she wasn’t going to be any good at this. Cole had been a man of many complaints.

Ian’s chest heaved with his breath as he slid one of his hands around the back of her head and clenched her hair in a gentle grasp. His nostrils flared above her as he pulled her toward him. She slid her mouth over him, and his hips jerked. “Sorry,” he murmured, loosening his grip.

She ran her fingertips up his powerful legs and took him deeper. Ian released a shuddering breath and pulled her to him faster. “Oh my God, Elyse.” His voice was raspy and rushed.

Sensitive man, so easily pleased, and she should’ve known she would be enough for him. Gripping Ian at the base, she turned pliable in his grasp, heeding the pace he wanted and reveling in his reaction to the touch of her tongue against his shaft. His hips moved with her, pumping slowly into her mouth every stroke she allowed. And when his growl rattled him, she slid her hand up his stomach just to feel the vibration. She was so wet against the mattress under her, and for what? She hadn’t been touched at all, but pleasing Ian was such a turn-on right now. She’d never found such pleasure in taking care of someone else, but now his abs were flexing every time she took him in her mouth, and he let off a low groan that said she was doing something right.

“Elyse, stop, stop, stop.”

Or not. She pulled off him and glanced up, confused. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” His eyes had gone a dark brown, and he was breathing heavy. “I don’t want to come like that. I want to do it with you.”

“Oh.” She tried to hide the proud smile on her lips, she really did, but Ian had her feeling like a goddess right now. Her insides were practically glowing as he lowered her back against the bed and nudged her knees wider apart.

He lowered his hips against hers, and the head of his cock pressed right against her opening, teasing. This was it, and as she locked her eyes with his, gone dark and hungry, a moment of fear seized her. This was different from anything she’d ever felt with a man, and what they were about to do would change her. It would change them.

But when Ian lowered his lips to hers and kissed her so gently it stole her breath, the fear evaporated. She rocked her hips against him, enticing him. Ian pulled away with a smack of his lips and gritted his teeth, closed his eyes. “It’s hard to stay gentle,” he whispered.

She loved him for the admission. Admired him for his obvious effort not to hurt her. But she’d been worked up for days and was ready for him. Lifting her head off the bed to meet him, she kissed him and scratched her nails slowly up his back. His hips jerked, and his tongue slipped past her lips. He slid into her, stretching her. The burn was overshadowed by how good he felt inside her. Ian pulled her wrists above her head and bit her bottom lip harder than he had before. A needy moan left her lips as she spread her legs wider, allowing him better access. His powerful hips bucked forward again, harder, driving himself deeper into her. He was shaking now, trying to keep control, but he didn’t need to anymore. She wanted all of him. Animal and man and teetering control, she wanted him to be himself with her.

“Harder,” she pleaded.

A snarl ripped from his chest as he bucked into her so deep he bumped her clit. His eyes were midnight now, his face feral as he pumped into her again and again. His kisses were less controlled. Harder lips and grazing teeth as he trailed them from her lips to her neck, down her shoulder to the inside of her arm where he bit her hard enough to draw a gasp from her lips and make her writhe against him. He was losing it, and she reveled in the fierce abandon in his eyes. When he drew one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked hard, Elyse cried out as the pressure inside of her became too much. Pounding pleasure pulsed through her as Ian slammed into her again, harder and harder. He slid his body further up against hers, gripping the back of her neck as he buried his face against her collarbone and snarled out her name. Erratically, he slid into her, and she could feel it now as he let off a wild sound from his throat. Warmth shot into her with every thrust until he was emptied, and still, her aftershocks pounded on, long after he eased to a stop.

He lay there, connected deeply to her as she gripped him in slow, hard pulses. And when she was finished, he moved slowly within her, intertwining their fingers, and the next time she came, he watched her face. This one was softer. It was drawn slower. It was controlled and given because Ian adored her. She could see it in his eyes.

She’d been right when she’d had that moment of fear right before they’d slept together.

Elyse pulled one of his hands to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “Everything feels different now. Bigger. More important.”

Ian rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes as he let off a long, relieved sigh. “For me, too.”

“Miki!” Elyse yelled. The pup bounded around the puddle of spilled goat’s milk, curled tail wagging. “Little monster.”

A loud whistle sounded from the yard and, immediately, the furry little cretin bunny bounced toward the door of the barn and out into the dim, early morning light.

“Yeah, you better run,” Elyse huffed as she righted the pail Miki had knocked over. For whatever reason, Ian had complete control over Miki’s behavior while the pup saved all of his naughtiness for her. At least he liked to snuggle her best, though, so she had that going for her. Ian was giving her lessons on being the boss of Miki but, so far, the little beasty pranced around here causing chaos wherever he pleased. He completely had her heart—when he wasn’t spilling the goat juice.

Momma Goat stuck her tongue out and bleated a horrific scream, and Elyse hunched her shoulders against the grating noise. She was pretty sure Shayna Haskins had sold Momma Goat cheap because she was a screamer. Lucky Elyse. But, she kept them in the milk and cheese and wasn’t a kicker, so Elyse had learned to take the good with the bad.

Next year though, she was going to keep one of the momma cows here to be a milker. And hopefully by then, Miki will have gotten over his obnoxious fascination with the silver milk pail.

“Elyse, you ready?” Ian called.

Muttering a curse, she released the goat from the high pen and ushered her back into the big stall that housed the two nannies, the ram, and two half-grown kids. No milk today, but at least Momma Goat’s teats wouldn’t be swollen and sore. Elyse would be gone the rest of the day, cutting and storing hay with the help of Ian, Josiah, and the neighbors, Joanna and Ricky Fairway. Ian said it was just right to cut now for peek nutrition, and after the last two weeks of working the homestead with him, she trusted him completely. The man had a knack for guessing the weather, for animal husbandry, and a million other little talents that made her wonder just how she’d made it this far without his help.

Her heart sank as she sauntered out into the dawn and felt the chill creeping into her bones. It was mid-September now, only a month until Ian went down for the winter. And as much as she hated the cold and what it meant to her now, Ian seemed to feel the same urgency to get everything done around here. He’d even taken a couple days to help her store the vegetables in the root cellar, and he’d canned salmon one of the townies had traded him for some rabbits he’d snared. Next year, they couldn’t miss the salmon run. Ian said his bear did best if he had a lot of fish in his diet.

Elyse snuggled deeper into her jacket and strode toward the hayfields behind the cabin. This was the second crop of the season, and a late one, but necessary since the first hadn’t produced enough. They needed another fifty square bales for the cattle if they wanted to make it until the grass turned green again. For the millionth time since she’d taken over the care of this homestead, she was amazed at what Uncle Jim and Marta had been able to manage.

Ian would’ve scared her by jumping out from behind the cabin if Miki hadn’t given him away. Elyse tried to run, but Ian was too fast and had her thrown over his shoulder before she could even inhale once. She laughed and swatted his backside as he strode toward the hayfields.

“What took you so long, woman?”

“Ask that little hellion,” she said affectionately as she wiggled her fingers down at Miki. He was much too little to reach her, but he tried anyway. If he wasn’t so darned cute, he would be much easier to reprimand.

“The milk again?”

“Always.”

Ian let off a little growl and set her down, facing him. “Good morning,” he murmured, cupping her cheeks and kissing her lips. He’d been up before her, and this was the first she’d gotten to see him today. He was all mint toothpaste, three-day scruff, mussed hair, bright eyes and grins, and the stress of getting the animals taken care of before going out to the fields faded away.

Melting against him, she nipped his bottom lip and hugged his waist. “Morning.”

“You ready?”

“Yes. No. There’s something I should tell you before you meet my brother.”

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down her arms to warm her. “Lay it on me.”

“I didn’t actually tell him about you yet.”

“Ha!” Ian shook his head and jacked his eyebrows up. “Why not?”

“Well, because he knew about the advertisement, and he gave me so much shit over it, and I was afraid he wouldn’t understand if he didn’t meet you in person. I wanted to keep his pre-conceived judgments to a minimum.”

“Trouble,” Ian accused lightly as he draped his arm across her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head and led her down the dirt road that wound through dense, lush vegetation to the hayfields.

Unable to help herself, Elyse scooped Miki up and snuggled the wiggling puppy. “We like to keep daddy on his toes, don’t we?” she crooned. But when she looked up, the smile dipped from her face at the expression on Ian’s. “What?”

The corners of his eyes tightened as he walked beside her. “Nothing.”

“Spill it, bear-man.”

His jaw clenched in the early morning light as he gave her his profile. “I won’t make a good daddy, Elyse. Best you don’t get used to calling me that.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” He looked at her incredulously. “You want your sons to end up like me?”

“How do you know we won’t have daughters?” she teased, but he didn’t laugh.

“No daughters, Elyse. I can only give you sons, and when they turn sixteen, they Change for the first time and start hibernating. And trust me when I say, you don’t want to deal with a pissed off teenager who can call a bear out of himself.”

“Your dad did it?”

“Yeah, and me and my brothers nearly put him in the grave with stress.”

“Maybe we won’t have multiples, and one kid will be easier. And why can’t bear shifters have daughters?”

“I don’t know. Science. Maybe evolution decided females make bad bears or something. At least it’s not like werewolves. They can have daughters, but they die at birth. Only the sons survive.”

Elyse nearly dropped Miki in shock. “Werewolves? There are
werewolves
?”

The blood drained from Ian’s flushed face, leaving him pale as a corpse. “Shit. Forget I said that.”

“Not likely! Do they live in Alaska?”

“Elyse,” Ian warned.

“Dammit Ian, this isn’t an unreasonable question. I have wolf tags! Am I going to accidentally shoot some shifter?”

“Accidentally? No.” Ian started walking again while she stood there with her head spinning, clutching Miki to her chest.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means if you get close enough to a werewolf, you’ll know it. And that reminds me, after the hay is cut and stored, we’re going to work on your marksmanship. You can’t go into winter missing every damned target. I won’t be awake to protect you.”

“Protect me from what? Werewolves?”

A frustrated growl vibrated the air, but Ian didn’t turn around, and he didn’t slow down either.

“Ian!” He ignored her so she stomped her foot and let a pathetically human growl rip out of her. “I want kids.”

“Cubs, Elyse,” he gritted out, rounding on her. “They’re called cubs. You know why? Because I’m a fucking animal, and your kids would be fucking animals, too.”

“Don’t you dare talk like that to me, Ian Silver. Don’t you talk to me like I don’t know the man I’m bedding. You aren’t an animal.”

“I
am
, Elyse.” He stopped in front of her, eyes blazing and darkening by the second. “This is the gig. You can have me, but I’m not doing kids.”

“Because you don’t want them?” Damn her voice as it shook with anger.

Ian scrubbed his hands down his face and stared at her, shaking his head slightly in denial. “No, not because I don’t want them. I wouldn’t want to curse a kid. I don’t talk to my dad for a reason, and neither do my brothers.”

“You said it was because you were all dominant male grizzlies.”

Ian ran his hands through his hair and linked them behind his head. “That’s true of me and my brothers. But with my dad…shit.” Ian spat. “He was always so proud of what he was and so disappointed when me and my brothers struggled. He’s more bear, and we’re more human, and we were always this huge mistake.”

“Mistake?”

“That’s what he called us. He said we didn’t make sense, and that we were weak and not meant to be given bears. He raised us, but he didn’t like it. We were on our own after our first hibernation. He’d moved to Anchorage by the time we came out of that first winter, skinny as shit and scared because he’d never thought to tell us what to expect. He’d thought we should just know. Instinct or something.”

“Your first hibernation at sixteen?”

Ian nodded.

Utterly dumbfounded, Elyse murmured, “He just left you?”

“He came in and out for a while. I learned to fly and so did Tobias, so we picked up his deliveries in the summers while he lived in Anchorage. I get it. Me and my brothers weren’t easy, but there is still a big part of me that hates him. Not just for pushing us out into the world early the way he did, but because he put the bear in me in the first place. I never want a kid hating me for cursing him.”

“I didn’t know,” Elyse whispered, devastated for what he’d been through.

She imagined Ian as a child, scrawny after a hibernation, hungry as sin, and with no parental guidance—no mentor to tell him how to navigate a really difficult life. She respected him more for where he was now. He was not only alive still, but he’d bought a plane and found a job that made him a good living, and now he was here, a decent man who treated her sweetly. Who balanced a fine line between taking care of her and making her strong enough to stand on her own when he wasn’t around. The way he was with her, Miki, and the other animals around the homestead, she would’ve never guessed he’d had a cold upbringing. He was so confident, and his anger was the quiet kind that he held in until he was ready to talk about things calmly.

Elyse set Miki down and wrapped her arms around Ian’s neck.

“Woman, I’ll get you an entire dog sled team of pups if you want, but I can’t give you babies. It wouldn’t even feel right leaving you to raise them while I sleep half the year away.”

“Okay,” she said, tears burning her eyes. She would keep taking her birth control and accept this for now. Perhaps in a few winters, he would feel differently, but this was something Ian was giving her a hard “no” on right now, and she had to respect it.

“I want to give you everything you want, Elyse—”

“It’s okay.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Josiah said quietly from ten yards away.

Ian started in her arms and turned, crouched slightly as he shoved her behind him. To stop the soft growl in his throat, Elyse rubbed his back and stepped around him. “Uh, Ian, this is my brother, Josiah. Josiah, this is my husband, Ian Silver. Er…not husband. Fiancé.”

Josiah looked a lot like her. Sandy brown hair peeking out from under his winter hat, and the same odd-colored gold eyes they’d both inherited from their absent father. He was a lot taller though, much wider in the shoulder, and intimidating in his quietness to strangers. She knew her brother, though, and she adored him.

“Fiancé?” he asked, his face a frozen, emotionless mask.

Ian cleared his throat and straightened his spine, then strode over to her brother and offered his hand. “Nice to meet you. Elyse talks about you a lot.”

Josiah’s eyebrows quirked up. “Funny, she’s said nothing about you. Fiancé,” he repeated, ignoring Ian’s outstretched hand. “Please tell me you didn’t answer her advertisement.”

“Josiah,” Elyse warned. “It’s not what you think.”

“You didn’t hire him to be your husband?”

Aw, shit-cicles. “Well, yes.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Elyse? I told you that ad was a terrible idea.”

“Actually, it was an awesome idea because I met Ian.”

“Well, forgive me if I don’t throw my trust at you, Mr. Silver. My sister doesn’t exactly have good taste in men. The last one she brought home was a worthless little shit.” Josiah’s lips lifted in a dead smile. “What do you want with my sister? Is it the land?”

Ian went rigid, hands hooked on his hips. He cast Elyse a ghost of a glance, then dragged his attention back to Josiah. “Look, I appreciate that you’re protective of your sister, and I’m not asking for you to like me right now. I’m asking you keep your mind open to me, and I hope I earn your trust in time. Elyse and I met in unusual circumstances, yes, but I’m only interested in her land when I’m running it beside her, and I’m here because I care for her. We’ve got hay to cut and shit to do, so if you’re up for it, we could use your help cutting and hauling it. I’ll let you two have some time. ’Scuse me.” Ian strode off in the direction of a pair of green tractors bouncing toward the fields.

“Why are you acting like this?” Elyse asked, mortified by her brother’s behavior.

“Because look at him, Elyse? Does that man strike you as a mail-order husband? He can get any girl he wants. Think real long and hard about why he’s here, Elyse. I can’t fucking stand watching you go through another Cole McCall.”