ROMANCE: Bear Naked Passion (Billionaire Bear Trio Book 2) (254 page)

              His facial muscles went slack. For a few seconds, he studied her with such intent that it made her shiver. She was about to pull away, but then he started to lean forward. His eyes flitted over her face, and though he was already moving with remarkable slowness, he slowed himself even further.

              He was giving her the option to walk away—to refuse his request without acknowledging it. It was such a gentle, timid action that Andrea felt her heart flutter. Her flesh flushed with affection and want; it was easy to mentally shove aside her guilt and doubt and press her lips against his.

              Reed inhaled sharply, his mouth quickly adjusting to fit against hers so perfectly. He was sensuous with his movements, his head angled just right for him to deepen the kiss without pushing too much into her. In response, Andrea placed her trembling hands on his neck and pressed herself against his torso. She parted her lips as an invitation, and she moaned the moment Reed’s tongue tasted the tip of hers.

              When she felt his arms at her sides—his hands rubbing her back and shoulder blades—heat spiked through her. He was completely bare in front of her; he was giving himself to her—letting her take and taste and touch. The thought made her shudder.

              Not parting from their kiss, Andrea ran her fingers down his throat, past his shoulders, and over his pecs. His skin was so warm beneath her touch, and when she pressed her palm right over his heart, she could feel the muscle pounding rapidly. He quivered in response, making her smile.

              “I really want to see you,” she rasped over his lips, her fingers trailing down even lower. “But I think we need to make this fair first.”

              “Fair?” Reed whispered, his voice sounding as hazed as he looked. His eyelids fluttered apart, allowing him to observe her further. “What—?”

              Fondness blooming inside of her chest, Andrea kissed him once more before she took a step back. She glanced around her, a nervous thrill shooting through her at the thought of someone catching them. Then, her gaze still casted to the side, she moved her shoulders back and allowed her jacket to fall to the floor.

              Reed was silent. Though temptation taunted at Andrea—made her insides twist—she forced herself to not look at him just yet, not until she was as bare as he was.

              She skimmed her hands over her top for a few seconds before she carefully took that garment off, as well. In the back of the mind, she was stupefied by how easily this came to her; without hesitation or inhibition, she took off her bra and tossed it to the floor.

              She didn’t want to think about Hank at that moment, but she couldn’t help but appreciate the…skillset he had inadvertently taught. Learning to expose oneself with ease had never seemed like a talent to her before, but she had never been able to do it so well before.

              Andrea bit her bottom lip. She could picture Reed watching her—she could hear him pant wispy breaths, some of them coming out as a growl. It made her body burn pleasantly, the mere idea of him losing himself just by her stripping.

              Trembling, she snaked herself out of her pants and underwear, then she kicked the clothing aside. Temptation roared at her now—nearly made her whine—but she bit her lower lip harder and concentrated on the pain rather than on her desire to see Reed’s reaction.

              It wasn’t until she stepped out of her shoes that she finally allowed herself to look at him.

His chest was heaving up and down, his dark eyes even darker as they traveled over every inch of her body. His mouth hung ajar, and she could see his pink tongue move a little closer to his lower lip.

Unable to breathe herself, Andrea gave herself permission to look lower. She nearly gasped at the sight of his member, so large and already so hard for her. Her hands twitched with the eager want to touch him—to feel him pulsate. She nearly moved forward to do so, but Reed had yet to move at all, and she didn’t want to push her luck in this delicate balance.

“Now it’s fair,” she managed to choke out, her eyes still on his length. Smiling with appreciation, she looked back into his eyes and arched toward him a little. “What do you think?”

A guttural moan left Reed as he darted forward and encased her in his arms. Immediately, his mouth was devouring hers, his tongue exploring her gums.

Heat flooded through Andrea’s system. Ability to think any more began to fade away, all of her attention on the sensation of him against her—inside her. She whimpered against him, the tender flesh between her legs throbbing. She pushed her hips closer to him and grinded against him. He gasped, his head jolting upward as his cock rubbed against her.

He was so close to her clit that it was tantalizing. Almost desperate, Andrea spread her legs and angled herself so that her clit was rubbing against his length. It was a slight thing though—her folds getting in the way—yet it made her all the hotter, all the needier. Her nails clawed into his shoulders and she moaned.

“Closer, closer,” she begged. “Oh, Reed.”

He grabbed her right leg and hiked it up. Immediately, she wrapped it around his waist.

“Yes, yes,” she said, smiling when she felt him press his length against her moist core. “God, yes, more.”

Reed nipped her nose and her cheek, then he kissed and sucked his way to her neck. All the while, he gyrated against her without fully entering her. Her entire body trembled and flared with lust, ebbing closer to the edge at a torturous pace.

“Reed!” she whined, pushing herself harder against him. She felt his cock burrow a little deeper inside of her, but then he pulled away from her. She released a frustrated growl. “Get inside me! Please.”

“Patience,” he whispered into her shoulder. A tremor went through him, a pained noise of restraint crawling up his throat. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m so close already,” she said, whimpering. Her insides were clenching and searing, so close to a passionate conclusion. She tightened her hold on him. “Reed, please, fuck me. I’m not fragile, you won’t break me. I just need you to fuck me already, please!”

“God,” he gasped, his hips bucking toward her. Raggedly, he pushed himself inside of her and began pumping in and out of her. He lost all sense of control—all sense of caution.

Relief and pleasure rushed through with Andrea with each thrust Reed made. She arched toward him more, her leg sore yet unmoving around his waist. She felt like nothing more than a bundle of nerves, needing to be touched—existing merely to feel pure ecstasy.

The moment she gasped his name into his ear, she felt his hot seed spurt inside of her. She came a few seconds later, all but screaming his name as her pleasure quaked throughout her flesh. And even after the initial burst, pleasure continued to shoot through her veins. She panted, lulling her head against Reed’s shoulder and letting passion overtake her.

This was nothing like it had been with Hank. This was so, so much better.

Chapter 4

              The following week, neither one of them talk about Hank or Monumental Press—though Andrea did manage to turn her tape recorder on for a few of their conversations. Mostly though, regardless of whether Andrea wanted to admit or not, the two of them spent most of the time dating. In the private area of his guarded property, the two had picnics, they had danced in the mansion’s ballroom—they talked about everything and nothing. Andrea always made sure to steer most of their conversations in the direction of the bear-shifters, but it was still rather nice to talk about shallow things every now and again.

              “I don’t think you’re fat,” Reed said as they walked side by side in the adjacent woods. “You’re plump, sure, but that—”

              A laugh burst out of Andrea’s mouth, making Reed jump and smile bashfully.

              “I’m overweight,” she said lightly. She nudged his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. “And that’s fine with me.”

              “I’m glad,” he said, wincing the second he spoke. “I mean, not that I think you’re—you’re one of the most beautiful women I have ever had—I have ever—” He groaned and hid his face in his hands.

              Andrea giggled, encircling her arm around his and making him expose his cute face. Affection warmed through her at the way he smiled back at her. He was so charming—so sweet—and he probably didn’t even realize the true affect he had on her.

              It made the weight of the tape recorder in her pocket all the heavier. She had turned it on right before they went outside, but they had yet to actually talk about the bear-shifters. She would have found it strange how much she was adapting to this new reality—this new acceptance of a secret species—except that Reed had the made the transition from ignorance to knowledgeable gracious for her. He was always so open, so patient. Thinking about it now made self-loathing twist its way to her throat.

              “You okay?” Reed asked, tilting his head toward her. “You look ill.”

              “First I’m fat, now I look ill?” she said jokingly, fighting back against a cringe as looked at him.

              Reed’s eyes widened with horror. “No, no, I didn’t mean—”

              God, he really was too sweet for this world. Andrea pressed her lips against his cheek, and the quick action forced the two of them to stop. “I’m kidding,” she said softly against his neck.

              She saw him swallow. “Oh. Good.”

              The trees that surrounded them made her feel secure, their overlapping shadows like a light blanket that hid the two of them from the rest of the world. Though she could hear the traffic noises of the city in the distant, they didn’t take away from the utter sense of peace that came over her in that moment. She glanced at a few leaves that the wind was pushing along the ground.

              “Andrea?” Reed said quietly, his voice only adding to the serene moment rather than taking away from it. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

              She sighed. Her renewed sense of duty strengthened her guilt—overwhelmed her for a second—before she managed to wear a mask of innocent curiosity. “I was just thinking,” she said, “about you. And this curse. Is it truly a curse if it doesn’t hurt you?” She turned to him, the thought clawing into her for a panicked moment. “It doesn’t hurt you, does it?”

              Reed’s smile widened. “Not at all. No physical pain, anyway.” He turned and stared off at the distance, his lips lowering. “Personally, it does not hurt me, but the fact that there are so many of us…it disturbs me sometimes.”

              She furrowed her brow. “Really? I would have thought knowing there were others like you would be a comfort.”

              “It is, sometimes. But mostly, it worries me. We are instinctively prideful—arrogant, even—to the point where we have no real government amongst ourselves. No law, no sense of order. Each one of us lives as we please, and we all have an unspoken understanding that if one of us crosses the other, then any violence that happens is between those two parties and no one else.”

              Andrea leaned away from him a little, her gaze darting over his form. He wore a large sweater and a dark cap on his head, and as always, his eyes gleamed with such emotion…it made something within her heart twist and warm up all at once.

              “You’re not like that at all though,” she said.

              “Not really,” he said, shrugging. There was something bitter in his tone, yet he spoke so lightly of her assessment that it was almost hard to detect. “But that’s another thing that worries me. Some of us are more connected to our human halves while others are more connected with their bear halves. Some are more prone to hunting, to violence, to expressing their…territorial nature.” He shook his head, a disgusted frown curling his lips further downward. “There’s no accountability among us. If anyone really wanted to, they could murder a bunch of humans as a bear and probably get away with it. It’s an unsettling thought.”

              She thought about this for a moment. While she believed what he was telling her, there was something about his explanation that didn’t add up; if bear-shifters didn’t ‘cross’ each other, then what about the Billionaire Trio? She was about to ask him this when his breath hitched, making her stiffen.

              “What Hank did to you was unforgivable,” Reed snarled, his eyes watering as he glared at the ground. “But what can I do? What can anyone do but keep the secret? Humans would hate us—kill us, probably—if they knew the truth about our existence. To expose one of us means to expose us all, eventually.” He shut his eyes tight. “I should defend you, but I’m just…such a coward.”

              Andrea gaped at him, a horrible weight crashing down on her conscience. She tried to think of the right thing to say to him—to reassure him, but a growing anxiety blurred her thoughts into incomprehensive mental whines. The one thing she felt certain about was Reed O’Connor did not deserve any kind of anguish, and for her to spark this kind of emotion from him…it nearly made her wretch. She would never forgive herself for this, she decided.

              Lost in her turmoil, the sensation thrumming through her in agonizing pulses, she moved forward and kissed Reed. He jolted a bit in surprise, but he was quick to reciprocate the action. His soft lips gently moved in sync with hers, like he instinctively knew how communicate with her through their intimacy. She pressed herself against him—molding her body against his—as she brought her hands to his cheeks. The cold air had made them icy to her touch, but there was also warm moisture that contradicted with the chill immensely.

              Andrea’s heart clenched. With a desperate kind of mindlessness, she wiped away his tears and deepened their kiss. Her tongue was slow, cautious as it licked his lips and his teeth. Soon, she found herself kissing his cheeks, his eyes, and then she lowered her lips to his neck. A primal part of her wanted to soothe away his pain with her lips, her touch. Occasionally, she would nip him and make him gasp, but she made sure not to leave a mark on him. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore than he already was.

              She doesn’t remember lowering—or, more precisely,
falling
—to the ground. In the soft fog of guilt, need, and adoration, time and events were growing more and more difficult for her to grasp. She put all of her attention on pleasing Reed, and while in the midst of pulling down his collar so that she could kiss his clavicle, she absentmindedly realized that they were horizontal now. Her left thigh rubbed against his member in a slow and steady rhythm. Though she was completely on top of him, Reed didn’t seem hindered by the weight at all. With a beautiful sense of grace, he tilted his head back and arched toward her.

              Andrea, sucking on his neck now, marveled at the feeling of his thready pulse beneath her mouth. She darted her tongue against the tender flesh. She couldn’t recall the last time she viewed anything on a man as precious, but when she thought of Reed—his kindness—precious was the only way to describe him and the feeling of him.

              She blurted out the word against his skin. And for a split-second, fear spiked through her. What if he took her intended compliment as an insult? If she had called Hank ‘precious,’ he would have laughed at her.

              “So sweet,” Reed murmured to her.

              Before Andrea could think of a response, Reed was rolling them until Andrea was the one on her back. The look he was giving her—no longer full of self-loathing but of…she didn’t dare name it, but the sight of it took her breath away. He smiled at her reaction, then he went to kissing her jaw. All the while, he snaked his hands beneath her layers of upper clothing. Unknowingly, he made the tape recorder in her pocket begin to slip out, and she quickly slapped her palm over her pocket to keep the device in place. If Reed noticed the urgent way she pressed her hand against her coat, he didn’t show it, though his eyes weren’t actually on her torso but her face.

His icy fingers trailed up her stomach, making her shiver and flush with heat simultaneously. She pressed her hand harder against the pocket—felt the rectangular shape of the tape recorder pinch her a bit. She grinned with twisted delight, the rush of guilt and excitement making her hotter. Tilting to the side so that Reed could get better access to the side of her neck, she maneuvered her fingers inside of her pocket and pushed the device deeper in the warm space until it was wedged between the torn seams of her jacket.

When Reed nipped her, she jumped and giggled. “Oh, Reed.”

              Perhaps without fully realizing it, he gyrated himself against her. His hand had made it to her breast, constricted in her bra, and he gripped and massaged it. His thumb, ever so often, would rub circles into her nipple, hardening it to pebble.

              Andrea gyrated against him, as well, though when she started to do this, she didn’t know—didn’t care. Pleasure coursed through her with every little movement his lips made, his tongue made, his hand made, his hips made—it was all so gentle and inconsistent that it was overwhelming her senses.

              “Take me, Reed,” she whispered against him. Shaking, she brought one of her hands to the waistband of his jeans. “I’m so close already.”

              He moaned, faltering in his movement. “We should go inside,” he rasped into her cheek. “It’s warmer there. More private.”

              “Don’t make me wait, Reed,” she whimpered, lighting grazing his jaw with her teeth. “Please, please, don’t make me wait. I’m so wet for you—need you now.” She snaked her hand beneath his jeans, her nails digging into his rear.

              Reed shuddered, choking on his own breath. Her name came out of his mouth in a feeble whisper, making a wave of heat spike through her.

              “Reed, hurry,” she said, gasping. She widened her legs and eagerly pressed her lower half against him. “Please.”

              “Yes, yes,” he said, his hand leaving her breast, running over her stomach, and then moving up to the zipper of his jeans.

              It wasn’t until he was jaggedly yanking his pants and underwear down that Andrea realized she needed to do the same with her own clothing. Releasing her grip on him, she grabbed the waistline of her pants and underwear before snaking her bottom half out of them. She shivered violently against the cold air, and she immediately became aware of how hot and wet her core truly was.

              She squirmed beneath him as he navigated his hard length to her moist folds. Slowly, he pushed himself inside of her.

              Her eyes widened, her body leaning and contorting like a languid cat. She even mewled and moaned when he pushed himself deeper into her core, her walls clenching around him.

              He pumped in and out of her, his lips ghosting over her face as he moved. His pace was uneven—sometimes sluggish, sometimes rapid—and it made her head spin and her muscles clench.

              “Reed,” she gritted out as her orgasm hit her. Ecstasy thrummed and wormed its way through her, making her insides tingle deliciously while leaving an odd but pleasant taste in her mouth. In a delirious lull, she repeated his name over and over again as her body settled down once more.

              Reed pumped into her harder then. He grunted and growled against her throat, his eyes flashing black. Andrea, no longer afraid of such a sight, watched his face morph for a brief second as he came. It was miraculous—she swore his pupils glowed—and she nearly forgot to check her pocket to make sure that the tape recorder was still in there.

              It was, though it had partially slipped out again. She quickly shoved it back inside, her eyes still glued to Reed’s face. As it smoothed back down to its human appearance, Reed pressed his lips against her cheek.