Can't Bear It Read online

  “The thing about it is...”

  This time she really did bang her head on the counter. Within moments Jacob scooped her up in his arms, cradling her like a child and shushing her. “No, don’t do that. Don’t hurt yourself. I’ve hurt you enough as it is. The thing is... I’m a bear.”

  “Duh.”

  “Bears aren’t monogamous.”

  “Neither are lions, most times.”

  “Well, I hadn’t planned on it ... ever. I’m here because I like women and men. Other bears shunned me so I came to Strange Hollow. Not because I wanted a mate like you do, but because I wanted it all.”

  He let her slide down his body, but kept her snug in his arms. She couldn’t resist his heat and laid her head on his chest, listening to the accelerated beat of his heart, letting her know without words how nervous he had to be. “And you were with someone else, because...”

  “Because I was afraid of what my bear was telling me. I’ve never been a one-woman bear, Meggie, but I want to be ... for you.”

  She nodded, rubbing her cheek against the soft hair on his chest. “So, you think I’m your mate. You got scared and tried to fuck someone else. Fuck the idea out of your head?”

  “Well, when you put it that way, it’s sorta ... dirty.”

  She sucker punched him in the stomach. “That’s because it is dirty, asshole.”

  He doubled over, gasping for breath. “Damn it, Meggie.”

  She waited for him to catch his breath. “I want your word, swear on your nature, Jacob Williams, that you’ll never do something like that again, and maybe I’ll forgive you for this.”

  “I swear it...” He inhaled slowly. “Meggie. I don’t want anyone but you.”

  He closed the distance between them, standing tall once again. He cupped her cheek, and she nuzzled his hand, absorbing his scent, letting it surround her. This is what she wanted, what her lion craved from the moment she scented this gorgeous man. She wanted to mate and love and create babies with this idiot, more than anything in the whole world.

  Jacob brushed his lips across hers, a soft caress, a promise of something more to come. Her pussy clenched and ached with a new desire growing deep within her. “Jacob,” she whispered against his lips.

  “Mate with me, Meggie mine.”

  She licked her lips, slipping her tongue along the seam of his lips at the same time. “I don’t think--”

  “Don’t think.” He pressed his tongue between her open lips. “Just feel. Know that more than anything I want you for the rest of my life, sweetheart.”

  Meg moaned and opened for him, allowing him full access to her mouth, her tongue. They dueled for dominance, swirling and tasting and dancing round and round. She twined her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, delving deeper into him with every passing second.

  Jacob’s arms went around her waist, tugging and pulling her shirt out of her shorts. Then his hands were beneath her blouse, stroking her skin, feeling and touching her with such a tenderness that tears threatened. He untied the top of the bathing suit she’d been wearing and pulled out of the kiss for the barest of moments to divulge her of her blouse and tug down her suit. Then he was back, hands, fingers, palms massaging and kneading her breasts, plucking at her hardened nipples. She writhed in his arms, arching into the touches.

  Meg hadn’t realized she was being moved until her ass collided with the kitchen counter, and he lifted her up onto the granite surface.

  “Lift up, sweetheart.”

  Meg did as directed, wiggling and lifting, allowing Jacob to remove the rest of the bathing suit and her shorts until she was spread naked before him, legs wide-open.

  Jacob dropped to his knees before her, his smile wide. He licked along her slit, gathering her juices on his tongue, and she moaned in pleasure, legs going even wider, opening herself fully to his gaze. “Please, Jacob. Please.”

  “Gladly.” He dipped his tongue between her folds, licking and sucking on her aroused flesh, nipping her hardened clit and flicking it with the tip of his tongue.

  She writhed against his mouth, her pussy clenching and convulsing, seeking and searching for something... She ached to be filled, completely stretched wide around his cock, his fingers, something. “Jacob,” she whined.

  A finger teased her entrance, circling round and round and round again before plunging inside, opening her. She cried out, her hips stilling while he pumped his finger in and out of her pussy. Jacob twisted and stroked her from within, and she rocked against him, his tongue flicking her clit, his mouth sucking on her while his fingers made magic in her cunt. He made a gentle “come here” motion and she nearly bucked him off her pussy, the electric shocks of pleasure forcing her body to jerk uncontrollably.

  “Yes, yes, yes...” she urged him on, her orgasm nearing, heat clenching and tightening in an even rhythm, letting him know that her release approached. Her muscles flexed, starting at her toes, the shocks of electricity building and traveling through her from foot to head and back again. “Close... So close...” And then he was gone--orgasm lost. “Noooo!”

  Jacob rolled to his feet and kissed her on her nose. She nearly nipped his lips off with her teeth. “You’ll come on my cock the first time, sweetheart. Make it special. Make it ours.”

  All right. She wouldn’t rip his throat out. Yet. The lioness really wanted to, though.

  Jacob whipped off his shirt and shucked his pants so fast she didn’t get a good look at him, but within seconds she could feel all that he offered. Her pussy opened and accepted his thrust, stretching around him with relative ease, the tiny pinch worth all of the pleasure she received from being filled by him. He completed her in that one moment, completed her fully.

  After all she’d been through, all she’d endured, she hadn’t believed that she could bear another’s touch ever again, yet here she was enjoying the most insanely pleasurable encounter of her life.

  Jacob, fully seated, withdrew and then thrust forward again, swiveling his hips as he bottomed out within her, grinding his pelvis against her mound, stimulating her clit.

  “Right there!”

  “Here, Meg?” He repeated the motion, grinding and rotating and swiveling and driving her out of her fucking mind with pleasure. “Or here?” He tilted his hips, his cock stroking that spot, her G-spot, from within, and she lifted her hips, aching and demanding more without words.

  Jacob eased out of her cunt and then slowly re-entered, his cock stroking her internal walls, stimulating her G-spot with every achingly slow stroke. In and out and in and out he shifted and moved, his prick giving her everything she’d ever desired in a mating, in a mate.

  He increased his speed, his hips pistoning his dick in and out of her stretched pussy, pleasuring her, bringing her closer and closer to pure ecstasy that she thought she’d physically shatter from the shocks coursing through her veins. Again and again he pumped, thrust and retreat, ebb and flow, push and pull. She rocked against him, meeting each of his thrusts, forcing him deeper and deeper still, wishing she could keep him within her forever.

  They were bucking and arching and meeting in perfect rhythm in a dance as old as time itself. Her teeth ached, her lioness demanding that she mate with this man, this lover of hers. She allowed her teeth to descend, filling her mouth with feline fangs. She could easily see that Jacob had done the same, his mouth filled with wicked white teeth that could tear her to shreds ... or mark her as his.

  His thrusting and fucking became faster and harder, if that were possible. She gripped the edge of the countertop, her nails digging in, holding herself steady as the precipice neared. She wanted this, wanted him and everything that came along with him, imperfections and all. He made the unbearable bearable again, and deep down she loved him more than any other on Earth.

  Closer and closer, higher and higher she climbed, reaching toward that inescapable moment of pure unadulterated release, the pleasure that made the work worth it. She bit her lip, her orgasm approaching. “Close, Jacob,” sh
e warned him, and he grunted in response.

  She took his agreement as permission to come, permission to give over what her body had been working toward. In a rush of release her body tensed and then relaxed, pleasure following the release of the pressure that’d built and built and built within. Harder and harder she came, her pussy convulsing and clenching around his cock. He thrust harder and faster until he, too, froze, cock embed within her, spasming and releasing his seed.

  As one, they reached for each other’s necks and bit the joining of neck and shoulder. Bit and sunk their teeth into one another, mating themselves together for life, creating a new life with their shared pleasure and pain.

  He’d done it. He’d made the unbearable bearable.

  Chapter Seven

  The lion woke her. Trouble. It growled, low and menacing.

  Yeah, no shit.

  Meg kept her breathing steady, unwilling to give herself away before she knew what she faced. Consistent breathing was the key, not too shallow, not too deep, but just right. She eased her chest up and down, snuggled against Jacob with her head on his shoulder, and willed him to awaken with her, help her.

  The thump of his heart picked up, but his breathing remained constant. Good, he was awake and playing possum, just like her.

  The creak of a floorboard echoed through the house and the intruders froze. Their scents were trickling through the air conditioning, creeping and crawling until they reached her nostrils, the smells filling her lungs.

  It was her heart’s turn to pick up the pace.

  Nicholas. Marcus. Lincoln.

  All three of them had entered the home as Jacob and she slept on the bare wooden floor. The sun no longer shone on her face and the room felt uncomfortably cool. Night had definitely fallen.

  A soft rumble, a vibration of the chest beneath her, shivered through her from head to toe. Obviously Jacob had caught the scent as well.

  The soft, padded steps of the three men seemed to echo and bounce off the walls as they searched the small home. Within moments they’d be upon them. Meg examined the scents again. They weren’t lion ... no hint of grasslands. They weren’t carrying guns ... there wasn’t a smidge of gunpowder filling the air. They were in their human forms, unarmed and looking for her. They probably figured the three of them could take a single bear and that she wouldn’t put up much of a fight. The old Meg would have gone with them, meekly following in their footsteps.

  Not this Meg. Not this Meggie who had a mate to live for, live with.

  With one hand hidden beneath her, Meg slowly, ever so bone achingly slowly, shifted her hand, her fingers turning into razor-sharp claws. She’d be ready, and hopefully they wouldn’t smell the subtle shift before she had a chance to take off someone’s face.

  She didn’t have long to wait.

  Two hands grabbed her free arm and she swung around, using the momentum to swipe her attacker across the face, taking a good chunk of skin, muscle and flesh with her. Before he had time to recover she shifted her other hand and swiped at him again, slicing across his throat with deadly precision. Lincoln, the coldest bastard she knew, was dead before he hit the ground, her claws having cut through bone and into his spinal column. Blood gushed and pooled on the bare wood floors, seeping in between the cracks and natural crevices of the wood.

  Dinner. Her beast demanded, but a searing pain sliced through her bare back and Meg spun to face her newest attacker. She confronted Nicholas, her favorite of the three and she would almost be sorry to see him die, but it seemed unavoidable.

  Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Marcus and Jacob fought, grappling and reaching for one another, claws distended. She wasn’t worried about her lover against one lion. One, he could easily handle.

  Her distraction and worry for Jacob hurt her in the end. Nicholas got her across the gut, her skin splitting easily by his claws, cutting through skin and muscle, almost to her organs. She roared, angered and hurting, her lion pissed beyond all recognition. Her shifting took a new turn, fur spreading across her stomach and chest, up her arms and over her face. Her teeth elongated to the inches-long canines of her lioness, and she let out a bloodcurdling roar that even stopped Nicholas in his tracks.

  She attacked--fangs and fur and claws. Meg jumped on him, launching herself into the air, ready to do damage and take no prisoners. Her beast wanted blood and that’s what it’d get. She fought, claws sinking into flesh, slicing through bone like a hot knife through butter, blood splattering and covering her from head to toe. She relished the carnage, taking out her years of frustrations and rapes and forced intercourse out on Nicholas. She fought until he lay before her, a tattered lump of half-shifted man and beast.

  “Finish it.” Jacob stood behind her, and she looked over her shoulder at him, her lips curling into a snarl. “Finish it, Meggie.”

  Meg looked to the other side of the room to find Marcus much like Nicholas, except dead, his head nearly torn off.

  “Meggie...”

  She hissed at Jacob and dropped to her knees, her teeth sinking into Nicholas’s neck. Blood poured down her throat, the coppery liquid sweet and thick, easing the beast inside. Slowly, second by second, her body returned to normal with the exception of her face. Her teeth had one last duty. With a roar she ripped out Nicholas’s throat, ending his life.

  “Well, that was messy.” Jacinda’s voice came from the hallway.

  Meg whirled, ready for the next attack and then froze at Jacinda’s appearance.

  “Jacey...” Jacob’s voice held a warning that Meg didn’t understand.

  Jacinda waved her hand at Jacob. “It wasn’t murder. As far as I’m concerned these three were elitists and should have been eaten the moment they crossed the border. You two just took care of the problem for me.”

  Jacinda snapped her fingers, and within a blink Meg and Jacob were clean and wearing the clothes they’d only hours ago torn off one another. “There, that’s better. So, bear, I think it’s time you took your mate to her new home while I deal with this one. I think it’ll make a nice garden. What do you think?” Jacinda’s attention shifted from body to body. “Yes, a garden it is. Toddle off you two... Finish your healing and make whoopee and all that.”

  * * * *

  Meg sat in the car, shock and adrenaline pouring through her in alternating waves. In one night, in moments, she’d helped to destroy her entire pride and she ... she wasn’t sad. Not in the slightest. Now her cousins and aunts would be free of the men and could safely stay in Strange Hollow forever, not having to worry about the men trying to take them back.

  “Sweetheart...” Jacob twined his fingers with hers. “You okay?”

  “Perfect.” And she was. She was perfect.

  Jacob pulled the SUV into the driveway of a large, ranch-style home and parked inside the garage. He came around to her side of the car and helped her down. She couldn’t figure out what to do next. So much had happened in such a short time that her life had literally turned upside down and inside out in a day. A single day.

  She had a new home, a new city, a new mate and a new life without worrying about the pride. It all seemed too good to be true. “Jacob.” She tugged on his hand, unwilling to take another step. “Is it real? All of it?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry you had to go through all of that and had to kill. We’ll get you a good doctor to talk to--”

  “No,” she shook her head, “I mean, it’s good, yeah? But is it really happening? Are all my dreams coming true all at once? In a single day?” Tears burned her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand.

  “Oh, Meggie mine.” He closed the distance between them, his scarred fingers wiping at her tears. “It’s all true, it’s all real. I’m not leaving, they’re gone and this is home, forever and ever or as long as you can tolerate me.” He smirked at her and she smiled wide and nodded.

  “Good. Now, take me inside, kiss me senseless and make love to me for the rest of the night.”

  “Gladly.
”

  The End

  About the Author:

  Celia would have loved to have written her own biography, but she just didn’t know what to say. In a fit of desperation, she turned to me, her most trusted confidant and friend. I realize you’re asking yourself, “Who is this?” I am Cali, her cat. I also go by a few other names, but those may be too strong for your delicate ears. Suffice it to say my mommy is very creative and not just with writing.

  My mommy, Celia, began writing in August of 2006. I know this because it was around that time our meals started coming later and later in the day. As months passed, she spent more and more time in front of the boring screen. Though it was fun to chase the little arrow around every once in a while. You should hear her scream! But I digress.

  She’s worked hard to give readers sexy, quirky heroines they can relate to. And you better damn well appreciate it. All I got was late night feedings. And I didn’t even make it into one of her books by name! That damn kitten, Katie O’Meghan, did. Bitch.

  Well, enjoy her writings and if you want to praise her for her work... don’t. I’d like to get fed at some point, people.

  Fine. If you must contact her, her website is at www.celiakyle.com or you can send an email to celia.kyle @ gmail.com. But when I go hungry, I’ll blame you all!

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