23. TWENTY THREE
TWENTY THREE
Vera
It’s cold in the woods outside the cabin. The place is owned by a fellow shifter, so nudity is to be expected, but I have regrets. My nipples pebble into tight buds, and my teeth clack together as we stand in the sad rays of dappled sunlight.
“You won’t feel it once you’ve shifted,” Bas tells me reassuringly.
“Just as simple as that, huh?”
“I believe in you.” He takes my hand in his. “Can you feel me through the bond?”
I try to concentrate, but I’m distracted by the way my toes feel like ice cubes, and a cold breeze rustles the few leaves left on trees.
“Come on, Ver. You’re not trying.”
“What if I can’t do it?”
He squeezes my hand. “You can. I’m going to shift. I want you to listen through the bond and see what it feels like, then try it yourself.”
“OK.” I shut my eyes, focusing on his big, warm presence in front of me. I get a little distracted by the shape of his body. Reaching out toward him and opening myself up feels like running phantom hands over all my favorite parts of him, like his belly and thighs and his huge pecs and—
Bas groans. “A little less focus maybe.”
I giggle.
Then I feel it. There’s a sizzle of energy that bleeds into me. Excitement that makes something inside me leap and howl. Bas grows and grows until he’s towering over me. His body stretches and grows fur. I feel as if I’m growing larger too, but when I peek, I’m still just plain human me.
Bas drops to all fours in front of me in full bear form. His breath is warm on my hand as he huffs against my skin as if he’s saying, ‘See? Easy.’
I scoff. “Yeah, easy for you.”
He prods me with a wet nose.
I jump. “Alright!” I shut my eyes again and try to reach for the energy I felt when Bas shifted.
I remember the shape of it. The feel of it coursing through my body.
For a moment it wells up, building pressure like an oncoming orgasm.
Then, just like that, it’s gone again. Dissipated.
Lost. I’m left standing in the cold, shivering.
I let out a dejected sigh. “Nope.”
We keep trying until I’m shaking so badly I can’t keep still. Bas shifts back and wraps me up in a warm hug. “Nevermind. Let’s get you warm, and we can try again later. I felt it. You nearly had it.”
I shake my head. “It’s OK. Maybe I just don’t have enough magic.”
“Nonsense.” He bends and scoops me up into his arms. “You’re plenty magic. You’ll find it.”
I have doubts, but in the end maybe it doesn’t matter as much as I once thought. I have a wonderful mate who is everything I could have asked for, and he doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. I just hope my family isn’t too disappointed.
Thinking about my family brings me back to reality a little.
One thing leads to another, and I start thinking about the few job applications I wrote before I found out Bas was my fated mate.
All of them were for places far from Mosswood.
Far from the temptation of mooning over him.
Well clearly that’s not going to work out now.
I can’t even be separated from him for a week without suffering.
I can’t possibly work in a different state or county.
When we make it back to the cabin, he switches on the hot water in the shower, and I step under the spray with a groan. It’s so good it stings, but I don’t care. I stay under the water until my skin is flushed red, I’ve stopped shivering, and I feel toasty warm.
I still can’t shake the niggling worries though. It’s like they’ve burrowed deep. Even when Bas wraps me in a towel and kisses the top of my head, I feel all tight and anxious.
“Hey, you’ll get there. Don’t worry about it.”
I sigh into his broad chest. “It’s not that.”
“What is it, then? Something is worrying you.”
A fun little bonus of the bond is that I get absolutely nothing by him these days. “Yeah. It is.”
He kneels, drying me off while I just stand there and lift my arms like a toddler, letting him take care of me. He doesn’t ask any further questions, just waits for me to elaborate.
“What am I going to do after finals?”
“Walk into any job you like, I would imagine. Anyone who knows what they’re doing will hire you. Is that what’s got you all tense?”
“No. Yes! I don’t want just any job! I want one at Black Pines. I want to be with you. But they’re not hiring.”
He laughs, and I scowl at him.
“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”
Bas sets the towel aside and scoops me over his shoulder, laying the flat of his hand across my ass with a smack but too gentle to really hurt me. “Yes, I do. I think it’s funny that you’re worried about having to work at all if you don’t want to. Don’t you know I’d take care of my mate?”
He tosses me onto the mattress and then climbs on top of me, pinning me down with one arm across my body and his heavy head resting on my belly. “Don’t you know that, Ver?”
I laugh. “Yeah, but what if I want to work? What if I need to? I can’t imagine life not doing anything.
” It would feel weird not to work. It has always been something Mom insisted on, even though she’s sick.
She and Dad own their own business and she refuses to hire anyone to run the books, even when she’s having a bad week.
She’s always said working is one thing that makes her feel competent and independent.
I know she’d be disappointed if I gave that up to be a housewife.
Bas turns his head to kiss my belly, sending a shiver of pleasure up to peak my nipples into tight points. “Then apply until you get the perfect job, or I’ll quit and you can have mine.”
“Bas, that’s ridiculous! I’ll find something, but maybe it’ll be a compromise. Maybe I won’t be a ranger right away.”
“Now who’s being ridiculous? You’ve wanted this for so long.”
“I wanted you.”
He lifts his head to look at me, a question in his expression.
“I wanted anything that would bring me closer to you. Maybe I didn’t even realize it when I took the course.”
“Then you shouldn’t compromise at all.”
“That’s not how life works, though, is it?”
He’s quiet for a while. Eventually, when my legs are starting to go numb, he shifts a little. “I want you to have everything you want. Everything. I want to make sure of it.”
I ruffle a hand through his hair. “Hey, trust me. You’re doing some heavy lifting in that department. I have no complaints.”
“None?”
“Well, I mean you could eat my pussy a bit more often. Pretty selfish how you only do it a few times a day actually.”
He growls. “Is that right?”
“Yes. Rude.” I squirm, hoping to distract him and myself, but he’s still pinning me down.
“Well I will put aside my selfishness just this once, but only if you do one thing for me first.”
“What?”
“Ask me.”
I snort. “Bas, eat my—”
His large hand covers my mouth, and he shakes his head. “No, Vera, ask me with the bond.”
I try to speak, to say I can’t do that, but it comes out as a muffled string of sounds. I wriggle but can’t get free, and to make matters worse, he pushes open my thighs and starts kissing down my lower belly only to stop and circle back up again, driving me nuts.
I writhe under him, but I can barely move. It’s no use. He’s so much bigger and stronger.
“M-mm. No, Ver. Ask me.”
Inside I’m screaming, but I also want to do it. I want to be able to do it. So I feel for the part of me that sensed him shift, that sensed his warm body in the cold woods today, and I imagine moving my lips very slowly. Please.
I feel his answer inside my mind rather than hearing it aloud. Please, what, Vera?
Please eat my pussy.
I’m grinning from ear to ear as he lifts his hand from my mouth and kisses over my mound. And then the grin falls from my lips and I’m moaning instead when he plants his mouth right over my clit and gives me just what I asked for.