Page 43 of Bear
“No.” I stood up and folded my arms too, mirroring him. “I blocked them all.” I batted my lashes at him and he groaned.
“Stop being crazy. I knew I shouldn’t have put my dick in you.” His strong arm hooked around my waist and he pulled me against him. Our eyes met and the rotation of the earth slowed. Maybe it was just the beating of my heart but it felt like the entire world.
“You regret fucking me?”
“Nah. Never. I’m messing with you. I could never regret that. Clearly, you have some kind of magic between your legs.” He slipped his hand between my thighs and cupped my pussy. “You knocked me out faster than any pill or workout.” The way he stared at me without shifting his gaze made me thrum with butterflies and they weren’t just in my stomach. They were in my chest. They were in my knees.
“I don’t need any of those other bitches anymore.”
“Bear,” I warned with an outstretched finger.
“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry. I don’t need any of those othergirls.”
“So what are you saying?” I quizzed, touching his soft hair. My heart slammed against the roof of my mouth at the prospect of being with Bear. I didn’t realize how much I wanted it until the option was right in my face.
“I’m saying I don’t need them. You’re enough. Can we start there while I figure some shit out in my head first?” I swallowed back the knot in my throat and nodded slowly.
“Sure. That’s fair. Do I get to flirt with other guys while you figure things out?” Bear pulled my hair hard and fast making my head snap back.
“No,” he growled. With my neck exposed, he hovered over it slowly, driving me crazy. His lips were centimeters from my throat. I felt like I was in the presence of a real fucking bear. Like if I didn’t play dead, he would sink his teeth in.
Iwantedhis teeth.
I let out the smallest moan and it was enough to set him off. His teeth sank into my skin and my moan turned hot and hungry. “You’re mine. We discussed this. Or do you not remember my dick inside your tight pussy while I told you I was your last?” He pulled my hair harder and moved his lips to mine. “I meant that shit. I’m your last everything, Cecily.”
“I want to be your last too,” I told him while I fought off a mini orgasm. He pulled away and studied my eyes, letting my hair go. Conflict flickered to life behind his fire glass eyes.
“I need to think,” he said again that time with a heavier sigh.
“What is it that you need to think about?” I quizzed. I wasn’t upset or hurt because I already braced myself for the fact that Bear would have a war inside himself when it came to what we were quickly becoming. I could see it a mile away but he’d only just realized his heart was fully operational. It would take time for him to catch up.
Lucky for him I wasn’t going anywhere.
“If I’m willing to subject you to the evil I deal with every fucking day, Cecily. I’m a murderer. I’m a kingpin. I have blood on my hands and I don’t have remorse in my heart. How the fuck am I supposed to look you in the eye and give you the life I know you deserve when I know I’ll never change?”
“What kind of life do I deserve, Bear? Because a life without you in it without this thing blossoming between us…that’s not a life I want.”
“The thing blossoming between us is dark.”
“Too much light can burn.”
“It has thorns, Cecily.”
“Then I’ll handle it with care.”
Bear tore away from me and stalked to his desk. He fell into his chair and let confusion tug his chiseled features down.
“You deserve more than me. Someone who can marry you in a church without worrying about the building bursting into flames.” His laugh was humorless. “You deserve someone who can give you a house and kids and a dog. Someone who goes to work every day and comes home without you worrying if he’ll be alive by bedtime. Baby doll, I’m a thunderstorm. You need a sunny day.”
“I need you. Thunderstorm and all because I like dancing in the rain. I like kissing in the rain…I likefuckingin the rain.” I sat on his lap and his hands squeezed my waist. “I don’t mind you taking time to figure this all out but you’re only allowed to come to one conclusion.”
“Oh yeah?” He tipped his head back and looked into my eyes.
“Yeah. You already know what it is, Bear.” I touched the sides of his face and kissed him, pulling his tongue into my mouth. I savored him like whiskey. He was just as bold and strong.
“I know you belong to me and you always have,” he said, gripping my ass. “It shouldn’t have taken this long but I know why it did.”
When the doorbell rang, he grabbed his phone and pulled up the camera on the front porch. “You invited Kareema over and didn’t tell me?”
