Bearly Hanging On (Alpha Werebear Shifter Paranormal Romance) (The Jamesburg Shifters Book 6) (18 page)

"Oh, come on, don't tell me you don't like our little cave house. It's got so much charm. We can host parties and," Jamie was interrupted by one of the possums from earlier scurrying past, and startling her enough for a squeal. "Yeah, okay maybe you're right."

Ryan was already on his feet, pulling his jeans back over his beautiful hips, and trying to rig some way to keep his pants buttoned. "Oh," Jamie said, hopping to her feet and plucking a chopstick from her discarded handbag. "Hold 'em together."

She snapped the stick in four pieces, crammed one through the buttonhole, and used one of Ryan's many hair ties to make it into a serviceable clasp. "It'll work for a while, anyway," she said.

"That's... who are you, Jamie?" Ryan asked, as though he'd never seen anything so inventive and exciting before.

She sucked a deep breath and stared into his eyes. "Who is it asking?"

That got a grumble and a grunt, and then something approximating a nod of appreciation. "I don't," he started, then cut himself off. "I don't know how much I should let you in. It's dangerous."

"You said I broke your walls," Jamie shot back, hand on her naked hip. Ryan's eyes were going up her body and down it, drinking her in, but she didn't mind much, except that he was using her as a distraction. "Up here, big boy," she wiggled her fingers at him. "Or was that just some bullshit to get me naked? Or wait, was I already naked?"

He smirked, and so did she, but the seriousness of the question was real. "Spill it," she said. "Or wait, do you want me to go first? Because my story is pretty damn boring. Here, I'll start, then you go."

With his jeans hitched up, Ryan invited her to sit. "I talk better when I walk around, especially if it's a monologue like this." She took a deep breath, and let it all hang out. "To start with both of my parents were full shifters. I caught the recessive gene that apparently makes me "special" although to me it's far more of a curse than anything positive. I can only change into a bat when the moon is new, and sometimes if I try real hard, I can do it a day early or late.

"Keeping notes?" she asked, a little pricklier than she meant to sound. "Sorry, I'm just not used to doing this."

Ryan responded with a friendly smile and a nod for her to continue.

"I lived here most of my life, went to high school here, got a degree at the community college between here and Clinton, and briefly considered going off to some big state school for a Ph.D. in philosophy or something else I'd never have used. But, that thought lasted about thirty seconds until I remembered the wings. Turns out, having a pair of bat wings? Not the most normal thing in the world." She took a deep breath, gauging Ryan's reaction to this spurt of information. He was leaning forward, eyes fixed on hers. "You're actually paying attention, aren't you?"

"You're talking," he replied. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I'm also naked. Most guys would... anyway. So there you go, there's the first, and by far the least dramatic part of my life. Your turn." Jamie grabbed her pile of clothes off the ground and shuffled into the skirt, and the shirt, but chose to forget about the panties, which were very stretched on the waistband, though she couldn't remember how they got that way.

"Any day now, cowboy," Jamie urged, leaning back against the cave wall and crossing her arms in front of her breasts.

Ryan let out a deeply heaved sigh. "We moved around a lot. My parents were - or my dad, really, he was kind of draconian, really—"

"Wait, like an actual one?"

"Dragon?" Ryan laughed. "No, just a dick. At least, that's what I thought at the time. I've figured out he was the exact opposite. He and my mom moved around a lot, and had a bunch of money, but never really acted like it. We lived in shitty apartments, trailers on the outskirts of town, places like that." He stopped talking for long enough that Jamie thought he needed some encouragement.

"But why? If he had money, then why—?"

"Because they were places he could pay for in cash," Ryan cut her off. His voice got a little more strained and tight. "He was a thief. But not the normal kind. Not the knocking over liquor stores for a hundred bucks kind of guy."

Jamie's eyes were about as wide as they could get.

"Stole diamonds. Broke into vaults - but never banks, because no one ever gets away with that - privately held safe deposit boxes, that kind of thing. He only stole things that he, in his own way, had decided were wrong." Ryan waved his hand, "Anyway, that's my dad. We don't need to go into details about his moral compass because trust me, it makes no sense to follow up the phrase 'he was a thief' with 'he only did good things' but that's what I'd have to do."

"Huh," Jamie said flatly. "And here you are, breaking into grocery stores to feed old people. Sorry, that was insensitive."

Ryan laughed anyway. "Maybe, but it's the truth. Anyway, we moved around, there wasn't any stability to speak of. Wherever Dad had some wild heist planned, there we were. He never did get caught, but then again, he never did much of anything he wanted to do. He had all these big dreams," Ryan shook his head, obviously remembering something painful and distant.

"If I'm being honest, I've tried to forget all that. I get myself into bad places when I don't."

Sensing his growing discomfort, Jamie took over for a minute. "My parents weren't rich, but also weren't anywhere near that interesting. Except for the whole turning into bats thing. Yours were both bears?"

"Bear shifters, yeah." He laughed. "Human women can carry wolf cubs, but bears? That might be a little much."

Jamie smiled too, relieved for the moment of reprieve from emotional intensity. "I've seen some tiny shifters push out some damn big bears, my friend," she said. "You'd be surprised what kind of stretching can go on down there."

Ryan clenched his eyes shut, and put his hand over the top of them. "Yeah, I can imagine. In the few years I've been around here, I've seen all kinds of shit that would make a bear eat out of a Whataburger trashcan."

"You mean you don't all do that? One of my friends, you might have met him - Ash Morgan? The big guy? Bear on the police force? Anyway, he was chasing his mate-to-be, though she didn't know it yet, around the forest and she dumped a garbage can over trying to trip him."

"Oh God," Ryan said, "don't tell me the punchline to this."

"That trashcan was full of slightly-old barbecue, and my buddy can't say no to ribs."

"Okay, ribs? That I can understand. Sticky, sweet, mustard sauce? I'd eat that out of the trash."

"Ew!" Jamie recoiled. "I can't believe you'd say something like that." She let a moment pass with Ryan turning increasingly deep shades of crimson before she finished. "Mustard sauce? Where are you from? Give me vinegar or give me death," she said. "Actually, when I eat it, it's pretty much death anyway, but vinegar tastes the best."

"So," Ryan circled a question. "You can eat? Like
eat
eat?"

With a snort, Jamie pursed her lips. "I've got a mouth, don't I? It's," she screwed up her face, looking for the right description. "Imagine a real intense case of lactose intolerance. That's more or less what happens. It's worth it sometimes, especially for pumpkin pie."

Jamie felt her fangs grow a little, and felt that antiseptic saliva begin to run. "Er, anyway," she said with a smile, "pie, pumpkins, Thanksgiving, oh right. Back to my parents. They weren't rich, but they had enough to buy a decent place and put food on the table, so to speak."

"Brothers? Sisters?" Ryan asked.

"Nope. You?"

“Brother and a sister both. But we were all pretty far apart in age. Never was terribly close to them.”

"Great, we're both entitled little shits.” Jamie cracked a smile. “That's what they say, right? Anyway, my parents were just normal. Well, Jamesburg normal anyway."

Ryan shifted his weight, splaying his huge legs out in front of himself. Jamie found herself drawn toward him until she was sitting in his lap, skirt drawn up, straddling his lap.

"But then, retirement happened, and they moved to Boca Raton, because you know, that's what you do when you retire. I guess."

She kissed him lightly. "Quid pro quo, Doctor Lecter," she said.

Ryan made the appropriately disgusting Hannibal Lecter slurping noise. "I went to school, but, er, briefly. We were in a little town, Cedar Falls, for a while. I didn’t, uh, fit in.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Jamie cut in. “Also, there’s a pair from Cedar Falls here, believe it or not.”

Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “I’ve heard. My uncle told me they existed, but that’s about all I know.”

“Yup. Thor, the dentist. His mate, too, Paprika. Red headed rabbit shifter. They showed up about six months ago. He’s really just fantastic with teeth.”

“Are you trying to say something about mine?” Ryan grinned. “But, uh, yeah anyway, I might’ve been in trouble a lot. But after I got kicked out of school, I wasn’t really homeschooled either. I just kind of grew up. I read a lot. My parents encouraged that, and spent absolute shit-tons of money on books. Whenever we'd move, they gave them all to whatever the nearest prison was. Funny how things work out."

"We're both beating around the bullshit bush," Jamie said. "Why are you here? Why of all the places on earth did you come to Jamesburg?"

His eyes got hard and stormy. There was something he didn't want to share, but was just about to do just that. "I was running."

"From your parents? From what?"

He shook his head. "Quid pro quo yourself, Clarice."

Jamie exhaled sharply. "My parents got sick in Boca. Both of them at once. That was about five years ago. I left town, thinking I'd never come back because of a string of shitty boyfriends and bad life decisions. But then I went down there, went through all that and realized there wasn't anywhere else I could be. Not with the wings, and all. They accept me here, even if I don't accept myself."

"But you're beautiful, you're elegant and graceful and you're the only person I've ever had verbal jousts with that I didn't always win."

"Oh, such an alpha, this one," Jamie said, kissing him again. "So I came back. Erik gave me my old job back, life has been relatively sedate since."
Except for the entire last year
, Jamie thought, but kept her mouth shut. "Quid pro quo."

They had been getting closer with each movie reference, and now the two of them were almost touching noses. His breath on her neck thrilled Jamie in a way she couldn't quite describe. It was like finding out your boyfriend is a dangerous criminal and... no wait, it wasn't like that, it was that.

"The family business didn't stop with my dad. Neither did the displaced moral crusade."

"What was your crusade?" Jamie asked, putting her hands on either side of Ryan's face, feeling his heat prickle her fingertips, tickle her palms. She felt his jeans stretching tight between her legs, and was suddenly really, really glad she'd neglected the stretched out panties. "I tried to join the Shriners when I was fourteen, but it turns out you have to actually show up at the meetings. And be a mason. And also, apparently, not be a fourteen year old girl."

"Blood diamonds," Ryan said in a whisper that was more a dangerous growl than a whisper. "Just like dear old dad."

"You're on the run from the law, so you come to Jamesburg and take care of old people?"

"That's about the short of it."

They were talking in between kisses at that point, and as time went on, the kisses were taking up more of their time than the talking. Jamie reached down and fumbled with Ryan's rigged-up jeans. "If I said I didn't care what you'd done," she said, "if I told you - honestly - that I don't think your past matters at all, can you say the same thing to me, no matter what?"

He was out and full and hard in her hand. She started to pull hungrily on him, but he stopped her with a kiss, and held her with his eyes. "I don't know why I can say this and be so certain about it, but," he swallowed, hard, but didn't take his eyes off Jamie's.

"I can tell you that I love you. And for bears? For me? That means exactly what you asked."

She kissed him again, her cheeks flushed red and hot. "I think I might be an idiot," Jamie said with a laugh, "but I'll be damned if I don't love you too. You got anywhere to be for fifteen minutes?"

"Nope," he said, smiling as he forced her head back with another kiss. "Ground's still too wet for walking anyway. Even for a bear."

––––––––

I
t had been two days.

Two long, dreadful, boring days. Life was back to normal, back to pre-Ryan forms of excitement, which for Jamie mostly meant watching Erik and Izzy argue, and trying to keep Erik from throwing things during Complainer's Court. It wasn't a bad life, but after the high she hit with Ryan, everything else felt like a valley.

She swooped by after work both days, but he'd been hard at work, stocking things, piling things, hell, even knitting hats. That part, she'd helped with, but hers turned out fairly lopsided, so much so that Cora gave her an "oh, bless your heart," and put her to work matching up yarn instead of doing any heavy lifting.

But when Thursday dawned, life was still normal, and the pair still hadn't booked off and taken up residence with the possums in Ryan's getaway cave.

And Jamie? She was starting to come to grips with the fact that she was dating a jewel thief. Good thing it was time for therapy with the only man capable of helping Jamie talk through her problems.

The cauldron bubbling by the front door of Jenga's "medical" practice carried a scent similar to what Jamie assumed a pot of turpentine boiling a bunch of rhino dung would smell like.

"Oh my God," she said, pinching her nose shut and frowning. "What the hell are you cooking?"

"Atlas's lunch," he said, smiling and stirring the bubbling, roiling, acrid mess. "Sara's too, I guess, but she's watching her figure."

Jamie wrinkled her nose. "I thought he just drank cologne. What is that, anyway?"

"Atlas's lunch," Jenga said. "Sara—"