Free Love Me If You Bear: Werebear/BBW Paranormal Romance by Roxanne Sweet

helplessly. “Change back, Asher. It’s okay.”
     
    Scowling, Luke stepped forward with his gun trained on Asher. “That’s not a man, Eden,” he said. “That’s an animal.”
     
    “My boyfriend’s brain is inside that animal,” I protested. “I told you that. I promise you it’s true.”
     
    If Luke didn’t believe me, there was nothing I could do. He had the gun in his steady hand. I could talk as much as I wanted, but if he chose to pull that trigger, there would be no way of stopping that bullet. If he shot, nothing would keep that small piece of lead from finding its way directly to the heart of the man I love.
     
    “Seems to me that that’s a bear,” Luke said. “I don’t know what he’s done to you, what he’s told you. But that’s no man.” He kept the gun pointed at the bear’s head. His hand never faltered, never shook.
     
    “He is. I swear he is!”
     
    Asher roared and snarled, dropping down to his four feet and backing a step away from Luke. Luke glanced at him, then finally dropped his arm.
     
    “You need a real man, not an animal,” Luke said quietly, his eyes on me and the gun aimed toward the ground. “Someone who will treat you right. A man who isn’t only interested in your body.”
     
    That was different from what he had just said. I thought he was there to save me. Now he seemed to be saying…
     
    “What exactly are you saying?” I asked. In the corner of my eye I noticed the bear pacing away. He almost seemed to be giving me and Luke privacy.
     
    “I’m saying you need someone who isn’t this asshole,” Luke said. His eyes were sad now, pleading. “Bear or not, he isn’t good enough for you, Eden. You need someone else. Someone who’s been there for you through thick and thin. Someone who’s loved you all along.”
     
    My eyes widened as I began to understand what he was actually saying and why he had come. “Luke, I… You’re my friend.”
     
    We’re good friends, for sure. I’m closer to him than to any of my other nerdy board game guys. In all the time I’ve known him, though, he’s never given me the slightest clue that he was interested in me.
     
    He never flirted with me. Never told me I was pretty. And he definitely never asked me out. How was I supposed to know? Did he think I would just guess and make the first move myself? Or did he not realize it until Asher came along and took his dream away from him?
     
    It didn’t matter, though. “I never saw you like that,” I finished. Where was Asher now, I wondered.
     
    Luke’s eyes turned up and he looked directly at me again. First there was a great sadness in him, as if the worst thing that could have possibly happened to him had happened.
     
    Then those eyes filled with anger, as blazing and intense as he had shown a minute earlier. But now that anger was aimed at me!
     
    He raised the gun. “If you won’t love me, you’re not going to love anyone.”
     
    I stared into the empty depths of the barrel. Was this it for me? Were things really going to end here, like this? I wouldn’t regret much, but there were some things I wished I could change. I wanted more time with Asher, for one. This love I had nearly admitted was just beginning to blossom. I wanted to see it in full bloom.
     
    The barrel, cold gray metal, stared back at me. There was so much I would never do. Never get married… never have sex… never have a baby… With Asher…
     
    My eyes were fixed on that tiny metal black hole. So I didn’t see the bear as he swept in. I can only assume that he swatted Luke off his feet with one mighty paw.
     
    What I know is the sound of the bear’s powerful roar. The bang of the gun going off, firing at thin air. And the thud of Luke landing on his ass.
     
    “Eden!” he yelled as I began to run. “Eden, don’t walk away from me! I love you!”
     
    As if I was going to fall for that!
     
    Asher and I went home. We took the car Luke had driven. He would find another way