Free Curves & Alphas: A Paranormal Box Set: (BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) by Willow Brooks

life I’d been given. I wanted an emotionally available father who spoiled his little girl rather than one who just most days managed to do the best he could for me. And, obviously, I felt cheated out of a mother.”
     
    “I’m sorry,” he soothed, and then placed a kiss on my forehead.
     
    His lips lingered there a few seconds longer than they typically would, before he pulled me into a strong embrace. Tears stung my eyes, and this time I let them fall. I didn’t break down into sobs, but they fell, draining me figuratively.
     
    “Go on,” he whispered in my ear as he brought my head to his chest.
     
    The thump of his heart seemed irregular, but surely a man in such physical shape couldn’t be unhealthy. I took in a deep breath, thought about where I’d been in my admission, and began again.
     
    “The books also said that the wolf appears when you feel threatened, whether you don’t trust yourself or someone else. I never let anyone get close to me except Chloe, who I’ve been friends with since preschool. I even closed her out for years at a time, but she never left. She stuck by me. So did my wolf.”
     
    “Why didn’t you trust?” He inquired, rubbing his big hand over the fall of my hair over my back.
     
    “I thought anyone I dared love would go away. So, I remained a lone soul. It felt safer. But, the wolf, or even just the sensation of a big, strong animal near me, remained. Do you think I’m crazy?”
     
    “Absolutely not. I think the story sad, but amazing. What a gift,” he said.
     
    “Yeah,” I offered, my mind back to the night of the attack.
     
    Could that have been the first appearance of my spirit guide, the first actual full manifestation? I searched my mind to recall the one good look at it I’d gotten, the one I’d tried to write off as a stress-induced hallucination. I let it come now, wondering how I’d managed to prevent the connection of the two before. I guess in my dreams, the wolf had been smaller, more realistic to the normal wolves of nature than the beast who had so savagely torn my attacker apart. Could the gentle giant who had been with me for so many years have been capable of such violence?
     
    I shuddered.
     
    “What is it?” He asked and kissed the top of my head.
     
    “Nothing.”
     
    “Please don’t lie to me now,” he huffed, as if deeply offended. He pulled me down to the bed and placed my head on his chest again. Grabbing for the blanket no longer folded neatly at the bottom of my bed, he covered us and snuggled me in close.
     
    “Sorry,” was all I got out. as I luxuriated in the feeling of warmth, of love I felt in this practical stranger’s, outside of sex that is, arms.
     
    He lifted me enough to kiss me before rolling me over. Pinned underneath him, I enjoyed the feel of him ravishing my face, my neck, and my breasts again. I moaned to welcome both his touch and the distraction.
     
    “What did you think of your wolf,” he breathed into my ear.
     
    I flashed between the one I’d always thought my guide and the one I’d seen a week ago. I couldn’t mesh the two together completely, but the logic of it all set me off kilter.
     
    “I’d always felt safe with him nearby. I’d come to love and appreciate him is the best I can describe it, especially after I learned more, had words to make sense of it all.”
     
    “I have to have you again,” he growled.
     
    I started at the fierceness of the sound, but the power of his kisses, his now frantic touches, extinguished any fear that may have fluttered to the surface.  He wasn’t slow this time around. He rolled off of me for a few moments to put on another condom. Just the sight of his growing erection had me wet. The look of pure desire in his eyes had my stomach in a knot with my own desires.
     
    He pounced back onto me, pinning me beneath him with my wrists in his tight grip above my head. His free hand went to check whether I was ready. He eased himself in with a hurry that