Free Blake, Her Bad Bear: A Paranormal Bad Boy Romance by Amy Star

to inform him that she was pregnant with his child that had been the product of a crazy, desperate night. For both of us, she guessed, suddenly remembering the feel of his fingers stroking her body, the heat of his own flesh leaching against hers, that animal scent of their lovemaking that had stuck with her for nearly two days.
    She felt a pang of desire rise in her loins again as she recollected that night. Absently, she reached between her legs with her free hand and coddled her groin with the palm of her hand. Even through her pants and underwear, the flat uniform pressure caused a spark of passion to flare against her sex, and she laughed again at how turned on she had become simply by indulging in a memory.
    “Gotta be my hormones out of whack,” she said out loud, as if trying to rationalize it. She squeezed her thighs around her hand, mesmerized by the pleasure of her own fingers pressing up against her vulva and sighed as she looked in the mirror. “Geezus, what’s gotten into me?”
    She pulled her hand away quickly and straightened her back, bringing her attention back to the road, but the phantom sensation of pressure remained between her legs and was uncomfortable. Like an itch that you could only ignore for so long.
    Lily had never had a particularly abnormal libido. Perhaps a bit less hesitant to hide that libido than her female colleagues, who had all suffered into a domestic routine with their husbands or partners that excluded the sort of care-free sexuality of youth—but that just made her more honest, in her mind.
    Her thoughts became another maze as she fell into a sort of trance, the primitive part of her brain conducting the car and her reflexes while she let the other half, the human half, lose itself in fantasy and possibility. So much so that she almost didn’t realize her phone was ringing in the passenger seat beside her until it was too late. Gulping, she slowed down and her hands flexed on the steering wheel, and reached over, bringing it up to her ear.
    “Hey, Lil, that you?” a familiar voice issued through the speaker.
    She recognized Samson’s tone immediately. “Who else would it be if you called my phone?” she said, a bit more sharply than she’d intended. He had interrupted her in the middle of a thought, and at the same time she knew it was her way of being defensive.
    If Samson noticed, he didn’t offer any comment. “Right, right. Listen, what are you up to today? I know this is your day off, but we might have a potential story—the other reporters I got, Alan and Claire, both are on other assignments. Can’t spare ‘em.”
    “It was my day off,” she said, slowing down on a curve. Through the cracked window of the car she could smell the crushed allegation of yarrow, of Douglas fir, somewhere the faint hint of road-kill that had long ago baked into the asphalt. “What’s the problem?”
    “I know, I know, I hate to call you on your day off. But you’re the best reporter I got, and it might make up for me putting you on that Beaver Creek alcohol-to-minors story. Where are you right now?”
    Lily squirmed and adjusted her glasses. Her dewdrop chin tensed. “I’m just out getting groceries,” she lied, “needed to pick up some new clothes, too.”
    “Well, drop all that—we got news that the sheriff’s department down south, the whole bloody county has emptied. Took me some phone calls and a few favors to find out, but looks like they were all convening on Beaver Creek. No word yet on why —in fact, it’s a total information brown-out. I didn’t find out until a half hour ago myself.”
    Lily’s eyes widened. Up ahead she could see the rustic and well-worn sign of Beaver Creek welcoming visitors. Samson sounded excited, which was something hard to do. The old timer, despite his attempts to keep his paper as toned down and bland as possible, had been a firecracker in his youth. So Lily had gathered, anyway. It probably was the reason he liked her so much.