Free Bear Arms (Alpha Werebear Shapeshifter Romance) (Mating Call Dating Agency Book 4) by Lynn Red Page B

his face, promptly turned purplish red, and started laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. “I mean, shit, not that what I did was like licking an ass. Your ass,” he corrected. “No ass licking,” he said, obviously so flustered he was getting deeper into a hole. An...ass...hole.
    Lexie did her best to keep her cool, but this was too much, way too quickly. She started giggling madly, the sort of giggling that makes a person snort, snuffle and sneeze. Before long, the two of them were just a mess. She was howling, clutching her stomach and doubled over. Blake’s entire head was turning purple, even his scalp that she could see through his close-cropped hair. He clutched for her, and started wheezing.
    “No ass licking?” she asked, though it took several long seconds for her to get the whole question out. “But what if—”
    “Okay, okay,” Blake said, trying as hard as he could to catch his breath. Finally, he managed, but not without significant effort. He took two deep breaths, let them out slowly and placed his hands on Lexie’s shoulders. He looked straight into her eyes and heightened the gravity, the drama, of the situation, which given the context was all the more ridiculous. How he deadpanned this, she didn’t know, but Lexie tried her very best to play along. “Right, now that we’re calm, I need to ask some serious questions.”
    “Go on,” Lexie said, trembling and biting down on her lip to keep from breaking up yet again. “I’m listening.”
    “Right, good. Now look here. We’ve had some pretty serious discussions in the last couple of hours, and there’s the looming danger of minigolf with people I don’t know on the horizon. Should I go on, or are you having some kind of conniption?”
    Lexie just couldn’t handle it. A bellow of laughter blasted out of her, and for a moment, it was all she could do to keep breathing in between the shrieks. Finally, she managed to stop again, and she was still utterly amazed that he was able to keep up the charade. “Nope,” she said, “under control. Now back to the ass licking.”
    He tried real hard to pretend to ignore her comment, but he broke character for about a half-second, and cracked a grin. “Now what I was going to say is that I don’t pass judgment on anyone, but I’d prefer to have a complete prohibition on ass licking while we’re playing minigolf. Can we agree on that? Afterwards, I mean, whatever you’re into, I’m not gonna judge.”
    That was that.
    The laughter exploded again, the two of them hacking and wheezing and coughing. “Okay, fine,” Lexie finally said. “I promise, no ass licking on the golf course.”
    The two of them relaxed back into the couch, almost like neither one of them wanted to interrupt their physical closeness, the strange emotional bond they’d built in just a few minutes. She felt closer to him than anyone else in memory, recent or otherwise. He didn’t want to get anywhere that wasn’t right beside her, but they had to. They had to get up and they had to go to a place with balls and holes, but no ass licking.
    Finally, Blake pushed himself off the couch. The motion he made was more of a peeling one than standing, and he held his hand out for Lexie. She took it and joined him standing. A moment later, he had his arm around her back, and he was holding her like they were about to tango.
    “Shall we, my dear?”
    “Shall we what?” she asked, blushing and smiling at the same time.
    “Shall we golf?”
    She snorted a laugh, at which he cracked a grin. “Balls in holes,” he said. “Let’s go put some balls in holes.”

7
    ––––––––
    “H ello?” Lexie knocked harder on the front door of the Mating Call building, and cupped her hands around her eyes to try and peer inside. As far as she could tell nothing was going on in there, and worse still, there weren’t any lights or movement to indicate someone was actually in the building.
    She looked back at Blake where he was