Free Sawman Werebear (Saw Bears #4) by T. S. Joyce

figured out. And now I can’t go five hours without seizing and having to sleep off the awful aftermath. This isn’t any way to live. Good thing though, right? I guess it’s preparing me, ’cause you and I both know I can’t go on like this forever.” Her face crumpled and she threw the clothes in her hand against the wall. “I’m scared. I’m not ready to die. I haven’t kissed a nice boy or fallen in love or—”
    Brighton was next to her so fast, he blurred. His lips crashed onto hers as his hand cupped her neck, dragging her closer. His lips moved against hers, rhythmically, and she gasped against his mouth. Her surprise only gave him a way to slip his tongue past her lips. The sensation and taste of him buckled her knees, and she whimpered. Kisses hadn’t been like this with Connor. He hadn’t cared about her. Brighton, though, was stroking the pad of his thumb against her cheek and pressing her backward until she was propped up against the wall, unable to fall to the floor in a puddle of surprise like she’d thought she was going to do.
    And dammit, if this was it, if he was giving her one last good experience before she faded to oblivion, she was going to run with it.
    She pushed up on her tiptoes, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him back. He didn’t smell like a man anymore. There were no traces of his cologne or the scent of his skin that was tangy with undercurrents of pine. He was raw, male animal.
    “What Connor did with you,” he rasped out in a barely audible whisper. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. You are supposed to bed someone you care about. It’ll be different with me.”
    “Different how?” she asked, arching her neck back as he trailed sucking kisses to her earlobe.
    “I won’t hurt you. I’m going to make you come instead.”
    Now her knees really did buckle as he rolled his hips against the thick towel she wore.
    Reaching back, he stopped his affection only long enough to pull his shirt over his head. Desperate to be closer to his skin, she pulled at the fly of his jeans and pushed them down his hips until his long, thick cock was unsheathed completely.
    A trill of anxiety filled her as the memory of the pain Connor had caused washed over her.
    “Hey,” Brighton whispered, hooking his finger under her chin and bringing her gaze back up to his. “Come back to me. I’m right here. It’s just us. Just you and me.”
    She nodded in a jerky motion and offered him the ghost of a smile. Brighton had cared for her and never pushed her for anything she didn’t want to give. He was a good man.
    He twitched his head and leveled her with a serious look. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise. You want to stop now? I won’t be mad or even disappointed.”
    She ran her finger up the length of the silken skin that stretched across his shaft, buying herself time to think. If she didn’t try intimacy with Brighton, she would die with the memory of what Connor had done stamped onto her heart. And that seemed like a bigger tragedy than the bear that was slowly killing her from the inside out.
    Closing her eyes, she inhaled a steadying breath and pulled the tucked end of the towel until the fabric fell in a pile around her ankles. Her cheeks heated at her boldness.
    “Damn, woman,” Brighton said on a breath.
    When Everly dared a peek at him, his eyes still churned with the evidence of his inner monster, but he couldn’t seem to drag his attention away from her breasts. They weren’t anything special. Average size, she’d say, but by the way Brighton was looking at them, she’d have thought they were the sexiest things he’d ever encountered. She couldn’t help the smile that cracked her face wide open.
    “You’re not so bad yourself there, handsome,” she said, running her fingertips along the edge of one of his scars, the one that stretched from the crease between his abdominal muscles to his side and around to his back.
    “You don’t