Free Bear Me Away (Alpha Werebear Paranormal Romance) (A Jamesburg Shifter Romance) by Lynn Red

tensed, and she paused momentarily to take a breath and prolong the ecstasy.
    Breathing deeply, Elena opened her eyes in the darkness as a tear ran down her cheek. He wants me , she thought, almost pleading with her own mind. He wants me, why can’t I just give in? Why can’t I let my guard down?
    She swallowed, and pushed her fingers even deeper, dragging them against her front wall, and gasping at the hungry tug of her sex against her fingers. Her heart rushed, thumping inside her chest. Every beat was part of a rhythm that hypnotized her, took her away from her confusion and fear.
    The wave she rode crashed against an imaginary beach, broke, and as it did, the pleasure coursing through Elena crested.
    Clenching the sheet with her free hand, she gasped, ground her teeth, and then bit her lip hard enough for pain to mix with the pleasure between her legs, running through her belly. The two sensations swirled around each other as Elena writhed, imagining it was her huge bear coaxing her to the edge.
    “Yes!” she cried out, into the darkness. “Yes! I can’t stop, I can’t... you’re making me—”
    The yelped squeal, the groan, and then the hiss as she clenched and released every muscle in her body sent a shock of pleasure all the way from Elena’s curling toes, to her sweetly tickling scalp.
    As her breathing slowed, and her core temperature fell to something approaching normal, she rolled over, and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of sweat and sex. She imagined it wasn’t just hers, but West’s too. She imagined his hands on her bare skin, his kiss on the back of her neck, his muscled body curled up behind hers.
    She imagined her eyes closing, and sleep overwhelming her. Sleep, for Elena, was an elusive treasure. But that time? Right then? Just the imagined closeness to West, the fantasy of his love, was enough.
    Before she knew it, Elena’s eyes drifted shut, her hand relaxed against the sheet and fell open.
    Gentle snores filled the darkness.
    *
    T he pale gray of pre-dawn met Elena’s eyes as they fluttered open. That’s the longest I’ve slept in weeks , she thought. Maybe Oprah was right about a pre-sleep jostle being the best thing for a good night. She snickered at herself for actually thinking in words that Nanny St. Claire used to use.
    She rolled left, then right. The sheets were still a little wet from her sweat, a little sticky from her sex. Just the feeling of that dampness against her skin brought all those memories from the night before flooding back. I have to get this guy out of my head , she thought. If I don’t, I’m going to have a heart attack, or a hernia, or... something .
    Beside her, Elena’s phone started to buzz. She shook off the cobwebs and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey,” Paul replied, in a tone far too casual for – she looked at the time on the ceiling – five forty-six in the morning. “I’m not feeling so good.”
    He followed his declaration with a groan so pitiful it would have made a mother weep. “Did you get shot?” she asked. “Sounds like you’re dying.”
    He groaned again. She’d heard this before. Someone was feeling the after-effects of a very good night that led into a very bad morning. “Good night last night?”
    “Nah,” he said, audibly rolling over and grunting. “Just woke up with a stomach bug or something.”
    “Really?” she asked. “Stomach bug? You sure you and your buddy didn’t close down The Tavern and then eat a bunch of tacos from that truck? Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” she said. Somehow, just the fantasy of West, the idea she’d maybe decided she couldn’t actually fight herself anymore, took a little off her snark-laden edge. “So you gonna go in today?”
    He paused, and gulped, swallowing something. Elena just rolled her eyes and smiled. A short cough later, he said that no, he wasn’t. “But remember you got that meeting with the cowboy today.”
    Elena’s chest twisted