Free Bear This Heat (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Last of the Shapeshifters) by A.E. Grace Page B

him no answers.
    Dylan removed his briefs then, and folded them up and put them on top of his jeans and t-shirt on the floor beside him. Standing completely naked, he was a huge and hulking figure, lean and long, in the middle of the barebones living room of the poor person who had bled all over their bed.
    He crouched down, resting his elbows on the floor and putting his head in between them. Hair sprouted from his back, and his body jerked and jolted as it began to change, began to shift. Meat and muscle appeared from nowhere, and the slight stab of discomfort he felt was over in seconds.
    In the middle of the living room was a bear now, a great big beast, with beady eyes and a heart-shaped nose. The bear huffed the air, pointed its nose upward, and sniffed.
    Yes, Dylan thought. He could smell something. He followed the scent into the bedroom, and amidst the bitter smell of dried blood he was able to glean the odor of a canine. The wolf had been here. He was surer than ever of it.
    The great beast padded back outside, and Dylan was careful not to leave scratches on the creaking wooden floor. His claws could cleave a thick branch in two, never mind aging wooden floorboards that needed a new waxing.
    He shifted again, clumps of flesh and fur disappearing inward into his body. He felt that intense and potent pain again, blinked it away, and was back on his knees, head between his elbows, naked and sweating.
    The shift was always a little difficult for Dylan. He didn’t know why, but there was always some pain, always some discomfort. It also required a lot of effort, like flexing a poorly trained muscle. He began to get dressed, the implications of his olfactory discovery oppressive and heavy.
    He had definitely smelled canine, and it wasn’t the kind that a house pet leaves. There was something odd in the scent, something that his bear’s sense of smell hadn’t been able to process. But, even so, it was more than he had before. He sniffed the air again now, and wry smile visited his features when he couldn’t smell anything.
    The change was so addictive, so penetrating. Being a bear, having all that new information filtering into his brain, it was amazing. He could take from a mere strand of scent so much more information than he could ever put into words. The words simply didn’t exist for the knowledge he suddenly had access to as a bear. The hearing was different, too. Trained more toward the higher frequencies, as a bear he could always hear the ever-present whine of a light bulb, or the minute electrical squeal of coils within a simple clock-radio.
    And the strength, that was something wonderful. Despite being a strong man, nothing could compare to the sheer brute power of being a bear. And there was a confidence, an assuredness in that strength, too. Just as an animal in the wild would not underestimate itself when it came to exertion of power, Dylan found that he could not as a bear. The power was there, in every nerve, in every fiber of muscle. A wooden door stood no chance, and that knowledge was always, always present in his mind.
    The shift was like a drug, and Dylan found that the more time he spent as a bear, the less he wanted to spend as a man.
    As he pulled his t-shirt down over his body, he heard the sound of the front door opening. He waited and watched, to see who it was, but he already had an inkling.
    When the luscious D.I. Sasha Monroe appeared in his sights, her curvy body as enticing as ever, his suspicion was confirmed. He met her eyes, saw that her face was reddened with heat, and then his gaze traveled to her neck, slick with a glittering sheen of sweat. An urge hit him square in his center; a pang… a need.
    He growled at her his greeting through a grin. “Sasha, why am I not surprised to see you?”
     
    *
     
    “That’s all he asked about?” Sasha asked Sally Clark. The woman’s steaming cup of coffee had been spiked, and she wondered how much of the day the woman spent drunk. And how