Free A Bear Victory by Anya Nowlan Page B

know it’s taken me way too long.”
    He took a breath, his ice blue eyes imploring her to understand. Kimberley’s brows were knit in confusion now and there was no doubt anymore that those were tears in her eyes.
    “I was just having such a good time with you. I didn’t want to destroy it. I wanted… I was being egotistical, I know, but I wanted the happiness to last, even though I knew it wouldn’t. When we broke up, I thought… I thought I was going to hurt you. Hell, I knew I was. Do you know how werebears or any shifters get very hormonal when we come of age?”
    Spirits above, the question felt awkward even now, and he was far older and more secure in his sense of self now than he had been back then. And still it made him blush a little.
    “Yeah? But what does that have to do with anything?” Kimberley asked, her lips pressed thin.
    “I got it in my head that everything that I’d been feeling for you, all of that love and desire and need, was just the hormones. I kept reading about it, how young shifters tell someone that they’re their mate and the shifter is completely convinced about it, but then it turns out not to be true and it’s the mate that suffers.
    “I didn’t want that to happen to you. I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you like that, and in the end, I made it worse by taking that way than if I’d done anything else.”
    His voice cracked now and Cannon squeezed her hands tighter in his grasp, his heart pounding in his chest. It was deafening.
    “It sounds so stupid now, because essentially the moment I texted you I knew it was wrong. That I was lying to myself. That’s why I couldn’t face you. I fucking knew I was doing the wrong thing and still I convinced myself.
    “The shit you saw in the tabloids, the blogs? I was doing anything and everything I could to put you out of my head, but I was never with any of those women. My agent made it look like I was screwing my way through the country but I haven’t touched anyone since you. I was depressed, my bear was pissed off at me, and the only thing that felt right was being on the ice.”
    He averted his eyes, shaking his head. The memories of that time gnawed at him. It had taken years to scrape himself up from the bottom of the barrel and actually become some semblance of a man he could be proud of. But it was never the same, not without her.
    “I’m not saying this to get you back. Spirits know, I want that more than anything, but above all, you deserved an explanation. I don’t think I did this right but Kimberley, Kimmy, please know… you are and always will be my mate. No other woman can come close, or ever will.
    “Every fucking goal I’ve made has been for you. Every injury I took was in your name. I know it probably doesn’t matter to you and it doesn’t change anything, but I wanted you to know. I love you. I always will.”
    Cannon held onto her hands for a moment longer, looking into those gorgeous, deep green eyes before he let go of them. There was shock there and when she breathed in, it sounded like the breaths didn’t go quite as far as they should have. He could feel the way she trembled and it broke his heart yet again to have brought her pain. But those things had to be said.
    “I’ll let you go now,” he said, his voice barely over a whisper.
    All he wanted was to kiss her one more time, but he’d already done too much to ruin her life. He didn’t need to add another insult to injury.
    Cannon began to turn away from her, but Kimberley clasped her hands around his wrists and pulled him back with a yank that was far stronger than he’d expected from the curvy beauty. He looked back, surprised, to find tears rolling down her cheeks.
    “Do you mean it?”
    “Mean what?”
    “The… the... all of it…”
    “Every fucking word,” he growled, his eyes flashing dark brown for a moment as the bear rose up in him.
    Kimberley stared at him, her expression blank and unreadable, but then