Free Bear To The Bone (Bear Claw Security 1) by Terry Bolryder

your hair, like you, can’t seem to be tamed.”
    She shook her head. “So cheesy.” She looked down at her body self-consciously. “You felt all over me. I guess you noticed I got heavier.” She frowned, touching her face. “Do I have wrinkles?”
    He chuckled and drew her in against his chest, savoring the feel. “I noticed you’re even more beautiful than I remembered. I noticed you’re still the hottest woman in the world to me. The only one I can think of.”
    “Oh, come on,” she said, pushing back from him and folding her arms. “You can’t tell me there wasn’t another woman in the past ten years. I know what men are like.”
    His expression darkened, and he fought off the blackness inside him. “Not all men are like my father,” he said. “Or the other men in the Aces.”
    She nodded. “I guess so.”
    He caught her face in his hands again. He loved touching her soft skin. But more than that, this was so important he wanted her to look deep into his eyes as he said it. “Carrie, I’m nothing like that. I’m the opposite of it. I know me coming back as part of the Aces has really thrown you, but can’t you believe I could somehow be part of them yet still be the man you once loved?”
    She raised her eyes hesitantly, studying his face before looking into his eyes. She bit her lip and her face softened as her gaze locked with his, and invisible heat twined between them. “I can believe it.”
    He reached for her hands, intertwining them with his, and then pressed her back against the bed, straddling her. “You said you loved me when we first kissed, all those years ago. Do you still?”
    “It’s been years,” she said, looking unconcerned by their position. So she did trust him. “How can I know?”
    He leaned forward and caught her earlobe in his mouth, making her gasp. “How does that make you feel?” he whispered, flicking his tongue against her as she spoke.
    She writhed under him. “How am I supposed to know?” She gasped. “I’ve never done it with anyone else.”
    He growled in pleasure. “Trust me. It wouldn’t feel like this with anyone else.” He bit down gently on her lobe, and she arched again. He sucked it slowly, dragging it lightly between his teeth.
    She let out a ragged breath as she looked up at him, chest heaving.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe you’re just good at it.”
    He grinned. “No, that’s not it. It’s because it’s me and you, and we were always meant to be together.” He leaned forward to do the same thing to her other ear, but her small hands pressed up against his chest.
    “Whoa,” she said. “You said you wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want.”
    He raised an eyebrow and pulled back slightly. “And you don’t want this?”
    She blinked at him uncertainly, biting her lip in a way that made his pants tighter.
    Still, he made as if to get off of her, to show her the only reason he had for staying there at all was if she wanted him there. He had no interest in unwilling females.
    She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back. “Wait.” Her tone was hesitant, but her skin was flushed. “Hold on a second, buster.”
    “Buster?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “You never called me that.”
    “It’s just a saying,” she said. “When someone’s misbehaving.”
    “Oh, well, if I’m misbehaving…” He made as if to get off her again, but she jerked on his shirt, a little harder this time.
    Her face was now bright red. “Wait.”
    He straddled her, letting his weight rest on his knees as his muscular thighs just barely brushed the softness of her hips. “Wait for what, exactly?”
    “I’m thinking this over,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “You, with your… army body…” She gestured to his chest and arms. “And your muscles. And your… proximity. You make it hard to think.”
    “Then don’t think,” he said, coming forward to bring their lips just a feather’s distance apart. He could feel