Free Target: BillionBear: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant Page B

while the two of them had rocked together in matched heat. He heard her breath hitch when she moved behind him to get her purse. He stayed where he was, grimacing down at his shaking hands as his brain caught up with what they’d done. Hell.
    The glory of what had to have been the best sex of his life was doused by the cold thought: What if I already have a girlfriend? Though his memory was still largely Swiss cheese, he knew he despised cheaters.
    “ . . . no, I’ll be right home. Sorry.”
    Kesley turned away, scrambling frantically for her scattered clothes. “We should go. I forgot to tell my family I wasn’t coming home for dinner, and there seems to be—well.” She talked with difficulty as she yanked and tugged hastily. “Anyhow, though I loved . . . every second of what we just did . . . it’s late. It’s going to be pitch dark up here in half an hour . . . and no streetlights.”
    He paused in easing his shirt over his aching shoulder, dizzy with conflicting emotions: adoring her simple honesty, worry over what making love to her meant, why he’d been nearly run down, and beyond those the questions he still couldn’t answer.
    He reached, and touched her arms. She stilled, and leaned into his grip as he said, “Thank you for the most wonderful experience of my life. What I can remember of my life,” he said. “Even if you don’t want to do that again, I’m grateful for your gift.”
    Her smile bloomed. “It was awesome. But . . .” She looked away, and made a little gesture with her hands that could have meant anything. He read it as appeal.
    “Yeah, we just met. I for one would like very much to remedy that,” he said as he quickly rebuttoned his shirt. “Though I should warn you that my end of the information exchange is going to be kind of spotty.”
    “Oh yeah, the amnesia.” Her brow puckered as she finished tugging and patting her clothes into place. Then she gave him that bright smile. “I’d better go. Would you like to . . . Um . . .” She looked at her phone.
    “I don’t have a phone,” he said. “Or, if I did, it’s somewhere else.”
    “Part of the memory issue?” She cast him a worried glance as they started back down the trail.
    “I guess. Since I can’t remember, I’m not certain how to answer that. But I will say this: until now I never felt the need for one.” He hesitated, wanting badly to ask if they could meet after she returned to her family, but he restrained himself. Don’t rush things , he thought, feeling guilty again about having followed her to her home. So he compromised. “Will you be working tomorrow?”
    “No. I only work there part-time, except right before the holidays, or the occasional times a really big order comes in. Though I sometimes go there to paint my own stuff. The skylight lets in more light than my place, and the artificial lighting is way better.”
    He felt a pulse of guilt at knowing exactly where she lived. “Here’s my suggestion, how about breakfast at Ralph’s? The food there is really good.”
    She brightened. “Sure. How about eight?”
    “Sounds excellent.”
    Going down was considerably faster than going up. They reached the side street, and a minute later the corner of Main Street, a few yards from where the biker had tried to run him down. He looked around, and listened, but caught no revving motorcycle engines among all the other noises. But he felt restless, an itch at the back of his neck, as if he were being watched—and he caught sight of Marlo, almost invisible in the gloom. But she wasn’t looking his way, she was scurrying after some guy who’d just walked out of the hardware store.
    He turned down Main toward the Primrose five hundred yards away, then glanced back at the same moment Kesley flipped up her hand in a wave. As he raised his hand to her, she gave him another wistful smile, her eyes full of question, and then turned away and walked up the street.
    He paused to watch her. Oh, how he wished she