Free Claim the Bear by T. S. Joyce Page B

experience she’d ever had.
    Her breathing grew shallow as she raked her gaze over his taut abdomen. The moonlight highlighted and shadowed deep indentations between muscles, and his stomach flexed with every breath he heaved. A flock of what looked like tattooed ravens curved around his ribcage and when she dropped her eyes to his stony erection, full-mast and thick, she clenched the sheets in her palms.
    “What did you do to me?” he asked, confusion seeping into every word.
    “It’s my heat cycle,” she said as quiet as a breath. “It’s started.”
    “You were touching yourself, and—”
    “Okay!” This couldn’t get any worse or any more humiliating than this.
    Her body still felt like it was writhing, but when she looked down, she was just shaking. His nostrils flared, and he opened his mouth to say something but she shook her head. She knew what she smelled like. Her scent had morphed over night to equal parts cat in heat and arousal. And it wasn’t going to get better any time soon.
    “Your animal called to my bear. I was out in the woods behind the house and I could feel her calling me.”
    “I’m so sorry. Oh, my God. I’m so embarrassed!” She jumped up and looked down, chagrinned to realize she had stripped off her clothes at some point during her dirty dream. The dream! Her eyes flew wide and she reached for the sheets to cover herself. Now, she couldn’t meet his gaze if she tried for a hundred years.
    The sheets touched her sex and she bucked against them, then cried out and backed away until she was crouched in the darkest corner of the room. Tears streaked down her cheeks. She hadn’t thought about this part. About what it would be like to endure another heat cycle so close to a virile male. She’d been sequestered off from them with her others, and it wasn’t so bad, but with this one, her lion was practically purring to get her legs wrapped around Dillon and his ready, twitching cock.
    “Hey,” he said, frowning. “It’s okay. This is normal for your people, right?”
    A sob left her lips as she bobbed her head once.
    “What do I do?” he asked, approaching slowly, then crouching in front of her.
    “I need…” Shit, what she needed was to be bred over and over to curb the insatiable burning in her middle, but she wasn’t going to ask Dillon for that treatment in a million-trillion years. He’d made it clear he didn’t want her like that.
    “I’m on birth control,” she blubbered. “I started taking the shots when they started doing genetic testing. My pride didn’t know and oh my gosh, you don’t need to know this. Maybe I need to sleep in the shed for the next few days. This is going to get bad.”
    His dark eyebrows were lowered, like he was actually concerned with her horny lioness’s plight. “You aren’t sleeping in the shed, Bre. It’s just different for women in my clan so I’m trying to get my bearing here.” He lowered his gaze to her hips, which, to her utter humiliation, had begun rocking against the sheet again.
    Another tear slipped down her cheek as she rested her head back against the wall. “I don’t think this could get any worse. Please don’t tell anyone.” She couldn’t help any of her actions right now.
    His frown only deepened. “Bre, I think you need to tell me what’s going on so I know what I’m dealing with here. If you don’t, I’m going to have to go find Logan and get answers from him.”
    “No! Please don’t tell Logan.” Her throat was closing over the words as she tried to swallow another sob. “I’ll tell you everything, just don’t tell anyone how messed up I am.”
    His fingertip brushed her bare shoulder and she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.
    “You aren’t messed up. I just didn’t realize it would be such a big deal for you. I should’ve taken you more serious when you mentioned your heat cycle.” He shuffled closer, elbows resting on his knees. “You’re going to have to learn to talk to