I took her hand. “I told you my parents passed. I didn’t say how. It was an avalanche. I lost them on the same day.” Charlotte gasped, and I squeezed her fingers. “I’m not telling you to make you feel bad. I need you to understand why dutykeeps me in Bear Cove. My father was a leader here, and his position was important. When he died, there was a question of who would take over. The obvious choice was a man named Rex. He was ambitious and commanding. Everything a leader should be.”
Charlotte frowned. “But he wasn’t chosen?”
“He was.” Old anger surfaced, bringing memories with it. “He led Bear Cove for almost ten years.”
Charlotte waited, patience in her eyes.
“He wasn’t a good leader,” I said. “His commanding aura turned out to be a deep-seated need for control. He put his own interests ahead of the community, and he made decisions that hurt people.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was removed from power.” More memories rose, the truth of Rex’s demise seared in my mind. Charlotte didn’t need to know I’d challenged him to a contest and ripped out his throat. But it was the only way to stop him from kidnapping human women and testing their blood by force. Rex would have done worse.
“I took over,” I said. “I don’t just run the bed and breakfast. I run Bear Cove.”
Charlotte seemed to absorb this. “Like…a mayor?”
“It’s a lot more involved than being a mayor.” An image of my brothers in full shift joined the memories swirling in my head. Sixty full-grown bears with animalistic urges and temperaments had knelt to me the night I defeated Rex. They’d pledged their obedience, their bowed heads settling deep, ancient magic around my shoulders like a cloak. I kept my brothers in check. I kept them from violence.
Charlotte wanted a normal relationship with a man who could meet her for drinks and take her to a movie. She wanted a human, not a bear who shifted into a thousand-pound beast.
“I can’t leave,” I said, stroking my thumb over Charlotte’s knuckles. “No matter how much I might want to.”
For a moment, she didn’t move. Then she shrugged the quilt from her shoulders. It slipped to her waist, revealing her upper body. Her damp T-shirt clung to her breasts, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. The swells were full and high, the centers crowned by taut nipples that tented the thin layer of cotton.
I jerked my gaze up. Charlotte’s lips were parted, hunger and determination shining in her brown eyes. Pink dusted her cheeks. Her scent lifted around us, tuberoses and feminine desire thick and lush in the air.
“We’re snowed in,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “We can’t go anywhere right now, anyway.”
Blood pounded to my cock, which pressed hard against my zipper. My bear thrashed in its bonds.
Take.
Claim.
“Charlotte…” I rasped.
She moved closer, her knee pressing against my thigh. “I keep thinking about you. I can’t help it.”
The pounding in my cock became an ache, every beat of desire driving me to push her onto her back and take what she offered.
“I’m twice your age,” I said.
She lifted her chin. “I’m an adult. Stop acting like I don’t know my own mind.”
“It’s not that?—”
“Then what?” She pressed a hand to my chest, her palm over my heart, which pounded like I’d sprinted up the mountainside. “Tell me you don’t want me.”
I did. God, I did. In my mind, my bear opened its jaws and roared.
“I want you,” I rasped, “but I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can,” Charlotte said, leaning into me until our lips nearly brushed. “You can do this, Beck. Nothing is stopping you.”
“You’re here for research. Then you’ll go back to Colorado. And I can’t…” I squeezed my hand into a fist, willing my desire to fade. “I can’t be temporary, Charlotte. Not with you.”
Her hand on my chest trembled, and her eyes darkened with lust. “What if I wasn’t temporary?” She pressed her lips to mine, her mouth soft and sweet and so fucking perfect.
