A Very Beastly Christmas (Gray Back Bears Book 7) by T. S. Joyce Page A

Beaston?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Merry Christmas, man.”
    “You, too.”
    Mason pushed the door open and stretched outside before shutting the door behind him and tromping off to his trailer.
    Beaston pulled Ana from the seat until she was curled in his arms, still fast asleep. With a soft sigh, his mate draped her arms around his neck as he kicked his door closed and made his way around 1010 to the woods that separated home from the rest of the trailer park.
    He’d left the heater on while they were gone because he couldn’t stomach Ana coming home to a cold house. Her body was already working hard enough growing the precious child in her stomach. In the bedroom, he didn’t bother with the lights or removing her clothes. He just sat on the bed with her, cradling her body against his chest and watching the falling snow outside the window. Resting his cheek against her forehead, he cupped the curve of her belly and enjoyed the moment, holding his little family.
    It was Christmas—the first one he would remember. The first one where he could repay Ana’s kindness from when they were children. From when she thought about him enough to visit him on each Christmas night for all those years before she moved away.
    “Hey you,” Ana said in a sleepy voice.
    He hugged her closer and rocked gently. “Hey you.”
    “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispered.
    “I’m lucky.”
    Her face crumpled, and her eyes rimmed with shining moisture in the blue moonlight that streamed through the window. Gripping his hand, she pressed it more firmly against her stomach. “I’m the lucky one.”
    When she said stuff like that, he couldn’t believe she was here. Couldn’t believe she wasn’t some figment his destroyed mind had come up with. But she was here, warm and solid against him, and his little baby was under his palm, and this moment was real.
    Ana stroked her fingertips up under his eye and cupped his cheek, just before she leaned up and kissed him. Easton closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Ana smelled different when she was sleepy. Even better somehow. Slowly, she slid out of his lap and stood, then pulled her sweater over her head. She kicked out of her snow boots and shimmied her jeans down past her ankles. And when she stood naked before him, she straightened her spine, tall and proud, asking him to drink her in—to enjoy the soft skin she offered. The moonlight adorned his mate, highlighting her curves. The swell of her stomach was his new favorite part about her. God, she was beautiful. Beautiful.
    “Come here,” he said low, needing to touch her.
    He cupped the fullness of her breasts gently. He’d read all the childbirth books when he’d been worried about Gia having a baby, and he knew Ana would be tender under his touch. He would have to be more careful with her.
    Inhaling deeply, she arched back and rolled her eyes closed as Beaston dragged his fingertips down her ribs to her waist and then to her hips. Soft skin. Soft. He loved everything about her.
    Slowly, he leaned forward and drew her nipple into his mouth and sucked it until it had drawn up into a hard nub for him. She moaned and swayed with his touch. So trusting, his Ana. She didn’t see any monster inside of him. Not like he did. She looked past his broken animal and saw the good. Lingering good. The parts he’d hidden from his bear all those years in an attempt to save a tiny piece of his humanity. Ana had found it, dug it out, pushed the darkness away until that little sliver of good was the brightest part of him.
    Ana was good. Good to her bones.
    She pulled his sweater over his head, and he could see it there in her eyes. She loved him. Needed him. Him.
    Pulling his hands, she urged him up and wrapped her arms around his neck. She slow danced with him there in the rays of moonlight that lit the room. Beaston lifted her long hair over her shoulders and kissed her cheek, then her jaw. He kissed the lobe of her ear and then her neck. He brushed