Alpha Unmasked: BBW Bear Shifter Romance (Greenwood Shifters Book 1) by S.A. Ravel

away from the lake into the tree line, but a few feet into the dense woods, she’d curved slightly in the wrong direction. Now they walked parallel to the parking lot. He could have told her, but then she would get him back to the city faster. In the city, they’d be separated. And he didn’t want that. Not yet. She would notice on her own soon enough.
    Rachel gasped as her foot collided with a tree branch for the third time on their walk and she was sent sprawling. Dirk caught her around the waist as gently as he could and set her back on her feet. He smiled as he heard her heart race at the contact.
    “You didn’t think this through, did you?” He lifted his left hand, still zip-tied to her right wrist. “The whole capture and return thing.”
    She shot him a look of contempt and continued tugging him in the wrong direction. “Are you really going to tease me while you’re tied to my wrist?”
    “Good point. What happened to taking a picture and leaving me be?” he asked.
    “That was Miranda’s plan. Cyrus would never agree to it and he’s the one that signs my check.”
    A swell of pride rose in Dirk’s chest at her cleverness. Dirk shrugged and let his eyes drift over her curves. Their kiss was amazing, at least in his estimation. Better than any he’d had in years, and a damn sight more fulfilling. Then she’d ruined the whole thing by handcuffing him. By all rights, he should be pissed, but then his mate was chained to him, and he couldn’t manage to do anything but take it in while he still could. And try to keep her from falling over.
    When he left the Masquerade, he wasn’t sure where he intended to go. He just needed time away from everyone to figure out what to do. The clear mountain air had done wonders. As he stood beside the still water, everything seemed so simple. To hell with who or what he’d been before. What did it matter? He’d found his mate, and nothing on earth could make him give her up. Let Cyrus banish him, if it meant he could keep Rachel.
    He could move farther south, to start. The edges of Cyrus’s territory extended into Orange County, but he rarely defended it that far south. As a clan-less shifter, Dirk could have anonymity if he was careful. More than that, he wouldn’t be bound by Cyrus’s orders anymore.
    That would buy him enough time to court Rachel properly. It might not even take long. He could tell from the way her heart raced when he touched her. She felt the same pull toward him that he felt toward her. She just didn’t know what it meant.
    “What exactly is the plan?” Dirk spotted another tree root. This time, he lifted Rachel off of her feet before she tripped over it.
    She yelped softly as her feet lost contact with the ground. “The plan is get you back to the city and get my money from Cyrus.”
    “That’s it?” he asked, pulling her closer to him. God, he wanted her, but he couldn’t rush this. A shifter would know about fated love and natural mates, but as a human, Rachel would not. “You could have gotten that from my mother.”
    Rachel squirmed in his arms. “She’s too nice. Cyrus would overrule her the second he found out about our deal.”
    “I knew you were smart.” He tilted his face toward her just a bit. “But there’s two problems. One, my parents won’t be in the city anymore. Cyrus would never deviate from his schedule. They’ll be at the house with the VIPs.”
    He set his mate back down on her feet, reluctantly.
    “So I’ll take you there instead.” Rachel nodded her head in resolution. Dirk couldn’t help but smile at the adorable action.
    “Which brings me to the second problem,” he said. “How are you going to drive?”
    “I brought my van. You can send someone to pick up your car.”
    “I can. But how are you going to drive curvy mountain roads in a van like this?” Dirk held up the wrist that was bound to his.
    Rachel’s expression shifted from confusion, to realization, to horror in a matter of seconds as