Bared for Her Bear by Jenika Snow

her tightening. The thought terrified
    her. She wasn’t young, and she’d always wanted children, but certainly not from the result of a one-
    night stand.
    “Sweetie, don’t worry about it until you know for sure. You’ll just end up worrying yourself to
    death, and that’s not healthy. Now, how about I cheer you up with some of the dirty details of Nick
    Jamison?” Ary couldn’t help but laugh at the almost dreamy look on her friend’s face.
    “First, what happened to going home with Bram Wylde?” Melissa shrugged at Ary’s question.
    “I don’t know. I guess I just wasn’t feeling it. I mean he was hot and all, but when I saw Nick I
    just had to have a lion that night.” Melissa leaned forward, and Ary immediately worried about what
    would come out of her mouth. “First off, if I had known lions had such huge dicks I would have
    hopped on that bandwagon a long time ago.” Melissa fanned herself. “It wasn’t even the fact he
    wanted to shove that big thing in my ass—”
    Candace started choking on her drink, and February and Melissa started laughing. The noise
    drew a few annoyed looks from the other patrons. “He was all into this domination shit, like tying me
    up in some weird ass contraption, and beating my ass with this homemade paddle.” She leaned back
    and shook her head. “This wolf is not into all that shit, so when I said hell no we went back for another
    round of wolfie and lion sex.”
    For the next twenty minutes Melissa continued to go into great detail on the things Nick did to
    her, made her do to him, and how she could barely walk the next morning. Despite the entertaining,
    and somewhat shocking, details her friend provided, there was that small voice in the back of Ary’s
    head that wouldn’t give it a rest. Her period couldn’t come soon enough, because who in their right
    mind had heard of an ocelot getting knocked up by a bear?
    ****
    Charlie wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm and looked at the construction
    site all around him. Wylde Construction was a family owned business that had been around when his
    great-grandfather had been alive. It was the leading construction company in Sweet Water, and he was
    damn proud of it. It was not only their livelihood, but their dream and passion. He and his two younger
    brothers had grown up watching their father sweat blood and tears to provide for them and their
    mother. When their parents passed away several years back they knew they couldn’t let it fall under,
    so the three of them had teamed up and made it what it was today. He looked over to where Bram and
    Ford were busy going over a set of blueprints. They were currently in the middle of building a new
    city hall named the Hampton. The last one burnt down a year ago. The frame was up, and his men
    were busting their balls on making their quota every day.
    “Charlie, come over here and look at this,” Ford called out. There were three other shifters
    looking at the blueprints with his brother. Everyone was tired as the end of the day approached, and
    each one of them was just as soaked in sweat as he was.
    “What’s up?” Ford started talking about the pipes and foundation, but Charlie’s thoughts were
    elsewhere. Ever since watching Ary drive away several days ago he hadn’t been able to get her out of
    his mind. He wasn’t the type of male that chased after a female and wasn’t about to start, but hell, he
    wanted to go to her so damn bad. Over and over he had asked himself what it was about her that drew
    him in, but he wanted everything about her, and therein lay the problem. At forty years old he should
    have been married to a nice bear shifter female and have a handful of cubs, but as it was he immersed
    himself in his work and gorged on females when time allowed. His parents had been so in love with
    each other, and even though Charlie wanted that, he didn’t want or need the heartache that came when
    the one that was loved above all else