Briar on Bruins' Peak (Bruins' Peak Bears Book 7) Read online

  Oh, God, yes! It was happening! Before she could stop it, she broke down and screamed. She thrust her crotch hard against his hand. He screwed his fingers into her in tiny, intense rubs, and her whole lower body spasmed tighter and harder than she could ever believe. The muscles lining her inner chasm contracted so tight she couldn’t comprehend it, and jets of fragrant perfume squirted into his hand.

  Her whole being cried out in one long Yes! even though she couldn’t make her mouth work to say it out loud. She sagged against his bulk, and his arms clasped around her waist to support her. He guided her down and spread her legs to sit down on his lap.

  She clung to him for dear life. She had nothing in this world but him. She wanted nothing but him protecting her from this mind-blowing experience. She didn’t notice him scooting her skirt up to her hips, and when he positioned her legs around him, she clung to him with those, too.

  She couldn’t get close enough to him. She needed him right up next to her. She needed her skin on his. She needed to be inside him and to get him inside her. She couldn’t survive any other way. Nothing else made sense.

  Once he got her there, he cradled her ass with both hands and clasped her against him. Her sensitive tissues surged her hips against the hard mass between his legs. It hurt her, but it sparked her to fresh waves of desire at the same time. That cataclysm she just endured paled in comparison to his rock-hard manhood between her legs. It belonged there. It divined her with unerring accuracy.

  She needed it. She hungered for it with that bottomless black craving in the pit of her stomach. She could never rest until she got it. An equally strong craving drove him toward her. When she banged her hips against his bulge, he answered faster, harder. He flexed those rippling abs of his to drive his hips up into her. His engorged prick hit her hard on that twitching mound he just worked to screaming insanity. She wanted to climax there all over again.

  He jammed his hands up under her panties to her back. His stout forearms wedged her panties in tight against her slit. The next instant, the flimsy cotton gave way and split in half to make room for him. His hands continued their journey up under her shirt to her bra. He popped the clasp and let her breasts droop.

  Her whole soul cried out to him to take her, to rip aside the cloth holding them apart and let their flesh become one. He dragged his hands back down, and her clothes tingled down her skin to vanish into the floor. An agonized shudder sucked her breath through her teeth. Every nerve ending blazed for relief.

  His sure, steady hands lifted her shirt and bra away, and she presented herself to him in all her naked glory. Now he would take her for certain, but he didn’t. He only stroked his hands up and down her sides. He didn’t try to touch her at all, but only watched the breath surging in and out through her nostrils and the sweet blush spreading over her skin.

  She pushed his hair back from his forehead and massaged his shoulders, but she couldn’t figure out how to touch him. She couldn’t bring herself to stimulate him the way he stimulated her. How could she set him on fire that way? He remained solid, massive, impenetrable, while she quivered all over to consume him into herself.

  He had to do it for her. He hitched her up to slide his pants down, and Briar closed her eyes against the impending tornado. Nothing remained to hold them apart. His wicked tool aimed up along his hips to point at her.

  How could she face that? She ached for it, but it terrified her to her very bones. It would never quit until it found a way to her most sensitive center. It would delve into her forgotten secrets. It would lay her asunder more than claws and teeth ever could.

  He made no move to intrude on her, though. He only watched her quake and sigh in his arms. She rocked against it in shattered despondency. She wanted it, and now she got it. What would she do now?

  He picked her up off the bed. He stood straight up with her hanging off his front. He turned all the way around and lay down on the bed with her still clinging to him like a magnet.

  He let his weight spread out on top of her, and then he shifted over onto his side. Briar studied him for any clue to his intentions, but he only kept her fixed with that determined gaze she couldn’t resist. He flexed his muscles against her, skin to skin.

  She stared down her destiny in his eyes. Here he was in all his grandeur, right next to her. She had to meet this moment head on. He wouldn’t take her until she did.

  He heaved one of her legs around his waist. Now, when he contracted his washboard stomach, his prick slithered up between her legs. It spread the steamy cocktail over her swollen flesh to spark her fire alight. She couldn’t stop her own body from responding. She flexed her hips in answer to his steady pressure. She rode that stiff member to part her tissues and welcome him in.

  He swam in her eyes. His breath burst from his lips in quick panting gasps. “Yeah? Yeah?”

  She had to answer in desperate whispers, “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.”

  That’s all the permission he needed. His muscles tensed, and he worked his point just a fraction of an inch lower. Briar moaned out loud, but their anatomies fit together so perfectly that he didn’t hurt her at all when he glided inside.

  Oh, God! How could she bear this raging intensity? How could she lie still and swallow that thick shaft to its limit? How could her virgin flesh accommodate that demon spike?

  She took it somehow. Somehow her body hugged it and surrounded it in her puffy warm folds. Somehow he worked it in to touch every part of her. She stared up at him in horror, but he only nodded and sank in to the hilt. How could a man move that slow? How could he circle his hips to screw it in beyond imagining?

  He didn’t pump and thrust the way she expected. He only circled, circled, endlessly circled until she built up an explosive pocket of energy in her soul. Her brow furrowed in intoxicated confusion. She couldn’t understand so much pleasure coursing through her. It knocked against every pore to explode in volcanic ecstasy.

  Wider he swirled. Faster he circled. His rod nudged a broader range inside her. It excited delicious spots she never knew existed. Her voice broke out of her, and that release unleashed the agonizing rapture locked inside her.

  Her voice escalated from a moan to a cry to a crazy scream. She couldn’t lie still and let him do this to her. She had to impale herself on that driving tool, to slam it into her flesh as far as it would go and beyond. She had to be it. She had to accept him in all his manhood. She had to receive him and rock him and find completion in him.

  He clutched her against his chest. How he moved in and out of her without separating from her, she couldn’t understand. His pubic bone never left her deep crevice. She sat down hard on that pulsing penetration. Somehow he worked it around to prod her sides, her back, and every place in between. He inched it in and out just enough to do the job and wreck her to ragged screams.

  She undulated against him. She couldn’t stop the drunken climaxes taking her, smashing her, and sweeping over her again and again. Was this her life now? Would it always be like this? She would never part from him again. She inhaled him. She sucked the nectar from his cock and let it nourish her starving soul.

  Chapter 12

  Briar heaved herself off the bed and draped her body over Riskin to kiss him. Her hair swept around his face, and her skin stroked his naked bulk down to his knees.

  She murmured to him between kisses, “Let's get up.”

  He caressed his hands down her back and ground her smooth ass against his pelvis. “You're not going anywhere. You're staying right here forever.”

  She laughed out loud and jumped off the bed. She threw the door open to the fresh morning air outside. Birdsong and squirrels chirping greeted her. She rushed back to the bed to swat his leg. “Come on. Let's face this head on. The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we can get back here and play around—or whatever you want to do with the rest of your life. Get up. There's no time to waste.”

  He folded his arm under his head to look at her, but he made no move to get up. “There's al
l the time in the world to waste. What could be better than lounging around in bed with the woman of my dreams?”

  “Lounging around in bed with the woman of your dreams without the threat of annihilation hanging over your head. That’s what could be better.” She made a snatch and grabbed his cock in one firm, determined hand. She tugged it hard. “Get up, or I'm taking this with me.”

  He caught hold of her wrist and tried to haul her back to the bed. “You witch! I'll get you for that.”

  She resisted and finally succeeded in freeing herself to retreat toward the door. She laughed and almost said something when she stopped in her tracks with her head on one side. “What's that?”

  He climbed off the bed with flashing eyes. “You can't get away from me with that childish ruse. Come back over here and take your punishment. I'm gonna make you scream.”

  She didn't move. She fixed her eyes at one point against the wall. “I'm serious. Do you hear that?”

  He kept still and listened. In the distance, a faint sound drifted through the forest. It mingled with the twitter and chatter in the branches. It grew louder with every passing minute.

  Riskin stuck his head out the door. “What is it?”

  “It sounds like dogs.”

  “What would dogs be doing in this part of the forest?”

  Briar came to his side, and they both peered out into the forest. Nothing but empty woods surrounded them on all sides, but outside the noise came louder than ever. Briar detected the distinct baying of hounds.

  She ducked back inside and tugged on her pants. “I'm going down there to see.”

  “I'm coming with you.”

  Two people never got dressed so fast in their lives. In half a second, Riskin and Briar set off through the woods side by side, but they only made it a few yards when another burst of noise disturbed the tranquil scene. Voices shouted over the dogs' howling.

  Briar stopped short and caught Riskin's hand. “Quick! Over here.”

  She pulled him down next to her behind a tree to watch. In front of her eyes, a long line of men strode out of the woods with their guns shouldered and half a dozen dogs straining their leashes.

  Rhys Dodd led the pack. He swung around and waved his arm. He pointed straight at Vaughn's cabin. “Over there! It's right over there. He's bound to be inside.”

  The men pushed toward the cabin. Briar sighed with relief when she saw Silas wasn't with them. Neither was Foicks Dunlap or Azer Mackenzie. Rhys couldn't convince those men to hunt down his brother in cold blood. He had to get a bunch of his nobody friends to back him up.

  Riskin growled low in his throat. He started to rise up to face the men, but Briar yanked him back down. “You can't go out there. They're coming to kill you. They'll shoot you down in a second.”

  He ground his teeth. “I'll kill him.”

  “Not likely. We couldn't fight all these people at once, and they've got guns. We've got nothing. We have to get out of here before they find us.”

  Riskin jerked his head around, but when he met her eyes, he softened. “All right. Where to?”

  She swept the forest with her eyes. “If they see us, they'll set the dogs on us.”

  “There's nowhere we can run where they won't see us. They're already too close.”

  “We'll just have to run for it and hope for the best.”

  He put out his hand. “Here. Take my hand. Whatever happens, stick with me. Don't let us get separated.”

  Briar shook her head. “You run for it. Don't worry about me. It's you they want to kill. They'll go after you. Maybe they'll leave me alone.”

  “Rhys came after you the other night. He'll do it again, especially now that we're mated. He'll take any opportunity to get to me, even if it means hurting you.”

  She stared at him with wide eyes. Then she burst out laughing.

  Riskin frowned. “Do you mind telling me what's so blasted funny? We're looking down the barrel of a gun here.”

  Briar leapt out her hiding place to plant a kiss on his lips. “You just said it. We're mated.”

  “Well, of course we are. What do you think we've been doing all night long?”

  She waved her hand. “Forget it. I'm just happy. Come on. Let's get out of here on the double.”

  He held her back. “Don't get caught, Briar.”

  She jumped to her feet. “No more talk. Run!”

  Without waiting for him, she jumped out of their hiding place running full speed in the opposite direction from the men and dogs bearing down on them. Riskin leapt out at the same moment, but Briar's happiness couldn't mask the terrible reality. Riskin was right. The men and dogs were too close.

  The moment Briar and Riskin broke cover, Rhys and his friends spotted them. Rhys's arm shot out. “There they are! What did I tell you? Get after 'em!”

  A few men fired off their guns. Bullets whizzed around Briar's head. Riskin ran at her side for a few strides, but when the first bullet thumped into a tree trunk near his head, he broke away and darted in front of her. Briar ducked, but she never stopped running.

  The dogs' barking got louder than ever. It rang in her head so she could barely think. She dared not look back. How close were they?

  More guns went off. Men shouted. Their voices touched her ear from both sides as well as behind her. They parted to flank the fugitives and cut off their retreat.

  Briar surveyed the forest for any avenue of escape. Her mind extended through the landscape, but she didn't know Dodd country very well. Where could she and Riskin go to get away from these men? She wasn't even sure the right way to get back to MacAllister territory.

  A bullet split a branch over her head, and bark and dust flew into her eyes. She blinked to clear her vision and caught sight of Riskin running ahead of her. His shaggy brown flanks rumbled and rolled with his running gait. Good idea. They could run faster as bears.

  She took a running leap to shift, too, but at that moment, another bullet zinged past close to her head. It fluttered her hair, and searing heat scorched her ear. She ducked her head sideways to get away from it. She came down on a rock half-buried in the dirt, and her ankle twisted under her.

  A rubbery tearing sound wrenched her ankle. She fought to regain her balance, but when she put her foot down, pain stabbed up her leg. Her knee buckled, and down she went in the dry leaves.

  Instinct took over. She flipped over on her back just in time to see three dogs bounding through the trees. Another three followed close behind. They bayed in full cry. They put on a burst of speed when they saw her go down.

  She took a breath to shift, but they got to her too fast. She barely had time to bring up her arms in front of her face before they pounced. The first dog's jaws crunched into her arm, and she screamed in spite of herself.

  She bent her head for protection, but the other dogs swarmed over her faster than she could think. Shift, Briar, she kept telling herself. Shift. Shift now. She couldn't do it. Bruins mostly shifted into their bear forms when they found themselves in danger. They fought on instinct, and the bear's body protected them better than a human body.

  For some reason, her own fear and surprise, plus the pain shooting through her in all directions, blocked her from shifting. She couldn't get her mind and body to function no matter how many times she told herself to shift. Her embattled instincts couldn't find the pathway to the she-bear who could protect her at a time like this.

  She couldn't do anything but huddle under a snarling, spitting, growling tangle of canine bodies. The dogs smelled Bruin. They smelled bear. They smelled fear, and that smell spurred them to attack.

  Teeth crunched and ripped every part of her. She only managed to protect her face and neck from the worst. She wanted to roll over on her belly, but she couldn't shake them off fast enough.

  All at once, a frightened yelp pierced the melee. The dog holding Briar's arm sailed sideways and disappeared. A sickening crunch followed, and a dog with its teeth sunk into her thigh suddenly relaxed. Its grip let go, but
the dog didn't disappear. It slumped in one place and collapsed on the ground.

  Briar eeked her eyes open to see an enormous bear standing over her. Blood stained his muzzle when he let go of the second dog's back and dropped its body in a heap at his feet. With one giant swipe of his paw, the bear cleared the other dogs off her.

  Briar blinked once and looked up at Riskin leaning over her. “You have to get up, Briar.”

  She couldn't speak. She curled over on her side and puked into the leaves. She couldn't move, and the thought of standing made her dizzy and sick. He covered her body with his hands. He kept glancing sideways toward the oncoming men. Briar didn't have to look beyond his face to see how close they were now.

  He came back to her face. His sweet breath entered her nostrils. At least she would die with him. “Don't worry, Briar. I'm gonna get you out of here.”

  She closed her eyes and put out her hand to touch his cheek. “It's all right. It's all right.” She couldn't make sense of it all.

  The next thing she knew, he scooped her up in his arms. More guns went off all around them, but the dogs' baying no longer disturbed Briar's mind. She couldn't think. She couldn't see. She sensed Riskin's lurching, limping step. He couldn't get away from those men fast enough.

  Chapter 13

  Briar's eyes fluttered open. She looked around, but she didn't recognize the place. She tried to sit up, but fell back against a cool feather pillow. Her head ached worse than anything she could ever remember. She couldn't lift it again.

  Her hand touched something soft. By craning her neck around, she noticed she was lying in a bed. An old patchwork quilt covered her below her chest. A knobby polished branch made the foot rail with other curvy sticks poking down to make the bed frame.

  She blinked the stars out of her eyes and studied her surroundings. She had no idea where she was. Flames licked up into the chimney of a large stone fireplace across the room. A bentwood rocking chair sat before the hearth. Four handmade chairs sat around a hewn wooden table in the center of the room.