Baby Got Bear - Milly Taiden
Chapter One
Beau stood at his home office window, his eyes scanning the landscape and his nose damned near pressed against the glass, searching for her. Lucy. His Lucy. Tuning out the racket of the growing argument behind him, the alpha bear focused on the sensual images running through his mind.
The gentle sway of her rounded hips filling out her jeans to utter perfection made his hands itch with the need to touch. The way she tossed her golden curls over her shoulder as she sat on top of a galloping stallion, made his fingers tingle to once again feel their silky softness. The unforgettably adorable way her nose crinkled, and her eyes sparkled when she laughed at one of his dumb jokes made his heart soar. Lucy Benton was nothing short of amazing, and he sounded like he was a poet.
Like a clip from his favorite movie playing on a never-ending loop, the images flipped from sexy woman to alluring white wolf. Fuck, she was beauty and perfection rolled into one. Just like it was happening for the first time; he was once again held captive as she expertly ascended the ridge to her favorite ledge jutting from the side of Mt. Legend.
Enthralled with her graceful moves, the way she threw back her head and howled with such wild abandon, everything about her called to his bear as none other ever had. She was poetry in motion. Every single thing about her spoke to his heart and soul. And she was his. Only his. He really needed to stop thinking so poetically in his head. He was bound to screw up and talk like that in front of someone else.
She was always on his mind, the attraction, the need kept growing within him. Every time their eyes met, he was mesmerized. It was like a punch to the gut that stole his breath and stopped the beat of his heart in the best possible way. Wonderfully lost in her gaze, he fell deeper and deeper in love with no desire to ever escape. And cue the sappy romantic music, even if only in his head.
He wanted her, needed her…had to have her. Sure, he’d tried to push back the insatiable desire to claim her. Boy, had he tried. He’d tried to bury the longing to mark her as his own by staying away and only admiring her from afar. But it was pointless. They were meant to be together. There would never be another female for him. He would make her his…no matter the cost. His bear wouldn’t allow for him to do anything else. They had waited too long as it was.
And he knew she felt it, too. There was no doubt about it. No matter how hard she tried to hide it, Lucy Benton wanted him just as much as he wanted her.
How many times had he come to a screeching halt in front of the enormous iron gates leading to her family’s ranch? He’d practiced precisely what he’d say to her father so many times that the words were tattooed on his heart. Not that he expected her father to ever agree; there was no way he was going to allow a bear to court his precious purebred wolf. Even if he didn’t treat her well.
No doubt, it was an antiquated notion to approach her father before talking to her. But that was just the way of things in old shifter families. And there were very few as old and long-standing as the Bentons and the Sampsons.
It was no secret how set in his ways Lucy’s dad was. The stories of the lengths Cleland Benton would go to preserve the old ways, to keep his wolves “pure,” were infamous.
Hell, a few years back and entirely unbeknownst to the alpha wolf, Beau had helped one of Pack Benton’s omegas relocate. It wasn’t the lupine’s fault that he fell in love with a female cougar, or that Cleland had denied the union.
The heart wanted what the heart wanted, and that was all there was to it. Nobody understood better than Beau. Being away from the one meant to be his was agonizing. Beau laughed at himself, he was turning into a damn good poet.
Cleland was 0lder than dirt and dumber than shit. Had the alpha never heard of fated mates? Didn’t he wonder why his numbers were dwindling? Couldn’t he put two and two together? See all the unmated wolves within his pack? Let nature take its course?
Apparently not...
It was