Page 2 of Bearly in Love

two

MADISON

My alarm went off at the ass crack of dawn, and I forced myself off the couch with a soft groan.

I had to be quiet, or I’d risk waking up Bo. His ears worked way too well.

I wasn’t about to break into his fridge or take any of his food, so I stumbled over to the window. Before I started pulling it open, my gaze caught on what was at my eye level outside.

I squinted.

Snow.

Nearly to the window.

I wasn’t anywhere near hopeful enough—or stupid enough—to think I could make the trek back to Cub Lake or anywhere else in that.

Which meant I was going to be stuck in Bo’s house until the snow melted or there was time to clear the roads.

Crap.

I dragged a hand over my head, messing up my tangled, unruly red hair a little more.

Yeah. I was screwed.

So I shuffled back to the couch, tucked myself between the blankets again, and went back to sleep.

At least I was going to miss my wedding.

The rumble of my stomach woke me up. The smell of cooking food had triggered it.

Bo must’ve shifted back to his human form.

I was going to have to talk to him.

Fantastic .

“Food will be ready in five,” he said from the kitchen. His voice was low and gravelly.

I refused to acknowledge the goosebumps that broke out on my arms in response to it.

Nope, I was not going to be attracted to Ambrose Stevenson.

Not even a little.

Never had been, never would be.

Even if my body had refused to get that message since I was a teenager.

“You don’t need to cook for me,” I mumbled, as I slipped off the couch and padded to the bathroom. Suddenly, I regretted not throwing my wet clothes in the dryer. I was confident enough about my body, but the last thing I wanted was to make Bo think I was trying to catch his attention.

“We both know you’re going to starve if I don’t, Madi.”

I threw him a scowl before shutting the bathroom door behind myself.

I did need to pee, but more than that, I needed a door between us. A large, thick door.

Because I’d gotten a glimpse of Bo on my way there. And somehow, the man was even more attractive than I remembered.

He was tall. His hair was a mess of ringlets and waves in a color between brown and blond. His light skin was stretched over muscles that were much bigger than they had been the last time I saw him.

Guess the bear genes meant he kept growing longer than most people. Or maybe he’d started working out or something.

My stomach growled again at the smell of bacon cooking. I hoped he had noticed that we were snowed in, because we’d probably need to ration food. There was no way the road to his cabin would be plowed soon, so it would likely be at least a day or two until he could get more groceries. Maybe longer.

Whatever the case, I would definitely enjoy the bacon.

And whatever else he had. I wasn’t picky. Food was food.

I finished up in the bathroom and washed my hands for at least two minutes before I finally let out a harsh breath and forced myself to face the music.

Bo was standing in front of the stove, shirtless. There was a spatula in one of his hands, and a strip of cooked bacon in the other. His hair was messier than I remembered, his muscles were thicker, and his body was more relaxed.

My stomach squeezed.

Fuck.

He wasn’t supposed to look that good.

I was supposed to be on the run from my awful fiancé, not lusting after my brother’s best friend who was sort of my arch nemesis.

“Want to take a picture?” Bo drawled, obviously catching me staring at him.

“Sure. I owe you a mustache for that time you and Artie defaced my yearbook.”

He flipped an egg. “I distinctly remember you getting back at us by drawing on our faces with a Sharpie a few weeks later.”

“Sharpie comes off of faces. Not yearbooks.”

“You didn’t want to remember any of those assholes anyway.”

He wasn’t wrong.

I wasn’t going to admit that, though, so I changed the subject. “Thanks for the rescue yesterday. I probably wouldn’t have made it to Yeti Canyon.”

“You’d be dead in the snow right now if you tried, Madi.”

My nostrils flared at the nickname. I hated every nickname that came with my name. They didn’t fit me. He was the only one who ever used them. “I’m stronger than I look, Ambrose .”

Unlike me, he hated his given name. He didn’t let anyone call him anything except Bo.

“You’re tiny,” he said.

“Foxes survive in the snow all the time. We don’t hibernate.”

“ Wild foxes whose bodies adapt to the seasons. We both know you haven’t spent enough time in your fur for your body to change.”

“Don’t act like you know me,” I snapped.

“I know you well enough to be damn sure you would’ve shifted and run the other way if you thought it was a real option.” He took a lazy bite of his bacon.

I snagged the strip from his hand and took a bite of my own, glaring at him. “Fine, it wasn’t an option during the storm. But as soon as there’s an escape route, I’ll be out of your hair and on my way.”

“It’s going to be at least a few days. I get snowed in like this a few times every year.”

“Then I hope you have enough food.”

“That’s the one thing I will never run out of.”

He’d been hungry as a kid. The kind of hungry where his mom was too lost in addiction to buy enough to feed him. Artie found out about it when he and Bo were around twelve, and he contacted Bo’s dad for him. Bo had been pissed about it, but he’d admitted he was glad to get out of his mom’s house.

His dad had never been around after that, but Bo had food to eat and a place to sleep, which was a major improvement.

The guys had been basically inseparable since then.

If I hadn’t heard both of them hooking up with different women on separate occasions, I would’ve wondered if they were secretly in love or something.

But no, they were basically just brothers.

Bo must’ve gotten all of the sibling-love Artie had to offer, because they had both treated me like shit. My mom had kind of been there for me sometimes, but she defaulted to my dad on everything. So I’d pretty much been alone.

Or maybe worse than alone.

It was what it was, though. No point in dwelling on it.

“Great.” I glanced at the window.

There was no snow currently falling, and I suddenly had even less of a desire to stay with the man in front of the stove.

“Actually, if you help me open the window, I can be on my way right now. I’m sure my fur will adapt while I’m moving,” I said.

“I’m not helping you risk your life, Madi.” He used his spatula to transfer a stack of eggs from the pan and onto a plate, and picked up another strip of bacon. “Artie would kill me.”

“Artie wouldn’t even attend my funeral if I died. Neither would you, so what does it matter?” I snagged his new piece of bacon.

He growled at me but grabbed another. I let him have that one. “Your alpha would kill me, then.”

It didn’t pass my notice that Bo didn’t bother denying that neither of them would attend my funeral.

How pitiful.

I had two long-distance friends who would cry if I died—and literally no one else except my dad. He would probably be cursing my name for dying before he got his money from the alpha after we were mated.

So yeah.

I could do worse than dying.

“Where is he, anyway? You turned twenty-three a few days ago, didn’t you? I thought that was when you’d get mated,” Bo said. He was twenty-five. Him and Artie were only a few days apart, but their birthdays were a couple months before mine.

The fact that he remembered my birthday was a huge surprise, because I couldn’t remember him ever acknowledging it.

“I talked him into delaying the wedding a few more weeks,” I lied.

Bo lifted an eyebrow at me. “He never struck me as the kind of man who would negotiate with his unwilling bride.”

“Well, he did. So I’m getting out of dodge.”

Bo blinked. “You’re running away?”

“Yup.” I finished my strip of bacon. “Unless he finds me here before I can. Which is why you should help me open the window.”

“I told you, I’m not helping you risk your life.”

“Your reasoning was stupid, so I was hoping you’d already changed your mind.”

He flashed me a dead-panned look and finished his strip of bacon. “No.”

“Of all people, I would think you’d understand, Ambrose. You’re not the only one who isn’t interested in an arranged marriage.”

“That’s different.” He looked back at the stove, cracking a few more eggs.

“It’s literally the same.”

“The girl the clan wanted me to mate with was a broke human who needed money and was obsessed with shifters. They expected me to knock her up and leave her to raise the cub alone. Your alpha will undoubtedly be a doting mate who will make sure you want for nothing.”

I scoffed. “The last thing that bastard will ever be is doting . He’s a proud, entitled asshole. He doesn’t give a shit about who I am—all he cares about is what I shift into.”

“Plenty of shifter breeds value a mate bond with a female who’s like them.”

“Fuck off.” I took two more strips of bacon and strode over to the window.

I needed to get out of there. Fast. Before I gave into the urge to try to strangle the jerk making breakfast. And ended up pinned beneath his stupidly large body, because there wasn’t a chance in hell I could take him down.

I held the bacon between my teeth as I wrestled with the window. The snow wasn’t that high, so there was no reason it wouldn’t open. The thing had to be glued shut or something.

“You could at least put some clothes on if you’re going to fuck a window in front of me,” Bo drawled.

I froze.

Looking down at myself, I swore silently.

Yeah, I was still just wearing my bralette and shorts. Things had definitely gotten bouncy.

I pulled the bacon strips from between my teeth and casually looked back at the glass pane I’d been wrestling, as if my heart wasn’t beating like a freight train.

“If I want to screw a window, you should be able to avert your eyes. We both know you’ve never been attracted to me, so I don’t see why it would bother you anyway. ”

“How the fuck would we both know that?”

“You had sex with random girls in my bathroom while you knew I was sitting in my room, Ambrose. When I was fourteen. And fifteen. And sixteen. And seventeen. I had ears, not that you noticed. I don’t think you’ve ever even looked at me the way most men look at women, and I’ve seen your type.

Short. Thick. Curvy. Human . None of which apply to me. ”

Being a female shifter meant being naturally strong and athletic, which I wasn’t complaining about. But it didn’t come with much as far as boobs and an ass went, at least for me.

I was fine with that, but I knew there were some men who would prefer someone who looked different. Which was fine, because there were some men whose looks I didn’t particularly enjoy myself.

That was just life.

Bo didn’t reply, so I finished my bacon and went back to the window.

Not getting dressed was a matter of pride, now. If I put clothes on, it would mean letting him win our little disagreement. Which I wasn’t going to do. So, I’d have to wait a while before getting dressed.

Yay.

I glanced over my shoulder at the grizzly in the kitchen after a few minutes, just to make sure he wasn’t glaring like he wanted to kill me or anything. His entire body was insanely tense, his thick muscles tight and bulging, but he wasn’t looking at me.

That was good.

I guess.

I mean, it did kind of sting that a guy as attractive as him wasn’t into me. He even smelled good.

Or it would’ve stung, if he wasn’t Bo.

But he was. So it didn’t sting.

I tried to convince myself of that, at least.

“Food’s ready,” Bo said a couple minutes after that. His voice was low, and strained.

I still hadn’t defeated the window.

Common sense was telling me I probably wouldn’t.

“I’ll eat after I get this thing open,” I said. I hoped he’d go into his bedroom or get in the shower or something after he ate, so I could enjoy breakfast in peace.

He growled, and I heard two glass plates hit the stone countertop roughly.

Bo was behind me a moment later. His heartbeat was against my back, his uncovered chest on my mostly-bare skin and his gigantic body engulfing mine as he grabbed the bottom of the window.

With one massive shove, he pushed it all the way open. A little snow fell toward my feet, and I stepped back automatically.

My eyes widened when my barely-covered ass met his very large, very hard erection.

Holy shit.

Was it just morning wood?

It had to be, right? He wasn’t attracted to me. I was sure of that. I had always been sure of that.

His huge hands were on my waist a heartbeat later, hot and strong. His grip was tight. Possessive, even. He didn’t pull me back, but our bodies were already basically glued together.

His lips brushed my ear. “I was always fucking attracted to you, Madi. I had a crush on you when we were kids. I got off to the mental image of you before either of us was old enough for that to be even somewhat acceptable. I fucked other women where you could hear to prove to myself that I didn’t want you, and it didn’t work.

” His grip on my waist tightened while my heart pounded wildly.

My brain and body both had to be short circuiting, because what the actual hell was he telling me ?

There was no way Ambrose Stevenson was attracted to me. Not even maybe.

“Go ahead and make a run for it. When you realize you’re not going to survive the trek to the canyon, come back and stay here until the road’s clear. You can borrow my truck when it is. It’s usually only two days or so after a storm like last night’s.”

It took my mind far too long to work through everything he’d just said. By the time I did, he had released my waist and was walking back to the table.

I didn’t let myself look behind me.

If I looked at him after his admission and after feeling his obvious attraction to me, I was probably going to do something stupid.

Stupider than trying to run away from my fiancé and my skulk.

So I just slipped out the window, tossed my bra and shorts back into Bo’s house, shifted, and ran.