Page 19

forest for the bears

. . .

Mr. Good Time: Hey, sweetiebird. Checking in. How are you after last night’s scene?

sweetiebird: Oh, wow, so good. I’ve liked everything we’ve done together, but I think that was my favorite one yet.

I want to do a rabbit hole deep dive on the physiology behind why it was so effective.

And maybe find a few dark romance novels that feature it until I can see you again. What did you call it again?

Mr. Good Time: Primal play.

Mr. Good Time: I’m glad you liked it. Here are a few of my favorites…

this summer

Mr. Good Time once told me there was a reason he always chose the penthouse at The Tourmaline: Vancouver to host our scenes. Actually, a few…

It was discreet, with employees trained not to blink twice—or even check ID—when I gave them the code name: sweetiebird.

It had a private elevator that opened straight into the suite, tucked at the end of a secret hallway with no cameras. If you didn’t want to be seen, you wouldn’t be.

Even though Mr. Good Time liked to make threats about killing anyone who responded to my safe calls during our CNC play, the penthouse was fully soundproof.

It had a working kitchen so I could cook for us during multi-day scenes. And…

At 8,000 square feet, it was big enough to set up scenes where he chased and stalked me through the dark until he caught me.

But no amount of hotel primal play could have prepared me for the real version.

Not out here.

Not in the Canadian woods.

I’d known we were playing with fire.

Callum had been extolling the virtues of their roommate all morning.

The Mayor was great. The Mayor could put anyone at ease. In high school, the Mayor had been voted the hottest guy in their grade two years in a row.

He seemed to believe that because the Mayor was the Mayor, I’d have no problem adding him to the baby-making rotation. And when I offered a careful hedge about how rare it was for me to connect easily with other adults as I had with Callum, he waved it off.

“Don’t worry, you’ll love Rys. Everyone does. And remember what I told you about him putting everyone at ease.”

But Callum knew the Mayor. He didn’t know Mr. Good Time.

While we waited for Gideon to come back in something less likely to incite public indecency charges, I watched Rysak slide into his hometown-mayor persona. Crinkle-eyed smiles. Light arm pats just below the shoulder. That easy charm.

None of these people had met the version of him I’d scened with for three years. They would never believe the things he imagined for us. The filthy, dark things he whispered to me in hotel rooms.

Including—

“Run!” With a mad, twisted gleam in his eyes.

I ran. Like a sex doll wound up and set down. I ran until the gravel beneath my feet gave way to a narrow, flat hiking trail flanked by dense woods.

Behind me, his footsteps slowed. Paused.

Then his voice carried through the trees—resonant, sing-song, unmistakably Mr. Good Time’s.

“Come out and play, sweetiebird.”

That voice used to mean the scene was beginning.

But was this a scene? Were we just playing? Had he chosen the flattest part of the mountain on purpose?

Could I… could I end this with one Red Light?

Heart racing, I batted away branches as cum continued to pulse out of my pussy and drip down my thighs. Should I get off the path? Veer into the woods?

“I can smell their seed inside you, dirty girl,” he said from somewhere behind me. “Even if you leave the trail, I’ll find you by the scent of all that cum coating your pussy. Did you really think you were going to get away with fucking two guys right in front of me?”

Sometimes we played a catch-and-release version, where he’d spend all night pinning me to various surfaces and unloading inside me before telling me to run again after thirty minutes of recovery.

Primal play, as I understood it, was about me running in the dark—hiding as best I could—until Mr. Good Time inevitably tracked me down and ruthlessly fucked me while I pleaded with him to let me go.

Our old dynamic had been one man’s load dribbling into the panties he preferred to pull aside, while he stalked me around the suite like a big, silent animal. Striking a maximum of a pre-approved three times before we transitioned into aftercare and make-up sex.

But this wasn’t like that.

He’d never teased me like this during the suite chases. Never threatened me with vengeance for having sex with someone other than him.

In this unknown forest, he stalked me with a predatory intent I now knew came from being a bear.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Gideon and Callum calling my name.

Yelling at Rys to stop. Not to touch me.

But he kept coming. Relentless. No matter how fast I ran or how many corners I cut, he was always just a few paces behind.

Until suddenly I wasn’t running anymore.

I was being slammed into the round, sturdy post of a big wooden lookout that stretched high above the treetops.

“What do we have here?” He turned me around, trapped my hands above my head with one large palm around my wrists and looked down my body with a judgmental sneer. “A filthy little rabbit who thought she could escape me.”

He reached between my legs and scooped.

I shuddered with shame. I’d leaked so much while running, but my sex was still slick—still coated in spend, with plenty left inside for him to scoop out and shove into my mouth with two fingers.

“Suck,” he commanded.

I stared back at him, eyes defiant.

“I said suck, you little brat,” he growled. “Suck on the cum from the males you thought you could fuck in front of me— while you answer all my yes/no questions.”

I hated that even after seven months apart, my body was still so primed I couldn’t stop myself from doing what he told me.

I sucked on the two thick fingers he’d jammed into my mouth, triggering the primitive reflex that sent a rush of calm through my overstimulated body, twisting and tangling with the heat and shame.

“They don’t know your body chemistry like I do,” he said. “I could smell you were ovulating the moment I walked through the door. Did you ask them to fuck a baby into you like you asked me?”

It was more nuanced than that. But he said yes/no.

I nodded.

His gaze darkened. “Of course you did.”

“Rys, what the hell are you doing to her?”

Gideon’s voice—closer now. Somewhere just outside my line of sight.

I could only imagine what I looked like. Pinned against a pole, braless chest heaving under Cal’s t-shirt, which was hiked high enough to expose the curve of my pussy and ass. And cum. So much cum still running down my legs.

Two sets of bootsteps inched closer. But then Mr. Good—Rys… turned his eyes to the side. And they stopped. Just like that. As if he had some kind of command over them that I couldn’t hear.

He swung his gleaming gaze back to me. “Did they tell you that we’re bear shifters?”

I nodded.

“Did they tell you about bond bites?”

Another nod.

“Were they fully upfront with you?” He scanned my face with cold eyes. “When they fucked you in the same bed, did they tell you what that meant? Did they mention the Ayaska rule about not sharing a woman unless you intend to bond bite her?”

Wait—what?

I shook my head.

And Callum said, “Rys, we were just…” Only to abruptly cut off again.

“Did they explain to you that the twins and I are maul-bonded? That three years ago, we agreed to share a mate and wife?”

What? What? Whaaattt?

My heart thundered like a racehorse as I slowly shook my head.

And Rys glanced toward our periphery were Callum and Gideon where standing with a raised eyebrow, before bringing his hard dark brown gaze back to me.

“When they so gallantly agreed to help you with your baby request,” he went on, “did they mention they had no intention of letting you go back to Vancouver to raise our baby alone? That it would be physically impossible for them not to stay glued to your side while our cubs grew inside you?”

This time, I turned my head to Callum and Gideon. Looked at them with wide eyes.

And maybe they were identical, but that guilty look? It was exactly the same on both of their faces.

“Don’t be angry at them, sweetiebird,” Rys said. His voice gentled but remained unbending.

“They don’t have your fairness switch. And they didn’t have restraint. All they saw when they looked at you was the mate they’ve been waiting for all their lives. And under those circumstances, they couldn’t be ethical. No bear could.”

Rys bowed his head, but then brought his eyes back to mine. “Not unless he put a system in place that let him see you while honoring your boundaries. Do you understand?”

I didn’t. But now, looking at the harsh honesty on Rys’s face… I started to.

So, I nodded.

“Do you understand that Gideon and Callum consider you their maul mate—and that they’ll bond bite you as soon as you give them the go-ahead?”

My brain clogged. Too much. Too fast.

But eventually, I nodded.

“Do you understand that I’m done giving you choices?” His voice cracked. He dipped his head, swallowed. “Done repressing… all the feelings I’ve had for you? Done hiding that I’ve loved you from the start?”

His gaze locked on mine.

“That I will bond-bite you as soon as you ask? And marry you? And give you babies? And love you back for the rest of our lives?”

I shuddered. But this time, it had nothing to do with shame.

I held his gaze and nodded.

His hard face crumpled—softened. “Good girl,” he choked out.

Only then did he withdraw his fingers from my mouth.

“Now ask me again.”

I blinked. Confused.

“Make the same request you did on Christmas Eve.”

Oh. Oh.

With Rys staring straight into my soul….

With the taste of Gideon and Callum still in my mouth…

I softly asked, “Sir… could we… could we do a breeding scene?—”

He was inside me before the request was fully out. Mouth plundering mine as he hooked my legs around his waist to drive into me from below.

I’d already come so much in the backseat of that truck.

But this—this felt like finally coming home.

Like Fire Legs without the compulsion to run.

Like total and utter system overwhelm.

“I missed you!” I sobbed into his shoulder, the words tumbling out between kisses while he fucked me into the pole. “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too.” His voice was all rasp and gravel, rough and wrecked as he drove into me with crazed strokes. “I’m never letting you go again. I love you, sweetiebird! I love you so much!”

“I love you too, Rys,” I answered on a watery cry.

And that was what triggered our mutual release. The climax stormed through us, reducing two intelligent adults with carefully plotted lives into babbling idiots who could only say: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Over and over again, until we finally calmed down, and Rys set me gently on the ground, sealing our new dynamic with a sweet kiss.

“I love you, Lark,” he said, holding my gaze with nothing but the power of affection shining in his eyes. “I’ve loved you from the start. And I promise you, if you stay with us, not another day will go by without me telling you that.”

I liked that promise. I liked it so much.

My phone was still back in the den, along with my laptop and everything else I’d used to plot out my life.

But I didn’t need any of it to decide, on the spot, “Okay. I’ll stay.”

The widest, happiest grin spread across the face of the bear formerly known as Mr. Good Time. “Okay,” he agreed, calm and knowing.

Then he kissed the top of my head and murmured, “Now run. Gideon’s going to catch you this time.”

So that was how my maul ended up frolicking all day in the nearby forest instead of attending the Christmas Eve in July festivities.

And holing up in our totem den for the entirety of Christmas in July Day.

I couldn’t say how many times my three incredible bears filled me up with their seed.

Only that by the time I finally checked my phone…

I no longer needed glasses.

Because something was already growing inside me—something that shifted my physiology from fully human to half-bear.

On my GoNoTo phone, I found several messages waiting.

July 26, 11:11

Unknown Number:Oh my god, girl. It’s Holly!

You wouldn’t believe the Christmas in July I had.

I’m sorry I missed all your emails. We’re headed back now—with a new addition!

I can’t wait for you to meet our little girl.

Are you still at the lodge? We can pick you up, or if babies feel a little too triggering as you prep for your fertility treatments, totally understood—you can stay at the lodge.

Leif will cover your bill either way. Just let me know!

July 26, 14:30

Unknown Number:Okay, we’re back! Just got in, but no one’s at reception. Did I miss you? Are you already back in Vancouver?

July 26, 16:43

Unknown Number: What is this I hear about the mayor skipping ALL THE FESTIVITIES because he’s mauled up with you and the Red Outsider Twins??? Are you staying in Bear Mountain?? Are you pregnant yet???? TEXT ME BACK—I want to know EVERYTHING!!!

July 26, 18:17

Lark Bird: Hi, Holly. Sorry for the delay. All the rumors that you mentioned are true. And yes, I’m staying in Bear Mountain. Forever. I’ll explain everything when we come over to meet the new baby tomorrow morning.

For now, I’ll just say [bad pun loading] it’s been a beary, beary, beary hot summer.

Thank you so very much for reading Her Beary Hot Summer !

Not quite ready to leave Bear Mountain? Want to find out how Lark and her three bears are faring in the fall?

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One more spice scene with Lark and all three of her bears

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