Bear No Defeat by Anya Nowlan Read Free Book Online Page B

her clit with two fingers, rubbing it in time with his thrusts, she couldn’t hold out any longer.
    Alice threw her head back, screaming out loud. He felt so good and as her pussy clenched down on him, she could feel his thrusts becoming more erratic, hurried. Her hands curled into fists against the tile and she willed her knees not to buckle, letting him pound into her as she rode her orgasm, not being able to tell anymore if the hot and cold jolts she felt passing through her were from him, the water, the need, or all of those put together.
    With a roar, his fingers prying into her thighs and his forehead against her back, he came inside her, thick seed spewing into her. Alice groaned softly as they both shuddered against one another, water cascading over them. Jax’s palms came up next to her hands on the tiles as he pushed himself back, taking his weight off of her and gingerly pulling out.
    Immediately, his hands went for her, pulling her against him and twirling her around to face him. Without a word, he pressed a kiss on her lips, warm and safe and loving.
    Loving.
    That was exactly what it felt like.
    She stared up at him in surprise, her hands on his chest now, fingertips tracing the outlines of a tattoo, the Shovelers’ new logo—the only one he had. Alice opened her mouth, wishing she could say something intelligent, something thoughtful. Hell, even something wry or sarcastic, or anything.
    All she could manage was: “Wow.”
    “Yeah,” Jax said with a chuckle, laying a kiss on her forehead before turning them both so they could be under the warm jets of water better, steam rising around them. “I think our marriage will do just fine.”
    She couldn’t help but laugh at that.
    Okay, so maybe it would be fine. That could happen, right?
 

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Jax
     
    Something was not right.
    Well, okay, truth be told a lot of things were “not right.” But none of those mattered. All that mattered was Alice.
    The first time Jax had caught himself thinking like that, he’d done a double take and shaken it off. It couldn’t be, could it? Could she actually be his mate? It seemed ludicrous. Not only was their to-be marriage a sham to appease both of their parents, but they’d only just met. While some shifters were perfectly okay with sniffing up a scent and calling the first gal they found their mate, polar bears were made of a different stock.
    What Jax had been always told, and what he had subsequently always believed as well, was that polar bears needed their time. That it was a slow burn, a careful one. Though they felt the pull almost immediately, it would take a while for the bear to settle on the woman completely, to be sure that she was for him. It made for some awkward courtship, especially when the woman in question was also a werebear, but the end result supposedly meant that the couple was bonded that much stronger.
    Unless all of that was bullshit and Jax and his bear had recognized Alice as their mate right away and the rest of it was just wasting time. Jax scrunched his nose at the thought, his hands shoved in his pockets as he stalked the long rows of shelves of some convenience store in Gallant Falls, a reasonably large town about an hour and a half drive from Shifter Grove.
    It was a treacherous trip because the roads were sometimes fairly non-existent during the winter season, but over the last few days, Jax had felt more and more that Alice needed a small breather. While the possibility that she needed a break from him had come up, he had quickly discarded the option and settled for some ambiguous “It all must be too much for her” variety of excuses. Maybe a day away would do her good, give her a moment to clear her head.
    Except, of course, that it seemed to have actually made things worse.
    Jax didn’t like that. He loathed it, in fact. He could practically smell her discomfort, the subtleties in her scent tipping him off that she was upset. Whenever he asked about what was