Bear to the End (Bear Claw Security Book 5) by Terry Bolryder Read Free Book Online Page B

huff, then leaned over to stare down at him. Her dark curls fell over her face; her brown eyes blinked at him curiously. “I just have one question.”
    “Shoot,” he said casually. He would answer anything for his mate.
    “When you say you liked me from the moment you met me, how did you know?”
    He cocked his head and thought about it. “I guess sometimes you just know.”
    She exhaled. “And then sometimes you think you know and you turn out to be totally wrong.”
    He turned around so he could face her. She avoided his gaze, and he could tell she was hurting again. “I’m sorry if I’m bringing up painful things for you.”
    “No, it’s good for me to talk about it. I haven’t had a lot of chances to. Just been working. But if I can’t talk about it to my bodyguard, who can I talk about it with?”
    He nodded. Even if he wanted to be so much more than a bodyguard, he’d let her call him whatever made her comfortable.
    “Not that that’s all I see you as,” she said nervously. “I mean… Gosh, I’m messing this up. I guess I’m saying I feel really good about you, too, but I’m worried that after my last judgment call where men are concerned turned out to be bad, I can’t know if I’m choosing the right way this time.”
    He let out a pent-up breath. “What if you didn’t make a bad choice? What if you made the best decision you could based on what you had? If someone is just a dang good liar, you’re going to get tricked.”
    She sighed. “Then how do I make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
    He folded his arms. “I guess you have a good point. But I just don’t want you to think it was all your fault. I mean, he could have just been a good liar. Or he could even have been good and then chosen to be bad. We all have choices. It’s all on him that he chose to hurt you. I don’t think it means there’s anything wrong with you .”
    She blinked at those words. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been carrying a silent belief that she was just destined to have shitty things happen to her or only attract shitty men.
    Maybe there were red flags where Clay was concerned. But then again, would anyone else have seen them? She’d done the best she could, and it had turned out bad. It didn’t mean it always would.
    “I guess if you’re scared, then you just go slow and allow yourself time to feel comfortable,” he said. “I can go as slow as you like.”
    The timer on the pizza dinged, and he stood to get it and serve it on plates. When he came back, he handed her a plate, and they both ate in silence. It felt great to eat something warm after a day that had been so cold.
    The rain was still pittering outside, tapping her window in a way that was soothing and rhythmic.
    “I love the rain,” he said, looking toward the window.
    Her heart thumped at the sight of his handsome profile. When he was looking away, she felt the safest studying him. And when she did, he lit her up all the way to her fingertips.
    She didn’t want to go slow. She didn’t want to be careful. She just wanted to trust she’d never felt this way about Clay. Her inner animal had never cried for him like this. She’d never been instantly wet for him like this.
    He looked over at her, his blue-eyed gaze sharp, as if he sensed the change in the air. “You okay?”
    She nodded tightly.
    He went back to eating his pizza, but she could sense he was feeling the tension, too. He was being a gentleman, but she knew with him being a red-blooded male and a shifter, he was affected by her pheromones, by the craving in the air.
    He’d already admitted to wanting her, too.
    If one of them was going to speed things up, it would have to be her. He had an admirable sense of control, and he’d never rush things knowing what she’d been through.
    But she felt it would be freeing. Finally being with someone who wasn’t Clay. Finally owning her own body again. Finally falling in love, even.
    His breaths were more hoarse as he looked