Gray Back Bad Bear (Gray Back Bears Book 1) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page A

there.
    Stretching out her toes, she was barely able to stand on a rock under the water. She let the edge of the waterfall pour over her outstretched fingers. It was more powerful than she’d imagined, and she laughed as the sting made her yank her hand back.
    “Come here. This part is gentler,” Matt said, watching her with those smiling, intense eyes. He always seemed to be studying her reaction to everything.
    Holding her breath, she swam under the falls, deeper and deeper. She looked up at the bubbles all around her, the light streaming through the murky water like sunrays. It was beautiful under here. Serene even.
    Matt jumped in and paddled his hands upward, sinking down beside her. Tiny bubbles clung to his cheeks, and she brushed one off and searched his bright blue eyes. Under here, the world didn’t matter. Here, it was bubbles, burning lungs, and the power of the waterfall vibrating against their skin. She reached out and touched a stripe across his chest, and before she could chicken out, she swam forward and brushed her lips against it, then kicked her legs for the surface on the other side of the falls.
    Matt took longer to break the water, but perhaps she’d shocked him. She didn’t know. When he pushed himself up on the rock she had sat on, his face was carefully composed. “What was that for?”
    “It was because I don’t mind your scars. I don’t know what caused them, but it doesn’t matter to me.” She nodded her chin decidedly. “You still look fuckin’ awesome.”
    Matt released a shaky breath, the first proof he wasn’t as immovable as he let on. Leaning back, locking his elbows on the craggy rock under them, he said, “You look fuckin’ awesome, too.”
    She waited for the punchline, but he didn’t give one. Instead, he looked out thoughtfully at the underside of the waterfall and let her keep the compliment.
    With a happy sigh, she laid back and rested the back of her head on her crossed arms, then splashed her feet languidly under the gentle streams of water that fell near them. “Are there weremermaids?”
    Matt laughed and hooked his foot under hers, then lifted it out of the water. “Why? Do you want to be one?”
    “Maybe. My skin wouldn’t prune if I was a mermaid. Look at this.” She held up her fingertips and showed him her water-logged wrinkles there.
    “You know, if you were a shifter, you wouldn’t have to wear glasses anymore. Your vision would be scary good.”
    “Please, you would miss my sexpot glasses.”
    “I would, actually. You have that sexy librarian look going on. I dig it.”
    “Ha, I doubt it. I heard your crew last night. I’m not your type. I imagine you don’t take many girls like me to your love shack.”
    “Nope,” he agreed, lifting her foot out of the water with his again.
    “Keep doing that,” she encouraged. “I like playing footsies with a werebear.”
    Matt snorted. “Bear shifter.”
    “So to become a bear shifter, I’d have to what? Let you drink my blood or something?”
    “I’m not a vampire, and no. A deep bite would do it.”
    “You ever bitten anyone before?”
    His eyebrows arched up, and the smile dipped from his face as he let her foot splash back into the water. “You mean have I Turned anyone? Hell no. I’m an asshole, but I wouldn’t ruin anyone’s life like that. Putting an animal in someone isn’t a gift, Willa. It’s cursing them.”
    “Sounds pretty awesome, though. Getting to change into this big strong animal, never getting bullied, always feeling like a badass.”
    “Mmm,” he said noncommittally. “You were bullied?”
    “You mean in school? College no, because no one cares what kind of freak flag you fly there, but in high school…you know, it might surprise you, but I wasn’t the put-together vixen you see before you.” She gave him a smile to let him know she was teasing.
    “Braces?”
    “Oh, yeah. Headgear. My teeth looked like old cemetery headstones. And my parents didn’t have much