Boarlander Boss Bear (Boarlander Bears #1)(17)

Harrison lifted his chin and locked his possessive gaze on her. “Because you’re mine now.”





Chapter Six




“Okay, change of plans,” Harrison said as he spiked up his hair in the mirror. “You drained me, woman, and now I’m starving.”

Audrey giggled as she shoved a beach towel into her black, sparkly tote bag. “Me, too. I heard a rumor about how much bear shifters eat.”

Harrison straightened his tight forest green T-shirt with a beer logo on the front onto his torso. “It’s true. Whatever you heard, it’s true.”

Harrison opened the door and took the tote bag from her as she passed.

Pleased as punch, she smiled her thanks. “So you do like copious amounts of salads then?”

“Ha, no. I need meat.”

“But not raw meat.”

“Do you like raw meat?”

“Ew!” she exclaimed. “No. I was lonely growing up, but I never once got the craving for a friendly tapeworm.”

Harrison snorted and opened the passenger’s side door of a jacked-up red Chevy Silverado. She angled her face at the expensive looking black-out rims and matching step-ups. “This is a nice truck.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Well, your trailer park looks like a shithole.”

He bellowed a single laugh and helped her into his pickup. “Yeah, well, that you can blame on Clinton. I’ve wanted to fix it up, and Damon gave us the funds to do it a long time ago, but Clinton is convinced if we repair anything in the trailer park, we’re fixing it up so we can bring in girls and make it more accessible for cubs. You look sexy as f*ck with your hair down.” Harrison leaned over her and sipped her lips before he grinned and closed the door, then jogged around the front of his truck and got in behind the wheel.

Audrey wrapped her arms around her stomach to settle the butterflies there, but it didn’t help. Harrison was wrecking her entire system, and now she would never stop smiling.

“Why doesn’t Clinton like women?”

“That I don’t know.” Harrison rested a hand behind her headrest and checked the parking lot behind them as he backed out. “Clinton is a tough egg to crack.”

“Will he be angry that we’re…what are we?” Please don’t say f*ck buddies.

“Dating. Mating. Whatever you want to call us, I’m good with.”

“Dating is good.” For now. “I mean, technically we’ve been dating for a couple of months,” she teased.

“Oh, that’s right,” he played along. “To celebrate our two month anniversary, I’m going to take you to the opening week of the first and only Thai food restaurant in town.”

“Ooh, yum! Have you ever been there?”

“Never. It’ll be a first for both of us.”

“First date,” she murmured, in disbelief that she was really riding through Saratoga with Harrison.

“And your first Boarlander bang. That was your fault, by the way. I was happy to just kiss you and go sit in some boiling hot spring so I could have the excuse of getting to know you. You went all dick-sucky on me, ya little vixen.”

“Vixens are foxes. My claws are bigger.”

“That they are.” Harrison pulled to a stop at the red light and lifted the back of his shirt. Among his scars were long, healing scratches.

Her mouth flopped open as she traced one. “Did I do that?”

“Yeah, kitty.” He pulled her pink painted nails to his lips and kissed her quick as the light turned green. Hitting the gas, he said, “You can mark me up with those sexy painted claws of yours anytime.”

“Just so you know, I kind of lost my mind with you back there. I’m not like that.”

“Like what?”

Easy. “Um, so you know how I told you about my ex, Rhett?”

“Yeah, talking about him makes me want to break things, so perhaps let’s not.” Indeed, Harrison’s eyes were lightening by the moment, and the air had grown heavier in the cab of his truck. “It was crappy of him to bail on you when you were going through such a hard time. Pisses me off thinking about you going through that alone because he wasn’t man enough to stick around.”

Harrison was much more dominant than her animal, but she forced her hand on top of his tense thigh. “What I mean to say is, he’s the only other man I’ve been with. So…you know…don’t break my heart.”

Harrison twitched his attention to her, then back to the road, then to her again. He smiled slow and intertwined his fingers with hers. “Same to you.”

“Mmm hmm, except I follow you on social media, and I see all the shifter groupies you bang. They tag you in their posts.”

“What? I set that up two years ago, and I never post on it. I don’t even check it.”

“Well, every girl you sleep with seems happy to brag about it and post pictures with you.”

He gave her a disbelieving look and shook his head. “Three.”

“Three what?”

“I’ve slept with three women, and two of those were relationships. Short-lived and years ago, but they still counted as girlfriends. The last one…well, she was a mistake. I went home with a groupie. I was lonely…” He made a single clicking sound behind his teeth. “It doesn’t matter. Do you know how many pictures I take with women? Ten on any given night at Sammy’s. That’s part of the gig. The Boarlanders are still single, and Jake, the owner of the bar, takes care of us if we flirt a little and play the game. Anyone posting pictures saying I slept with them is full of shit and looking for attention.”