Big Bad Bear Read Online Free Page A

hungry.”
    “How did you…? Never mind,” she said, turning to the food in front of her and cutting several bites before trying it. She took one bite and chewed slowly. Zeus waited eagerly for her reaction.
    “Aw hell,” she said, looking both pleased and peeved at the same time.
    “Is something wrong?”
    “No. That’s the problem. It’s delicious. I’ve never tasted something this good before.”
    “How is that a problem?” Zeus asked, confused.
    “I was hoping it would be as bad as all the other cooking men have tried to do for me so I could stop seeing you as Mr. Perfect,” she said, waving a fork at him before taking several more bites at one time and eating rapidly.
    “Would you like me to stop?” he asked.
    “No, don’t. It’s nice to have a guy like you around. Someone who actually gives a crapabout things like owning his own place or being able to cook,” she said.
    “What do you mean?” Zeus asked, leaning back in his chair and listening intently.
    Carly looked at him questioningly for a moment, as if not believing he actually wanted to hear more. But when he didn’t interrupt her, she finished another bite and continued.
    “Let’s just say I haven’t had the best luck with relationships in the past. At best, they expect everything from you and do nothing to show they actually care. At worst, they straight up abandon you and leave you to the wolves. The last man I took up with falls under that category,” she said, cutting her steak vigorously, as if the memory of it put her on edge.
    “You don’t have to talk about it,” Zeus said, not wanting to open up old wounds.
    “No, it’s fine. It’s what brought me out here actually,” she said, taking another bite between sentences and closing her eyes as she moaned a little from the flavor. It made Zeus think of making her moan in another way. “This last guy, we were together for a couple years. He never made any commitments, but I figured being a girl with average looks like mine and the kind of bad family history I come from, it was the best I was going to do.”
    “You’re gorgeous,” Zeus interjected. It made him angry to think of anyone that could have ever called her average or less than. To him, she was stunning.
    Carly looked up at him, and he saw a faint flush spread over her cheeks just before she stifled a smile and continued her story. “So anyway, a year ago, he gets this genius idea to come back to his hometown and open a business. A coffee shop to be exact. And I figure, why not? By that point in my life, I was broke from having to bail my brother out of prison and trying to pay off my mom’s rent because her drinking meant she couldn’t hold a job. But I was done living my life for them, letting them keep me from ever moving forward. A new place, a change of scenery, a chance at getting paid more than minimum wage for once in my life? It sounded like it was worth a shot.”
    Zeus felt anger burn through him at what his mate had been through, but he was glad she’d found her way here. Still, he was disgusted by her family.
    In his case, he had no family. His mom had left early and his dad had been mostly absent, not caring when Zeus left at eighteen to enroll in the military. But no family was probably better than the kind of family Carly had.
    She sighed and moved her food around on her plate, drawing his attention back to her. “So we moved here, opened up shop, and what do you know, but my boyfriend goes on a spending spree? The second the bank gave us a business card, he spent it on everything from a new TV to fancy shoes, all the while talking about how much money the business was going to bring in and how we were going to be rich,” Carly said, speaking animatedly with her hands, then taking another bite of steak.
    Zeus could tell from the second he heard the story that her ex was a complete tool, not even worthy of being called a man. In his mind, it was a male’s duty to love and protect and provide for