The Bear In Me: A BBW Bear Shifter Romance Read Online Free Page A

been staring at him because he blushed again and laughed weakly. “So! Why don’t you tell me what I’ve been dying to know since I saw you,” he said suddenly. “Why’d you decide to come all the way out here?”
                 
    The question was one she’d been asking herself for a while now, and she wasn’t quite sure how to answer it herself. She appreciated Sam’s patience as he continued to drive around, allowing her to formulate an answer.             
                 
    “I think I’ve always known I was a bit different from my friends down in San Francisco. Don’t get me wrong, they have great lives, and I love them, but… I’ve always been on the fringes. Like I didn’t quite fit in, or something, no matter how hard I tried. Like they could smell something on me. I don’t know; this probably isn’t making any sense.”
                 
    “Keep going,” Sam urged.
     
    “I’ve always known I wanted to help people. That’s why I studied so hard. But in the last year, as graduation was coming up, I just felt like I was heading for a roadblock or a wall. I needed to find a way off the tracks. Does that make sense?”
                 
    Sam nodded again, one hand on the steering wheel. The muscles in his forearm rippled with the effort, long strands of tendon pushing out against the pale flesh. “More than you know.” He replied earnestly.
                 
    “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” Emily said in an exasperated tone, “I just met you and I’m telling you things I haven’t told my friends before. It’s weird. I’m sorry for unloading.”
                 
    “You need to stop apologizing,” Sam said tenderly.
                 
    “I just felt like… Alaska might have people more like me. Somewhere,” she struggled for the correct word, “easier.”
                 
    Sam seemed amused and slapped his steering wheel hard enough to make Emily jump in her seat. She quickly flattened the skirt over her legs, pulling the tights further down her knees. “You might be more right about that last statement than you know.” Sam said, and turned in his seat so that he could look her in the eyes.
                 
    Emily felt her heart leap again, not faster but harder, like someone pounding on her chest cavity from the inside, trying to get out. It hurt, and she reflexively drew her other hand up and braced it against her xiphoid process. Sam’s eyes had suddenly changed, and Emily couldn’t tell if it was the way the shadows were playing across the windshield or if it was something else, but he had transformed. His expression was still Sam, but there was a presence lingering underneath it, like looking at a clear stream and at first only seeing your reflection – but the harder you looked, the more you could make out what was underneath.
                 
    There was also a hardness there. Something she hadn’t expected or seen any evidence of, even though she’d been wary from the onset since meeting him. I’ve only known him since this morning , she reminded herself, lost in his gaze. That same piercing quality from before, as if he was vaguely aware of a secret she was keeping from him, and was just being polite by not pointing it out. It was a terrifying experience, one in which she couldn’t shake, even after she gave him a coy smile and looked back out the passenger window. She could still feel him looking at her, into her, as if urging her to shed the masque she had so conveniently thrown over her emotions.
     
     
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
    That evening, Sam dropped by Emily’s cabin and gave three sharp knocks on her door. She had just come out of the shower and was wearing only a tight mid-riff baring T-shirt and panties. The small nubs of her nipples stretched obviously against the fabric, and she realized she’d forgotten to put on a bra. Sam