Chapter 13

THIRTEEN

ZANE

Bears might seem straightforward, but they can be surprisingly conflicted when it comes to relationships. After mating, a bear’s protective drive might urge him to push his mate away when he most wants to hold them close. Fortunately, their survival instincts always lead them in the right direction. A bear knows what he can’t live without.

—Bear Facts for Insomniacs, Episode 89

Any idiot would know I was anything but fine, and Bear especially would know. There was no one more attuned to my moods than he was and no one less likely to believe my “fines.”

But I also wasn’t about to let him know just how much that interlude had affected me.

I stayed strong until I got into the hot shower, and then I pressed my face into my hands and let out a long breath.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck .

I just had sex with Ryan Galloway .

I just blew my bodyguard.

I just sucked Bear’s dick.

I shuddered at the delicious memory. The feel of his heavy cock on my tongue. The musky scent of him in my nose. The sounds he made from deep in his chest.

“Zane, open the door.”

I jumped and nearly slipped on the wet tile. “Can’t. Showering,” I blurted without thinking.

“Tell me I can come in.”

I hesitated, wondering if I wanted to face him when I was feeling this vulnerable. But ultimately, I wanted to see him. I wanted to be with him. I wanted any excuse to have his eyes and hands on me.

“You can come in,” I said.

Bear opened the door and strode in, yanking off his clothes and throwing them down. Within seconds, his big, beautiful body was pushing into the shower stall and cornering me up against the wall. His hand came up to tilt my head, so I was forced to meet his eyes.

His eyes flicked frantically between my eyes and mouth before he leaned in to kiss me firmly but quickly. “I need to know what you’re thinking.”

“I… I’m… I’m thinking you’re, like, even hotter naked than I imagined?”

Bear closed his eyes briefly as if in relief. “Thank you. But that’s not what I meant.”

“I’m just… processing, okay? That was really fucking amazing. I enjoyed it and want to do it again. The fact you don’t want a repeat is taking me a moment to get my head around?—”

He pressed his thick cock against my hip. “Who said I didn’t want a repeat?”

His presence was affecting me, making me dizzy again with hot want. “You acted like…” I closed my eyes and swallowed after catching him glancing at my mouth. “Stop doing that. I can’t fucking think.”

“I want a repeat, Zane. ”

Wait, what?

I blinked my eyes open and met his.

“I want you so fucking much,” he continued. “And it would kill me if you doubted that even for an instant. I never want you to feel bad because of me. Understand?”

Water from the spray made his eyelashes even darker and spiky, setting off the intensity of his irises, and I could only nod helplessly.

“But you’re my protectee. And that makes this complicated,” Bear said softly. He caressed my back with one large hand. “I’ll try to explain, if you’ll let me.”

Still not quite able to believe I was allowed to do it, I ran my hands around his waist to his back, reveling in the feel of his hard muscles under my fingers. “Why didn’t I know you liked men? You never said anything.”

“I promise, I’ll answer all your questions. But first…” He moved his hand to the side of my face, sliding his fingers into my hair despite the hair tie keeping it piled on top of my head. Then he leaned down to kiss me. It was soft and precious, gentle and sweet. For someone who resembled a grumpy bear half the time, Ryan Galloway was heart-achingly tender with me. Always had been.

I bit my lip to keep from asking even more questions. For the past twenty-four hours, I’d been brimming with them, but I’d concluded Bear’s sex life was none of my business. Things were different now—he was rubbing his business all over my business—but I still didn’t want to pressure him. He didn’t owe me details.

Bear reached for the soap and began to rub it all over me as if washing me was something normal and expected. For the record, it wasn’t. I wasn’t sure anyone had washed anything other than my face in thirty years.

He finished washing and rinsing himself off before reaching for the towels.

As we stepped out of the shower to dry off, my mind spun while I considered what I truly wanted to know. How invasive could my questions be? Would he be offended if I was too curious ?

After drying off, I found a clean pair of pajama pants while Bear pulled his sweatpants back on. Then, he led me to the bed and nudged me onto it until we lay side by side, facing each other with the duvet draped over us.

The sky outside was pitch-black, and the house was quiet. Bear reached for the elastic band in my hair, offering me a sheepish raised eyebrow as if seeking permission.

I nodded and helped him pull it out. As soon as my hair was down, he began playing with it. And like he’d turned a key in a lock, all of my questions came bubbling out.

“So… is your sexuality a secret? Because of Ventdestine? Or your family?”

“Not my family. They’d probably be fine with it,” he said softly. “I figured I’d tell them when I had someone to introduce them to. I’ve never said anything one way or the other, so maybe they know. I don’t shy away from commenting that certain men are attractive.”

This was true. I remembered him agreeing once when Micki had mentioned how attractive Omar Rudberg was. “I’ve met him,” he’d said. “He’s as nice as he is good-looking.”

I hadn’t thought much of it at the time. The Young Royals actor was objectively pretty. You didn’t have to be into men to think so. But now, I rifled back through my memories as if searching for corroborating evidence.

There was that whole Daniel Craig thing back in Barlo, which took on a whole new meaning in light of recent evidence. And that made me remember my conversation with Landry the other night.

“Were you out in Ventdestine?”

Bear didn’t answer right away.

“I’m sorry. Tell me if I’m being too nosy,” I said quickly. “It’s just… I really thought you were straight. There was a story online that you dated a woman on the same security team in Ventdestine?—”

“You’re not nosy. I’m just not used to being open about it.” He made a face. “The story about the woman was something the PR office did. There was a rumor that a guard had been spotted at a gay club while on holiday in London, so the royal PR office arranged for all of the high-profile male guards to be seen around town with women. And no , to answer your other question, I was not out in Ventdestine. I couldn’t be. It’s illegal there.”

“Who was the guy? The guard, I mean. What happened to him?”

“It blew over. Those rumors were always happening since actual gay people exist, and guys in the guard were probably actually fucking while on leave… and at any other time, for that matter.” Bear sighed.

I felt a sliver of discomfort at the idea of Bear fucking someone while on leave… or ever. “Did you ever hook up with him?”

Bear found my hand and twined his fingers through mine. “I told you, it’s illegal in Ventdestine.”

“No, I know, but… surely people still do it.”

“Surely they do. But I didn’t.”

“You didn’t? Like… ever? I mean, if you were both in the guards, the stakes would have been just as high for him as you. Seems ideal for keeping it secret.”

Bear squeezed my hand. “When Asger Salling offered me the job to come to Ventdestine, I knew what I was getting into. I knew I was sacrificing my personal life for professional gain. It was an honor to be asked, to be recognized for saving him, and I was proud of it. And even if he claimed the winds of fortune had commanded it, I also knew his choice to elevate a foreigner to his personal guard earned Asger a lot of side-eye, at least until I proved myself. I understood that I’d been given an opportunity, and I didn’t want to fuck it up.”

Bear paused again, so I moved a little closer and kissed him softly. He smiled against my lips. “This isn’t helping me tell the story,” he murmured. I kissed him through it.

Finally, Bear pulled back. And he was no longer smiling. “So I took the oath. And then proceeded to spend twelve years upholding it.”

I tried to figure out what that meant. “You… didn’t hook up with anyone for twelve years?”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I remember asking one of the other guards about the law once. We’d just coordinated a visit with the head of the Norwegian royal family’s security, and Kasper had politely asked after the woman’s wife like it was no big deal. So I said, since Kasper seemed fairly accepting of gay marriage, did he think the Ventdestinian laws about homosexuality should be changed? You should have seen the look on his face. ‘The winds of fate don’t look kindly on change.’”

I shook my head. As confining as my career sometimes was, I realized how privileged I was that I’d never had to hide my sexuality. But mostly, I was still stuck back on… “ Twelve years ?”

Bear chuckled. “Yes. I’ve hooked up with men in the past. But I haven’t been with one in a very, very long time.”

I stared at Bear as the image I had of him was shaken like a snow globe in the hands of a toddler on a sugar high… which was maybe why I sounded like one when I voiced my reaction.

“B-but… why ? You’ve been back in the States for over a year! You could have been sleeping with tons of guys!”

He glanced away before shrugging. “I didn’t want to jump into anything.”

“Okay, but like… you could . You could jump into… me , for example.” My face burned with pre-embarrassment, but I wasn’t about to lose my shot at getting Ryan Galloway’s hands on me again.

I’d developed a crush on my bodyguard pretty much the moment we’d met. When the tall, muscled man with dark brown hair, darker brown eyes, shadowy beard, and the sexiest broody expression I’d ever seen walked into the reception area of the recording studio, I’d nearly swallowed my tongue.

And apparently, my deepest fantasy—that Bear was into men and found me physically attractive—was also coming true. My heart felt like it was attached to electrodes set to shock over and over with an unpredictable irregularity.

Bear looked hesitant. “I want to. I want a repeat more than anything… ”

“But?” I cocked my head.

He blew out a breath. “ But I worry that it’s not a good idea to cross a professional line?—”

“No one would need to know. And you could… finally get…” I didn’t know how to say what I was thinking because my thoughts were like multicolored bumper cars being driven by hamsters on speed.

Very horny hamsters.

“Laid?” he finished, eyes bright with teasing.

I closed my eyes and nodded maniacally. “So much laid. The laid-iest.”

The soft huff of his laugh made me grin.

“Zane…”

“Unless… unless you don’t want to. Sleep with me, I mean,” I added after seeing his hesitation.

He tilted his chin down and looked up at me through his lashes like I was being obtuse. “I told you already, there’s no gay man on Earth who doesn’t want to sleep with you.” Bear reached out to brush a strand of hair off my forehead with the back of a finger.

I wanted to close my eyes and revel in the moment like a cat in the sun, but I didn’t. I needed to focus. I’d never been in Debate Club in high school, but I imagined this was the kind of high-stakes pressure those kids had felt during competition. What could I say to convince him I was right?

I swallowed. “Okay. So you’re in… ah… need. After a very long dry spell. And I’m in… well, you could say I am also in need after a very long dry spell. Thirty-three years, as a matter of fact. So, I propose we take advantage of this isolated, secure location and the downtime we have here to, uh, douse the spell.”

“Douse the spell.”

“Wet it. Make it not dry anymore. Quench it? Whatever.”

Bear’s eyes continued to dance. “I know what douse means. I’ve never heard it used like that. ”

I winced. “There’s a distinct blood supply shortage to my brain right now.”

He reached out again and ran his thumb across my cheek and down the side of my face. “You’re doing fine,” he murmured with a smile.

“Bear,” I breathed. “Please.”

He sighed. “Are you sure you don’t want to save yourself for someone special?”

You are special , I wanted to scream. But I knew better than to scare him off with the implication I would expect more of him than simple physical release.

“I honestly just want to do it. I want to have sex. With you. Again. Right now. Very much.”

It was the most selfish and forthright thing I’d said in as long as I could remember. But I was too far gone to care. I wanted him enough to throw out the truth and hope for the best.

Bear met my eyes and leaned in. My breathing picked up, turning shallow and jagged at the same time.

“You’re really hard to say no to,” he said, no longer smiling.

I could still see signs of hesitation in his eyes… but it didn’t stop him from leaning in and kissing me.