Read Bear My Love: BBW BWWM Paranormal Shapeshifter Werebear Mail-Order Bride Romance (Shifter Grove Brides Book 4) for Free Online

circumstance… When you can’t shift, when there’s no one around to have your back.”
    His voice got quiet and Keesha looked at him, frowning. He was glancing down at a tattoo of a running wolf, nestled within the plethora of his other designs, and a shadow of grief passed over his features. It cleared just as quickly when he noticed her watching him, a mild smile taking its place.
    “It’s easier to cook a deer when you can carve it up, is all I’m saying.”
    Yeah, Keesha wasn’t convinced. But she wasn’t going to push him – not yet. Rationally, she knew she should have been at least a bit apprehensive around this mountain of a man who could ram through walls as a bear if he felt so inclined, or carve up a body of meat if he needed to. But being around him just made her feel safe, homey, calm – things she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
    “So tell me something about you. Something I don’t know,” he said.
    Battle was making his way through the bigger of the two fish so quickly that Keesha was really beginning to see his point about eating fast or being left hungry. She took a few bites, rolling their previous conversations through her head. She’d done the bitching and the moaning and the upfront flirting, but she hadn’t really told him much about Keesha Bailey, the person.
    “Well. I live in Boston with three roommates equally as high-strung as I am. I don’t own anything that’s comfortable, as you can probably tell,” she said, pointing at her skinny jeans.
    Battle huffed, nodding.
    “We need to get you some sweatpants if you’re going to stay around here. Can’t have a woman walking around looking uncomfortable. I’ll have five shifters offering to give you a better life if I take you to town like that.”
    Keesha chuckled, but Battle looked completely serious. Shifters took their comfort seriously, it seemed!
    “I’m waiting on the results of my bar exam, but I think I made it. My mom is still around, my dad has never really been in the picture. I don’t have pets. I don’t have hobbies. I don’t have leisure time. I have work. Or, better put, I had work. And this might be the first time in at least five years I’ve been somewhere without cell reception.”
    Remembering the last bit, she plucked her phone out of her pocket and was in the process of turning it on when Battle pinched it out of her hand and put it down next to him.
    “Hey! Maybe I have a bar or two now!”
    “Doesn’t matter. Dinnertime. And even if it wasn’t, you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. You really think there’s something you need to check on?” he asked, giving her a stern look.
    He was right, of course. And it was as endearing as it was annoying.
    “Fine, you win.”
    “I usually do. Treat it as a vacation. A low expense, low possibilities kind of vacation. Do you want a beer, Keesh?”
    She usually hated when someone called her in some endearing way, but when it came from Battle, she was completely fine with it. In fact, it made her feel a little goopy inside – which was a nice sensation compared to the rigid worry and proper vigilance she’d come to know on her occasional dates in Boston.
    “Sure.”
    Another thing she didn’t really do – drink beer. It wasn’t that it was oh my God going to make me fat! as much as it was her never really having an occasion to grab a beer. A glass of wine at work, sure. A tequila shot after a hard exam, hell yes! But beer? Just kicking back, relaxing with some good conversation and a decent brew? Never.
    Battle got up and walked to the fridge. Keesha’s eyes followed him the whole way, unabashedly checking out his ass. He grabbed two cans and stalked back. He looked as if he could move the world around him just as easily as the world could move him. Battle sunk back on the couch, closer to Keesha this time. He cracked open one can and handed it to her, taking the other one for himself.
    The fish was all but gone, just white bones sticking