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

the hardened muscles of the bear turned into the massive ones of the man. He stood tall, cracking back his shoulders as the bear retreated deep within him.
    He was dripping wet. Battle’s toes dug into the soft moss – he had walked to the river without his boots on. There was another pair in the truck, but he’d always liked the feeling of walking through the forest without anything between him and the ground – it gave him a better feel for things.
    He didn’t see the look in Keesha’s eyes before he pulled off his sopping wet tee and wrung it out. Drops of moisture glistened on his skin and there wasn’t an inch of him left dry. She seemed to like it, and like it a lot.
    “Wow.”
    He caught the way she swallowed dryly, her face having gone a little bit blank as she watched him shift and then peel his shirt off. Looking down at himself, he could somewhat understand what she was staring at. He was massively large, yes, but not only that – his tattoos were also out on full display now.
    There was a full sleeve running up his right arm, splaying into a partial chest tattoo and warping around his back as well. Some of the individual pieces weren’t very expertly done, marking the opportunities he’d had at the time he got them, but some of the others more than made up for the weaker ones. Each tattoo told a story and most of them weren’t the kinds of stories he could tell Keesha, at least not yet.
    She seemed to be looking at one spot in particular, and when he figured out what it was, he grunted and broke the silence.
    “I guess we better get going. It’s going to get dark soon,” he said, putting the fish into a makeshift sling he made out of his shirt and throwing them over his shoulder.
    “Who’s Adriana?” she asked.
    Inwardly, he groaned.
    “No one important… anymore.”
    Her name was written in thin script on his right pec, a thick line scratched through it now – a permanent reminder of the stupidity of his younger years. A painful sting travelled through him, running from the bottoms of his feet to the top of his head. He grabbed Keesha’s hand and tugged her to move along with him. Flashes of his past wanted to consume him again, but he pushed them away into their usual deep, dark resting place somewhere within him.
    He couldn’t deal with them. Not now. Not yet. It was the same thing he’d been telling himself since it all happened…
    Battle could barely keep the growl from his lips. Keesha squeezed his hand suddenly, and the strangling tightness left his chest and released the hold it had on his body. He glanced at her and her big, curious hazel eyes looking up at him. Spirits above, she was tiny. Well, compared to him.
    She couldn’t have been more than 5’7’’ and now that she wasn’t wearing the heels, he was very much aware of it. And those curved… She had looked good on the photos, but in person, he could barely keep his gaze off of her. He could imagine the way she’d look out of those clothes, confident and glowing. His cock hardened at the thought and he had to go to great lengths to suppress that particularly delicious mental image.
    “That was very cool, you know. I’ve never seen a shifter in animal form. And that fishing? Wow!”
    Battle snorted in amusement, squeezing her hand back. Yup, city girls – gotta love ‘em.
    “If you thought that was cool, wait until I cook ‘em!” he said, holding up the fish.
    “You cook?”
    “Can’t really survive without food, now can I,” he said, smirking.
    She was adorable. He could just eat her up for dinner instead of the salmon. The way she made those little steps in boots far, far too big for her and how she was bundled up in a hoodie even though it wasn’t anywhere near cold yet – it was all hitting him hard. It was a struggle just walking through the woods without throwing her up against a tree and fucking her until all she could do was scream his name.
    “So,” he said, hastening to find a topic other than