Bearllionaire(17)

When he’d been deep inside her, he knew. She had bear blood.

With the promiscuity of wandering male bear shifters and the fact that they’d been increasingly breeding with human women in an attempt to sow wild oats, there had been more and more shifter children born unable to shift but with at least a little shifter blood inside them.

Perhaps that was a little of what had called to him initially about Janna. And her perky, plump breasts, delicious curves, and sassy red lips hadn’t helped things. No, he was smitten, and his bear had made up his mind. Whether she could shift or not, she was like him. He’d felt her bear call to his, and they’d nearly mated.

Now he’d protect her with his life, billionaire or not. He just had to figure out how to explain it to her.

“You there?” Riley asked. “Dude, what happened? You sound shaken.”

“I… my bear responded to her. She’s mine. She has to be.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Riley said nervously. “You don’t think that stuff about fated mates is just old wives’ tales? I mean, supposedly that’s how it was with our parents, and look how that worked out.”

Ryder frowned. Riley had a point there. What if he changed his mind, turned out like his father? He couldn’t hurt Janna like that. But then again, it was his choice, wasn’t it?

“You know the best thing for the race is to sow wild oats. It’s rare that attempts at reproduction are successful,” Riley said.

Ryder frowned. Maybe he didn’t care about continuing bear kind. Maybe the lack of monogamy had contributed to the low survival rate of young bears and females. Either way, he was doing it his way or not at all. He wouldn’t leave a trail of broken hearts the way his father had.

“Ryder?” Riley asked, perturbed by the silence, as he usually was.

“I think you sow enough wild oats for the rest of us,” Ryder said sardonically. “I don’t know. I’ve never wanted someone like I wanted her. We nearly mated. I was ready to claim her.”

“You’ve known her for like a day. Cool it, bro. Maybe you just need more experience with women.”

“You’ll know it when it happens to you,” Ryder replied, rubbing his chest to ease the tension coiling there. “You know what Dad’s will said. The heart wants what it wants, and he wishes he had listened. I mean, did Dad have any other offspring with other females? We know he slept around, but he was most successful with our mother and us. I think he realized that near the end of his life. So maybe just one…”

“Whatever floats your boat, dude. Personally, I can’t imagine having just one,” Riley grumbled, and Ryder heard Ryan scoffing in disgust in the background.

“Look, I didn’t come just because of the will. I’ve gotten where I am in business because I followed my gut. And my gut led me here. And my gut says she’s the one.”

“Are you sure you aren’t just being lazy? Not wanting to look a little harder?” Riley asked doubtfully.

Ryder growled. “I’m sure. Now help me not screw this up.”

“Fine, fine. What do you mean screw it up?”

“I slept with her,” Ryder said, feeling ashamed even as he said it. He’d never been a man to take advantage or move too quickly. If anything, he’d always been so calculating and slow that sometimes women had given up. And that had been fine, until he met Janna.

It was Scott’s fault, he thought grumpily. He’d have had more time to study the proposition of courting Janna if such a persistent rival hadn’t been right there, eyeing her like he wanted to eat her up.

But now Ryder had Janna’s body, and not her heart, and for all he knew, she’d wake up hating him for disrespecting and seducing her. Though he knew she’d technically been with him every step of the way.

“Yikes,” Riley said after a pause. “That’s fast. What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was just going to kiss her, and then…”

“Then?” Riley sounded altogether too eager, and Ryder bristled.

“None of your business.”

“Gotta know the deets if I’m going to help.”

“We had sex, okay? Geez.”

“Wow, go Ryder. I didn’t know you—”

Ryder groaned and put a hand up over his flushed face. “Can you please shut up and tell me what to do now?”

Riley sighed. “Well, she’ll want to know it’s not some one-time thing and that you don’t think differently of her. She’ll still want to be wined and dined. I’d order dinner in and talk with her.”

“About sex?” Ryder asked.