“Who the fuck are you?”
I turned around, remembering too late that, of course, once he’d shifted back he’d be naked. Standing in front of me was a lot of really, really hot naked human male flesh. My body immediately responded to his well-built, large, muscular frame, raw lust building in me so fast that my cheeks turned red. “Maggie. And you’re Matt Long, I’m guessing. Matt very Long.” Did I just say that out loud?
He growled and grabbed a faded cowboy hat from the hook on the door beside him to cover his junk with. “Why are you in my fucking house?”
“Because you signed up for a wife. Voila, here I am.” I waved my arms down the length of my body in a gesture meant to imply that this is what one gets when one orders a wife sight unseen. “I’m going to take a shower now. It’s been a long couple of days and I need to get washed up.”
He blocked the way into the only other room in the small place. “No way in hell. I signed up for that shit nearly eight months ago. No one told me they were sending me something.”
“Something? I’m a person, not a thing. Check your email, buddy. Now, I’m going to be using that shower. Unless you want to pull out your little bear claws and try to stop me.”
He let me pass, finally, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. That’d been my test to find out if he was going to be anything like my ex. I was still trembling from my act of false bravado, but it seemed like this Matt guy, despite the grumpiness, was cut from a different cloth than my ex. Thank god. Otherwise, I might’ve found myself with deep bear claw gashes across my back.
CHAPTER 4: Matt
What the fuck just happened? And who just walked into my house?
I stared after her, unable to take my eyes off of the way her ass filled out those fortunate jeans. She smelled slightly of sweat and something worse, but under that, I could smell a sweet vanilla scent that had called my bear right to the surface even before she’d knocked on my front door.
Maggie? Jesus. What had I done?
I opened up the laptop I hadn’t touched in months and jabbed at the little keys until my email opened. Sure enough, Beatrix had sent me several emails about my new bride arriving. Beatrix, the same woman who couldn’t find me a single damn woman under the age of fifty when I desperately needed one to claim the family ranch as my inheritance. Beatrix, the woman who I’d trusted to help me through the loophole in my father’s damned will.
I slammed the laptop closed and threw it across the cabin. “Shit!”
The last thing I wanted was a bride. I wanted to be left alone. I didn’t need a woman sniffing around my place, complicating things. Why can’t people just leave me the hell alone? I couldn’t say it enough. Can’t a man suffer in peace?
I paced around my cabin, waiting to hear the shower shut off. She’d been in there for too damn long. I hadn’t even used the thing in months. I swam in the creek behind the cabin to clean off. I doubted there was even soap in there.
She hadn’t been afraid of me. At all. She was all human and she’d had the audacity to slap me on the nose, like I was some toy poodle. And to top that off, my bear hadn’t even minded. The wild beast had been insane and uncontrollable for months, yet when a little human woman shows up, bear practically just rolls over on his back and presents his belly to her.
I yanked the fridge door open and glared into it. Nothing. I’d been living mostly as bear, so I ate in the woods. There wasn’t even a single morsel of food in the place. Good. She couldn’t stay if there wasn’t any food. Not that I was going to allow her to stay anyway. I’d pay for her ticket back home and wash my hands of her. I hadn’t signed any contract. I didn’t have to keep her.
She walked out of the bathroom at that moment, wearing nothing but a too-small towel. Her long legs were still damp and tiny droplets of moisture clung to her smooth, creamy skin. Her hips tugged the towel apart at the side and revealed even more leg to my hungry eyes. Her dark, damp hair hung down past her shoulders, curling around her chest in ringlets, drawing my attention to the plump orbs being pushed up by the towel.
Clean and fresh, she had my bear coming to the surface. I could feel the fur pushing to erupt on my arms and chest and I had to grit my teeth and fight to keep the change from happening. Her smell was intoxicating. Her sweet vanilla-like natural aroma called to my bear in a way unlike anything I’d ever experienced. What the hell was happening to me?
She cocked her hip to the side and stared at me, a pink tinge creeping up over her face. “You didn’t put clothes on.”
I looked down and spotted my dick proudly standing at attention in front of me. With a frustrated growl, I went ahead and shifted, letting my bear take control of me. I was more comfortable as a bear lately anyway and with a scantily clad woman in my home, I figured it was time to take off into the woods again. Bear growled something at me, but I ignored him. I huffed at her and moved to the door.