Bear Necessities (Bad Boy Alphas): A Post-Apocalyptic Bear Shifter Romance by Selena Kitt Page A

some sort of a god, or God himself. Not that she blamed the girl, not in the least.
     
    “And what way’s that?”
     
    “The way a woman… looks at a man… who…” she stammered.
     
    Oh damn him, she thought, unable to get the rest of the words out.
     
    “I’ve no mate, Sibyl,” he told her, his words soft but clear, those blue, blue eyes trained right on her, seeing into her, into parts and places she had yet to even explore herself. “There’s no woman or wulver who’s been marked by me.”
     
    Marked. She wanted to know what that meant, but she was afraid to ask.
     
    “G’nite, lass.” He moved to close the door but Sibyl stopped him once again with her words.
     
    “Where are you going?” she called.
     
    “I’ll be right outside,” he assured her, smiling around the door’s edge.
     
    “In that drafty tunnel hallway?” She frowned, glancing around the big room, noting a thick lamb’s wool rug by the fire. It would do nicely. Besides, even if she was a little afraid of him, she was more afraid of what was out there, beyond the closed door. She thought she might actually feel safer with him here, in the room. “No. Sleep here. I insist.”
     
    “Here?” His eyebrows went up when he looked at her and Sibyl swallowed at the heat in his gaze. “Wit’ ye?”
     
    “Oh, I mean…” She blinked, biting her lip. “You can sleep by the fire. Or have another mattress brought in…”
     
    “Yer reputation will’na survive ‘til mornin’, lass,” Raife said softly. The look in his eyes warmed her from head to toe and she tried to ignore her body’s response.
     
    “My reputation?” Sibyl gave a short, strangled laugh. The memory of Alistair and her uncle and their concern for her reputation seemed very far away in this strange place. “I don’t care about my reputation any longer.”
     
    “Ye will,” he assured her with a short nod. “If ye want to return to yer world.”
     
    If. Not when, if. As if it was a question. And was it? She wondered. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it a few hours ago, would have jumped on the first horse she could find and rode hell-bent on getting away from this place, away from Scotland, away. Away.
     
    But she had been so focused on running away, she hadn’t considered where she might be running to.
     
    “I’ll be right outside,” he told her again, once more pulling at the door.
     
    And Sibyl interrupted him yet again.
     
    “This is silly!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in helpless desperation. “This room is big, there’s a fire. You can’t sleep in the hallway. You’ll catch your death!”
     
    “No.” His gaze didn’t move from her face, his eyes saying so much, his mouth so little. “I can’na sleep in ‘ere.”
     
    “Why not?” she protested.
     
    “Because…” He hesitated just a moment before finishing his sentence. “I can’na trust myself around ye.”
     
    “Trust yourself…” She laughed again, she couldn’t help it. “To do what? Not eat me?”
     
    He smiled back at her, but there was no humor in it. In fact, the look in his eyes told her he was far from joking. Everything about him bespoke of the seriousness of his words, even though they might have been spoken in jest.
     
    “That’s na’what I’m hungry fer when I look at ye, lass.”
     
    Sibyl couldn’t answer that. There weren’t words. She felt the heat of his gaze on her body as if he had touched her with his admission, as if he’d undressed her in an instant and had his way with her. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even think.
     
    He seemed to understand her sudden silence. That understanding was in his gaze as he dropped it to the floor and murmured, “G’nite,” for one final time before he pulled the door closed.
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    It felt as if no time had passed at all when Kirstin knocked and entered her room in the morning. Maybe it was because it was still