Her Bear Protector [The Protectors 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  The Protectors 1

  Her Bear Protector

  From the minute Ronan Bernhard roars into Tina Snowdon’s sleepy village on his Harley, he inhabits her thoughts and dreams. The inked mountain rescue biker is a sex-on-legs hunk, and her knickers aren’t the only ones that melt in a flash at his wicked smile. Ronan, however, keeps his distance and simply becomes another client of her cleaning firm, until the morning she turns up and finds his cottage trashed, and her life is turned upside down.

  Bear Shifter Ronan recognizes his mate the minute he scents her. Having her clean for him means he can watch over her from afar, because to claim her as his mate and sub is out of the question. As the village protector he has responsibilities he can’t ignore—duties that will place Tina in grave danger—even if she were able to accept not only his bear, but also his darker desires. The morning she finds him injured, his bear takes over…

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifter

  Length: 34,181 words

  HER BEAR PROTECTOR

  The Protectors 1

  Doris O’Connor

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at

  [email protected]

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  HER BEAR PROTECTOR

  Copyright © 2014 by Doris O’Connor

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-437-3

  First E-book Publication: October 2014

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Her Bear Protector by Doris O’Connor from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Doris O’Connor’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Doris O’Connor’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To Tina with thanks for the awesome Inspiration.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  HER BEAR PROTECTOR

  The Protectors 1

  DORIS O’CONNOR

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  Normally speaking, Tina loved the twisty, narrow, country roads that made up the Cumbrian countryside, but not this morning. Late already, thanks to old Mrs. Hastings’s insistence that Tina tried her scones—delicious as they had been—she now rounded a blind corner and slammed on the emergency brakes. Cleaning supplies went flying around the inside of her little, beat-up Mini, and the handle of the mop narrowly missed the side of her head.

  “Jesus.” The expletive hung in the air, and Tina said a silent prayer to any possible deity she might have offended. Not that Tina believed in any of that stuff, per se, but better to be safe than sorry.

  The lone sheep, and the sole reason for her almost being knocked out by her work equipment, blinked and stared at her in disgust, as though it owned the one-track road, and Tina swore and stood on her horn. A forlorn baaa was her answer. Said sheep shook its matted fur and after another longer toot from Tina’s car horn, finally trotted out of the way and onto the grass verge.

  Tina rolled her eyes, and drove off more slowly, mindful of the other sheep traipsing along the side of the road. Clearly there was a break in the fence somewhere.

  By the time she finally pulled up outside Ronan Bernhard’s cottage, neatly tucked away at the side of the forest, she was over an hour late, which would have been a good thing, because he shouldn’t be at home now. His Harley, however, sat outside the quaint thatched roof cottage, next to an expensive-looking car, that definitely did not belong to a local.

  Great, just great. Tina knew it was going to be one of those days from the minute the sheep in the field across the lane from her house, had woken her up with their loud bleating before the sky had even had a chance to turn orange. Come to think of it she was sick to death of sheep. They were blooming everywhere. Tina turned her engine off and listened to it run on for a good few minutes, before it finally stopped. Another thing to add to her to-do list. She really needed to take it to the local garage. If only the mechanic didn’t make her feel as though he was undressing her with her eyes, and offered to do it cheaply for her, if she was nice to him. Somehow Tina didn’t think he meant nice as in bringing him some home baked cookies.

  A shiver went down Tina’s spine, and not one of the good sort. She supposed she could have asked Ronan. After all he maintained his Harley entirely by himself, and more than once she had turned up to clean his cottage to find him elbow deep in grease, working on the old truck he kept in his garage.

  Tina shook her head and groaned. Oh no, don’t go there. Images of a sweaty, greasy Ronan Bernhard were the last thing she needed right now. Not after the erotic dreams she had the previous night which had been filled with none other than the volunteer mountain rescuer. Dreams in which he’d been buried deep inside her body, his muscular, tattooed arms straining with the effort to hold his weight off
of her, while his piercing blue eyes had stared right into her soul. Tina had woken up, wrapped in her sheets, sweaty and horny, and even after several sessions with her BOB she’d had trouble going back to sleep.

  The fact that Ronan might even now be doing that sort of horizontal action with some lucky woman inside his cottage, made her simultaneously wet and green with envy.

  Ever since Ronan Bernhard had roared into the little village Tina had called her home for the last two years, no other man had even come close to getting her interest. In fact, Tina was sure the knickers of the entire female population from teenage girl upward had melted in an instant, when he’d taken his helmet off, strolled into the local café, grinned, and asked for direction to the old cottage three miles up the road.

  Stood at well over six and a half feet, with his messy short brown hair, stubbly masculine jaw, and harsh features, Ronan Bernhard was drool-worthy hunk personified. The bike and the inked sleeves he sported gave him that whole bad boy look, which was so at odds with his profession as a nursery teacher. The fact he was good with kids added to the whole drop your knickers in an instant appeal he had. Couple that with a voice that dripped into a woman’s consciousness like molten chocolate, especially when he put that edge of steel into it. It meant anyone snapped to his attention. A smile to charm the hardest of hearts, and the entire village had eaten out of his hand in minutes.

  Even old Mrs. Hastings had sighed into her chamomile tea with a dreamy expression, right before she had pushed Tina forward and offered her cleaning services to the newcomer.

  “Tina here, runs the local cleaning firm, so once you’re settled in that old cottage, she’ll keep it nice and tidy for you. We all know what you bachelors are like, after all.” Mrs. Hastings had giggled like a schoolgirl and given Tina another shove toward the table Ronan had sat at, sipping his coffee.

  Tina had wanted the ground to swallow her up, when Ronan had looked up at her. Something undecipherable had crossed his harsh features and in her befuddled, lust-filled brain, Tina could have sworn his intense blue eyes had flashed to a glowing amber, before he blinked and the moment had been lost.

  He’d nodded toward Mrs. Hastings with a smile that had turned the old lady’s cheeks a nice shade of crimson, and he’d extended his hand toward Tina.

  A jolt of electricity had shot up Tina’s arm at the innocent contact and her gasp of surprise had been drowned out by an animalistic growl coming from his massive chest that meant she’d felt the vibrations right through the soles of her feet. As curious as that had been, no one else in the small café seemed to have noticed that odd reaction, and Tina had later wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. Ronan had certainly acted as though nothing unusual had occurred.

  “Have you got a business card I can reach you under?” he’d said and Tina had simply nodded, rummaged in her oversized bag for one of the flyers she had printed off yonks ago, when she’d first come to the village. She’d dropped it in his outstretched hand, and high tailed it out of there with a muttered excuse.

  Tina had been convinced she’d never hear from him again, but a week later her phone had rung, and he’d offered her an outrageous amount of money to come clean for him. The only stipulation had been that she would let him know beforehand when she turned up.

  Tina had found out to her cost that it wasn’t wise to forget that. More than once when she’d first started working for him, she’d walked in on him fresh out of the shower. One morning he seemed to have only just come home, if the smell of sex and booze that came off him was anything to go by, which had been curious, because Ronan never drank or smoke, or indeed took out any local women. Then again there were always the tourists, weren’t there.

  Again, Tina glanced toward the strange car and debated what to do. She had texted him last night to make sure she was okay to come round today, even though it wasn’t her appointed cleaning day. The village fete happened tomorrow and she had been roped in to help with that, and wouldn’t have time to swing by Ronan’s house that day.

  His reply had been curt and to the point.

  Yes, no problem. Not at home, myself, so do your thing.

  Lord only knew what the man did do in his spare time, or why he needed a cleaner. Ronan was tidy to the point of obsession, and apart from the dusting, and the occasional round of laundry there never was much for her to do. Mind you, there were the curious scratches that appeared in the wood work on a regular basis, and meant she spent hours of elbow grease getting rid of.

  If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he kept animals in the cottage, but there was no trace of them. The occasional torn bed sheets notwithstanding—testimony to either insomnia or rough sex, the thought of which made her groan out loud—there was nothing unusual about him. Well, nothing other than her completely unreasonable obsession with him, that was, and the fact that he rescued people off mountains in his free time, and made her wet with one look from under his hooded lids.

  Again she glanced at the cottage and wondered. The earlier breeze kicked up a notch and swirled some of the old hedge cuttings piled in a corner of his driveway and scattered them across the gravel. Much to her surprise the front door creaked open and then shut again, in an unusual seesaw motion. Ronan never left his front door unlocked.

  Before she could change her mind, Tina exited the car, and strode across to the creaking front door. One of the hinges was busted and there were scratch marks all over the frame that meant the hair on her neck stood on end. Another gust of wind whipped the hem of her maxi summer dress up in Marilyn Monroe style, and she made a grab for it, while trying to stop the door from slamming into her face.

  A groan carried through from the inside of the cottage, and heat rose in her cheeks. That almost sounded as though he was… Another, louder grunt this time, and the thump of something hitting the floor hard made up her mind for her. Maybe he was only having wild monkey sex with whoever owned that car outside, in which case Tina would be mortally embarrassed and make her excuses forthwith, or he was in some sort of trouble. The thought that it might be the latter, galvanized her into action and she pushed the door open fully to walk inside, and promptly froze.

  Ronan’s orderly cottage seemed to have been turned upside down by some unseen force. Smashed glass crunched under her sandaled feet, pictures hung askew and the big comfy armchair from the living room lay on its side in the hallway with all the stuffing torn out of it. Tina stuffed her fist in her mouth to stop herself from screaming, when she spotted the trail of blood that led from the wrecked living room up the stairs. The French windows leading into the back garden of the cottage had been smashed through, and the blood started there. It covered the shredded curtain and a spray of fine drops had hit the opposite wall. To top it all everything was covered in curious grey dust.

  Tina turned round, half expecting to see the mangled body of someone, and please god, don’t let it be Ronan, but the scene of devastation was all there was.

  “Fuck.”

  The distinct exclamation uttered in Ronan’s deep voice meant that Tina flew up the stairs, flung open his bedroom door, and screamed.

  Chapter Two

  Tina’s scream of horror bounced around Ronan’s skull and the bear inside him roared. All it had taken was one whiff of her scent when she’d exited the car, to rouse the animal he’d been struggling to summon ever since the shit had gone down last night. Ronan needed to shift to heal fully, but he certainly couldn’t do that in front of his cleaner. Bile rose in his throat when he struggled into an upright position and he grasped the side of the bed to pull himself up. Pain raced through his side and the stench of his own blood filled his nostrils as the movement reopened the just-healed deep gash on his neck.

  “Oh my god, don’t move. Jesus, what happened?” Over the roaring in his ears Tina’s concern registered, and her delicious scent wrapped itself around his consciousness. Heat branded his skin and jolts of electricity raced across his nerve endings when Tina ran her small hands all o
ver his naked chest. She froze for an instant, as though she, too, had felt that jolt of connection, and her scent increased, calling him to taste, to claim what was his. This is why he went out of his way to never physically touch her. His bear had scented his mate the minute she’d walked up to him a mere six months ago, when he’d first come to the village he was appointed to protect, and Ronan had known he had to keep his distance.

  Tina was one of the few humans in the shifter village, and as such completely off limits. He hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to keep her close. Having her clean for him meant he could keep an eye on her without being too obvious about his need to be close to her.

  Ronan barely suppressed his bear’s deep roar of triumph at having his mate this close to him, and grabbing Tina’s wrists he tried to stop her fingers’ frantic exploration of his body, but she simply shook his hands off.

  “Stop that, and don’t move. There’s so much blood. I need to… damn it.”

  Ronan opened his eyes to find Tina pull her cleaning apron over her head, before she proceeded to press it into the wound on his neck in a seeming effort to stem the flow of blood.

  The pressure she used hurt like a fucking bitch, and Tina murmured her apology when he swore.

  “Sorry, I know that must hurt, but we need to stop the bleeding. Who did this, Ronan? Dammit, I left my phone in the car. We need to call you an ambulance, we—”

  Her little tirade of words stopped abruptly when Ronan ran his hands up her bare legs, grasped her hips under the flare of her summer dress, and pulled her close enough to nuzzle into her abdomen.