Between the Bear's Sheets (Wylde Brothers 2)

The scent of coffee beans and fresh pastries filled her senses, and she couldn’t help but fall in love with the small town a little more, despite the fact that Mina was from here. It certainly wasn’t like LA with cars packed back-to-back, the overly tanned residents walking around, and the posh shops lining the streets.

For the hundredth time since she had come to Sweet Water, Talia wondered how a quaint and gorgeous little town could produce such a vile and obnoxious creature as Mina.

An upbeat song played overhead, and the sound of laughter and hushed voices filled the small interior. After ordering the biggest latte they made, she took a step back, and people-watched while she waited for her order. A human couple sat close together at a table. The man held both of the woman’s hands, and they stared lovingly at each other.

There was a coyote shifter sitting alone in the corner, his laptop in front of him, and his black-framed glasses perched high on his nose.

A snow leopard shifter held a crying baby on her hip and tried to calm the child. All Talia could do was smile at each of them. What she wouldn’t give for something like that: normalcy and blissful chaos. As it was, she had immersed herself in her studies over the past six years. Finally acquiring her master’s degree in education, she was ready to start her life.

It wasn’t as if she had much time during school to date, but it also didn’t help that her bright, wild red hair and pale-blue eyes, compliments of her mother’s red fox genes, made her appear slightly off in the appearance category. So basically that meant she hadn’t exactly had guys beating down her door to take her out, but that was all right, because it gave her the time to focus on her schoolwork. Her looks tended to steer men away, as if she was some kind of freak.

She also wasn’t the tiniest thing, not with a figure pushing size eighteen and a height of only five-foot-five. She felt like an Oompa Loompa on the best of days. Damn Luke for taking after their father’s cougar genes. With his blond hair, dark eyes, and muscular, six-foot-two frame, he was quite a catch, and not to mention wealthy and intelligent. He was every female’s dream guy, and here she was, his fat, ginger sister.

When her order was up, she took the steaming oversized latte and started making her way toward the front door. A beeping noise from her purse alerted her to a text, most likely from Mina asking where in the hell she was. Reaching into her purse and digging around for her phone, she slammed right into a wall, or at least that was what it felt like.

The jarring motion of her suddenly coming to a halt had her arm slamming back into her chest and her latte spilling down the front of her white blouse. Of course the lid popped off, and the scorching liquid splashed against her skin, causing her to cry out in pain and surprise. She instantly gripped the material of her shirt and pulled it away from her body.

“Oh shit. Are you okay?” The deep voice had chills instantly popping out along her flesh, even though pain like no other spread across her chest. Looking up and seeing a wide, ridiculously chiseled chest hidden behind thin white cotton, Talia continued her ascent until she was looking into bright blue eyes and dark-brown hair shaved close to his head.

The light coloring of his eyes mixed with the twin dark slashes of his eyebrows made for a striking combination. The scent of male bear filled her nose, and she was surprised that her reaction to him was so immediate.

He took hold of her upper arm, and the next thing she knew, the noise from the café vanished, her shirt was ripped open, and he had a cold rag pressed to her chest. All of this seemed to happen in a matter of seconds, and it took her a moment to realize what in the hell was going on.

Relief was instant, but then realization that her shirt no longer covered her and that this strange, gorgeous man could no doubt see her breasts and fat rolls had her pushing his hands away and taking several steps back, clenching the edges of her coffee-stained shirt together.

She bumped into a stack of boxes, which of course had them crashing all around her. Heat flooded her face, and she looked everywhere but at the gorgeous bear shifter who was just a few feet from her. He had taken her into the café’s storage room apparently. The scent of coffee beans was strong, but it didn’t deter the fact that she made a complete ass out of herself in front of this man.