How Not To Date a Bear (4 page)

So she skip-hopped the few feet, cursing silently as the tile floor proved to be as cold as her imaginings. She did her business, debated about washing her hands for a moment before she braved the cold water -- the hot water always took too long to flow -- but she wanted to touch Declan with clean hands. Her toilet taken care of, she stumbled-ran back to the bed and the heater that currently occupied most of the space.

There was nothing like a fuzzy bed warmer, and she was sure she’d found the best one out there.

When she slid her chilled form next to his, Declan snorted, his soft snoring easing for a moment, before he cracked open one bleary eye. He stared at her for a moment before turning his face back toward the pillows.

Gillian was going to pout, but before she could work up a head of anger at being dismissed so easily, he rolled over in one massive wave of man and blankets, and she found herself snuggled against his soft, fuzzy chest.

Heaven, she decided, wiggling her face into his massive pecs before tucking her feet between his legs and sighing in relief. Heat, precious body heat, and it was all hers for the taking.

She had just relaxed against him when she suddenly had to resist the urge to sneeze.

What the hell?

In the dim light cast by the moon, she leaned back and examined the beautifully fuzzy chest where she’d been reclining, and noted there was a bit more fuzz than before. She blinked a few times to clear her eyes, but yes, his mat of chest hair was a bit thicker.

She looked up into his face and noted the heavy growth of his nighttime beard and relaxed a bit. That explained it all. The man did have a five o’clock shadow that most men would take days to grow. That meant that he probably had a rapid growth of body hair as well.

So her mister perfect was anything but. And that was fine with her. She had been a little uncomfortable with the absolute infallibility of the man. This made him seem more human to her eyes.

So he had a manscaping secret. It was almost cute, she decided.

She could picture him in the bathroom with thinning shears getting his chest just so. Declan was a big, tough, uber-masculine guy. To find out he had this little vanity only endeared him to her more.

And now it was up to her to try and help him maintain his appearances.

She wiggled out of his arms once more and this time he cracked open both eyes. The bleary green orbs stared down at her as he grunted his question.

“Again?” His voice was sleep-roughened and took on the same timbre it possessed during their most extreme bout of sex. He didn’t bother to lift his head. He just stared at her, waiting for her answer.

“I want to brush you.” She felt herself blush as she admitted this.

Both his eyebrows went up at that. “You want to groom me?”

“Groom.” She thought for a moment, and then nodded at the appropriateness of the word. “Yes. May I?”

He stared at her again before a small grin broke across his full lips.

“Sure.” He spoke around a wide yawn, arching up his body in a bone-cracking stretch. Then his eyes slid shut as he turned over onto his back, and just as quickly he was again lost to his dreams.

Delighted, Gillian almost clapped her hands in joy, but remembered at the last moment to let sleeping bears lie.

She was going to get to trim him and stroke him, and make sure that perfect pelt of hair on his chest stayed that way. She slid out of the bed and made her way toward her closet where she kept her best hairstyling equipment. She eased the doors open and went to her organizer to examine the brushes and combs stored there.

There was one made of boar hair, but she rejected it quickly at the thought of the scratches and welts it could leave on his darkly tanned body. She considered one with synthetic bristles -- it was softer, but it just didn’t seem special enough.

She wrinkled her nose as she looked around her storage unit, contemplating her inventory, but nothing seemed right.

She was about to just give up and use the synthetic brush when she caught sight of the small wooden box at the top of her closet. Many-times-over Grandmother’s box, she thought as she reached for the memento. With reverence, she carried the box back to the bed before lifting the lid.

There, nestled in a small silk scarf, were a brush, comb, and razor. It would be considered a woman’s dresser set if not for the razor. Instead, it was a nice barber’s set, one used by the once-matron of her family, passed on to her by her grandmother and then down to Gillian.

The set was made of pale ivory, etched with what she’d been told was once her family’s crest. The dark gold lines always looked like trees and bushes to her, but her grandmother had told her they meant strength and fidelity.

The large, oval brush was made with the oddest bristles. They were a medium brown, stiff and soft at the same time. No one could identify the hair, but every daughter in direct line to this many-times-over grandmother was given the set and told it was part of their legacy.

And Gillian’s legacy was long and proud. Her ancestors had migrated from somewhere in Russia and settled in the Americas. There the women seemed to take on a prominent role in the family, using their natural talents to support their people in times of strife.

Everyone loved to look good, even in the most severe conditions. The ladies in her line took advantage of that. Gillian was descended from a long line of hair stylists and cosmetologists, and they were proud of their occupation. In early America, they styled the hair of frontier ladies and lords, curled the hair of the most expensive courtesans, tended to the locks of the lowest bordello or saloon girl, and brought in gold for traveling to mining camps and getting the lads ready for their weekend trips into town.

The women of her family always sought strong, big men to stand at their sides, to protect them when need be and to allow them their fun when they got to play with their mates when they were alone.

All of the women in Gillian’s family had a fetish for big, somewhat hairy men, and Gillian was no exception.

And now she held the special ivory brush, the one she only occasionally brought out and played with when she was feeling low, and made ready to use it on the man in her bed.

It was odd that she wanted to use it on a man she’d picked up for a one-off, but there was something about Declan that made her believe he would be around for a while.

Setting the box, which also contained the ivory comb, a straight razor that to this day remained remarkably sharp, and the thick leather strop, on her bedside table, she got to work.

Declan’s chest hair was disheveled, and that irritated her. She began to softly run the brush over his chest, being careful not to catch his nipples, but stroking the soft hair until it lay flat against his skin.

A purring sound rolled up from his chest and in his sleep he smiled softly, nesting closer to her touch. He was enjoying this, she decided, and began to brush a little lower.

She rested her hand on the bed at his narrow hips and leaned over to apply the brush over his lean stomach, counting the cobblestones of his six pack. Of course, this made her tingle in places that were so used they had no business reacting, but she went on, noting that his once lax cock was starting to perk up and show some interest in the proceedings.

She made her way lower to his groin, where the hair began to grow wild again.

She didn’t like that, not at all. The man was so well groomed that it was almost an affront to see his pubic region so unruly.

Come to think of it, it hadn’t been that wild when they were having sex. So, like his five o’clock shadow, which was looking more and more like a midnight beard, his hair must grow fast.

And since he himself kept his area neat and tidy, probably on a daily basis, Gillian felt he wouldn’t mind if she trimmed him up a little.

She flipped on a dim bedside reading lamp and eased out of the bed and braved the icy tile floors to retrieve a bath sheet, a bath cloth, a bar of hypoallergenic soap, and a slim basin of hot water. With her goods, she stealthily made her way back to the bed and to her lover.

She dampened and soaped up her cloth and began to mop his groin.

This brought one eye open again, and he actually lifted his head this time. He looked down the length of his body, noted that she was washing him off, and lay back down. “Clean is good,” he muttered and then was out again in seconds.

After he was sufficiently soapy, she reached for the razor. She flicked it open and an odd smile crossed her lips as she watched the edge gleam in the dim light as she hefted the blade high.

A brief Sweeney Todd moment flashed in her mind, and she felt the urge to sing to her razor like the murderous barber. But the moment swiftly passed, and she looked down at his defenseless crotch, planning her attack.

She started at the top of his pelvic bone, running the blade gently over the hair, thinning it in a way that only a trained professional could without causing injury or trimming mistakes. She had thinned the hair all the way to the base of his bloating cock and was going in for another swipe when he jerked and snuffled in his sleep.

She pulled the razor back, but not fast enough. She didn’t nick his skin -- she was too good for that -- but she had managed to take a bit more hair than she’d anticipated. She shrugged. It would take some time and an observant eye, but she could even him out. She rinsed off her blade and went back to fix the small mistake… but it was too thin below now. It made his chest look funny.

So she moved up, soaping his pliant body, thinning the hair there… but it made his legs and arms look bad.

Frowning, she returned to his groin, trying to thin it out a little more, and soon became lost in her work.

It was like something in his body caused her to drop into a trance. She hummed softly under her breath as she got into a steady rhythm -- soap, shave, rinse, repeat. She was so into her work that she hadn’t realized that she had shaved the man’s legs until she was attempting to take the last of the hair off the knuckle on his big toe.

That was so not good, she thought, abashed at what she had done.

Declan was going to murder her, she thought, pulling her hands away and looking over his newly denuded front.

Well, even without the essential hair, the man was still hot. And now she could see the clear strength and power of his body. His hair had softened him in some way, made him look dangerous but reasonable. Without hair, he was an intimidating tower of muscle with nothing to soften the impression.

He was not going to be happy, she thought, picking up the towel, patting at his damp skin.

Frankly, she was amazed he had slept through this. She was more amazed that she had done it. She had never lost herself before. It was like she was marking the man, making sure any other bear lovers would steer clear of her man.

It was an odd notion, but it lent her a strange comfort. As for Declan, he snuffled as she finished drying off his chest, then he rolled over to his stomach.

There Gillian saw another problem. His front was bald as a freshly plucked chicken, but the back of him was another story. There wasn’t a lot of hair there, but it was enough to make him look really odd when compared to his front. It would have to go.

She frowned at the soapy, hair-laden basin of water before she rose to change it.

She brought the razor and the strop too. It had not really been dulled, his hair was so soft, but she could sharpen it a bit more, just in case.

The razor maintenance went quickly, and she returned to the bed with fresh water and a freshly sharpened razor.

Doing the back was way easier than the front. She recalled biting her bottom lip as she carefully denuded his nipples, but his shoulders were done with incredible ease. And just to be on the safe side, she soaped down his back and buttocks and took what little fine hairs were there.

It took mere moments for her to dispose of the used water, sponge off his back, and wipe him down. Then she was snuggling into soft, warm, hairless skin. He still seemed to give off the same amount of heat, but she missed the soft layer of fur that had cushioned her body.

She grinned as he grumbled in his sleep and flipped over, grabbing her and pulling her against his chest.

Again enveloped in his huge arms and his wonderful heat, she sighed softly and allowed herself to slip away to dreamland, comforted by his very presence.

Some time later, his screams of outrage woke her.

Chapter Four

“Woman! What have you done?”

Declan’s voice jerked Gillian out of a perfectly good sleep and threw her into a reality that wasn’t so bright.

One moment she was naked, rolling around in a field of cotton balls with the sun beaming down on her perfect skin, and the next she was leaping out of bed, getting her legs tangled in the blankets and nearly falling flat on her face.

Declan’s gentle intervention prevented her from breaking her nose, but his tone when he spoke to her was pure anger.

“Wha --?” she managed, still trying to figure out what was going on. She was trying to make her brain start when she was easily lifted and planted in the middle of the bed.

She blinked blurry eyes up at Declan, and then she recalled what her late night/early morning grooming session had wrought.

“Oh. I yacked you a bit,” she explained around a yawn.

“You… yacked me?” His green eyes were narrowed in anger as he stared at her. His fists clenched and unclenched, and he was huffing hard, that odd, low tone reverberating from him.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, easing a bit away. He was virtually a stranger, and now that common sense had returned in the light of day, maybe shaving him -- or allowing him to stay, for that matter -- had not been the brightest of ideas.

“But -- but --” he stammered, looking confused and just like that, the fear was gone. “But I’m a bear.”

“You were a bear,” she said kindly, reaching out to take one clenching fist and patting the soft skin there, gently. She had not removed all the hair from the backs of his hands, just most of it. The skin underneath was very soft. “And you will become one again. At the rate your hair grows, I’d give it two days before you’re back to normal.”