Baby For The Bear

“What can I say?” he replied.

To go to breakfast in the kitchen, Ken pulled on just his slacks and Samantha donned just Ken’s shirt, keeping the upper buttons alluringly open. Samantha was mildly surprised that Ken did not attack and maul her one more time in the bedroom before going to the kitchen for breakfast, but at least for the moment, the bear was hungry for something other than her.

Ken sat with her at the kitchen table, looking more interested in her “muffins” than the blueberry and cranberry ones they were having with their eggs, and said, “Tomorrow, when we go over to my place, I want you to pack some things to come and stay for a week.”

“A whole week?” Samantha replied, her heart leaping a bit.

“A week,” he said. “I work and exercise in the same place where I live. I just go downstairs to work. I go upstairs to come home. I want to come home to you for a while. I’ll get you a membership in a gym that I know near me that has a pool; you’ll want to keep up with your swimming while I’m at work. But when I come home, I want you there—ready for me.” The meaning of that last part shone in his eyes. What could a girl say to a request like that?

“Are you going to send for the limo to pick us up?” she asked.

“And I’m clearing tomorrow morning for more of what we’re doing today.”

*****

“I call it my cave in the sky,” Ken said, carrying Samantha’s big leather travel bag, as they stepped off the elevator into his living room.

“Some cave,” said Samantha, walking slowly into the penthouse with him and having her first look around. This was her first visit to a penthouse. She refused to behave like some common middle-class girl, excited to be in ultra-luxurious surroundings that looked like the fortune that they cost. The whole way over from her apartment to here, she had prepared herself to be quietly impressed. And she was.

The penthouse was two levels, with a long, gentle staircase leading from the lower, where they were in the living room, to the upper. One entire wall was made up of windows from floor to ceiling, looking out on the city. It was the most wide-open living space Samantha had ever seen. “Over there,” he gestured to a threshold leading to another part of the place, “is the kitchen and dining room area, the library, the home theatre, and the gym. Upstairs,” he pointed to that gently sloping staircase, “are the bedrooms, the upper baths, and the sauna and hot tub. There’s a lot of room in every space. I like room. It’s a big cave. You’ll have the run of the place when I’m not here. Help yourself to anything you like.”

She did a turn-around, calmly taking it all in, refusing to display the excitement bubbling up in her as if she were the winning contestant on a game show. The place was stunningly fabulous; Samantha almost heard bells and “winner” music going off in her head.

When she came to a stop looking at Ken, he added, “When I’m here, of course…you’ll be helping yourself to me.” He said it with the same expression he’d worn at breakfast. “I don’t wear a lot of clothes at home, most of the time. “I usually go in just a pair of jeans, or my underwear. Or nothing.”

Samantha broke into a ridiculous grin. “You go around this place all the time naked? Or next to it?”

“I don’t need clothes when it’s just me. And I don’t need them for the kind of company I usually have and what I do with them. And I’m sure as hell not going to need them when it’s just you and me.”

His look and his tone practically made her toes curl in her shoes. A fantasy penthouse, occupied by a spectacular-looking naked man—and all of it and him at her service. Samantha had truly stepped into a waking dream. But it made something occur to her.

“Ken…?” she began.

“Yes?”

“I just realized something.”

“What’s that?”

“I know we’ve just gotten together and just gotten started. But I just realized…I haven’t seen you, you know…that way. That is, the other way you are sometimes.”

“Oh, right. You’ve seen me in my birthday suit, but not my bear skin.” He paused, sighing mildly. “Well, since we’re getting naked anyway, we can take care of that upstairs.” He tilted his head to the stairs. “Come on.”

And so Samantha, with Ken carrying her bag, climbed the stairs for the upper level of the penthouse. Her skin tingled on the way up at the thought of being with the sexy beast in his lair.