Chapter 6
six
Bear’s hand found her thigh two miles from town. His palm was wide and heavy, half on the inside of her thigh.
And then he flipped open the button on her pants.
Everything north of her navel went white-hot and static.
He didn’t even bother with the zipper, just worked his hand inside her waistband, knuckles dragging rough along the skin above her hip.
Her foot slipped on the gas and the Jeep surged forward.
She righted it with a curse, and then his fingers were sliding beneath the waistband of her boyshorts, until two of them—blunt, callused, impossibly gentle for the size of them—pressed against the heat of her.
Her body went traitorously, humiliatingly, molten for him. She was soaked and as he dragged his finger through the dampness, he made a low sound—barely a noise, really, more of a seismic event somewhere in the world’s core.
Her hands locked on the wheel at ten and two. “Bear, I’m driving,” she hissed, but it came out just above a gasp.
“Multitask.” He found her clit with the pad of his middle finger and her hips jerked up so hard she nearly drove them into the curb.
“Jesus Christ,” she managed.
“Eyes on the road, Tink.”
She didn’t dare look at him. She stared hard at the road and, for the first time in her life, wished she had one of those creepy self-driving cars.
The Jeep’s tires hummed on the blacktop, but the only sound she could focus on was her own ragged breathing and Bear’s soft growl when he dipped a finger between her folds.
Hot sparks raked her spine. She bit down on a sound, focused so hard on merging out of habit that she signaled even though there was nobody for miles. She could barely operate her own goddamn body, let alone heavy machinery.
He pressed inside her. Just once, just enough to test, and then drew back to drag his wet finger up to circle again. He was going to make her come before they reached Summit.
King thrust his head between the seats, chin landing heavy on Bear’s shoulder, and Bear shoved him back without looking. “Down.”
King whined, affronted. Atlas, better trained and more dignified, stayed curled in the back, watching the proceedings with amber eyes that seemed to say you are both being extremely human right now.
Bear curled two fingers into her and then—then withdrew, only to slide them wet and slow around her clit until she was panting.
Focus on the road, Tink.
Impossible.
She caught the reflection of his face in the rearview: jaw locked, dark eyes fixed on her.
He liked watching her lose it. That bastard.
She wrenched the wheel to the right and skidded the Jeep into her parking spot behind the shop. She killed the engine. The silence was deafening, but the thundering in her chest nearly took its place. Every muscle in her legs trembled. It was a goddamn miracle she hadn’t crashed.
Bear’s hand stilled. He made no move to withdraw it.
She whimpered and bucked against his fingers. “Bear—” She meant for it to come out as a threat. Instead, it was a plea.
He ducked his head next to hers. His beard scraped against her cheek, and his breath tickled her ear.
“Still want me to stop?” The rumble of it vibrated her ribs, and she nearly bit through her tongue.
She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think. His fingers were so thick she felt every inexorable suggestion of what was coming next—not that she’d let him know he had her undone. She clamped her mouth shut and glared straight ahead, refusing to give him the satisfaction.
He nipped the shell of her ear, then pushed two fingers deep. Her body tightened around him, and she hated herself for making the keening sound that escaped her throat.
Bear exhaled hard, that growl again, softer than before, but with an edge that hit somewhere between her legs.
King barked.
“Back door,” she gasped, and scrambled out of the seat, her knees nearly buckling when his fingers slipped free. The cold air hit her like a slap, a shock so sharp she almost came on the spot.
Atlas leaped out after her and immediately circled to check the perimeter of the yard, obviously disgusted by having to chaperone his owner’s sex life.
Bear let King out into the yard, then rounded the Jeep, took one look at her face, and just—picked her up. She wasn’t light. She was muscle, not fluff. But he handled her like she was no heavier than a sack of feathers.
The parking lot was grimy and the security light barely worked, but none of it mattered. Her world shrank to the crush of Bear’s hand on her ass, the other holding her by the back of the neck.
His mouth found hers, devouring, tasting, owning, and she wrapped her legs around him as he carried her toward Summit.
They almost made it to the door, but she wanted to maul him and tore at the hem of his shirt. Needed skin, needed to touch all of him just to confirm he was real, not a hallucination brought on by years of deprivation and grief and rage.
He pinned her to the cinderblock wall behind the shop. She should have been cold, but every nerve was on fire.
She reached down and fumbled with the zipper of his jeans. Got it halfway open before he stopped her, grabbed both her wrists, and pinned them above her head.
“Impatient, Tinkerbell.”
“Your fault for teasing me.”
His laugh was more vibration than sound.
He knelt and yanked her pants and underwear low enough to bare her, and then, holy hell, his mouth was on her.
Warm tongue, cold beard. The contrast made her jerk and slap at the back of his head, but he just wrapped his arms under her thighs and…
yeah. That was perfection. She got off on power, but nothing leveled her like a man on his knees with his face buried between her legs.
His tongue was deadly, but it was the way he groaned, low and hungry, that undid her.
She came in seconds. Embarrassing, spectacular, full-body shudders that made her want to black out.
He stayed through it, mouth never let go, not even when she said his name, not even when she shook all over and tried to shove him away.
He stayed until her legs gave out and her vision turned white, and then he caught her before she could collapse to the asphalt.
He pressed his face to her hipbone, breathing hard, and she realized her fingers were buried in his hair.
She caught her breath and dragged his head up by the back of his neck, more demanding than she meant, and kissed him. It tasted like her and him together, and she moaned into his mouth. His beard scraped her chin, and she wanted to bite him, so she did.
“Inside,” she whispered, though she wasn’t entirely sure if she was telling him to get inside her or take her inside first.
Bear got the door open with her still wrapped around him, his shoulder catching the frame hard enough that the whole wall shuddered.
The back room was dark and smelled like neoprene and wet dog, and she didn’t care about any of it because his hand was already working under her shirt, his palm covering her breasts.
He walked her backward in the dark, and the backs of her thighs hit the edge of the cot.
She sat hard and pulled him down by the front of his shirt and kissed him until she had to come up for air.
He yanked off his shirt. His chest and stomach were slabs of dense, coiled muscle, the skin warm and prickly with hair, and she ran her palms up the whole of it like she had to memorize it.
He made a sound against her neck, and she dug her fingers into his sides.
Atlas stepped through the open doorway behind them and froze.
Greta registered the silence before anything else. Atlas was a dog who moved constantly—nose snuffling, tags clacking, nails clicking. The sudden quiet was wrong. She lifted her head.
He stood in the threshold between the back room and the front shop, body rigid, head forward, his posture radiating alarm.
She was off the cot before Bear could react. She grabbed the Maglite from the gear rack beside the door — muscle memory, she’d hung it in the same spot for five years — and clicked it on. “Stay here.”
“Like hell.” Bear was beside her, shirt still half-tangled, pants still undone, and she didn’t have the time or the desire to argue.
She pushed through the doorway into the front shop.
The beam swept the room and landed on devastation.
Every drawer in the back counter had been yanked open and emptied onto the floor.
The filing cabinet was on its side, folders scattered, maps she’d spent years marking ripped from the wall and crumpled.
The glass display case — SAR vests and specialist gear — had been smashed open with something heavy.
Her trip-planning binders were scattered across the sales floor like someone had picked them up and flung them one by one.
The register drawer hung open and emptied, though she kept less than forty dollars in it.
This wasn’t a robbery.
Thieves grabbed and ran. Whoever did this had been looking for something specific, and they’d moved through the shop systematically, angrily, leaving no surface unturned.
Atlas pressed his nose to the floor and moved in a slow arc, tracking something. She let him work and moved the flashlight to the far wall.
Her trip-scheduling whiteboard — the big one, where she chalked out guide dates and client names and weather forecasts — had been wiped clean. In its place, two words had been spray-painted in thick red letters, block capitals, each one the height of her torso:
STOP LOOKING.
She read them. Then read them again. Her brain kept trying to reassign them, to make them mean something less than they meant, and kept failing.
Bear came up beside her and stopped.
The shop was quiet except for Atlas’s breathing and the distant bark of King outside, who had apparently not registered any of this as an emergency.
Bear’s jaw worked like he was chewing glass as he took in the room — the tipped cabinet, the scattered maps — and then his gaze returned to the wall and stayed there.
STOP LOOKING.
She should be scared. She waited for the fear to come. What she got instead was something colder and harder, settling in her chest like iron dropped into still water.
STOP LOOKING.
No.
No, she abso-fucking-lutely would not.