Chapter 24
twenty-four
Greta was on his porch.
He spotted her when his truck’s headlights swept over the house as he pulled into the driveway.
Curled up in the cedar chair on the left—the one she always took when she came over, though she would deny she’d claimed it if you asked—with her SAR fleece zipped to her chin and her chin tipped down toward her chest. Her hair had come most of the way loose from its clip.
Atlas was sprawled out beside her, also sound asleep.
She’d come here after hours of callouts. After, presumably, driving home in rain so heavy the wipers couldn’t keep up. She’d gotten out of the Jeep and made it as far as his porch, then sat down and stopped.
Not the Bear could blame her. They’d been going nonstop for over twenty-four hours. He was exhausted, cold, and aching everywhere, so he could only imagine how she felt.
She could have gone home. She could have sat with the dog and a bottle of whatever she poured into her old flask. Instead, she was here, sound asleep and leaking rain on his porch like a stray left at the door.
Logan stirred in the passenger seat, sitting up sluggishly and yawning. “Are we home?”
“Yeah.”
“Why aren’t you getting out?” He followed Bear’s gaze to the porch. “Oh. Is she still mad at you?”
Bear winced. By the time he’d gone to pick up Logan, the news of his and Greta’s fight and kiss outside the firehouse had already spread to Valor Ridge. And, of course, River being River had given him hell for it right there in front of Logan.
“Probably. Hang on. Let me go talk to her.” He slid out of the truck and caught King’s collar before the dog launched himself out of the cab. “Logan, hold him.”
Logan reached over and got both hands into King’s collar with a grunt. “Oh, hold still, you huge doofus.”
King’s tail went like a propeller. He knew Greta was on the porch. He could probably smell Atlas. He wanted out and lunged for the exit again.
Logan managed to hold him back long enough for Bear to shut the door.
He jogged toward the porch and wiped the rain off his face once he was under cover again.
Atlas lifted his head and read Bear with those amber eyes, then looked back at Greta and put his chin down again. His tail thumped tiredly.
Permission granted.
“Thanks, buddy.” Bear crouched in front of the chair. “Hey. Greta.”
If she heard him, she didn’t show it.
Her face was relaxed in sleep, all of the sharp, stubborn angles gone soft.
She breathed evenly, the fleece rising and falling in a slow rhythm.
He put the back of his hand close to her cheek without touching it.
Warm enough. Not shivering. Just out, deeply and completely, the way a person went under when they’d been running too long on too little.
He got one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and stood. She gave a murmur of protest, but turned her face into his chest.
Atlas rose on his feet and trotted ahead to the door.
As he carried her inside, he waved the all clear for Logan to release King and come in.
The hallway was narrow for a man his size even when he wasn’t holding someone, and he took the stairs carefully. She was light. Lighter than he expected, every time, like some part of him still hadn’t calculated the difference between how much space she took up and how much she actually weighed.
He laid her down on his bed. Pulled off her boots, one then the other, and set them on the floor by the nightstand. He reached across for the quilt and drew it up over her. She turned onto her side and tucked one hand under her cheek, and her breathing went deep and even again almost immediately.
He stood there.
Behind him, Logan appeared in the doorway. He hadn’t heard him on the stairs. He was leaning against the frame in his soaked hoodie with King and Atlas looming in the hallway behind him. He was staring at the bed—at Greta asleep under the quilt—with an expression that was hard to read in the dark.
“Logan?”
Then he looked at Bear. “If you love her, it’s okay with me.” A pause. “I think she’s good for you.”
Bear opened his mouth, but nothing came out except a rush of air. If Logan had hauled off and punched him in the gut, he’d have been less surprised.
Logan pushed off the doorframe. He got his arm around King’s neck and steered him back down the hall. Atlas hesitated a beat, then followed.
Bear heard his bedroom door open and close, and then the house went quiet again.
He turned back to the bed.
Greta was still asleep. Her hair spread across his pillow in a fall of orange gold. One hand had come out from under her cheek and lay open on the mattress like she was waiting for something.
I think she’s good for you.
Christ. He did not deserve that kid.
Logan’s light went off around one-thirty, the thin strip under his door disappearing, and the house went fully quiet. But Bear still sat in the corner chair with his forearms on his knees and watched Greta breathe.
He hadn’t gotten into bed. Hadn’t changed his clothes. He’d pulled his boots off and sat down, and that was as far as he’d gotten.
She stirred around two, one hand moving across the quilt as if she was searching for something. She lay still for a moment with her eyes open, scanning the geography of the room— ceiling, curtains, the nightstand, the boots on the floor. Then she found him in the corner.
She looked at him for a long time without speaking. “How long was I out?”
“Couple hours.”
She pushed herself upright, pushed the hair off her face with both hands, and swung her legs off the bed. She crossed the room and stopped in front of him. He didn’t stand up. She put one knee on the chair arm, then the other on the opposite side, and settled into his lap, facing him.
He was instantly hard.
She kissed him like she hadn’t seen him in a year, and her hands roamed over him like she was checking for damage.
A shudder moved through her, a full-body exhale, and then she was pushing his flannel off his shoulders.
His hands circled her hips, then her waist, then found their way under the fleece, needing her skin in his palms. He’d spent nearly two years not touching her, and now he couldn’t get enough.
She rolled her hips, impatient. “Bear, I need you.”
“Take what you need, Greta.”
She shoved both hands under his T-shirt, dragging it up until she could get her palms on his chest, then she sank her fingers into the muscle there like she meant to leave indentations.
He put his hands around her waist, felt the ridges of muscle under the fleece, the heat radiating out of her even though she must have been half-frozen less than an hour ago.
She rocked into him, feeding the ache that had been knotted up in his gut since the firehouse, since the bank of the flood ditch, since she’d said fuck you, Dane and then kissed him like she’d never forgive him.
She bit his jaw, just below the hinge, and he hissed. “Not going to be gentle?” he rumbled, the words catching in his throat.
She grinned against his face. “You like when I hurt you a little.” Her tongue traced the mark she’d left. “And you deserve it.”
Not wrong.
She reached between them, worked the button of his jeans with one hand, and freed his cock, stroking him with long, hard pulls.
He grunted. The pressure was almost a relief, but he wasn’t going to last if she kept doing that. “Greta…”
She lifted herself up to pull her leggings down, then lined herself up. She slid onto him, so… fucking… slow, and it felt so fucking good he had to dig his hands into the arms of the chair to keep from moving.
She rode him with her eyes open, pupils huge and dark, hair falling around her face. The freckles across her nose stood out in the low light, and her mouth was parted, panting. Every time she bottomed out and circled her hips, she made a sound that was almost a growl.
The chair creaked, the old wood protesting as she picked up the pace, but she didn’t let up.
She locked eyes with him and rode him until the world narrowed to the heat of her, the pull of her body, the way her pussy clamped down on him tighter every time she rocked forward.
He wanted to last. He wanted it to never end.
But she had him right at the edge, and she knew it.
She came first, the orgasm threading through her whole body, and she bit his shoulder to keep quiet.
The feel of her coming on his cock nearly undid him.
She slowed for a minute, catching her breath, then started moving again, slow and deep, working him until he couldn’t hold back.
He grabbed her by the waist, pulled her down hard, and came so hard he thought he might black out.
When it was done, she went soft against him, her face in the crook of his neck, her arms around his head. He was still buried inside her, and every little move she made sent shock waves through his system.
He didn’t know how long they sat there, wrapped around each other in the dark. His mind was blank, every part of him wrung out, but in the best possible way—there was nothing left in the world except the warmth of her and the faint, distant sound of King snoring from Logan’s room.
When she finally shifted, it was only to press her lips to his ear and whisper, “Bed, Teddy Bear. I need your whole body on me.”
He picked her up, carried her the three steps to the bed, and laid her down on top of the quilt.
She reached for him, and he came down, crushing her, careful but not careful enough to hold back all his weight.
She wanted it. She hooked her ankles behind him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and let him press her into the mattress.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this alive.
He woke to the sound of rain on the roof and, for a second, the world was perfect. Just her and him, pressed chest to back, her breath slow and even against his arm.