10. Lily
LILY
T he truck growls up the mountain, but it’s not the engine rattling my nerves. It’s him.
Knox’s hands are white-knuckled on the wheel, jaw clenched so tight I can hear his teeth grind. His chest heaves like he’s still ready to fight every man in that clearing.
I try to soothe him, touch his arm. He jerks away. Not violent, but sharp enough to sting.
“Bear,” I whisper. “It’s over. Nobody hurt me or showed interest. Nobody even said anything.”
His laugh is low, humorless. “They didn’t have to. I saw their eyes.”
I sink into my seat, chew my lip. His jealousy is scorching, thick enough to choke me. At first, I liked it—revelled in it, even—but now... I don’t like that it’s clearly hurting him.
He brakes hard enough to throw up a cloud of dust when we reach the cabin, then he snatches me up and strides inside like the hounds of hell are on our tail.
Then he paces. Back and forth, like a caged animal.
I sit at the table, watching him unravel, wondering if this is the moment he finally snaps. But surprisingly, he doesn’t.
It’s fascinating to watch him rein himself in every few minutes. He even tries to distract himself, pulling bread and meat from the cooler. He sets food in front of me, then stalks to the sink, splashing water on his face. His shoulders are tight enough to snap.
Then he turns, eyes wild, and the next distraction is me.
His mouth is on mine, rough, demanding, his hands under my shirt. He drags me into his body, then swings me up in his arms, striding to the wall, growling against my throat. But then—he freezes, pulls back with his dark brown eyes burning.
“You’re sore,” he rasps, voice breaking. “I can’t.”
I blink up at him, dazed, lips swollen and that insane need building again. I almost tell him to take me anyway. Take what he needs. But what happens the next time? Because I know this won’t be the last time. And I need to manage this properly. “Bear?—”
He cuts me off, sets me down, and starts pacing again.
“Admit it,” he snarls suddenly. “Admit you’re curious about the town.”
I stiffen. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb, petal. I see it in your eyes. You want to go.”
My arms fly up. “Of course I’m curious. It’s natural.”
His chest heaves. “So you want to leave me? Is that it?”
My mouth gapes. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you want to go into town,” he insists.
My gaze drops to myself—his T-shirt hanging to my thighs, socks sagging around my calves. I sigh. “I can’t wear your T-shirt and socks forever, Bear.”
“Why the fuck not?”
I stare at him, deadpan, until he snarls and paces again.
Finally, I bite my lip, lean forward. “I need... feminine supplies. Unless you’ve got some stashed away here?”
He freezes, then I see the tops of his ears redden. I almost laugh, but I stop myself when I see the storm in his eyes.
I try to soothe him more after that. Brush my hand down his back, murmur that I’m fine, that I don’t want saving, that I don’t want anyone but him. But he doesn’t hear me.
I begin to wonder. What really happened to him? Why the anger? Why the isolation? Why does every question about his past make him look at me like I’ve drawn blood?
A couple of hours later, he stalks out of the cabin to grab the cooler from the truck, and I follow.
The barn looms, shadowed and quiet, the doors he didn’t get around to closing hanging slightly ajar.
Inside, I see all the covered shapes, tarps draped over hulking forms. Dust swirls in the sunlight cutting through the rafters.
“What’s all this?” I ask softly.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” His voice is sharp, final.
But I step closer, fingers brushing a tarp. “Bear.”
He exhales, ragged. His shoulders sag for the first time all day.
Then he grabs the edge of a tarp and yanks it off.
Underneath, gleaming even through dust, I see an old steel chair, dented and scarred. A championship belt with its leather cracked but plates still polished. A rack stacked with boots, wristbands, costumes.
My chest seizes.
WWE equipment.
Pieces of the man he used to be.
I look at him and for once, he can’t meet my eyes.
For a long moment, I can only stare.
Most of the equipment is battered and bent, but it’s been carefully, maybe even lovingly , preserved. The belt—heavy enough to anchor a man. Boots stacked like they’re waiting for him to lace them again.
The smell of dust and leather hangs in the air, thick and intimate, like I’ve stumbled into a shrine.
I move closer, fingertips brushing over the cracked leather, the tarnished metal. “Bear... this is...”
His shoulders square, but he doesn’t speak.
“This is all your stuff... from when you were The Grizzly,” I whisper. “Isn’t it?”
Still no answer.
I glance back at him. He looks carved out of stone, eyes dark and wary, like he’s waiting for me to laugh.
But all I feel is awe.
My hand trails down the belt plate, the engraved gold dulled from years but still sharp enough to shine. “How did it start? And... I mean... how does someone even end up here?”
His jaw ticks, but he exhales slowly. “Street fights. County fairs. Wherever they’d let me swing my fists without calling the cops. Someone spotted me, thought I could be trained.”
I blink. Fights and fairs. A boy clawing his way up, fists first. I picture him younger, bruised and bloody, using his sheer size and strength to muscle his way forward. Out of a bad circumstance into something better. And he did.
My fingers trace over another belt. He earned so many. Yet here they are, hidden away. “Did you want to do it? Be that?”
A long pause. “Didn’t matter what I wanted. It was the only thing I had worth a damn.”
My chest tightens. He says it like a fact, like he’s counting off a pine tree, not exposing a wound. But I hear it... the hollow underneath.
I crouch by the trunk, my fingers brushing the wristbands, the boots. “So you kept everything?”
“Not everything.” His voice is rough. “Just enough to remind me.”
I tilt my head. “Remind you of what?”
His gaze flicks away. “That I was once someone else. Someone they thought they could chew up and spit out.” His laugh is pure acid. “Hell, someone they did chew up and spit out.”
The barn is quiet except for the sound of dust motes shifting in the light. He stands rooted, hands fisted at his sides, like he could still bolt any second. Or cave in the world with his next roar.
I sift through more of the trunk. Programs, rolled and yellowed. Ticket stubs. Photos... blurry shots of him leaping from ropes, arms raised in victory, the crowd’s faces bright with worship.
The fans loved him loud, feral, larger than life.
I glance up. He’s still tense, but he hasn’t stopped me. He’s letting me touch his things. Letting me see pieces of him no one else has, maybe not in years.
And I realize, maybe he trusts me a little with this part of himself. At least enough to let me this close.
That thought sits heavy and sweet in my chest.
The other part of him that believes I’m going to run... well, I don’t blame him for that. Because even I don’t know what I want.
Not in this second.
Although... the thought of not being on this mountain... not waking up sprawled on top of a giant human furnace or with a feral mountain man between my thighs, eager to make me come even before I’ve blinked awake properly?
Yeah, that makes my heart lurch and ache in ways that terrify me.
I lift one of the masks, sequins missing in patches. “I remember... you wore this, didn’t you?”
He nods once.
“What was it like?” I murmured, attempting and failing to hold back my awe.
His brow furrows. And when he speaks, it’s barely a grunt. “Loud. Raw. Ferocious.”
“Did you like it?”
His lips twitch, then tighten. “Sometimes.”
I smile faintly. “You must’ve been amazing.”
His eyes darken, throat working like the compliment hurts.
I set the mask aside, trail my fingers over the championship belt again. “They gave this to you because you earned it. Because you fought harder than anyone else.”
He still says nothing, but his fists tighten, knuckles whitening.
I push up to my feet, heart pounding as I approach him. “Why’d you stop?” I ask softly.
He freezes.
My fingers still on the leather. I look at him fully now, taking in the way his chest heaves, the shadows cutting deep under his eyes.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” My voice comes out low, shaky. “Why did you walk away from all of this, Bear? From being The Grizzly?”
Knox
It’s as if she’s peeling back several layers of my skin. At the same time.
Her hands touching my old gear, her eyes wide like I’m something worth marveling at instead of the washed-up monster I’ve been for years.
It burns. And I can’t stop it.
She looks at me like she wants answers. Real ones. The kind I swore I’d never give another living soul.
My jaw grinds.
I should shut this down, drag her back to the cabin, lock the door, make her forget with my mouth on hers and my cock heavy in her pussy. We can try for another inch. That always works.
Delirium and distraction.
But I can’t seem to make my feet or hands work. Not when she’s holding pieces of me in her small, determined hands like she’s not about to let go.
And... Jesus, it’s been a long time since someone cared like this... enough to dig beneath the surface, enough to see past the fame and the fat bank account to ask about the scars.
I clear my throat. “Family first,” I rasp, voice low. “Or maybe family last. Either way, they were my first lesson in betrayal.”
Her brows lift, and soft sympathy washes over her eyes, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“My old man was gone before I was tall enough to reach the counter. My mother... might as well have been gone. Needles. Bottles. You name it, she reached for it. Same for my uncles, grandpa too. At any point in time, they were deep into one addiction or another. I learned early to take care of myself. To take care of my brothers too, when they were still small enough to need it.”
The memory makes me clench my fists. I don’t talk about them. Not even in my own head. Not when all they ever saw me as was a fucking ATM after I made something of myself.
“And when I got big enough, when the world started noticing me, when fists and muscle finally turned into money? They crawled back. All of them. Suddenly they remembered my name. Wanted a piece. Always a piece.”
My chest heaves. I spit the words like they taste foul because they do. The foulest.
“Then came the women. Groupies. Wrestlers’ girlfriends pushing their girlfriends, then themselves at me—fuck fidelity or loyalty.
Managers and assistants. Thought they wanted me.
But they only wanted The Grizzly . Wanted the belt.
The fame. The money. My body, sure—but not me.
Half of the chicks thought they could handle me until they saw the size of my junk, then they cried or whined.
” Acrid laughter sears my throat. “Hell, one even wanted me to pay by the fucking inch.”
Her eyes goggle and her lips part like she wants to speak, but she waits.
Smart girl.
I drag my hands down my face. “One of them... I thought she was different. Stuck around longer than the rest. Promised me forever. You know what she did? Sold a story to the fucking tabloids about what I was like behind closed doors. Said I was violent. Dangerous. I lost endorsements overnight. Locker room looked at me sideways. Took years to scrub that stain off, and it still never came clean.”
I pace to the far wall, rake a hand through my hair. My lungs burn like I’ve been running.
“My manager was supposed to have my back. He knew it was bullshit. He knew I was loyal. That I kept my nose clean, never touched the crap half the roster was snorting. But loyalty doesn’t fill bank accounts.
You know what he did? Signed me up for matches I wasn’t ready for, contracts that bled me dry.
Took cuts off the top. Then, when I was hurt and bleeding, when I couldn’t give him what he wanted anymore—” My throat closes, but I force it out. “He left me too. Like I was nothing.”
The silence that follows feels like it could crush me.
I’ve said too much. Too fast.
Her hand hovers over the belt, trembling slightly. “Bear...”
My chest caves in. No. I can’t take that tone. Pity or empathy or softness, I don’t fucking want it.
I turn away, shoulders rigid, the air thick with everything I didn’t mean to say. “That’s fucking enough for tonight.”
I don’t wait for her answer.
I stalk past her, snatch the belt from her hand, and toss it on the pile. I shove the tarp back over the memories and lock it all away again.
Then I scoop her up and march from the barn.
But the damage is done.
She knows too much.
And not nearly enough.
Lily
Sleep doesn’t come easy.
Not after what he told me in the barn.
Family betrayals. Women selling him out. His own manager gutting him for cash before tossing him aside.
I lie awake, staring at the rafters while Bear sits hunched in the armchair, his face a mask of stone. He doesn’t speak, not even when I whisper his name. The fire pops, and his jaw ticks, and he broods, silent and impenetrable.
And I ache for him.
Ache with how unfair the world was to such a beautiful man. How they took his strength and used it, cheered when he bled, then discarded him like garbage when he couldn’t keep giving.
He trusted me with that truth. And it makes me feel warm, proud, and furious all at once.
I try to coax him—soft touches against his arm, whispered questions.
He only shakes his head. “Not tonight.” But still, he pulls me close, into his lap, wraps his thick and unyielding arms, caging me to his body.
“Go to sleep, petal,” he commands gruffly.
I fall asleep eventually on his chest, but it’s a restless drift.
The next morning, I wake to him already dressed, strapping a rucksack across his shoulders. I blink blearily, push my hair back.
“Bear?”
He doesn’t look at me at first. Just stands there, larger than life, hands clenched on the straps like he’s holding himself together.
“Come with me?” he asks.
“Wh-where are we going?”
He holds out one hand. “Trust me?”
It’s not a question about the destination. Not really. It’s another test.
Will I fight him?
Will I try to argue for town, for escape, for a different life I’m having a hard time forecasting or even imagining right now?
But I’m too tired of wrestling with the future.
So I slide my hand into his. “Okay.”
Something eases in his face.
Just a fraction.