19. Knox
KNOX
I f ever there was a time for a worthless motherfucker to shut the fuck up…
But no.
He keeps talking. God, he keeps fucking talking .
And I’ve never wanted someone in a choke hold more than I do now. Except I won’t stop once he’s passed out. I’ll keep going until he stops breathing.
Because the things this asshole is saying about my petal. To my Lily?—
“Officers, seriously, Lily’s not in her right mind,” the idiot says, loud and oily, the drone of a man who’s always convinced the world owes him an explanation. “She’s been isolated. Deluded. This man”—he jerks a thumb at me like I’m the shit stain—“has no right to?—”
“To what?” I cut in, voice low, and the sound of it makes every cop’s head snap like they swallowed a bullet. “To keep the best thing that’s ever happened to me? To keep what’s mine?” The words come out as cold and definitive as I intend.
Brandon’s smile cracks at the edges. “You barely know her. Not like I do. She couldn’t possibly be making rational choices out here. Not with this… caveman.”
Rational.
That word is venom in my blood.
He’s painting me as some kind of monster so he can keep claiming he’s the savior who wants to rescue his precious investment.
Every cadence in his voice is practiced to make the cops side with him, because he thinks money, a suit, a polite smile, buys the world.
I don’t even hear the rest of his oily words until the last thread snaps. I lunge.
Hands are on me, but I’m a hurricane fueled by grizzly power. And the next thing the little twerp in tweed knows, I’ve got him by the throat, I’m lifting him clear off his polished boots.
He’s small in my grip. So pathetically fragile.
He gurgles, fingers scrabbling at my forearm, eyes wide with a new, realistic kind of fear. The cops shout for me to stop. I don’t listen. There’s a sweet clarity in the choke—this man who thought he could chart my petal like a route on a map—mouthless now.
“What about those years she’s wasted on a sack of shit like you, hmm?” I say, voice a slow rasp. “How about an eyeball for every year? I’d go for those raisin balls of yours but they won’t be worth my?—”
“No.” Lily’s voice cuts under me, sharp enough to cleave.
She steps forward, unblinking, unafraid.
The sight of her steadying hand on my wrist does more than the cops ever could.
Whatever ropes still hold the animal in me loosen because she asks for it.
“You’re playing into his hands,” she says. “Stop. I don’t want my Bear in jail.”
God, I love her, but… I can’t make my fingers unfurl. Not yet.
She sways closer, sliding her hand up my arm.
Then she rises on tiptoe, speaks for my ears alone.
Maybe Brandon’s too. “How about I make a few promises, hmm?” she says, and then my stomach drops because the next words tumble out in the heat of the moment, raw and ridiculous and hers.
“Whatever you want. You have two more holes to train into Goldilocks perfection, Big Guy, remember? I’ll do whatever you want. If you stay here. With me.”
For a heartbeat the clearing is a held breath even as Brandon’s face goes puce. And no, I wouldn’t mind at all if Lily gloating about how well she’s taken me inside her pretty cunt is the last thing this shit-bag human leech hears in his pathetic life.
The cops have their fingers hovered over their guns. The one with the Taser’s hand shakes. The situation tastes like a line I shouldn’t cross.
For Lily’s sake.
Her face is steady and wild and real, and I only have eyes for her. Her vow is a rope tethering me back from my breaking point.
“We’re going to need you to let him go, Hunter,” one cop shouts.
“One thing,” I rasp, voice thick with something that might be gratitude or want or the last of the animal. “Only one thing I need from you, petal.”
“I know,” she whispers, eyes still pinned to mine. “And you’ll get it. But not while you’re holding Captain Douchebag. Let him go, Bear.”
I hold the asshole tighter for a second more, feel the pulse in his neck under my fingers, then—enough. I hurl him like garbage into the dirt.
He lands in a crumpled heap, coughing, the dregs of his dignity shattered across my clearing. The cops close in, hiding their relief as they haul him up and away.
I wipe my hands on my jeans, the motion absurdly domestic after the violence. I’m breathing like I’ve run a race.
“You better get him the fuck off my mountain,” I tell the nearest officer, voice low and dangerous. “Charge him for wasting your time. For the tracker. For whatever illegal bullshit he’s done to try and own a person.”
The officers trade looks, then one cop shrugs and cuffs him. “You’re under arrest for…” His voice trails off as Brandon stammers and sputters, but his words are wet and small now.
And I can’t hide my smirk at the sight of brand-new cuffs click on weak, polished wrists. They lead him toward the squad cars, and I watch each protesting step Brandon takes, the man who thought he could own my woman, being put into the back of a cruiser.
When the officer goes around to get behind the wheel, I stride to the back where the weasel is still complaining.
Leaning into the window, I let the animal out one last time, low and ugly. “Last thing, asshole. Step a foot on this mountain again,” I warn, voice hard, close to a growl, “and you’ll leave with stumps for legs. Got it?”
Brandon looks like he’s seen death, and it’s not pretty. He swallows, all of his arrogance stripped down to a scared, whining little thing as the cop car hustles him away.
The others follow.
And when the dust settles, I find Lily watching me with that feral, loving look that softens every hard edge I possess and those I’m not even aware of.
I’m still trembling.
The leash in my chest is frayed and raw, but for the first time in a long time, I don’t want to pull it tight.
I want to hold it… her … instead.
But there’s a fiercer battle ahead. One I’m terrified might be the death of me. Because all the words we’ve been circling like feral foes in the ring? They’re edging closer now, talons sharper than stilettos.
Lily doesn’t take my hand when she walks into the cabin. Doesn’t glance back at me or gift me one of those soft smiles that usually undo me. She just slips through the door, quiet and small, her boots dragging against the wood like they weigh ten pounds each.
I follow with lead in my veins and every step heavier than the last.
I find her in the living room, standing there twisting her fingers together, pale around the knuckles.
I don’t wait. Can’t. My voice comes out low, rough. “Didn’t finish our conversation. In the barn. Hell, it didn’t even start. But you were about to tell me you were leaving, weren’t you, petal? Leaving me? That’s what you’ve been gearing up for the last few days?”
Her head snaps up. The pain in her eyes guts me. “Do you need me to come over there and knock some sense into you, Bear?” she fires back, her voice breaking halfway through.
Wish you would, then at least I’d have your hands on me.
My jaw tightens. Force myself to brace for the worst. “Answer me, Lily.”
“Yes.” Her voice cracks but she doesn’t look away. “Yes, I was dreading telling you I needed to go back and finish things once and for all with Brandon.”
My chest caves.
“But,” she continues quickly, voice still shaking, “as you can see, he made that a hundred times easier for me.” She half-sobs, pressing a hand to her face. “No—that wasn’t easy. What they did to you, Bear. They could’ve hurt you… really badly?—”
I can’t hear another word. I cross the room in three strides, scoop her up and crush her against me. She’s shaking and I’m trembling with her, fury still bleeding through my bones.
“Nothing will ever take me from you,” I rasp into her hair, holding her so hard I feel her ribs press against mine. “Not the fucking cops, not that piece of shit, not this mountain splitting in two. Nothing. Hear me?”
Her arms lock around my neck, choking me sweet.
I pull back enough to see her face, puffy from tears and fear and streaked with dirt from the clearing. “So what were your intentions, petal? Tell me plain. No more hedging.”
She swallows, gaze steady. “To go back. Pack my things. Put my florist shop up for sale if Brandon wasn’t prepared to pay me what I was worth. Then come back.”
My throat burns. My voice cracks. “So you were coming back? To me?”
“Always.” Her lips tremble but her eyes blaze. “I was always coming back to you, Bear. My giant. My home. My safe place.”
A sound rips out of me, something between a growl and a fucking sob, and I crush my mouth to hers, drinking her words straight down my throat like oxygen.
“Should’ve believed in you,” I murmur against her lips. “Should’ve believed in us.”
“We have lots of time for that,” she whispers back, stroking my jaw, soft and sure. “As much time as you’ll give me.”
“Forever,” I vow, my voice breaking. “As much as you’ll take.”
We stand there tangled, breathing each other in, and for the first time since she landed in my snare, I feel something like peace push through the storm.
But her eyes flicker, shadows moving in their green depths.
She presses a hand to my chest, right where my heart kicks hardest. “Bear… Brandon said things. Things I hate that you heard. About me. About my past.”
The old rage in me threatens to rise again, but she shakes her head quickly, forcing me to listen.
“I grew up small,” she says softly. “Always trying to prove I deserved space. My parents thought I’d outgrow it, but I didn’t.
Every boyfriend I ever had… they liked me best when I was shrinking.
When I was quiet. Brandon—” she falters, breath shaking.
“He made me think being with him was the best I’d ever do.
I thought… I thought the crumbs of praise he gave were worth being told how useless I was, how messy, how childish. ”
I growl, the sound deep, involuntary.
She strokes my chest again, grounding me. “But then you…” She exhales hard, eyes wet. “You liked my mess. My sharp tongue. You liked it when I expressed myself. God, you loved when I lost control and slapped you, when I clawed you. You liked me bigger than I’ve ever dared to be.”
“Petal,” I choke, pressing my forehead to hers.
“That’s why I was scared,” she whispers. “Scared it wasn’t real. Scared to upset what we had. Scared I couldn’t live up to the woman you already think I am.”
“You already are,” I rasp. “Christ, Lily, you already fucking are.”
Her tears spill, warm against my jaw.
“I thought the world defined me,” she says. “But I see now… none of that matters. Not Brandon or even the shop. Not anyone who told me I was small. I want to be bigger still for you. But for myself too.”
My kiss is desperate and hard, infusing beloved belief into her.
“You’re not small. You’re perfect. You’re everything. Everything, petal.”
She smiles through her tears, shaky but sure. “And you’re my everything too, Bear.”
That last word breaks me open.
I scoop her up, carry her toward the bedroom, my voice unhinged and reverent all at once. “Forever, petal. We’re being given forever. And I’m never wasting another second of it.”
In our bedroom, I set her down in the middle, where she belongs. My heart hammers faster than a runaway piston. One breath in. Out. In.
Then with a deep exhale I speak the words in my soul. “I love you, petal. I’ve loved you since I saw you trussed up in my snare. Best thing that’s ever happened to me. I love you. So fucking much.”
Tears fill and pour down her pretty cheeks. “Oh, Bear, I love you too.”
Then she holds out her arms.
And this fool? He falls into them.
Heart, soul, and Grizzly Bear.