Chapter 38 #2
The sight of that fucking thing fills my entire body with a fresh surge of fury.
The world went silent, and my heart froze when that bear woke and swiped at her.
For a split second that felt like an eternity, I watched my entire life crashing down in front of me until Maren tackled Luna out of the way just in time.
The sound I made while watching it, something between a roar and a whimper, still echoes in my ears.
For saving Luna, that woman will receive anything she wants for the rest of her life. A house. A car. Hell, her own fucking island if she wants it.
I want to tear that bear limb from limb for what he did to Luna.
But I don’t hurt animals. He’s wild, and wild animals act on pure, untamed instinct.
It’s how they’re made, and blaming him for his reaction today is like blaming him for breathing.
It was an accident, but it could have easily ended in tragedy.
Tragedy that would have driven me to do something I vowed never to do.
But if he’d killed her, I would have destroyed him without hesitation or remorse.
The assholes who shot that bear have now vaulted to the top of my list.
Luna turns and sees me, and she startles, the hand of her uninjured arm flying to her chest.
“Jesus, you have to stop creeping up on me like that.”
I step further into the room. The mask feels heavier tonight somehow, like it’s weighing down more than just my face.
I study her through the eyeholes. Her eyes are glassy, pupils blown wide, and her posture is more relaxed than usual, loose and fluid.
How she usually is after I’ve fucked her into oblivion.
“What kind of fun drugs have you taken, little doe?”
Her lips curve into a crooked half-smile. There’s something beautifully unguarded about her like this, with her walls lowered by pharmaceutical intervention.
“Ethan gave me a script for Oxy. I don’t usually take anything for pain, but I needed it. Getting swiped by a bear hurts like a bitch.”
“I imagine it does.”
She tilts her head. “You don’t seem surprised by my sling.”
“I’m not.”
Because I’ve been watching the footage on a loop, rewinding, watching her get hurt over and over again like some kind of masochistic ritual. Just to feel that soul-deep relief that she’s alive rush through me like a drug.
Her face scrunches up into a frown that’s somehow both adorable and indignant. “You’re such a creep, hacking into my cameras. I should shut them off.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, Luna.”
Not that it would matter if she did. They’d power back on within seconds. I have backups for my backups, layers of redundancy she can’t begin to fathom.
“Damien Wolfe’s firewalls suck. I should tell him.”
She’s talking to herself now, which pulls a smile from me. She’s endured my spying since the first day, hating every second, but she’s never disabled the cameras. What amuses me is her debate about whether to inform me... about me being a spying creep.
She walks toward me, her pace slow and unsteady, but even drugged, her body moves with that sultry sway that makes my mouth water and my cock twitch. The space between her eyebrows pinches, and her nose and mouth scrunch up again in an adorable little pout.
“I’ve got enough good drugs in my system, but you can’t bind my hands tonight. It’ll tear my stitches open and probably send me into shock from the pain.”
Does she really think I’m going to fuck her?
The notion that she expects me to use her body when she’s injured causes the beast and the man to wage war inside my chest.
“As much as I love you coming on my cock for hours, Luna, I think your body needs a break tonight.”
Her face falls, disappointment warring with the haze of medication.
“I can probably suck your cock. Since you only let me touch it sometimes, I can do it without my hands.” Sadness laces her voice as she says the words.
It hurts her that I deny her that intimacy.
“Then I can lie back, and you can go down on me if you want.”
I always want, little doe.
I came here to check on her, with no intention of anything else happening tonight, but the hopeful look on her face nearly undoes me. She needs our connection as much as I do, even when she’s in pain.
I should deny her. A gentler man wouldn’t even be tempted to take her like this, wouldn’t consider using her body when she’s hurt. But I’m not a gentle man.
For the first time, I want to be one. For her.
“Where’s your friend? Didn’t she stay with you?” I close the distance between us.
“Sleeping. She refused to leave me alone. Put me to bed a while ago. But I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to wait for you.”
My hand finds her face, fingers tracing the line of her jaw before settling against her cheek. Her lashes flutter once, then fall closed. She turns into my touch, her breath warming my palm as she exhales—a sensation that goes straight to my cock.
“I love when you touch me.”
I love it too, Luna.
“Are you alright?”
My ribs feel like they’re closing around my lungs as I take her in. She’s wearing a loose button-down pajama top that’s slid off her shoulder, exposing the edge of the bandage beneath the fabric. Blood has seeped through the dressing, a small dark circle spreading across the white material.
She shrugs and winces at the movement. “It’s not the first time I’ve almost been mauled. I doubt it’ll be the last.”
I understand that what she does, especially in the mountains of Colorado, puts her in contact with dangerous animals. But this woman needs to take her own safety more fucking seriously.
She needs to be more careful about protecting what’s mine.
I unbutton her nightshirt with careful fingers, pushing it to the side so I can see the bandage, and discover she’s naked underneath.
Somehow, I don’t think Maren put her to bed without underwear.
The bandage stretches the entire width of her collarbone and shoulder, stark white against her pale skin.
I brush my fingers across it. She trembles under my touch, goosebumps rising on her exposed flesh.
“You need to take better care of yourself, Luna.”
“I try.”
“Try harder.”
My voice comes out harsh, edged with the fear that’s been a living thing inside me all afternoon. She flinches at the harshness of my tone.
“Oh, oh, oh!” She holds up one finger like she just remembered something important, her drug-addled brain jumping tracks. “You need to stop dropping bodies everywhere.”
My lips curve at her demand. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because Karen came to me today.”
I know this because I watched that footage after I saw the bear footage.
“She was asking about Mr. Pearson. They found his body.”
“I know.”
She huffs, the sound adorable even as her eyes flash with annoyance. “Of course you do. She thinks Damien Wolfe might be the killer. You have to stop. You can’t let him be blamed for it because he defended me.”
“Don’t worry about Damien Wolfe, Luna. He can take care of himself.”
Her features scrunch up into a scowl. “He’s nice, and he shouldn’t be sucspec… suspet… suspected of your crimes. I mean it. Stop.”
The word trips over her tongue. Her need to defend Damien—to defend me from myself—makes my jaw clench. The absurdity doesn’t make it less irritating.
“I won’t stop killing them.”
She sighs, her eyes betraying her internal conflict—how my actions clash with her Hippocratic oath.
“Fine, but stop leaving them to be found. God, don’t serial killers have secret ways they dispose of bodies? Get it together and come up with something better to get rid of the evidence.”
I chuckle under my breath at her pragmatic take on my crimes. “I’ll stop leaving the bodies around, little doe. Will that make you happy?”
“Yes. I don’t want you to get caught. But I also don’t want Damien to be accused of something he didn’t do. He’s innocent.”
He’s not innocent. We’re the farthest thing from it.
“Come on.” I take her elbow and guide her up the stairs. “Time for bed.”
“We should fuck down here so Maren doesn’t hear.” She leans close, drops her voice to what she believes is a conspiratorial whisper. Instead, it’s loud enough to wake the dead.
“Shh. You’re going to wake your friend. And I told you, no cock for you tonight.”
She pouts as we reach her room and step inside, closing the door behind us. Her cats and Shadow are all settled in for the night, none of them worried about me being here with her. Her wolf lifts his head and gives me a look before resting it back on his paws.
Luna turns to me, swaying on her feet, as she eyes the bulge in my jeans. “Are you going to let me suck you? I need more meds first, but as soon as they kick in and the pain goes away, I’ll be good to go.”
“I said, not tonight.”
Who knew I’d be the one to refuse sex? This woman has turned my world upside down in ways I’m still discovering.
“So, I can’t come on your face, either?”
She sighs, pouting again as I re-button her shirt, before leading her to the bed. Her pajama bottoms and underwear lay discarded on the floor beside it.
“Hi pussies,” she coos at the cats huddled at the foot of the bed. “That’s what Maren calls them. I think she just likes to say the word pussy.”
She snickers, and the sound is so genuine and unfiltered that it makes me smile.
I help her sit on the edge before picking up her pants. When I look back at her, she’s lying on her back, slithering her body up toward the pillows, wriggling her naked ass against the sheets as she tries to get comfortable.
I guess no pajama bottoms.
The cats slink up the mattress and tuck themselves beside her. She turns her face and presses a kiss to the fat one that’s settled next to her head.
I toss her pants aside. “Where are your meds, Luna?”
She points to her bathroom.
I grab the bottle, filling a cup with water, before returning to the bedroom.
She’s sprawled in the middle of the bed, the soft satin covering her torso, but her lower half bare. Her thighs are parted, and the sight tempts me to give her what she asked for. Then, a soft snore escapes her mouth.
Her perfection takes my breath away.
I give her a gentle shake. “Luna, you need to take your meds.”
Her eyes flutter open, and she glares at me. “I’m trying to sleep.”
I sit on the bed beside her and urge her to sit up.
“You can go back to sleep as soon as you swallow this pill.”
She opens her mouth, and I put the pill on her tongue. She takes two deep swallows of water, some of it dribbling down her chin, before handing the glass back to me.
I help her lie back so she doesn’t jostle her shoulder. The cats resettle around her. Then I maneuver the duvet over her while she grumbles something about stupid masked wolves cockblocking her. But she’s already drifting, the medication making her eyelids heavy.
“Sleep, beautiful.” I brush a strand of hair from her face.
I move to the chair across the room, watching as her breathing deepens and evens out.
In sleep, she always looks younger than her thirty-two years, more vulnerable.
The fierce wildlife vet who faces down bears and animal abusers is gone, replaced by this soft, trusting woman who lets a masked stranger into her home and her body.
I’ve been telling myself this is just sex, an arrangement that satisfies us both. But today, something changed. I can’t define it, but the crushing weight in my chest when she was hurt and the icy fear that gripped me when I thought I might lose her went far beyond mere lust.
This feeling is foreign to me because I’m incapable of love. But as I sit here watching her, I can almost pretend otherwise.