Chapter 24 #2
The old digital clock on the nightstand glowed a blue 3:44. He had a full three hours before the house would start ticking toward morning routines and the false civility of breakfast conversation with Logan.
He meant to just stay where he was, but when he pressed his nose into her hair and inhaled the sharp, mineral tang of sweat and the faint, wild trace that was just Greta, the animal part of him wanted more.
Jesus, he was thirty-nine. He hadn’t gone this many rounds in a night since Bush Jr. was in office. But she shifted against him, hips rocking back with a small, greedy movement, and he was instantly hard again.
Her lashes fluttered, but she didn’t wake all the way up.
Her hand circled his wrist where it bracketed her waist. She made a sound that was half sigh, half satisfied complaint.
He slid his hand over the ridges of her abs, the dip between her ribs, the slope of her breast, and she arched into it like a cat.
He wanted to go slow. He wanted to taste every inch of her.
But the clock was already running down and he was already drowning in her.
He slid his cock between her thighs and felt her clench around him, desperate and needy.
“Bear,” she gasped, wide awake now, and arched back into him. “Oh, God, yes.”
He withdrew and sank into her again, snaking a hand around the front of her to work her clit as he rocked against her from behind.
Her body fit him so perfectly that he thought maybe this was what he’d been built for.
All those years of holding back and self-control and trying not to want too much, just to end up here—inside Greta Dougherty, her fingers digging into his forearm, her hair loose on the pillow, and her mouth open, gasping slurred curses every time he bottomed out.
It didn’t take long before she started shaking, her hips rolling back with every thrust. She came with a muted, animal sound, her nails biting into his arm.
He followed almost immediately, the release so intense it left him blind for a second, nerves all white noise and heat.
He pressed his face into her shoulder and stayed there, both of them shuddering through the aftershocks.
When the world came back, he rolled onto his back, cradling her against his chest. She went with him, draping herself over his stomach, her hand splayed wide on his chest. He felt the pounding of her heart through her whole body. She laughed, low and satisfied, and nipped him just above the nipple.
He thought about saying something. He wanted to tell her he loved her, that she was the only thing that made sense anymore, but the words caught somewhere between his brain and tongue. He settled for pulling her closer and running his palm up and down the length of her back, memorizing every inch.
After a while, she propped herself up on her elbows, regarded him with a look that was equal parts mischief and exhaustion. “We smell like a locker room and wet dog.”
He winced. She wasn’t wrong. “Shower’s too small for both of us.”
“Damn.” She groaned and rolled out of bed. “I’m going first then.”
He watched her cross the room naked, streaks of sweat and other things running down her thighs, hair wild.
She was so beautiful it hurt.
When they finally settled back into the bed, both clean and the sheets changed, she draped herself over his chest, but she didn’t sleep. He could all but hear the wheels turning in her head.
“What’s going on in there, Greta?”
She said nothing for several long heartbeats. “I knew it was Daniel. The break-in at Summit, the slashed tires. He left a dead bird on my hood three weeks ago, and I didn’t tell anyone.”
He didn’t move. He was afraid he’d put his fist through the wall if he did. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess…” She sighed, and her breath rushed out over his nipple. “I thought nobody would believe me. He’s a Goodwin.”
“I would’ve believed you. I’m always on your side, Greta. Always.”
“Yeah, I know you are you.” She sat up, keeping her hand on him.
“My whole life, I’ve been trying to prove I could handle anything.
To myself, to my dad, to everyone in Solace.
Daniel was the first thing I couldn’t just muscle my way through.
I thought if I ignored it, it would go away, or I’d figure out how to handle it on my own. But I couldn’t.”
He stayed quiet because he figured letting her talk was the only thing he could do right now.
She tugged at one of the orange strands above her eyes, twisting it around her finger. A nervous tic she didn’t know she had.
“I thought maybe if I handled it alone, I could finally stop being…”
Afraid, he thought when she trailed off. She tried so hard not to show it, but Greta Dougherty had lived in fear since her twin went missing all those years ago.
She shook her head. “Never mind. I just didn’t want to be someone else’s problem, I guess. But you didn’t treat me like a problem. You just… showed up.”
He let out a long, slow breath. “I’m always going to show up for you.”
She looked at him. “I know.”
He tucked her tighter against his chest, and she let herself be held.
It was new, her letting him do that. He didn’t want to ask what it cost her to do it now.
Maybe it had taken getting choked in a gun shop and nearly losing her hand in a rescue, maybe it had taken two years of being too stubborn to ask anyone for help, but he wasn’t about to ruin it by saying any of that out loud.
Instead, he pressed his mouth to the top of her head and kept his hands moving on her back until her breathing settled.
“Bear. You know Daniel isn’t going to let this go.”
Yeah, he was well fucking aware of that fact. As soon as Daniel got out of the hospital, Hank would bail him out of jail, and he’d be free to continue terrorizing Greta.
She must have felt his body go tense, because she pulled back enough to look at him, her face softer than he’d ever seen it.
She put her hand on his cheek. “You can’t fix it, Dane. I don’t want you to try. Leave it to the police. I told Trooper Halvorsen everything when he came to the firehouse this morning. So promise me you won’t go all vigilante on Daniel.”
“I want to pummel him into a concrete stain.”
“Sasquatch.” She paused. “You have Logan to think about.”
He hated that she had a point.
“I want to,” he grumbled, “but I won’t.”
She settled back down onto his chest, but still didn’t relax, and he didn’t know how else to help. So he just held her and settled in to wait out the rest of the night with her while she worked through whatever had her muscles in knots.
“Bear,” she whispered finally, voice choked.
“I think my sister’s dead. I thought it when we went to Glenhaven, and when I went to Spokane, but I don’t know how to stop looking.
I’ve been doing it for fifteen years. I built Summit around it, I built my whole life around it, I don’t— I don’t know who I am if I’m not looking for her.
” A pause, and then, she added so softly that he had to strain to hear her, “I’m so tired. ”
He held her tighter. He didn’t tell her Alice might still be out there, didn’t tell her not to give up, didn’t offer her any of the things people said when they didn’t know what else to do with someone else’s grief. He just held her, and let her be tired, and let it be true.
She lay still for a while. Long enough that he thought she might be sliding back toward sleep.
But then she spoke again. “What are you thinking?”
He turned the question over. He had a lot of thoughts. Most of them were about her. “I’m thinking I don’t want you to stop being who you are,” he said. “And who you are includes the looking.”
She lifted her head and looked at him with eyes that were too bright, swimming with tears. He cupped her cheek and swiped his thumb over her cheekbone, not surprised to find the skin there dry. She’d swallow down her grief and blink back those tears before she’d ever let them fall.
Then the rain stopped.
All at once, the drumming on the roof cut out, leaving just the unsteady drip of water from the eaves.
Bear tipped his chin down to rest on the top of her head.
Greta closed her eyes.
And the house was still.
Until the phone rang.