Chapter Ten
Caleb
Mira was what happened to Neverland when all the lost boys had gone but one. She clung to her ever-changing, never-changing woods because it was all she knew.
For the first time in my entire life, I wished my name meant more.
She’d come out of the butcher shop with that disappointed and wholly unsurprised look on her face, and I had wished I could fix it with a single word.
Not for the good of the town or even for the good of Mira, but for the good of me.
She would need a letter of recommendation from someone who meant more than I did to the town. She would need to be on my father’s good side, a tiny bird under his outstretched wing if she was to have a chance at getting a job.
Before, I had hated the difference in the way people had treated the McCreedys. But right now, in this moment, I wished I could use the name for more.
****
Mira
Hope was a hummingbird. Tiny in size and fragile by nature. Beautiful.
Flitting around a garden in search of an early morning drink, but my garden hadn’t had roses in years and hummingbirds hadn’t existed. A tiny weed had poked through the cracked and dry earth, and ever so slowly it had grown into a flower. And the hummingbirds had returned.
That’s what Caleb had done for me. I was beginning to hope for more from this life, and as scary as that was, it was also exciting.
Not on Sunday, though. Sunday, my hope was the lack of noise around the house when I awoke late in the morning meant Caleb had given up and I wouldn’t, in fact, be subjected to embarrassing myself in front of his father at dinner tonight.
Sadey showed up at four o’clock in the afternoon to flick my hummingbird right out of my garden.
“I thought I would come by and help you get ready,” she said.
“He’s still going through with this?” I couldn’t hide my disappointment if I tried.
Sadey laughed like I’d been joking. “Afraid so. He already told my dad you were coming. No turning back now.”
I showered and Sadey used a set of terrifying looking instruments to heat my hair into submission.
I was pleasantly surprised at the effect when I looked at it in my old bedroom mirror.
Instead of organized chaos around my face, it was shaped by soft and elongated waves of dark tresses that tickled my back and collar bones.
She had insisted I wear the white sundress I loved so much and pinned the front of my hair to the side.
She put makeup on my skin, not much, mind you, but enough to show there was effort made.
My gray eyes looked even lighter in contrast with my dark hair and mascara, and my full lips held an attractive hue of deep glossy pink.
It became abundantly clear that Sadey McCreedy was a miracle worker.
“Thank you,” I whispered, turning again to look at the unfamiliar girl looking back at me through the mirror.
Sadey smiled into the reflection. “Of course. You don’t have to worry about tonight, you know. I’ll be there, and Caleb will be there. Brian will be there, too. You’ll already know half the people at the table.”
“It’s not you guys I’m worried about. It’s your dad.”
Sadey shrugged. “He’s not so bad. He’ll be honest about what he is thinking, but his thoughts are never cruel. To me, he is a big teddy bear.”
“That’s because you’re his daughter, though. I am a thorn in his town.”
“You’ll be fine. I promise. I’d better go before Caleb shows up to pick you up. He has been in the worst mood lately.”
I helped her gather all of her beauty supplies into a bright pink tote bag and followed her to the front door.
“I’ll see you in a little while,” she said. She turned and grabbed my hand. “Do you want me to sit beside you at the dinner table?”
“Please,” I said, more grateful for her thoughtfulness than I could ever express. The idea that Sadey would be there as a buffer did actually make me feel a lot better.
Caleb arrived just half an hour later. He pulled his Ford to a halt in my front yard and I rushed out the door before he could blast the horn. He was already getting out of the truck and didn’t see me until he was at the stairs of my front porch.
“Hey,” I said shyly.
He glanced up at me, and his look of deep thoughtfulness turned to one of surprise. Shock, really. “Wow,” he said softly.
His hand lifted slowly as he took in my dress and, not knowing what he intended, I placed my hand in his and used him to help me down the stairs.
He recovered quite nicely…though he was probably just throwing his hands up in shock that I had used a brush on my hair.
He opened the door to his truck and waited for me to climb in before he shut it and leaned against the open window.
His eyes were earnest and clear and his face so close to mine. “Mira, you look beautiful.”
Heat crept into my cheeks and traveled to the very tips of my ears. He was waiting for me to respond, but all I could do was look into his impossibly blue eyes and fight the urge to move a strand of blond hair, which had lifted gently in the breeze, behind his ear with the tip of my finger.
When it became apparent I had frozen lamely into place and wouldn’t offer a response other than the dumb smile that inched embarrassingly across my lips, he pushed off the door and strode to the driver’s side. I cast my eyes heavenward and puffed air out of my cheeks in frustration.
When he climbed in, I cleared my throat. “Sadey came over to help me get ready. She did all of this.”
“She did?” he asked, his golden brows winging up. He turned the engine over and it roared to life.
“Your sister is really nice,” I said over the noise.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “She’s the best of us.”
I smiled because she had said the same about him.
It was cool outside but not enough to run the heat.
Caleb seemed to prefer to drive with his windows down no matter the weather.
Did he feel as trapped as me in small spaces?
Perhaps that was the new animal inside of him.
As we crawled slowly down the rough road toward the front gate, I held my hair at the nape of my neck to keep it from whipping in the breeze and losing its curl.
He noticed the movement and pulled to a stop.
“You can roll the window up if you’re worried about your hair,” he offered.
I hesitated. I didn’t want him to think I was a girl who cared about such things. Because I wasn’t. But I did want to look presentable for Mr. McCreedy.
Caleb seemed to realize my dilemma. “Best you do it so Sadey doesn’t lynch me for ruining all of her hard work.”
I tried to roll up the window but the lever was stuck.
“Here, let me,” he said, leaning over my lap and jerking the lever a couple of times before it wised up and moved under his will.
I breathed as lightly as I could. I looked down at the musculature in his arm, easily visible under his thin, gray, cotton shirt and the strain against the window lever.
His body was so close to mine, I could feel the heat, and my stomach clenched inwardly.
The tops of my breasts fought for air and space against the bust of the dress, and when he straightened up, he froze in place and seemed to notice them, too.
His eyes lifted to mine, and I could see tiny flecks of green in them. I wondered if anyone else had seen those tiny specks of unexpected color but me. A piece of me wished I was the only one.
“You’re beautiful, too,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
The sides of his mouth turned up in the barest of smiles, and his eyes fell to my lips. He rested his hand on the other side of my leg, fingers curling against the fabric of my dress like he needed me closer. Then he leaned in and kissed me lightly on the neck.
A helpless sound came from my throat, and my body turned boneless as my eyes rolled back in my head.
“I can smell how aroused you are,” Caleb murmured against the tripping pulse under my ear.
My breath came in a pant as he slid his hand up my leg and under the billowy material of my dress. I clenched his shirt in my fists and pulled him closer.
A deep chuckle reverberated against my collarbone. “Is this what you want, Mira?”
Fooling around in the cab of a truck with the man I felt more connected with than any other person on the planet? “Hell yes,” I breathed.
I squeaked in shock as Caleb pulled the lever under the seat and rocketed the bench backward. In one swift motion, he pulled me over his lap and ran his hands up my legs, rucking my dress up to my hips. We were definitely going to be late to dinner, but I couldn’t find it in me to care right now.
I fumbled to unbutton his shirt, but he grabbed my hand and lifted somber eyes to mine. “No.”
A little hurt bloomed inside of me. “Why not? Is it the scars?”
He nodded once.
“Okay.” I pulled my hand from his grasp and re-buttoned the one I’d managed to undo. I knew all about hiding scars. Patience, I could do.
Instead, I moved my fingers to the snap on his jeans and arched my eyebrow in question.
This time, a slow smile spread across his lips, and he nodded. The pop of his button was loud in the quiet of the cab.
He lifted my panties under my dress and slid his hand against my sex just as I unsheathed his erection. I bucked against his hand instinctively as he slid a long finger inside of me.
“God, you’re already so wet,” he murmured.
He sounded almost…proud. Reaching around me with his other hand, he pulled me closer and rested his hand on my tailbone as I rocked against him.
I hadn’t a clue what to do right now, but as pressure built inside of me, I felt the urge to do something.
Shimmying his pants down lower, I brushed my fingertip up the length of his shaft.
It was so hard already, like stone, and it twitched under my touch.
A soft rumble sounded from Caleb, and he relaxed into the seat.
I brushed him with two fingers, his jaw clenched, and his hips rocked forward.
When he opened his eyes, they were bright, with the barest hint of gold around the edges.
The rattling in his throat grew louder when I wrapped my hand around his base and stroked up the length of him.
“Are you purring?” I whispered, pride surging through me. I was causing that sound.
Something changed in the way he was touching me. He adjusted the angle of his hand and pressed against a sensitive spot that had me arching against him.
“Bears don’t purr. No more questions,” he said in a soft, gravelly voice. “I just want you to tell me what you like.”
“This.”
“Yeah?”
“And touching you.”
“Good,” he said, rocking his hips in rhythm with mine. He pulled me even closer and pushed my panties farther to the side.
“I like being this close to you,” I said. Slipping my free arm around his shoulder, I rested my forehead against his as I stroked him faster to keep up with the pace he was setting.
He cupped my sex and drove his finger deeper inside of me and I gasped at the pleasure and pain. It ached a little, but not enough to diminish how good he felt inside of me.
He pulled me against him until I could feel his shaft against my thigh.
We were so close I could imagine what he would feel like to fill me, not just with his finger.
He seemed to be losing control, too, because his hips jerked erratically against me, and he lowered his forehead to my chest, as if he was trying to shield the fiery color in his eyes.
A growl rippled through him as I pulled another stroke of his shaft, and then another.
I wished my dress wasn’t in the way so I could see our skin so close.
Pressure, pressure, pressure and, “Oh!” Something was going to happen. I couldn’t go on feeling this good forever. “I’m going to…Caleb!” I cried out as my body shuddered and pulsed around his finger.
He gritted his teeth and jets of wet warmth shot against my leg.
When he stilled, breath erratic as he pulled his finger out of me, I couldn’t help the exhausted grin that took my face. I was different now. We were different, my bear man and I.
“Mira,” he whispered, my name almost reverent on his lips. He cupped my face, and his beautiful, inhuman gaze dipped to my lips.
I held my breath as my heart hammered against my ribcage.
He was going to kiss me.
****
Caleb
Mira’s eyes drifted closed, her dark lashes brushing her cheeks.
Her lips looked so damned delicious I could barely think of anything but tasting them.
How could I be thinking about kissing her like this?
Like I was claiming her? She was this exotic wounded bird, and I was a freaking grizzly bear.
A monster. Was I even human enough to have any kind of relationship with her, or was what we’d just done all wrong?
She wasn’t in any place to get attached to a man like me. How, after everything she’d been through, would she be able to survive me and what I’d become?
My goals were simple. I had to help her, not ruin her. Helping her was the only thing that kept my mind on the edge of hell instead of rolling in the flames. I had to leave her better than I found her.
I couldn’t let myself be the fire that burned her up.