Chapter 5 #3
(“Oh, rats,” Honey muttered, as Buck breathed a silent sigh of relief. She shot him an annoyed look, as though it was all his fault they’d run out of time. “I wanted to see what you’d draw.”)
“Turn your chair so that you’re facing your co-counselor,” Leonie instructed. “Oh, and you can put your clipboards and pencils away now. You won’t need them for this exercise.”
Honey dragged a chair round. Sitting down opposite him, she frowned at the clipboard still in his lap. “Leonie just said you won’t need that.”
Buck tightened his grip on the clipboard. “Believe me, I really, really do.”
The woman was wearing shorts, because fuck his life. She had plump, rounded knees. Buck had never considered women’s knees to be particularly sexy, but he was now at serious risk of developing a fetish. He edged his own chair a little further away.
“Make sure to tuck in nice and close,” Leonie said brightly. She drifted around the room as she spoke, correcting people’s positions. “You should be knee to knee for this one.”
Buck didn’t know Leonie well, but she’d used to turn up at the hotshot base from time to time, since her brother was on the crew. He’d always thought of her as a nice, kind woman, with at least ten times the common sense of most shifters (which, admittedly, was not hard).
This, he now knew, was not the case. She was, in fact, a stone cold sadist.
“Oh no, that won’t do,” Leonie said in honeyed tones. She bore down on the pair of them like a lion spotting a couple of sick zebra, teeth gleaming. “Closer, please, Buck. No, closer than that. Now, both of you, lean forwards. There, that’s much better.”
This, Buck felt, was a matter of opinion. Unfortunately, certain parts of him shared Leonie’s enthusiasm for this new enforced proximity to Honey. If anyone tried to take his clipboard away now, they were going to have to break his damn fingers.
“This next exercise is all about sincerity,” Leonie said.
“One of the most important things we do here is build up our campers’ confidence by praising them for their efforts.
And by that, I’m not talking about hollow validation.
Believe me, kids are all too good at spotting when you don’t mean what you say. ”
He heard Honey make a tiny huff of amusement at that. She was nodding along with Leonie, agreeing with every word.
“So let’s practice giving genuine praise,” Leonie continued. “By now, I hope you’ve spent enough time with your co-counselor that you’re starting to appreciate their strengths. So you’re going to look into each other’s eyes and take turns exchanging honest compliments.”
Whenever Buck thought this day could not possibly get any worse, it descended to a fresh and hitherto unsuspected level of horror. He should have stayed on the roof. It had all been downhill from there.
“Well, this is awkward,” Honey said ruefully. She propped her elbows on her knees, looking up at him through thick, dark lashes. “Do you want to go first?”
“Absolutely not.” A much cheerier thought struck him. “And since you can’t, guess we’ll just sit here in silence.”
Honey’s forehead furrowed. “What do you mean, since I can’t?”
“Considering our interactions so far, if you can give me a genuine compliment, I’ll be motherloving amazed.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Challenge accepted.”
She looked away for a moment, biting her lower lip. A fresh surge of desire slapped every other thought out of his head. It was all too easy to imagine catching that softness between his own teeth, nipping and teasing until she gasped, until she opened for him, his tongue sliding into her heat—
Honey abruptly looked up, locking eyes with him. Whatever she saw in his face made her own pupils widen. Her cheeks went pink.
This did not help at all .
“Buck, I admire your commitment to the kids here.” Despite her flustered blush, sincerity rang behind every word.
“You obviously don’t want to be doing any of this, but here you are anyway, because you can’t let them down.
It takes real strength to step outside your comfort zone like that. I respect you for it.”
He couldn’t look away from those glorious eyes.
Rich as chocolate, soft as summer. They cut him in half and scooped out his soul.
Surely she must be able to see every sinful thought parading through his head right now, yet she held his gaze without flinching.
He had never wanted a woman more in his entire life.
Honey let out her breath, sitting back a little. “Okay, your turn.”
His tongue felt thick and clumsy. He desperately grasped for a compliment that wasn’t You have stunning eyes and I want to lick your nipples.
What he came up with was: “You confuse the hell out of me.”
Her expectant air vanished, replaced by pure exasperation. “Buck, that is not a compliment.”
“Believe me, it is. Ask anyone. I am famously unconfused. I have made a motherloving career out of it. Only two things have ever confused me. One is you, and the other came from IKEA. The only way you could be any more incomprehensible is if you were flat packed with a tiny screwdriver.”
She stared at him in what was either wonder or genuine concern for his sanity. “I honestly can’t tell whether or not you’re joking.”
“Neither can I. See what I mean? We’ve known each other for less than a day and you’ve already got me doubting my own motherloving mind.”
She shook her head, still looking baffled. “How am I confusing?”
Because I want you, he wanted to say. And you don’t want me, and maybe that means that it’s really me wanting you, not the damn beast. You make me feel alive, and that terrifies me.
Because either it’s real, but you’ll never want me in return, or it’s all just fucking magic and I should run for the hills while I can.
But I can’t, because I want you. Even though I shouldn’t.
He sat back instead, folding his arms. “If I could answer that, you wouldn’t be confusing. Your turn.”
“You,” she told him, with heartfelt sincerity, “are the most aggravating man I have ever met.”
“Thank you. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
It slipped out without conscious intent, because most of his blood still wasn’t making it as far as his brain, and damn it, she really was. Fortunately, Honey seemed to take it as a joke.
“We should both take this training more seriously,” she said with prim dignity. “Let’s get back to exchanging sincere compliments.”
“I thought that was what we were doing.”
She gave him an even more aggrieved look, which was good. At least when she was mad at him, she wasn’t dissecting his soul like a frog in science class.
“Mine wasn’t a compliment,” she informed him. “And yours wasn’t sincere.”
“Incorrect on both counts.”
“I know what you’re doing, you know.” Honey matched his posture, crossing her own arms and lifting her chin. “You’re only flirting with me because I made it clear I’m not interested. It’s pure ego. You’re the kind of man who most wants what he can’t have.”
He had to stop to think about that one. “Maybe. Never really had to consider it before.”
She sniffed. “Because your rugged, growly mountain man act has always made women swoon right into your arms?”
“First of all, it’s not an act. Rugged and growly, guilty as charged, and I was born and raised right here on this mountain. Second, if I’ve ever made anyone swoon, it was only due to complete physical exhaustion after a grueling nine hour hike in full gear. And they probably puked first.”
Honey blinked at him, but whatever she might have said next was lost in the shrill blast of Leonie’s whistle, signaling the end of the exercise.
A babble of rather relieved laughter and strained jokes filled the room as pairs broke apart.
Buck guessed he hadn’t been the only person to find the whole experience excruciating.
Leonie raised her hands, quieting the crowd.
“I can see a lot of you found that challenging. It’s okay, it is hard to speak from the heart, and sometimes even harder to listen.
I’m sure you’re all looking forward to a break, but before we go to lunch, let’s finish with one final exercise.
Don’t worry, this one’s easy. You’ll need to be in groups of four, so please find another pair of counselors now. ”
Honey immediately brightened. She bounced up on her toes, waving an arm above her head as though trying to flag down a passing jumbo jet.
“Moira!” she called. “Ragvald! Over here!”
A moment later, Moira’s tall, elegant form cut through the crowd, sleek as a battlecruiser. She was followed by… well, Buck assumed it had to be a man, but only because you didn’t tend to see bears wearing leather pants.
“Hi, Moira,” Honey said, then switched her smile to the sea dragon’s hirsute, hulking bodyguard. “Hi, Ragvald. We met at the gate earlier, remember? You jumped out at me with an ax.”
“He did what,” Buck said flatly.
Moira sighed. “It was a misunderstanding. Ragvald is still getting to grips with the finer points of our culture.”
“Your outlander ways make no sense.” The giant flung his arms wide, nearly flattening the nearest four counselors. “I remember you well, oath-sister! Let us greet each other properly, as shield-siblings should!”
Alarm flashed across Moira’s face. “Ragvald, no—”
Too late. Ragvald had already pounced. Buck just had time to catch a glimpse of Honey’s startled expression before the enormous man swept her up in an enthusiastic, bone-crushing hug.
NO
The beast surged forward, slavering with animal rage. A snarling maelstrom of protect and defend and mine thundered through his body, trying to twist his bones out of shape. He forced the shift back, nails digging into his palms.
“Ah…” Moira cast Buck a sidelong glance. “I think that’s enough now, Ragvald.”
The big man set Honey back on her feet. She swayed a little, looking somewhat pink and squeezed.
“And you, shield-brother!” Ragvald turned to Buck, arms opening. “Let us…”
Buck looked at him.
“… exchange warm and friendly greetings,” Ragvald finished, wisely abandoning the attempted hug. “From a distance.”
Where the hell did Moira dig this one up?
Buck wondered. Moira, as a member of the sea dragon royal family, was required by the over-protective Sea Council to take a bodyguard wherever she went—which Buck knew because Zeph had bitched more than once about dour sea dragon knights casting a pall over the camp.
Ragvald was definitely not your typical hidebound, honor-obsessed sea dragon.
Exactly what he was would have to wait. Leonie blew her whistle again, waving to attract everyone’s attention.
“Has everyone found another pair to join?” she asked, looking round for stragglers.
“Great. This is an old one, but a classic. You’re going to take it in turns to do trust falls.
One person will fall backward, letting the other three catch them.
No cheating! Trust your fellow counselors to have your back. ”
“Oooh, I love this sort of thing,” Honey said, with what Buck felt was way too much enthusiasm. “Buck, you go first.”
He folded his arms. “Absolutely not.”
She made a face at him. “What, don’t you trust me to catch you?”
This was the precise opposite of his concern. Unbidden, his gaze drifted down to her breasts, clearly visible under her tight camp t-shirt. It was all too easy to picture falling into all that inviting softness. Ideally face first.
He shook himself out of the arresting vision. “Woman, if I fall on you, you’re going to find yourself holding more than you can handle. No.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. You three catch me, then.”
“Believe me,” he grated out, past the possessive growl that wanted to rise in his throat, “that’s not any better.”
From Moira’s expression, she’d also figured out that this was a bad idea for multiple reasons. “Perhaps I should go first?”
Ragvald shook his head firmly. “Nay, Princess. I fear I cannot allow you to trust your well-being to warriors unknown to me. Not until I have confirmed their strength and worthiness, at least. But never fear! I shall test our new oath-siblings’ honor myself!”
Without any other warning, Ragvald spun around and toppled backward, rigid as a felled tree.
Time seemed to slow. Buck saw Honey’s eyes widen, her hands coming up. He saw the enormous man, at least three times her size, descending on her like a baseball bat on a baby rabbit.
After that, everything went red.