Big Bear Mountain - The Complete Series (27 page)

I
t wasn’t
often that anyone was stupid enough to mess with someone Olivia’s size and
obvious strength, but being part of a gang often had a way of making people
more fearless than they otherwise might be. Combine that with a few drinks and
maybe some drugs, then stupidity and bravery start to combine into a dangerous,
sometimes lethal cocktail.

Olivia saw them
slink out of a darkened doorway as she walked past. You didn’t walk home in
this part of the city late at night without learning to take care of yourself
and Olivia took pride in her situational awareness and her general ability to
take care of herself. She wasn’t afraid. At first.

Only when it
became apparent that they were a gang of four and they were closing the gap
behind her that she started to worry. But she didn’t panic. One of the first
things she learned in her Krav Maga class was not to panic, to remain in
control of her emotions.

Without warning,
she stopped abruptly and turned on her would be attackers.

“Can I help you
with something?” she asked, hoping the tightness in her throat didn’t betray
her fear.

The three
shorter ones looked to the tallest of the gang, the alpha, Olivia surmised,
then at each other. Clearly they had done this before but that thought gave her
no comfort as they lunged to snatch her purse, flick knives at the ready to
slice the shoulder strap. Or her.

With blinding
speed and in one fluid movement she dropped her purse to the ground, altered
her stance and lashed out with a vicious and unrestrained elbow strike to the
nose of the nearest assailant. With a horrendous shattering of facial bones, he
collapsed, gagging as blood erupted from his shattered nose.

Paying no
attention to the now disabled attacker, she threw her considerable weight
behind a low kick to the leg of the second gang-banger, who made the mistake of
stopping to look at the damage done to his buddy. Her brutal and well placed
shin connected with his side of his thigh, taking out his sciatic nerve,
dropping him like a brick on the hard pavement where he screamed like a little
bitch.

“You want some?”
she said to the third and understandably hesitant mugger.

He looked her in
the eye, his fear clearly evident. Then he looked at the alpha gang-banger. His
fear of him seemed to tip the balance against her and he lunged with his knife
pointed at her stomach.

Slapping her
palm against his wrist with lightening speed, she deflected the weapon before
immobilizing his knife wielding hand with an excruciatingly painful armbar that
would have made Ronda Rousey proud. But with two other attackers in the wings,
submission wasn’t enough. He needed to be taken out of the game. With a
sickening crunch of tendon and ligament she hyperextended his elbow. He
screamed a stomach-churning scream. Just as he thought it couldn’t get any more
painful, Olivia brutally guided his wrist, which still clutched the knife like
his life depended on it, toward his leg, embedding the sharp blade deep in his
thigh muscle. His screams were earsplitting.

“Not so fucking
tough now, are ya,” she spat at him as he screamed in agony alongside his two
incapacitated buddies.

Looking panicked
but not enough to run, the last gang-banger standing pulled a menacing .45
semi-automatic from the waistband of his pants and held it gangster style,
pointed at her head.

“Not so tough,
now, are ya … biatch!”

Gun! Shit!
That’ll stop ‘em farting in church.

She quickly
realized that her ‘defense against guns’ training didn’t really apply when the
gun wielder was too far away to disarm. But she wasn’t going to get shot and be
left bleeding to death in a dingy back alley. Feinting left, she switched to
the right and moved toward the gun toting prick who was trying to rob her of
what little she had left.

Typical damn
male
, was the last thought she had when the gun
fired with a deafening roar and burning sensation flared on the side of her
head.

As she fell, she
thought she heard someone say “fuck me”, but it wasn’t one of her attackers.
The voice was coming from
inside
her head. And the voice wasn’t her own
— it was a man’s voice.

Then the
darkness swept over her as she hit the cold, hard pavement.

Taking in the
scene, Declan wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. Three squealing,
bleeding humans on the ground, one crazy eyed gunman who looked like he was
high and a tall woman collapsing on the ground with a fine mist of blood still
lingering in the air.

No … not just
any woman. The magnificent, statuesque woman from the diner.
His
woman.

With a blood
curdling, thunderous roar, Declan shifted into his dragon, his bulk immediately
filling the narrow alley as he leapt toward the cowering mugger, his long razor
sharp teeth gnashing and his maniacal eyes blazing ferociously.

Petrified with
fear and disbelief, the mugger didn’t even get a shot off before the dragon
reared up on its hind legs and prepared to snap its horrific jaws together on
the puny human. But somehow, his flight response kicked in and in an adrenaline
fueled burst of energy, the would-be dragon snack scurried toward the safety of
an adjoining alley, leaving his fellow gangsters to their fate.

Declan’s dragon
instinct urged him to chase down the human prey, which he could have done with
ease. But his human was so overcome with anxiety for the woman, that he
abandoned the chase and ignored the three other men, who, by now, had become
unnaturally silent with fear, despite their hideous injuries.

Quickly shifting
back to his human, Declan knelt alongside Olivia and cradled her in his arms.
He could see her name embroidered on her uniform.

Such a
beautiful name.

“Olivia! Olivia!
It’s alright. I’m here, now,” he said urgently, but in a soothing tone, not
wanting her to come around only to see a crazy ‘dope peddling biker’ yelling at
her.

Taking the hem
of her dress, he extended his index finger and allowed it to shift into a
reptilian claw with a razor sharp tip. He used it to cut a strip of her dress
before it once more returned to a normal human finger.

As best he
could, he tried to clean up the blood on her face which was still flowing from
her bullet grazed ear. It was only a flesh wound, but it was bleeding profusely
and was sure to hurt like hell when she woke up.

That’s going
to leave a nasty scar
.

Seeing one of
the shiny flick knives glinting on the pavement, Declan reached for it, causing
the nearest wide eyed and wounded gang-banger to shuffle out of range, leaving
a wet patch and the rank smell of urine in his wake. Using the blade to pierce
the tender flesh on the underside of his wrist until the blood flowed freely
from the cut.

He directed the
blood flow to Olivia’s ear and allowed his blood to completely cover the rather
large gash where a part of her ear had once been. Almost instantly, the flesh
on either side of the gash began to grow, healing the ugly void within seconds.
It was as if the scorching hot projectile had never passed through her ear at
all.

“Now you won’t
feel a thing. You’re as good as new. Better than new,” he whispered despite
knowing she couldn’t hear him.

S
he was
dreaming. A forbidden dream that could never become a reality. At least not for
her. Cradled in the powerful, protective arms of her man. Not an ounce of fat
on him as her head nestles against his granite like abs while he soothes her
with gentle fingers on her scalp and a soothing voice.

“You’re going to
be OK, Liv,” she heard him coo in tone that belied his muscular frame.

She hated that
name with a passion. For as long as she could remember she hated being called
‘Liv’, but hearing him say it, she wanted that name, her name, coming from his
lips forever. She would never tire of it.

The dream
quickly faded. She opened her eyes. Then squeezed them shut again before
opening them one more time in the hope that the dream would be banished once
and for all. But he was still there. The itinerant biker was cradling her and
soothing her head with his magic fingers.

“What the hell
are you doing?” She tried to sit up but her head threatened to explode, so she
lay back down in his lap.

“You mean apart
from saving your life, running these bangers off the block and patching up your
ear?” He gave her a cocky grin.

“I had it all
under control until —”

“Until he pulled
a .45,” Declan interrupted sharply. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I didn’t think
—”

“No you didn’t!
You could have been killed!” He hadn’t meant to sound so hostile, but his human
emotions were getting the better of him.

Anger boiled
within her and Olivia pushed past the pain to sit upright. “And just who do you
think you are to talk to me like that. Like it’s any of your business.”

Raising her hand
to her ear, it came away bloody but she couldn’t locate the source of the blood
that coated her uniform. Strangely, she felt no pain, either. Other than the
ringing in her ears from the gunshot and a thumping headache from her head
hitting the pavement, she was unharmed by her ordeal.

Looking around,
she realized that they were alone.

He chased off
the guy with the gun? And the others, too? How?

“There’s nothing
wrong with me, so get your filthy paws off me and let me get up, you creep.”

“Let me help you
up, at least.” He held out his hand to help pull her up from the ground.

“I can manage,”
she snapped at him. There was no way she wanted him to know just how heavy she
was.

As she stood,
she started shivered from the cold. Or the shock. Without hesitation, he
removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders in an effort to keep her
warm. His tightly fitted T-shirt hugged every sculptured muscle on his
impossibly wide shoulders and his thick, robust chest. Olivia couldn’t take her
eyes off him, drinking in every sinew and fiber of his heavily muscled, lean
frame, all the way down to his sexy-as-hell narrow waist.

“Do you want me
to take the shirt off, too?” he asked with a shit-eating grin across his
divine, ruggedly handsome face.

“Tickets on
yourself much, mister?” She rolled her eyes.

“Declan.”

“Hey?” she
quizzed.

“My name. It’s
Declan and it’s been my pleasure to save your life this evening.” He bowed
mockingly, smiled and said, “I’ll be here all week and don’t forget to tip your
friendly waitress.”

As she gaped at
him, unsure how to respond, he did something totally unexpected. Something she
never saw coming. Something she wouldn’t have dreamed of, not even in her
wildest dreams.

D
ragons
aren’t emotional creatures. Sometimes they’re not particularly rational,
either. They’re driven purely by their needs. The need to hunt, mate and
protect. So, it was his dragon, or so Declan told himself, that took control in
that moment. It was his dragon that stepped forward in a moment of pure madness,
wrapped his massive arms around his beautiful mate and crushed his lips to hers
in a possessive kiss that laid claim to her.

As strong as she
was, Olivia was no match for the hard bodied, lean Declan whose muscles flexed
against her squirming protestations, stilling her with little effort as his
mouth opened and his tongue sought hers. With a sigh, Olivia capitulated and he
soon found his tongue dancing rhythmically with hers as he plundered her mouth,
tasting every part of it like a beast marking its territory.

His hands roamed
her voluptuous body freely, exploring her. Enjoying her. Claiming her. Finally,
he took her butt with both hands and pulled her against him, grinding the
length of his cock against her adorable belly.

“Hey!” she
cried, breaking their kiss. “What’s
that
about?” She looked down at the
unmistakable outline in his jeans that seemed to run the length of his thigh.

Declan laughed.
“If I have to tell you that, then this could be a very interesting evening.”

“Oh, you’re a
comedian, too? Very funny. So you think you can play the hero and get a bit of
action for your trouble, do you? Is that a
thing
with you, is it? Maybe
you go for the big girls because you think they’re more desperate or
something?” She tried to shove him away, but her hands struck his unyielding
chest, coming to rest on his granite like pecs.

Declan took a
half a step back to give her some space. He had no desire to intimidate her.

“Is that what
you think? I couldn’t be attracted to you? I couldn’t have nearly killed that
filthy little scrote for what he did to you?”

“Guys like you
aren’t interested in girls like me. Not unless they’re really hard up for some
tail or they want your money,” she countered.

“I’m not ‘hard
up’ as you put it and I’m doing just fine financially, thanks for asking.”

“Yeah, I can see
that.” She looked him up and down.

“Oh, and how
much are you bringing home in tips from the diner, then, Miss High and Mighty?”

As soon as he
said it, he wished he could take it back. She was so frustrating and he just
argued back instinctively. He hadn’t meant to fight with her. Quite the
opposite, in fact.

“I’ll walk you
home. Come on.” Without waiting for her to accept his offer, he turned and
started walking decisively in the direction she appeared to be heading when he
first saw her.

Picking up her
purse from the pavement, Olivia straightened her dress as best she could and
started to follow.

“I didn’t mean
to sound so harsh. Or judgmental. I’m sorry,” she called to him as she
quickened her pace to catch up. “I don’t get a lot of male fitness models
wanting to stick their tongue down my throat, you know?”

“I wish.” He
paused and turned around.

“Wish what?”
Olivia asked as she drew alongside him.

“I wish my life
was that simple? Male fitness model, hey? Really? That’s the best you can come
up with?”

“So, why don’t
you tell me your story, then?”

“How far are we
walking?”

“Two blocks,”
she replied

“That’s nowhere
near long enough. Tell you what, you tell me your story, first. I’ll tell you
mine another time,” he offered.

“Oh, so you
think there’ll actually be another time. Bit sure of yourself?”

As they walked,
Declan listened attentively to every word that came from her stunning, kissable
lips. He could have listened to her talk all night. By the time they reached
her apartment, his human heart ached with pain for her and what she’d been
though. His dragon wanted to tear to pieces the prick who fucked with his mate,
slowly, while the bastard was still alive and screaming.