Can't Bear To Run (Kendal Creek Bears, #1) (16 page)

“Oh my God,” I whispered, trying my best to be coherent. “I’ve never... you’re... I can’t handle this, Dax.”

He took a step back and I wrapped my legs around his waist, then pulled myself forward. I felt his thickness against my sex, hard and long and ready. “Please,” I whispered. “Let me feel you. Don’t make me beg.”

Dax kissed my chest once more, then gave my other nipple a suck. Drawing a hot, expectant breath from my lips, he buried two of his huge fingers inside me, rotating them slowly and hooking them upward, hitting me right on the sweet spot that sent stars through my eyes.

The mounting collapse inside me was more like the singularity of a black hole pulling planets around it into the center. It was all black, then streaks of white, then pinpoints of light highlighting every single one of my nerves as they flared to life one after another.

“Dax,” I whimpered, clutching his thick, powerful forearms. Once again that hair was creeping out, slowly and gently, but it was there. His animal ferocity did something deep in my belly, stoked a fire I didn’t realize I had. “I can’t keep going.”

“Don’t,” he growled. “We don’t have long anyway.”

“Don’t... need it,” I heard myself growl. “More,” I panted. “More, more, faster... yes!”

All at once those pinpoints of light exploded into something I can only describe as the wildest Cirque du Soleil that’s ever existed. Like a circus of lights and colors and happiness and anger and confusion all washing over me at once.

My muscles and my tendons all went taut. I squeezed Dax’s arms, digging my fingernails into them, and breathing harder, faster and heavier.

“Let go,” he whispered, sucking my earlobe as he did.

“Like I need you to tell me,” I sucked a breath through my front teeth. He twisted those huge, skilled fingers inside me one more time and then as the tips settled on that place just past my entrance that sends me into the clouds, I did exactly what he said to do.

There were no words coming out of my mouth, only gasps and croaks and squeaks that made me sound like a really excited bullfrog. Soon the groans and gasps turned to a long, softly exhaled whistle of air through my teeth and the whole world melted. Right there, in the dingiest place I could imagine, I was completely happy, absolutely safe.

In the middle of a shitstorm of epic proportions that could wipe the town I never knew I loved until I missed it off the map, I was, for the first time in my life, in love.

“I love you, Dax,” I whispered as the air came back into my lungs.

He kissed my cheek, then my lips and held me tight against his chest. “I love you too, Raine. I’m sorry for how this is all going. I wanted to take you on dates and get you roses and—“

“You really think I’m that kind of girl?” I asked with a grin. “I can’t remember the last time I had this much stupid, unbelievable, ridiculous fun.”

“Yeah, well, if you think it’s been fun so far,” Dax said with a laugh. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, baby.”

“Oh my God,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “You really just said that. Are you seriously straight from the 80s?”

“I know a good line when I hear it,” Dax said. “Come on. We got some wild bears to clear out of town. This might get messy. Say, I’m really impressed by the way you’ve handled all this. If it clears up the way I hope it will, you ever thought about being a cop?”

“A cop?”

“There’s a vacancy in the sheriff’s office. If you’re gonna stay in the Creek, we’re gonna have some work to do to get people comfortable with you.”

I arched an eyebrow. “So, putting a gun in my hand and making me write traffic tickets is the way to win the heart of the locals?”

Dax let out a booming laugh. “More like hunting down poachers and throwing drunks in a tank, but, yeah, more or less.”

“Well let’s see how the rest goes first, huh?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “I figured you were the smart one between us,” he said, grabbing my hand. “Let’s get this over with.”

I nodded. “Promise? I could use a vacation.”

“I promise,” he said. “Come on.”

That time when Dax grabbed my hand and pulled me after him, I knew that something had changed. Some fundamental shift in the universe took me down a path I never would have guessed, and I was different. I don’t know exactly what it was really, or even how to explain it, but... whatever it was, I
liked
the new Raine. “Do I get a gun?” I asked. “I mean, if I’m gonna be your sheriff I should probably pack.”

“Er,” he cracked a grin. “Got a shotgun in the car, that do you?”

“Just fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”

––––––––

“W
hat are we doing?” it occurred to me to ask as we were about to enter the north side of Kendal Creek. I was fiddling with the safety catch on my unloaded sawn-off twelve gauge and trying to judge exactly how crazy I’d gotten in the last two weeks. “I mean that in a bigger-picture sense. I know we’re driving to town, but I don’t think I’m following exactly why.”

Dax’s eyes were fixed in a hard, steel glare out the front of his truck. “Creighton’s gonna follow us. He probably already is. And I gotta be real honest with you Raine, I’m not entirely sure we’re gonna make it through this.”

“Through
what
?” I asked him, grabbing a hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought there was just some guy trying to get you thrown out of town. I didn’t realize this was going to turn into some kind of weird
Home Alone
scenario. Do we need to, I dunno, call the National Bear Guard or something?”

He snorted a laugh. “There’s a thought. Bunch of rowdy, pissed off bears ripping out of their uniforms and making a mess.” He laughed again. “It’s complicated. Everything with us is complicated.”

“I’m figuring that out. So, putting together the pieces, you had the brother of some important politician in your town and he was a screw-up?”

“Sorta.” Dax winced slightly as we bumped over something in the road. “Hope that wasn’t alive. Anyway. When I took the alpha’s seat, there was some confusion over how legitimate my claim was.”

“It’s like some old medieval thing?”

“Sorta. The family is chosen by a vote, and then they stay around until you run up against a cub who is either too corrupt or too stupid to run the town, and then they get violently deposed. The whole thing goes on and on.”

As I listened to him recite the succession rules, I just gazed out the side window, watching the mountain-forest background whizzing past. I thought about Dan and what felt like a million miles between Boston and the Creek. Not just physical distance, but the mental space we’d created, the safety I felt for the first time in memory... it was all overwhelming but it was also all incredible. I squeezed his hand again, I thought at least as much for his benefit as for mine.

He continued, spelling out the intricacies of bear politics, and I felt the pulse in his wrist speeding up. His attention was heightening, the tension in his wrist going taut.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked, when he seemed to finish. “We don’t have to do this. Or I mean, I don’t have to... I mean, if I’m really what’s causing the trouble, I can just go with them, or leave or whatever. I don’t want to make you and the town suffer because I’m too scared to leave.”

Dax pulled the truck to the side of the road and killed the engine. I watched him in confusion as he pushed open the squeaky driver’s side door with the toe of his boot and stepped out. Slowly, patiently, he trekked around the front of the car and then to my side. He stared back at me, those dark brown eyes burning against my neck as he clasped the handle and opened mine.

There was another squeak of aged hinges straining to get themselves open and not break right down the center. Even after everything that had happened in the past few days, I was still struggling to understand exactly what I’d done to be here. How I deserved not only this strange insight into a world I didn’t know existed, but also what I’d done to deserve this man who was taking my hand, then kissing it softly with velvet lips. The stubble on his face rasped against the thin skin on the back of my hand.

“I’m okay,” he finally said, answering my question from what felt like an eternity before. “But I’ll tell you this right now. If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have come back here from that concert. I was at the end of my chain, I was so far past caring about much of anything that I probably sounded a lot like a pissed off college student who just learned about either Communism or being a libertarian.”

I cracked a smile and then a second later, I allowed myself a laugh. “That’s a thought,” I said.

“I’m serious, Raine.” Daxon’s eyes were stormy, dark and strikingly beautiful. “You saved me from my own rage, from my own hatred. I can’t really explain anything past that, but without you I don’t particularly want to keep on going. So, no, I won’t just let you leave to please some asshole politician.”

Hearing that warmed me from the core to my fingertips. Little tingles of electric pleasure worked their way down my back and the backs of my arms all the way to the tips of my toes. In the shimmering, silvery light from the moon, I stared at his face for a moment and let myself smile. He kissed me once, softly, on the lips, and then again behind my ear.

I felt a trill of pleasure creep down my neck and work its way through my belly and down my legs. “I’ve never felt like this before, Dax,” I admitted. “I don’t know if,” I trailed off, falling silent.

He swept a tendril of fallen hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. “You don’t know what? You can feel safe telling me whatever you want.”

Taking my hand in his, Dax began to walk into the woods. I followed close behind, looping a finger through one of his belt loops as we went. “I don’t know if,” I started again, and once again faltered. He squeezed my hand, giving me strength. “If I’ve ever actually loved anyone who loved me back.”

He looked in my direction, but kept walking. His feet crunched softly over the fallen leaves and shed twigs. “What about your ex?” he asked. “Was that sour from the start?”

My stomach hit my toes and then shot all the way back up to my throat. Trust me, it isn’t a pleasant sensation to have your guts roll in quite that way. I had known from the beginning that eventually I’d have to breech this subject, and I had to decide whether to tell the truth or...

“He left me,” I said, making the decision to keep up the charade. I couldn’t risk it, not just yet anyway. I told myself that as soon as we were safe, I’d tell the truth, no matter how much it hurt or what it did to us as a couple. I’d come clean. At least, that’s what I told myself. “One day, instead of coming home from work he just... left. Took his truck and split. After all those years of him keeping me locked inside the house, a prisoner to my own husband. He just up and left. I didn’t know what to do or even the simplest things about taking care of myself.”

Dax’s jaws were clenched tight and hard. His eyes were hard and still. “If I ever see him, I’ll gut him.”

Normally, that would have just been some theatrical male posturing. But from him? I believed it. “I doubt that’ll be an issue,” I said, cleverly avoiding the truth while not exactly lying. “He apparently disappeared for good. They found his truck in the woods about an hour from our house where he liked to go camping, but didn’t find him.”

“Dead?”

“Yeah, I think,” I said. “Or maybe not. They never did find a body.”

My discomfort with lying became a physical pain. I could hardly keep myself from cracking up and openly weeping as I fed this man who loved me more than anyone ever had, line after line of bullshit. I kept repeating inside my head that the lie was only going to stay until it was safe to tell the truth. I was only going to keep up the charade until I could let him in and give up on the last of my defenses; until I could open myself and bare everything to him.

The scent of aspen and pine filled my nose when I inhaled deeply.

“I’m sorry that I brought it up,” Dax said with a hand on my shoulder. He twirled one of my curls around his fingertip and rubbed it softly. “It’s not my business.”

“That isn’t true,” I said. I looked away from his gaze so he wouldn’t see my façade begin to crack. “Where are we going?” I asked, to take my mind off of the monstrous lie I’d just blabbed.

“Scenic route,” he answered. “I figure if we don’t even really know what’s going to come of all this, we should at least take a few hours to see my favorite place.”

“Really?” I asked with a slight scoff of laughter. “I thought we were in a major hurry and the Creightons were behind us.”

He shrugged. “Things are almost never as urgent as they seem.”

I sensed tension in his voice. Something was straining in the background, even as he spoke with the same even, flat, soothing tone that I’d fallen so deeply in love with. I knew he was putting on a brave face, and I knew that he was scared of whatever lay ahead. But at the same time, showing me his courage gave me a little shot of confidence, and that was probably what he was going for in the first place.

“Not far now,” he said, pushing a tree branch out of the way and deftly avoiding a large, protruding root.

We were going higher into the mountains, which I knew from the burning in my thighs and the weird itching I felt in my ass cheeks. “I need to exercise more,” I said, joking about the sensation tickling my backside.

“You’re perfect however you are,” Dax said in such an offhanded, unpracticed way that I actually believed him. Whenever people told me that before, I always suspected some kind of ulterior motive, which was usually them wanting to get in my pants.

But with him? He didn’t need to do any flattering to get at me.

The din of ever present forest sounds – frogs croaking, night birds chirping and owls on the hunt – died away very suddenly as we crested a hill. In front of us I saw a small, sparkling pond that seemed to sprout up from nowhere. A gentle, meandering creek ran off to the east, carrying water toward the town below us.

“Look over there,” Dax said, pointing into the distance. “See those specks of light? That’s Kendal Creek.”