Timberman Werebear (Saw Bears Book 3) (9 page)

Covering her body with his, he lifted up one of her legs and lowered his lips to hers. He canted his head and pushed his tongue past the closed seam of her mouth. Denny, her Denny, even tasted familiar from what she remembered. The head of his thick erection pressed against her wet slit, and she whimpered at the tease.

“You always were a noisy little thing,” he murmured against her lips. “I got off for years remembering how you used to say my name, all helpless, like you needed me inside of you.”

He rolled his hips forward and his cock pressed into her deeper by an inch. Spreading her legs wider, she met his shallow thrust this time. He was propped on his elbows, trying to hold his weight from her, and his triceps flexed with every powerful stroke. Running her hands up the steely tautness of his muscles—the ones he’d earned doing hard, manual labor as a timberman, not a gym rat like she’d thought—she tilted her chin up and bit his lip hard to punish him for being too gentle with her.

He groaned as she moved for the tight cords of muscle in his throat and brushed her teeth against his skin. “Brooke checked my neck today to see if you’d bit me,” she said. “I don’t know what that means yet, but I think you wanted to earlier when we were together in your Bronco. You wanted to bite me then, didn’t you, Denny?”

His breath came in short pants, and he thrust his full length into her until she was full of him, stretching around him.

“Didn’t you?” she asked again.

“Yes,” he gritted out. “I want to now, but I won’t. Not until you understand what it means.”

“Well, if you won’t tell me, maybe I’ll just bite you first. Where do you want it? Here?” She pressed her teeth over his collar bone.

Denison shuddered hard enough that his shoulders shook. He slammed into her, and she closed her eyes against the pleasure building inside.

“Or here?” she whispered, then bit harder onto the hard muscle near his tattoo.

His breath was nothing but desperate sounding gasps now as he bucked into her again and again. He closed his eyes, and teeth gritted, he let off a helpless sound.

She tested him, biting down hard enough that it should’ve been painful, but he pushed his chest toward her mouth, as if the burn brought him pleasure.

She bit down harder, close to piercing his skin, and he threw his head back as a snarl rumbled from deep within his throat. Over and over, he bucked into her until the pressure was too much. She released his skin and cried out his name as ecstasy pounded through her. Streams of warmth filled her as Denison froze and buried his face against her neck. He pressed into her twice more, then lay throbbing and spent across her body as she trailed her fingernails up and down his back.

And when his muscles relaxed completely and his eyes had darkened to a stormy gray again, he pulled the covers over them and cradled her in the crook of his arm. With one forearm under his head, he stared at the ceiling as she listened to his steady, drumming heartbeat that pounded a strong rhythm under her cheek.

His tattoo stood stark against the soft sconce lighting, a reminder that he’d loved her even after she’d gone from his life, and she traced the arcing abstract shapes there.

“Denny?” she murmured.

“Hmm?”

“Someday you’ll let me in, won’t you?”

He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. His voice was deep and serious when he finally spoke again. “Someday I’ll show you all of me. And then you’ll run.”

There was no use denying him when he sounded so sure of their fate. He was wrong, though. No matter what happened, and no matter what he was hiding, she wouldn’t run again.

She hated herself for earning his distrust.

Around the emotional lump in her throat, she whispered, “I’m sorry for leaving.”

His fingers combed through her hair, and he leaned down and brushed his lips against her temple. “I forgive you.”

Denison rubbed the place on his chest Danielle had almost pierced with her teeth last night. Damn, he’d wanted her, too. Usually it was the male bear shifters who left a mark on their mates, but he and Danielle weren’t like any of the pairs he’d ever met. He would’ve gladly bore her mark.

If she knew what it meant, that was.

Bo, the half-grown pygmy goat, followed Danielle around a giant pine tree like a puppy. They’d hiked for hours this morning as she collected bark samples from trees in various stages of beetle infestation. She’d taken water samples and packed vials from different ponds into a cooler she carried in a loaded backpack. He’d offered to carry the thing since it looked atrociously heavy for a smaller woman like her, but apparently she didn’t need the help. She’d swatted his hand away and continued her mutterings about some kind of blue fungus.

The forest green backpack, he’d come to learn, was an entire portable library on animals and fauna native to this region.

Denison got why her boss wanted her to have a guide. She was plenty capable in the wilderness and was obviously a knowledgeable woodswoman, but she would’ve had to depend on topographical maps to find what she wanted. That and wandering around these woods on her own.

The realization of how close they were to the Gray Back Crew’s current job site made him downright grateful to her boss for pushing the issue. He could hear their machinery from here, though Danielle with her dulled human senses likely wouldn’t notice anything but the sounds of the woods. Sure, he missed the jobsite and working with his crew today, but at least Danielle was safe when he was with her.

He settled onto a fallen tree, nestled in patches of waving summer grasses, and watched Danielle take another measurement of the tree she was muttering to. It was cute that she talked to herself when she was working. Already, he’d learned more about the squishy green moss at the base of some of the trees than he had in his entire outdoor experience.

Pulling a long stem of grass, he gave a private grin as she bent down in one fluid motion and gave Bo a drink of canteen water from a tiny Dixie cup Kellen had given her this morning. Usually, he and the boys took shots out of those, but today, this one served as the goat cup.

“Can you help me cord this section off?” she called.

“Be happy to,” he answered.

She’d been roping sections off all morning, then counting the affected trees versus the healthy ones for more accuracy. Then she would scribble the numbers in her notepad and likely use some formula later that would give her an accurate idea of just how devastated this forest was.

If he was honest, he was in awe of her knowledge of the area. He was an animal and learned by exploring and listening to instinct, but Danielle was smart. Book smart. She knew most of the plants and trees and knew scientific facts about each one. And if she didn’t know something, she dropped down and flipped through her plant books, then repeated the name over and over until she committed it to memory.

Now, he wasn’t a smart man, or an overly educated one, but he had other qualities about himself he liked just fine. He could play music and make people happy with his songs. He didn’t have stage fright, and he was good with his hands. He had a strong back and could work big machinery on the job site. His alpha trusted him with just about everything up on the landing.

Danielle though—she had intelligence to go with her quick wit and happy demeanor. And he found that damned sexy.

He tried to focus on the task at hand as she tossed him the pre-measured loops of rope, but she looked good in her little forest ranger outfit. Khakis, thick-soled hiking boots, and a mud-colored tank top clung to her curves, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out if he liked her better in this getup or that sexy miniskirt she’d been wearing at Sammy’s Bar.

His bear was practically humming under his surface with possessive happiness.

She was his.

Danielle just didn’t know how thoroughly she’d been chosen yet.

It had been six glorious days spent exploring the woods with Denison, and Danielle couldn’t remember being any happier. She wished this job would never end. Perhaps if she did what Reynolds wanted her to well enough, he would extend her month-long contract.

She was going to ask him about it when she met up with him tomorrow.

Bo bleated from his oversize dog bed near the couch in the Airstream. The little hellion had gone to head-butting Denison whenever he got the chance, but he was sweet as pie to her. She loved him ridiculous amounts.

After tying the laces of her hiking boots, she grabbed her backpack and the stack of notebooks she’d filled with nature scribbles, drawings, and calculations, then opened the door and stepped out into the gray, early morning light. She waited for Bo to jump clumsily over the single stair after her before she closed the door.

The trailer park was immersed in chaos as the Ashe Crew readied to head up to the job site for the day. Denison had taken her up there yesterday and showed her around. She’d imagined all of the dangers of his job but hadn’t really realized just how grueling the work was until she saw the crew working to drag logs up the mountain with that heavy machinery firsthand. She tried to keep her worrying to herself, though, because it was plain and obvious that Denison loved his job. They all did.

She waved to Tagan as he shoved a lunch pail into his truck. He smiled back, but it wasn’t his usual greeting. Worry sat in his blue eyes. She only caught the glimpse of concern before he hopped into his big old black pickup truck with its heavily tinted windows.

That was weird.

“Hey, Danielle?” Brooke called from the door of the trailer she shared with Tagan. She was still in flannel pajama bottom pants and a red tank top she probably slept in. Her blond hair was mussed, and she looked pale, as if she wasn’t feeling well again.

“Yeah?”

“Come see me after you go out with Denison today, okay? I want to show you something.”

“Sure. I’ll come straight over.” Danielle frowned as Brooke closed the door behind her.

Something was up this morning. The usual rowdy greetings from the crew had been skipped, and everyone seemed on edge. Engines turned over and roared to life, and one by one, the trucks backed out of cracked pavement parking spaces and headed up the road that would lead them to the job site.

Denison stood bent at the waist as he rested his elbows on the railing of his porch. The megawatt smile he usually gave her first thing in the morning was missing. He didn’t scoop her up and fondle her ass like he hadn’t seen her for days either.

Warning bells clanged around her head, louder than the trucks that rumbled away and echoed off the mountainside.

“You need to leave Bo here today,” Denison said as she approached.

“But…why?” She looked down at her little furry buddy, who was currently chewing on the cuff of her pants. She’d grown accustomed to having him and Denison around her while she worked. It would be strange collecting and pressing plants without the rascal trying to eat them.

Denison didn’t answer, and a muscle twitched under his eye as he stared at her. He looked angry, and something more. Scared. What had she done wrong?

“Okay, I’ll go put him in his pen.”

After Bo was penned, fed, and his water dish changed for fresh, she closed the gate Tagan had constructed and shuffled toward Denison. She shouldered her backpack and hid her surprise when he crossed the street and headed to a small fence that surrounded the small trailer park. This wasn’t the way they usually went to work, and she had a grid to follow.

Denison didn’t say a word and didn’t look back to see if she was following. And with every step she took on the thin trail that led up into the mountain that overlooked the trailer park, dread weighed heavier across her shoulders. Pressing against her more and more until it was hard to breathe.

The trail wound around ancient evergreens with trunks so large it would take two grown men to wrap their arms around them. The smell of sap and ozone filled the air, and above her, dark clouds churned and warned of an oncoming storm. The wind kicked up as she climbed over a boulder, whipping her hair this way and that until she gave up and pulled her dark tresses back in a high ponytail.

Denny didn’t slow down, nor did he offer to help her up a steep embankment like he usually would. Perhaps he was still angry about her leaving and had decided she couldn’t be trusted after all. She swallowed hard as tears stung her eyes from the thought of losing all she’d found over the last week. The endless days of joking with Denny and the nights in his arms. Feeling like she belonged somewhere for the first time. She thought of her friends and how badly it would hurt to leave them when Denny made her go. By the time she stepped into a clearing on the side of the mountain, she’d worked herself up quite capaciously.

Denny stepped from behind a tree and pulled his shirt off. His chest was heaving, as if emotion was choking him like it was her. He approached slowly, then hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her gaze to his. With a serious look that was completely at odds with the natural smile lines of his face, he murmured, “This is me, Danielle. Remember your promise.”

Her eyes went wide, and she gasped as she absorbed what he was saying. Denison kicked out of his boots and jeans, then tossed them into a pile near the tree. Behind him was rolling mountains covered in pines and the gray morning sky. Above them, a giant bird screeched a call, and Denison stretched his neck up, watching it.

The first drops of rain spattered across his shoulders, and when he looked back at her, his eyes were the color of silver pond minnows. Flashing like the lightning in the distance.

She held her breath, afraid if she kept panting so hard, she’d pass out.

A smattering of pops echoed through the clearing, and his neck snapped backward. His form grew, and in a moment of disorienting confusion, a giant animal exploded from the man she loved.

Sand-colored fur covered every inch of him, and six-inch razor sharp claws the color of tar stretched from paws that were bigger than her face. His big block head shook back and forth as if he needed to rid himself of the last tingles of his transformation, and those silvery eyes she’d come to love watched her. His lips pulled back over impossibly long canines, weapons made for ripping and killing.

Her shoulders sagged, and she sank to the earth on her knees as he opened his mouth and let out a thunderous roar.

All this time, Denny, her Denny, had been harboring a grizzly bear inside of him.

****

Denison waited for the running.

He waited for the screaming.

Hell, he would’ve settled for a few curses tossed his way like Danielle usually flung into the universe when she was scared.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was crying.

Shit.

He lowered his head and approached her slowly, trying not to scare her any more than she probably already was.

Now she was sobbing, hiccups filling her throat as the rain came down harder on his mate. He didn’t want that—hadn’t meant to hurt her.

He was too riled up and scared to change back into his human skin, so he crept forward and emitted a low rattling noise, a worried question if she was a bear shifter and understood the language.

“I thought you were evil,” she sobbed, throwing her arms around his neck.

Denison froze, utterly baffled as she clutched his fur in her clenched fists. If he wasn’t mistaken, there were a few hysterical sounding laughs mixed in with her crying. Well, that couldn’t be good. Right?

“Denny, you’re not evil,” she said, easing back and looking him right in his bear eyeballs. “You’re a bear!”

Okay, Danielle was starting to sound excited.

Tagan had been preparing him for days for Danielle’s reaction, but none of the scenarios included her hugging her boyfriend, the freaking grizzly, around his terrifying neck.

Clearly, Danielle had been grossly underestimated.

He huffed a shocked-laugh sound and nuzzled her face until she giggled.

Relief flooded his veins, making him feel high as a kite. He’d smoked joints that didn’t have this much kick. With a rocking motion, he scooped her up, careful of his claws near her fragile human skin, and pulled her against his chest.

She was hugging him tightly and laughing like a maniac, proving all his fears and nightmares over the past week null and void. He’d been wrong to be so scared of her reaction.

“Denny, Denny, Denny, my big silly bear. This is your secret?”

She clutched tighter to his fur, and he rubbed his face against her cheek, then moved to the other side, showing her just how much he appreciated her being such a brave mate.

“I thought you were a vampire! Or a zombie. But you’re a werebear. How fucking awesome is that?”

Uh, not awesome at all until now. Mostly, being a werebear was a pain in the big furry ass.

She was sobbing again, shoulders shaking, and he hugged her tighter. And then she was…petting him. She ran her hands in long strokes down his shoulder blades as she cried against his fur. It wasn’t the scared kind of weeping he would’ve understood. Her shoulders relaxed with every heave of raw emotion.

Danielle seemed relieved.

Closing his eyes, he tucked his animal back inside of him and slipped into his human skin again. She felt so good in his arms as she tucked her elbows in and snuggled against the now smooth skin of his chest. He kissed down her neck, tiny rewards for her being so understanding.

“You let me in,” she said, pulling back and cupping his face. “You finally let me in on the big secret.”

“I trust you.” Denison’s voice was raw, but that came from the pain of Changing back so quickly. “You didn’t run.”

“I told you I wouldn’t. I don’t care that you have a bear inside of you! I still love you, Denny. Maybe more now because you finally shared that part of yourself with me.”

“Damn, Badger.” He leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, absorbing how good it felt to be with his mate and not hiding the biggest part of him anymore. She knew now, and she was still here. “I love you, too. More than anything. I was so scared I was going to lose you again.”

“No, silly bear. You’re stuck with me.” She grinned. “Don’t you know I love animals?”

He huffed a laugh and tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “This isn’t all of it, though.”

“Tell me. Tell me everything and be done with it. No more hiding.”

“This isn’t a safe life.” He gripped her waist to try to steady himself. Every time he thought about his past, his body wanted to seize and reject the memories. “If you choose to stay with me, you’ll always be in danger. We don’t live in a trailer park in the woods because it’s our first choice, Danielle. It’s safest for us here. We are freer to shift without being found out, but there are people who know about us. If you stay, you’ll always have to be careful of everything you say to people outside of the crew. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder.”

Her dark eyebrows drew up with concern. “Who else knows?”

God, he wished he could swallow this down and never talk about it. He’d never admitted this to anyone but Tagan. But he was dedicated to doing things right this time around with Danielle. He couldn’t keep secrets and expect her to stick around for half-truths. He inhaled a deep, steadying breath. “When Brighton and I were sixteen, my parents left us alone for the first time to have a date night. I know that sounds extreme, but my family wasn’t part of a crew. We were out there in the middle of the human population, trying our best to blend in, and my parents were protective. My sister had already moved out and joined up with a crew in Denver, but Brighton and I were still too young. We wanted Mom and Dad to trust us to be home alone again, so we weren’t about to have a raging party or anything. Just some pizza for dinner, and we had a pool table, so I was planning on kicking his ass at that. But half an hour after Mom and Dad left, these men came for us. Black ops type, dressed in helmets and bullet proof vests… Shit.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, not entirely sure he could do this without breaking down. Denison stood and kissed the top of her head, then moved toward the pile of clothes and began redressing to give him something to focus on other than telling this damned story.

“I don’t remember much. Only flashes. White rooms. A man with black hair in a white lab coat and a surgical mask. A long hallway.” He fastened the snap on his jeans and dragged his burning eyes to Danielle’s. “Screaming. Mine and Brighton’s.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Danielle murmured. She looked like she was going to be sick.

“I think we were sedated so we wouldn’t Change, or maybe they did something to my head to erase what I’d seen, I don’t know, but I have this nightmare. I get it over and over. I think maybe it’s a memory. I’m walking down this hall, and I feel drunk, like my feet aren’t really touching the floor. But I look in this window and Brighton is laid out on a table, strapped down while these two doctors are cutting into him. There was blood everywhere. Only, my brother isn’t sedated. He’s looking back at me, eyes wide like he can feel every cut they are making on him. And I’m burning, like I’m on fire, and my bear rips out of me. And I rip through these chains on my wrists and ankles and shred the two people who were walking me down the hall. And then I wake up. Every time.”