Too Much to Bear (BBW Shifter Ménage) (2 page)

“You don’t remember me little,
Maddie
?
It’s me, Paul Davis.”

She searched her mind and then suddenly remembered. Paul was
one of the other few people that were raised in Titusville. He couldn’t have
been much older than she was when she met him, but she remembered he had a
nasty attitude and a penchant for bumming rides off strangers who were going
down the mountain.

He was always looking for trouble, and Papa Seth had told
her to stay away from him. His parents had abandoned him in search of more
money and drugs, leaving him to be raised up in the mountain by his elderly
grandparents.

He was once a skinny kid, but now looked like he could swipe
her unconscious with a slap of his meaty fist.

“Oh, Paul. It’s nice to see you again,” she lied, eyeing the
man behind him suspiciously. He wouldn’t even sit. He just stood there with a
peculiar look in his eye. “Who’s your friend?”

“That’s Jake,” he said, nodding his head back to the thin
man. “Say
Maddie
, what’re you up to tonight? Jake and
I were looking to have a little fun.” He leaned in close to her, catching her
wrist and smirking at her nastily.

Madison cringed, filled with a peculiar dread. While she
wanted to outright tell him off, there was something about him that made her
fearful, made her realize she needed to be careful. Years of living in a small
town taught her that it was best not to piss off the wrong people.

But she couldn’t just lie and say she had anything to do.
She obviously had nothing to do. No job, no family, no friends.

“Please let go of me,” she said evenly, tugging her wrist
back. His grip grew stronger, and he didn’t look like he was about to let go
anytime soon.

Then, just as she was contemplating the merits of causing a
scene, the devil himself came through the door.

“There she is,” came a familiar voice from behind her. She
tensed and turned to give him a smile, even though she would have otherwise
been much colder to him. But she wanted to get Paul and his
weaselly
lackey off her back.

“Caleb,” Paul said in a terse voice, greeting him with a
cool gaze. He dropped Madison’s wrist like it was on fire.

“Hello, fellas,” he said, his smile hardly faltering. But
there was an edge to his voice, almost as if there was something unspoken
between them. “I see you’ve met up with my lovely date.”

The words both thrilled and incensed Madison, as he had not
asked her on a date at all. But she held her tongue, knowing that it wouldn’t
help her case any if she protested.

“Well, we wouldn’t want to bother you. You two have a good
evening,” Paul said, giving Caleb a hard look before surrendering his stool and
walking away towards a booth in the corner.

Madison was slightly in awe. She looked over Caleb and shook
her head, as in disbelief. Sure, Caleb looked fit. But Paul was huge, and
clearly he had some sort of reverence for the small town cop.

“Can I get another, Mr. Bill?” she quickly asked the
bemused-looking bartender, turning away from the cool, sexy man beside her.

“Sure thing, Ms. Madison,” he said.

“Giving me the cold shoulder are you? I get it.” Caleb sunk
onto the barstool next to hers, the warmth of his body unbearably delicious. It
didn’t make sense to her how she could feel him, feel this hot desire that only
came when she was near he and Will.

“I deserve it, there’s no doubt. Give me whatever’s on tap,
Bill,” Caleb called over the counter.

“We always got the same thing on tap, Caleb,” Bill grunted.

Madison gave Caleb a quick glance.

“No I understand. I’m sure there’s a lot to do in
Titusville,” she said coolly, hoping his flippant behavior would make it easier
for her to hold a grudge against him.

“Hey now, listen,” Caleb’s grabbed her shoulder and swiveled
her body around to face him. She gasped, his touch flooding her with a burst of
yearning that exploded on her skin like a spark igniting dry leaves.

“Ms. Dolly’s dog got ripped to shreds by some kind of an animal.
I wouldn’t have spent too much time with the paperwork, but given the tracks
around the property...well let’s just say it wasn’t a coyote. Thanks, Mr.
Bill,” Caleb said, dropping his hand from Madison’s shoulder and flashing the
bartender a closed mouth grin. Bill nodded and handed Madison her beer.

“I’ll be playing some darts if you need me,” he said,
wandering off to leave them to their bickering.

“What do you mean it wasn’t a coyote?” Madison said lowly,
dread flooding through her. Big animals scared her above everything. It was
something she mulled over as she made the five-hour trek up to Titusville, but
she kept telling herself that she was over-reacting, that plenty of folk lived
up in the mountain and that they were fine.

“I’m saying I can’t say too much until a ranger comes down
to see it, but I’m going to need to walk you to your place tonight. Even if
it’s only a quarter mile away, you better make sure you do nothing outside of
your house alone at night.”

Madison gulped, throwing back more beer to deal with her
nerves. “I guess this wasn’t the mountain retreat I imagined it’d be,” she
joked.

“Nothing easy about living in the wilderness,” Caleb teased,
his expression relaxing as he drank from his glass. “Which leads me to my next
question. What’s a big city girl like you doing out here?”

“You guys consider Pickford a big city?” she laughed,
shaking her head. She could feel the booze relaxing her, even the threat of her
intense attraction to him loosening its death grip.

“Well, you have paved roads don’t you?”

“Good point,” she shook her head, taking another swig.
“Truthfully, things weren’t going too well for me there. When my Papa Seth
passed I was pretty torn up about it, and I always wanted to come up with him
for one last summer and just relax, get my head on straight. When he passed,
well...I figured there was no better time than now to do it.”

“That’s pretty vague,” Caleb teased, his hazel eyes boring
into hers, sending a jolt of electricity storming through her body.

“Well, I’ve learned my lesson about being an open book,” she
said, averting her eyes for a moment as she tried to keep from falling apart in
front of the handsome man on her right.

“There shouldn’t be anything to hide amongst old friends,”
Caleb teased, and the playful look on his face sent a thrill of butterflies a
flight in her stomach. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“Right. Well, if you really need to know, I was working
really hard bar tending at this trucker stop off the inter-state, The Winder. I
was trying to save up so my boyfriend and I could move to Billings, maybe even
buy our own house. Hell, I don’t know,” she sighed, shaking her head at her own
naive dream.

“But then I walked in on him with this other woman, his
brother’s girl. I worked with her too, not that we were super close or anything
but we were friendly. She was a dancer at The Winder, and a stripper during the
day at the joint next door. So I just packed up my stuff and left. Didn’t even
look back.”


“So your boyfriend would rather have a daytime stripper than
you?” he said, and though she could tell he didn’t mean any harm by his words,
they stung deeply, ripping open a cavernous wound that had hardly healed. She
fought back the tears forming in her eyes and turned her gaze down to her
half-empty bottle, trying to focus through her cloudy tears on the amber liquid
that might offer her some sort of condolence.

“Yeah,” she murmured.

Then she felt a gentle touch to her chin as he placed two
fingers there, turning her face to meet his. His gaze was gentle, understanding.
Something she wouldn’t have expected from a smart aleck like him.

“Well, that’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. You’re
stunning.”

Filled with conflicting desires, one to pull away from him
and the other to give in, she did neither and wiped the embarrassing tears away
from her eyes, blotting at them with her fingertips.

“That’s nice of you. But you don’t have to go around telling
me lies to keep me from crying.”

“You still don’t trust me, huh?” he shook his head, pulling
his hand away from her. She was both relieved and filled with remorse that his
touch was gone; it filled her with a longing she couldn’t quite describe.

“Not really,” she admitted. “I know I’m just one of the few
young girls passing through here and you
gotta
jump
to get your chance,” she downed some more beer after that, surprised by her
blatant straightforwardness. She wasn’t typically so direct with people she was
distrusting of. Only her friends knew that truly sassy, candid side of her.

“You think I’m just talking to you because I’m desperate?”
he said, his dark brows shooting up in surprise, as if the thought had never
occurred to him.

“Oh, come on,” Madison laughed, tickled by his false display
of emotion. “You were never nice to me growing up. You were downright cruel!”

“I wouldn’t say I was
cruel
...”

“You put a leech in my hair!”

“Well...I wouldn’t say that was nice, but cruel? I don’t
know about that…” he grinned, draining the rest of his beer. “Besides, I just
did it because I had a big crush on you and I was jealous of Will.”

Madison choked up on her beer in a very unladylike fashion.
But she could hardly be sorry for it. This guy
had
to be pulling her
leg. “What, are you kidding me? You were awful!”

“Like I said,” he chuckled in his charming way. “I wanted
you to myself. I sure was spiteful then.”

Madison was filled with a buoyancy that came from a
combination of surprise at Caleb’s crush, flattery (even if it was when she was
just a kid), and the beer.

Caleb hailed Bill over and got another round of drinks,
insisting that everything from the night went on his tab. Then he continued on,
telling her about all the evil things he had done out of jealously, leaving
Madison in stitches by the end of it.

The time flew by, and Bill had to usher them out at closing,
shaking his head as he joked about what troublemakers they both were.

By the time they got back to Madison’s house she was
slightly tipsy, working hard to keep at least a semblance of distance between
them.

“I had a good time with you tonight,” Caleb said with a small
smile, leaning against her doorframe and watching her as she fiddled through
her purse for her keys.

“Yeah, it wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Madison mumbled,
blushing as she fought the smile that was spreading on her lips.

Dammit
Maddie
, you’re losing control!

“As bad as you thought?” Caleb said with a small half
chuckle. “What do you mean?”

Madison had the key in her grip but fumbled to fit it in the
keyhole; all the while she avoided his gaze, which felt hot on the back of her
neck.

“Well...listen,” she said, finally giving up on the door to
meet his gaze. Though his liquid honey eyes melted her soul, she knew she
needed to level with him. As much as she wanted to dismiss him as a womanizing
pretty boy, he had shown her a nice evening and she knew he deserved her
honesty for that.

“I’m just...not to be presumptuous or anything but…I came
here to get away from everything that was bringing me down in Pickford. That
includes men and relationships. I just can’t have that right now.”

“Jeez, I’m not asking you to marry me. I just took you out
to a dumpy place for drinks,” Caleb smiled, unperturbed by Madison’s
directness. His reaction made her feel even more embarrassed. She quickly
averted her gaze back to the keyhole, successfully slamming the key into it and
opening the door.

“I’m sorry...forget I said anything. I—”

Caleb caught her hand on the doorknob, leaning in close to
her so that when she turned to look at him his face was only inches away.

“Besides, you don’t have a choice in the matter,” he said in
a low, gravelly voice. “I chose you.”

Then he stole her breath away, pressing his lips tenderly to
hers, an erotic power in the gentle movement of his mouth against her own. He
reached a hand around her neck, looping his masculine fingers through her hair
and kissed harder, searching her mouth with his strong, eager tongue.

Madison felt herself melting between her thighs, falling
prey to an exotic longing, something she had never felt the likes of before.
Everything in her that wanted to fight, that wanted to protect herself from his
seductive touch fell away.

She was his in a way she had never been anyone’s before.

They tumbled into the cabin, Caleb closing the door by
shoving Madison against it with the force of his hard body. His hot hands
searched the length and curves of her sides, trailing down to the bulge of her
generous hips.

“What are you doing?” she gasped as he pulled away
momentarily to trail his kisses down her neck.

“Taking what’s mine,” he breathed, sinking his teeth into
the base of her neck, causing her to cry out in a pained delight. His ribald
kisses were magic—a pleasure laced with poison she couldn’t quite
identify under the cloudy haze of her passion.

But as his hands trailed back up her body, taking the front
of her silky blouse up with it, she pushed his chest away from hers, gasping to
catch her breath.

“I just can’t,” she said, shaking her head quickly to
convince herself of it. She had been hurt too many times before. She had to
learn from her mistakes.

Caleb studied her for a moment, and she felt the strange
tingle of energy she had felt so much around him, a radiating heat that
enraptured her. He grinned slowly, bringing a hand to her face and sweeping a
loose piece of hair out of her eyes. She stifled a moan, the graze of his
fingertips unbearably seductive, causing the pounding of her heart to race
through her veins. He leaned close to her so his lips were a mere half inch
away from hers, sitting, waiting, passing hot breath through the part in her
mouth, urging her to give in and kiss him.