What a Bear Needs (The Wild Side) (19 page)

“I definitely did. I said it. I’ll say it again. This is your
fault Cree. The struggle you’re having, the refusal to trust that you’re not some malfunctioned creature with a sob story and mommy issues, is
your
fault.”

She slapped him.

Maddox’s head went sideways and when he opened his eyes again, she was staring at his grizzly. “The truth hurts, love,” he whispered, moving away.

The backs of her eyes burned. “I can find my own way home,” she announced.

“Right,”—his mouth twisted into a grim smile—“because I can leave you. Because you don’t need me.”

“I don’t,” Cree boasted. “I
don’t
need you. That’s what we’re waiting for isn’t it? For me to admit that. For your ego to shrink and for you to walk away and find a woman who does; for you to find a woman who’ll tell you all the pretty things you need to hear in order to feel important.” She wanted to stop talking but she couldn’t. Days of contemplation, years of terror, hours forgotten in the midst of something that was beyond her had settled in on her emotions and was
crushing
them like an aluminum can under a boot. “Say it, Maddox. Say you need to be needed, you need to be someone’s hero. You need to proudly strut around with your cock out, committing the great deed of letting everyone know you saved me from myself.”

He gazed at her like he didn’t know her. “I don’t want to just be anyone’s
need.
I don’t want to just be grouped in with water and oxygen, sweetheart. A need is viewed as something that you turn to out of necessity, desperation. Not because you want
that thing, or crave
it. Not because it brings you joy or does you good. Not because it makes you laugh or brightens the darkest part of your day. But because it’s there. It’s available. People with needs die without them. They do unspeakable things to get them.” Maddox’s eyes went from animalistic and hard to human and sad. “I want someone who also wants
me
. Someone who calls on me because it makes them happy. Not because ten minutes on my cock will do them some good. You don’t need me? Fine. I don’t fucking care. But don’t stand there and pretend like it wouldn’t burn you for me to go back home right now and find someone else.”

Just the thought made her sick but she was on a slippery slope already and couldn’t seem to stop. “Fuck who you want. We’re not mated. I don’t own you. You don’t own me.”

A muscle in his jaw worked as he nodded slowly. “You know what? You’re right. That’s what I want to do. I want to return to Colorado and plow through every single female in the pack. Then I think I’ll start in on Brody’s because that lot is particularly aggressive.” He raked his dark irises over her. “I’ll fuck one after the other until I’ve got nothing but claw marks and bites to show for it. I’ll fuck and fuck and fuck and
fuck,”—
he snarled leaning towards her—“until the sounds of their screams drown out the memory of yours.” Maddox rolled his shoulders. “There’s nothing binding us. Nothing tying me to you. I mean a year of self-imposed hell is long enough. And according to you, I got what I was looking for so I should go on with my life and pretend that you and your problems don’t exist.”

Cree stood stock still, knowing that one move would unleash floodgates that she wouldn’t be able to close.

“Do you think that’s who I am?” he questioned quietly.

She couldn’t open her mouth. She honestly couldn’t force the words past the sob in her throat.

“Answer me!” Maddox roared, flipping the deck table and sending it over the railing. “Do you honestly think I could tell you I love you, make love
to
you and then go sling my dick and anything that moved in my line of sight?!” He kicked over another chair. “Do you honestly think I could leave you here and not lose my fucking mind without you?!” Wood from the surrounding deck fencing came off in his hands and landed in the grass. “Do you honestly believe I would be here right now, railing like a goddamn lunatic if you didn’t mean the world to me?!”

He was so hurt that his eyes had turned glassy, his chest shuddering in an imitation of her own.

Jabbing a finger in her direction, his voice dropped so low that she could barely hear it, “I am
terrified
to lose you. I am terrified
that everything we’re doing, everything we’re trying isn’t going to work and I’m going to have to bury you because you think the sin is in your bloodline and not in your mentality. I’m trying so hard to shield you, comfort you
that I’m leaving myself open. I love you and all I’ve gotten back in return is how much you don’t need me. Do you know how fucking insulting that is?”

Words hung on her lips, so many, too many, all fighting for a chance to slip past, get out. All she could manage was, “I’m sorry.”

He swallowed and his lips trembled slightly.

Cree moved and kept moving until she reached him. He flinched away from her touch and nothing hurt more than that but she cupped the back of his neck anyway and brought his forehead down to her own. Everything from the past few weeks rushed up in her mind’s eye and spilled over.

“I love you,”—“I have the power!”—“You need to shift.”—“I’ll hold your hand.”—“All I see is you.”

And then things that she hadn’t seen before filtered in. Things that made the wetness on her lids roll past her lashes.
Maddox shifting and running with her panther.—Maddox watching her sleep.—Maddox caressing her lioness.—Maddox carrying her through the woods.—Maddox getting her cleaned up.—Maddox. Maddox. Maddox.

That cry that she’d held back, that shed refused to release, poured from her throat and she clutched onto him as she collapsed. She babbled apologies, begging him not to walk away from her.

“I can’t,” he hoarsely told her, easing them onto the deck. “I couldn’t leave you even if I wanted to. You may not need me, baby but I need
you.”

She covered his mouth with hers, rising over his lap to straddle him. Something primal rode her hard and she couldn’t resist finding the drawstring to his pajama bottoms and untying them. His cock sprang free, hot and heavy in her hand as she pumped him, grinding down on his thigh.

“Cree—”

Silencing him with another kiss, she decided not to think about she was doing and to just feel because that was the best thing about what she shared with Maddox. He made her feel so many wonderfully scary things and to deny her love for that would be beyond stupid.

Her robe opened and he palmed her breasts, plucking her nipples as his tongue met the roof of her mouth and stroked over it. He caught her moan and held her hips while he moved her harder over the muscle of his leg. When her breath quickened, he jerked her up and then down onto his length, spearing her.

Cree cried out and bit her knuckles, rolling her hips as he took her hard and fast and without grace. She grasped his shoulders and held on. Sobbing into his neck that she
did
need him, that she
did
want him, and that he could never leave her because it would break her.

“Love you too much,” he growled against her temple. “Love you too fucking much.”

As her climax thundered up her spine and seized her breath, she gasped out, “I love you too.”

Fourteen

“No, I’m fine. Honestly. I promise. I’m
not
lying to you. Jesus Christ, Fal, come off it already. Don’t take that tone with me, you started this shit. He’s okay. No.
No.
Well…he did go a bit Britney but it was kind of my fault. I said some really mean things. Yes we made up. No, I’m not telling you how. Okay, you really want to know? You
really
want to know? I had to have splinters dug out of my naked ass.”

Maddox burst out laughing across the room as he hovered over the stove, flipping patties of ground bison.

“Well you asked and I gave you an answer! Don’t care if you’re going blind! Oh well the name calling is just excessive.”

Lips twitching, he watched Cree over his shoulder as she continued bellowing into the phone. It was the first time in days that she hadn’t been withdrawn. It was the first time in days that he could feel their tether stronger than it had been before. He found it a bit ironic that they’d had to blow up at one another to get back to easy contentment but he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Yeah, no. Not yet. We’re going this afternoon.” There was a sigh. “I have no idea but I won’t be alone so,”—she looked towards him and smiled—“I think I have everything I need.”

His chest expanded with a slow even breath. He had to feed the woman. Needed to after the way he’d just about fucked her through the deck. After the first time they hadn’t been able to stop for some reason. Going over and over again until exhaustion finally left them unable to move. It was his fault. The way she’d said “I love you” needed to be heard repeatedly. And it had been. On low moans and harsh growls. It had been murmured against his throat as he pinned her knee to her chest and drove into her. It had been shouted towards the ground as he bent her over and fucked her until she shook. It had been howled up at the sun when she rode him. And yet, he could never get tired of the words.

“Don’t make Ransom crazy alright? Because I know you. I
know
you. I’ll call him. I swear to God I will. Right now. Don’t test me woman! Oh that was just
mean,
Fallon Alexandria Wilder. Yes, I full named you. You know what? I’m hanging up now. Yes, I am. Good-day, madam.
I said good day!”

Maddox’s shoulders shook.

“And you can just stop laughing, Patches.”

He managed to get a hold of himself.

Soft hands slid around his waist and up to his chest. Cree hugged him from behind, her breasts pressing into his back as she dropped a kiss on his shoulder blade.

“I went Britney?”
he quietly asked, turning off the gas range.

She tucked in her lips and affected an innocent stare as he rotated to look down at her. Nodding slightly, she responded, “Circa 2007.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “I would
never
shave my head. The beauty of my locks couldn’t be tainted in such a manner.”

Cree patted him on the butt. “But I wouldn’t put it past you to start swinging umbrellas.”

“Rude,” he accused. “Really rude.”

She bit him just above his nipple. “Sorry.”

“Naughty skin-walker,” Maddox admonished. “No you’re not.”

“Okay…I’m not.”

He swatted her ass as she walked away.

“Hey! That’s still sensitive!” Much to his amusement, he’d really had to pull splinters out.

“Don’t care,” he retorted, moving the skillet.

“Obviously.”

Maddox’s lips curled at the pout in her voice. He waggled his brows. “Come let Mr. Hinckles make it all better.”

She backed away as he came forward and shook her head with a grin. “No sir.”

“I just want to kiss it.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Cree. We both know what happens when you’re stubborn.”

The lighthearted silliness they’d come to enjoy had found its way back, taking the hardness away in the midst of Cree’s declaration. His complicated, ornery, self-imprisoned, skin-walker loved
him. The woman who’d twisted his nipples until his eyes watered, beat him with random objects and tried to rip his scalp off
loved
him. Where some would be concerned considering the amount of abuse he’d suffered by her hands, Maddox now understood that she’d shoved him into garbage dumpsters to keep him from managing to get too close. Too bad for her he’d somehow gotten under her skin regardless. He was rather proud of that fact.

“You gonna make me chase you, woman?”

She eased backwards, her lips curling mischievously. “You’d like that wouldn’t you, filthy bear?”

He took steps towards her, loving the way her eyes shined, the glow of her skin. In purposely releasing her, he’d obviously released something else. “What I like is
you,
Ms. Chayton; along with that expression.”

“What expression?”

“The one that says, for once, you’re okay.”

“Just okay?” Cree queried, allowing him to come close enough that he could grasp her hips with his hands.

Maddox nodded. “I get the feeling that’s all you’ve ever wanted; to be okay.”

Her cool palms brushed over his abdomen. “You’re right.” The look suddenly changed.

He tipped her chin upwards, knowing already where her thoughts had gone. “When we leave here, you’ll
still
be okay.”

“You promise?” she said softly.

Pulling her into the hug that he knew she needed, he rocked her, running his fingers down her spine soothingly. “I do.”

“Will
you
be okay?” Her voice was muffled against his chest.

Maddox smiled. “As long as you are.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Just
okay?” he teased, mimicking her words.

Her sigh seemed to bear the weight of both their worlds. “That’s all I’ve got.”

He’d take it.

***

Nothing could’ve been louder to Nasnaana than the SUV tires steadily and slowly rolling across the graveled lane towards her tribe’s land. Amidst the chaos of their day to day routine, all she could hear was the vehicle because she knew what it held.

Looking down at the children resting near her feet, she smiled. “Run along.”

They didn’t argue despite their disappointment at having their story time cut short; they knew not to by now. Up and off they went in different directions as Nasnaana stood from her rocking chair, the one her fourth husband had carved for her. He’d been such a lovely man.

Easing down the walk way, she felt it the moment the elder adults noticed the presence of what they perceived to be strangers on their territory. Enli appeared first with Kuzih following behind her as he always did. The insufferable whelp was weak. Not because he stood behind his mate but because he
hid
behind his mate, like a puppy afraid to be kicked. Nasnaana could never tolerate weak men—which was why she had so much respect for the large one climbing out of the SUV. Without even looking into his eyes she grasped that he wouldn’t be here with the girl if he couldn’t handle her, wrangle her when she lost her way. It was almost surreal how much the child looked like her mother. So much beauty and grace but there was one integral difference, Cree Chayton was stronger; she was
so
much stronger.