***
Addison tapped away at the keys of her typewriter. Not to write anything, but to fill the air with the satisfying sound. She’d been puttering around for a couple hours, moping because she couldn’t seem to make words work. There were words and there was a story, but nothing that Addison could successfully weave together into any kind of understandable narrative.
Her love interest was still a closed off and brooding buffoon. Meanwhile, her heroine was knee deep in court espionage and she couldn’t bring herself to do anything bad to the woman. Addison knew her heroine couldn’t escape unscathed, or else there wasn’t really a story to be had but hurting her felt like hurting herself.
Perhaps she needed to get out. Some fresh air would clear her head. She stopped and poured the last of the coffee over some ice to take outside with her. The sun was high overhead, but not so hot that she immediately turned around. The summer had retreated, and autumn winds were filling the mountains with cool air.
Addison climbed down the steps, her face tilted to find the warm sunshine. The air smelled of fresh earth and green things, so unlike the city down below. She told herself she should have brought a notebook outside, but when she turned back to the cabin, she shrugged.
The yard was small and manicured as if Reid had guests that would judge him for it. In the short time she’d rented the room, he’d never had anyone over, and it didn’t look like he would invite anyone in, either. Yet, he kept things clean and simple.
She wanted to shake it up, to mow crop circles into his yard or spray paint art onto the side of his shed. It was all too perfect. If she’d driven past and there was no car in the driveway, she would have assumed no one lived there. Addison was used to broken bikes taking up space as they leaned against a house. She was used to unkempt garden plots that spilled out in every direction.
As she meandered through the lawn, she made a mental list of the things she would add if it were her home. Things like window planters and little, vinyl door stickers that said Hello in swirling script.
But, this wasn’t her home. It was just a place she rented while she wrote her first novel. That was what she should have been thinking about. Not a life where she and Reid lived together. She was not only getting ahead of herself, she was living in another world. In the real world, she and Reid were nothing to one another. Well, nothing more than tenant and landlord.
Addison was so lost in her internal conflict that she didn’t notice the eyes watching her from the woods until she was up close. She cried out, thinking it was the intruder, until her mind processed what she was seeing. The shadows of foliage dappled across its face, but it was still unmistakable.
“Bear!” she screamed, rather stupidly, before scrambling back toward the cabin.
Her iced coffee fell to the ground, splashing in every direction. It sprayed the bear and the back of her knees.
Chapter Seven
Reid wasn’t quite sure how to explain the bear in the yard and guilt weighed down his stomach. He watched Addison run back to the house, screaming in fear. He had no way to call out to her or tell her she was safe. All he could do was sit still and wait until she was inside.
There had been no sight or scent of the hunter all day. When Addison opened the door and stepped outside, Reid had been distracted. She’d turned her face to the sun as a gentle smile overtook her lips. Those lips he so desperately wanted to taste again.
Now, he refused to touch her. She could stay in the spare bedroom, where he could keep an eye on her, but he wouldn’t let himself near her. He would only hurt her in the end. That was how human and bear relationships ended.
At least, that was how the Den decreed they end. The Den was the hub of bear shifter activity. All cubs were raised there, away from human eyes that might catch a cub learning to control the beast inside them. The Den enlisted nurturers to care for the cubs, usually female shifters, while male shifters made the rules.
The one rule that had been drilled into each of them was that any human that figured out about the bear shifters would be changed or die before they could give the rest away. Reid understood what Boomer must have felt when he’d first met Emmy. The girl with amnesia must have seemed so fragile. He’d been ready to protect her humanity from the Den until Emmy begged for her own beast.
Reid couldn’t force a beast upon Addison. She didn’t deserve that. So, Reid would do his best to protect her from the truth while she was here. They would finish their work on the mountain and he would rent the rest of the cabin to her while he moved on. As long as she lived in his cabin, he would know that she was safe.
Reid knew the hunter would follow him. The man wanted prey that would give him a challenge. What was better than a bear shifter that could heal bullet wounds in a matter of moments?
Reid waited, the sun dipping low in the sky, before trying to change back. His bear was loathing the idea of switching positions. The hunter was still out there. Addison still needed his protection. It took the better part of a half hour to convince the beast that switching positions would not risk Addison’s life. He wasn’t going to leave her side. Not for the rest of the night.
Once he had found a spare set of jeans and a flannel shirt, he went inside to find his mate.
Mate.
The word was going to haunt him forever. It was the distance that would always hang between them. He could not kiss her, not the way he wanted. He could not hold her. If he closed that distance, if he loved her the way his bear already did, then her life would be over.
It only made him hate himself more. Everything around him wilted and died. He couldn’t walk near a flower without killing it. He couldn’t find happiness without breaking it.
“Holy shit! Did you see the bear in your yard?” Addison’s hands were threaded through her hair and her eyes were wide as she paced around his kitchen.
Reid swallowed his laugh and tried to hide his smile. “Bear? What bear?”
She stopped and spun toward him. “There was a bear!” She flung her arm in the direction he’d been hiding earlier.
“Huh,” he grunted as he passed by her. “I heard there were bears up here. I’m sure they’re perfectly fine.”
Addison crossed her arms over her chest. “Between the cameras and the bears, I don’t think I ever want to go outside again.”
“The cameras are gone. I don’t think whoever placed them is coming back.” At least, Reid hadn’t caught scent of the hunter since then. “As for the bears, I can assure you they won’t hurt you. Think of them as…ah, escaped circus bears. They’re a pretty well-mannered bunch—for the most part.”
That brought a ghost of a smile back to Addison’s face. He gently touched her shoulder to guide her back toward the living room before he jerked his hand back. He shouldn’t be touching her. As long as he could keep the mate bond from growing any stronger, then he could save her.
“Sit,” he directed before turning back to the kitchen. He needed to put space between them. “I’ll make dinner.”
“You can cook something other than steak? I could totally go for a big bowl of mac and cheese or lasagna. Who doesn’t love pasta?” There was a teasing glint in her eyes.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Reid grunted, pausing as he opened the fridge for the waiting steak. Addison must have seen it earlier. “I’m not the best, by far, but I’m a fairly decent cook. Tomorrow, you can try Dominic’s cooking. There’s a reason we put him on grill duty for every party.”
Reid threw the steak onto the cast iron griddle while he chopped lettuce and other vegetables. It was nothing more than a simple salad, but the heavy layer of sliced steak on the top made up for it. Addison jokingly asked him if he only ate hunks of beef, reminding him that was what he served her the other day, too.
“Apparently it’s my specialty.” He grinned, but when he looked up, Addison had entered the kitchen.
In the small space, his hunger shifted. No longer did he want the juicy steak laid out before him. He wanted to sho
ve it all off the counter and hoist Addison up instead. He would happily make a meal out of her. She looked like an Autumn day, like she might taste of caramel and cinnamon. Maybe even sweet apples.
“Wait,” Reid paused, catching something odd about her appearance. Her scent mingled with his, teasing his beast to the surface. The beast liked the scent, told him this was the way she should always smell. No other bear was allowed to touch her. They would lose a hand if they tried. “Are you wearing my shirt?”
“What?” She looked down at the flannel covering her shoulders. The soft fabric was crisscrossed with blue and green checks and lines, hanging open over her faded Iron Maiden t-shirt. “Oh, I must have grabbed it by mistake. I did laundry and thought this was mine.”
Reid couldn’t hide the grin that spread over his face. She was lying. He could tell by the way her cheeks turned pink, by the way she couldn’t look him in the eye. He pushed forward, eager to close the distance between them. Before her, Reid clenched his fists. He shouldn’t touch her, no matter how badly he wanted to sweep her into his arms.
Addison started to take it off, but Reid reached to stop her. She looked up, lips parted. The hunger overwhelmed him as she looked at him with wide and all too trusting eyes, that he could see were flecked with green and gold at this distance.
She was fragile, human.
Yet, that didn’t stop him from wanting to know the taste of her mouth or if he could make her tremble with one finger. The thoughts that rocketed through his mind as he stood this close were horrible, and yet great. Reid wondered if there were any tattoos hidden beneath that nearly sheer t-shirt. He wanted to explore her skin and find out what she hid from him.
Finally, he sucked in a breath. He jerked back. Addison’s face fell, and a touch of anger rose in her eyes. The bear urged him to move, to take her in his arms and tell her everything. It wasn’t safe. He wouldn’t risk her life like that.
***
“Who are you, Reid? You put on this façade of a grumpy man and speak in grunts half the time, but you also rescue people you don’t know from crisis and make gifts for people you barely know.”
He flashed her a smile, sliding away from her. Addison wanted to reach out and pull him back by force, but she held her hands at her side. If he didn’t want her, then she couldn’t force him to stay. The thought stung. She wished she could understand why he did this to her. One moment, it seemed like he wanted nothing in this world more than her. The next, Reid was closed off and running away.
“Sleep tight, Stravinsky.”
Like that, dinner was over. Addison hadn’t thought her question would overstep boundaries. Yet, he referred to her by her last name as if it could drive more distance between them. All she wanted was to know him. What was so wrong with that?
She swallowed her growl of frustration as she watched Reid retreat into his bedroom. They slept under the same roof, but it was clear they were in different worlds. Addison must have misinterpreted the signs. Clearly, she was wrong.
“Good luck sleeping at this hour!” Addison shouted, spitefully.
Pressing the heel of her palm to her chest, she, too, retreated into her own room. She flicked the lamp, grabbed her laptop, and climbed atop her bed. Sleep would be a distant dream after that. Instead, her fingers tapped away at scenes that may or may not ever make it into the story. All she knew was that she had to work through what was going on in her head some way.
Reid had stood over her like he’d been about to kiss her. More importantly, she’d wanted him to. She’d wanted to feel those wood-working hands on her hips, feel them climb her waist. She could feel the ghost of them on her body, imagined sensations lighting a spark inside her core.
There was no ignoring it anymore. Addison wanted Reid. Not just sexually. She was slowly falling for him. She’d been on dates and tried the online dating scene, but the results had always been the same. Guys wanted to know what her relationship with her father had been like or what she thought of her so-called wifely duties.
Reid was different. He was masculine without wanting to control everything around him. She knew exactly what he could control…
The desires spinning through her mind unfolded on the blank screen before her. She threw the love interest and the heroine into a room together with no escape. The heroine was an assassin masquerading as a servant. The love interest was the lord she should have been serving. They shouldn’t be attracted to one another, but neither could deny what they felt any longer.
Half way through a steamy scene where clothes had been ripped and sweat dripped down someone’s skin, the truth came out. She’d been sent to kill him.
Addison wished she was half as brave as the heroine she wrote onto the page. The heroine scaled stone walls and kissed the men she was supposed to kill. Addison could barely manage to get Reid to stay in the same room as her for more than ten minutes.
Did she smell? Was she more annoying than she thought? She pretended to laugh and listened to the sound to see if it was irritating. It came out flat and she twisted her lips to the side, unsatisfied. So, maybe she was a cool person, but Reid just wasn’t into her. It was a thought she hated, but it could be the truth she needed.
Just because she was into him, didn’t mean he was into her. It stung and made her slam the laptop closed before she curled onto her side. Could she stay here if she kept pining for him? It wasn’t smart to want a man she paid. She’d heard the horror stories from the older women at the bank. Men had taken advantage of them through money. Addison didn’t want to be that person.
Addison needed to know. She needed to close doors, so that her mind would move on. She threw her feet to the floor and clutched the flannel shirt tight around her as she padded toward his room. Of course, she’d lied about the shirt earlier. The little demon voice in the back of her mind had pushed her to take it from his laundry while she was alone. It had smelled of him, a comfort she shouldn’t have indulged in.
She got halfway to his room before she stopped herself. How weird was it that she’d been about to demand to know if he wanted her, emotionally or even sexually, in the middle of the night? Especially after he’d caught her stealing his clothing.
Addison groaned. She was too awkward and anxious for her own good. Everything felt like a mess in her head, like a hundred puzzles dropped into one pile. She couldn’t separate anything. There was just too much.
“Having trouble sleeping?” Reid’s voice made her jump.
She spun around. “How long have you been there?”
He stood with his shoulder against the doorframe and his arms folded over his chest. Even in the dark, it looked like he was fighting against his own hands, struggling to keep them contained.
“I was just, ah, grabbing a drink.” She turned on her heel and marched toward the kitchen.
Before she could get far, Reid caught her. He pulled her into his body so that she could feel the hard planes of him. Her breath came short, and she melted into his grip. Did he want her?
His lips parted as he looked down at her with hunger. She thought he would kiss her, but then his hands slackened and released her. Frustration bubbled through her chest and up her throat. Unable to take it any longer, she hooked her arm around his neck and pulled herself up to kiss him.
She didn’t bother being gentle, pressing her lips against his with the force of the need welling inside her. Fear nibbled at the back of her mind. She thought he would push her away when he hesitated. Instead, his growl filled the room and he gripped her tight. Warmth bloomed in her core.
He spun and pushed her back against the door frame, so she couldn’t escape. Addison didn’t want to escape. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders and her leg rose along his hip. His tongue pressed past her lips, filling her. She could feel the length of his cock as it grew. There was the evidence she needed.
Reid wanted her.
Then, just as quickly as it began, Reid stumbled back. One moment he was there, body to body, then he was gone. She gu
lped for air and searched frantically for him. She found him leaning against the edge of his bed a few feet away. He turned his back to her, but she could see the rise and fall of his own shoulders.
Confusion sliced through her. Did he want her or didn’t he?
“You could try being honest for once,” Addison snapped before she left.
In her own room, she locked the door behind her. She climbed into bed and threw the blankets over her head. This was easily the strangest phase of her life.
Chapter Eight
They arrived at the little beach and Addison found that she couldn’t bring herself to get out of the car. She pressed her hands flat against the dashboard and watched the people gathered on the sand. They were all massive, men that strutted this way and that as if they were the children of gods.
She felt inadequate. All lanky legs and stubby fingers, Addison would never belong with this posse of demigods. Reid waited for her, his hand on his own door. He didn’t ask what was wrong. He didn’t tease her or push. For that, she was grateful.
“We can turn around if you don’t want to be here. I won’t be mad.” His voice was soft and gentle.
She flashed a queasy smile and tried to pull herself together. The familiar tightness in her chest resurfaced when she thought about trying to connect with the strangers down below. Everything had been easier with a wall of plexiglass and a script.
How are you today?
What can I help you with?
I’m sorry your account has been over-drafted.
In real life, there was no script she could follow. Addison was left to her own devices, and more often than not, she struggled to find common ground with people. She would nurse her cup of water at parties and watch as the drunk people tipped over couches and dragged each other upstairs to rooms that weren’t so secluded.
To Save A Bear Page 5
