by Kim Fox
Another cold shiver snakes down my back when I feel eyes on me once again. My eyes dart to the forest, but I can’t see anything. It’s too dark and the trees are—
I gasp when I see an outline of a man standing there.
No. Not a man. It’s way too big to be a man.
It takes a step forward and my heart starts pounding when I see his eyes reflecting in the moonlight. They’re locked right on me.
My body freezes. I can’t move.
Adrenaline is surging through me—my heart feels like it’s going to explode—but I still can’t move a muscle.
I glance back at the fire pit where the guys are laughing and then look at the cabin, trying to judge which one is closer. As soon as my legs start working, I’m running. I’m already taking deep raspy breaths and I haven’t even moved.
I turn back to the monster in the forest and gasp when he starts walking forward. Is that Bigfoot? But then I see… It’s a man.
He’s enormous with a huge chest that looks like it should belong in a Marvel movie and with arms that look like they could rip trees out of the ground. His hair is long and messy like he’s lived in the woods for years. A long shaggy beard covers the lower half of his face and descends onto his hairy chest. The shadows are covering the bottom half of him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was pants-less too.
But none of that is what catches my attention. It’s his eyes. Bright grey like the moon but with the intensity of the sun.
He’s staring at me like he’s never seen a woman before. He’s staring at me like he’s going to eat me, cowboy hat and all.
I gulp as my mind races. Is he supposed to be here? Does he know Lachlan and the guys? Is he going to hurt me?
But there’s something in that intense stare. I don’t know how I know, but I can feel that he means me no harm.
Suddenly it hits me. When I was talking to Jessie at the bar. She mentioned something about another guy who lived on the ranch with a funny name. T-bone? Ankle?
Kneecap! That was it.
I said I had to meet this guy, and she said, ‘let’s hope for your sake that you don’t.’
My voice feels like it’s a million miles away, but I clear my throat and try to talk. “Kneecap?” The name comes out low and squeaky, but those bright grey eyes widen at the sound of it.
“Do you want to… come to the fire for a drink?”
He turns and looks at the fire and then turns back to me with a longing in his eyes.
Curiosity consumes me. I want to know everything about this strange wild man who lives naked in the forest. It’s the psychologist in me. I want to study him and learn all about him. The way he thinks, how he acts, why he lives in such a feral state.
He doesn’t say a word and I wonder if he can even talk.
The door of Jessie’s cabin slams shut, making me jump. “That was the best pee I’ve ever had,” she says with a deep moan as she stumbles down the stairs. “Can you orgasm from a pee? Because I think I just did.”
I whip my head back to the forest and my stomach drops when I see that he’s no longer there.
There’s no relief as there should be, only a sense of loss.
I can’t stop thinking of him as I go to the bathroom, wondering what he’s doing right now. As we’re walking back to the fire pit, I try to pump some information out of Jessie.
“So,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Didn’t you say there was someone else who lived here?”
She’s a bit drunk and holding my arm for support as we walk in the dark. “Did I?”
“Yeah. Kneecap? What’s his deal?”
She laughs. “Nobody knows what his deal is,” she says. “And it’s best you don’t find out.”
Those bright grey eyes are haunting me as we walk back. I have to find out. I have to know what the deal is with this guy.
All of the warnings in the world won’t stop me from trying to figure it out. I’m the daughter of Emanuele Marchesi. I’ve been around trained killers, assassins, thugs, mob enforcers, and every kind of conceivable dangerous man there is. One feral mountain man won’t scare me.
I’ve already decided. I’m going to study him.
“But if I wanted to find him,” I ask. “Where would I go?”
She glances at the dark forest and shivers. “In there.”
I glance over, feeling a wave of frustration. “But how would I find him?”
“You don’t,” she says as she turns to me with serious eyes. “He’ll find you.”
4
Kneecap
I didn’t sleep at all last night. And this time it wasn’t from the incessant whining of my bear, it was because I couldn’t get that girl out of my head.
We were so close. I could smell her intoxicating scent. I could see the gorgeous shade of blue in her eyes.
I was transfixed. Stunned and overpowered by her angelic presence.
She talked to me. I couldn’t talk back.
I had no voice. Even if I did, I had nothing to say.
What do you say to an angel?
She even stunned my bear. For once, there was silence in my head. No snarling. No growling. Just pure blissful silence as we watched with a tingling running through our body.
This morning, however, he’s not so quiet.
He’s raging again, charging to the surface and trying to escape. Trying to turn me into a fierce bloodthirsty grizzly bear. Not today.
She’s still on the ranch and as long as she’s here, my savage bear is staying locked inside.
I don’t care how pissed he gets. I’m not risking it. Not while she’s around.
He’s too unpredictable. And I’m not letting anything unpredictable be around her if I can help it.
With a fierce growl in my ear, he lunges forward, desperate to break out. I squeeze my muscles and grit my teeth as I hold him in, pushing him back down where he belongs.
It infuriates him.
Too bad. You’re not coming out.
He snarls back at me.
Yeah, fuck you too. I’m not letting you around her.
It seems that my psychotic bear is as intrigued with the girl as I am. I can feel the want and need emanating from him. He wants to go see her. To be around her.
To do what, I’m not sure. And I don’t want to find out.
Maybe eat her? I wouldn’t put it past him.
He’s in a viciously bad mood this morning, which makes me irritable as all hell.
I stumble out of the cave and kick the smashed up tin coffee pot, cursing with frustration.
“You really are a furry fuck,” I snarl at him. “You’ve taken everything from me. Can’t you leave me a goddamn cup of coffee?”
He rushes forward, snarling like a rabid wolf, and he nearly breaks through. I grunt as I struggle to pull him back in. It’s like trying to stop a moving train by pulling on a leash.
He gives up and settles back down, sulking and cursing me in bear noises.
That one was for the coffee, asshole.
I don’t know how long that girl is staying, but he’s not coming out until she leaves. It’s going to be hard. My nasty bear will take advantage of any moment of distraction. A single second of carelessness on my part and he’ll rip out of me, more furious than ever.
I just hope she doesn’t come into the forest. If he smells her on his terrain, he’ll be damn near unstoppable.
And she’ll be damn near toast.
Not even an hour later, I catch her scent.
“Fuck.”
My grizzly responds with a savage blitz. It’s an onslaught of slashing and clawing as he tries to maul his way out of me.
I wince as I push him back down with everything I have. I’m already exhausted. The lack of sleep didn’t help, but what’s really exhausting is living with this furry maniac.
And today he’s at his worst.
Calm the fuck down.
He doesn’t.
He knows she’s in the forest. Why did she come in here? Did
n’t Lachlan warn her what would happen?
The cool breeze brings a burst of her delicious scent to my nose and my whole body floods with an unexpected warmth.
It has another effect besides making me moan.
It calms and settles my grizzly.
For the first time today, he’s silent. At first, I think he might be dead, but I should be so lucky. I can feel him stirring within. I can feel the yearning to get closer.
He’s not the only one feeling it.
Just a peek.
I won’t approach too close. I just want to see her again.
Before I can tell myself that this is a horrible idea, I’m sprinting through the forest into the wind.
I find her hiking by a fallen oak. She’s standing on a rock and bent over, looking at some mushrooms growing on the side of it. I groan when I see her curvy ass.
Fuck.
I’ve never wanted anything so bad.
My bear is staring at her as well, completely silent. Completely mesmerized.
For once, we’re on the same page.
He’s almost tolerable. Almost.
I shouldn’t get closer, but I can’t stop myself. I have to get closer.
I’m staring at the curve of her sexy ass, feeling hot all over as I quietly step through the forest getting closer and closer.
I’m only a few feet away when she suddenly springs up and whips her head around.
It’s only when I see her shocked blue eyes that I remember that I’m naked. I’ve been living in the woods so long, changing from man to bear so often that I don’t even think about it anymore.
Her eyes drop to my package and her mouth falls open in shock.
I look down and swallow hard when I see my dick as hard as the rock she’s standing on.
This is why I have to be left alone.
I finally meet a girl and the first thing I do is creep up on her completely naked with an eleven-inch hard-on sticking out.
A red flush creeps up her neck and takes over her face as she stares at me with her mouth hanging open.
I try to cover it with my hands, but it’s too long. No matter how I put my splayed hands, it pops up, making itself known.
“I was just…” she says, glancing back down at my cock, “…taking a quick hike.”
I swallow hard, cursing myself to answer, but I don’t know what to say. It’s been so long since I’ve had any meaningful human interaction and I’m tragically unprepared. What do people normally talk about? Sports? The weather?
I clear my throat as my heart pounds. “Did our team win the game last night?”
Confusion outweighs her fear for a moment. “W-what team?”
Oh, man. I’m so bad at this.
At least my bear is quiet. Although, if he was growling in my ear I’d have an excuse for why this is going so poorly.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to recover. “The sports team?”
She tilts her head. “What sports team?”
“Umm.” I feel myself panic. “Nice day today.”
I want to dig a hole and bury myself inside.
“Uh, yeah,” she says, looking up at the sunny sky. Her eyes narrow back on me. “You’re Kneecap, right?”
I nod.
“Do you live in the forest?”
I nod again.
“How come?”
She looks genuinely intrigued. But then, who wouldn’t be intrigued by a naked man who lives in the forest. Intrigued is not the same as interested—I have to remind myself of that.
“I… it’s easier.”
“Then living with humans?”
I nod.
The fear seems to be gone as she studies me with curious eyes. Perhaps she knows that I would never hurt her. Or perhaps it’s because my hard-on has finally disappeared.
“I think you’re living with an extreme social anxiety disorder,” she says, more to herself than to me.
I want to tell her that I’m living with an extreme anti-social grizzly bear disorder, but if she thinks I’m a freak now, I don’t want to know what she’ll think of me if she knows I have a grizzly bear living inside my body.
She rubs her chin as she gets lost in thought, muttering to herself with psycho-babble. “Or it could be a rare case of ego-syntonic isolation,” she says, nodding to herself. “You seem to have a positive attitude toward your isolation so this theory would make sense. Kneecap, do you feel like your subjective mental world is separated from the real world and lacks any relative cohesion?”
She’s staring at me, waiting for an answer like I just understood anything she just said. I have a fifty-fifty shot of guessing right.
“Yes,” I say with a confident nod.
“Interesting,” she says, studying me like I’m a puzzle to figure out. “That would mean your subjective mental world dominates your real world, which is why you don’t want to interact with others. The intrusion of people into your mental world can distort and even destroy the carefully constructed fantasies that you have erected.”
I’m totally lost as she stares at me. “So fascinating,” she whispers.
I don’t know what she’s getting on about, but I’m just happy she’s not terrified of me. The reality is much simpler: Me + an asshole bear = failed human interaction. It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to figure that out.
But she’s intrigued by me so I go with it.
“Are you a doctor?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, nodding proudly. “Therapist actually. I do counseling and also cognitive behavioral therapy upon request.”
What am I supposed to say to that? I live in a cave and eat raw fish?
I can’t say that, so I go with a question that’s been on my mind for the last twelve or so hours.
“What’s your name?”
“Nora,” she says, smiling shyly.
I offer my hand, careful to still hide my package with the other one, and she shakes it. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but it feels like warm electricity passes between us as our hands touch.
Her cheeks turn pink once again as she looks up at me with the most gorgeous blue eyes imaginable.
It’s not just me.
She feels it too. I can tell by the way her breathing quickens and I can hear her heart racing a little faster.
“I should get back,” she says, shyly tucking a blonde strand of hair behind her ear as she looks at me. “You should come join us for dinner.”
“Me?” I ask, staring at her in shock.
She nods. “I’d like to get to know you better. Maybe we can talk more about that ego-syntonic isolation you have going on.”
I nod, but my stomach is churning. Dinner? With the guys? I feel like I’m going to be sick.
This is not going to go well. I should just leave and stay in my cave until she returns home. I shouldn’t be doing any of this. I’m not meant to be around people. I’m more animal than man.
But I can’t turn her down. It’s not possible.
Especially with her smiling at me like that.
“So, you’ll come?” she asks, looking hopeful.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding even though I know this won’t go like she’s hoping it will. “I’ll come.”
“Great,” she says with a big smile. “So, I’ll see you tonight.”
I take a deep breath and sigh. “Tonight.”
I’m a nervous wreck as I watch her walk away. She turns and scrunches her nose up. “Maybe wear some pants?”
I nod. “Pants. Definitely.”
She smiles and hurries off. I watch her until she disappears over the hill.
Pants. Where the hell am I going to get those?
5
Nora
“What. The. Hell?” Caleb’s face turns white as he stares over my shoulder.
“Uh oh.” Maximus looks like he’s seeing a ghost when he turns. He leaps up from his chair in a panic. “Nora. How about I show you my cabin? Quickly.”
I turn to see what the commotion is and smi
le when I see Kneecap walking over from the forest. He’s shirtless but wearing what looks like a tarp wrapped around his waist. I guess that’s dressed up for him.
“Is that a skirt?” Tito says, staring in shock.
Ronin has the same stunned look on his face. “Did he comb his hair?”
They’re all on edge. Abigail lets out a scared little whimper as she hides behind Caleb’s large frame and I notice Maximus’ jaw tighten as he watches.
Lachlan and Jessie are feeding the horses and come running over in a panic when they see what’s going on.
Maximus steps in front of me, blocking my view of the untamed mountain man. “Maybe it would be best if you go inside for a few minutes,” he says, glancing over his shoulder nervously. “He’s not used to strangers.”
“Who, Kneecap?” I ask, looking around him. “I’m the one who invited him for dinner. I hope that’s okay.”
They all look dumbfounded. I don’t think they would be more shocked if I pulled off my skin to reveal that I was an alien lizard underneath.
I spring out of my chair and skip around Maximus’ large frame. “Kneecap,” I say with my arms out. “You came.”
His heated eyes lock on me, making my chest flutter. He looks tense. Unsure. His jittery eyes dart from me to the guys to Maximus.
I put my hand on his thick forearm to make him feel at ease. “Come,” I say, leading the way. “Want a beer?”
He nods.
Lachlan and Jessie arrive, sweating and staring in shock as Kneecap sits down by the fire. Everyone is standing up, not sure what to do.
Tito is the first one to speak. “Why are you wearing a skirt?”
Kneecap lets out a low growl as he turns to him. “All my pants are ripped.”
“Yeah, but why are you wearing a skirt?” he asks again. “You’re usually naked.”
Kneecap glares at him. “Which one are you? Ronnie or Tutu?”
