by Holley Trent
Gabe would have certainly been able to tell the difference. Eric shouldn’t have, though. According to Bryan, made-Bears simply weren’t equipped with the same sorts of senses as their natural peers. That was something for her to chew on later, though.
“What do you want me to do?” Maria asked.
“I don’t want to run the kids out of here until they’ve picked up what they need, but at the same time, I don’t want Gene alerted to the direction the kids went in.”
“I can go weird the guy out. He’ll want to leave on his own.”
“What do you mean by ‘weird him out’?”
She shrugged. “I’m weird. I use it as a weapon sometimes.” She gave Eric’s shoulder a pat, and whispered, “Stay put.”
She gave the stock clerk a little wave on the way past, and received a lazy head bob of acknowledgement in return. Obviously, that teen wasn’t interested in above-and-beyond customer service on that particular day, and for once, Maria was glad to be ignored.
As she walked, she urged her brain to re-sort its memories to bring all the helpful things to the forefront—the tactical things rather than the inane, useless trivia that got in the way of doing good work and that slowed her reaction time. Those silly things made her the slowest Shrew to pull a weapon when she needed to, and she knew it was a weakness. Dana was working with her on it, but there was only so much the other woman could do. Some things, Maria had to do for herself.
There was only one man in the gun aisle, and although she didn’t recognize him as a Bear—she wouldn’t have recognized most—he had that look about him that all of the made-Bears Gene had turned seem to share. He was tall, stocky, and looked mean as hell. She’d fought bigger, but at the moment, though, she didn’t want a fight. She just wanted the guy to leave.
She cleared her throat and affected a few exaggerated blinks when he looked her way.
“Hey. Would you be interested in signing a petition?” She patted her purse. “I’m asking everyone.”
He sneered at her. “What?”
“Like, in stores like this where families shop, there’s no reason to have deadly weapons easily available like Betta fish and gallons of milk. So, we’re passing around a petition to make big corporations like this one listen. Guns don’t belong in family stores.”
Or giant knives, but hell, even she’d bought a couple of those at superstores while on the road because she’d left hers at home. She’d felt ill at ease about it, but she’d had to do what she had to do.
“Whatever, lady.”
“No, like, think about it. Guns kill. Would you like if it were so easy for your troubled kid to come in here and pick out a shiny weapon before he’s really mature enough?”
“I ain’t got no kids.”
Maria suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Obviously the guy didn’t understand hypotheticals. “Other people have kids.”
“I only worry about myself,” he said.
“Well, that’s a shame. We’re all one people. One race. If we came together and tried to be more”—she clenched her teeth—“empathetic, we might be more productive as a society.”
“You give this lecture to folks who come in here looking for guns to hunt for food for their families?” He bobbed his eyebrows and cocked his chin at her as if he’d just made a touché sort of point.
She let her gaze track down his body and let out a falsely good-natured giggle. She knew damn well he wasn’t looking for a gun to hunt with. Besides, if she had to guess, she’d say the guy hadn’t missed any meals lately, nor had he engaged in the necessary exercise to source them.
“I’m vegetarian,” she said. “So yes. And that’s another thing you should really consider. Farming livestock for human consumption has a massive impact on the amount greenhouse gas and”—she rooted ineffectually in her purse—“you know what, I have a pamphlet in here somewhere. It was left over from some educating I was doing last week at the food truck rally. Were you there? I had some amazing falafel with to-die-for sauce, and the pitas were fluffy as clouds. I couldn’t believe it. Just give me a moment. I know it’s in here somewhere…”
Her fingers latched around a container of pepper spray, which she worried she might have to use. The guy was huffing like a bull and his face had gone red and splotchy.
She knew there was a strong likelihood that everything she was doing was visible on the store’s security cameras, so she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself or give anyone a reason to come looking later.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “Let me give you my card. You can go to my website. There are bunches of links to informative articles I’ve read and curated, and they’re so good. So powerful.”
“Fuck you, chick.”
He pushed past her, stalking down the aisle toward the front of the store, muttering something about Gene getting his own shit from now on.
As he passed, she gleaned a little information from his energy and tried to make sense of it.
Annoyance. Anger, obviously. Frustration.
But it didn’t all seem to be directed at her. Yeah, she’d gotten in his way and stopped him from completing his errand, but what she felt was a longer-simmering frustration. A tiredness of his station, and that made her wonder.
She watched down the aisle as the guy stormed through the exit and then returned to Eric and the kids, who stood.
She gave Eric’s sleeve a tug. “What does Gene’s quartermaster look like?”
Eric shook his head. “That’s not him. His quartermaster is related to Chauncey, and Chauncey’s a born-Bear. That doesn’t mean Gene doesn’t have other guys acquiring weapons and materials for him, though. There’s a limit on how many guns a person can buy, so he probably has to spread the burden around and make everyone who’s able buy some.”
“Why would Bears need guns?”
“They don’t need guns,” Gabe said solemnly. “They resell them to people who can’t buy them legally.”
Maria threw her head back and groaned. “God. You’re going to have to tell your cousin that. I feel gross being here. Let’s get your stuff and get on the road. I’m going to have an ulcer by the end of this job. Mark my words.”
CHAPTER TEN
Eric knew the motel was pretty rough, but when even Maria refused to walk on the carpeted floor of the girls’ room barefooted, he started to rethink stopping there.
“Hey,” he said to the trio perched on the end of the bed. “He crooked his thumb toward the door. We can go somewhere else. This can’t be the only place around.”
They were in the middle of nowhere. There was nowhere else. If they had to, they’d sleep in the RV. That was what it was made for, after all. It wouldn’t be cushy, but at least it was clean.
Nina swung her legs and clutched her full new bag against her chest. “What’s wrong with it?”
Maria cringed. “Um. It’s…okay. I guess, if you… Hey, let me get some towels out of the RV to cover…things. To cover the bed, oh, God.” She shuddered as she stood and made her way to the door in flash, the soles of her sandals hitting the floor and peeling away to make unsticking sounds that made even Eric’s inner bear recoil.
“Stay right here,” he said to the kids.
They were busy watching cartoons, and waved him away without looking at him.
He followed Maria to the RV parked in the shade of some tall oaks, where she slumped against the door and made a gagging sound.
“Well, it’s off the beaten track,” he said. “And come on.” He leaned his side against the door next to her and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ve frequented establishments almost this sketchy.”
The foot fungus he’d picked up at one was why he’d stopped taking his socks off when they fucked.
“We never turned on the lights, and we were both…distracted.”
He grunted. “That’s a nice, sanitized way of putting it.”
She glanced at the room doors and then leaned back against the side of the RV again. “Are you always going t
o bring that up?”
“Why? Are you over it? Are you past the point of asking for it?”
Her shrug came too slowly. It wasn’t just I don’t know but seemed more like, Probably not.
“Are you angry right now?” He skimmed the pad of his thumb along her jaw.
As always when he offered her gentle touch, she flinched.
He slipped his fingers around to the back of her neck, pulling her closer. “I think that anger simmers away in the back of your mind like a pot of soup on the stove that doesn’t need to be watched too closely. But you’ve got to figure out how to turn off the burner. You can’t just wait for it to boil over or for all the liquid to evaporate.”
“If you know how to do that, then tell me how.”
“You’re the empath. You should know how better than anyone, but I don’t think you want to turn it off.”
She tried to push away from him but he looped his other arm around her waist and pulled her against his body.
“Stay still, Shrew,” he said with a growl. “Stop acting like you have anywhere else you need to be. You’re not going anywhere. I’m talking to you.”
“Fuck off, Eric.” She brought her knee up in the general direction of his nuts, but couldn’t connect because he pulled her a bit sideways and screwed up her balance. Then he pulled her right back against him, holding her body tightly against his and rubbing his chin across the top of her head.
His inner bear liked that very much.
Hold her close. Touch her. Make her pay attention to us. We’re good for her.
She knew it. She had to know it. Nobody took care of her like he did.
“Just be still, Maria.”
“Stop trying to make me do this.”
“Do what? Let go of some things? What’s the worst that’ll happen if you do? Do you think you won’t be able to do your job anymore and that Dana won’t want you?”
Maria tried to pull away again, but she had to know it was a futile endeavor. He was bigger, stronger, and his inner bear was insistent.
You stay right there, woman. He pressed his hands down her back and cupped her ass possessively. Get over it, Shrew.
“Eric, let go of me.”
“Why, because you don’t want to be touched? Or because you know I’ll touch you the way you should be touched, and that scares you?” He slipped his hands inside her loose shirt and pressed his palms to her heated flesh, which incited a shudder from her and started her hips rocking toward him.
Pulling her hair away from her neck, he inhaled her scent, skimming his nose down the long column of her neck and his tongue along with it.
At her quiet but forceful exhalation, he wrapped his fist around her hair and held her head exactly where he wanted, pulling her body against his with his other hand. Making her collide with him, making her touch him.
“Nothing bad is going to happen if you let me worship you.” Where they were hidden, no one could see them. No one would have to know.
He set his teeth gently into the flesh where her neck and shoulder met as his questing hand found her breast and squeezed it. So smooth and soft under his touch with an aroused peak.
Her belly quivered under his hand as he passed it down her body. His fingertips idled at the top of her waistband as his mouth covered hers.
She was still. Too still. So he whispered against her lips, “Kiss me, woman. That’s what happens next.”
“But—”
“It’s personal? It’s intimate? Get over it.”
She sighed and flicked her tongue tentatively against his.
“Do better than that.”
“I don’t—” Growling, she pushed up onto her tiptoes and shoved her fingers through the back of his hair. She held his head tight and thrust her tongue into his mouth forcefully as if to punish him for making her do it, but he wanted it. Liked it. And he kissed her back, tugging at her swollen lips and lashing his tongue where his teeth stung her.
“Eric, I… Ugh.” Wrapping both arms around his neck, she looped one leg around his waist, and then the other, grinding her crotch against his fly, and he helped her along.
He pulled his hand from her hair and used it to hold her up against the side of the RV. He claimed her mouth as she marked him with her fertile scent and agitated his inner bear.
Do it! the bear said. He’d have Eric rip those insignificant panties away and slide into her right there. She wanted it. He wanted it. He’d fuck her exactly the way she didn’t need, and he’d come, and the bear would be happy.
But Eric wouldn’t be.
He set her on her feet, to her dismay, but quickly knelt in front of her. Yanking her panties down in one hard tug, he lifted her foot out of them and then put that leg over his shoulder.
She didn’t even have time to ask or complain. He pressed his mouth to her pussy and lapped at her.
“Eric! Oh, God.” She twined her fingers in his hair again and alternated between pushing him away and pulling him closer.
He probed the tip of his tongue into her entrance and lapped up the cream she made for him, sucked on her clit until her standing leg went wobbly beneath her. Then he opened her more—holding her lips between his thumbs—and pressed his stiffened tongue down her slit and into her, again and again.
“I—”
Pushed, then pulled. Groaned and whimpered. She wanted it so badly but didn’t want him to give it to her. He was going to give it to her because she didn’t know what was best.
He pressed one finger into her hungry cunt and sucked her clit hard, drawing a, “Fffffffuck you, Falk!” out of her that probably could have been heard in three counties.
He grinned as he sucked and fingered. She bore down on him, increasing the friction against his knuckles and demanding more from him.
She was going to get whatever he felt like giving her, and he was going to give her an orgasm. Not one that was going to make her forget anything, either. It wasn’t going to push back any pain. But, it was going to feel good for her and let her know that it was okay to ask him for it. Not everything had to be about excess.
She clamped hard around his finger and tensed against him, her grip tightening in his hair as her breath caught and her body shook.
He caught all of her offerings on his tongue, still licking and fingering. He kept loving on her until her little quakes stopped and her breathing normalized.
With one final lick, he pushed her long skirt free from his face and slipped his finger out of her. He stood, and watching the myriad of emotions flit across her face, licked her flavor from his hand.
She growled. “You…”
“I what? I made you feel good and you don’t like feeling good?” He pressed a hand on either side of her head against the RV side, pinning her in. She wasn’t going anywhere until he said she could. Shrews might have had a reputation for not running when times were tough, but when it came to love and other soft emotions, they didn’t know how to package them. Didn’t know how to behave.
He’d show her how.
“This is a terrible idea,” she said.
“What is? Me being tender with you?”
“Why would you want to be?”
“I would have thought that would be obvious after all these years.”
“Obviously, it’s not, or I wouldn’t have to ask.”
“Okay. I’ll put it in simple terms for you, then, so there’s nothing to misconstrue. So you can’t twist my words to make them mean something else. I love you. Do you understand that? I love you, Maria. And that’s why I can’t keep carrying on the way we were before. I deserve more than that and so do you.”
She shook her head hard. “You…you can’t possibly—”
“Wake up, empath. Don’t tell me you don’t believe what I’m saying. I may have a magical tongue, but I doubt it’s capable of licking away your common sense.”
“I just don’t know what you expect me to do with that information!”
“You really are clogged up, aren’t ya? I
mean, ideally, I’d like you to say that you love me back, but I know that might be a long time in coming. I’m fine with that. But, you’ve got to let me try to get you there, Maria. There’s no one better for you. No one is going to take care of you the way I do.”
She scoffed. “I’m pretty sure that’s the bear in you talking. I’ve heard Bryan say the same thing to Tamara.”
“So what if you have? That doesn’t make it any less true. Stop looking for excuses to reject affection. Did you hear what I told you? I love you. And I know you. Goddamn, I know you, and I still love you.”
Her jaw flapped wordlessly for a few beats and cheeks burned that dark rose color he so rarely saw on her.
He pushed away from the RV and groaned. “Damn it, Maria. You don’t have to talk it away. You don’t have to say anything. Just—”
The information gleaned from the last breath he drew through his nose finally hit his brain, and the new scent he was targeting wasn’t him or Maria. It was some other Bear. Made, if his nose was any good. He shouldn’t have been able to discern the difference with a stranger’s scent, but somehow he could, and he wasn’t going to question the ability.
“What’s wrong?” Maria whispered.
Eric drew in a long inhalation through his nose and scanned the woods behind them.
“Eric?”
“Shhh.” He put his finger to his lips and drew on his inner bear’s keener predator senses. His hearing. His nose.
The other Bear’s lumbering movements were slow, and not so close that Eric could see him, but his strong scent carried on the wind and his soft growls rumbled through the trees.
Eric slipped off his boots and unfastened his jeans. “Walk slowly to the room. Keep the kids distracted.”
“The kids are fine in the room. You need backup for whatever you’re about to do.”
“No. There’s only one, and I don’t want to risk the kids being alone while we’re distracted. Might be a ploy to lure us away, and I’m not falling for it.”
She stood there too long, shifting her weight, so he spat, “Go!” and she did, though cursing him as she went.
Let her curse me. That was fine, as long as she and his alpha’s little cousins were safe.
