“What is it?” Joss called out.
He didn’t want to tell her. But he also didn’t lie well. “It’s… uh… it’s…” He tried to scoop pine needles across the fur he’d uncovered. “Why don’t you take Puck back to the trail? Straight through the trees. It’s not far.”
“Shep, what is it?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying to me.”
Yeah, and it crawled over him uncomfortably. “Please do what I asked.”
“What did you find?”
Resigned, he said, “You’re not going anywhere, are you?”
“No.”
Goddammit. “It’s a baby deer.”
“Oh. Oh, no.”
Shep looked over his shoulder to see Joss looping Puck’s leash to secure him to a tree. She set aside her pack, rushed to Shep’s side, and knelt beside him. “What should we do?”
Nature was normally something to be left alone. Most of the time, humans interrupted life cycles that shouldn’t be tampered with. But this was different. This was a baby. Babies should not die. And he couldn’t stand the idea of something coming along and eating this one. “I’m going to bury it.”
“I can help.”
“I really don’t think you want to—”
“I need to help.”
He nodded. “There’s a small spade tied to the side of my pack. Take that off and you can start on a hole. Doesn’t have to be very deep. We’ll lay him in it and cover it with rocks and heavy branches.”
Joss retrieved the spade secured with bungee straps and found a spot between two of the maples. Without asking, she went to work, scooping away leaves and attacking the soil beneath.
Shep dug through his pack for a pair of gloves. Although wrapping the deer in a survival blanket might help keep predators away, it wasn’t environmentally sound. Burying him and letting the earth take him back would have to be enough.
Expecting to uncover the body and find some evidence of illness, Shep rocked back on his heels when he saw what had killed the deer.
The poor little guy’s throat had met the business end of a knife, and recently.
Why the fuck would someone do this? Hunting for food was one thing, but hunting for sport was cruel, inhumane, and useless. It was shameful.
Shep set his teeth. He’d seen death and decay, but carelessness and cruelty, he could not accept. “Joss, go back to Puck, please.”
Unfortunately, she took his words as a direct invitation to return to him and look over his shoulder. “Oh my God. Who would do something like this?”
Exactly his question. “Someone shitty.”
“It looks like it happened recently.”
Shep touched the fawn’s flank, and the warmth of the body confirmed Joss’s guess. He didn’t like the idea that someone had stood in this exact spot, probably less than half an hour ago, and killed. He hurriedly picked up the small body, careful to take a wide step around Joss, and placed it in the shallow hole. He covered it with the leaves Joss had dislocated. “We need rocks and branches. Anything sharp or with thorns is good.”
“Will… will he be okay there?”
Probably not for too long, but Shep wasn’t about to tell Joss that. And the instincts he’d honed out in the backcountry for years were insisting that it wasn’t safe here for them, either. “We need to hurry. I don’t want to be here longer than we have to.”
Within a few minutes, they’d gathered enough stones and brush to visually obscure the little grave, but Shep doubted it would mask the fawn’s scent for long.
Regardless, it would have to do, because his nerve endings were jangling with the warning that he and Joss needed to get back to the group.
* * *
Although Shep’s face was completely blank of expression, Joss knew he was disturbed by what they’d found. It was if the energy field around his body was vibrating with a different frequency, even steeper waves than it had when they left the others. He unclipped Puck from the tree where she had secured him and strode away from the burial spot.
Although Puck was sticking to Shep’s side, by the time they intersected with the trail, the muscle in Shep’s jaw looked as if it could deadlift a hundred pounds. He dug into the pocket of his cargos and withdrew the piece of cord she’d come to understand was, like Puck, a source of comfort to him. Without looking at it, he tied intricate knots, one after the other, as they hiked.
Something told Joss he needed space, so she marched along beside him, focus forward on the trail. Step after step, they continued in silence. But from her peripheral vision, she saw that Shep’s tying movements eventually became slower and less jerky. Finally, he loosened the last knot, slipped the cord back into his pocket, and stroked a gentle hand over Puck’s head.
“I am sorry you had to see that,” he said gruffly.
She nodded, but felt as if she needed to say something back. “I’m sorry you had to see it, too.”
That stopped him. Head down, he stood still in the middle of the trail, and his hands clenched and unclenched. “Someone killed it.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen dead deer before.”
“I’m sure you have.” Although Joss desperately wanted him to look at her, she knew by now that his avoidance didn’t mean he was avoiding her.
“Then why did you say that, about being sorry that I saw it?” he asked.
“Because it affected you.”
He looked up and pinned her with his green gaze. Whoosh. Joss’s breath flew the coop. “Why do you touch me?” he asked.
What? Joss blinked to try to follow the hard left he’d turned. She had to stay present around this man and learn how to play an endless game of Chutes and Ladders. Joss thought for a few moments because she understood she couldn’t answer his question with an off-the-cuff comment. This was important to him. Maybe more important than she could grasp.
“I don’t actually touch a lot of people,” she said finally. “My family isn’t filled with huggers. And having fans grasp at me…” She tried to get her breath back, but it was avoiding her lungs for a different reason now. “…it used to be flattering in a way, but now I find it terrifying.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m working on it.” She tilted her head and looked up into the leafy canopy over them, trying to grab on to some equilibrium. “Touch has been totally missing in my life since…” She couldn’t get the words out of her mouth even though she’d already laid herself bare to Shep.
“Is it true that you and Chris Lively were lovers?”
Joss blinked. Chris had been one of her bandmates from the very beginning, from the time she was discovered in a little dive bar on the outskirts of Omaha and ultimately signed a recording deal.
Most people would be thrown off-balance being asked such a personal question, but it was so much better than talking about the crash again, so she jumped on it. “At one time, yes. When we were in our early twenties. But it hadn’t been that way between us in a long time.” In fact, Chris had been most recently involved with a woman Joss had believed he would marry.
She’d been so happy for him.
Then she’d been selfish, and he was dead.
A topic she didn’t want to delve into again. Talking with Shep about touch was so much better. “I touched you because… well… I guess because I felt—feel—some type of kinship with you.”
“Oh,” he said, and went broodingly silent.
“Just ‘oh’?”
“I don’t do this well.”
“If you’ll explain what it is we’re doing, I’ll try to help.”
Shep simply reached for his security cord and began walking again. It was maddening, but she tried to stay calm. Tried to truly understand. But even Puck kept looking up at Shep as if he expected him to respond to Joss’s offer of help.
“I’m not trying to be difficult,” she said finally when it became apparent Shep wasn’t going to answer her. “I’m just unsure.”
“Not completely.” Although she knew Shep wasn’t trying to be funny. Or difficult.
“I am usually the one who has to apologize for not understanding and being unsure.” His quick glance in her direction made it clear he was earnestly trying to explain himself. “I said it is nice because it makes me feel good that someone else is unsure.”
“It makes you not feel so alone when that happens, huh? When someone knows exactly what you’re going through.”
“It’s a pretty rare occurrence for me.” He worked his cord into a particularly complex configuration and handed it to her.
Joss ran her fingers over the smooth bumps and humps of the knot.
“It’s a monkey’s fist.”
“It’s beautiful.”
His eyebrows rose, and he frowned down at the knot. “Really?”
She held up the knot, studied it closer. “Seems like an art form in a way.”
“Do you want to have sex with me?”
Well, okay then. Shep had obviously decided that their conversation soup needed a habanero thrown into it. “This is where you were going by asking me why I touched you.” She passed him back the length of cord, instinctively understanding he would want it while they delved into this topic.
“I know I’m supposed to say things that go with the things you say. I just…”
“Can’t always do it?”
“It wears me out.”
“I can imagine.”
“Can you really?”
“It’s like anything that doesn’t come naturally to someone. For example, riding a bike for me. I have to concentrate really hard when I try to do it. And I end up falling a lot.”
“Yes,” he said, his shoulders relaxing. “You do understand.”
“I’m not sure if I want to have sex with you.”
“Hey, you did it, too.”
“I’m learning from the best.” She smiled up at him.
“Do you know when you might be sure?”
Joss paused in the middle of the trail and turned to face him. “Can you look at me or will that make you uncomfortable?”
“My brothers say it’s important to look at a woman you like.”
He liked her. She was a twenty-nine-year-old woman, and that made her as giddy as a preteen at her first Justin Bieber concert. “You don’t have to look at me.”
“I want to.” His gaze met hers, veered off. Came back and bam! She suddenly didn’t want any other woman to look into this man’s eyes. They were that potent. Truly windows to a complex and beautiful soul.
“I like you,” she told him. “I’m attracted to you. My body is totally on board with having sex with you, but…”
Shep rocked forward on his toes and back on his heels. Like a little boy’s nerves inhabiting a man’s body.
“…my brain and my heart don’t know quite yet.”
“Okay,” he said and turned to walk away.
“Hey.” She grabbed his wrist. “That’s not a no. It’s just an I don’t know. Besides, you mentioned that you don’t like to be touched.” She looked down at her fingers wrapped around his golden skin. The silky hairs there mesmerized her. Seduced her. “Does this bother you?”
“Tighter,” he said.
She squeezed.
“I like that.”
“And lighter than that?”
“I don’t really understand it, but what other people say tickles them hurts me.”
Fascinating.
“And you’re really small,” he added.
She gripped harder. “You’re worried about hurting me?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t.” Suddenly feeling stronger and more sure of herself than she had in months, Joss shifted close to him. “Because I am unbreakable.”
10
She came at him fast. Not one to let someone else get a jump on him, Shep was startled to find himself shoved back against a tree and Joss’s hand stabbing into his hair. Puck got into the spirit and somehow wound his leash around Shep’s knees, lashing him to the tree.
Before he could get his balance, Joss yanked his face down and smashed her lips to his. Although she was small, she was leaning into him with all her weight, wedging him between her body and the tree’s rough bark.
Her kiss was edgy. Unrelenting lips, aggressive tongue, and sharp little teeth. Her bite did it for him, just enough pressure and pain to electrify the skin all over his body. The zing of it spiraled down and shot to his dick.
The impulse to return her aggression—to grab hold of her breasts, her ass, her anything—rolled through him. Just go from the parking lot to the Indy 500. He wanted to strip off her shirt. Stuff his hand down her pants. Then he wanted to brace her against this tree and fuck her blind.
Which meant he needed to keep himself under tight control. As Cash and Way had made very clear to him, women did not go from zero to sixty in two-point-six seconds. They needed to be stroked and revved.
So Shep kept his hands by his sides and let Joss tongue-fuck his mouth. The grip she had on his hair, the way her other hand was curled into his T-shirt, she was stronger than he’d realized. If her inner thighs were as powerful, could grip him hard, he might be able to lose his mind in a very good way when—if—he got between them.
Suddenly, Joss took her mouth from his and she stared up at him, eyes blazing and breath heaving. “Not working for you?”
“It’s working quite well.”
“Audience participation is appreciated and encouraged.”
“I… Women need different stuff from guys.”
“Oh really? Who told you that?”
“My brothers.” But realistically, it hadn’t been Cash and Way who’d planted that in his brain. Amber had never wanted to have sex without being properly pleased and petted beforehand. Shep had no problem with physical foreplay. He got that. But Amber’s idea of foreplay had many times eluded him. “Actually, my ex-wife.”
“So what is it she told you that women need?”
Jewelry. Fancy dinners in public. “Nice words. Soft kisses. Time to… uh… get in the mood.”
“I like nice words and soft kisses as much as any other girl,” she agreed. “But it’s not a prereq. And you’ve been pretty upfront about what your thing is. It’s about you, too, you know.”
“What?”
“Kissing. Touching. Sex. The whole thing. You get a say, too.”
Somehow in Shep’s mind, women always had the key, got to turn the lock any way they wanted. Since he didn’t always recognize the physical cues, the tone of voice, he waited. Always. “I don’t know what to say.”
“If you weren’t trying to filter yourself through the things other people have told you are okay, what would you say to me right now? What would you do to me?”
Uh-uh. Nope. He did not share those things. It wasn’t like he was a complete perv or anything, but his imaginings weren’t roses and candlelight. Sometimes, he didn’t even visualize a woman’s face. Just her body and what he wanted to do to it. Shep tried to unwind Joss’s fingers from his hair, but she didn’t loosen her grip. If anything, she tightened it, and his dick jumped.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” she asked him.
“No, you’re making me hard.”
She tugged his hair, and his hips jerked against her.
This wasn’t right. Women wanted to make love, and making love did not entail hair pulling and the kind of pressure Shep preferred. That was, at its nicest, fucking.
And girls did not like to be fucked.
They wanted to be pampered and coddled and loved.
How the hell was he supposed to do that when he didn’t understand what other people meant by the concept of love?
“Will Puck stay here if we move a few steps away?” she asked.
“Yeah, but why…”
“Puck, stay.” Joss yanked the leash out of Shep’s h
and, unwound it from around his legs, and dropped it to the ground. Then she grabbed his hand and dragged him behind a nearby tree. “Will you let me do something? If you don’t like it, you just say the word, and I’ll stop immediately. If my touch doesn’t feel good, tell me. It won’t hurt my feelings.”
He wanted to believe her, but Amber had said similar things a few times. And every time, she’d ended up crying and curling herself into a ball on the other side of the bed. “You don’t mean that. She never did.”
“I am not her,” Joss stately flatly. “I am me. You have no reason to trust me, not really. But I want to show you that you can.”
“I… Okay.”
She shoved him against a tree. He was really becoming fond of this forest. Then she went for the button and zipper on his cargos, pulling open one and ripping down the other. His cock liked the idea of getting out of his boxer briefs and pushed against the fabric.
Joss yanked down the waistband and hooked it tight beneath his balls. And holy fuck, that was… amazing.
“You still with me?”
Shep could swear he could see his dick pulsing with every beat of his heart. He was absolutely with her. “Yeah,” he croaked out.
“Tell me the second you aren’t,” she said. “I’m not into unwilling partners.”
An emotional fist rammed into Shep’s gut. That was the way he’d often felt with Amber—like he’d coaxed her into something. “Okay.”
But if Joss kept her current trajectory, there was no way in hell he would stop her. His abs were tight and quaking in anticipation. But first, he had to tell her something. “If you’re thinking about going down on me, don’t.”
For the first time since she’d pulled him in for her kiss, her eyes widened in surprise and confusion. “What? Why?”
“I don’t like it.”
She blinked. Just once, but it was obvious he’d stumped her. “Okay, this is a topic for another time. A man who doesn’t want a blowjob. Wow. Just wow.”
Another thing Amber hadn’t understood. Every so often, she’d decided to blow him because she thought it would soften him up to one of her requests. She’d never understood it, never believed, that he detested the way her mouth felt on him. Once, he’d dragged her off his dick by pulling her by the hair. She’d cried for three hours that time. And not because he’d hurt her physically. He hadn’t yanked out a single strand of her blond hair.
Striking Edge Page 11
