by Nova Carlyle
“No.”
“Afraid I’ll start stashing nuts in every nook and cranny of the house?”
“Would you do that?”
“I mean, a squirrel likes to be prepared, but I could probably hold off with just a few tins of pistachios or cashews in the cabinet.”
“Then I guess I’m not worried about it.”
She leaned close again. “Afraid you’ll like it?”
Bryce snorted. “Your food’s getting cold. Stop harassing me.”
“Spoil sport. You don’t know what you’re missing out on.” Clementine lifted a thick batch of rice noodles to her mouth. Distracted by the fire it left on her tongue, she almost didn’t hear his soft reply.
“I have a pretty good idea.”
The food in her mouth suddenly lost its taste under the harsh wash of remorse. How she wished she’d found him sooner. Kept him all those years ago when she’d been too star struck and oxygen starved to understand just who he was to her.
Bryce needed her now even more than he needed her then. And she needed him. He was too hung up on the state of his home and the opinions of others to understand that she needed him exactly as he was.
She pushed her plate away and drug the giant container of tiramisu to her. Noodles and fried fish cakes were amazing, but this conversation required the sweetness of dessert to stave off the bitterness of her past.
Choosing to eat straight from the pan, she took two good, fortifying bites before wiggling her fork in the air and drawing his attention to her.
“So, when I first got asked to join a modeling agency? I was beyond excited. Who wouldn’t be? They promised me so much—fame, fans, adoration everywhere I went. But there was a teeny tiny catch. In order to sell me, I had to turn into a product they could work with. They weren’t saying anything I hadn’t heard before, really. I had too much hair, too much ass, and way too much personality. Oh!” She paused and licked the smear of frosting off her fork. “Side note; I’m going to grow my ass back out again.”
Bryce’s eyes grew wide and flicked ever so subtly down to where his shirt met the back of her thighs. She assumed by the color kissing along the harsh edges of his face that he was A-okay with that.
Wasn’t he perfect?
“So,” she continued. “Back to my story. I figured that if I did what they said and my career took off, then their way must be the right way. And then later I met Grant. And the right way quickly became his way. And again, if he wanted to marry me, then his way must be the right way and I just kept on being the model who made zero decisions for herself and acted like nothing more than a puppet with a bunch of money grubbing hands directing me. So you see what I’m getting at?”
He was still staring at her back end. The tofu on his fork slipped off and splatted back down to his plate.
“Bryce?”
“Hmm?” He stuck the empty fork into his mouth. It startled him back into the moment and he blinked at her.
Clementine smiled slowly, wishing she could wrap him up in a nest of fall leaves and tuck him into a tree cavity for safe keeping. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
His shoulder lifted in a small shrug, but he licked his lips and said, “You were unhappy even before you caught the exhole cheating on you?”
Her mouth contorted in an automatic, silent snarl thinking back on that catastrophic night. “Yes. I looked back at the girl I was before I started my career. She was feisty. Fearless. She was more than a pleasant character and beautiful face. She was real and flawed and everything nobody in the industry wanted. But she was me. I thought that was just somehow so God damned beautiful.” She smiled, pulling her fingers through the curls tumbling over her brow. Their shortness reminded her of how weightless her life was now. “In the past month since I broke up with Grant, labels have dropped me, friends have blocked me and everything I worked to achieve for years has melted away like it never was. I’m walking away with nothing except myself and it’s the most incredible feeling. Like being reborn.” She stuffed a giant bite of tiramisu into her mouth and grinned around it at him.
But his frown hadn’t faded at all. His fork drew a slow path through his plate. “Won’t you miss it? The state dinners? Yachts in the Mediterranean?”
“Pff, not even a little. I want to swing my sword around and hack at things and climb trees and thanks to you, I really want a motorcycle now.”
“But your life was so full, Clementine. What you described? Your sword and trees? They won’t complete you for very long. I grew up hacking at things and living like a wolf. You’re going to miss having a life.”
“I could work for the Agency.” His ears grew bright red and she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m kidding! Oh, God, you should see your face though.”
He knocked her fork aside and took the bite of dessert she’d been aiming for. The curl of a smile at his lip sent a roll of happiness through her. She couldn’t think of anything that would bring her greater pleasure than drawing into the life he deserved, smile by smile. “I know that long term, I’m going to need something to fill my days. And I haven’t got it figured out yet, but I will. Maybe I’ll teach fencing. Or compete again.”
“You were good at it.”
“I was. I was damn good.” And it felt so very good to remember that and to know that she’d get there again someday. She tugged the cheesecake closer to them and popped the plastic covering off it. Time to put some fluff back on her ass where it belonged.
They finished eating in companionable silence. Clementine’s attention remained mostly focused on the line of his jaw and the lean stretch of his neck.
Bryce packed the leftovers up and took them to the kitchen, leaving Clementine alone in his room. She crawled over to the bookshelf, poking at a few covers and flipping a couple cd cases. The The big bin under his nightstand caught her attention and she crawled to it next. Tugging it out into the soft lamplight, it was much heavier than she’d anticipated and the box tipped over, spilling out glossy covers.
Bryce shouted behind her but Clementine barely heard, too caught up in the all the faces staring back. Every single one of them was her. Her numb fingers pushed more aside, revealing just more pictures of her. Every magazine she’d ever been in was here. Every single one.
“What are these?” Her voice cracked in the silence.
Bryce bent over her, hastily trying to push them back into the box, but Clementine covered his arm with a hand. He froze and tension poured from him.
“They’re all…of me,” she whispered.
“It’s nothing.
“No. No this is something. You’ve been following my career for—“ She thumbed at the bottom of the stack. “Years.” The truth of what she suspected rolled over her and she sagged. “You like her.” She touched a cover, one where nothing but satin and lace covered her “But I’m…me. Loud, crazy and too much of everything me. But you like her—you want her—”
He grunted when she turned back and dove around him, scrambling for the safety of the blanket in the middle of the floor. Her heavy breathing bubbled into a brittle laugh. “I held you at sword point and—oh! My hair.” She grabbed at it, no longer sure the shortness was anything more than a sign of a woman spiraling out of control. “I don’t even know what’s worse to you—the hair or the sword but I’m sorry for both. No wonder you freaked out about the “M” word!”
She had scared him away before she’d even realized who he was to her.
Frustration and a deep sense of loss consumed her, burning every thought from her until the only way to escape was by shifting.
Fighting her way out of the shirt, her squirrel immediately sought a dark, safe space and scrambled into Bryce’s closet. She buried herself in an ancient work boot, shivering uncontrollably.
Light fell over the opening at the top and she squirmed deeper into the toe, pulling her tail over her head.
“Clementine.”
Squirrels couldn’t cry, but that didn’t mean the animal
wasn’t experiencing the same humiliating agony she was. It just meant Bryce wouldn’t see her tears and she could save at least some of her pride.
Her world swayed and she knew he had pinpointed her location and now carried the boot. But she didn’t look to see where to. She didn’t care.
His bed creaked.
Then it was quiet.
She wanted to blubber all over again about how terribly sorry she was for not being the Clementine he’d wanted from afar for so very, very long, but the most her squirrel could do was chirp and chatter and it seemed like a giant waste of energy for something that wouldn’t change anything.
She couldn’t go back to being the girl framed in eight by eleven inches.
Not even for him.
The silence stretched.
“I feel weird talking to my boot.” It tilted as though he were trying to peer down into it. “Don’t make me have this conversation with a sun damaged piece of leather.” A fingertip drew over her exposed tail and she clutched it tighter against her body. His sigh filled the boot with a gentle blast of warm air. “I wish you hadn’t seen those.”
Well, that made two of them.
“Clementine, I’ve never had someone.” The raw edge of pain in his voice echoed the hurting inside her own chest. “It’s always just been me. And then, it became me and this image of a girl in a magazine. I read every article ever printed about you, I studied your likes, your dislikes, I-I developed an addiction to saltwater taffy and cherry coke because of you. It helped me feel close to you and that was the only thing that could keep me going. And now you’re here, but you somehow believe I would want anything other than you.”
He could say that when he believed she would want anything other than him. The irony of it made a small, sad laugh bubble inside of her.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to make you stay. I’m scared you’re going to run away just when I was starting to believe that you really could be mine.” He paused, the air silent save for the heavy thread of his breath. “Please, don’t do that to me.”
The torment pouring off his skin made her animal restless to reassure him, to cuddle and love the creature destined to be theirs. So without a second thought, the animal scrambled out of the boot and up into the space between his jaw and neck where she could curl into the heat of his body and cover herself with his scent.
And Clementine wanted everything her squirrel did. So she shifted back into her human form, her face tucked where the squirrel had once been, her arms and legs wrapped around his torso, pinning his arms to his side.
Bryce grunted and his body temperature sky rocketed, warming even the parts of her that weren’t plastered against him. She murmured her contentment, burrowing her nose into him.
He inhaled sharply, the sound weak and devastated.
That made two of them.
“Am I enough for you, Clementine Winters?” The gruff edge of emotion in his voice brought the sting of tears to her eyes.
“Yes.” She leaned back, slowly settling down into his lap. “Am I too much for you, Bryce McCabe?”
“No.” Eyes clamped tight, his cheeks hollowed with every breath. “No, you’re perfect.”
“Even though I held you at sword point?”
Still not looking at her, he nodded. “It really turned me on.”
“Be serious!” She cried, bubbling with laughter.
“What?” He tugged on his arms and Clementine reluctantly loosened enough that he could draw them free. But they returned to her body, his hands holding her shoulder blades with the barest touch of his fingertips. “I thought I was going to frighten you.” His brow drew down heavily over his closed eyes. “I was so scared of the life you’d led, of the genteel beauty who had the world eating out of her hand. But then you were you and you were perfect and you keep surprising me. Everything you do. It’s wonderful. I don’t want you to stop doing you. Ever.” He cleared his throat. “Especially if that means I get to have you for always.”
“Well.” She stroked her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, admiring its silky glide over her skin. “It’s more like you’re stuck with me forever now. But you say it in such a pretty way.”
He chuckled softly.
“Bryce?”
“Yes, Clementine?”
“Look at me.”
He shook his head. “Am I enough for you?”
“More than, enough.”
“I’m not like other wolves. I’m not built like them, I don’t think like them.”
“True. You’re built like a tree which is a super huge turn on, I’m not even going to pretend like it’s not.”
He blushed and she touched the color developing over the sharp ridges of his cheekbones. His eyelashes fluttered at the contact.
“And who cares who you are and aren’t like, Bryce. I just want you to be you.”
“Even if I’m not as handsome as them?”
“I like your face.”
“No one likes this face.”
“It’s a pirate face. I fancy pirates.” She clapped a hand over one closed eye. “Arrgh.” She snorted. “Bodyguard? More like bootyguard!”
He groaned like he was dying. Laughing hard, she capsized to the side and pulled him down to the bed with her. She tried to get him to cuddle into her and relax, but Bryce held himself taut, every muscle rigid. With gentle tugs, she at least got him onto his side and facing her.
“Can I tell you a secret?” She whispered.
“You can tell me anything.”
She leaned close, sweetly touching her forehead to his. “There’s a reason it doesn’t bother me.”
“Oh? He asked a little breathlessly, his chest rising and falling against her.
She nodded. “I’m a little bit squirrelly.”
Bryce threw his head back and laughed. The gorgeous sound covered her in goosebumps.
“Puns. Wow. Just. Wow, Clementine.” He flattened onto his back and blindly grappled for a pillow to tug over his face, but the down and fluff couldn’t disguise the rumble of his deep laugh.
She planted her chin on his chest, her fingers idly toying with the buttons of his shirt. She mindlessly slipped one free, her fingers eager to touch him. But he pinned her wrist in place and used his forearm to brush the pillow off his face enough that she could finally see into his shadowed eyes.
Fear, worry, doubt, they all still lingered there. She couldn’t blame him for not fully letting go yet, but it hurt to see. Clementine wanted nothing but happiness for him. She wanted him to know that this was his future from here on out and he’d never go back to the life he’d once lived.
“Help me take your shirt off, Bryce McCabe,” she whispered. “You’re going to wear my bite from this night forward.”
His body trembled violently and his face slipped into a tortured grimace.
“Bryce.” She reached out to caress his cheek, but he jolted up the bed. Clementine squeaked in surprise but reached for him again all the same. Shame rolled through the green of his eyes, darkening them to a flat black. Before she could even begin to understand what was wrong, he yanked the pillow up again, this time pinning it over his face with a heavy arm.
Although she couldn’t see his features, his body still trembled. The entire bed vibrated with the intensity of his emotion. She carefully eased her hand over his heart, but his body bucked and a sharp noise came from under the pillow. Withdrawing her touch, she cupped her hands to her own chest and kneeled over him.
“Bryce? Talk to me,” she murmured soothingly.
His stomach clenched. Worry lifted the hair along her arms, but the pillow moved enough to reveal the hard slant of his mouth.
“It’s a lot.”
She nodded to his guttural reply, even though he couldn’t see her and she wasn’t quite sure what he meant. But she’d do anything to make this go away. “I don’t have to bite you. Not tonight. Not ever, even.”
“No!” He drew the pillow back further. “Don’t say th
at, please.” He sucked a deep breath in, his gaunt cheeks hollowed even further. “I can’t—you can’t say that. Please.”
She nodded. “Okay. Okay, we’ll just go slow. Your pace. You tell me what to do.”
His mouth trembled and he escaped back under the pillow, but he gave a low muttered apology once there.
The cold February night pressed hard against the lone window in the room and Clementine couldn’t ignore it any longer. She pulled the edge of the sheet up and around her side, then eyed the narrow strip of bed at his side. “Do you want me to go in the other room?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to lay down with you?”
Another ‘no’, this one miserable and ripe with his pain.
“Do you think you could tell me what happened? What I did wrong?”
“Nothing. You’re perfect. It’s just—so much. To see you in my bed. And then you said you wanted me—” he sucked at the air again. “You want to touch me.”
“Not just touch, Bryce. I want to claim you—bite you.”
He shuddered.
“Okay,” she whispered, slowly starting to understand. Of course he hadn’t had many opportunity for physical touch in the past. At least, that which didn’t come from a brawl. It made her squirrel want to plow into his arms and kiss and touch him until her caress became second nature to their mate. But that wasn’t what he needed. Not yet. “We’re not in a rush, Bryce. There is no hurry to do anything.”
“Maybe—if you just bit me. Got it over with.”
“But that’ll hurt!”
“I don’t care.”
But Clementine’s heart gave a slow roll at the idea of a claiming mark when it would be just as painful as every bite inflicted on him in his past. She didn’t want her touch lumped in with anything he’d ever suffered through before.
“I don’t think that’s going to work for me.”
He tensed immediately and she pushed on, hurrying to keep him from misunderstanding.
“This is one of those meet in the middle situations, okay? I sort of have this feeling you and I are in for a lifetime of these so let’s start off on the right foot. First, can I hold your hand?”
The arm that wasn’t pinning the pillow to his face lifted and Clementine threaded her fingers through his, clutching them tightly.
