by T. S. Joyce
“Yeah?” he asked, easing back to expose the deep happiness in his eyes.
“I like your tattoo.”
“You think it’s sexy, don’t you, Badger?” he accused with a chuckle.
“Yes,” she whispered, tracing his shirt where she knew the outline of it was. Running her fingertip along his defined pec, she smiled when he rolled his eyes closed and shivered under her touch. “But more than that, it’s sweet that you did that for me, even after what I’d done to you. I hurt you. Hurt us both, and you still paid tribute to what we’d had. That says a lot about your loyalty.”
He grabbed her hand without missing a step in their slow dance and kissed her knuckles. “You were always it for me, Danielle. It’s the way it works with me. With everyone here. I could’ve never cheated on you like you thought. It isn’t in my make-up. I only want you, for always.”
She rested her forehead against his chest and tried to stifle the excited energy he caused when he admitted sentiments like this.
“I’m scared,” he whispered.
Frowning, she looked up at him. “Of me? Why?”
“When this job ends for you, and you’ve done all you can do for research, I’m afraid you’ll leave me again.”
That didn’t sound like what he’d meant to say. Denison was still holding back, but she understood. She’d burned him on the way out of town, and she would have to earn his trust back.
She stretched up on tiptoes and kissed him in a gentle promise that she was here to stay. Even when the job with Reynolds ended, she would find a way to work in these woods, near the man she loved. Near the man she’d always loved. She was going to put in the time and prove to him she wouldn’t run when things got hard or confusing again.
She tugged at his shirt, scratching her nails gently against his skin as she lifted the hem, then tossed the fabric onto a heap on the floor. Still swaying her hips with his, she trailed little sucking kisses down his jaw and to his chest. She pressed her lips against the different shapes in his tattoo, then pulled his taut nipple between her teeth.
Denison muttered a curse as his hips bucked forward. Danielle brushed her fingers down his flexed mounds of abdominal muscles and pulled at the button of his jeans, then tugged the denim down his legs. His muscles twitched and jerked under her careful touch, and when she eased down the elastic band of his briefs, he inhaled in a gasp when her finger brushed the long length of his stone-hard erection.
He gripped the back of the couch until his knuckles turned white and his triceps bulged. His eyes were light gray now, not quite silver, but she would get him there. With a wicked grin, she knelt in front of him as he watched her with hooded eyes. The kitchen light was the only illumination, casting his flexing muscles into shadows and highlights. He was beautiful, bare in front of her, exposed, with that naughty smile that said he was utterly comfortable in his own skin.
Gripping the base of his cock, she teased his head with her tongue, tasting the drop of moisture that had beaded up on his tiny slit. Salt and Denison, and her stomach clenched with want.
He moaned and tensed his hips as she pulled him into her mouth, then eased back. In no hurry, she set a slow rhythm. She wanted to make him feel as good as he made her feel. She stroked him, careful with her teeth, lapping with her tongue until she could feel the veins go hard—until she could feel him swell in her mouth. Until he bucked against her and clenched her hair, guiding her. His stomach muscles strained, and he rocked into her mouth in shorter, faster bursts.
She touched herself outside of her jeans.
“Fffuck, Danielle, do that again.” He leaned over and watched her cup her sex, then pulled his cock from her mouth. “Stop, stop, stop, I’m going to come,” he rasped out, closing his eyes tightly.
“That was the point,” she teased.
His lips were on her mouth before she’d even registered that he moved. He pulled her upward into his arms, hooked his hand behind her knees, and carried her to the bedroom as if she weighed nothing.
The room was bigger than she’d imagined, with quaint wainscoting along the walls, soft green paint, and old-fashioned sconces on either side of a plush looking queen-size bed, adorned with neutral brown tones and mannish sheets. Much nicer than she ever would’ve guessed for an old trailer in the middle of the wilderness.
Denison flipped on the switch near the door, and a soft golden glow lit the room. Settling her onto the bed, he brushed soft, biting kisses down her neck before pulling her boots off and peeling her jeans from her thighs. Her shirt and bra joined the pile on the floor. The window unit air conditioner blew cold air across her skin, chilling her. With trembling fingers, she reached for Denison and smiled at the way he raked his silvery eyes from her lips to her breasts to her navel, then to the apex between her legs.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.
And right now, she felt beautiful. How could she not as he brushed his fingers down her ribcage and dragged his gaze along her collar bones, exploring her body. He wasn’t rushing to satisfaction. He was adoring her.
Covering her body with his, he lifted up one of her legs and lowered his lips to hers. He canted his head and pushed his tongue past the closed seam of her mouth. Denny, her Denny, even tasted familiar from what she remembered. The head of his thick erection pressed against her wet slit, and she whimpered at the tease.
“You always were a noisy little thing,” he murmured against her lips. “I got off for years remembering how you used to say my name, all helpless, like you needed me inside of you.”
He rolled his hips forward and his cock pressed into her deeper by an inch. Spreading her legs wider, she met his shallow thrust this time. He was propped on his elbows, trying to hold his weight from her, and his triceps flexed with every powerful stroke. Running her hands up the steely tautness of his muscles—the ones he’d earned doing hard, manual labor as a timberman, not a gym rat like she’d thought—she tilted her chin up and bit his lip hard to punish him for being too gentle with her.
He groaned as she moved for the tight cords of muscle in his throat and brushed her teeth against his skin. “Brooke checked my neck today to see if you’d bit me,” she said. “I don’t know what that means yet, but I think you wanted to earlier when we were together in your Bronco. You wanted to bite me then, didn’t you, Denny?”
His breath came in short pants, and he thrust his full length into her until she was full of him, stretching around him.
“Didn’t you?” she asked again.
“Yes,” he gritted out. “I want to now, but I won’t. Not until you understand what it means.”
“Well, if you won’t tell me, maybe I’ll just bite you first. Where do you want it? Here?” She pressed her teeth over his collar bone.
Denison shuddered hard enough that his shoulders shook. He slammed into her, and she closed her eyes against the pleasure building inside.
“Or here?” she whispered, then bit harder onto the hard muscle near his tattoo.
His breath was nothing but desperate sounding gasps now as he bucked into her again and again. He closed his eyes, and teeth gritted, he let off a helpless sound.
She tested him, biting down hard enough that it should’ve been painful, but he pushed his chest toward her mouth, as if the burn brought him pleasure.
She bit down harder, close to piercing his skin, and he threw his head back as a snarl rumbled from deep within his throat. Over and over, he bucked into her until the pressure was too much. She released his skin and cried out his name as ecstasy pounded through her. Streams of warmth filled her as Denison froze and buried his face against her neck. He pressed into her twice more, then lay throbbing and spent across her body as she trailed her fingernails up and down his back.
And when his muscles relaxed completely and his eyes had darkened to a stormy gray again, he pulled the covers over them and cradled her in the crook of his arm. With one forearm under his head, he stared at the ceiling as she listened to his steady, drumming heart
beat that pounded a strong rhythm under her cheek.
His tattoo stood stark against the soft sconce lighting, a reminder that he’d loved her even after she’d gone from his life, and she traced the arcing abstract shapes there.
“Denny?” she murmured.
“Hmm?”
“Someday you’ll let me in, won’t you?”
He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. His voice was deep and serious when he finally spoke again. “Someday I’ll show you all of me. And then you’ll run.”
There was no use denying him when he sounded so sure of their fate. He was wrong, though. No matter what happened, and no matter what he was hiding, she wouldn’t run again.
She hated herself for earning his distrust.
Around the emotional lump in her throat, she whispered, “I’m sorry for leaving.”
His fingers combed through her hair, and he leaned down and brushed his lips against her temple. “I forgive you.”
Chapter Ten
Denison rubbed the place on his chest Danielle had almost pierced with her teeth last night. Damn, he’d wanted her, too. Usually it was the male bear shifters who left a mark on their mates, but he and Danielle weren’t like any of the pairs he’d ever met. He would’ve gladly bore her mark.
If she knew what it meant, that was.
Bo, the half-grown pygmy goat, followed Danielle around a giant pine tree like a puppy. They’d hiked for hours this morning as she collected bark samples from trees in various stages of beetle infestation. She’d taken water samples and packed vials from different ponds into a cooler she carried in a loaded backpack. He’d offered to carry the thing since it looked atrociously heavy for a smaller woman like her, but apparently she didn’t need the help. She’d swatted his hand away and continued her mutterings about some kind of blue fungus.
The forest green backpack, he’d come to learn, was an entire portable library on animals and fauna native to this region.
Denison got why her boss wanted her to have a guide. She was plenty capable in the wilderness and was obviously a knowledgeable woodswoman, but she would’ve had to depend on topographical maps to find what she wanted. That and wandering around these woods on her own.
The realization of how close they were to the Gray Back Crew’s current job site made him downright grateful to her boss for pushing the issue. He could hear their machinery from here, though Danielle with her dulled human senses likely wouldn’t notice anything but the sounds of the woods. Sure, he missed the jobsite and working with his crew today, but at least Danielle was safe when he was with her.
He settled onto a fallen tree, nestled in patches of waving summer grasses, and watched Danielle take another measurement of the tree she was muttering to. It was cute that she talked to herself when she was working. Already, he’d learned more about the squishy green moss at the base of some of the trees than he had in his entire outdoor experience.
Pulling a long stem of grass, he gave a private grin as she bent down in one fluid motion and gave Bo a drink of canteen water from a tiny Dixie cup Kellen had given her this morning. Usually, he and the boys took shots out of those, but today, this one served as the goat cup.
“Can you help me cord this section off?” she called.
“Be happy to,” he answered.
She’d been roping sections off all morning, then counting the affected trees versus the healthy ones for more accuracy. Then she would scribble the numbers in her notepad and likely use some formula later that would give her an accurate idea of just how devastated this forest was.
If he was honest, he was in awe of her knowledge of the area. He was an animal and learned by exploring and listening to instinct, but Danielle was smart. Book smart. She knew most of the plants and trees and knew scientific facts about each one. And if she didn’t know something, she dropped down and flipped through her plant books, then repeated the name over and over until she committed it to memory.
Now, he wasn’t a smart man, or an overly educated one, but he had other qualities about himself he liked just fine. He could play music and make people happy with his songs. He didn’t have stage fright, and he was good with his hands. He had a strong back and could work big machinery on the job site. His alpha trusted him with just about everything up on the landing.
Danielle though—she had intelligence to go with her quick wit and happy demeanor. And he found that damned sexy.
He tried to focus on the task at hand as she tossed him the pre-measured loops of rope, but she looked good in her little forest ranger outfit. Khakis, thick-soled hiking boots, and a mud-colored tank top clung to her curves, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out if he liked her better in this getup or that sexy miniskirt she’d been wearing at Sammy’s Bar.
His bear was practically humming under his surface with possessive happiness.
She was his.
Danielle just didn’t know how thoroughly she’d been chosen yet.
Chapter Eleven
It had been six glorious days spent exploring the woods with Denison, and Danielle couldn’t remember being any happier. She wished this job would never end. Perhaps if she did what Reynolds wanted her to well enough, he would extend her month-long contract.
She was going to ask him about it when she met up with him tomorrow.
Bo bleated from his oversize dog bed near the couch in the Airstream. The little hellion had gone to head-butting Denison whenever he got the chance, but he was sweet as pie to her. She loved him ridiculous amounts.
After tying the laces of her hiking boots, she grabbed her backpack and the stack of notebooks she’d filled with nature scribbles, drawings, and calculations, then opened the door and stepped out into the gray, early morning light. She waited for Bo to jump clumsily over the single stair after her before she closed the door.
The trailer park was immersed in chaos as the Ashe Crew readied to head up to the job site for the day. Denison had taken her up there yesterday and showed her around. She’d imagined all of the dangers of his job but hadn’t really realized just how grueling the work was until she saw the crew working to drag logs up the mountain with that heavy machinery firsthand. She tried to keep her worrying to herself, though, because it was plain and obvious that Denison loved his job. They all did.
She waved to Tagan as he shoved a lunch pail into his truck. He smiled back, but it wasn’t his usual greeting. Worry sat in his blue eyes. She only caught the glimpse of concern before he hopped into his big old black pickup truck with its heavily tinted windows.
That was weird.
“Hey, Danielle?” Brooke called from the door of the trailer she shared with Tagan. She was still in flannel pajama bottom pants and a red tank top she probably slept in. Her blond hair was mussed, and she looked pale, as if she wasn’t feeling well again.
“Yeah?”
“Come see me after you go out with Denison today, okay? I want to show you something.”
“Sure. I’ll come straight over.” Danielle frowned as Brooke closed the door behind her.
Something was up this morning. The usual rowdy greetings from the crew had been skipped, and everyone seemed on edge. Engines turned over and roared to life, and one by one, the trucks backed out of cracked pavement parking spaces and headed up the road that would lead them to the job site.
Denison stood bent at the waist as he rested his elbows on the railing of his porch. The megawatt smile he usually gave her first thing in the morning was missing. He didn’t scoop her up and fondle her ass like he hadn’t seen her for days either.
Warning bells clanged around her head, louder than the trucks that rumbled away and echoed off the mountainside.
“You need to leave Bo here today,” Denison said as she approached.
“But…why?” She looked down at her little furry buddy, who was currently chewing on the cuff of her pants. She’d grown accustomed to having him and Denison around her while she worked. It would be strange collecting and press
ing plants without the rascal trying to eat them.
Denison didn’t answer, and a muscle twitched under his eye as he stared at her. He looked angry, and something more. Scared. What had she done wrong?
“Okay, I’ll go put him in his pen.”
After Bo was penned, fed, and his water dish changed for fresh, she closed the gate Tagan had constructed and shuffled toward Denison. She shouldered her backpack and hid her surprise when he crossed the street and headed to a small fence that surrounded the small trailer park. This wasn’t the way they usually went to work, and she had a grid to follow.
Denison didn’t say a word and didn’t look back to see if she was following. And with every step she took on the thin trail that led up into the mountain that overlooked the trailer park, dread weighed heavier across her shoulders. Pressing against her more and more until it was hard to breathe.
The trail wound around ancient evergreens with trunks so large it would take two grown men to wrap their arms around them. The smell of sap and ozone filled the air, and above her, dark clouds churned and warned of an oncoming storm. The wind kicked up as she climbed over a boulder, whipping her hair this way and that until she gave up and pulled her dark tresses back in a high ponytail.
Denny didn’t slow down, nor did he offer to help her up a steep embankment like he usually would. Perhaps he was still angry about her leaving and had decided she couldn’t be trusted after all. She swallowed hard as tears stung her eyes from the thought of losing all she’d found over the last week. The endless days of joking with Denny and the nights in his arms. Feeling like she belonged somewhere for the first time. She thought of her friends and how badly it would hurt to leave them when Denny made her go. By the time she stepped into a clearing on the side of the mountain, she’d worked herself up quite capaciously.
Denny stepped from behind a tree and pulled his shirt off. His chest was heaving, as if emotion was choking him like it was her. He approached slowly, then hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her gaze to his. With a serious look that was completely at odds with the natural smile lines of his face, he murmured, “This is me, Danielle. Remember your promise.”
