Call of the Bear

by T. S. Joyce

  “Nope.”

  “I checked for your truck last night out in front of my house.”

  “I had somewhere I had to be.”

  “Good,” she said triumphantly. “So you’re starting to trust me to take care of myself?”

  The engine roared and gears clicked into place. “I trust you to take care of yourself in normal circumstances. This is different though. Look, I can’t tell you everything you want to know.”

  “Because you’re in a cult. Which I don’t understand, because you don’t seem the type.” She watched his knuckles turn white as he gripped the steering wheel. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Well, lady, if you really knew me, you wouldn’t spare me that worry. I’m fine. And I’m not in a cult, so stop calling it that.”

  Two steps forward, one step back with just a few sentences that proved how quickly he could shut her out and distance himself.

  A short, irritated growl sounded from his throat. “I can’t talk about this stuff, and it’s not just because Dodger told me not to. It’s to keep you safe. Can you just trust me on this and let things go? If I tell you to drop something, it’s for your own good.”

  “And yours, so you don’t actually have to conduct a deep conversation with me. Which would be fine if we were strangers, but contrary to whatever you think about me not really knowing you, we aren’t. Our history is way too long and wide to be pretending like that. So, keep your secrets and keep me an arm’s length away, and see if I stick around for that shit, Bronson.”

  “There is no benefit in this for me but to spend time with you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He pulled onto East First and parked the truck at the end of the cracked pavement. Turning his smoldering gaze to her, he said, “You have the power to hurt me in more ways than you even know. This is a risk for me, and I can see it in your eyes, you don’t like the way I have conversations and avoid your questions. I’m telling you right now, you don’t want to open that can of worms, darlin’. You want to help me get this house done, leave when you’re supposed to, and forget about me and everyone else in this fucked up town. You have to move on with your life.”

  “Then why are we here? Why did you invite me out to lunch? Is it to mess with my head? Make me care about you again so it takes another six years to try and date anyone? God, Bron, I’m so tired of fighting with you. It’s not my personality to be confrontational, and it’s draining me. But you give me nothing.” She wrapped her arms around her chest like a shield. “You’re going to break me again.”

  His voice came out so soft, she had to strain to hear. “How can I break you? You don’t even know me anymore.”

  “Bullshit. You keep telling yourself that to push me away because you’re afraid of whatever is happening between us. I know your heart. Even if you aren’t the same boy I used to know, I can still see the good in you.”

  He shook his head and donned a humorless smile as he tracked two elderly ladies making their way up the sidewalk in front of the truck. His wrist was draped over the steering wheel, but he looked anything but relaxed. Even his fist was clenched.

  “I wonder if you knew what I was, would you still care about me?” he said, sliding a challenging gaze to her.

  “If you don’t tell me what is happening to you, you’ll never know if I’m strong enough to accept everything. What are you?” A cult member? She got that, and she was already hatching plans to get him out of Dodgers grasp. He didn’t need those manipulative people for emotional support, or whatever it was they provided him with. She was going to find him help.

  “I’m an animal.”

  His admission drew her up short. It shocked and saddened her that he could see himself like that. “My dad is a murderer. I’ve seen men who were animals, Bron. You’re not one.” She leaned across his seat and brushed her lips against the smooth planes of his cheek and let them linger. He smelled of shaving cream and Bron, and something richer, deeper…something new. She inhaled and pressed his scent to memory, just another thing about him that had changed.

  She trailed her lips to his neck and tasted his skin—heady and masculine. Little by little, his fist unclenched over the steering wheel.

  “What are you doing to me, woman?” he asked in a husky voice.

  “Caring for you, just as I always have.”

  He pulled her into his lap and checked the elderly ladies’ progress down the road. “I wish I could tell you everything,” he murmured, brushing his fingertips up the back of her knee. “Show you everything about me and see if you’d still feel the same. It’s just not a risk I can take.”

  “Ever?”

  Splaying his fingers, he ran his hand up her skirt against the inside of her thigh. “I punished you the other day, and brought you to the edge. And then I listened to you cry in your room because of the pain I’d caused you.”

  Her breath hitched as fire spread through her at his languid touch. He hadn’t answered her question, but right now, she was having trouble caring about anything other than his slow ascent up her skirt.

  “Do you think about me when you touch yourself?” he whispered, watching her mouth.

  Her voice came out low and breathy. “Yes.”

  His fingers reached the frilly panties she’d worn for him, and her knees spread apart without her telling them to. Easing the lingerie down her legs and over her boots, he tossed them onto the empty seat and cradled the back of her head, easing her mouth to his.

  The kiss was slow, and burning. He drew her bottom lip into his mouth and sucked gently until her insides were rolling with desire. It was so easy to imagine his tongue lapping other places on her body, and a deep shiver took her body.

  “Mmm,” he moaned. “I remember you used to do that when I found a new place you liked me to touch you.”

  He gripped the inside of her thigh, massaging rhythmically, teasing her.

  Wriggling in desperation to be closer, she whimpered as his knuckle skimmed her sex.

  “I want to know what you taste like,” he whispered against her neck. He ran his finger up her seam, spreading the wetness he’d conjured there, separating her slick folds until her legs shook.

  If he left her wanting this time, she’d explode.

  The rattle of a zipper sounded, and wide-eyed, she looked down in time to see him free his cock from the confines of his jeans. Red, hard and bulging, he gripped the base and pulled up long and slow. He was thicker than she remembered and her breaths came in pants as he slid his finger inside her.

  Geez, what was she doing? She was fooling around in Bron’s truck in broad daylight like they were a couple of rutting teenagers. Thank the powers that be that the town seemed to be utterly dead on a Tuesday afternoon. And for dark window tint.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the bead of moisture that pushed from the tiny seam of his cock. She wanted to taste it—wanted to taste all of him.

  The rhythm of his slowly pumping fist matched the pace he set with his finger inside of her. Withdrawing all the way, he slowly pushed into her again as he ran his hand down the length of him.

  “I want to watch you come,” she whispered. This was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.

  Angling his elbow, he pushed into her slick sex to the knuckle and spread his knees wider. A groan came from his throat as he pulled a long, hard stroke against himself. “Only if you come with me,” he said, grazing his teeth against the fabric of her sweater.

  Arm thrown around his neck, skirt clenched up in her free hand, she nodded jerkily. She was going to detonate soon, and every brush of his hand against her clit brought her that much closer. Every muscle built with pressure, and a tiny part of her wanted to beg him to ram her hard and deep. He was taking it slow though, and the pleasure was too consuming to find anything wrong with the punishingly gradual pace he was setting.

  His hips moved and the muscles in his arms tensed. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he leaned his forehead against her arm like he w
as losing control of himself. His shaft, growing thicker as he fisted it, brushed her side, and she lifted the hem of her shirt so she could feel the moisture at the tip.

  Her breath shook as he pulled his thumb over the head of his cock and stroked up and down. His movements became jerkier and he pressed his finger into her harder and faster. He was close and she was right there, teetering on the edge. Closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he ground out, “Sam,” as the first hot shot hit her skin.

  She pressed his shirt up to watch streams of milky white spray the pale skin over his taut stomach as she exploded around his finger. Orgasm crashed through her, clamping around him as he threw his head back and released one last surge of cum.

  His hooded eyes looked lighter than they had minutes earlier, but he closed them and hunched into himself with one final aftershock as she pulsed around his hand. When he opened them again, they looked normal. She didn’t remember how much his eye color shifted from before, but maybe it was just like that with people who had such strange, bright hues to begin with.

  She sagged against this chest, panting and spent. Which was confusing because she hadn’t done a damned thing but watch Bron get them both off. It hadn’t exactly been a vigorous workout, but here she was, feeling like she’d just run a mile on a treadmill and wondering if she could hook her panties with the heel of her boot so she didn’t have to move the lazy half of her.

  “You called me Sam,” she whispered, trying not to ruin the magic of the moment. “I like that better than when you use my full name.”

  He grunted as he kissed her, pressing his tongue against hers in a slow pull. Sliding his finger from her, he pulled it to his mouth and sucked the length of it. Now it was his turn to shiver.

  She should’ve been embarrassed, really she should have, but she’d wanted to taste him too, and watching him clean her off of his finger was almost as sexy as watching his jets of cum shoot up his six pack.

  He brushed his wet fingertip against her full bottom lip, and she opened up and bit it gently, then sucked.

  His eyes roiled with hunger as he watched her lips. “Woman, you’re going to ruin me.”

  “Good,” she breathed. Because she was pretty sure he’d already ruined her.

  ****

  It was hard not to touch Bron after the intimacy they’d shared in his truck. He seemed to be suffering the same, because his hand never left the small of Samantha’s back for long. And when they were seated in a booth in the cafe, he ran his hand up and down her arm until it was the warmest part of her body.

  He donned a new shirt, courtesy of the five or so clean ones he kept in the back of his truck for work. It stretched tight over his chiseled torso and the broad width of his shoulders. And if she looked hard enough at the dark gray material, she could make out each abdominal swell in his hard stomach. Her cheeks turned hot every time she remembered him coming on himself. If she lived to be a thousand, she would never forget how turned on she’d been, watching his brows knit as he rasped her name and lost himself.

  Food ordered and chocolate milkshakes settled in front of them, Bron rested his hand on the inside of her thigh and kissed her shoulder. “Sometimes I forget the last six years happened,” he admitted. “When I look at you, it feels like no time has passed. All of the bad stuff just gets pushed behind.”

  Heat flushed her cheeks and she ducked her head shyly. “For me too. Being back here has been so hard, but then there are times when it feels like I never left at all. And then I look around and remember myself, and it leaves me feeling kind of breathless, you know?”

  He smiled and dropped his gaze. “Yeah.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a rumpled movie ticket. “Look what I found a few years ago when I was cleaning out Muriel’s belongings. I had a whole box of stuff from when we were kids in a closet that I’d forgotten about.”

  Plucking the tiny paper stub from his palm, she read the block lettering. Ghostbusters. “Oh my gosh,” she breathed. “I remember this night. It was homecoming night junior year, and all four of us wanted to ditch the dance. And the drive-in was showing old movies that night.”

  “And Trent snuck in a flask of Dad’s Maker’s Mark.”

  “Yes! And we all got shit-faced because we’d never had anything to drink before. That was the night Reese sang opera through the end credits from the bed of your old Chevy, and got us kicked out before the double feature.”

  A grin stretched his face as he draped his arm around the back rest of her seat. “Do you remember after?”

  “Of course I do.” Heat flared up her neck. “Trent took Reese home, and you took me up to the old water tower. We climbed it and talked all night, overlooking the lights of the town.”

  “And?”

  “When we came back down, that was the first time we were together, in the woods right under it.”

  He playfully nipped her ear, a delicious reward for her good memory, and leaned back so the waitress could set a pair of chicken fried steak dinners in front of them. How many times had they sat in this cafe and ordered just this?

  A lifetime of memories stretched between them and she wondered how she was ever supposed to build something so intense with another man. “It’ll be hard to leave on Saturday,” she admitted quietly.

  “But you have to. It’s not safe for you here.”

  Somehow, she’d come back to find even more mysteries than when she’d left, and Bron seemed bound and determined not to enlighten her. It was hard to press him though when such sincerity pooled in the bright green depths of his eyes. He was worried for her. Whatever was threatening her here was real, even if she couldn’t see it.

  As scary as it was to do so, she trusted him.

  “Someday, will you tell me why this is all happening? Will you tell me everything?”

  He worried the corner of his lip with his teeth as he looked down at his steaming plate of food. “Best for you if I don’t. You not knowing what is going on is the only reason you’re still breathing.”

  Fear skittered up her spine at his chilling words. “Will you call me when I leave?” They hadn’t spoken on the phone when she’d left last time, but this time around, it would rip her guts out to be severed from him completely again.

  “How will either of us move on if I do?”

  Her voice dipped to a whisper. “Won’t you come with me then? We could leave this place and start over, and no one would care if we were together.”

  His adam’s apple dipped down and back up as he swallowed hard. “There are people I have to protect here. I couldn’t run like that.”

  Couldn’t or wouldn’t? The difference mattered so much, she was too scared to ask. “What do we do then?”

  The ghost of a smile brushed his lips. “We live like we mean it for the next four days. If this is all we get, we’ll make it count.”

  She didn’t want to point out that she was already falling in love with him again, and that every minute spent with him tethered her soul more tightly to his. He already seemed to feel it too, and what was the point of talking about the sad stuff they couldn’t avoid? That would only waste their precious time together.

  There would be no declarations of love or grand gestures. There would be no healing the past, because there simply wasn’t enough time. They would have to fill every moment and make them count, and the memories here would have to last for the rest of her life. For the rest of his.

  And for as unfair as she found it all, to have to leave him after finding him again, a peace settled over her that at least for a little while, she’d be with him.

  And that was more than she thought she’d ever have again.

  Chapter Nine

  Bron had told Dillon they would be back in an hour, so naturally he gave them hell for showing up three hours later.

  Did she regret the time with Bron? Absolutely not. They’d spent hours laughing and rehashing old memories and childhood stories. It felt so good to think about all of the happy times they’d had again. Forci
ng those memories from her mind had been a constant struggle over the past six years, and now, with the strain lifted, she realized just how tired it all made her. Now, she was practically swimming in a sea of relief.

  Changed into her paint spattered work clothes again, she put her hair in a messy bun and popped the top of the paint can in the living room. Stirred and prepared, she poured it into her roller pan and stood, stretching her spine.

  Her body hummed as Bron pressed behind her and kissed her neck. His teeth brushed her skin there, and he swatted her ass before heading outside to work on the porch with Grant and Dillon.

  He was intoxicating like this. Talking about his brother at the diner, of all of the fun memories they had together, seemed to have eased something in him.

  It made her wonder just how long he’d been dealing with everything alone. At least for the next four days, she could share the burden of what he’d been through.

  As the day stretched on, the soundtrack of nail guns, saws and the low murmur men’s voices as they worked together filled the evening air. Samantha worked hard and finished painting the last three rooms of the house. After all of the blue tape had been removed and tossed into a trash bag, she stood back and admired the open kitchen and living area. The new colors and lack of deteriorating wallpaper did wonders for the space. And even dirty and scuffed, the wood floors showed promise of being beautiful with some care.

  She could be happy in a place like this.

  “Sam,” Bron called. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

  She scrubbed her hands together, dislodging the dried paint on her palms and stepped out onto the porch. Then she gasped.

  Pressing her hand to her chest, she circled slowly to where Bron and the boys stood. The porch floorboards had been completely replaced, and new whitewashed columns held up the overhanging roof. But that wasn’t the best part. The most surprising part of the complete transformation was the porch swing that swayed lazily in the breeze.

  Her mouth was hanging open as she stared. She’d always wanted one, for as long as she could remember. “How did you know?”