The North Star

by Wendy Cole

  “Hey, Jessie…Bard?” Lexy greeted as we drew closer.

  Bard didn’t bother with a hello. “Where’s the candy?”

  She lifted a brow. “Candy?”

  “Yes,” he said, dragging the word out, “like sugary shit that people eat.”

  “You want candy?” She crossed her arms and scanned him from head to toe.

  Bard looked towards the ceiling. “Never mind. Thanks.”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me along behind him.

  My stupid brain automatically noted how rough his palm was. I imagined how it would feel if he ran it down my back and up my arms. It was too intimate. Too close. Why was he holding my hand? Why was I even here letting him buy me candy? I tried to pull my arm back, but Bard’s grip was like iron.

  “Let go,” I said to his back.

  Bard cast a glance over his shoulder, then released my hand and continued on searching the aisles.

  When we came upon a row filled with nothing but different types of delicious dental suicide, he asked, “What kind?”

  “You don’t have to buy me candy,” I insisted.

  He ignored me. “What kind do you like?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” His eyes held mine, a challenge swimming within their depths. “I’m a man, and you’re a woman. I want to buy you candy.”

  He wanted to buy me candy. That was how it started; with gifts and sweet words. “I don’t like candy.”

  His chest rumbled, then in a flash, he turned away and pulled bag after bag of candy from the shelf and stuffed it into his arms.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’re bound to like one of these.”

  “Why are you so insistent on getting me candy?”

  He stopped, arms loaded to full capacity. “Why are you so insistent on not letting me?”

  “It’s…” There were a million reasons, and I had a feeling he knew most of them. If I were to list them all, we’d be there all day. “It’s inappropriate.”

  He barked a laugh, his eyes shining and his smile wide. “C’mon, Tequila.”

  He shook his head as he passed me. His arms were so full, I felt like he’d drop something.

  I followed him like a pouting child.

  Bard threw the candy on the front counter, and Lexy’s mouth hung open like a dead fish.

  “These are things I’d like to buy,” he said. “You need to scan them and take money.”

  “I know how to scan candy. I’m just not used to scanning it for you.” She took a bag and pushed it across the scanner, then grabbed the next. “I wasn’t aware that you were capable of even being awake this time of day, let alone buy something other than eggs, orange juice, or alcohol.”

  The whole time she spoke, her eyes kept darting up to Bard, then me, then back again. When she finally had it all finished, Bard handed her his money and stormed away without the change.

  I hurried after him. “So, that back there…”

  “She’s not the brightest.”

  When we made it to the Camaro, Bard deposited the bags into my lap then paused.

  He sat back with his body turned slightly in my direction, and stared at me―really stared at me. His attention moved from the candy to my face, his expression thoughtful.

  I shifted under the scrutiny. “What?”

  “I like sweet things.” He didn’t smile, didn’t smirk. His gaze roamed again, from my face to my lap and everything in between.

  Just when I was sure my heart would explode, he took a deep breath, shook his head once, then turned forward and revved the engine to life.

  I kept my eyes fixed on the dash as I tried to slow my racing pulse. He was going to give me a heart attack.

  My gaze lowered down to the massive amount of chocolate. It was any and every brand I could possibly think of.

  And cavities. Lots and lots of cavities.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  We parked behind the motorhome, and Bard reached over to gather the bags from my lap. His arm brushed against me, his head bent dangerously close, and the scent of coconut shampoo and masculine body wash mixed with something more earthy and raw. He was nature personified from the way he moved to the sound of his voice. Smooth, like creek water over rocks or a breeze against bare skin.

  Fucking hell, I had it bad. Did I just write a poem about his ass because he smelled good?

  As if time suddenly sped up, Bard backed away from me and got out of the car. I followed at a distance, even watched him struggle with the door without offering to help. I didn’t know what possessed me to think I would be able to live with this man and not want him. It was bad enough that he was so attractive, but it was more than that. He played the game well. It was as if those freaky eyes had read everything about me, and now, he knew exactly what to do to penetrate my defenses.

  When he disappeared through the doorway, I slowly followed his lead.

  Bard tossed the bags onto the table and walked over to the set of cabinets above the cockpit. “You like movies?”

  I stared at him as he rummaged through a stack of DVDs, and I took back my thoughts. He didn’t know all the right things to do. If he did, he’d know all he really needed to do was turn around, give me those dark eyes, wrap me in those massive arms, and I’d have been lost. I was right on the precipice, and I knew it. My hormones ruled whenever he was concerned. Natural instinct urged me, perhaps to procreate and make more massive, beautiful men to populate the planet.

  But he didn’t know that, and I’d be damned if I was going to tell him.

  “What is this, a date?” I flopped down at the table and tried to feign disinterest. “I don’t watch movies.”

  “Rocky it is.” He pulled a case from the pile then stepped over and opened another cabinet to reveal a small television. He bent down in front of it and set to work getting it playing.

  I shook my head and tore into one of the bags. My mouth was watering, and it wasn’t for candy. But candy was what it was going to get, and it would just have to be happy with that or I’d kick my own ass.

  Bard’s eyes softened when he turned back and found me taking a bite out of a peanut buttercup. “I knew you’d like one of those.”

  I chewed begrudgingly. “I like all of them, you jerk.”

  He rumbled a laugh as he stretched out on the opposite side of the booth, then his eyes locked onto the screen as the opening scene played. “This one is my favorite.”

  I wasn’t paying attention. I stared at his profile, and no matter how many times I told myself to look away, I didn’t. “I haven’t seen it.”

  His gaze snapped to my face. “You haven’t seen Rocky? How the hell does that happen?” He motioned to the television. “Everyone has seen Rocky. It’s a classic.”

  I shrugged, grabbed a candy bar, and busied myself with tearing the wrapper. “I gave up on watching tv when I was a kid.” I took a small bite and chewed it slow.

  Bard watched me intently as he waited for me to continue.

  I swallowed hard and took a breath. “I bounced between foster care and group homes.” I shrugged. “It was always a battle to be able to see, let alone hear what was on, and if you wanted to pick, you needed to have some girth to you.” I took another bite and chewed. “I’ve never been the biggest.”

  I thought I knew his eyes―thought I’d seen the way they cut―but I was wrong. It’d been nothing compared to what he was capable of. His guard slipped, those intense eyes opened, and it felt as if I could sink in how deep they went.

  “You don’t have any family?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Did you…” he paused, “did you…lose them?”

  Something about his tone made me look closer. It was raw. I studied him as the dots connected. Zeke’s tattoo. The bear. It was for his brother, and if Bard was his nephew, did that mean…

  His father.

  My heart lurched, and I couldn’t understand why. People lost people al
l the time. It was the natural order of things. Circle of life and all that shit, but for some reason, I cared.

  “I don’t know who my father is,” I said, needing to take my thoughts away from him and back to more unimportant topics like myself. “My mother was a junkie. She overdosed when I was four.” I took a larger bite. “The state took me after that.”

  He didn’t offer a lame ‘I’m sorry’, and I respected him more for it. Sorry didn’t change anything, and it never helped. I hated when people said things just because it was the proper thing to do.

  A series of grunts echoed from the TV, and I turned just in time to see a man get hit. Blood flew from his mouth, splattered out in slow motion as if viewers needed to see every possible second.

  I grimaced and looked away. “That is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand people who fight for fun.”

  Bard’s lip twitched. “It’s a sport. It takes skill.” He wasn’t even watching the movie anymore. He’d turned completely, elbows on the tabletop, weird ass eyes fixed on my face as if I were the most interesting thing since man discovered fire.

  I rolled my eyes and snatched a new chocolate. “You won’t catch me participating. I spent enough of my life having the shit beat out of me. I’ll be damned if I show up and volunteer for it.”

  His eyes cut deeper. “Who beat the shit out of you?”

  I took a bite, chewed overly slow as I watched him watch me. “Foster kids, juvie kids. Hell, Bard, I’ve been to prison. The list goes on and fucking on.”

  His jaw clenched, but his eyes saw too much. He knew what I was leaving out. He’d already figured out that I was running from someone. Even if he didn’t know who, he knew it was a man, and it didn’t take a Harvard graduate to figure out what that meant.

  “And the ex, he beat you?”

  I nodded despite the urge to tell him to fuck off. Drake had done a lot more than beat me. Drake had tortured.

  “Enough about me.” I cleared my throat. “What’s your story?”

  I met his gaze and saw the moment it closed off. I pursed my lips at him. “What? You want all my dirty secrets but can’t give a few of your own?”

  He shook his head and eyed the table.

  “You got some crazy ex?”

  No response.

  “Maybe it’s you who’s hiding. This motorhome doesn’t necessarily count as the ideal place to be. There’s nothing holding you here. You don’t work at the shop. You don’t contribute from what I can tell.”

  He wouldn’t look up. He sat just how he had at the bar, his gaze searching each scuff and chip in the table’s surface.

  “What do you drink to forget?”

  The seconds stretched on like hours as I waited for him to speak.

  I bit the inside of my cheek and stumbled over my next words. They would cross a line. I knew they would without even having my suspicions confirmed. “Zeke has a tattoo of a bear…”

  His head shot up, and I sucked in a breath at the change in his expression. His angles turned harsh, his eyes wild.

  “I haven’t been awake at this time of day in a long time, Tequila.” His eyes met mine, raw yet guarded. “There’s a bottle of Wild Turkey in the cabinet that I don’t want to drink right now.” He stood, circled the table, and slid into the space beside me.

  I didn’t object. I couldn’t have even if I tried. The booth wasn’t big enough for the two of us, but Bard managed it. He threw an arm over the back of the seat and turned to look down at me. Those eyes met mine and locked me in. “You help distract me, but there’s only so much I think I can take before I reach for that bottle.”

  I nodded. It was the same reason I drank―to forget, to chase away the dreams―and I’d been a bitch to goad him. “I’m sorry. I-I can understand that.”

  His eyes trailed my lips as they moved. “Can you?”

  I held my breath.

  He lifted a hand slowly as if reaching out to pet a skittish kitten. His eyes met mine, cautious and alert, as he cupped my cheek and ran a thumb across my temple. So soft. Too soft. How a man as rough as him could make a move so gentle astonished me.

  “Distract me, Tequila.”

  My heart flipped. I stared up at his perfect mouth, his sinful face. I’d never been a saint. I’d never been one for good decisions, and this moment was no exception.

  I lifted myself up, closed the gap between us, and pressed my lips to his.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I kissed him, and it was different than any kiss I’d ever experienced before. It was soft and tentative and unsure. It was just like any other drug; the worst idea with the biggest euphoric payoff. Bard’s hand trailed a line from my cheek to my neck, barely touching me at all, but no sooner did his fingers tangle into my hair, everything shifted.

  Those fingers curled in, gripped, and pulled until he held me firm, and a low rumble left his chest. He took control, kissed me with an urgency that left me dizzy, and I was lost. I was adrift in the world where he was the only solid thing for me to hang on to, and I clung to his shoulders, his neck… I ran my fingers into that tempting hair, and it was just as silky as I’d imagined it would be.

  Another rumble vibrated his chest, and he pushed closer. My butt slid the last few inches across the seat, and my back hit the wall at the end. It was borderline aggressive, but I didn’t fucking care. It was hot―hotter than hot. It was heady and thick, but an undertone of sweet lingered. It never left even when his grip tightened and his fingers dug into me, not even when he made a sound more animal than man. It was still there; a sweetness like a cigar one only smoked on special occasions, harsh but decadent.

  He broke away and pressed his forehead to mine, breathing hard, hand still clasped into my hair, eyes shut and jaw firm.

  I panted for air, only just realizing I’d been denied it.

  “I will tell you one thing,” he said, his voice tight. His eyes opened and locked with mine. “I watched you that first night in the bar, and I thought I had you figured out. I thought you were just like me.” His eyes cut into me. “But then I looked closer and realized I was wrong, Tequila. You’re nothing like me. You’re stronger. You keep living.”

  My breath caught again, and the oxygen left my grasp. I lost myself in the sound of his voice, and I was drowning. Consequences became distant memories. I was unable to make good choices when the devil on my shoulder looked more like a god.

  “The more I learn about you, the more I…I think I’m going crazy.” The bone in his jaw flexed. “I want you so bad it hurts. I think about you all the time; not just about this, but about other things. I want you to trust me. I want you to feel safe, and I want to move away from you right now so you will.”

  His lips hit mine in a kiss deep enough to curl my toes, then he pulled back as if a rope had tugged him. “But then you look at me like you did last night―like you’re looking at me right fucking now―and you make it so damn hard to do the right thing.”

  I stared at him. I was so fucked. The man didn’t just tempt. He grabbed my heart and demanded I give it to him. It was more dangerous than sex; more dangerous than Drake. Karma really did it to me. She dropped the nuclear bomb.

  And I wanted to burn.

  “That was a really pretty speech, Bard,” I said, my words breathless. I needed him to stop talking. I needed the physical because the rest was just too much. “But I liked you better when your tongue was in my mouth.”

  He groaned as his lips captured mine again, harder and more urgent. He echoed my need. It mirrored the desperate feeling tightening my core and demanding to be satiated.

  In one swift move, he had me on my back, and his large hand gripped my leg and pulled it around his waist. Next thing I knew, he was everywhere. So close, yet not close enough. His kiss softened―long and languid―as he stretched his large frame across mine. The weight of him, in all the most amazing places, was sin. It was the definition of sin. This was why people burned. This was why they let themselves be damn
ed. It was impossible not to when the apple felt so right.

  Then, he stopped. His muscles seemed to stiffen all at once, and he broke away.

  I ran a hand along his back and cupped his head to pull him back, but he wasn’t looking at me. He’d turned towards the door, and a second later, I knew why.

  Someone knocked.

  Bard pushed himself up the rest of the way and stood at full attention, his eyes sharpened back to how they were the first time I’d seen them. Alert. Deadly.

  I scrambled up and pulled my feet on the seat. From my crouched position, I could just make out the shape of a head through the blinded window. “Who is it?”

  Bard whipped a hand up to silence me while his gaze was still locked on the door. He walked with the stealth of a trained killer and peeked through.

  “It’s some old man.” He cast a look over at me. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

  I stepped out of the booth and, not as quietly as he had, walked over to get a look.

  Mr. Frankfire stared at the door as if he was ready to scold it for not opening.

  “Motherfucker.” I trudged to the door and yanked it open. “Old man, you’ve got some kind of fucking timing.”

  He looked at me like he had the door. “Don’t you get that tone with me. I’ve been worried sick. You didn’t come back to the bridge, didn’t say a word. I’ve been out of my mind.”

  You’re always out of your mind.

  “I’m fine, as you can see.”

  But I was not fine. I was anything but fine. I was two seconds away from…

  Holy shit! I was two seconds away.

  I cast a glance over to Bard who’d taken a seat back at the booth and seemed awfully stiff with his back to me.

  This old man just saved my fucking ass. What had I been thinking? And I started the shit!

  “Come in!” I snatched his hand and pulled him in a way that could have been considered elderly abuse. I needed him here. I needed a buffer. I needed a reason to not get turned on, and if Mr. Frankfire’s ugly mug couldn’t do that, I had bigger problems.