by Selena Scott
He watched as her shoulders lowered like their marionette strings had been cut. “I don’t know what it is either, Jack.” She stepped forward and put her arms around his waist, hard. She obliterated the space between them by smashing their fronts together. Up on her tippy toes, she kissed him hard on the mouth. “I’m not leaving yet.”
He didn’t know what that meant. But just then, kissing her in the warm afternoon, the forest dewy around them, he didn’t think he had it in him to ask.
***
Arturo watched from behind a sort of dimensional curtain. He could have reached out and touched the woman’s hair and she wouldn’t have even known. Instead, he stood against a tree, unknown to either Jack or Thea. He watched them have their embarrassingly mortal argument.
He almost sighed. How boring. These mortals with their ridiculous misunderstandings. Just tell each other how you feel! He wanted to yell it at them. But, of course, he didn’t. Because if they were to really saw through their feelings to see what lay inside, well, then he wouldn’t get what he wanted.
Which was Jack Warren’s bear shifter soul on a silver platter.
Arturo wanted it so bad that his fingers twitched at his side as he watched them argue. But he knew better than to take now. He knew that Jack had regained strength, would likely be able to resist. And with the woman at his side, he would almost definitely be able to resist.
It was tempting to attempt to take the man’s soul right here in broad daylight and just put an end to all of this. Finally.
No, no, it was best to stick to the original plan. The men would have their first shift tomorrow night. And they would be incredibly vulnerable. Disoriented. He wouldn’t even have to fight them to take one of their souls. He could simply lure them. Tomorrow night.
After centuries of waiting, tomorrow night, he would finally find his relief.
***
All three men woke the morning of the new moon feeling like they’d already downed too much caffeine. All the women in the house still slept as the men found one another in the kitchen, blinking against the sunrise and shoving their shaking hands in their pockets.
“Hell of a punch, this bear shifter thing, huh?” Tre asked, slugging back some orange juice in lieu of anything that might make him even more jittery.
“Hasn’t really been anything to write home about up till now,” Jean Luc said, dunking his head into the sink and drinking from the tap. “Honestly, if it weren’t for the connection to you two, I would have questioned this entire thing. Whether or not it was really real.”
“Thea doesn’t believe in it,” Jack said, leaning against the fridge and looking dully out toward the lake.
Jean Luc and Tre exchanged eye contact. Jack didn’t quite have his usual sparkle today. Something was off. He seemed dull. Like fingerprints over bronze.
“She told you?”
“Nawl. She didn’t say as much. But I can feel it. She thinks something happened, sure. I mean, she got called back here because of whatever bond we all forged in that clearing. But I think, somewhere deep inside her, she’s not expecting us to turn into bears tonight.”
“Well,” Tre shrugged, “why would she? Frankly, I’m shocked that the others believed it so easily.”
“Martine didn’t take any convincing and Celia and Caroline are lonely,” Jack said, bluntly but not unkindly. “Neither of them particularly strike me as women who are dying to get back to their regular lives.” He sighed. “I suppose it’s easier to believe if you want to believe.”
“Jack, are you alright?” Jean Luc stepped forward. He wanted to clap a hand on Jack’s shoulder, the way Jack often did to him. But he stopped at the last second, pulled up short.
“It won’t hurt, you know,” Martine said from the entry into the kitchen. “I know we’ve been over what to expect from the shift, and I can’t imagine how strange you all must feel, knowing it’s about to happen to you. But I just want to remind you, it’s not going to hurt.”
“We’re not afraid of it hurting,” Jean Luc said, subconsciously speaking for all three of them. Because why not? He could practically feel their thoughts pulsing in his heart anyways. “We’re afraid of it changing everything.”
Martine nodded. “Everything has already been changed. The second the three of you stepped in front of the women and took Arturo’s hit, your lives were forever changed. It’s up to you whether or not you regret it.”
***
When Jack returned to his bedroom, their bedroom, in the late morning, he froze in the doorway. Was she—? Yeah. Great. He was pretty sure he’d just caught Thea packing her things. Instead of packing the shirt in her hands, though, she pulled it over her head and turned to him.
“You’re all wet,” she said, those clear blue eyes trained on him.
“Went for a swim.” Actually, he’d damn near swam around the entire lake.
“Very bear-like of you,” she said sagely.
His lips twitched. “Yeah. Then I ate some salmon. And for dessert I polished off an entire jar of honey.”
She laughed and moved to the bed to start making it. He followed her there, even though he was dripping wet still. He took one end of the quilt and so did she. They lifted it up together and let it billow back down to the bed.
When it was perfect and tucked in, Jack looked up at her. He’d made a decision. He could be sour about her imminent departure or he could enjoy the hell out of her while she was here. He’d been around the block enough to know that nobody got what they really wanted in this world. Thea didn’t deserve to be punished for that.
“I want to spend the day with you,” Jack said. “The whole thing. My last day as a human man.”
Thea might have laughed at a different time, at his dramatics, but now she was serious. She nodded. She came around the bed toward him, stripping off that shirt she’d just pulled on. Next came her pants. She kept on her bra and underwear, because she’d learned just how much he enjoyed taking those off of her. She gripped his hand and led him into the bathroom. There was a big clawfoot tub, just like in the bathrooms downstairs, but this one had been updated recently enough to also have a tile shower stall with a glass door. Thea leaned in and turned it on, the steam curling up and out. The condensation in the air pebbled her skin and Thea shivered, but maybe that was from the way Jack was looking at her at that very moment.
When she turned, she’d thought she’d known exactly what she would see. Intensity in his eyes, desire for her, a half smile.
Not this time. This time there was something else there. When she thought about it later, she would wonder briefly about the fact that it was the day of his first shift. Because the look in his eyes was wild, instinctual, animalistic.
Thea’s breath sucked in, fast and unexpected, as he stalked up to her, his eyes on hers. He was naked in just a few seconds, his clothes piling on the floor and his cock already perked up and straining toward her. Jack’s hands went to the clasp of her bra, his eyes still on hers. It was stripped off her.
For her underwear, though, he finally dropped that stare and went down to his knees next to her. She shivered again under all that attention. Two fingers skated up the inside of her leg and she felt the pads of his fingertips, so gently, across where she needed him most.
“You’re already wet, sweetheart.” He still didn’t lift his eyes to her, intent as he was on that black triangle of fabric between her legs.
She didn’t say anything, just steadied herself with one palm against the tile wall next to her and one hand on his shoulder.
Finally his eyes flicked to hers again. “When did this happen, sweetheart?” he asked her, his fingers pressing between her legs again. “When did you get wet for me?”
She sucked in a breath, realizing that she hadn’t been breathing properly. She’d never met this side of him before and it was doing something to her. “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “It wasn’t one particular moment.”
“When I came in the room?” his voice dr
opped an octave.
She thought back, held his eyes, and nodded.
His gaze heated with pleasure at her answer. “That happen often?”
She nodded again. It was true. It was her body’s natural response to his closeness. That prowling, laughing heat of him, it called to her, reminded her what could happen when two people got naked and creative.
“You saying you always want me this bad?” His voice was still low, and instead of his fingers touching her over her underwear, this time it was his nose. He inhaled her, his eyes dilating.
“Yeah.” She made herself answer this time, her voice ragged and just a little shaky. “You always want me that bad?” She pointed her chin down at his cock, so hard it was standing up against his stomach, practically begging for her.
“If I haven’t made that clear by now,” he told her, “I must be doing something wrong.”
He hooked her panties to one side and buried his tongue inside her. Thea automatically went up to her toes. She’d have liked to have watched him work her with his tongue, but Jack had this superpower in which he pretty much blinded her the second he started going down on her. Ever since their first time together, Thea had given up the idea that this was just regular old sex. This wasn’t even fantastic sex. This was way, way more than that. Something in a whole other category. She didn’t have a word for what it was, but she gave up looking a gift horse in the mouth about a week ago. Now, she just let the man have free reign.
And he sure took it.
Jack sure loved these simple, black panties of hers. They suited her, but they were also extremely easy to rip at each hip. Which was what he did right then. They fell to the floor, and Jack picked them up immediately, wrapped them, wet and hot from her body, around himself. He grunted at the feel of her slickness against his bare skin.
He almost couldn’t take it. She was on the pill and they were both clean, they’d discussed it a few days ago, but habit ran deep for both of them. Neither of them had ever not used a condom before.
He had her trembling and gasping above him, steam from the shower curling around her like ethereal mist, tendrils of her hair sticking to sweaty skin. This couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be the last time he’d do this.
His body rejected the idea so hard that something within him snapped. He rose and stepped her back into the shower. The water was hot enough to make them both wince but it felt good, too. Like the world was burning down. And maybe it was, because this couldn’t be the last moment he’d make love to her. Jack refused to believe that tomorrow she might sling that backpack of hers over her back and be gone.
Stay. He wanted to say it so badly. Water sluiced over them, sheeting off his chin, pinking her skin. Stay.
But how could he say that to her? How? When he knew where her heart was. When she’d been clear all along. How could he ever ask her to change her life for him? He was a traveler, no consistency, no schedule, he could never ask her to do that.
Stay.
He swallowed down the word and felt a contact burn from clashing eyes with her. They were too blue, too intelligent. She’d know. She’d take one look at him and know that his world was crashing around him.
He took her by the shoulders and spun her around. Her hands automatically palmed the tile wall. Perfect. He brought his rough hands down from her shoulders and traced the perfect hourglass of her. He went back up and took two handfuls of her breasts; he felt her nipples spear his palms and he groaned into her hair, rubbing his cock against her slick skin. Stay.
He growled against the word he couldn’t say.
“I want you…” he said. To stay, he didn’t say. “Now.”
She widened her stance and let her head fall back on her shoulders, twisting her face to meet his lips. “Yes.”
He anchored his hands on her hips and tipped her ass up to him. His cock slid down the crack of her ass and the head kissed her wetness. They both hissed, their tongues tangling. Stay.
Jack pulled up from the kiss and pressed a hand to her shoulders so that she leaned forward, her forehead against the tile wall. He slicked one palm up that gorgeous back of hers along the river of her spine.
And then he surged forward and buried himself inside her. Again, Thea went up on her toes. Her back arched and her head came up. He couldn’t help but plant his hands over top of hers on the wall. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tangle fingers or just keep her there. And wasn’t that just the problem? Did he want to keep her or trap her?
He knew the answer immediately. With a blaze of clarity so sharp that it almost hurt. He didn’t want to trap Thea. To pin her to him. But he sure as hell wanted to pin himself to her.
He reared his hips back and then pushed into her again, his thoughts momentarily whited out by pleasure so acute the breath turned to fire in his lungs. It was clear now why it had felt so wrong to ask her to stay with him. Because it had been wrong.
He pumped into her again. His chest to her back, their fingers tangling against the cool tile. “I’ll come,” he told her and then realized exactly what that sounded like.
He shook his head and laughed until it crumbled into a groan of pleasure.
“What?” she asked over her shoulder.
“No, I don’t mean I’m coming. I mean I’ll come. To Montana. To your homestead.” He deserved the fucking Medal of Honor for getting all these words out while he was balls deep and raw inside Thea Redgrave.
“What?” she asked again and he saw that her eyes were hazy and dilated.
Abruptly, he pulled out of her, making her gasp and reach out for him. He didn’t wait. He picked her up in his arms and strode out of the shower and straight to the bed. Water sluiced off of them. Made puddles everywhere. He tossed her onto the bed like a suitcase. A different woman would have protested, been worried about getting the bed all wet.
Thea just rose defiantly to her knees and reached out for him, her fingers tangling in his hair.
He fell over her, pushing back inside her the first second he could. Jack pumped his hips and made the bed crack against the wall. She anchored her ankles together behind his back and moaned.
“I said,” he tried again, because he was going to get this right if it killed him, “I’m gonna come to Montana.” He dropped his head to her shoulder as he picked up his pace, extremely aware that he was bareback inside her. He slammed his eyes shut and shook his head. He panted words directly into her ear. The bed squeaked, moving inch by inch across the floor. “When all this is over. When we figured out what the hell it means to be a bear shifter, I’m gonna come to Montana.”
“I—” she cut herself off. “Okay.”
That was it? He was telling her that he was going to change his entire life for her and all he got was an ‘okay’?
He reared back. Actually. That might have been worth saying. Jack picked up one of her legs and tossed it over his shoulder, then planted his hands on her hips and held her still for the pump of his hips. He added a bit of twist in there that had them both groaning.
“That’s it?” he demanded of her, sweat and shower water dripping off his face. “I tell you I’m gonna change my entire life for you and all I get is an ‘okay’?”
“What?” she asked, her hands opening and closing on the sheets, her voice floating with her panted breaths. “What do you mean change your whole life? You just told me you were gonna come visit me.”
He shook his head. “Shit, goddamn, you feel so good. No! That’s not what I meant.” He leaned forward, taking her leg with his shoulder, opening her up even wider. They were nose to nose as he continued to pump into her. “I meant—shit, you’re so hot—that I’m gonna move there. And stay.” Finally he got to say that word. It felt so good he tried it again. “I’m gonna stay there. Stay. With you.”
She said nothing but her back arched up and her eyes went wide and unseeing. He felt her fingers scratch the hell out of his back and her hips workworkwork and then go ecstatically rigid. She fell in a heap back t
o the bed, gasping for breath, pushing hair out of her eyes. “What?” she asked for what felt like the hundredth time. “You want to come live in Montana?”
“Yes,” he answered, still pumping into her, starting to pick up his pace. “I want to be where you are. I don’t care where it is. You and me.” He groaned against the pleasure. “You and me.”
She was speechless, he could see it in her eyes. They were running fast, trying to catch up to the truth of what this really was between them. She didn’t know that there wasn’t anything to catch up to. As far as he was concerned, it had always been there. Between them, growing and stretching.
“Jack,” she whispered. “Jack.”
“You and me.”
That was right around the time he lost his mind. He worked up a rhythm. A thrust-thrust-stay where he pushed deeper and deeper. He paid no mind to the bed banging scratches across the wall, to the late morning light slanting in across them.
All that existed was Thea and him and the heat between their bodies. No. Fuck that. There was no between. They were one thing, grinding and grasping and gasping against each other.
“Jack!” This time she screamed it.
Her body went tight along with his and everything froze, time included. Pleasure rung their necks, stole their breaths, stilled their heartbeats. Jack felt as if he’d been dragged through a black hole, flattened into nothing in the only way that mattered. He exploded inside her and couldn’t stop trying to get closer. He worked and worked and worked his hips into her until there was simply no more oxygen left in the room.
He collapsed on top of her and nearly suffocated in her hair.
She laughed a little and gripped his hair in her fist, adjusted him so that his life wasn’t in danger anymore.