Bears of Burden: HUTCH

by Candace Ayers

  She thought for a moment that the night before had been nothing more than a terrible dream, but from the bedroom window she could see the vague imprint of her feet, the more defined gouge where the bear and spun and run in the opposite direction.

  She didn’t want to risk a closer look, not knowing where that bear had come from or where it might have gone. It was still early enough in the day that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him lingering nearby. She definitely did not want to repeat that experience.

  Lilly dressed quickly, taking comfort in the additional layers of protection. In just her shift she had felt vulnerable, exposed. She couldn’t shake the way she had felt under the bear’s gaze. She unbolted the front door, thinking about how Eli had yet to come home. She hadn’t spent much time at the brothel, but she found herself wondering again if maybe there was a body there he liked to have warm his bed instead of hers. There weren’t many other place she could imagine he routinely slept.

  She busied herself with the day, focusing on tidying her room and preparing the meals for the day. For the first time, she felt uncomfortable in the space, anxious to leave the house and wary of what might be beyond the walls.

  When Eli finally joined her for lunch, she was in a state of agitation. She clung to a piece of embroidery she’d decided to work on, but couldn’t focus on long enough to do anything productive.

  “Eli,” she said when he walked in, her tone cold and unhappy. She was surprised by her boldness and quick words. Lilly had spent the past weeks trying her hardest to be the woman she thought he would want her to be, even expected her to be. Angry wasn’t one of the qualities she tried to embody.

  “Lilly,” he returned, seeming as equally taken aback by her outburst.

  She wanted to demand where he had been; the words were on the very edge of her tongue, but she curbed them at the last moment, knowing that was outside of the scope of their arrangement. Instead, she snapped, “You should tell me when you will not be occupying the house over the night.” That came about as close to addressing the issue as she could get without actually saying she didn’t want him sleeping somewhere else.

  There was a weighted silence between them, and for a moment Lilly worried that she had gone too far, that he wouldn’t allow her to speak to him in such a way, that she would be back in the kind of marriage she had tried so hard to escape from.

  He blinked at her, once, before coming to terms with her words. When he spoke, it wasn’t with the kind of anger she had feared her words might engender. “I’m sorry,” he said, as though choosing her words carefully. “I didn’t realize it mattered to you where I spend my nights.”

  “It matters,” she snapped. “If you aren’t going to stay here you should at least have the decency to let me know so I can plan accordingly.”

  She hadn’t realized she was pacing before then, her shoulders stiff and angry, and Eli seemed to suddenly understand that she was shaken, like it had taken him a moment to put all the pieces together.

  His eyes narrowed at her, and she met them with her own, glaring back, surprised by her boldness, but not enough to stop.

  “What happened last night?” His words were hard, and rough, and Lilly thought she should maybe shrink back from them, offer apologies for her behavior and retract her demands.

  But somehow, she couldn’t find it in herself to be afraid of him. Eyes narrowed or not, she didn’t see the kind of unrestrained anger in them she had become used to seeing in James’ eyes.

  “I heard noises outside and when I couldn’t find you in your office,” she stressed that he was to blame for that one, “I went outside to see if you were out there. If you needed any help.” Hearing the words out loud, it seemed like a much less logical plan than it had at the time, but she couldn’t change the facts, so she was just going to have to own up to poor planning, and maybe blame it on the fact that she had been sleeping at the time. “And when I went outside, without the gun, I might add, it turned out it wasn’t you out there at all, but a giant bear. Huge,” she added for emphasis. She stopped moving long enough to stare balefully at him.

  To his credit, Eli’s face blanched, and Lilly took a grim satisfaction in his appalled look.

  “Well,” he murmured, more to himself than to her, it seemed. “I’m certainly glad you didn’t have the gun.”

  “Cornered. By the bear. Why is there no back door?”

  If it seemed to be a vague segue, he didn’t point it out. He also didn’t provide her with an answer.

  Lilly crossed her arms over her chest, anger still bubbling up from deep within her. “If you had been kind enough to let me know you weren’t going to be around, I might have at least armed myself before investigating.”

  He moved so quickly she barely had time to register his advancement, and then he was clutching her elbow. “No investigating,” he growled. “No arming. If you hear something, you stay inside. Keep the windows shuttered. I don’t want to see you in that position again.”

  Her heart was hammering, this time not from fear, but because he had come so close to her, his eyes alight with concern, anger, and something else she couldn’t quite identify. His face was inches from hers when he said, “You should know better than to go waltzing off in the night like that. You’re lucky you weren’t hurt, or worse. Keep yourself inside. Keep the door bolted.”

  His eyes lingered on her lips, and her mouth suddenly went dry. This close, she had to tip her head back for their eyes to meet, and it was strangely intimate, vulnerable.

  He studied her for a long moment and when he spoke again his voice was low and raw. “I will be sure to keep you apprised of my sleeping habits, wife.”

  The word sent a strange spiral of longing through her, and Lilly was grateful for the hand that still clasped her elbow. She was fairly certain that she would have melted at his words otherwise.

  Another moment passed between them. He seemed in no hurry to release her. Then he dropped his mouth to hers, capturing it in a demanding kiss, searing and hot.

  She let him kiss her, unprepared to do anything else, reveling in the feel of his warm skin on hers, the heat he sent through her, the way his hand had crept up into her hair and disrupted it from its confines, the long dark strands falling freely over her shoulders and down her back.

  And then, to her surprise, she was kissing him back, letting her lips move against his, letting his tongue slide between her lips to explore her mouth. A low husky sound, she didn’t know she could make filled the air, and seemed to bring Eli crashing back to the present.

  He pushed her away from him so violently, she nearly toppled over, fighting to stand on her own and catch her breath all at the same time.

  He seemed to need a moment to pull himself together, as well, his chest heaving as he took several deep breaths.

  “That shouldn’t have happened,” he said after a moment where only the ragged sounds of the two of them gasping for breath filled the air. “I apologize for my liberties.”

  She couldn’t find her own voice, so she merely nodded in agreement.

  He made a hasty retreat for the door, uninterested in the lunch Lilly had laid out on the dining room table. “I won’t be back tonight.” He ripped his gaze away from her. “Maybe not for a few days. Keep the door bolted. Stay inside. For the love of God, do not take the gun out with you.” He eyed the shotgun where it hung, as if considering whether or not he even wanted to leave it there at all, and then he was gone.

  Well, Lilly thought to herself. That hadn’t gone as anticipated at all.

  Eli had to put some serious space between him and that woman. That kiss had been nearly enough to undo him.

  Even worse, to know he had been back as the bear. To know that he could have hurt her, even killed her.

  He’d thought he had been putting enough distance between them when he changed, but his need to have her was growing too strong. He could barely keep his bear in check when he was a human. It was downright impossible to do when he was the
bear.

  He cursed his ability to stay away from her, the unbelievable way she managed to keep bringing her back to him. She was captivating, in her quiet way.

  And when she’d lit into him, all anger and fire, he’d wanted her more than ever.

  He hadn’t been able to resist kissing her. It was something about the way the word “wife” felt on his tongue, about the way her eyes had flashed at the word, the heated flush in her face.

  It was a mistake to kiss her. Her taste still lingered on his mouth. It had been hell to pull himself away from her. Now, all he wanted was to know more of her. What else could he do to elicit that little sound of pleasure and surrender in the back of her throat?

  He shook his head, but couldn’t dispel the memory. Staying away from her was going to be his best option. His only option.

  Determined to nip the whole thing in the bud, he headed out on foot toward the base of the mountain, the long stretch slow going in his human form, the sun still strong and warm.

  Left alone, Lilly sank into one of the dining table’s chairs, the untouched food still on display. She was no longer hungry.

  For food, she amended. She was definitely hungry.

  She couldn’t seem to settle her inner turmoil. The kiss had been hard, needy. She’d never had anything like it, and couldn’t keep back that part of herself she’d been trying so hard to control around Eli.

  Her mouth still burned, her body ached. And then, as though he were totally unaffected by the whole thing, he had left her, his casual dismissal and promise to not be returning, one last rub in the wound.

  Lilly raised a hand to her hair, dismayed to notice she was not yet steady, and tried to right the mess he’d made of it.

  Then she stood, brushing off the front of her dress as though she could brush away the whole afternoon’s encounter, and resigned herself to whatever was coming her way. There didn’t seem to be much else she could do about it.

  Chapter Six

  Eli hadn’t exaggerated when he’d said he wouldn’t be returning for a few days.

  Four days in, Lilly was growing quite accustomed to having the days and nights to herself. She didn’t make the bed. She forgot about lunch. She meandered around the outside of the house during the day, stopping in to the small stable to see the horses and touch their velvety noses. Wherever Eli was, he hadn’t taken any of his animals with him.

  She’d worried at first that maybe no one was seeing after them, but then she spied a small stable-hand at work. One who was probably paid in brothel time, she couldn’t help but think bitterly.

  When he finally made his return, Lilly had been surprised to see him. She was beginning to wonder if he ever actually had plans to return, and starting to wonder what she would do when her food stock began to get low.

  There had been a loud knock at the door, one that had startled her away from the potato she was peeling. She’d dragged her hands over her apron and moved to the door, unbolting it and swinging it wide.

  Eli was on the other side, casually propped up in the frame of the door, as though he always left for days at a time and returned home to knock on his own door.

  His mouth twisted up into a grin, eyes flashing toward her. “So you can follow direction.”

  She frowned at him, unimpressed. “Aren’t you humorous?”

  “I do try,” he said as he brushed by her, his body whispering against hers, barely giving her a second glance. With his back to her, Lilly raised a hand to her hair, hoping to straighten the mess. Not that it mattered, she reminded herself as he moved past her and toward his office space. She had no idea what he did back there in that little room, but whatever it was seemed to occupy an inordinate amount of his time.

  Lilly was left standing alone in the kitchen, as though her sole purpose in life was to unlock the door for him.

  She was still grumbling about his sudden appearance, irritated with herself for how, just for one moment, when she’d pushed the door open and his mouth had quirked up at the corner, she’d thought he might be happy to see her, maybe he would greet her warmly. Now she found herself irritated that those things hadn’t happened, and mostly confused that she had wanted it to happen at all.

  “What was that?” he asked, leaning up against the counter where she was diligently divesting her potatoes of their skin with a series of angry flicks.

  “Nothing,” she muttered to herself more than to him, eyes trained on the falling potato skins.

  “Hmm,” he said, nodding his head and reaching a hand up to stroke his chin, clearly unshaven during his absence. “I thought I heard something along the lines of ‘that good for nothing…’”

  She paused in the process of her potato mutilation, waving the knife in his general direction. Mustering up all the sweetness she could, and trying to quell her irritation, she responded, “Do I look like someone who would say something like that?”

  He eyed her seriously, letting his gaze linger on the knife she was brandishing. “Absolutely.”

  She harrumphed and turned back to the potatoes. “I was only saying how nice it was of you to finally return home, only to ignore me the same as when you were gone.”

  He had somehow moved closer to her during the exchange, and she wondered why. This was not, she had to admit, one of her finest moments. This was, in fact, one of the very things James would have cited as a perfectly good reason to beat her.

  That thought stopped her in her tracks. Eli had not been like James so far, but what if this would push him over the edge. What if this would be the time that everything changed?

  She bit down on her lip to keep herself from saying something else that might put her in more trouble. When she risked a look in his direction, she saw he was watching her curiously, something she couldn’t identify in his eyes.

  “Yes?” She tried not to snap the word at him, but there was something distinctly unflattering about being studied, and even with effort, the word came out a little strangled.

  “Just thinking about why you do that.”

  “I like them better without the skin.”

  He blinked at her. Twice. Then the smallest grin lifted up one corner of his mouth, and his teeth flashed a bright white against the darkness of his new beard. “That is not what I meant.”

  She noticed that heat between them was back. “Oh,” was all she could manage, thinking suddenly that it would be best if there were some space between them.

  “Just wondering why you get so angry and then pretend like you aren’t. I have to be honest, your anger is refreshing.” There was something almost animalistic in his smile now, and, unnervingly, it brought back memories of that bear in the dark, flashing its teeth in her direction. “I would even say I like it.”

  “Would you?” she asked, feeling her breath hitch, hating that he could elicit something so breathy and coy from her.

  His smile was definitely predatory now, but Lilly wasn’t feeling much like prey. At least, not the kind that would mind being caught. “I definitely would. I like a feisty woman.”

  “Do you?” she asked, more surprised than flirtatious. It had never occurred to her that feisty women could be liked. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she might be feisty.

  “Absolutely. Don’t you like your men with a little bite?”

  There was something dangerously seductive about this whole conversation, and Lilly realized they were starting to slide into territory they’d already established they shouldn’t be branching into.

  “I don’t like men.” She hoped that might stop their progress, but it didn’t.

  Eli’s eyebrows rose dramatically, and he brought that hand back up to his chin. “I seem to recall you liking at least a little bit of me not too long ago.”

  Lilly had the good grace to blush. “That was an exceptional situation,” she corrected.

  “Like, a situation where you forgot that you don’t like men?” There was the smallest tilt to his head, rueful, teasing. She blushed despite herself.


  “Exactly.” Her tone was dark and she didn’t mind it. They were going to have to stop talking like this or she knew he was going to kiss her again. And even if part of her was dying to feel his hands on her and his mouth against hers, she absolutely meant it when she said she didn’t like men. And Eli happened to be a man. So that was just going to have to be the end of that.

  But, even as she was convincing herself she didn’t want anything from him at all, she turned more fully toward him, setting the knife down by the pile of potatoes — some still sporting their skin — her body on high alert, daring him to reach out to her.

  When he did, his fingers sliding under the apron tie to tug her toward him, she offered no resistance, and instead stepped in toward him until their toes were nearly touching. “Not at all,” he asked, his voice throaty, the clean strong scent of him heady and distracting.

  “That is correct,” she said, even as his mouth moved into hers. He took his time, the kiss slow and gentle, his mouth angling over hers, capturing hers again and again until she wanted to melt into him.

  In fact, she realized, her whole body was pressed into his, her arms linked behind his neck, her fingers tentatively playing through his hair.

  He groaned against her, drawing her more tightly to him, one big hand on her waist, his thumb moving over the point of her hip. “I see what you mean about not liking men,” he managed between kisses. “It’s actually quite clear, now that you mention it.”

  “Oh, stop,” she said, unable to ignore the urge to pull his mouth back to hers a moment longer.

  He moved his hands up to the collar of her dress, letting his fingers brush against her skin. She tipped her head to the side to give him better access, and with that invitation, he let his fingers move down the front of her bodice, deftly undoing the buttons along the way

  The cotton of her dress was soft, but nothing compared to the smooth expanse of her skin and the silk of the chemise she wore beneath it.

  Through the thin fabric of the underclothes, Eli cupped her breast and let his thumb move over her nipple, teasing the sensitive skin to a peak. She moaned into his mouth, letting one of her own hands slide over the expanse of his chest