by T. S. Joyce
She could do this.
Alyssa blew out a breath, slung her purse over her shoulder, and kicked her door open. She’d searched vacation clothes on the Internet, and it was all beachwear and sundresses, and that’s what she’d packed. So here she was, in the middle of a dusty gravel parking lot, staring at a garage-like barbecue joint with a spinning pig butt on the roof that said Jum own in, and she was dressed in a short, black floral sundress and wedge heels that tied prettily up her calf. And she was freezing her ever-lovin’ teats off. October in the mountains above Saratoga was no joke. A stiff, frosty wind lifted the hem of her dress, and as much as she wished she emulated Marilyn Monroe over an air vent, she likely looked more like a clumsy circus bear in a tutu. She wrestled the fabric back over her treasure chest. Her purse flung forward and swung like an irritating pendulum as she bunched her dress around her thighs and gave a mental curse at the pervy wind.
She stumbled on her wedges this way and that over the uneven parking lot until she was in the shadow of Moosey’s, debating which of the three garage doors to enter. She’d never seen a restaurant look like a mechanic shop, but okay. At least it smelled divine.
She picked the middle, gave a nodded greeting to a man just outside who was working away by a giant smoke-cooker, and then she glided in as gracefully as she could while preventing her damned dress from playing peekaboo-hooha.
It was lunchtime, and the joint was surprisingly busy with almost every one of the long picnic tables filled with hungry patrons digging into brisket sandwiches and links of fragrant sausage. Against the back wall was her prey, though, in the form of one sexy as hell, confusing as all get out, Clinton Fuller.
He sat at a booth alone, next to a long table filled with laughing, chatting Boarlanders. Alyssa hesitated and frowned at how lonely he looked. Clinton was leaned against the wall, one knee drawn up to his chest, one leg stretched out so his dusty work boot hung off the edge of the bench seat. He was taking a long swig of a beer, his Adam’s apple dipping into his muscular neck with every swallow. She almost forgot from the other day how massive and muscular he was. The tattoos down his arm made him look tough and intimidating. Scary even. His short beard hid his jaw, but his hair had been gelled and spiked up in a messy, sexy style that had her swallowing hard and rethinking her plan to come here. He was about a dozen leagues above her, and mean as sin on top of it.
But her dream…
Shouldering her purse, she wound her way through the womper-jawed tables and approached him slowly. She’d read she was supposed to do that around predator shifters.
Clinton’s eyes narrowed to angry silver slits as he leveled her with a dangerous look. “What the fuck are you still doing here?”
“Clinton!” the woman he was with the other day called from the other table. She was sitting on a dark-haired behemoth’s lap next to a little boy. “Manners.”
Clinton growled—an actual and terrifying growl! With a put-upon sigh, he gave Alyssa an empty smile that showed way too many sharp teeth and said, “What the hell are you still doing here?”
“Better,” the woman murmured.
Confused, Alyssa gestured to the woman. “I thought you were together. Or…” She scrunched up her nose. “Okay, I’ve never talked to shifters before you, and admittedly I don’t know much about your culture. I’ll probably say a dozen things wrong before I figure this all out, but do you and that man…share her?”
Clinton’s face went slack. “Ew. No. I don’t share nothin’ or no one. Especially not Beck, and especially not with that pig.”
“Boar,” the dark-haired man ground out.
“Okay.” Phew, because there was no competing with someone as pretty as her. “Um, I think we got off on the wrong foot the other day.” She held out her hand for a shake. “I’m Alyssa.”
“Hi, Alyssa,” the Boarlanders said in unison from behind her.
The giggle died from her throat when she looked back at Clinton, who was glaring at her hand like she was offering him a piece of dried turd-jerky. He stood gracefully to his full height and crossed his arms over his chest as he narrowed his eyes. “Lesson one. We don’t like touch.”
Alyssa forced herself not to flee like her instincts told her to and gestured to where Emerson Kane was making out with her mate, Bash, at the end of the next table. “They’re touching.”
When Clinton’s chest puffed out as he shrugged, she became fascinated by his nipples, oddly shaped and drawn up tight against the thin white material of his V-neck T-shirt. A glint of metal barely shone through the threadbare fabric. Piercings?
Clinton cleared his throat, and when Alyssa wrenched her attention upward, he looked even angrier somehow. “How did you find me?”
“I tracked you down on the Internet.”
“I like the way you stalk!” the black-haired, green-eyed giant, Bash, said from his spot beside Emerson.
“This is so weird,” she said. “All of you are kind of famous, and I’ve never met famous people before. I recognize most of you from the Internet, but it’s so crazy to see you in person. And you just said my name. Oh! And happy birthday, Audrey!” She shook her head to stop her rambling.
“You want more autographs?” Clinton gritted out.
Right. She was here for a reason, not to get starstruck by the Boarlanders. “No, you made your point with the first one. I thought about leaving, but my friends rented me this cabin, and I thought it would be relaxing, but it’s really out in the woods and there’s some animal that scratches at the door at night, and I can’t sleep at all. I haven’t taken a vacation in forever so I stayed and did everything this town has to offer.”
“Hobo hot pool?” Kirk, the actual freakin’ silverback shifter, asked.
“Yes. Twice.”
“Well,” Clinton murmured, “it’s your own damn fault for picking Saratoga, Wyoming as your vacation destination. There ain’t that much to do. Bye.”
Alyssa gritted her teeth and adjusted the strap of her purse to better sit on her shoulder. “I kept your…autograph…but then I thought of something. I watched you talk to other people, and you didn’t tell them to leave. And you had this spark of recognition in your eyes when we saw each other. I feel like you know me, and I’m looking for some answers—”
“Lady, I don’t know what to tell you, but I don’t know you.”
The alpha of the Boarlanders, Harrison, twitched a frown over at Clinton, and the motion caught her attention. The giant’s eyes tightened in the corners. “What’s your name again?”
“Alyssa. Alyssa Dunleavy.”
“Hmm,” Harrison said in a strange tone. “Dunleavy.”
Quick as a bee sting, Clinton grabbed her upper arm and guided her away from the Boarlanders. “I need to talk to you outside.”
“But…I’m hungry.”
“Fuck, lady. Don’t tell me stuff like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like your needs. I ain’t the one to take care of them, and you’re making me feel all…” Clinton inhaled deeply and let her arm go, then led her outside.
“I make you feel all what?”
Clinton lowered his voice outside the restaurant. “You can’t be here. You can’t. It’s not safe. My bear ain’t safe, lady.”
“Alyssa,” she gritted out, hating the way he distanced her by calling her “lady.”
Clinton shook his head and backed up a couple steps until his back was leaned against the edge of the open garage door. “You’re human. My bear don’t like humans. He wants to hurt them, and you’re fragile with paper-thin skin—”
“I’m following you on social media,” she blurted out, completely done with him making assumptions about her weaknesses.
“Well, I’m not on social media, so that’s impossible.”
“GrumpyBLander?”
Clinton pursed his lips into a thin line, tossed a death glare inside in Beck’s general direction, and muttered, “Mother fucker.”
“Sooo…you’re a grizzly be
ar.”
“Since you don’t know the culture, I’ll clue you in. It’s rude to talk about our animals.”
“Oh, okay. Are your nipples pierced?”
She reached for his chest before she could stop herself, but Clinton caught her pointer finger in a blur. “It’s also rude to touch a shifter’s piercings without giving a blow-job first.”
“Okay, now it just feels like you’re making up rules.” His grip was really tight on her index finger. “You gonna pull it?” She made a soft fart sound with her tongue, and Clinton surprised her down to her bones when he snorted and cracked a slight smile before forcing his face back into a mask of indifference. He let her hand go and crossed his arms over his chest.
She positively glowed with warmth from the inside out that she’d conjured an almost smile from him. Finding her bravery, she pulled out a folded drawing from her purse and handed it to him. “I’m here because I keep having dreams about this boy, and he kind of looks like you.”
Clinton’s face went slack, and after a few seconds, he yanked the paper from her grasp, unfolded it none-too-gently, and scoffed. “You think I look like a wonky-eyed pedophile?” He crumpled it up in a tiny ball and chucked it at a trashcan. It bounced off the rim and onto the ground. Clinton gave her a challenging look. “Anything else, princess?”
Shocked, she stared at the wadded-up drawing on the ground. “Why are you so mean? I know I’m not a great drawer, but I spent time on that, and I was really nervous to show it to you.”
Something indecipherable flashed through the gray of Clinton’s eyes for just an instant before he replaced it with disdain again. “Look, the shit is hitting the fan with my people right now. We have a big vote coming up, logging season starts in a couple weeks, I have to perform like some trained animal in a side show at the upcoming Lumberjack wars, and I’m not looking for anything with anyone. I’m not a fan of people, ladies included. What did you expect coming here? Huh? I’m not a nice or gentle person. I don’t care about anyone but myself. I like being alone. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, and what the fuck are you wearing? It’s October! It’s cold for weak-skinned little humans. I can see your goddamned goosebumps from here, and it’s making me all—look, here is the reality of any kind of relationship with me, friendship or otherwise. I live in the wilderness in an old singlewide trailer with a bunch of fuck-ups. And I’m the king of the fuck-ups. I’m the worst. I hate everything. There is a reason I’m the last single on Damon’s mountains, and you’ve come to what…scrape the bottom of the barrel? Go pester someone you actually have a shot with. Whatever you are looking for…it ain’t with me.”
Alyssa mirrored him, crossed her arms over her own chest because, yes, she was really freaking cold, but it wasn’t all from the chilly wind. It was from the ice in Clinton’s voice, too. “All I do is work, stay busy, and try not to think too hard because most of my life is a huge dark spot and I can’t find the damned light switch. And all that has come through is this dumb dream about a boy who saved me. I know how stupid it was to come here. I do. You’re a stranger, and you probably have girls coming up to you all the time, but that wasn’t what this was about. I just wanted to know why this boy was in my dreams, and some stupid, tiny part of me was just so desperate for answers, I thought you could give me something. Anything so I don’t feel so fucking lonely with what I’ve gone through.”
“You aren’t the only one whose been hurt—”
“I didn’t say I was! I’m sure you and your people have gone through more than I can even imagine. But that didn’t scare me off. I thought you would have more empathy for someone like me. Clearly, I was wrong.” Her eyes burned with tears, and she didn’t want him to see that he’d gotten to her, so she panicked. But instead of running back to her car like a normal person, she stomped forward three steps and wrapped her arms around Clinton’s waist. It was like hugging an ice sculpture.
Mortified at her brash behavior, she froze, too embarrassed to look at his face right now, too horrified by her actions to let go. Was he shaking? No, that was probably her imagination. She was the one shivering.
But Clinton was warm. So warm. Hot almost, like a heating pad against her entire torso. Clinton softened, muscle by muscle, and then he stunned her when he unfurled his arms from his chest and patted her awkwardly on the back. And when she squeezed her eyes tightly closed and hugged his impossibly taut waist even harder, he let off a shallow breath and slid his arms around her back. God, it felt so good to be hugged. Clinton pulled her tighter against him, and that’s when she heard it. His heartbeat was drumming fast, like a horse running full speed on soft earth. She moved her cheek over by inches just to feel it. To feel him. So fast. So hard. How was he upright and not passing out? His hand brushed up her spine and gripped the back of her hair at the base of her neck, and when he rested his cheek softly against the top of her head, an accidental sob left her lips. This was better than any kiss she’d ever had, any embrace, any compliment. For one blinding moment, she felt okay.
And then he whispered something so terrifying into her ear, she froze against him, too scared to flee, too scared to give him her back. “I want to bite you.”
She wasn’t okay. She wasn’t softening his heart. The desperation to connect with him had overshadowed her survival instincts.
Alyssa was nothing but prey to a monster like Clinton.
Chapter Seven
The vision of Shae scrambling away from him, out of his arms, was like shrapnel in his chest. Clinton huffed a pissed-off laugh. She’d tricked him into that hug at Moosey’s.
That’s what women did. They tricked him.
No. Not Shae. He remembered when they were fifteen, and he’d snuck into her window and spent the night with her for the first time. She hadn’t tricked him into what they’d done then, and she wasn’t tricking him now. She wasn’t her. She wasn’t Amber.
He slapped himself in the head a few times to get away from thoughts of his second mate. That would bring him nothing but uncontrolled Changes and pain.
The pre-dawn air was crisp and cold, and it was windier up here on top of his trailer. He liked sitting above the trailer park before everyone woke up. Before the noise. Before the disappointment he brought everyone.
Clinton wrung the small yellow T-shirt in his hands and hated himself for what he was considering. She hadn’t left, and then she’d touched him. She’d hugged him. She’d split him wide open, and now he couldn’t fight anymore. He couldn’t leave her alone. Selfish Monster.
He opened the wrinkled shirt and read the black lettering. Team Clinton. Everyone had a support group cheering them on for the upcoming Lumberjack Wars, but not him. He had a stack of shirts Beck had given him to pass out, but they all still sat boxed up in the vacant trailer where he left all his other trash. But now he couldn’t get the imaginings of Shae wearing his shirt out of his head.
Dana had been mad when he hadn’t gone back for her daughter. She’d been like a mother to him once. He’d spent his youth eating dinners over at their house and going to church with them on Sunday mornings. She’d known what he was, and so had Shae’s dad, and they’d still loved him. Clinton ran his hand down his beard and stared at the first rays of dawn peeking over the mountainous horizon. Going back for Shae had been all he’d thought about in that testing facility, but something had happened while he was there that had made him too dark to track down Shae when he’d escaped. He couldn’t poison her. He cared about her too much to expose her to what he’d become. She would’ve gone right down to hell with him. She’d talked about being in the dark and not knowing where the light switch was, but he was no one’s light.
But…
He’d gotten better, right? Sure, his control over his fucked-up animal was still at about thirteen percent, max, but he’d made some effort over the last year at the Boarland Mobile Park.
He’d been good. He’d stayed away, but now things were different. Shae had come looking for him. She’d been dreaming of
him, sketching his likeness.
Against all odds, she remembered him.
She’d come in and blasted apart the cinder block walls he’d constructed to keep others at a distance. Now how would he tuck all his emotions away again? It had taken years the first time, and look what it did to him. He had no shot of being all right, and then this angel shows up hugging him?
Shae was his light switch. She always had been.
Clinton jumped off his roof and landed easily on the ground, then strode for his truck, T-shirt swinging from his hand. Fighting this was pointless. She’d been his first mate. In a way, she’d been his only. He’d picked her at age ten and had thought they had their whole lives. Mom and Dad had called him “a lucky one.” He was an early chooser. He was supposed to have more years to make her happy, to love her.
And then she’d been taken, and nothing had been right since.
Right now, Shae wanted some connection with him, and it made him sick to think of denying her anything. She’d already been through so much. He wanted to make her smile, but instead, he’d made her cry. Typical Clinton. He spat and yanked the door to his truck open, then blasted out of the trailer park.
Shae wasn’t the only one good at Internet stalking. She’d given him enough information yesterday for him to track her down. Her friends had rented a cabin, so he’d simply poked around, marked off available cabins, and narrowed his list down to two. And then he’d seen her car parked beside one when he’d gone hunting for her. He’d watched her shadows through the window of her one-bedroom cabin last night. And no, he didn’t feel guilty about being a Peeping-Clinton. He was a monster. Monsters didn’t have guilt over shit like that.
It was full dawn by the time he reached her cabin. Plenty of time to get her a present. He cut the engine down the drive so he wouldn’t wake her up, then stripped down to his birthday suit and let his bear rip out of his skin.