She pushed him away. “Stop that. I'm not your mate. You did me a big favor just now, but that doesn't mean…”
He chopped the air with his hand. “You can't deny the truth. You must have sensed it when we met last time. The more I see of you, the more certain I am. You're the one, Marla. You're my mate, and I won't live without you.”
She spun away. “Forget it. I can't be your mate, and I won't be, so put that thought right out of your head. Go home, and forget all about me.”
“I can't do that,” he declared. “I only wish I knew why you're so insistent on denying it. I'm drawn to you, and I'll bet everything I've got you're drawn to me. I'll bet my very life on it. I won't have any other mate besides you. Whatever happens to you, I'm there. I'll be with you, no matter what. I'll weather any storm to marry you. You can't push me away, and you can't scare me off with bad language, so don't even try.”
“You're a fool, Walker Cunningham,” she snapped. “Do yourself a favor and walk away from me. I can't be the mate you want me to be. I'll only drag you down.”
He studied her long and hard. “Why would I be doing myself a favor by walking away from you? What's so bad about you that I would be better off without you?”
She clapped her hands over her ears. “Shut up.”
He took hold of her wrists and tried to pry her hands away. “Why won't you shift, Marla? What's so bad about being a Bruin that you won't even shift to save your own life? I'm not going away, Marla. I'm not going away until I find out the truth. If you really want to get rid of me, you have to tell me.”
Chapter 7
Marla whirled away so fast she jerked her wrists out of his hands. “Don't touch me! No one can touch me. No one can come near me. I can't let myself care about you, Walker. I can't let myself care about anybody, and no one can come near me.”
“What would happen if they did?”
“I'm poison,” she cried, “especially to people I care about. Just ask my family. They'll tell you it's true. I'm damaged goods. The world would be a lot better off without me in it. I only wish I wasn't such a coward, or I would kill myself.”
“You're not damaged goods, Marla,” he murmured, “and if you're poison, I guess I'll die, because I can't stop kissing you. I can't sleep without you next to me. I don't want anything but to be with you.”
“Don't say that,” she moaned. “Don't dream about me. Don't come anywhere near me if you want to live.”
He stiffened. “What do you mean, if I want to live? What could you do to hurt me?”
She bared her teeth and fumed at him. “I'll kill you. I'll kill anybody that comes near me.”
Black fury crossed his face. “You would kill me?”
She pulled back her lips in a horrible snarl. “I'll kill the whole world.”
He squared his shoulders, and his hands balled into fists. A moment later, he recovered and relaxed. He forced himself to shake out his hands. “I don't believe you. I don't believe you could kill anybody.”
She held out her hand to stop him coming closer. “If I don't keep tight control on myself at all times, I'll lose it and I won't be able to stop myself. I'm telling you, I'm the devil incarnate.”
“Convince me,” he insisted. “Tell me what makes you so bad that no one could love you and touch you and cherish you.”
Her hands flew to her face. Something monstrous dragged her down into its gnashing jaws to crush and destroy her. “You don't understand. I already killed one person. I couldn't stand killing another one.”
He stood stock still. “Who did you kill?”
She moaned into her hands. “I don't even know his name.”
He came up behind her, but he didn't touch her. “Tell me. Tell me what happened.”
She hugged her arms around her chest to keep herself warm. Tremors racked her body, and her teeth chattered. “He was a hunter. He was a friend of Morton Campbell, Bain's father. They were all out hunting on the Peak, and I was out walking by myself.”
“How old were you?”
“I don't know. Maybe about seven or eight. They were spread out in a long line with Morton in the middle. Bain and his brother Edward were on one end of the line, and this guy was on the other end. He spotted me first and I didn't see him. I was just walking along, minding my own business. He didn't make a sound to call the others. He just sort of migrated closer to me so I never noticed he was there.
“All of a sudden, something hit me hard from behind. I face-planted into the ground. The next thing I knew, this guy was flipping me over on my back and pinning me to the ground with his body. I started screaming as loud as I could. That attracted the attention of the others.
“They all came running over, and they all jumped on me at once. The men wrestled my arms to the ground, and the two boys held my legs down. I kicked and spit and scratched, but I couldn't fight them off.”
“Four men against a seven-year-old girl? I'm not surprised.”
She talked faster. “They started arguing over which one of them was going to take me first. The guy would first tackled me said I was his and the rest of them could have their turns when he was done. They were going to take turns with me. Morton said when it was all over they could slit my throat and throw me in the ravine. No one would ever find my body, and no one would ever find out. He said no one in town cares what happens to Bruins, anyways.”
“So what happened?”
“The guy who found me got on top of me and started tearing my clothes off. I panicked. I was fighting so hard, I lost all control. I shifted, and I mauled his face off. I grabbed him by the throat and yanked. Blood squirted all over me, but when I tasted it, I went berserk. I kicked out at him with my claws and ripped him open. He went flying off me, and I lunged for the nearest person, which turned out to be one of the boys.
“Morton and the boys went flying off in every direction. They screamed and waved their hands and left me far behind. I was standing there with this mangled body at my feet and blood all over me. I don't know what happened then. The next thing I knew, I was at home and my mother was giving me a bath. The bath water was dark red, but I couldn't stop shaking. I was a mess for days.
“The next morning, Aiken came into my room and told me I didn't have to worry about what happened. Him and Boyd and my dad went down there and found the body. They followed the scent from my clothes and they disposed of the body where no one would ever find it.”
He tried to lay his hands on her shoulders. “Is that all?”
She rounded on him. “Is that all? Isn't that enough? I killed a man in cold blood. I would rot in prison if Dad and the boys hadn't protected me. Now you know, and you'll leave me alone, too. No one will make the mistake of coming near me again. I'll live my whole life alone, the way it should be, and I won't have to worry about hurting or killing anyone else.”
He held her steady. “You didn't kill him in cold blood. You killed him in self-defense. If anyone found out, you would be exonerated. You wouldn't spend a single night in jail. That's why your Dad and your brothers protected you.”
She snapped over her shoulder. “Forget it, Walker. You know the truth. Now go home before you get sucked into this any deeper than you already are.”
He laid both hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “I'm already in this way over my head. I'm just glad I know the truth, because now I can really help you. I'm not leaving you, Marla. You didn't do anything wrong. You did what any self-respecting Bruin would do, and I'm proud of you for it. I'm sure your Dad and your brothers are proud of you, too. You gave that hunter exactly what he deserved. I only wish you could have given Morton and his sons the same treatment. Then they wouldn't be hounding all Bruin kind today.” He chuckled. “I wish I could have seen the looks on their measly faces when you shifted like that. That would have been priceless.”
She clamped her eyes shut. “Don't say that.”
“I'm sorry,” he breathed. “I won't say it again.”
She groun
d her teeth against the tension racking her body. “I never should have told you. No one can know. It's bad enough I have to live with it every day of my disgusting, sorry life. I have to keep it inside so the filth doesn't spread to anybody else. That’s my only purpose in life. That's the only way I can make my life worth living.”
He folded his arms around her. “You're not filth. You're beautiful and strong and proud. You're a beautiful Bruin woman, and I'm head over heels in love with you, Marla Dunlap. I can't live without you.”
She bit her lip to stop it trembling. “Scream and run, Walker. I care about you too much to screw up your life with this. It's bad enough I have to live with it.”
He breathed into her ear. “You love me. Say you love me.”
She struggled against his embrace. “Leave me alone. Don't come near me. No one can come near me.”
“You're a bear, Marla,” he told her. “You're a beautiful, magnificent bear. Let me see you shift.”
“You'll leave,” she sobbed. “If you see how terrible I really am, you'll leave me behind. I can't be a Bruin. I can't be a bear. A bear is…A bear wants…”
“What? What does a bear want?”
She searched the woods with wild eyes. “A bear wants…A bear…”
He closed his arms around her and murmured in her ear. “I know what my bear wants. My bear wants you. My bear wants to hold you and touch you and please you. My bear wants to claim you for my own and never let you go. Does your bear want that? Does your bear want me as much as I want you?”
She let out a sob. She pushed against his arms, but she couldn't break free. “I can't.”
“I want you, he declared. “I want you as a Bruin, and I want you as a bear. I want us to mate as bears. I want to take you home with me and show the whole world how lucky I am to love you. I want to parade you in front of all the tribes in a long white dress and let everyone congratulate me on my good fortune. I'm the luckiest guy in the world, to be mated to you.”
“We're not mated,” she pointed out.
He cupped her chin and raised her mouth to his lips. “We will be.”
He gave her the softest kiss in the world. A butterfly couldn't kiss her harder than that. She tried to say, “I can't,” but he swallowed the kiss out of her mouth.
“I'm gonna love you, Marla Dunlap. I'm gonna stand by your side, no matter what, and whatever threatens you will have to get through me before it gets to you. I'm gonna protect you against the world, and I'm gonna show 'em all what a blessing loving you can be. You're gonna take your place at my side, and we're gonna run the Cunningham tribe against the world. No one can stop us as long as we're together.”
She gasped for every breath. She couldn't think with his lips so close, so warm, so intoxicatingly soft.
“Kiss me, Marla. Kiss me.”
She didn't get a chance to answer before his mouth closed over hers. His tongue found its way between her lips and drank her sweet wine into his being. She couldn't stop the black hole sucking her in. She was falling, falling. She couldn't fight back. Her mouth yawned open to receive his tongue.
Against all odds, she melted into his arms. He crushed the air out of her lungs so she couldn't breathe. She couldn't move in his overpowering grip. She was his, body and soul. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide. She wanted to fight and kick and tear and hurt, but she couldn't move her limbs. She would never be able to fight back against him. Her destiny locked her to him forever.
The bear reared its head and let out a bellow of raging desire. That bear wanted to devour him. The colossal she-bear Marla worked so hard to keep buried in her being wouldn't lie quietly any longer. She found her mate, and she wouldn't quit until she claimed him.
Marla trembled all over. She worked hard to control herself, but a thousand emotions exploded in her all at once. She raged against her own heart. She didn't want to love him. She wanted to run and hide. She ought to kill herself rather than feel this. He terrified her and consumed her and aroused her all at once.
His arms tightened against her shaking. “You're safe now, Marla. You're safe with me. Whatever happens, you're safe. You can shift, and you won't kill me or hurt me. You can do your worst, and you'll be safe. I'll never stop loving you, no matter what you do. Whatever it is you're afraid of, you won't ever face it alone again. I'll help you deal with it. I love you, and I'll never stop loving you.”
A tiny voice squeaked out of her. “I can't!”
The next minute, the walls came tumbling down. She couldn't hold back the tide any longer, and the bear wouldn't lie quietly in a stupor no matter what she did. The bear rose up in all her primal power, and the surging passion flared in Marla's soul. She hurled herself into Walker's arms, and her mouth groped and mauled him in desperate insistence to grab him and keep him.
Chapter 8
He sensed the change, and he met her fast and furious. His hands grappled for any hold on her he could get. He pawed up her arms to her face. He cradled her face in his palms while he mouthed her lips and lapped her tongue. He traveled down her neck to her chest.
She threw her arms around his neck and heaved her breasts into his hands. Her skin prickled with a million pin pricks. She couldn't get enough of him. He massaged her breasts and muffled her ravenous moans with his kisses.
She couldn't keep her legs still. Her thighs slithered again each other on a wet film, but she couldn't reach the ground with her arms around his neck. He lifted her off the ground with his towering bulk. He circled her waist, and his hands inched around her back to grab her ass.
His hands burrowed under her shirt to her breasts. He nudged her shirt over her breasts to bring one sensitive nipple to his mouth. Marla sighed and sobbed in an agony of burning passion. Her crotch ached for something down there. She couldn't keep still, she craved it so.
He sensed it and fell on his knees in front of her. He left her shirt hitched over her exposed breasts. His saliva caught the breeze and froze her nipple to a hard, crinkled lump. He left a trail of saliva around her navel to her waistband.
Her arms followed him down, but when he bit through her pants into her saturated mound, she couldn't remain calm any longer. She threaded her fingers through his hair, and her lips hung open in craven lust.
He clamped his teeth around her throbbing mons while he unbuttoned her pants. He tore at her pants and scraped her skin hauling them over her hips to reveal the ivory triangle hidden underneath. He traced the lacy outline of her panties on his way down. Her pants slumped around her knees, and she kicked them away into the leaves. Her sweet center lay exposed to his attention.
His warm tongue brought the juices flowing from her saturated cavern. Her head lolled on her neck, but his arms held her up so she didn't topple over. He devoured her sugary syrup in gusty lapping strokes.
Marla couldn't contain herself. She rocked against his strokes, and the throaty moans rolled from deep inside her. She hugged his head against her and rode his face to great tumultuous waves of delight. Could pleasure like this exist in the world? Could she let herself experience this?
He grabbed her ass in both hands and held her against his face. The next thing she knew, he snaked one hand around between her pillowed thighs and crawled up into the dark place where they met.
His finger sliding home ignited her raging passion like never before. She screwed down on that probing finger, and her juices surrounded it in delicious, simmering squirts. He stimulated all the pleasure spots along her channel while his tongue carried her into regions beyond anything she ever knew or thought possible.
She accepted that masterful invasion to her natural limit. She let her head fall back and her mouth gape open in lusty cries to encourage him. She wanted it. She wanted him, and she wanted him hard.
He met her mouth with his face all damp and sweet from her juices, and their kiss stirred her to greater ecstasy. He had his arms around her, and nothing could stop him from taking her for himself. In one swift move, he scooped her off the ground. He
r legs strapped around his waist and she sat down on his hips. He crawled his fingers up her thighs to the hidden cleft between her legs.
Her passionate longing spurred her to ever greater feats of rapturous delight. She needed this. She needed him and everything he could do to her. She flexed her hips to catch the bulging spike between his legs, and he pounded it up into the nexus where her legs met. Simmering juices dampened her tissues, and her aching genitals quivered open to invite him in.
Walker dragged his lips off her mouth and down to her neck. He bit and nibbled and licked around her neck from one side to the other before diving down to her breasts. He nipped her nipples left bare by her shirt, and she yelped in sweet surrender.
He fought to manipulate her weight hanging off his front. He took one step and gave up the struggle. Her weight pulled him down on one knee. He held her up just long enough to stop her slamming into the ground, and he followed her down to cover her body with his own.
His muscled frame crushed her to the ground, but she welcomed him. She clung to him with arms and legs. She gnawed his ear and kissed his hair where his head nuzzled under her chin. She scratched her fingernails along his back to drag his T-shirt up.
His bare skin sent her into the stratosphere with its burning heat. She yanked the shirt over his head, and his massive chest and shoulders radiated power into the cold, dead corners of her barren life. She sank her teeth into his shoulder. Her sweet tissues sang for blessed union with him.
He dug his feet into the ground to drive himself up between her legs and his spike found her innermost center. He brought the excited cries to her lips, but that didn't satisfy him. Furious lust swept away any careful strategy. His abs clenched in rippling waves against her exposed slit.
How he got his own pants off, she never knew. She didn't care. Only one thing mattered now, and that was their naked skin lying one against the other. She licked the sweat off his throbbing chiseled muscles. She ached for his wicked bulk taking over her body and mind.
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