A second later, his rigid manhood touched her twitching entrance. Marla went wild. The bear roared in wild, tempestuous desire, and fresh gushes of her honeyed elixir lubricated its passage into her depths. She couldn't contain herself against the crashing waves. She did her best to push against his bulk, but he wouldn't budge. He moved in on her against everything she did. She couldn't budge him an inch.
She never expected his massive organ to split her in half the way it did now. Whatever she expected, this swept away everything she ever dreamed of. It found the burning opening made spongy and soft by her molten lava and plowed straight to her heart.
She screamed once in desperate agony, but the next moment, her desire clamped down on him in powerful surges stroking down his length. Walker groaned against her throat. His muscles attacked her pliant body to penetrate her diaphanous curtains. His rhythm rocked her on seas of hot, juicy pleasure until she couldn't stand it.
She moaned and sobbed, but she couldn't stop herself from plunging down on that dominating tool. It invaded her innermost secrets and laid her bare to his probing treatment. Her essence surrounded him and coated him with ever-increasing gushes of lathering sauce.
His beating shaft forced its way through to her core. It bumped the oozing fountain of her toxic concoction until it bubbled out over her ass at ever pumping stroke. She bleated in ecstatic pleasure at each intrusion. She bounced off his pubic bone to rise into the clouds, only to fall back down for another delirious stroke.
Walker clenched his fists around the skin on her back and pounded her into the ground, but she already traveled far out of reach of any pain or discomfort. His dripping cock rocketed her into sublime, screaming fireworks of rapture.
She barely had time to recover from that when he flipped her over the other way. He rolled onto his back and pushed her up to straddle him. The pleasure of her first climax faded into a distant memory as one peak after another echoed through her being. She rocked her hips against his uplifting shaft, and he touched her innermost territory with his thrusts.
She dug her fingernails into his chest to buck back against his pounding jackhammer, and her inner muscles mauled him to a rubbery pulp. His abs crunched with every pulse of his sex inside her, and he manhandled her hips to impale her on his torturous tool.
Marla threw her head back and screamed to the sky riding high over Bruins’ Peak. Her channel spasmed along his massive length to make him grit his teeth in hideous agony. He arched his back and thrust his hips into the air. She galloped against his endless pumps, but it was already too late. He groaned once, and his chiseled frame thrashed right and left in raging completion. He roared up at her, and his hot injection scorched a path through her insides.
Marla rode that rocket-fueled explosion into outer space, where the cold vacuum soothed her molten fire. His spiky admixture flowed out of her on trickles of juicy goodness. Her nectar gushed around his throbbing veins, and she collapsed across his broad chest in a contented heap.
She rested her head in the hollow of his neck. He held her by the back of the neck while he pumped the last drops of his essence into her glorious cavern. She drifted in a blissful dream, not thinking of very much when his voice against her head broke in on her thoughts. “You’re a beautiful bear.”
She sat bolt upright, but he couldn’t hold her in place anymore. She rolled off him to sit on the cold hard ground. She tugged her shirt down over her breasts. The ground sapped her heat and left her chilled. “I’m not a bear.”
His head cocked to one side. “What?”
She wedged her feet under her and got up. “I’m not a bear. Thanks for getting me out of that pit, but I better go now.”
He caught her hand. “Wait a minute. I’ll come with you.”
She peeled his fingers off her hand. “Go home. I don’t want you coming with me.”
His hand on her arm stiffened. “What’s wrong, Marla? You’re not running away, are you? We’re mated. You can’t run out on me now.”
She pulled her pants up and ran her fingers through her hair. “Thanks for a good time, but I can’t mate with you. I’ll see you around sometime maybe, if you go to Lyric Mackenzie’s wedding or something, but I don’t usually go to those kinds of things, so maybe not.”
She started to walk away. He got on his feet like lightning. “Don’t you even think about walking away from me, Marla, not after what we just did. We’re mated for life now. Wherever we go, we’ll go together. You can’t walk out on that.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Go home, Walker. You don’t want to mate with someone like me.”
“I already did,” he shot back, “and I’m not going home unless you’re coming with me. You told me what happened. I must be the only person outside your family who knows the truth, and your secret is safe with me. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you, but you have to trust me. You have to accept me as your mate. You can’t run away every time something happens.”
“Trust you?” She shook her head. “I can trust you, but you can’t trust me. Believe me, you’ll thank me for this someday.”
“I’ll thank you for being my life’s true mate” he countered. “I won’t thank you for turning your back on me when you need me the most and I need you. I love you, Marla. I’m gonna love you for the rest of my life. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life working to deserve your love, and I’m gonna put all those old demons to rest, once and for all.”
Marla chuckled. “You don’t love me, Walker. You can’t. No one can. I’m unlovable. I’m one of those people who belongs alone.”
“Do you love me?” he demanded. “Just look me in the eye and tell me once that you don’t love me. Go on. Say it. I challenge you to say it with a straight face. Come on. Say you don’t love me.”
She did her best to smile. “Whatever I feel for you doesn’t matter. We can’t be together. We can’t be mated and I never should have let you believe we could be.”
He grinned in spite of himself. “You can’t say it, can you? You do love me. You can’t admit it out loud, but you do love me. I’ll never accept that you don’t.”
“Whatever I feel about you is my own problem.” She waved him away. “Go home. You’re much better off there than with me.”
“What’s the matter, Marla?” he called out. “Are you afraid of loving me? Are you afraid you’ll hurt me by loving me?”
She turned on him with her hackles raised. “Will you stop saying that? Can’t you see you’re only making it worse?”
He stood his ground. “Saying what—that you love me? Of course, you love me. I’m your mate. The same as you are mine. We’ll love each other forever. Nothing can change that now.”
She rushed at him in a rage. She beat her fists against his chest. “I’m a blithering idiot for loving you. What am I saying? How could I love you? How could I care anything for you at all? I keep telling you I’m incapable of loving anyone, but you won’t listen. I’m a slab of marble. I’m an ice queen. Forget about loving me and me loving you. That’s nothing but a waste of time. Now, go home and leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again.”
She gave his chest one final thump with her fists to make her point before she turned on her heel and raced away. She burst out of the trees into the sunshine on Bruins’ Peak. She ran past the look-out bench and down the other side of the mountain into Mackenzie territory.
Chapter 9
Walker took his time going home. He stopped just inside the tree line, in the same place he observed Dax just a short time before. Dax wasn’t working on his car now. Where was he? Was he making trouble for the Farrells again?
Walker kicked himself for not beating Dax within an inch of his life the last time he disciplined him. He gave that boy far too much rope. That’s why he took so many liberties with his Alpha brother. Walker should have given him a lesson he would never forget. That’s the only way to make him behave.
He took a lot longer this time making up his mind to venture out of the trees to h
is own Homestead. His father would give him no help at all. His brother Shaw moved in with his wife’s family, and now Aurora was as good as gone, too. Walker faced a future alone with Dax. The sooner he reined Dax in, the better.
He hesitated to go out there, though. A thousand thoughts and impressions swirled through his mind. Now, he knew what Marla’s dilemma was, so that explained her strange behavior. She never got over killing that hunter, even though she was well within her rights to kill not just him, but all the men with him at the time. They attacked a seven-year-old girl on Bruins’ Peak. They would have raped her and cut her throat. They were the lowest of the low, and they deserved to die a long, painful death. That’s the least they deserved.
Walker knew one more thing, too. Marla was his mate. No one could question that now. They’d done it under the open sky. He’d pumped her full of his seed, and she climaxed all over his rock-hard shaft. She loved it. She didn’t want to love it, but she did. She accepted his attentions willingly. They were mated. She might not want to love him, either, but she did.
That’s what scared her so much. She didn’t want to let herself go. She didn’t want to let anyone in. She had to keep her defenses up to protect herself. She’d been doing the same thing for almost fifteen years. She couldn’t just drop it because he came along and told her to.
This project was going to take a while. He had to work on her, to convince her to let her guard down. It would take a while, but he would do it. He would stop at nothing to bring her home.
Half a dozen times, he made up his mind to go out there. He would talk to his father. He would break the news to his parents he was mated to Marla Dunlap. Then he would talk to Jasper Dunlap and try to get his permission to marry his daughter.
He rejected those plans one after the other. None of them got him anywhere closer to Marla. Those were the easy paths, the paths he knew would offer him no challenge at all. The one big challenge remained unsolved. He had to convince Marla, and he could only do that by chipping away at her granite defenses. He had to keep meeting her and loving her and being there for her, no matter what, until she realized she couldn’t live without him any more than he could live without her.
One of these days, she would wake up and realize the truth. Until that day, he had to lay low. He had to keep not only the secret of her past, but the secret of their love. If he blabbed all over the mountain that he loved her and nailed her in a glade on the Peak, she would run screaming for the hills. He might never see her again.
He finally made up his mind. He would go inside and go straight to his room. He wouldn’t see or talk to anyone until he was certain he could keep this to himself for the long haul. He faced the Homestead, took a deep breath into his chest, and squared his shoulders when a twig snapped behind him. He turned around ready to fight, but his hands fell to his sides when he saw Aiken Dunlap coming down the hill toward him. “I thought I’d find you somewhere around here.”
“I found Marla, but I couldn’t convince her to come back with me.” He waved over his shoulder. “She went down Mackenzie country just a little while ago.”
“She’s not down Mackenzie country,” Aiken countered. “She’s gone.”
Walker’s head shot up. “What do you mean—gone?”
“She came back to the house for about five minutes. She went to her room, and five minutes later, she came back out. She walked straight past her mother and out of the house. She’s gone, and she won’t be coming back.”
Walker thundered in his face. “What?”
Aiken nodded. “Ma got worried when she saw Marla acting funny. She asked me and Boyd to follow her. We tracked her scent all the way down the mountain to town, but we lost her there.”
Walker frowned. “What did she go to town for?”
Aiken shrugged. “No one knows. She’s on a tear. She does this sometimes, but she’s never gone as far as town before. She hates going out of the house. I can’t remember the last time she went anywhere around Bruins, much less humans. She hates humans the worst. Now she’s surrounded by them.”
“Do you have any idea where she went?”
“We followed her scent as far as Park Street, but we lost the scent in the middle of a big crowd of people. That’s why I’m here.”
Walker rubbed his chin. “I could track her, but I’ll probably have the same trouble you did. If she’s gone, there’s not a lot I can do about it.”
“I didn’t come to ask you to track her,” Aiken returned. “We could do that, but she won’t come back with us. It has to be you.”
Walker’s eyes widened. “Me?”
Aiken nodded. “You’re the only one who can get through to her now.”
“What makes you think I can make any difference?”
“Come on, man” Aiken chided. “I’m not blind. We can all see she responds to you like no one else. You’re her mate. You’re the only one who can bring her home. Please find her. She doesn’t handle humans well.”
“I know,” Walker murmured. “She told me.”
Aiken’s eyes flashed. Then his shoulders slumped. “I’m glad it’s you. I’m glad she has someone to lean on. She’s had a hard time these last few years.”
“She won’t lean on me. She won’t let me get anywhere near her.” Walker gazed into the distance. “She’s running scared.”
“Then you have to find her,” Aiken told him. “You’re the only one she can trust, and you’re the only one who can get through to her. Find her. Please. We’ll do anything.”
Walker straightened up. “You don’t have to do anything, Aiken. I’ll find her. I’ll do it for her. I’ll do it because I love her and I want to bring her home.”
Aiken let out a shaky sigh. “I knew you would.”
“Go home, man,” Walker told him. Tell your father I’ll find her and I’ll bring her home safe. She’s safe with me.”
Aiken turned away. “I know she is. She’s safer with you than she is with anyone else.”
Walker stayed where he was until Aiken turned a bend in the path and vanished up the mountain in the direction from which he came. Walker strained his ears to catch any sound of Aiken’s footfalls receding up the mountain. Only when he satisfied himself that Aiken was well and truly gone did he turn back to the Homestead.
He took a deep breath. Then he started walking. Once he started walking, he didn’t stop. He strode straight up the walk, through the gate, and into the house. He didn’t look right or left, and he didn’t see a soul on the way.
He played out in his mind exactly what he would do, and in what order, before he entered the house so he wouldn’t hesitate once he got inside. He went straight to his room, stuffed a few things into a bag, and walked straight back out again. He marched to the barn and slid the door back. He left a wide opening for himself. He went to his pick-up, opened the door, and slid into the driver’s seat. He tossed his bag onto the passenger seat and fired up the engine.
Still, he saw no one. Where was Dax? He didn’t care anymore. He clipped his seat belt and hit the gas. The truck trundled out of the barn, down the driveway and onto the road. He didn’t turn off on the highway to Iron Bark, though. He took a side road around the mountain and drove up a forgotten track he never took before.
He parked the truck right out in front of Farrell Homestead. He looked all around him. He’d never been there before in his life, and he hoped he never came there again. The place gave him a strange feeling, but that could just be that it was so unfamiliar.
He paced up the walk to the front door and gave it a knock loud enough to wake the dead. Walker Cunningham knew how to make an appearance. That was for sure. As he expected, the door jerked open, and a big man with black hair and sharp whiskers filled the doorway. His eyes blazed, but when he recognized Walker, he stuck out his hand. “How ya doin’? What brings you over this side of the mountain?”
Walker shook Brody’s hand. “I’m sorry, man, but I have to leave.”
Brody started. “Leave? Where to?
”
“I don’t know,” Walker replied, “and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but it could be quite a while. That’s what I came here to tell you. I won’t be Alpha of the Cunningham tribe anymore. Dax will take over.”
Brody froze.
Walker nodded at his reaction. “Dax will throw away all our efforts to bring peace to our tribes. He’ll restart the Farrell-Cunningham war, and I won’t be here to stop him.”
“Are you sure you really have to do this? Are you sure you have to walk away from everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish?”
“I’m sure.” Walker squared his shoulders. “I have to leave. I only came here to tell you what’s going on so you’ll be prepared. Dax is a fool. He doesn’t see which side of his bread the butter is on. He’ll kill anyone that gets in his way in the name of seeking revenge against the Farrells.”
Brody nodded. “All right. I can handle that.”
“It’s not forever,” Walker added. “The war will end eventually. You and Star started that, and nothing can stop it now. You just have to handle Dax with care.”
“No problem.”
Walker turned away. “I better go.”
Brody took a step out onto the porch. “Let me come with you. Whatever you need to do, you’ll get it done better with someone to back you up.”
“Thank you,” Walker exclaimed. “I’d like to accept your offer, but this is something I have to do alone.”
“You let me know if you need anything,” Brody added, “anything at all.”
“I will.”
Chapter 10
Marla glanced up and down the street before she ventured out in the open. She didn't see a Bruin anywhere in sight. The coast was clear. She headed around behind the supermarket to the alley where she could slip along unseen. She ducked into the bus station and went up to the counter. “A one-way ticket on the northern line.”
“What destination?”
Marla shifted from one foot to the other. “Oh, I don't care. It doesn't matter.”
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