“What is it?”
“No. It’s okay. I shouldn’t be asking.”
“You’ve got me curious. You have to tell me now.” He continued to hesitate. “Tell me, or I’ll punch you in the ribs!” She made a fist and brandished it menacingly. He gave an exaggerated grimace.
“Okay. I was just going to ask if you ever wonder who you are. I mean, who your parents were. But then I realized that might be a terrible thing to say.”
“No, it’s fine. And yes, of course I do. I sometimes wonder why my parents abandoned me. But I don’t have a real issue with it. Mama always gave me enough love to make up for it. I sometimes wonder if I have siblings too. I used to daydream about having a sister.” Axel blinked rapidly. “What is it?”
“I think I have a brother,” he said slowly. “I can see myself playing with a small boy – but we’re about the same size – we’re running around in the snow together, throwing snowballs at each other.”
“That’s great! Anything else?” He groaned.
“No. It’s gone.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s just the beginning.” Impulsively she squeezed his hand, but as the contact made her tingle, she let go of it quickly.
“Mama always tried to get me to forget the past, and think only of her and her love for me. But sometimes when I look in the mirror I think my features are a quirky combination, and I can’t help questioning where they come from.” His gaze swept over her face and she felt her cheeks warming under his scrutiny.
“I’d say they’re a very fortunate combination,” he said. Her cheeks warmed even more. “There’s something about your eyes that makes me think Native American.”
“Really?” she grinned. “I always thought so, but didn’t know if I was imagining it.”
“Is that your natural hair color?” She lifted up a strand of it.
“It’s pretty dark already, but I dye it about three shades darker, because I like to have it jet black.”
“You’re a rock chick.”
“Do you like that?” she said, without thinking.
“I do.” This time, he made the first move, his firm, well-shaped lips pressing on hers. Instantly, she felt herself lighting up inside, and she made a small sound of hunger. Something seemed to uncoil inside him, and he began to kiss her harder, parting her lips with his own, his tongue sliding into her mouth. One of his hands wrapped around her waist, while the other tangled into her hair. She felt lightheaded with pleasure, and she opened her mouth eagerly and sucked lightly on his tongue, wanting to take him inside her. His mouth was incredible – so soft and hungry at the same time, and she sensed his desire for her, running right through his body. She longed to run her hands all over his torso, but she reminded herself that she had to be careful not to touch him where he was hurt. Instead, she laid her hands on his shoulders. Gently, he stroked her neck, the little hollow where her collarbones met, and the bare skin just above the v-neck of her shirt. It felt good. So good. But she wanted more. Wanted him on top of her, pressing her into the bed. Wanted him to touch her all over. Who cares who he is, she thought. Her body was crying out for him, and there was an ache between her thighs that she’d never felt before.
At last, he drew back and gazed at her.
“You’re perfect, Paige,” he breathed.
“Let’s get into bed,” she said. He looked at her questioningly. “Just to kiss, I mean.” He grinned.
“Okay.” He lay flat – the only way he could with his ribs, and she snuggled in beside him, turning onto her side.
“This is better, isn’t it?” she said, stroking his jaw, as she’d been longing to for days.
“It is.” She saw real affection in his eyes. The kind of affection that mama said men weren’t capable of. She leaned forward and kissed him again, sighing with pleasure.
“Oh, Paige, I wish I had my full strength,” he murmured some minutes later, his voice low and husky.
“What would you do?” she said, face lighting with a wicked grin. He sighed, running his callused fingertip over her cheeks, her nose, her lips. “I shouldn’t even be saying these things. Even if I wasn’t injured, I’d have no right.”
“But why?”
“Because I could be anybody.”
“Why does it matter?”
“I might be a bad man. I could be a bank robber, on the run from the cops. Have you thought about that?” Paige pursed her lips.
“Well, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster’s moll.”
“You’re ridiculous,” he said softly.
“So are you, dude-who-can’t-even-remember-his-name.”
It got late and they fell asleep at last, Paige wrapped around his arm, her forehead resting against his shoulder. Her body was thrumming with frustrated desire, but sleeping close to Axel, smelling his incredible masculine scent, feeling his lips pressing against the top of her head was a pretty good substitute.
7
He couldn’t breathe. Something was pinning his arm down, and trying to pull it away made the right hand side of his body burn with agony. They were trying to kill him, at least six of them. They’d found out who he was, and they were furious at the betrayal. He could have fought off two of them, maybe even three, but six was too many. He was down on the ground, and they were kicking him repeatedly, in the ribs, in the head.
He jerked upright, gasping for air. There was a muffled whimper.
“Axel! It’s okay, it’s okay. It was just a dream.” A hand rubbed his back in circles, soothingly. Paige. Little by little, his breathing slowed down and the burning in his chest eased off. He jerked his head to the side to look at Paige in panic.
“What did I do? Did I hurt you again?”
“No, it’s okay. You were kind of tugging your arm away from me in your sleep, so I let go of you, but then you were yelling out some words.”
“What words?”
“I don’t know. It sounded like English, but I couldn’t understand it, like you were talking backward or something.” Paige’s hand stroked his face. “What happened in the dream?” He hesitated.
“Oh, I don’t know. Someone was chasing me or something. You know what dreams are like.”
“Really? Who was chasing you?”
“I don’t know. The bogey man or something.”
“Axel, try to remember. It might be important.” He shook his head.
“No. It’s gone. I can’t remember anything about it now.” Paige’s amber eyes were shining in the darkness as she regarded him. She didn’t believe him.
“Let’s go back to sleep now. You can lie on me again if you want. I’ll try not to have another lunatic freak out.” She gave a little sleepy sigh and settled back against his arm.
He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but the images from his dream kept racing through his mind. He didn’t want Paige to know, but he’d been having other, similar flashbacks for the past couple of days. They were always short, faces were blurred, but he’d seen enough to suspect that he’d been involved in something which had led to him getting injured. Worry tugged his thoughts in all directions. Who am I? he kept asking to the darkness behind his eyelids.
“I have off tomorrow,” Paige said as she brought him sandwiches for lunch the next day. “I was thinking – maybe if you feel up to it, we could go for a drive, see if there’s anything you recognize?”
“Yes,” he agreed immediately. He was now feeling well enough to sit in the truck for a while, and during the night, he’d realized that he couldn’t stay in the room above the bar forever. Sooner or later he was going to have to confront his life – whatever it was. He was also feeling increasingly guilty that Paige had to look after him and continued to be alienated from her mother.
Paige was working a double that day, so they only had time to kiss and snuggle for a few minutes in the evening before she passed out. It was frustrating, as he’d done nothing all day but think alternately of her and rack his brain trying to remember things. But as soon a
s she was asleep, breathing softly against his neck, he remembered how lucky he was to have her there, sweet and sexy, her curves fitting so perfectly against his body, as if they were made for each other.
The following morning, she bounded out of bed, full of energy.
“You’re excited for this, aren’t you?” he said.
“I want to know who you are, Axel!” He caught her hand, and pressed it between both of his.
“Paige, I don’t have a good feeling about this discovery, to be honest. And I want you to be prepared for me recovering my memory, and discovering that I’m not someone that you would want to have anything to do with.”
“Axel, I just don’t believe you’re a bad person. Just because you’ve lost your memory doesn’t mean that you’ve lost your character. If you were mean or deceitful before, I think it would be coming through by now.” He leaned forward and tickled her under the ribs.
“And what makes you think I haven’t just been hiding these qualities from you, huh?” She shrieked and squirmed away from him.
“Because I’m good at picking up on people’s feelings, doofus! I know you have a good heart. Just like I know you have a protective nature.” He didn’t say anything. She was right about that. It was killing him to be the one who needed to be looked after at the moment.
He braced himself for the journey downstairs. Six days earlier, going up had been agony. But, he felt pretty much fine. Still sore – very sore – but no longer incapacitated.
“Do you want to go to the forest?” Paige asked as she started up the truck. He didn’t. All of his flashbacks took place in dark, wooded areas.
“Sure,” he said.
She brought them along a rough track that he barely recognized from days earlier, deep into the forest.
“Do you always drive like a hellcat?” he said, as she pulled up beside the ‘lightning tree’ as she called the sinister, gnarled black stump that was now directly in front of them.
“It’s what passes for fun around here,” she said, those full cherry lips parting in a provocative grin. “So this is where I braked hard as I was going around the bend.” She got out of the truck and scampered a few yards down the track. “And this is where I scraped you off the ground.” He climbed out of the truck more cautiously, preparing himself for an unpleasant prickle of recollection. The forest smell was certainly familiar but it didn’t stir anything particular in his brain.
“Which way was I coming from when you saw me?” he asked.
“You were kind of staggering along the road from this direction.” They walked along the road together.
“Anything?” she said. There was such a look of hope in her eyes that it tightened his gut. He was so scared that he was about to ruin her perception of him, that he could hardly stand being there.
They crashed around in the forest for a while.
“I can’t pick up any human scents here,” he said, inhaling hard. She stopped dead.
“Why would you be able to?” He frowned.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because humans can’t pick up scents just like that.”
“They can’t?” He stopped dead as well. “I can smell everything. Like, I know what you’re bringing me for lunch before you even start bringing it up the stairs. I know what Darlene smells like, even though I’ve never met her, because I can pick up her scent from where she’s brushed against you in the bar. I know that there are at least three cats that live in the bar.” Paige clapped her hand over her mouth and stared at him.
“Do you know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re a shifter. One of those guys who live out in the wilderness, that have a human side and an animal side. That you hear about, but never see. It’s been occurring to me for days actually. When I listen to your breathing, those little noises you make.” He stared at her, too stunned to speak.
“What kind of animal do you think I am?”
“I feel like you’re a bear.”
“I guess it makes sense,” he said slowly. “But how do you know about shifters?” She groaned.
“Mama thinks I have some wildcat in my background. She’s been saying it ever since I can remember. But to be honest, I don’t know where she gets the idea from.” He looked into her eyes, appraising their feline luminosity.
“I have an idea,” he said with a grin. She shrugged.
“Okay, I have cat eyes. I get that. But I don’t even have a strong sense of smell.”
“Maybe you’ve never tested it. Maybe you’re too isolated from your species to be aware of it.”
“I don’t know – it’s weird –” she broke off.
“Go on.” He stroked her hair comfortingly.
“I feel like I have some kind of affinity with you.”
“Currently, I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I think I feel the same,” he replied. “Maybe we both have animals inside of us.”
On the way back to the truck, her hand slipped into his, naturally. He let off a little purr.
“That’s not a human noise, you know?” she said, shooting him a glance.
“It isn’t?” he replied with mock surprise. She shrugged.
“Sometimes I feel like butting my head against your shoulder.” He reached out and petted her head.
“Here, kitty kitty,” he crooned. She gave a little purr too.
“That was a joke purr.”
“I know.”
“Do I smell like an animal to you?” He brought his face close to her neck and sniffed her, hard. She batted him away, laughing.
“Hey! I meant my normal, day-to-day scent.”
“You smell – wonderful. Like warmth and peaches and perfect summer’s days – wait – and something a little spicier and sassier too. Maybe that’s your animal.”
“No, that’s my perfume. It’s called kick-ass chick.”
“Really?”
“No – I’m kidding.” Impulsively, he put his arms around her waist and kissed her. Her lips were so warm in the crisp air and she felt so perfect and curvy and full of life. Something stirred inside him – something that felt part of him, but separate too, as if it almost had a life of its own. Mate, it growled in an undertone. He jerked back from the kiss, startled.
“What?” Paige’s eyes widened. “Did I bite you?”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Then what is it? Did you remember something?”
“It was nothing. I just got a shooting pain in my ribs. Guess I’m still mending.” Her face was full of concern.
“I’m sorry, Axel. If there’s nothing else here, let’s get back in the car, and you can rest for a while.”
As they exited the forest road, Paige suggested going into the town.
“Maybe you’ll recognize something there?” she said.
“Okay.”
She kept flicking sideways glances at him as she drove, trying to see if anything was familiar to him. It wasn’t. But he was touched by her concern for him, by her strong, caring heart, that had shown him nothing but kindness ever since she first found him. As he felt a little twinge somewhere near his stomach, he tried to push the thought away. If he wasn’t careful, he was in serious danger of getting attached to this feisty, big-hearted girl.
They left the car in a parking lot and walked to the downtown area.
“Can you believe that this is the closest town to where I’ve lived all my life, and I barely know it?” Paige said.
“How many times have you been here?”
“Literally a handful. Mama and I were almost self-sufficient at the house, with our chickens and vegetable garden. There was also a guy who used to come by and sell or exchange produce with us.”
“That sounds nice too.”
“It was, but kind of lonely as well. When I hit 14, I started to get real curious about the outside world, but mama always gave me a lot of reasons for staying at home with her.”
“You’ve done such a good thin
g for your mama. But you need to live your life for yourself as well.”
“I know. I’ve got to go to college. I know I’ll always regret it if I don’t at least try. I feel like I’ve learned a lot in the past few days – that mama can survive without me, and it’s good for us to spend some time apart. I think helping you has ended up helping me too.”
“If that’s true, then I’m glad,” he said. “It makes me feel a little less guilty about taking up all your time.”
“It’s been a pleasure, Axel. Whatever happens, I want you to know that. And I’ll never regret spending this time with you.”
He didn’t mean to touch her in public, in front of so many people, in case it made her uncomfortable. But he couldn’t help himself. Her eyes were bright gold in the daylight, and they sparkled with so much passion, and her long black bangs were falling into them adorably. He spun her around and took her into his arms, and for a moment, the whole world was shut out.
“Wow,” she murmured, several seconds later. Her lips were almost red and a flush had come to her cheeks. “You’re such a good kisser, Axel. I feel like I could spend all day kissing you.”
“That’s not such a bad idea,” he replied, stroking her cheek, pleasurable tingles running through his body. And again, that voice came from deep inside him. Mine. This time it didn’t shock him as much. He had a feeling it was a sound he was going to have to get used to.
“Recognize anything at all? Paige asked a little later. They’d walked the length of the town, through the main commercial street.
“Nothing specific. I mean, it looks loosely familiar, like I’ve seen similar places before.”
“Darlene says it’s a boring town. Gladstone – the next town, where I want to go to college is supposed to be livelier.”
“Let’s go there,” he said spontaneously, more for a desire for Paige to have fun than because he hoped he’d recognize it. The expression on her face told him that he’d said the right thing.
“It’s pretty,” Paige said, as they pulled into Gladstone mid-afternoon. The buildings were mainly red-brick Victorian, with wide streets and lots of independent stores and restaurants. It was a charming town.
Lost To The Bear (BBW Bear Shifter Romance) Page 4