Yes, when it was all said and done, it was much better to stay as far away from any of those facts as possible.
Someone had carried Lilly into the room and the women had set about fixing her up, producing cold water to clean her face and split lip, fluffing pillows, and covering her up.
Eli felt a wave of gratitude for them and their willingness to look out for one of their own. And for their willingness to consider Lilly to be one of theirs.
He had wanted the bodies gone before Lilly came to. Whether she hated that man or not, she didn’t need to see the mess Eli had made of him.
And, even more importantly, he didn’t want her to fear the bear. He couldn’t stand knowing that she might be afraid of him if she knew what had happened out there.
“I just couldn’t tell you,” she said again, drawing him back into the moment. “I didn’t want you to know how…dissatisfactory I was.”
Eli felt a knot rise up in his throat. There was something he found so poignantly relatable to her words. “Nothing could be further from that, Lilly. I find you to be beyond satisfactory.” Satisfactory didn’t even begin to cover how he found her, but he supposed it was a start. “Exemplary, actually. Incredible.”
She managed a little laugh, though it was far from convincing. “Kind of you.” She moved to pull herself into an upright position, and he helped guide her body until she was seated, stacking the pillows behind her so she could lean comfortably.
The new position enabled her to see why the room was so unexpectedly dark.
“What happened to the window?” she asked, fully distracted from what had happened to her just a short while ago.
Where the window had been was a single oversized board, held in place by a few strategically placed nails.
He hesitated just a moment. “Yes. Well.” He paused like he was debating what he should tell her, and then said simply. “I jumped through it.”
Lilly jerked forward, rewarded with the unpleasant reminder of her recent injuries. “You what?”
“It happened very fast, Lilly. You screamed and I just couldn’t stop myself. I…jumped through it.”
She inspected him closely, wishing the small lantern would give off a little more light. “How is that possible? It certainly doesn’t look like you jumped through a window.”
His laughter had an edge to it she couldn’t place. “What can I say?” he asked. “I’m a hardy sonofabitch.” He ended the conversation then, rising to his feet and preventing her from asking anything else. “You need to rest, now, Lilly. There’s no need to worry about me at all. And there’s no need to worry about you, either.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it and arranging the covers around her. “You are mine, and I will always protect you.”
The words reminded her uncomfortably of what James had said to her about his belongings, but she tried not to let that diminish what Eli was saying to her.
She felt her eyes growing heavy and knew he was right; she needed the rest. Gently, he guided her back to a lying position.
She was asleep before he left the room.
Chapter Nine
Lilly dreamt of the bear.
She hadn’t before. But since James had made his appearance, there wasn’t a time she closed her eyes that the bear wasn’t foremost in her mind.
She relived their meeting over and over again. The way his eyes had glittered in the dark. The way his mouth had morphed into that smile.
And then, suddenly, it wouldn’t be the bear at all. It was Eli, that thick, dark beard he’d grown, the crisp down of his chest under her fingers, the same hungry smile.
Then she would wake, shaken, sticky with perspiration.
Eli was always nearby. Almost never asleep, but not far away. It would take her a moment to remember that it had just been a dream, that it wasn’t the bear in the room with her at all, but Eli.
Lilly’s face healed. The window was replaced. Before too long, that night was a distant experience. In the physical sense, at least.
But they hadn’t touched since. Or, they had, but not in that all-consuming way they had before. It was hard for that to not weigh heavily on Lilly.
It was like Eli was keeping her at an arm’s length.
And she didn’t need to ask why to know the answer.
In the beginning, she had thought he was just giving her the space she would need to heal and recover. She had even appreciated how he could be so considerate, thrilled she had found someone who would let her choose her own pace.
But then, the days went by and nothing had changed. He was ever solicitous, of course, but he averted his eyes. His touch was always purposeful, never lingering.
It was obvious that her history had disappointed him; that he no long wanted to enjoy her as he had now that he knew the truth about her.
When she was feeling her worst, she worried it went beyond that — that maybe she hadn’t done something right the one time they’d been together. What if he hadn’t enjoyed her as much as she had enjoyed him?
She tried to consider that the less likely of the options. Somehow, it was the more devastating of the two.
Still, even if it wasn’t as good as she’d thought it might get, it was so much better than it had been.
Lilly straightened her shoulders, and smoothed her skirts, seeing Eli from the edge of her vision appearing near the front of the property line, kicking up little puffs of dust as he went. She resolved that she would be grateful for what Eli had done for her and how her life had improved, and not mourn what she couldn’t have.
It took everything he had to keep himself in check. The nights were long, and he paced the house, watched Lilly sleep, forbade himself from venturing outside. It was critical there be no bear sightings for the next few weeks.
If he were smart, he would hightail it to another corner of the state, let this whole thing play out while he was a safe distance away. They would kill a bear they’d attribute the attack to, or enough time would pass that the people would forget it had happened in their backyards.
But he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Lilly.
She still seemed fragmented — unsure. Like she hadn’t yet learned how to get her feet beneath her.
He spent those endless hours awake, pushing down the need to change until it was nothing but a gnawing nugget of tension in the pit of his stomach. He watched her when she thought he wasn’t looking, while she slept, while she sorted through whatever was weighing heavily on her mind. She no longer met his eyes, or when she did, it was just for a heartbeat, then she was moving away from him, redirecting her attention to something else.
He worried she knew. He worried she would have preferred it if he hadn’t killed her husband. He worried he wasn’t going to be able to keep it together for her, even though he wanted that more than anything else.
Eli was starting to feel like they were two ghosts occupying the house, moving past one another and through one another. He wanted that fire back, and didn’t know how to make that happen.
The sun had seemed to set earlier than usual, and the moon was out, high and full, a wind that promised bad weather whipping across the countryside.
Eli paced in the house. The weather had him on edge. The early night meant more hours of anxiety. The full moon was bringing everything to a crescendo.
Every inch of his body was on high alert. He felt like even the smallest thing could make him lose his tenuous grip on his self-control.
In the bedroom, he heard a muffled cry from Lilly, and he stopped his pacing, listening. When he heard nothing else, he moved to the door, pushing it open and stepping inside.
His vision was sharp, the dark doing little to hinder his ability to see.
Lilly was upright in bed, the quilt clutched to her, deep breaths shaking her shoulders.
He hesitated in the doorway. “Are you alright?” he asked, not wanting to move any closer to her. Just being in the same room with her seemed a stressor to his fragile state.
“I’m alright. Just a nightmare.” She shook her head, like she could shake whatever images had plagued her sleep.
He was moving toward her, not in control of his own body. “About your husband?”
She didn’t answer immediately. “About the bear,” she finally said.
It was like a knife twisting in his gut to hear her say those words, to know that he was the cause of her fear. He stopped en route to the bed. He wanted to defend the bear, defend himself, but he couldn’t. Knowing how she felt toward him was soul-crushing, he could barely open his mouth to speak, let alone put together a coherent argument for the bear’s sake.
Her eyes caught what little light there was to be had, and glittered in the darkness. “He reminds me of you.” She said it so quietly, it was as if she weren’t ready to say the words aloud — like the longer she kept them to herself, the less likely they would be to be true.
The air rushed out of him, the bear surged within him, desperate to come to the forefront.
She shook her head. “I know, it shouldn’t be possible, but he reminds me of you.”
There was that twisting in his gut again, so powerful it almost brought him to his knees.
He bent at the waist, cradling his stomach and fighting the urge to turn.
“Eli?” Lilly was swinging out of the bed, her bare legs on display and he had to close his eyes.
“Lilly, stop. Don’t come any closer.” The words were strangled, not properly formed, and he could feel everything slipping further away from him. He could see she was still coming closer, she was close enough now that her scent was in the air, and he collapsed to all fours, putting one hand out toward her in a classic stop gesture. “Please. Stop.” Then, realizing it was far too late for him to try and pull the bear back, he cried instead. “Go. You need to go. Get out of here.”
She swayed in front of him, confused by the changing commands, unsure of what was happening to Eli and mostly wanting to throw herself down beside him and see if there was anything she could do for him.
The last words were garbled. So garbled, she couldn’t make them out.
But in a moment’s time, she was no longer thinking about what he’d said, because he was changing in front of her, his body heaving, unnatural snapping sounds, sharp growls of pain. It was too dark to see what was happening, but she didn’t need to see it to know it was something big.
A little tendril of fear slipped around her, moving up her legs and through her body, and she backed away instinctively.
When she did, she moved out of the light of the moon, and it fell fully on Eli.
Or what had been Eli. In his place was the bear. The dark eyes, huge head, and giant paws.
Lilly scrambled backward and onto the bed. It was impossible that the bear could be occupying the same space Eli had been just moments before.
Impossible, but definitely the case. The bear seemed to waffle between coming forward toward her and leaving the room. He was so big; she wasn’t even sure he would be able to fit through the door.
Which only served to highlight the fact that he hadn’t come through it in the first place. Because Eli was the bear.
He let out a loud, low sound — caught between anger and pain — that raised goosebumps along Lilly’s arms. Her heart was beating dramatically in her chest, but even with the bear so close, she didn’t fear it. Knowing somewhere in there was Eli, made it impossible for her to fear him.
He lurched forward, like he was readjusting to his new body. His eyes were on hers for one long moment, and then he was turning from her, heading right toward the oversized, hazy moon in the window. Without pausing, he leapt forward, his huge body suddenly agile, crashing through the glass and sending it splintering everywhere.
And then he was gone, and suddenly all the pieces were fitting together as they should. Her first meeting with the bear. That night with James. The bear attack. The way Eli never seemed to sleep. The nights he hadn’t been with her…he hadn’t been with anyone else either.
Lilly was still shaky when she pulled herself off the bed. She wasn’t sure what she should do, but she did know one thing. Eli wasn’t always the bear, and that meant, it would only be a matter of time before he came back.
Chapter Ten
Lilly spent the night in the living room, feet tucked up beneath her on the sofa. The door to the bedroom was closed, but she knew she would have to spend time in there tomorrow, sweeping up the broken glass and putting the space back together again.
But there was no rush. She had more pressing things to take care of first.
The hours crept by. She wasn’t sure if she slept. Eventually, the morning light began to filter into the room, and Lilly began to anticipate Eli’s return.
He didn’t come back quickly. In fact, by the time he reappeared, Lilly had cleaned up the broken glass and struggled to reinstate the board. She couldn’t quite do it on her own, but at least some of the bugs and animals might be kept at bay.
Lilly’s hunger was beginning to peak through her anxiousness to see Eli, and she realized how close to midday it was.
She found herself wondering if maybe he wasn’t planning on coming back. But she had thought that in the past. He always came back. Why would it be any different this time around?
She began to pace. The waiting was hard. Exhausting. Or maybe that was just the lack of sleep catching up with her.
The door opened, and there he was, backlit but the afternoon sun.
“Eli,” she breathed. And it was him, in a pair of worn trousers and a faded shirt. She didn’t know where the clothes had come from; along with the glass she had swept up the remnants of what he had been wearing the night before.
He didn’t say anything at first and didn’t move toward her.
“I can help you pack,” he said finally.
Lilly had been planning what she was going to say next, but his words sent those thoughts scattering. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll help you pack,” he repeated. “There’s no need for you to stay here.” His voice was flat, deflated. In fact, even his eyes seemed empty.
“You’re making me leave?” she asked, her voice catching as she asked the question. She hadn’t considered that he wouldn’t want her anymore.
“Don’t feel obligated to me, Lilly. Our arrangement should have been void already.”
Lilly felt a little stab of guilt as it came back around to her own lies. “Sorry.” Her voice was small. “I didn’t mean to lie to you. I just…I just didn’t want you to know the truth about me.”
“What truth?” he asked bitterly. “That you married a bastard who didn’t know how to keep his hands to himself? What sort of reflection is that on you?” His voice had dropped, a low, raw rasp of emotion too close to the surface. “Jesus, Lilly, you’re perfect. You deserve someone who can give you the same kind of perfection.”
Lilly felt the sting of unexpected tears in her eyes.
He crossed the distance separating them quickly, lifting her chin up until her eyes met his, the gleam of tears unmistakable in her eyes. “Don’t cry,” he said gruffly. “Don’t do that. Look at my face.”
She did. It was the same face she’d studied the night she was ambushed by James. The fringe of dark lashes. The smooth skin of his well-shaped jaw, stubbled with fresh growth. Her eyes lingered on his mouth, which was full and soft and capable of amazing things.
She had to stop looking at him. She dropped her eyes until she was studying his collarbone instead. Unfortunately, remembering the feel of his chest beneath her fingertips did little to change her current state.
“This is me only part of the time, Lilly. The rest of the time I look like I did last night. I look like I did the night I found you outside.”
The memory of that smile flashed through her mind.
“That’s reality. It’s been too hard to try and keep it from you. I can’t keep it up.”
His shoulders slumped, and Lilly reached out to him, her hand settling on his shoulde
r. “You don’t have to.” Her voice was soft, and tugged at the deepest part of him. The corner of her mouth lifted up into the smallest grin. “You know my secrets. And I know yours.”
She began to play with the edge of his collar. Being close to him like this was intoxicating. She felt like a moth near flame, circling his light until she was spiraling into him.
He raised a hand, placing it on top of hers and forcing her to still. “Lilly…” His voice held the barest tone of warning, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“Please, Eli. I don’t want to go.” She leaned in toward him, letting her body press up against his. “I want you.”
A little growl erupted from the back of his throat and then he was pulling her close, his mouth crashing down on hers. She met him just as hungrily, her hand tangling in his hair and holding him close.
Eli had hefted her into his arms and was carrying her across the room toward the bedroom. She was a prisoner to his kisses, the warmth of his body against hers something she was relishing.
He broke the kiss long enough to deposit her on the bed. As he settled over her she said, “You mustn’t make me go.”
“I don’t want you to go. Jesus, Lilly. I never want you to go.” He caught her mouth again and in between the kisses he managed to undress the two of them.
“But there is one other thing,” she managed between the kisses.
“What is that?”
“I really think we ought to invest in a back door.”
He chuckled into her neck, and she reveled in the feel of the man — bear, she supposed — she loved against her. This, she could definitely get used to.
THE END
PUCKED
STORY DESCRIPTION
Aiden Cooper is the chiseled center for the Los Angeles Knights.
Also known as the "Bad Boy Brawler of the NHL,"
Aiden likes his hard partying ways.
Drinking, bar fights, a different woman to warm his bed every night.
Hell, his life couldn’t get any better.
Bears of Burden: THORN Page 63