That was what, fifteen years sober? Too much, he thought.
He stepped into the warmth of the cabin and got dressed. He’d gotten himself a wedding outfit from Rhodestown a week ago. They’d waited a month since he’d asked Jenna to marry him. Out here no one stayed engaged for long. There was no point stretching it out. And given how fast their relationship had escalated, getting married so soon wasn’t strange for them.
He put on brand new jeans, black not blue, and black shoes he’d bought and then polished until he could see himself in them. He wore a brown rough leather jacket that was so dark it reminded him of his fur when he was a bear, and underneath it had had on a white shirt and a black tie. It was close to groom’s wear he was going to get.
It wasn’t going to be formal. Murray had told him what to expect after he, too, had threatened him.
By the time it was almost noon, someone knocked on his door. He opened and found Drew on his doorstep. Something inside him lurched, maybe the serious dislike he had for the man. Drew had been with Jenna for a short while and Bruce had been very jealous. But the man smiled and Bruce held back the scowl.
“It’s time,” he said, and Bruce wondered which practical joker had sent Drew of all people. Maybe the sucker had volunteered in an effort to make peace. Well, that wasn’t going to soften Bruce up. He was too on edge about the stuff going on with his pack to let go of his grudge for an idiot like Drew and be friends.
The whole town had gathered and Bruce realized how small the village really was. There were only a couple of hundred people. But the square had been decorated with white streamers and chairs had been taken out of every restaurant, shop and home to let everyone sit down. It was pretty the way nothing matched, all lined up and facing the front.
The preacher stood at the front and nodded at Bruce. He had a white robe on and clutched his bible. The preacher was the only man Bruce hadn’t really ever spoken to. He never spent time in the pub, obviously, and Bruce felt uncomfortable around the man. Being a shapeshifter just didn’t leave a lot of space for God and religion.
Bruce walked to the front and waited there. A couple of minutes later music started playing. Bruce followed the sound to his left and noticed some of the younger ones with guitars and a keyboard. It was quite modern for this backward place.
He felt her before he saw her. Her presence was like the sun, breaking through the clouds, warming his skin. He turned his head to the back of the seating arrangements, and Jenna stood in a white dress at the other end of the aisle. She wore a very simple white dress that clung to her body in all the right places. She didn’t have a veil – instead she had white Wisteria in her hair and her make-up was done in such a way that her green eyes looked greener than ever.
She smiled when she looked at Bruce, and that same warmth that had fallen on him when she’d arrived spilled into his body.
He may have been marrying her to protect her, but the union was definitely not a mistake.
Murray took her arm and walked her down the aisle, and as they came closer Bruce’s throat clenched up and his chest got tight. He cursed himself silently. He wasn’t going to cry in front of her, in front of the whole damn town.
But she looked amazing. And she wanted him. She was all his. He’d waited for this for five years, thinking it was never going to come. He’d loved her since he’d seen her in the woods five years ago, and then helped her out from underneath that fallen tree.
And he’d never thought that this was the path they were going to walk together.
When she finally stood next to him he reached out his hand and touched her with his fingertips, just to be sure it was all real. She smiled.
“You look good,” she said to him.
“You look amazing,” he breathed.
They both turned to the preacher and he started his sermon. Bruce didn’t hear a word of what he was saying. Half of him pulled his attention toward Jenna who stood next to him, and would be at his side for the rest of his life. The other half of him pulled up to the mountains, where his Family were somewhere between the trees.
They didn’t know. Not yet. Soon they would and he didn’t know what the reaction would be. He forced his attention back to the sermon, and a moment later they exchanged their vows.
The whole town exploded into applaud when they said their ‘I do’s’, and Jenna threw herself at Bruce and kissed him before the preacher said they could kiss. He laughed against her lips and picked her up, swinging her around just like they did in the movies.
They smiled and the villagers all stood in a long line, making a tunnel with their arms and Bruce and Jenna ran underneath it while others threw rice. The tradition was so old, but Williamsburg had never kept up with the times.
They stood outside the café where the women of the town had transformed it into a reception room.
“I can’t believe this,” Jenna said, beaming at Bruce. Their fingers were interlinked and she squeezed his hands. He smiled back at her and then pulled her closer to him, holding him tight. She was his now. His, to protect, his to keep from all harm. Together they listened as they were announced, and Jenna slipped out of his arms and tugged him into the café by his hand. He ignored the sinking feeling in his gut, the heaviness on his chest that came with secrets, and put on a smile as big as hers before they pushed into the crowd to celebrate a marriage that was supposed to be perfect.
Chapter 2
When the sun set, Jenna was already in Bruce’s cabin. She’d packed a bag with clothes and the most important things like ornaments and photos. They would sort out her cabin piece by piece in the coming days, get rid of what they didn’t need and move the last things over. But for now her clothes and the photos of her and her parents were enough.
“It’s isolated so far into the trees,” said, looking out the bedroom window.
“You’ve been here so many times, I thought you knew that,” Bruce said.
Jenna nodded and then shook her head. “It’s different visiting someone. Knowing I’m going to be living here just feels different.” The silence was almost unnerving. There were a handful of cabins with their little garden between her cabin – her old cabin – and Bruce’s cabin – her new home. The cabins around her had had livestock and the constant sound had been background noise that she’d gotten used to. Out here it was quiet, almost eerily so.
“Is it safe all the way out here?” she asked. “I mean, the leopard almost got me in the middle of everything. This removed…”
Bruce came up behind her and the warmth of him was reassuring. He was strong and protective, and when he was around she was safe. But he wasn’t always going to be around, she knew that. She didn’t know what he did when he went into the woods, but he did it often. She didn’t think he was suddenly going to change his ways and sit at home all day now that he was married.
She didn’t expect him to either. But still, the thought of being alone so far removed from everyone was a little scary.
She felt Bruce’s eyes on her, and when she looked up at him, the intensity in his eyes were frightening. They were like dark pits, threatening to suck her in.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re under my protection now, and no harm will be done to you. I swear.”
She wanted to answer but she didn’t know what to say. With his body so close to hers she could feel the intensity, not just see it in his eyes, and heat poured off his skin like he was working himself up for a fight.
Saying thank you didn’t seem like enough. He was so serious.
“I’m glad we’ve come this far,” she finally said, not knowing what else to say. “Things have gone so fast, and so slow, all at the same time.”
She’d met Bruce and for five years she’s been pining for him. And now they were married. The drama and the relationship had been four months in total. But what was four months when they had a five year friendship to build on? She felt like she knew Bruce better than anyone.
And yet she knew she didn’t
know everything about him. But there was time, she thought. More than enough time. Marriage was forever, and that was a long time to get to know someone.
The feeling in the room changed. The atmosphere between them got thicker, and it felt like Bruce’s heat ignited something inside herself, like she was catching fire just because he was standing close enough. She turned to him, and this time his eyes held a different intensity. He looked at her, not as the adored friend he’d always seen in her, but as a lover. His pupils were dilated and she could see the hunger in his face. And she found that it reflected her own.
She was suddenly nervous. Bruce was everything any woman could have wanted in a man. He was tall and strong, muscular, an alpha male. And he was rough around the edges, the mountain’s version of a bad boy. But the way he looked at her was tender, like she was delicate. There was so much love in his eyes there was no doubt that this union, although rushed, was rooted in love.
He leaned in toward her and kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers, the atmosphere changed. It became electric. The tender love was still there, but it was fringed by something a lot rawer, almost animalistic, for lack of a better word.
She took a deep breath through her nose, not wanting to break the kiss, and she could smell him. Bruce smelled of sweat, and cologne, and something underneath it all was wild. It didn’t fit in with civilization, but it was intoxicating all the same.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him, pressing their bodies against each other. The length of her body was against the length of his, and she was aware of how strong he was. He wasn’t even trying. She had no doubt that he could snap her like a twig and not think twice, if that was what he wanted.
And that was why a sudden rush of safety poured over her, the feeling that she really was under his protection, like he’d said, even though it had sounded strange put in those words.
The heat inside her grew and she felt her blood rushing through her veins. It was the first time she’d felt it like this, and the sensation was strange. Bruce’s body was hot against hers and he started moving his hands up and down her body, one hand flat against her spine, rubbing up and down in a way that was almost hypnotic.
His other hand traced her side, and she lifted her arms and put them around his neck so that he could reach more of her. He traced the contours of her body like he was committing them to memory. The hand on her back made her relax, got rid of the nervousness. And the hand on her side fired her up, until she felt like she was made of heat. She was aware of her body, pushing against Bruce’s, of his lips on hers and the feel of his tongue in their mouths.
He moved her to his bed and laid her down, and again she got the feeling that he was so much stronger than he ever let on. He lowered her onto the bed like she weighed nothing.
When he crawled over her the mattress dipped with his weight.
His hands kept roaming her body, his mouth never leaving hers. His hands found their way under her shirt and his skin was rough, trailing patterns of fire over her bare skin.
When he pushed it up she arched first her back, and then lifted her head and shoulders so that he could take the shirt off.
She lay in front of him in her bra, and his eyes slid over her body. She felt adoration and wonderment coming from him. It wasn’t on his face as much as it hung in the air around him, and she wondered how he managed to make her feel what he felt instead of showing her.
She was the one that arched her back again and unclipped her own bra. He peeled it off her shoulders, and for a moment she was shy in front of him. But he looked at her again like she was the most beautiful thing he’d seen, and the shyness disappeared.
He got rid of his own shirt, and covered her body with his. His skin on hers was searing hot, and the feel of it was erotic. He was completely hairless and as he slid over her, her body responded with another rush of heat. It felt like all that heat pooled between her legs and she scissored them, feeling hot and bothered. She was still wearing pants and they irritated her.
As if knowing what she was thinking, Bruce’s hands slid down her body and undid the button at the front of her pants. He worked them down her legs and she tried to help, but he was fine on his own.
For just a second she wondered where he’d learned it, who he’d learned it with, but then she pushed it away. It didn’t matter what his past was. She was his present. After all, he couldn’t know who she’d been with before they’d met, or even during.
She was naked now, lying in a pool of moonlight that fell through the window. The light fell onto Bruce’s face and he looked like a vision in the night light. He closed his eyes and turned his face to the light, as if he was listening to something she couldn’t hear.
Before she felt like he was neglecting her, he opened his eyes again. He wormed out of his own pants, and came to lie back down next to her. He kissed her again, his lips covering hers, and his tongue was in his mouth. He kissed her and in that kiss she felt every promise he’d made in front of the altar that afternoon.
He was hard and hungry, she felt the length of him against her thigh and hip bone. But he didn’t seem rushed. Instead he took his time and traced ever curve she had, leaving no part of her body untouched.
When she felt like she was going to spontaneously combust, she shifted onto her and she felt him push at her entrance. He was hard and soft at the same time, the skin silky smooth, and she held her breath. He moved on top of her, working his way in slowly, keeping his eyes on her face and that same affection radiated out of him.
Their hips merged as he slid home, and she gasped at the feel of him so close to her, on top of her, inside of her. She shifted, and he moved with her. When he moved out again she let out a groan, and then he slid in again. The friction was enough to drive her through the roof, but he built up a steady rhythm, starting slow and letting her get used to his size.
As she gradually opened up for him, letting him into the most secret part of herself, he moved faster, claiming her. He pushed up his pace and his movement was steady and solid, although she could feel the raw power.
Something inside of her woke up and started building, something hot and eager. The flame that had ignited was kindled into a fire, and as Bruce moved over her it built and grew until it was a raging furnace. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and she could feel the muscles ripple underneath the skin. His skin formed beads of sweat and it became slick and slippery between them.
A purring sound filled the room, deep and rumbling, and Jenna realized that the sound was coming from Bruce, like he was animal. It was a strange sound, but in a way it was soothing, like she knew it was good. She was good.
The power translated into heat and her core flushed, pushing her closer and closer to the edge. She was the first to lose it and free fall into the unknown. A white light flooded through her, filled her up and then spilled out when there was nowhere left to go. She curled around Bruce in a fit of passion. He was right there with her, mumbling words into her ear she didn’t understand, but his voice was enough.
When she came slowly back to reality, he smiled at her. He picked up his pace again, and she felt every inch of him now. He moved faster and faster, his speed greater and the length of his thrusts shortening until she knew he was on the edge, too.
When he tipped over she felt it, felt him hold onto her and his body convulse in a series of small spasms that forced out low grunts from his throat. She waited until it subsided, and then he dropped his head onto the pillow above her shoulder.
Finally he slid out, and rolled off her, lying on his side next to her.
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer, and she settled into his body, feeling him curl around her. Sleep dragged her under, and she was comfortable with him there, with nothing separating them.
And she knew he would keep her safe.
She woke up in the middle of the night with start and sat up. The darkness in the room folded around her like a blanket and she could only make
out the dim shapes of the furniture – enough to know that this wasn’t her room. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and to realize she was naked. She gathered the covers to her chest, and then looked at the side where Bruce had slept.
His side of the bed was empty, and when she reached out her hand, the covers were cool. He hadn’t been there for a while.
A feeling of dread went through her. How could he leave her on their wedding night? Fear was next in line. What if there was a reason why he wasn’t there? What if something was wrong?
She got out of bed and found clothes – tracksuit pants, a t-shirt and a jacket. She left the underwear and stuck her feet into shoes without socks.
She walked through the cabin, feeling like a stranger in this place somehow, and opened the door.
The night was dark and serious. The moon was somewhere, but the shadows of the Syracuse Mountain threw the valley in complete darkness and there was something in the air that made Jenna gasp for air. She stepped out of the house and walked around the back, feeling a pull that she couldn’t explain. She hadn’t felt the feeling before, hadn’t felt drawn like that. She knew that it was leading her to something, something dangerous if what she was feeling was accurate, but she kept going.
The trees were like ghosts in the night, dark pillars that reached into a sky of black. The wind blew through the trees and she could hear the ominous whisper of the leaves somewhere in the dark above her.
There were sounds in the night, too. Sound of wild animals, but they were far away. But then she heard something else, and it wasn’t far. In fact, it was very close. And the pull she felt drew her to it. Whatever it was, it drew her, and like an idiot she put one step in front of the other and kept moving forward through the trees, into the darkness.
She hadn’t been this far into the trees at the back of the village. Never in her life. It was dangerous. There were wild animals everywhere and it was never safe to stray away from the village lights that kept the animals away.
BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) Page 86