by T. S. Joyce
“What happened to you?”
His eyes looked a hundred years old as he angled his head. “Nothing.”
“More bear shit?”
He dipped his chin once.
Anger slashed through her, but it wasn’t at Matt. It was at whoever had done this awful thing to him. Shrugging out of her backpack and tossing it on the ground, she said, “Falling off my bike, age seven.” When he gave her a confused glare, she pointed to the crescent moon shaped scar on her right knee. “It was pretty awful.”
Matt cracked a grin, and she could almost feel the relief roll off his shoulders. He didn’t want to talk about what happened, and honestly, she didn’t know if she was ready to hear what had ruined his skin like this. Already, she could feel tears forming and her throat thickening. She yanked her gaze to her discarded backpack so he wouldn’t see how affected she was.
“What about this one?” he asked, gripping her arm and pressing his thumb against the scar on her elbow.
“Ha! You’ll love this story. I was at band camp—”
“Of course you were at band camp—”
“Hush. I was at camp, and I was going head to head with Jenny Nador, who was such a bitch and always got first chair. I’d been trying for two years to get first chair just once. So we were up on this stage, and I was playing my ass off—”
“Wait, playing what instrument?”
“The flute, naturally. I am also a badass on the piccolo. Stop laughing. So I’m up on the stage with my marching band, and my instructor has this smile while I’m playing like hell-yeah-she’s-making-a-run, and I know I’ve got this. I’m going to finally beat Jenny Nador, and I already have my victory dance all planned out. I turn to shoot Stupid Jenny Nador a triumphant grin as I hit the last part of my solo—”
“Your flute solo—”
“Yeah, contain your boner. So then when I turned, the back leg of my chair slipped off the riser I was sitting on, and I fell backward, then out of my seat, then off the stage where I broke my arm in two places.”
Matt let off a booming laugh and doubled over.
“I’m glad my pain amuses you.”
“Holy shit,” he crowed. “Please tell me your instructor gave you first chair after that.”
“Third. I didn’t finish the song, and then the ambulance came to get me and I didn’t get to go back to band camp. I was heartbroken, naturally.”
“You’re the clumsiest human I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, well…you’re the bloodiest bear-man I’ve ever met. Let’s wash you off before I get queasy.”
“Hmm,” he said, lifting his chin. “I don’t imagine you’re afraid of much, Nerd.”
“That’s completely untrue. Wasps. Clowns. Open closet doors at night. Choking on a hot dog. Tight spaces. The dark in general. Stepping on hidden nails on the ground. Big dogs. Beavers, badgers, sharks, deep water, quicksand, the ridges in pickle slices, being ax murdered, dark parking lots, snakes coming out of the toilet, touching germy door handles after washing my hands in public restrooms—”
“Okay, I take it back. You’re afraid of everything. Let’s get you over one of them, though.”
“Bears?” she asked hopefully, folding her glasses carefully and setting them on her backpack. She wanted to see his animal.
“No. Deep water.”
“Oh, I’m not a strong swimmer.”
“But you can swim, right?”
“I can bob.”
“Well, why did you want to go to the beach then? It’s a helluva lot more dangerous than a shallow river.”
“I didn’t want to go to the coast to swim in thirty feet of water, Griz. I wanted to lay out on the sand and drink pina coladas with tiny umbrellas and feel fancy. And go hunt for seashells and dig up some clams, and fish off a pier, and eat really good seafood. The bombshells had other plans, though. Speaking of…since you denied my virgin cookies last night, which one of my friends are you going to bone first?” Jealousy unfurled in her belly as she thought of Matt kissing Brittney. She didn’t know why she’d just said that, and now she was fighting some epic heat in her cheeks, so she busied herself with taking off her thin cotton cover-up.
But when she looked back at Matt, his eyes were zeroed in on her yellow and white tankini.
“I told you it was hideous,” she groused, embarrassed. “Stop staring at me like I’m awful. I’m already self-conscious about being in a swimsuit.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be.” Matt’s voice had gone husky. “Take those board shorts off though. You don’t need them.”
Mouth hanging open, she looked down at her swim shorts that were two sizes too big. They made her feel skinny. “But…my thighs are—”
“I swear to God if you say big, I’m going to dunk you in the river. Take ’em off, Nerd.” Matt turned and splashed into the waves, headed toward the waterfall. “Ain’t no one out here to see you but me, and we’ve already decided to stay friends.”
“Then why do you care if I strip down to my bathing suit? Hmm?”
Matt kept dragging his legs deeper and deeper into the water away from her and didn’t answer. The ripped muscles in his back flexed with every step, and the perfect curves of his taut ass were now nestled in the wet navy blue swim trunks that clung to his body. Holy Toledo, he was the brawniest man she’d ever been with. Err…been friends with. Another wave of confusion filled her. She had to keep her head around this man. He saw her as some amusing little buddy, and nothing more. Last night, she’d thrown herself at him, and he hadn’t taken the bait. She was more of a sleep-beside than sleep-with kind of conquest, and she needed to start learning her place with him now.
It didn’t matter that she was harboring a teeny—miniscule really—crush on the mysterious, scarred-up bear shifter. He didn’t feel the same.
Just friends. She could do this.
Willa peeled her board shorts off, grateful she’d shaved her legs past her knees today, and double grateful for the hoohah waxing she’d let some lady in a salon do before she drove to Saratoga. She stepped carefully out of her flip flops. Tiptoeing gently, she called, “Are you sure there’s no glass in here? Fear number one hundred eighty-one. Fear of cutting my feet on glass.”
“Stop being a pussy,” Matt called without looking back at her.
“Okay, but that doesn’t really answer my question.” She took another tentative step onto the sandy bottom, and then another.
“Nerd, this isn’t a public beach, and bears take care of their territory. Now come—” Matt shrieked, and his arms flew into the air just before he splashed violently under the waves.
“What’s happening?” Willa screamed, running through the lapping water as fast as she could, adrenaline dumping into her system.
Matt wasn’t breaking the surface to breathe, and the splashing was growing smaller as if he was being dragged under. She had to save him! “Matt!” she screamed, diving into the water. She swam as fast as her arms and legs could carry her, took a huge gulp of air, then submerged to try to grab him. Opening her eyes underwater didn’t help much. She couldn’t see thanks to the falls churning up silt from the bottom, but when her hand clamped on Matt’s arm, he yanked her to him, and she could see him well enough. He was grinning, the pig-headed anus-cake.
She screamed underwater and blew out all the air in her lungs, then swam up to the surface. Gasping oxygen, she kicked hard enough to splash him in the face when he broke the surface. She headed to the shore, fuming at his prank. Not funny at all.
Matt was laughing, and she wanted to claw his sexy, infuriating eyeballs out.
“Nerd. Nerd! Willa! It was a joke, and look, now I know you can swim like a fish. No bobbing.”
“Yeah!” she screeched. “I guess I can swim when I think my friend is dying. Congratu-fucking-lations on your epic discovery.”
Matt’s hands latched onto her arm. “I’m sorry. It was a bad joke. I didn’t know you would get so upset. Wait, are you crying?”
She was, in
fact, sobbing like a badass. Warm tears streamed down her face. “I thought you were going to die. I’m traumatized now, Matt!”
“Aw, Nerd, were you worried about me?” His voice was flippant, and she imagined he was like that with all the girls he met.
“Don’t,” she gritted out, touching bottom and standing to glare at him. “That little sarcastic attitude probably works with the girls you sleep with, but I’m not them. If something happened to you, it wouldn’t just be a story I’d go back home and tell my friends. It would rip me up, you asshole.”
“Hey,” he said, grabbing her arm again as she turned to stomp out of the water. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I’m not used to people caring like that. I thought you’d let me splash around for a while.”
“I thought a fucking crocodile was eating you!”
“Fear number one hundred eighty-two?” His smile was less certain now.
“It’s not funny, Matt.”
He pulled her against him so fast, she was shocked into stillness. “I like that you thought it might be a crocodile, and you still dove in to help me. Shh, no more crying. I’m sorry. I really won’t prank you again. For at least a day.”
“Har har.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“You have a boner again.”
“Oh good God, are you going to point it out every time I get one? It’s unavoidable. You getting all protective is a turn-on.”
Willa eased back, hands still splayed on his taut chest. “So I do affect you…sexually?”
Matt made a ticking sound behind his teeth. “Do you have a vagina?”
She gave him a dead-eyed look. “Yes, Matt. I have one of those.”
“Then you affect me sexually. It’s nothing personal, Willa. I get turned on easily.”
He spun back toward the waterfall and began walking through the river toward it, leaving her near the bank.
And just like that, he’d reminded her that both her feet were still firmly planted in the unsexy sands of the friendship desert.
Up front, Matt stopped and turned, waiting for her to catch up. “Hey, remember that time you thought I was dying and tried to save me?” His obnoxious grin was back.
She splashed deeper and frog swam to him. “Yeah, but I learned my lesson and will never help you again.”
“Still mad then?”
“Nope, just unaffected by your trickery.”
Matt hooked his arms around her waist and swung her wide as they treaded water. Waves lapped at his chin as he grinned at her with a cocky smile that probably got him in a lot of girls’ panties.
The left side of his face was bruised but was already turning the green color of healing.
“Did you get in a fight?”
“With a tree or ten.”
“So you got hurt while you were lumberjacking?”
He smiled like she was cute and pulled her around to his back until she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with her knees squeezed against his ribs like a koala bear. Then he pushed off the bottom and swam them slowly up the current toward the waterfall.
Undeterred by him ignoring her question, she asked, “Is your job really this dangerous?”
No answer meant yes.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because it pays the bills and keeps my animal sated. Kind of. I like the physical work, and I like my crew, and that’s what we do. Each crew does a job. Some are construction workers, some firemen, some search and rescue. It’s always something physical. Sitting around in a cubical would be equivalent to caging our bears.”
She ran her finger across a long scar on his shoulder. “You ever been caged?”
“You’re killing my boner, Willa.” The words came out all growly and low.
“Well, perhaps that’s a good thing,” she said primly. “I don’t even know if it’s healthy to keep an erection for twenty-three hours a day.”
Matt snorted and stood in neck deep water, the mist from the falls surrounding them. “That’s why I go to the bar.” He turned to her and trapped her in his blue flame gaze, as if he were gauging her reaction.
“Trying to hurt me by throwing it in my face how many women you sleep with? I’m unaffected, remember?” She pushed off him and swam on her back in a wide circle. “Besides, I’m quite scandalous, too. Once, I let Frankie Mercer finger me in my dorm room senior year of college. I even almost orgasmed.” Her cheeks were blazing, but something about Matt made her want to say out loud all the things she normally wouldn’t share with anyone. Perhaps because something inside of him had been broken, so he wouldn’t judge. That much was obvious from his marred skin and his need for different women in his bed.
“Almost orgasmed? Frankie Mercer sounds like an amateur.”
“Hey, don’t say that. At least he tried. He didn’t even ask for anything in return, just touched me like I’d begged him to.”
Matt stopped treading water and stood, the water coming up to the tight buds of his nipples. “You begged?”
“Told you I was scandalous. Now, why haven’t you accepted my friend requests on your social media pages?”
A deep frown darkened Matt’s features. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit, you do. Since we’re friends, I think we should be honest with each other. We could play games if we were trying to date, but we aren’t, so let’s have it. Why not?”
Matt’s chest rose with his deep inhalation. “Because I don’t really want you to see the comments on my pages.”
“You’re afraid I’ll look at you differently if I discover you are a man-ho? I’ve already accepted that.”
“Yeah, but convincing yourself to accept that about me will be harder if you see what the girls I’ve been with post on my walls.”
“Right. Only show me your best side then.”
“You’re only here for a week, Willa. I’d rather have fun getting to know you before you judge me based on—”
“Your actions?”
“Yeah,” he said darkly. Gulping a breath, he turned, dove under the water, and didn’t come up again until he was on the other side of the waterfall against the cliff.
He wanted to get to know her? Warmth pooled in her stomach and drew a small smile from her lips. She interested him on some level. Her, Willamena Madden, awkward, clumsy, piccolo-playing human who was shite at swimming and an unintentional prude to boot, had captured the curiosity of an infinitely sexy, playboy grizzly shifter.
Unable to stifle her curiosity, she asked, “Have you ever brought a girl up here before?”
“No,” he answered easily as he shook his hair out like a Labrador.
The heat in her middle turned molten, and she clutched her stomach to settle the butterflies that had made a home there.
Stretching out her toes, she was barely able to stand on a rock under the water. She let the edge of the waterfall pour over her outstretched fingers. It was more powerful than she’d imagined, and she laughed as the sting made her yank her hand back.
“Come here. This part is gentler,” Matt said, watching her with those smiling, intense eyes. He always seemed to be studying her reaction to everything.
Holding her breath, she swam under the falls, deeper and deeper. She looked up at the bubbles all around her, the light streaming through the murky water like sunrays. It was beautiful under here. Serene even.
Matt jumped in and paddled his hands upward, sinking down beside her. Tiny bubbles clung to his cheeks, and she brushed one off and searched his bright blue eyes. Under here, the world didn’t matter. Here, it was bubbles, burning lungs, and the power of the waterfall vibrating against their skin. She reached out and touched a stripe across his chest, and before she could chicken out, she swam forward and brushed her lips against it, then kicked her legs for the surface on the other side of the falls.
Matt took longer to break the water, but perhaps she’d shocked him. She didn’t know. When he pushed himself up on the rock she had sat on, his face was carefully composed
. “What was that for?”
“It was because I don’t mind your scars. I don’t know what caused them, but it doesn’t matter to me.” She nodded her chin decidedly. “You still look fuckin’ awesome.”
Matt released a shaky breath, the first proof he wasn’t as immovable as he let on. Leaning back, locking his elbows on the craggy rock under them, he said, “You look fuckin’ awesome, too.”
She waited for the punchline, but he didn’t give one. Instead, he looked out thoughtfully at the underside of the waterfall and let her keep the compliment.
With a happy sigh, she laid back and rested the back of her head on her crossed arms, then splashed her feet languidly under the gentle streams of water that fell near them. “Are there weremermaids?”
Matt laughed and hooked his foot under hers, then lifted it out of the water. “Why? Do you want to be one?”
“Maybe. My skin wouldn’t prune if I was a mermaid. Look at this.” She held up her fingertips and showed him her water-logged wrinkles there.
“You know, if you were a shifter, you wouldn’t have to wear glasses anymore. Your vision would be scary good.”
“Please, you would miss my sexpot glasses.”
“I would, actually. You have that sexy librarian look going on. I dig it.”
“Ha, I doubt it. I heard your crew last night. I’m not your type. I imagine you don’t take many girls like me to your love shack.”
“Nope,” he agreed, lifting her foot out of the water with his again.
“Keep doing that,” she encouraged. “I like playing footsies with a werebear.”
Matt snorted. “Bear shifter.”
“So to become a bear shifter, I’d have to what? Let you drink my blood or something?”
“I’m not a vampire, and no. A deep bite would do it.”
“You ever bitten anyone before?”
His eyebrows arched up, and the smile dipped from his face as he let her foot splash back into the water. “You mean have I Turned anyone? Hell no. I’m an asshole, but I wouldn’t ruin anyone’s life like that. Putting an animal in someone isn’t a gift, Willa. It’s cursing them.”