by Delta James
He hadn’t lied to her. Until last night, it had been a very long time since he’d had a woman underneath him. He longed to part Halley’s thighs again, ram his cock up inside her, and hammer her pussy until she was screaming his name and he could feel her climax around him repeatedly until he spent himself in her. He knew she needed sleep, but it would probably not be too long before he did just that.
He waited until he could hear the deep, rhythmic sound of her breathing as she slept. Finally, he closed his eyes and briefly wondered if he would awake in the morning or if whatever gods ruled his existence had determined that whatever they needed him to do had been done.
Chapter Five
Halley woke shortly before dawn. She could hear Cade snoring softly beside her. She hadn’t slept well at all. Her dreams had been deeply disturbing. She hadn’t relived the horror of the attack made upon her, but rather the spankings that Cade had inflicted. Worse than that, she had dreamed repeatedly of having the mountain man shamefully claim her body again. The result had been a less than restful sleep that left arousal clawing at her insides.
She rolled over and looked at Cade. He was sleeping as peacefully as a baby. While annoying, it was good as it would allow her to slip out of bed and get the hell out of here. She had smiled when Cade had taken her things. He’d put them away, but she’d seen where he’d put them and was certain she could retrieve her boots. Her plan was to put on a pair of socks with her boots and leave.
Halley had no doubt he’d come after her and she needed to put as much distance between them as she could. She was able to get her boots and a pair of socks. She put them on quickly but quietly all the while keeping an eye on Cade. He rolled over on his back and she saw the covers tent. Under different circumstances she’d have wasted no time in taking advantage of that.
Silently she left the cavern and made her way back through the passageway, behind the waterfall and down the narrow trail. She continued to move with as much stealth as she could until she was well away from Cade’s home.
Once she had reached the floor of the valley and was certain he couldn’t hear her, Halley picked up an easy running pace that she believed would allow her to gain her freedom. The decision was where to go. Her grandmother’s home was out as that would be the first place Cade would look. She thought about Kaye’s but didn’t want to bring trouble to her friend’s doorstep and she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t find Charlie there. The last thing she needed was a confrontation between Charlie and Cade.
The hotel could work. It was in town, right next door to the sheriff’s office and would have everything she needed to conduct her work. She’d need to swing by her house to grab something else to throw on over the bloomers, her laptop, and her purse. She could be in and out of the house and in her truck in five minutes or less.
She’d been making good time, better than when she was with Cade. Still, it took most of the day to reach the woods behind the house. She hid herself in the dense foliage and spent some time watching to ensure nothing was happening that might cause a glitch in her plans. Seeing nothing that concerned her, she made her way to the back door and let herself in. Once inside, she stopped to listen for any clue that anyone else was inside.
Feeling safe, Halley made her way up the stairs. She planned to pull on her jeans to cover the bloomers, grab a bra and a few other essentials and her computer and be gone. Anything else she needed, she could buy once she was safely in town. She came out of the walk-in closet and almost collided with Cade.
“Shit!” she said, jumping back. “You scared the hell out of me.” She slapped his muscular chest with her hand. “What the hell is wrong with you? How did you get here?”
“For someone who is supposed to be an expert on bears, you don’t seem to know that bears run faster than humans.”
“You have on clothing...”
“When I plan to be a bear and then shift back, I try to bring clothes along. I have a special pouch I made that contains them. I can easily carry it in my mouth,” he explained before reverting to lecturing her. “What part of you were to stay where I could keep you safe were you having trouble with?”
“I don’t answer to you. I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t need it.”
Cade nodded. “Right, because you were doing so well with those men buried out in the back last night. Let’s go, Halley. As it is, we’re going to be traveling after nightfall. And when I get you back to the cave, little girl, we’ll address your language and your disobedience.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said as she tried to rush past him.
Cade grabbed hold of her, swung her around and up over his shoulder. “We’ll see about that.”
She began to pummel his back with her fists, intent on doing enough damage that he’d put her down. Instead of dropping her, he clasped her more securely before inflicting three harsh blows to her upended behind. Halley yowled in response. It did no good as Cade strode out of her bedroom, down the stairs and out the back door, pausing only to close and lock it.
The strong mountain man made good time with her slung over his shoulder. Carrying her didn’t seem to be a burden to him at all, but Halley was getting a headache from being upside down and the top of his shoulder was digging into her pelvic region. She estimated they’d been travelling for more than two hours. The sun was starting to set and she was worried about continuing on in the dark.
“Cade?” Nothing but silence answered her. She tried again. “Cade?”
“What is it, Halley?” he said, clearly annoyed.
“Can you please put me down?” she requested in her sweetest tone of voice. “My head hurts from being in this position. Please?”
He stopped and set her on her feet. Saying nothing else, he produced a narrow length of leather, bound her hands in front of her and wrapping it around his own fist, picked up a brisk pace, pulling her along behind him. They continued that way until it was completely dark. Cade said nothing but was clearly still angry with her.
As she couldn’t see as well in low light as he did, Halley began tripping over things.
“Cade, please? I can’t see, I’m exhausted, and my feet hurt.”
He stopped and turned on her, his eyes glowing with an ethereal amber light. “And whose fault is that, little girl? Had you done as you were told, you’d be up in the cavern well rested and with only a slightly sore backside to trouble you.”
“I get that you’re angry,” she said, trying to placate him. “But I can’t just take refuge with you and hope that everything turns out fine. I have to do my part to see these developers exposed for who they are and get their plans shut down. What happens if someone else decides to oppose them and they go after him or her? Will you be there to rescue them?”
He shook his head. “All you have to do is whatever the hell I tell you to do.”
Halley could feel her anger rising to meet his. “Are you kidding me? I’m not your dead wife. You do not get to tell me what to do!”
The feral gleam left his eyes. “You’re right. You are not Emilia. She had more sense than to run headlong into danger or to outright disobey me. I mean to see you cured of both of those bad habits.”
Halley pulled against the restraints but could move no further than he allowed her to do. She was quite certain she knew exactly what he had in mind.
“I think if we try to get back to the cave tonight either I’ll have to carry you the rest of the way or you’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
“You care that I might get hurt?”
“What have I been saying all along? I’m going to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
Cade snorted dismissively but said nothing else.
He took a firmer hold around her lead and turned back to the trail. Halley was grateful that he slowed his pace and allowed her to pick her way more gingerly as she followed him. They came to a small clearing ringed by large trees. Cade walked toward a fallen log. Afraid that he meant to s
it down and pull her across his lap, she dragged her feet.
He turned to look at her quizzically and then began to smile as though he knew what she was thinking.
“I’d be worried about getting spanked too if I were you. Once we get home, I intend to teach you a lesson you won’t forget any time soon. But it’s going to be too hard for you to move easily once I’m through with you and the noise that you’ll be making would carry too far out here in the open.”
Thinking to change tactics, and perhaps produce a different outcome, Halley said, “Look, Cade, I do understand that you’re upset with me...”
Cade arched his eyebrow in response but said nothing.
She continued, “But you have to understand, I’m used to doing things on my own; used to making my own decisions. I’m not like Emilia... what I mean to say is that I wasn’t raised to just meekly accept your word as law. That just isn’t the way it’s done.”
“It isn’t the way you’ve done it... in the past. It is the way you will do it from now on.”
Halley realized she wasn’t making any headway in changing his mind. Cade dragged her forward and tied her tether to a low hanging branch. He adjusted the length so that her arms were stretched over her head just enough that there was no way she could get to her hands to unbind them.
Halley had managed to put on a bra under the chemise while she had been home. Her breasts jutted away from her body and her nipples had become beaded as they always did around Cade and especially when he was either threatening to spank her or was actually doing the deed. It was bad enough that he saw nothing wrong in ‘disciplining’ her, as he called it. What made it worse was her visceral reaction to his doing it.
He lifted his big hand up to feel her warm mounds and flicked his thumb enticingly over the tips, triggering her to moan in response. He ran his hand down her body to her flank and squeezed it gently, which elicited the same reaction. He smiled as his hand drifted to the front of her body and he cupped her mons as if he knew just how wet she was becoming. Halley seemed incapable of negating her reaction to his fondling.
Cade walked toward the running water Halley could hear nearby. She continued to be amazed at how quietly and efficiently he moved through the environment. It wasn’t long before he returned as the bear with his clothes and a bundle of wood to be used to make a fire. He moved around the perimeter of the clearing and returned to where Halley was tied. He nuzzled the spot between her legs and made a happy huffing noise before heading back to the stream.
When he returned, he was human, naked, and his large cock was fully erect. He also had a large trout in his hand that he had gutted in the river to keep the smell and the guts of the fish away from their camp. Cade hunkered down and drew out his knife and prepared the fish for cooking, including descaling it and stuffing it with wild onions and other plants she couldn’t identify from where he had her tied. He skewered the fish and set it aside as he built a fire and used two branches with a ‘y’ at their top to set the fish to cook.
Halley’s eyes were riveted to his staff. It was well formed and showed no signs of losing its rigidity. She looked up to see Cade had discovered where her attention lay.
“Don’t you want to get dressed and cover that thing up?” she said.
He walked over to her and reached for her, drawing her closer to him. He allowed his hand to run down her back and feel the fullness of her buttocks before coming up to tease her stiffened peaks and heft the weight of her breast in his hand.
“What I’d like to do with this thing is bury it again in your sweet pussy and ride you until it’s as sore as your bottom’s going to be when I get done with it.”
“Is that what you would have done with Emilia?” she asked softly. “Did you often entreat her to eat while you were naked with a hard-on?”
“I thought we had established you are not Emilia.”
“No, I’m not. But you expect me to modify my behavior to more closely resemble hers and yet, you don’t treat me much differently than other men I’ve known in the past.”
Cade made a low, guttural sound and was clearly annoyed with her. Halley knew that using Emilia wasn’t kind, but she desperately needed him to see her in a far different light. She knew she should be afraid, but what spiked within her wasn’t fear... it was arousal. She didn’t like the idea of him spanking her again, but the idea of having him fuck her again made pure, unadulterated lust surge through her body.
Cade finished getting their trout ready to cook, went back to the stream to wash, and returned to put on his clothes—buckskin britches, a linen shirt, and moccasins. When he was finished dressing, he approached Halley and untied her, allowing her arms, which had begun to ache, to fall to her sides. She held up her hands for him to release her.
“No. Your hands will remain bound so I can keep a closer watch on you. If you were inclined to run off last night when you weren’t due to have your bottom blistered, there’s no way you aren’t already planning your next escape. From here on out, I’ll make sure to have you secured before I close my eyes or have to leave you.”
This was not going at all as she had hoped it might.
“Cade, can you please untie me?” she asked in what she hoped he would interpret as a wheedling tone.
“No.”
He led her back to the fire and pressed down on her shoulders, saying, “Sit.”
Halley did so awkwardly and winced as her seat made contact with the hard ground. She glared at him, which only caused him to try to stifle his laughter at her expense. Cade made himself comfortable next to her and pulled the trout from the fire. He offered her some and she refused.
“Halley, you need to keep your strength up. Eat.”
As outright defiance had failed her and making a logical argument hadn’t been any more successful, Halley opted for silence.
“Not a request, Halley. Eat,” he said as he held up a morsel of trout in front of her face. She shook her head. He sighed. “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.”
Cade pried open her mouth, placed the fish on her tongue, and then allowed her to close her mouth. Despising him even more, she opened her mouth and ate... it was delicious. She chewed and swallowed. He helped himself to a big bite and then offered her a more modestly sized one. He waited, allowing her to decide for herself that she could either eat what he offered or he’d force it into her mouth. She opened her mouth, hating him all the more.
After they were finished, Cade made short work of clearing their camp of any remaining food and banking the fire for the evening. Halley wasn’t sure what to think or how to feel as he stood and removed his clothes, folding them in a neat pile. His cock was still engorged and looked uncomfortably hard. He smiled as he caught her staring at it again.
“When we get home, little girl, maybe I’ll let you get an even closer look... right before I mount you with it.”
Halley could feel her face blushing and wanted nothing more than to kill him when he chuckled at her discomfiture.
* * *
Cade wondered when it was exactly that he had made the decision that for as long as he could retain his human form and shift back and forth between bear and man, that he would have Halley as his own. He needed to make her see that while he did understand he was demanding a far different code of behavior than she’d ever learned or even been exposed to, she needed to obey him in order to stay safe. Not only had he promised her grandmother he would take care of her, he was quickly losing his heart to her.
She was right. Halley was nothing like Emilia. While Emilia had been like a bright spring morning that would fade into summer, Halley was an autumnal sunset in fiery hues that if tended properly would keep a man warm not only for the winter, but for the rest of his life.
Surely the gods meant for her to be his. Ever since he had saved her from the cougar, he had been awake and had burned for her. Perhaps whatever penitence he had needed to pay for having killed those who had murdered his wife, and for not having protected Emilia in the f
irst place, had been paid in full and he would be allowed to resume some kind of normal life with Halley at his side.
She was a spitfire, that was for sure. But he knew with the right kind of man to dominate her and make her surrender to him, they could be happy together. Certainly he enjoyed the feeling of her buttocks under his hand when he spanked her. He could well imagine what they would feel like when he had her on her back grasping them to hold her still while he plowed the furrow between her legs. As much as he had cared for Emilia, it was a quiet, gentle kind of love. He could feel himself letting go of her memory and for the first time in more than two centuries, he was looking ahead instead of to the past. Cade realized that the passion he felt for Halley was fueled not only with a need to keep her safe, but to hold her heart as he now suspected she held his. And there was the fact that she inspired a lust within him that had never existed before.
He placed the end of her tether under his foot and called forth the bear. Cade watched Halley’s eyes glaze over with a sort of horrified fascination as his body morphed from man to bear. He grasped the lead in his mouth and went to lie down close to the fire. He drew her into the warmth of his furred body and settled her against him. He kept the lead in his mouth and placed the tail of it under one of his large paws. He could tell Halley was exhausted as she was soon fast asleep nestled against him.
Chapter Six
Halley awakened alone by the fire. She looked up to see Cade dressed and preparing another trout for breakfast.
“I don’t have much variety to offer, but once we’re home, we’ll have more options.”
Halley brought her hands up to her face and started to take the knot into her mouth to loosen it so she could free her hands.