by T. S. Joyce
Jenner chuckled deep in his throat. “Oh, yeah?”
“I own a sex book with pictures, have let two boys finger me, and I watched a porn once. I’m practically a professional sexer without, you know, actually doing the deed.”
Jenner was laughing now, head thrown back, bright white smile easy as the sound of his amusement ricocheted through the quiet woods.
“You’re laughing, but it’s true.”
Jenner stood, then offered his hand to help her up. “I’m sure you will rock a man’s world when the time comes.”
Lena allowed him to pull her up, and she dusted the seat of her pants, smiling sadly. “That man isn’t going to be you, is it?”
Jenner licked his lips, the smile fading from his face, and shook his head. “I’m not the right fit for you.”
“Oh.” She dropped her gaze to his boots so she wouldn’t be tempted to stare at his eight pack abs as heat flushed her cheeks.
“Hey,” he murmured, lifting her chin until she met his gaze. “It has nothing to do with whether I’m attracted to you or not. I’m just not gentle enough, you understand?”
“Of course.” But she didn’t. As he walked back toward the horses, pulling his shirt on as he went, she was more confused by him than ever. She’d practically offered herself on a silver platter, and he wasn’t interested in even trying to be gentle with her?
Dalton had been right. Jenner wasn’t the right man to give her heart.
Too bad she hadn’t listened.
Chapter Six
Dammit, that had been close. Too close. Jenner slung his leg over his horse’s saddle and scrubbed his hand over his face to try and clear the visions that were running a loop across his mind. Her lips parted for him. The feel of her perfect, soft tit in his palm. His hand between her legs. So wet for him. The small, needy gasps she gave him every time he touched her skin. And the look of heart-stomping disappointment on her face when he’d scrambled away from her. Blame it on her dropping the V-bomb all he wanted to, but it was bullshit. That entire sexy encounter had been his fault. He’d kissed her angry, unable to help himself, gotten turned on as fuck when she’d slapped him, and then he’d taken everything way too far, way too fast.
He couldn’t even look at Lena as she hoisted herself into the saddle. She smelled so good right now, like pheromones and sex, and it was all for him.
Six hours. He’d made it six hours before going after her. It wasn’t because he’d been in a dry spell with women either. Lena called to his bear in ways that were terrifying. He was the one in control. Out of his brothers, Tobias and Ian, he had been the one with the most restraint, and now look at him. Around Lena, he always felt on the verge of a Change, and for no damned reason other than he was trying to deny his feelings for her. His inner bear didn’t like that. Mine. The word brushed his mind every half an hour, at least. He wanted her so bad it was hard to look away from her, but just as hard to see her hurting because of him. Trapped. A couple of days, and she’d trapped him as surely as Brea had.
Jenner kicked his horse and cast Lena a quick glance to make sure she was following. She wouldn’t meet his gaze, and it ripped him up. He’d done that—made her feel less than.
He’d bonded before. Age twenty, cocky as hell and ready to conquer the world, he’d met Brea right out of hibernation. And for that warm season, he’d been blindingly happy. Six months felt like forever, but it wasn’t until later he realized it was his bear forging a bond that had nothing to do with compatibility and everything to do with instinct. To his knowledge, Ian and Tobias hadn’t had those urges until Ian went and got himself married last month. He’d gone to that wedding because Elyse had begged him to go, but that wasn’t the only reason he’d made the trip to his brother’s and new mate’s homestead. Jenner had wanted to see for himself if what Ian and Elyse had was real because, dammit, after Brea, Jenner had been convinced the instinct to procreate and pair up trumped love matches. But Elyse had been as smitten with Ian as his brother had been with her, and the look in their eyes as they said their vows had dumped Jenner’s world upside down. They weren’t paired up because Ian’s bear wanted cubs. On the contrary, Ian didn’t want cubs at all. Didn’t want his sons to face hibernation like the rest of their lineage. No, Ian had paired up with Elyse because he, as well as his bear, were completely and ridiculously devoted to the woman.
Jenner wanted that.
Now that there was hope for a loving match for a monster like him, it was impossible not to think about Lena as his mate. It was hard to hate the bond that he could feel forming between them. But she had a life and an important job that required her to travel all over the world. He couldn’t strap her to Alaska and to six months of cold and loneliness every year when he went to sleep each winter. It wasn’t fair to her.
Sex with her would make it impossible to let her go. Sex would seal their bond and sever any chance he had of moving on. The only reason he’d been able to break the bond with Brea was that his bear was a true animal and couldn’t stand the thought of raising another man’s child. If he was just a man, perhaps he could’ve looked past the fact that she’d started their relationship newly pregnant. Perhaps he could’ve even gotten over the lies and trusted her eventually. But he was only half man, and his animal side had revolted the moment that doctor told them she was having a girl—another male’s offspring. Bear shifters, as well as wolf shifters, didn’t produce female children.
And after Brea, he’d been jaded, convinced that love was reserved for good, normal people—not an animal like him.
But Lena…
Lena felt like everything. She felt like hope.
Jenner had been sleepwalking for so long, stuck in the dark, going through the motions. Sleep in the winter, eat and work during the summer, rinse and repeat forever. But she’d just come in and taken an ice pick to the permafrost he’d built up to protect his heart, and she was slamming that blade against him with shattering blows. When she looked at him like he was important, crack. When she’d bandaged him so fearlessly, crack. Every time she touched him, crack. When she’d wanted him out there by that pond, trusting him completely with her virginity, trusting him with something so important and fragile…crack, crack, boom.
But what the fuck could he offer her? She was successful, headstrong, independent, and leather-tough. He was outmatched. He was a hunting guide with a tendency to drop off the face of the planet from October to April every year, and she was a woman with her life figured out and an incredible future in front of her.
She was oil, and he was water, and they could never really work.
The kindest thing he could do for Lena was find her the brown bears, get her the pictures that would skyrocket her career, take her back to the lodge, and wave her off when Tobias flew her out of here and back to her life. The thought of her leaving socked him in the middle and made it hard to breathe, but she deserved better. Better than him and better than the life and heartache he would strap her with. Bear shifters were meant to be alone. Dad was proof, and Ian was the exception.
What happened at the pond with Lena couldn’t ever happen again.
After losing her first mate the way she did, even if she and Adam had just been friends, she deserved for the next man she chose to stick.
Bear shifters were genetically prone to disappoint, and Lena was special.
No matter how much he’d come to care for her, Jenner wouldn’t hold her back for his own selfish gains.
Chapter Seven
Jenner had barely strung a sentence together since their little make-out then freak-out session earlier. Lena was usually perfectly content to be quiet on trips like this. She’d had several guides, usually of the old, tough, burly mountain man variety that were respectful and professional with little to say. But she didn’t want that with Jenner. She wanted more. Problem was, he definitely did not, and now she had been stuck behind him all day, unable to stop looking at him, unable to stop thinking about him, unable to stop wanting him to turn
in his saddle and tell her everything would be okay and they would go back to the way they were before they laid everything bare in the woods earlier.
His distance made her physically ache.
The sun sat low in the sky, streaking the horizon with pinks and oranges, and suddenly, Jenner pulled his horse off toward a line of trees. There was an old, ash-filled fire pit dug into the ground and logs laid around it to sit on. Off to the side of the small clearing was an old corral made of gray, splintered wood and barbed wire.
Jenner walked his lead horse right through the open gate and dismounted. “We call this Wolf Camp.”
“Wolf Camp? Why?”
“Dalton and Chance built it up when we first started scouting this way.”
“Okay, what does that have to do with wolves?”
Jenner narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at her, then suddenly became very busy unpacking saddlebags.
“Okay then,” she muttered, dismounting. “Fantastic conversation.”
Gunner was apparently too tired to give her any shit as she unsaddled him, and when the beast was freed from his restraints, he headed to a long trough that was filled with recent rainwater. Jenner carried a ridiculously heavy amount of their supplies in his arms while she carried the pack of camera equipment.
Jenner didn’t talk to her while they built the tent, and he didn’t say a word when he disappeared toward the sound of running water with a bucket. He didn’t even strike up a conversation while he built a fire or cooked butter-soaked potatoes in foil and skewers of beef and vegetables over the open flame. All the while, he did his best to ignore her completely. She waited to see that striking flash of blue in his eyes, but she never did.
Lena pulled on her jacket and settled in to sketch in her notebook while the fire crackled and sparked against the darkening night.
She thought she could feel his eyes on her now and again, but when she looked up, his attention was always on the flames.
“It’s best this way,” he muttered, elbows on his knees as he sat on one of the logs by the fire. And there was that blue, at last. “I wasn’t professional before.”
Pursing her lips, she nodded her head. “Professional.”
“Yeah, professional. This is my job. It’s what I love to do, and you should know I haven’t ever done that with a woman I’ve taken out before. I lost my head.”
“Me, too.”
“I shouldn’t have told you about Brea.”
“Jenner! I get it, okay? Please don’t sit here and talk about how you regret every conversation we’ve had. I haven’t talked about Adam either, but for fuck’s sake, I’m not taking it back. It felt good for a minute, sharing that part of myself with someone else. I understand. I really do. If you have to ignore me to get us back to a guide-client relationship, fine. But don’t make me feel bad for having a vulnerable moment with you.”
After a few awkward minutes, Jenner cleared his throat. “So, what have you photographed before?” The question was stiff and formal and made her want to curl her lip up in a snarl. It was a distancing question, but she was tired and sore from the saddle and wholly uninterested in back-peddling with the baffling man tonight.
Lena shook her head and went back to sketching. “Fuck off, Jenner.”
“What are you sketching?”
Lena frowned down at the picture of Jenner’s face. She was currently shading his eyes. They looked empty and distant, but his dark brows were drawn down as if he were lost in thought. “Wolves.”
He gripped a metal mug in his hands and sighed. “I can hear a lie.”
“Great for you,” she snapped, slamming the sketchbook closed and shoving it into her satchel. “And you can growl and smell moose and tell when I’m on my period and turn off your warmth like a switch. Color me impressed. I’m going to wash up in the creek.” She snatched her backpack and strode off into the trees toward the sound of gurgling water.
Behind her, the clang of a metal cup smashing against a tree echoed through the quiet forest. She tossed a glance over her shoulder, but Jenner was standing with his back to her, his hands linked behind his head, looking up at the sky. His shoulders looked tense and his silhouette rigid. If he was pissed, so what? She’d slowly burned in his silence all day. They’d shared a monumental moment earlier, and then he’d emotionally shoved her away. This sucked. It was an awful feeling right now, knowing the rest of the trip would be like this. Torture.
There was a thin trail that led to the dark sandbank of the river. Her boots squished across the damp earth until she reached the gently lapping waves. In the distance, thunder rolled and the clouds lit up with a flash of lightning. The storm was still far away, but she could smell the rain. Bottle of body wash and plastic cup in hand, she kicked out of her boots. From here, the creek looked like it was only knee-deep. A moment of modesty took her, and she twisted around to make sure Jenner wasn’t there, just in case. But no, he wouldn’t follow her out here. Not as uninterested as he was, so she was safe to undress. The water was cold against her ankles, and she gasped as she made her way to the deepest part. She bathed and washed her hair as fast as she was able, then tossed her toiletries up on the bank and sank down into the waves to rinse off. She got used to the water, little by little, and then the air became colder than the water. She lifted her face to the moon, sitting heavy and low and half hidden by the approaching storm clouds. Around her, the wind brushed the tall grass this way and that, and as she wrung water from her hair, she smiled up at Mother Moon, who was drawing long notes from distant wolves, howling at her beauty as the lightning lit up the distant clouds.
A limb snapped, and Lena jerked her gaze to the bank behind her.
Jenner sat on a grassy ledge as though he’d been there the entire time. The limb she’d heard breaking was between his fingers. Of course a wild thing like Jenner Silver wouldn’t have been careless enough to let her hear his approach.
Chills blasted up her arms, and she clutched them over her chest, shielding her breasts even though she was sitting with her back to him.
When Jenner lifted that striking gaze to her, even brighter in the moonlight, he looked troubled. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. This is brown bear country.”
Lena huffed and returned her gaze to the moon. “I’m sure you would hear danger coming from a mile away.”
“Even so.”
“I’m not decent, Jenner. If you want to cling to our professional relationship, you should go back to camp.”
There was a shuffling of fabric, but she’d be damned if she watched after him pathetically as he left.
When he brushed her shoulder, she stiffened, startled that he was still here at all. He sat in the waves behind her, legs encasing her on either side.
“What are you doing?” she asked on a shocked breath.
Jenner brushed her damp hair off her shoulder and kissed her neck. Pulling her back against his erection, he whispered, “This is a mistake.”
She bristled at that word. “Jenner, I don’t want to be anyone’s mistake.”
“No, woman. I mean, every part of me wants to be with you, and if we do this, I won’t want you to leave.”
She sighed a long exhalation and relaxed against him as he nibbled at the edge of her ear. She didn’t want to talk about leaving. Not now. Not here with a man she was falling so breathlessly hard for. She’d never had such an instant connection with anyone in her life.
Jenner ran his fingertips lightly up her arms, dragging trails of fire with his touch. Moving her wet hair to the other side of her neck, he kissed her on the curve of sensitive skin that arched from her ear to the tip of her shoulder. His lips moved against her so gently she rolled her eyes closed, forsaking the beautiful moon and oncoming storm clouds to give herself completely to this moment. He took his time, kissing, nibbling, sucking, and every once in a while, he would bite her hard enough that her skin would tingle, and then he would be gentle again.
Jenner was worshipping her body, unrushed and unbidden
. The rough man who had lost control earlier and had come close to taking her from behind didn’t exist here. Not tonight.
Gentle kisses, nibble, teeth. His hand cupped the other side of her neck as he grazed his teeth harder against her skin. His erection was thick and hard against her back, and he rolled his hips gently with the next nibble. “Lena,” he whispered. “You should tell me not to bite you.”
Confused, she frowned up at the moon and angled her head to give him better access to her skin as he sucked. “But it feels good when you bite me.”
“Not like this. Tell me, or I’ll stop here. Order me, Lena. Do it now.”
“Don’t bite me, Jenner.”
A soft rumble rattled his chest and vibrated against her back, but before she could ask about it, he was up with her folded in his arms, dragging his legs with powerful strides through the shallow waves toward the beach.
She was shocked with this surreal moment. Water drops zigzagged down his scarred torso, and she traced one with her fingertip. They were both cast in blue hues thanks to the moonlight, and every time lightning struck, it illuminated the long silver marks on his body. He looked fierce, like a warrior. Lethal and beautiful. Hers. She kissed a pair of marks over his heart and smiled when she felt his heart pounding against her lips.
Jenner jerked to a stop, and when she lifted her gaze to his, he looked lightning struck himself. “What was that for?” he asked so softly she almost didn’t hear his words over the wind.
“I like the way you look.”
He settled her on her feet and looked down at his chest, then back to her, his eyes tight with uncertainty. “How can you? I look…” Jenner ripped his gaze away from her, but not before she saw the disgust there.
Slowly, she slid her arms around his neck. “You look perfect to me. Someday you’re going to tell me what happened to you, and I’ll like your scars even more.”
He gripped her arms as if he was thinking about pulling her touch off him. “You won’t.”