I glanced over my shoulder at the cliff behind us. There was a slight chance I’d survive it with my shifter healing abilities, and I wasn’t sure I wanted even that slim a chance.
“Don’t even think about it. You leave me stranded on this mountain with your new girlfriend and I’ll administer CPR myself, just so I can off you again.”
I laughed, surprising everyone. I held the daggers that Georgia was staring my way and tried to suppress the shiver wanting to work its way down my back. “Don’t worry. There’s something I plan on doing before I go.”
Satisfied with the way my words left her jaw hanging, I turned my attention back to the group to find their gazes alternating between Sarah and Georgia. I had no intention of pitting them against each other. Sarah wasn’t even on my radar. I simply looked at the next person and gestured.
When it was finally Georgia’s turn, she straightened her back and sent the group a smile that sent raw lust humming through my veins. She was sexier than any woman I’d ever seen and just the curve of her mouth was enough to have me willing to crawl on my knees to her.
Damn. I was a lost man.
12
Georgia
“I’m Georgia. I’ve never done anything like this ‘communing with nature’ thing before. I usually stick to the city, so this whole survival tour is an adventure for me. Even being in Burden, is an adventure. My best friend just ran away to this place, so I felt obliged to come see what she’d gotten herself into.”
Martha grinned at me and offered me a marshmallow. “What do you normally do?”
I winced. I hated that question. No matter how I answered it, someone always looked at me funny afterwards. “I own a few businesses back home.”
They all turned their heads in my direction at once, even Wyatt. I fiddled with the ends of my hair and sighed. “My dad owned Prescott Corporation. When he died a few years ago, he left the whole thing to me, for some unknown reason.”
They continued to stare at me, so I shrugged. “I hired on people to run it, but I can’t really do anything else when they call me so often.”
Bill finally spoke up. “Jesus. I guess I sort of work for you then. I’ve been working at the Dallas branch for nearly twenty years.”
I sent him a shaky smile and nodded. “I really try to stay hands off.”
“Thank god I hadn’t spent the whole day complaining about my job, huh?” He laughed, still sounding incredulous.
My heart ached for a second. “If there is anything I can do to help at all, just let me know. While I do try to stay hands off because the business at the higher level is just bullshit, I don’t like the idea of anyone being completely unhappy if I can fix it.”
Bill stared at me for a few more seconds before slowly smiling. “You’re okay, Georgia. I can call you Georgia, right?”
I tossed a marshmallow at him. “Of course.”
“So, what do you actually do?” Sarah’s voice rang out from the other side of the fire, clear and sharp.
I felt like growling at her, bearing my teeth and extending my claws like I was one of the local shifters. “What do I actually do?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes. You said it yourself that you don’t run the business. So, what do you do?”
Wyatt’s big frame slid closer to me and I swear the air between us sizzled. It was distracting as hell. “We don’t normally get so personal.”
“It’s okay. If Sarah is that interested in me, I’ll answer her question.” I looked straight at her, across the fire, and arched an eyebrow. “I do things that I want to do. I take trips across the country to see my best friend. I run several charities that I’ve founded in my hometown. I take a pottery class at a local college two days a week. I do whatever I want because I can. Is that sufficient for you?”
She shrugged her shoulder. “So, you don’t work. That must be nice.”
I resisted the urge to push her into the fire. Barely. “It is nice. Thanks for agreeing.”
Bill shifted in his seat and grinned across the fire at me. “About a year ago, the company instated a no weekends policy. Was that you?”
I grinned, but it didn’t reach my eyes. I was about to spew some bullshit that made it seem like my childhood had been okay. Like Daddy Dearest had actually been around some. In reality, I could’ve counted on two hands the times I saw my dad while growing up. It didn’t stop me from wanting better for the workers at Prescott, though. So, some of it was true. “Guilty. I remember as a little girl always missing my dad on the weekends. He was never around for Saturday morning pancakes or Sunday morning church services, try as he might. I didn’t want to run a company that kept parents away from their children.”
Wyatt scooped my hand into his and for some reason I didn’t pull away. The warmth that radiated from his body comforted me more than a wool coat could have.
“You’re pretty special, Georgia.”
I laughed through an awkwardness that was wholly my own. “Thanks, Bill. So, who’s next?”
Someone beside Bill put me out of my misery by talking about themselves. Then it came to Wyatt.
His deep voice carried and his fingers flexed around mine. “Wyatt Drexel. I’ve been doing this for a while, leading the survival tours. I started after a very unsuccessful stint at a job in town. Turns out, I’m better in the wild.”
Sarah made a sound that convinced me that she wanted me to fight her. I didn’t know if it was the weird mate thing or if I was just suddenly the world’s most jealous woman, but I wanted to show her that Wyatt was mine.
I looked over at him and watched as he shoved a cookie into his mouth. I had no idea where it’d even come from, but it’d left a chocolate smear across his lower lip. Slowly, I leaned into him and dragged my finger across his lip, catching the chocolate and leaving his mouth open and his eyes glowing.
Unable to help myself, I popped my finger into my mouth and sucked off the chocolate. I moaned slightly at the taste and gave him a slow smile. Wyatt reacted in the blink of an eye. I was next to him and then I was practically in his lap. He held me in his arms and stared down at me.
“Mate.”
My heart kicked up, determined to let me know how excited it was that he was clearly accepting me as his mate. Fear wasn’t too far behind, though. There were a lot of things that I considered permanent in my life. Money, fun, my girlfriends, quality shoes from well-known designers. Men weren’t one. They never had been, anyway. From my father to the men I dated, there was nothing long-lasting about any of them. It was scary as hell and completely foreign to think of a man being in my life forever.
“Um, group, I think this is our cue to hit the hay.” Martha stood up and poured dirt over the fire to put it out and then patted me on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine out here, honey. That man is going to take good care of you.”
“We’ll see everyone back here in the morning.” Bill stood up and hefted Sarah up, as well. “Come on, hop-a-long. Let’s get you back to your camp and set up for the night.”
“But I wanted Wyatt to help me.”
“Don’t you see that Wyatt is occupied? It’s me or crawl.”
Slowly they all left, but Wyatt didn’t move. He was staring down at me with his eyes flashing from a deep brown to an almost golden glow. The intensity of his stare made my body respond in a very carnal way. His nostrils flared and he settled me fully onto his lap.
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone, Georgia.”
I wanted him, too. My body wanted him , anyway. Hell, my body was responding to him like a horny teenager. My mind, however, was in meltdown mode. I knew without a doubt that once something started with Wyatt, it would be damn near impossible to stop it. That thought was petrifying.
“I want…” I took a deep breath and pushed myself off his lap. “I want to go to sleep.”
He let out a frustrated growl but stood up scooping me into his arms like I hadn’t just shot him down. “You’re full of surprises,
Georgia. Not all of them completely pleasant.”
I forced myself to remain silent as he carried me away. I was terrified that if I opened my mouth, I would moan. The way he was carrying me, my chest rubbed against his with every step he took. It was pure torturous pleasure and I doubted I was going to be able to maintain the strength to keep shooting down his advances.
13
Wyatt
I bit back more grumblings from my unsatisfied bear as I carried my mate to my shelter. It was on the small side for a man of my stature, and there wouldn’t be a lot of elbow room, but it was secure and would do to keep the encroaching rain out. If my body heat didn’t burn the thing down first.
Holding my curvy mate in my arms, feeling her soft body pressing and rubbing against my chest was doing me in. I’d never felt more turned on. My bear was pacing, growling at me, demanding I mark her and deal with the consequences later. He wasn’t civilized. To my bear, once I marked her, she couldn’t get away from me. That was how he thought I should win her over? I knew better. Women didn’t work that way. Especially not this woman. She was refined, from the city, and probably knew how to verbally eviscerate an aggressive male in a hundred different ways.
I had to figure out a way to explain to her what I was, so we could move on to the mate conversation. I wanted her to know me, just as much as I wanted to know her. This feeling of near desperation to know a woman, every part of her, was new to me, yet it felt more perfect than anything I’d ever experienced.
I hiked up the mountain a bit higher, eager to reach my shelter so I could crawl inside with her. I hoped the urge to mark her would settle down some once we were alone and there were no other males around to set my bear off.
“So, Sarah seems really into you.”
I slapped Georgia’s ass hard, without even thinking about it. “You’re toying with me, now.”
She stiffened against me, completely at odds with the overwhelming and intoxicating scent of her arousal. “Caveman. Don’t do that again.”
My dick ached painfully at the hoarseness in her voice. I wanted to hear that voice begging me to slide into her hot little body. I stroked my hand over her ass and left it there. She was mine.
She wiggled against me, her eyes narrowing while her teeth worked her lip between them. “You’re pretty comfortable touching me for a stranger.”
I reached my shelter and bent over to ease her into it. “You and I both know we were never strangers to each other.”
She crawled to the back of the little shelter and tucked her feet under her. “Are you going to take me back down the mountain tomorrow?”
Take her home? No fucking way. I was going to spend this week convincing her that we belonged together. Although, right now, I was having a little trouble containing my bear. Being alone with our mate wasn’t helping any. He needed to run, and I needed to get out of the shelter and go farther up the mountain, away from everyone, to do that.
“I’ll keep you safe this week, Georgia. You’ll have fun.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she just crossed her arms under her chest and sighed. “You’re a Neanderthal.”
I nodded. “Seems that way.”
14
Georgia
I waited for him to come back, but the longer I sat there, in his leaf shelter, the more tired I felt. I found a blanket rolled up in his bag and I pulled it into the shelter. I couldn’t get comfortable in his thick pants, so I slipped them off and changed into a long T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants. Then, I crawled under the thick, wool blanket and used his jacket as a pillow. It smelled like him, and soothed something in me that I hadn’t known needed soothing.
He’d left so abruptly. I wasn’t sure where he’d gone. I’d called him a Neanderthal and then he’d just left. I didn’t think he was so easily offended, but just goes to show that I barely knew him. Maybe he’d gone to get his wounded ego stroked somewhere else. Somewhere like Sarah’s shelter.
Anger seared through my body at that thought. He’d obviously been with her before. It wasn’t that far of a stretch to imagine them cozying up together in the twigs and dirt. Wyatt was smoking hot and Sarah was clearly willing to throw herself at him. The visual of her bending herself over backward for him burned itself into my brain and wouldn’t leave.
I wasn’t sure if it was the shelter or the rage I was feeling, but I was suddenly glad to be out of his heavy clothing. I kicked the blanket off my legs and shoved his jacket away from me, too. If he was going to run around on me, one day into us being mates, there was no way I was signing up for a lifetime. I’d find my own damn way down the mountain the next morning. Alone.
I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. Wyatt never returned, and when I finally passed out, my face was still furrowed in anger. I dreamed of punching Sarah in her smug little puckered kisser and giving Wyatt’s balls a “hello” with my kneecap. They both deserved it.
At some point, the rain had started, but I hardly noticed. Not until Wyatt crawled into the shelter next to me, dripping wet. His body settling next to mine woke me up and when his wet arm was slung over me, I went ballistic. I screeched and fought to get away from him.
I flailed and thrashed and my leg connected with something solid just before the shelter toppled over and ice cold rain pelted down on us.
“Georgia! It’s me! Jesus!”
I yanked the blanket over me and tried to be as small as possible to avoid the rain. “I know it’s you, you buttface. Look what you made me do!”
He was already on his knees, working to fix the log I’d kicked out of place. “What the hell’s wrong with you? You want to freeze to death?!”
I sat up, the top of my head connecting with the bottom of his chin. Crap! It felt like I’d rammed my head into a brick wall. “Why’d you put your head there?!”
He cursed as he held his mouth and leaned out of the shelter to spit out blood. “You are a fucking detriment to my health tonight.”
My slight worry for his mouth disappeared and I poked him. “You made me stay!”
He grabbed a canister of water and swished some around before spitting it out. “What is wrong with you? Do you always wake up this volatile?”
I shoved the wet blanket at him and held up my hands as rain continued to soak me. “This is what I woke up to! Of course, I’m a little pissy.”
He jammed the log back into place and the rain instantly stopped flowing down on us. His hair hung, wet, in his face, and large droplets rolled down his bare chest. “You did this!”
I was momentarily distracted as I followed the trail of water down to his lap. His barely covered, obviously naked lap. “Are you naked?! You couldn’t even dress before coming back from her shelter?”
“What the hell are you talking about? I told you I sleep naked.”
I crab-crawled as far from him as I could get and glared. “Maybe you should go sleep naked with Sarah. I promise you I don’t mind. I’m more than happy with just the shelter. She can keep the man.”
I didn’t have time to scream before he grabbed me and yanked me into his arms. He pulled me over his lap and landed his hand on my wet ass once, twice, and then a third time.
Words failed me and I couldn’t take back the moan I let out at being manhandled the way I was. My pride told me to fight him, but my body and, unfortunately, my heart, told me to let the man take what was his.
15
Georgia
Thunder rang out around us and I hastily scattered off Wyatt’s lap. I stared at him with wide eyes and my mouth agape. Lust was pounding through me much like the rain pounding on the small shelter, insistent that I pay attention to it or be drowned. My hair was plastered to my head and I knew I must look awful, but oddly, none of that mattered. For the first time in my life, I was staring at a man, unconcerned about my physical appearance as I contemplated taking him to bed. Or ground. Whatever.
“Come here.”
His bossiness ruffled my feathers. He was just what
I’d called him earlier. One hundred percent Neanderthal.
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I gritted my teeth and got up on my knees, “And don’t you dare do that again. What you just did, I mean.”
He got to his knees, the blanket fell away, and I was instantly aware of a very big exclamation point between us. Very big. “You deserved it. You probably deserve more.”
My face and chest went red. “Touch me again and I will make you wish you’d never been born.”
His big hands clasped the back of my head and around my waist and he dragged me into his chest. Suddenly pressed against each other from shoulder to knee, he groaned and his hand fisted in my hair. “I was born to touch you.”
My body went up in flames. I slammed my mouth into his and he dove for mine. Sense and reason flew out the window. I cared about nothing but him. I just needed him.
His kiss made me feel like I was spinning down the mountain. My head buzzed and tingling started in the tips of my fingers, slowly creeping, taking over my entire body. Just when I thought I would float away, he lowered us to the ground. With his weight on top of me, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders to keep him there.
Wyatt kissed me like I was air and he needed me to breathe. There was something that edged on desperation that made me feel a little wild. His hands captured my face and he worshipped my lips with his, soft and gentle first, then rough and hard. His tongue slid into my mouth and swept away any other kiss I could’ve ever remembered.
I tasted berries on his breath and flicked my tongue over his lips. “Did you eat some of her pie?”
He growled and sat up, on his knees, straddling me. “Woman, I am here with you, trying to show you that you’re the only woman my eyes can see. Stop talking. Especially about her.”
Bears of Burden Complete Series Box Set Page 15