Tracking the Bear (Blue Ridge Bears Book 1) Read online

  Unless it was followed by a steaming bath afterward, of course.

  Chapter Seven

  Lucy

  “How did you injure your leg?”

  We’d been traveling east for most of the day. He’d been throwing out questions out periodically when he hadn’t turned on the radio to fill the silence. I hadn’t said a word in response the entire trek, and we were nearing our hotel for the evening. Another night of lying near him while my fingers itched to explore his broad chest.

  It was childish of me and I knew it. I hadn’t actually employed the silent treatment for longer than an hour since fifth grade. When we’d left the university, I’d been so furious with him I hadn’t been able to form a coherent sentence. I’d continued to ignore him out of spite the entire trip down. We’d passed through two states, stopped for food and gas twice, and still, I’d said nothing.

  “None of your beeswax,” I snapped.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw tension go out of his arms, which had been rigid all day as he clutched the steering wheel with even greater force. A pang shot through my chest as I realized, for the first time that day, how antagonistic and hurtful my silence must have been for him. I wasn’t exactly being Miss Congeniality, but I was at least talking, which was what he’d been trying to get at all day. I scowled. He could have just apologized.

  “Please tell me?”

  “Why do you want to know?” I grumbled. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “It has everything to do with me. I want to know everything about you, Lucy.”

  Damn it, now I felt guilty. I wasn’t exactly sure what Chance was to me at this point, or why the hell I liked him so much, but he was being sincere. I supposed I could give him the abridged version of events.

  “I got in a car crash,” I said.

  “When?”

  “In high school. My senior year. We were on our way back from my…” I stumbled over the words soccer game. I shouldn’t have. It was a practiced lie, one I’d told over and over again until it had begun to feel like truth, even to me. “Party. I was drunk. I crashed the car.”

  “Liar,” He said, scowling at me.

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You are. There’s a specific aural quality when humans lie. I can hear it. What really happened?”

  “None of your beeswax,” I snapped again.

  “Who was actually driving the car when you were injured?”

  He took a sharp turn into the parking lot of a nearby hotel. He maneuvered into a spot near the door and put the car in park so quickly, my head actually snapped forward. He caught me before I could pitch forward and slam my head into the dashboard.

  “Drop it, Chance.” I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car, slamming the door behind me. My bag was in the backseat and Chance beat me to it, snatching it up before I could even open the back-passenger’s door to reach inside. He rounded the car, glowering at me.

  “Who was driving? Was it Luke?”

  “No. Give me my bag.”

  “Lying again,” he muttered. “So it was Luke.”

  My vision flashed red for a moment and I hauled back without much thought and slapped him. I couldn’t reach his face very well, and ended up mostly slapping his jaw. I was pretty sure I hurt my hand more than his face.

  “Don’t you dare breathe a word,” I hissed. “As far as everyone is concerned, I was driving that car. It’s going to stay that way.”

  I snatched my bag from his fingers, which had gone limp from the shock of my slap. I tried to compose myself on the way to the door. I didn’t want us to look like that couple. The angry spitfire wife and the henpecked husband dutifully following her.

  Chance looked unruffled when he entered the lobby behind me. He booked a room with the seemingly endless amount of cash he seemed to have on hand, and we took the elevator up to the sixth floor.

  “How do you keep paying for all this?” I muttered. “I barely have enough in my bank account to cover a weekend at one of these places.”

  “I have a dangerous job,” he said with a shrug. “I get paid well for it.”

  The irrational anger drained away a few minutes later as we walked to the room, and I just felt weary, and more than a little guilty for what I’d done.

  “I’m sorry I slapped you.”

  “I understand. Mother bears react with hostility when you target a cub.”

  “I’m not a mother. He isn’t my son. I’m only a few minutes older than he is.”

  “But you protect him. Even from his own stupidity, it seems.” He slotted the key card into the reader and it flashed green and chirped once.

  I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed by the presence of a second bed in the suite. I walked further inside, setting my bag down by the nightstand.

  I sat down on the bed closest to the window. I sank a few inches into the mattress. “It was a stupid mistake,” I muttered. “I wasn’t going to let my baby brother lose his future because of one mistake.”

  “So you decided to sacrifice yours instead. That hardly seems fair.”

  “You don’t know the story,” I argued. “It’s more complicated that you make it sound.”

  “Fine then, tell me the story.” He sat across from me on the other bed. He’d removed his shirt, leaving his chest delightfully bare. It took me a minute to register he’d said something, because I was resisting the strong urge to throw myself into his arms. It had been a long, emotionally charged day and even though the antagonism was of my own making, I still wanted to be held for some inexplicable reason.

  He was looking at me expectantly, waiting for my answer. An answer I was completely unwilling to give him. The story was personal, and I didn’t owe him my life’s story, no matter how nice he was being. So I ignored him, getting up to rifle through my bag. I found the tight black tank top and matching sleep shorts at the bottom of my bag, untouched as I’d slept in Chance’s overlarge T-shirt the night before.

  “Are you going to answer?” he asked finally.

  “No,” I said, and stripped off my shirt. It did succeed in finally pulling his eyes from my face. I flushed as he gave the black lace bra an appraising look. They matched the black panties he’d dug out of my bag after the impromptu bath we’d shared. Trying to be above it all, I stripped my jeans off as well and turned away.

  “Are you trying to tease me?” he growled from behind me. I was suddenly aware of his proximity, the heat of him at my back. He didn’t grab my ass the way I’d expected, but he did seize my shoulders, spinning me around to face him.

  He looked mad. Maybe I deserved that, after what I’d pulled in the car, but this wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting. It made me tremble, just a little, to see his huge frame looming over me with actual anger blazing in his dark eyes.

  “It’s hard enough to stay away from you without all of this.” He slid one finger into the waistband of my panties and snapped it gently. My body tightened, and sudden unbidden desire pooled inside of me. He kept one large hand on my hip, bracing the other against the wall at my back. He lowered his head, and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he brought his mouth to the shell of my ear. Stubble tickled my cheek as he spoke,

  “I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you. I knew you were the one then. My spirit half. My mate. You are all I can see. Don’t flaunt yourself intentionally in front of me if you don’t want me to take you, Lucy.”

  My head snapped up defiantly and he pulled away, gazing back down at me, his eyes still smoldering with anger and arousal.

  “Take me, then,” I snapped.

  He let out a low growl and seized me by the waist, hoisting me off the ground. It felt like I was flying for a moment and then I was crashing to earth. We landed on the bed in a tangle of limbs.

  His lips came down hard on mine. I wound my fingers into his hair and tugged hard, eliciting another growl from him. He reached between us and almost effortlessly tore the panties off of me. I
t was seriously hot, but a part of me was miffed.

  “Those were expensive,” I muttered between kisses. He tugged my lower lip gently between his teeth and my breath caught. He broke away from our kiss a moment later, trailing nips and bites down my throat. I squirmed beneath him, but there was nowhere to go. I was caged in his long muscular arms.

  “I’ll buy you a new pair,” he promised, and his voice had gotten impossibly deeper. I didn’t miss the husky note in his tone, either.

  The hand he’d braced on my hip moved slowly upward, mapping my thigh. I shuddered and tried to squirm from his grasp. I didn’t like anyone touching my legs. They’d been strong and supple once upon a time, from a regular running regime and endless high school soccer games. I hadn’t played any sport since high school, nearly five years ago.

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  He paused, fingers still tracing my inner thigh, but he complied. Efforts down below thwarted for the time being, he focused instead on removing my bra.

  I’d had my fair share of fumbling awkward encounters in the back of cars and was prepared to help. To my surprise, he got the bra off after only two false starts. I had only a moment to watch it fly across the room and land on the television set before he was descending on my once more.

  “Beautiful,” he muttered before carefully testing one nipple with his teeth. I actually whimpered as the action sent equal parts pain and pleasure singing through me. I released my grip on his hair, desperately scrabbling at his back. It was a good thing that I bit my nails, or I would probably have drawn blood.

  He reached for my leg again, but this time he only hooked it around his waist, so he could wedge himself between my thighs.

  I cried out as he began to rock himself slowly against me. It was almost too much. The pleasant assault on my breasts on the one hand, plucking, teasing, testing me, and the feel of him, thick, hard and ready pressing against my bare sex.

  “C-Chance,” I panted. He raised his head to look at me, a wicked smile playing at the edges of his full, gorgeous mouth.

  “Yes?”

  “Please,” I begged. “Please. I need you inside of me.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I want to savor you.”

  I let out another whimper as he kissed my stomach, dipping his tongue briefly into my navel. I squirmed restlessly, clutching at his back.

  He pressed a tender kiss to my hipbone. I was staggered by the emotion on his face. This wasn’t casual for him, not an itch he needed to scratch. He loved me. How? Why?

  I jumped as he skimmed his fingers very lightly over my clit. I let out a startled gasp, quickly followed by a moan. He rubbed slow, gentle circles in my heated flesh, watching the pleasure play across my face with a satisfied smile. Without looking away, he inserted first one finger and then another. He curled them, caressing that elusive spot inside of me that a string of high school boyfriends had never been able to find.

  He pressed my hips gently back onto the bed as I arched upward toward him. He chuckled and his warm breath fanned across my skin.

  He spread my legs further apart and pulled me closer to the edge of the bed, sliding to the floor to kneel between them. I let out an embarrassingly loud moan when he replaced his fingers with his tongue.

  “Oh my God,” I choked.

  “Call me Chance,” he said cheekily, parting my folds with one long stroke of his tongue. I clawed at his back again, letting out a soft mewling sound of pleasure. I was too breathless to give a snarky reply in return.

  He pumped his fingers in and out of me and I cried out yet again under the relentless assault of his tongue. My legs trembled, and I came apart in his arms.

  I was only just coming down from the first when a second, more intense orgasm washed over me. When he finally pushed away, I was boneless and tears ran down my face from the sheer intensity of it.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, brushing my tears away gently. He looked genuinely concerned, and that triggered yet more tears.

  “Lucy, are you okay?” he demanded, looking suddenly frightened. “Talk to me. Did I hurt you?”

  “That was so-” I hiccupped and tried again. “So, so good…”

  His face broke into a wide, joyful smile. “Good. That’s just the beginning.”

  Oh, dear God. If that was foreplay, what would the actual act be like with him? Part of me was frightened to figure out, put the loudest voice in my head was screaming for me to figure out exactly how good sex with Chance would be.

  He took a step back, idly unbuckling his belt. I couldn’t look away. His body was sheened lightly in sweat, and his muscled chest looked like it belonged to a bodybuilder. I was a little intimidated by the bulge that jutted from his boxers when he slid his jeans off and stepped out of them.

  I swallowed the fear, though. I’d asked for this. I wanted this. My body was primed, ready to go and the relentless, steady ache in my core hadn’t ceased. I wanted him inside of me.

  He stepped out of his boxers and I let out a half-strangled sound. Was everything about him perfect? The skin was slightly darker than the rest of him and now flushed with color. The skin was firm and looked so smooth, I had the insistent urge to touch it. I wanted to roll the head of him inside my mouth, taste the contours of it.

  He climbed over me and I refocused on his face. I brought my hands up cup his face, marveling that this man, this gorgeous man, wanted me. According to what he’d said before, he was meant for me. How? Nothing had ever gone right in my life before, how had I been fortunate enough to have a man like Chance fall in love with me?

  “Do you want this?” he whispered, turning to press a kiss to the palm of my right hand.

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  He positioned himself and pushed inside of me slowly. My back arched off the bed once more and I let out a shuddering cry. There was so much of him. He paused when he was fully inside of me, waiting for me to adjust. When I was sure I was ready, I have a little roll of my hips.

  He groaned and began to move, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. My body, already sensitized by the two potent orgasms was quick to respond. I didn’t want or need the gentleness he was trying to give me.

  “Harder,” I panted, moving one of his hands from my side down to clutch my hip. He moved the other as well, getting a firmer grip on me, his fingers digging into my flesh. The feel of his nails biting into my skin added a delicious layer to the pleasure that was coiling slowly in my belly.

  He stretched my good leg over one of his shoulders and leaned further over me. The new angle was even better than the first and I spasmed, crying out in unbridled ecstasy as the head of his cock slammed against that spot inside of me again relentlessly, until he brought me once more to a sobbing orgasm.

  “Oh God,” I managed. “Oh God. Chance, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  And I was surprised to find that it wasn’t lying. It wasn’t something I’d regret saying in the heat of the moment. I meant it. I loved Chance Kassower. How? We’d just met. And yet here in his arms, with him inside of me, I felt more at home than I had in the last four years with Aunt Carol and Uncle Mack. I felt more kinship with this man than I did with my own brother. Chance was mine and somehow, deep down, I had always known that.

  “And I love you, Lucy Elmsong,” he growled, and plunged himself deep inside of me once more. His release sounded more like a roar than anything else, and I couldn’t find it inside myself to be frightened of him. He was a man, my man if I decided to claim him, and he was also a bear. I couldn’t love one and fear the other.

  I followed soon after and trailed red lines down his arms with my nails, to match the red marks no doubt forming on his back.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, as blood actually began to seep from one of the deeper tracks on his bicep. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  He chuckled and let me sink down onto the mattress. The soft quilted bedspread felt like a cloud cushioning my body in the afterglow. He rolled off of
me and to the side, so I could get a good look at his face. He didn’t look put out or offended.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s hard to break my skin, so I know I had to have done a good job for your stubby nails to have any impact.” He lifted my hand gently from the mattress and brought it to his lips, to soften the insult about my nails.

  I smiled wearily at him and curled closer to him on the bed. Despite the bat shit insanity I’d stepped into by joining him on this journey, I didn’t regret taking his offer of a ride. Tomorrow around lunchtime, we’d arrive at our destination and he’d try to leave me at a cabin while he searched for my brother in the woods.

  But I wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. He was mine and I wasn’t going to stay put and do nothing while he risked his life.

  “I love you,” I said, and there was a note of challenge in my voice. He frowned, and pulled me into his bare chest, presumably trying to shelter me from whatever waited for us on the horizon.

  I loved Chance Kassower, and I wasn’t letting him go without a fight. Even if I had to fight him to accomplish it.

  Chapter Eight

  Chance

  She loved me. Even if she hadn’t embraced the emotion fully, even if she was angry with me, there had been no lie in her tone.

  But that thought had led me to others as she snored peacefully by my side, and it had struck me again while she showered in the morning. She hadn’t lied to me about the accident that had crippled her leg, either. In fact, the only time I’d ever sensed a lie in her voice was when we’d bathed together the night before. She’d asked about Freyr, and then lied when I’d asked why she needed to know about him.

  It hadn’t really crossed my mind then, and with my mate so warm and distractingly naked nearby, I hadn’t given it much thought. Now though, I had to wonder what had been the catalyst for the question. Lucy seemed to have no idea who he was before I’d told her. It wasn’t altogether surprising, considering the size of the high school she’d probably attended. A lot of schools didn’t teach mythology and those that did usually only taught classical Greek. So where had she pulled the name Freyr from, if she’d had no exposure to myth? She certainly hadn’t heard it in a book. I’d heard that much in her lie.