Chapter 4

Star surveyed Brody down to his belt loops. Tattoos covered his chest, his arms, and the lower half of his neck. Geometric designs and interlocking swirls grew up out of his pants to twine around his abs, tuck under his armpits, and surround his neck with their skin-tight grip.

He let out a long breath. “Feel better now?”

Star brought her eyes back up to his face. So that’s what he looked like as a bear. Not too shabby. He dwarfed every other Bruin she’d ever seen, even her father, who could throw his weight around and dominate his own sons. No one could stand up to Kaiser Cunningham. However, this man standing in front of her could whip them all with one paw tied behind his back.

Did all the Farrells grow that big, while their human forms remained normal sized? She would probably never know. She took a step toward him. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“For that.”

“Which part? Yelling at you?”

“For not mauling me like you had a right to. You could have ripped my throat out.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“I wanted to rip yours out. I would have if you had let me.”

He shrugged. “We all get angry sometimes.”

Star sank down on the bench. Now that she didn’t have to worry about the bear taking over, her nerves shattered. She gripped the bench with white knuckles to stop her hands shaking. “No one has ever stood up to me like that before. No one has ever made me back down and shift back.”

He stared at her. “Never? What do they do at home when you get mad and start blowing your trumpet?”

“They just stand back and let me go.”

“What do you do?”

She turned her face away. She could only hope he didn’t hear her. “Oh, you know, nothing much. I trash the house and threaten everybody in sight. Sometimes they all take off into the forest and leave me alone until I’m finished breaking the windows and ripping the couches to shreds. They never shift and dominate me like you just did.”

He hissed through his teeth. “Are you serious?”

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at him.

He sat down on the bench next to her. His skin radiated heat and power toward her. She didn’t trust herself to look in his direction. She couldn’t look at his bare tatted chest without following those patterns to their source. They called to her and hypnotized her. They twined their seaweed arms around her body and sucked her down to the bottom of a vast sea of dreams.

He looked her up and down, but he didn’t touch her. “It’s okay. You’re safe with me. If you need to go a “little nuts”, I won’t run away. I’ll stay and stand up to you, if that’s what you need.”

“Thanks.”

They sat in silence for a while. He wouldn’t break the ice. He could sit there until doomsday waiting for her to come out of her shell. Did she really want to come out, to make herself known to him? She had to decide that for herself.

They both stared out at the view until she asked, “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Won’t your family wonder where you are?”

“They’re used to me disappearing for days at a time. I like to spend a lot of time in the woods by myself. It calms the bear when things aren’t swimming along too well at home.”

Her head shot up. “Me, too.”

“Anyway, all they do and talk about anymore is rigging the place to explode the first time a Cunningham sets foot in our territory. It’s not just really boring anymore. It’s getting downright dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before Austin accidentally trips one of his own Claymores and blows his leg off.”

“Claymores! Jesus, they got it bad! And I thought Dax was crazy.”

He didn’t chuckle. A black cloud crossed his face. “This whole Cunningham thing has turned into an obsession for them. No one can talk about the weather anymore without the Cunninghams getting blamed for it.”

“I know! I tried to talk to my dad this morning about Hyatt, but he was so busy supervising my brothers’ patrol around our perimeter he couldn’t pay attention. I finally gave up.”

He turned toward her. “So that’s what got you so rattled. I wondered.”

“I used to be so close to my father, but now, I don’t even recognize him anymore. I have no one to talk to. No one understands.” Her voice cracked.

He slid his hand along the bench and covered hers with it. “It’s all right. I understand. You can talk to me.”

“You’re a Farrell. I can’t talk to anyone about you, either.”

“What do you want to talk to them about me?”

“Just, that I met you; that we were talking. If they found out, they would hit the roof. You’re nothing but the enemy to them.”

“Am I the enemy to you?”

“No! That’s what I need to talk to someone about. I never went in for all the Farrell bashing anyway, but now that I’m getting to know you and talking to you about my problems, you’re not the enemy at all. I don’t want to fight you and hate you, but no one else would understand that. You probably think I’m talking out of my ear. You probably think I’ve cracked a cylinder.”

“No, I don’t. I feel the same way about you.”

She looked up into his eyes. Could she dare to hope? “You do?”

Did he drift closer to her, or did she only imagine it? “Sure. I like you. I like you a lot, but I can’t tell anybody how I feel. If they found out, they would....” He trailed off.

“What would they do?”

“My parents would disown me. Mattox would probably beat the ever-loving crap out of me, and Austin would probably hunt me down and try to kill me. They would tell me to go join the Cunninghams and never show my face on their Homestead again. Getting away with my life would be the best I could hope for.”

Star swallowed hard, “Yeah.”

“What about you?”

“Same thing, except Dax and Walker probably wouldn’t hunt me down and try to kill me. They would just throw me out on my ear. I would have to seek refuge from the Kerrs or the Mackenzies.”

He lifted her hand off the bench and pressed it between his. “If that happens, you come to me. You come over to our place. I’ll give you refuge.”

“What about your family?”

“If you join our family, they’ll have nothing to say about it.”

She closed her eyes against the intensity flooding through her. Warmth radiated up her arm from his hands and filled her with giddy light. “I couldn’t do that. I have to go home to my family and hope to high heaven no one finds out.”

He started to let go of her hand. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”

She clutched his hand for dear life. “Don’t go yet.”

He faced her again. “Okay. I thought you wanted to.”

“Let’s talk about something else. This is too depressing.”

“Tell me about these rages you have. Didn’t your mother ever maul you for roaring at her?”

“No: never; she started to a couple of times when I was younger, but my father always stood up for me.”

He whistled through his teeth. “You should have seen the way my mother schooled us boys when we tried to throw our weight around the place. She almost killed me one time.”

Her eyes widened; “Really?”

He grinned. “I was just coming into my weight. I wanted to take the truck out for a ride with my friends and she said no. I shifted and bellowed at her. Then I broke some furniture. That was the last time I ever did anything like that, I can tell you.”

“What did she do?”

“She shifted faster than I can blink. I’ve never seen a Bruin shift that fast, not even my father. She rushed me and knocked me over with her shoulder. She knocked me flat on the floor and drove in for my throat. She crushed my windpipe until I passed out. I woke up an hour later in my own bed, a much more sober and well-behaved young man.”

Star listened with her mouth open. Then she shook her head. “I used to think my father protecting me from my mother’s rage was his way of being nice to me. That’s how we got so close. I was always Pop’s little girl, and no one could touch me as long as he had my back. Now I understand he wasn’t doing me any favors.”

“How do you feel now?”

“Now I feel calm. I’m calmer now than I can ever remember being. I know I’m safe with you, that I’m not going to shoot off out of control.”

He slid closer on the bench until his shoulder touched hers. A surge of lightning rocketed through her. He sat so near, she could hear his breath. Could this really be happening?

“It gets better.”

She stole a peek up into his eyes. “What does?”

“As bad as it looks right now, growing up gets better if you keep on trucking.”

“You talk like an old man. You’re not more than three years older than me.”

“I just want to let you know it’s not as hopeless as you think.”

“If I can get out of this marriage to Hyatt, everything will be hunky-dory.”

“What about us?”

“What about us?”

“How are we gonna deal with this?”

“I don’t know. How do you want to deal with this?”

Before she could answer, he darted in and kissed her. He gave her a quick peck on the lips and pulled back. He still held her hand on his thigh. He appraised her reaction.

Star stared straight into his eyes. He really had done it.

In the next instant, he moved in again. His lips alighted on hers with the weight of a butterfly, but he didn’t dart away again. He fixed his eyes on hers, there beyond her nose. His lips explored her mouth in tentative waves. He tugged her lips toward him, stronger each time, nudging the molten passion awake in her soul.

She froze at first. How should she react to this? Then something massive reared its head from the bottom of her being. She never experienced anything so all-consuming and unstoppable. Only her own rage came close to it, but her rage couldn’t hold a candle to this.

Burning lava erupted from her core and exploded out through her skin and mouth. She needed this. She needed him. She would do anything to grab him and make him hers.

Her mouth opened to receive him. He slipped his tongue between her lips and found her waiting for him. Their tongues danced together in their first shy union.

He untangled one hand from her fingers to cup the back of her neck. He pulled her against him, and her passion mounted to irresistible heights. All too soon, he let her go and leaned back. “That’s how I want to deal with this.”

She licked his saliva off her lips. “We shouldn’t do this.”

He laced his fingers through hers and tightened his grip. “Yes, we should. Don’t ask me how this is going to work out, but we definitely should. I never felt anything so right. Don’t you feel it, too?”

“I just don’t want either of us to get into trouble.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her against his bare chest. “We’re already in trouble, so I’ll be jiggered if I’m gonna let you slip away. If we’re gonna do this thing, I’m doing it to the limit. If there’s anyone who wants to get in my way, they better watch out. I won’t let you go, no matter what.”

Star laid her hand on his inked pecs. She could trace their intricate labyrinths all she liked and no one would stop her. She tucked her face under his arm and inhaled a deep breath of his woodsy scent. He smelled of bear, of pine needles and wood smoke. She understood that smell. She understood Bruins. She understood his skin and his body and everything that made him tick.

He murmured into her hair. “You’re mine. No one will take you away from me.”