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“I’m... not so sure about this,” Orion said, as he swept his massive leg over the saddle on his motorcycle and took a slow, almost tentative step toward my front door.
I’d been waiting for him since he sent me a text that he was on the way. Oh, and by the way, a half-wild bear first buying a no-contract cell phone and then learning to text? I’m not gonna say it’s the cutest thing ever, but... it was real close. I sat on the front step just before dawn sipping my dark Italian roast and fiddling with a crossword puzzle that I ended up filling out with lovey-dovey words instead of bothering with the actual clues.
“What are you talking about?” I asked him. “You have to give it a shot. The girls have been asking about you, so if nothing else they’d like to see you. You did save Millie’s life, you know.”
He ran his hand through his long, golden hair, and a little swoon crept through me. Somehow I kept it together, but when he reached out to help me to my feet and those rough, warm hands wrapped around mine, I was in another world for a second. When I came back to earth with nothing but a little twinge in my stomach to remind me of the flight I just took, Orion was holding me close.
He inhaled deeply, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “Every day I’m away from you I just want to be with you,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t stop thinking about you, I can’t get you out of my head. You did something to me, Clea, something I’ve never felt before.”
Welp, if there was any hope of Orion’s first day at The Cubby Hole being normal, it went right out the window then and there.
“I’m not sure what to say,” I said. As I opened my mouth to speak again, he silenced me with a kiss.
At first soft and gentle, the harder he gripped me against his muscled body with those huge hands, the hungrier and deeper his kisses grew. I opened my mouth to accept another of them, and he slid his tongue inside, exploring my lips before swirling it against mine in a desperate dance.
My breath escaped in a soft whimper of pleasure. My knees buckled slightly and my clothes – my shorts, and the overly sensible, totally not sexy at all cotton panties I always wear to work – bunched around my sex, tugging at me even as Orion’s grasping fingers curled against the small of my back.
Sliding up my back just a bit, my shirt allowed his hands to brush against my bare skin, at least until he ran them high enough that the calluses on his palms rasped against my bra strap.
“I didn’t expect this,” I said with a little laugh. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Orion’s eyes melted into me, turned me into a puddle of wiggly Jell-O in his hands. He didn’t speak; he didn’t need to. Everything he could have possibly spoken he said with the gentle curling of his fingertips, the hot breath sliding along my prickling neck. “How do you—”
Again he silenced me with a kiss, but this one was deeper and stronger than the one before. He pushed me back against the scratchy brick beside the door to my house and ran his hands up into my hair.
Holding me still as he pulled away, Orion sucked a ragged breath into his lungs. “Your scent,” he whispered. “The way you move, the way you smile. You’ve made me yours, Clea,” he said.
It was all so sudden, so incredible, and honestly so overwhelming that I wasn’t really sure what was going on inside my own head. I was being pulled in about fourteen thousand different directions at once, or at least that’s how it felt. It was like no matter how much I wanted what he was doing, how much I needed the love that he obviously had on offer, I kinda didn’t believe what was happening could be real.
“Stop,” I whispered, with a hand on his powerful, muscled chest. “I’m... I’m sorry, I just—”
When he tilted his head to the side, the rising sun caught one of his eyes and reflected. The sparkling color reminded me of holding a tiger’s eye stone up to a candle and turning it around in my fingers. Still he stayed silent, but the storm behind his eyes told me everything I needed to know.
“Something... something in my mind is making me think you’re not for real. I mean,” I paused, to shake my head. “That’s not what I mean. Shit, I’m not even sure that I know what I mean. Chew on that for a second.”
“It all happened fast,” he said. “Finding you in the first place, then finding you again. I don’t mean to frighten you. That’s... that’s my curse.”
The tattoos around his eyes, and the giant one peeking up out of his shirt caught my attention. His skin was hot to the touch when I laid my hand on his arm, squeezing it to prove to myself that he was real.
“I’m easy to scare,” I said. “I act like I’m not, but I had a real hell of a run before.”
Orion narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. I promised I’d help with the kids, and I’m not one to go back on my word. Did someone hurt you?”
His jaw went tight. “If someone hurt you, I’ll—”
“Whoa there, cowboy,” I laughed softly. “He’s long gone. And he didn’t hurt me, not physically. He was... well I was married before, got hitched young and it went the way that sort of thing usually goes. We turned into very different people, I resented him, I thought he trapped me in something I hated. I don’t blame him for any of that, though, not after looking back. But Liam – that was his name – he did make me doubt myself. Kind of a lot.”
“You have so much love in your heart,” Orion said. “So much courage. How could anyone look down on you?”
At that, I had to laugh a little louder. “I haven’t always been like this. Actually I kinda think Liam’s bullshit helped make me who I am now.”
Orion grunted. I could tell he didn’t really believe me, or at least I thought that’s what I saw when he looked at me. He turned the left corner of his mouth into a slight smile. “I wish there was something I could do,” he said. “To make you realize that I’m not him, that I won’t do that to you.”
I shook my head. “I know you won’t. Or I mean, I know you don’t think you will. But—”
“That’s not the kind of man I am. And you’re not the woman you were back then, either. If you don’t want me,” he said, trailing off. “No. I’ve seen the way you look at me. I felt you arching against me and sucking at my kisses. I heard your voice waiver when I touched you. I know you want me, even if you won’t admit it to yourself.”
I couldn’t say anything at all. Somehow, he figured me out exactly in the few moments we’d been together that morning. His words brought comfort, and at the same time, the clarity with which he saw through me was startling. I’m used to hiding, used to being able to pretend to be someone I’m not and get away with it.
“I can smile when I want to cry,” I said. “When I’m hurting, I can act like I’m invincible.”
Saying those words made them real. That’s when I realized that I’d never said them before. I’d never laid myself open, laid myself bare, like I just did.
“My father wants me dead, because I left the gang. I wouldn’t kill on order. I refused to hurt people who didn’t deserve his cruelty, so I ran.”
I felt a tear run down my cheek, although I wasn’t all that sure where it came from or why that was my reaction to what he’d said. “Why did you just admit that to me?”
Orion pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and dragged his teeth along the stubble. “Because you let me in. You trusted me enough to be vulnerable. And I’ve never admitted what I am. My past is something I’m not proud of. For a long time, I convinced myself it wasn’t my fault – I was just a,” he shook his head. “That I was just an unwitting victim. But it isn’t true. Just taking orders isn’t an excuse for some of the things I’ve done, but I’d never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it, and that got me in trouble.”
I took a deep breath, holding it in for a moment before letting it out in a shuddering exhale. “I think,” I said, carefully and slowly, not wanting to do any damage I couldn’t repair. “I think that... we both have healing that needs to be done. I thought I was over Liam, I thought I was ready for someone else to love me.”
“But?”
I lifted my head, pushing a fallen curl out of his eyes, back behind his ear. “I hate what I’m about to say.”
“I hate what I just said,” he answered.
His eyes flickered again, the shadow marking the cleft in his chin, and the tattoos along his cheekbones emphasized his sharply cut, statue-like features.
“I hate it because it isn’t fair to ask you what I’m going to ask, and because someone else did it to me once.”
“I’m a big boy,” Orion said with one of his smirks that could drop the panties off a mannequin. “I can handle it. And remember – I’m not joking about this fate business. The second I saw you, I knew that... somehow, I just knew that you were for me. Whatever you need, whatever you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”
I gulped. I knew he meant what he said. And knowing that? Just letting myself believe him was a pretty huge thing, at least for me. Sounds like a little thing, but believing people has never been a strong suit of mine. Or at least not after Liam.
“I want to heal with you,” I said. “I don’t want to rush, I don’t want to—”
“You’re asking me to wait?” he asked. “That’s what’s going on here, right?”
I bit my lip and looked down at the ground, focusing on the tips of my Mary Janes. I couldn’t believe that I’d just told him that, but at the same time, he was still right in front of me. That was a good sign, at least.
I felt a finger underneath my chin, lifting my face up. “Look at me,” he said. “Look at my face. Do you see these scars?”
Slightly embarrassed that I hadn’t actually noticed them before just then, I nodded. “What are they from?”
“Fire,” he said. Orion grabbed my hand and flattened my palm against the spider web of scars on his left cheek. “My father burned me. Sort of like a brand. He wanted to prove that he owned me, that I was nothing without him. Without the gang.”
I curled my fingers against the puckered skin. It looked so much like the rest of his tattoos that I hadn’t noticed, but touching them, yeah, it was completely different. I swallowed again, my throat clicked. “You’re so much more than that,” I whispered.
Orion shook his beautiful head. He looked down, closed his eyes tightly shut for a moment and then opened them again, staring straight into mine.
“He never proved anything. I never needed him. Never needed the gang. Mitch Samuelsson never owned me, no matter how hard he tried to prove that he did.”
I had a feeling what was going to come out of his mouth before he started to form the words. That was good at least, because it gave me a little time to prepare myself.
“You claimed me the first time I saw you, Clea,” he whispered. His breath caressed my neck, but his words? They caressed my soul. “Fate, fortune, luck, whatever you want to call it, it claimed me. Took me for its own, right then. I won’t rest, I won’t stop, until I make you mine.”
Yep. Yeah, even with the couple seconds lead in, hearing him say the words made them real, and made me ache. From deep inside the core of my body, a wave of heat pulsed through me. Goosebumps crept down my arms, my scalp clenched slightly, and my sex yearned to have him – even if it was just another make-believe session.
“You mean that?” I asked, with a smile. “You’re really going to chase me? Why do you care so much?”
“Because,” he said, those eyes burning holes through me and the hands against my back making me quail. “Because you’re mine. In this life, in this world, I’ve barely got anything. I have a backpack with a couple of books, and I have this necklace.”
The tiny golden pendant was hidden under his shirt. He fished it out, producing a delicate, paw-shaped pendant. “It was my mother’s,” he said softly. “She gave it to me right before she died. And now?” He unlatched the thing with so much gentleness that I could hardly believe what I was seeing.
Slowly, carefully, he hooked the chain behind my neck and flattened his palm against my chest, on top of the pendant.
“I can’t take this,” I said. “You can’t... it’s your mother’s.”
Orion shook his head. “The Samuelsson bears have a pretty terrible past. My grandfather started the Devils and my father took it over. We haven’t always been like that though. My mother, she was different. She had a head on her shoulders that wasn’t full of gasoline and rage. She knew all about the clan, way before the Devils. This necklace,” he twirled a finger around the chain. “This is older than her, older than my grandfather. This is the necklace that Samuelssons have given their mates for a hundred years, maybe more.”
I gulped.
“What I’m saying,” he said, “is that I’ll wait, if that’s what it takes. But you better be ready for me to chase you, too.”
Without another word, Orion grabbed my hand, led me the few feet to the motorcycle, and helped me on.
“Hold on tight,” he said, turning halfway around and grabbing my hands, wrapping them around his waist. “Gotta hurry. Can’t make those cubs wait, right?”
I was glad for the wind going through my hair, partially because it felt really awesome to blast along a deserted road at a speed well above a reasonable rate.
But really? I was glad because it dried the tears before they could hit my shirt.