corrected. “I thought you’d fucking listen and do what you’re told. I see now that was a mistake and don’t worry I won’t make it again. I should have listened to King and cuffed you to the fucking bed.” His entire body stiffened and my needle stilled, unable to make progress into his muscle.
I ignored his threat to cuff me, and focused on my task. “I know it’s hard, but try not to tense up, it will just make the pain worse.”
“Oh yeah?” Bear asked, sounding amused. “Where did you learn that?” His muscles relaxed slightly and the needle moved in and out with more ease making quicker work of putting him back together.
I smiled, recalling the memory. “Dr. Hartman told me that when he fixed up my knee. My brother Jesse and my friend Buck and I were practicing casting the new reels we’d gotten for Christmas one year. Well, they weren’t brand new, but they were new to us.”
“You got water this far inland?” Bear asked.
“Oh yeah, we got a pond in the middle of the grove, deep one too. Every once in a while Mr. Miller used to stock it with stuff he caught on one of his trips to the lake. But that day we weren’t practicing at the pond. We were on dry land, just out back in the clearing. We set up hola-hoops on the ground for targets and weighted down our lines. It was good practice too, but looking back I guess we didn’t need the hooks. I walked a little too close behind Buck when he was about to cast and caught a hook to the knee.” I stretched out my leg onto the front step so Bear could see the long scar that ran from the top of my knee to the bottom. “He didn’t realize he hooked me and kept going, tore the skin and the hook right out of my knee. Twelve stitches,” I said, pulling my leg back.
Bear held out his left hand and pointed to a scar between his thumb and index finger. “Same injury. Different friend. We were probably about sixteen and in this little dingy doing some inshore fishing. If we caught a few red fish sometimes we sold them to one of the restaurants on the other side of the causeway for a few bucks. Sometimes they were just good eating. But the only thing we caught that day was a buzz and about an inch of skin off my hand.”
“I’m done on this side,” I said, biting off the thread and tying it off in a series of unbreakable knots. I rethreaded the needle and knelt on the step to the side of Bear. It was an awkward position that had me almost teetering off the edge and he noticed, because he grabbed my forearms and spread his legs, pulling me in between and resting my elbows on his thighs, he released my arms and his hands came around to rest on the small of my back.
“Better,” he said, looking right into my eyes. I was all too aware of his gaze as I started to close off the wound, which was smaller in the front then it was in the back. He watched me as I worked, the edge of his beard brushed against my skin, his breath warm against my neck sending tingles between my thighs.
I needed to concentrate on my stitching before I hurt him again. “There was a picture in the apartment of you when you were younger. You and King with another boy wearing a bow tie. Was that Preppy?”
Bear leaned forward, resting his nose in the crook of my neck and nodded, his lips and beard setting my skin on fire.
So much for concentrating.
I cleared my throat. “Does he live in Logan’s Beach?” I asked, as I finished the last stitch. The thread was short after stitching both the front and back of his shoulder. I had to close my mouth around the thread, my lips flush against his skin as I cut it with my teeth, resisting the urge to taste him with my tongue, before tying it off like I’d done on the other side. I blew on his skin to ease some of the pain and Bear stood up, catching me before I tumbled down the steps and setting me back onto my feet.
“He’s dead,” Bear said, picking up the bottle of vodka and pouring it over both sides of his wound, hissing between his teeth.
That was the end of our personal conversation, after which Bear turned all business. By the time he’d asked how deep the pond in the middle of the grove was and tested the tractor on the side of the house to see if it was running, I was starting to figure out what he’d meant by ‘cleanup.’
After I watched him tie the bodies of his former brothers to what was left of their bikes and sink them into the pond…I had an even better idea.
* * *
Thia
“Sun’s up soon,” Bear said, looking off into the distance to where the pink had just started to invade the night sky. He pulled out his phone and pushed a few buttons, his lips moving silently as he read something over, shoving his phone back into his pocket when he was done. He hopped down from the tractor and came around to my side, about to help me down.
I rolled my eyes. I’d been jumping on and off that tractor since I was in diapers. Bear stalked toward me, backlit by the rising sun he was dirty, sweaty and muddy to all hell but he was surrounded with a halo of light like he was an angel from hell. “Bethany messaged me. She arranged for you to be questioned by the sheriff at her office in Coral Pines. He wanted to do it tomorrow, but she managed to push him off for another forty eight hours because she wants to meet with you first and go over some things.”
“What kind of things?” I asked.
“Your story,” Bear said. “She wants to make sure you say the right thing and that you know how to answer his questions.”
“What right thing?” I asked, following him around to the side of the house where he unraveled the hose. “I killed my mom after she killed my dad. That’s all there is to it.”
He let out a frustrated sigh and held up the end of the hose with the nozzle, searching for the spigot.
I stomped over to where the hose bib was hidden by a thorny bush and turned on the water.
“When are you going to learn to stop questioning me and fucking listen? Your story,” he said, closing the distance between us, “will be whatever Bethany tells you it is.”
“When are you going to learn that I don’t like being told what to do?” I crossed my arms over my chest and Bear adjusted the nozzle, testing the spray in the grass.
His eyes burned with anger, a warning not to continue to argue with him. Fine. I won’t argue.
But that didn’t mean I was agreeing with him either.
“You said the sheriff isn’t in office until the afternoon?” he asked.
“Yeah not until two or three,” I said. “Buck might be around, but that’s it for Jessep, just the two of them.”
“Good. My bike’s not in the worst shape, but I need a couple of parts. We can make a quick run at first light and head back to Logan’s Beach.” My stomach chose that moment to let out an embarrassingly loud growl.
How long had it been since I’d eaten? Then I remembered, not since lunch with Grace and Ray.
“And we have to get you some food,” Bear added. My cheeks reddened.
“Wait, you want me to come back with you? Why?”
“You ask too many questions,” Bear growled, unbuckling his jeans he gave me no warning before pushing them down to the grass and stepping out of them. He turned the hose on himself, rinsing off the events of the night.
I turned around because I wasn’t sure what else to do or where else to look. “I ask, because I want to know,” I said with a huff, the image of Bear’s naked ass burned into my mind. My nipples hardened and something inside of me clenched. I didn’t need to go back to Logan’s Beach with him, I needed to check myself into a mental facility for teenagers who can’t keep their hormones in check. “Why did you come after me? Why did you want to make sure the MC didn’t kill me?” And because I couldn’t resist and because my mouth was running away with me, “And why did you kiss me?”
I waited for him to answer me but nothing. I heard the spray of the hose turn off and was about to turn around to see if he walked away when I felt his heat against my back. His wet heat.
His naked wet heat.
He pulled me up against him, his strong chest on my back and rock hard thighs against my ass. With one hand splayed under the hem of my shirt against my bare stomach he breathed in
to my ear, “Stop asking so many questions,” he said, the tip of his tongue barely making contact with my skin but sending a flush of wetness between my legs.
“Just answer me why,” I said. It came out as a whisper.
As a beg.
Bear chuckled and it vibrated against my neck. I leaned into him, my lower back coming into contact with his growing erection.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked, tracing the underside of my breast with his calloused thumb. “Do you really want to know why I kissed you? Why I kissed your sweet pussy? Do you want to know that I can still taste you on my tongue right now and I’m fucking salivating for more? Do you want to know that you were tight around my tongue and I imagined the entire time that it was my cock you were squeezing with your virgin cunt?” he asked, rocking against me.
“Yes,” I begged. “Yes, I want to know.”
“Because, I fucking wanted to,” he said and my stomach damn near flipped out of my body. He punctuated his words by nipping at my neck before pushing me forward and turning the hose on me.
The cold stream dousing the fire of lust that had started to build in my belly.
“Son of a bitch,” I screamed, running toward the spray of the water, intent on killing him and adding him to the bodies at the bottom of the pond.
He tossed me the hose and I caught it by the neck. “Clean up.”
“You could have just said that,” I spat.
“Now where would be the fun in that?” He bent down and picked up his jeans off the ground, shrugging them back on. I covered my eyes with my hands but couldn’t help peeking through my fingers to catch another glimpse of his round and tight ass.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware this was fun,” Bear said. “You can take your hand down now and stop pretending you weren’t looking.”
“I wasn’t looking!” I lied. Bear chuckled to himself disappearing back up the steps to the house as I finished hosing off, wishing that the water was colder.
Much, much colder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thia
“I can go into town my myself,” I said, climbing up into the driver’s seat of my dad’s old Ford.
Bear had grabbed me some dry clothes from the house, but couldn’t find the keys. After a few minutes of pulling wires out from under the steering wheel he managed to get it to start by twisting some wires together. “Just tell me what you need and I’ll get it.” I went to close the creaky door but Bear held out his hand and caught it.
“I’m not letting you go alone,” Bear said. “We got time before the MC figures out that Tank and Cash are not of this world anymore. Tank’s phone was busted but I sent a few texts from Cash’s to Chop before they went for their late night swim. Bought us some time.”
“Okay, so we have time. That means it’s safe. You don’t have to come with me,” I argued, again trying to pull the door shut and again he stopped me.
“You afraid to be seen with me or something? Afraid what the townsfolk are gonna think?” he teased.
“No, it’s not that.”
“Ah, so you think the big bad biker is going to scare the natives,” Bear said, stepping up into the truck. I had no choice but to scoot over to the passenger side to avoid being crushed underneath him.
The truth was that I couldn’t seem to think around him. A few minutes to myself might be able to clear some of the Bear induced haze that had been following me around, but there was no way in hell I was about to tell him that, so I came up with something that was still true, although a little less important on my scale of reasons for not taking him into town with me.
I threw my hands into the air, letting my frustration show. “I think you don’t seem to own a shirt and Emma May at the Stop-N-Shop is going to take one look at you and have heart attack number three.”
The corner of Bear’s mouth turned upward in a crooked smirk that made little lines appear at the corner of his eyes. He slowly leaned over me, closer and closer. I leaned away, plastering myself against the seat like I was trying to force myself to be one with it. “You think I’m hot, Ti?” His cool breath fluttered against my neck. “You jealous? Afraid I’m gonna make some little old lady’s panties just as wet as I make yours?”
“What…what are you doing?” I asked breathlessly when he reached across my lap.
“I drive kind of…wild,” Bear said, pulling the old lap belt across my waist and clicking it into the rusted buckle.
I breathed a sigh of relief and disappointment when he sat back up straight and started up the truck. He lifted up off the seat and pulled out something that had been hanging from the back of one of his pockets.
A shirt.
He pulled it over his head.
More like a tight black tank top.
If anything it did more to enhance the defined muscles of his chest and the ones on his stomach that trailed down to the V that pointed down into his low slung jeans. “See? You were wrong, I do own a shirt,” Bear said with a wink. With one long arm across the back of the bench seat, his fingers brushed my shoulder as he turned the truck around and headed down the driveway.
“Like that helps,” I muttered.
“Didn’t catch that,” Bear said, although I had a feeling he had.
“I’m perfectly capable of driving,” I said.
“I’m sure you are, but you’re with me right now, and as long as you’re with me, I drive.”
I turned my head toward my window and rolled my eyes.
I watched the orange grove pass us by as we made our way down the road and past the spot where Bear had raked over the dirt to erase any and all traces of the crash from the night before. Oranges were stacked high under the trees. The sickening sweet smell that had been permeating the air for weeks before THE NIGHT that changed everything had turned into something that smelled like takeout left in a refrigerator for a week too long.
“Why does it smell like something died out here?” Bear asked.
I shot him an obvious look. “Maybe because something did?” I replied sarcastically.
“Not what I meant, Ti. You know it. I mean, why are the oranges rotting?”
“When Sunnlandio pulled their contract it became pointless.”
“Why?” Bear asked, looking genuinely concerned. He lit a cigarette using the old push-in lighter on the dash. He rolled down the window and leaned out with his elbow on the ledge, his hair blowing in the breeze.
I shrugged and tried not to launch into the evils of the Sunnlandio Corporation. “Short story is that they discovered it was cheaper to import from Mexico.”
“But why let the oranges rot?”
“Harvesting costs a lot of money,” I explained. “And when you don’t have buyers lined up it becomes as much of a waste as the oranges to attempt a harvest. Chain supermarkets and big juice companies already have their own contracts or their own groves, or like Sunnlandio, they’ve switched over to importing. It’s cheaper to let them rot which sucks because it’s such a waste. Can’t even donate them because that still means that someone has to pick and deliver them.”
“You’ve been doing this all on your own?” Bear asked, taking a drag of his cigarette. I’d told him what had happened with the grove before but being face to face with thousands of rotting oranges made the situation even more real. Even more disturbing.
“Most of it. Dad had his hands full with Mom. I did what I could. Farms all across America are in the same boat. Whether it’s oranges or another crop. Letting it all rot right off the trees because they can’t afford to pick them. People are starving all around the country and I’m sitting in the middle of tons and tons of dead fruit.” I shook my head.
“How the fuck old are you again?” Bear asked suddenly. When he’d asked me previously I’d said seventeen but that was before Mr. Carson so nicely reminded me that I’d missed my birthday.
“Eighteen,” I said for the first time. Bear raised his eyebrows like the math didn’t compute. “I had a birthday, recently. VE
RY recently.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been doing all this shit on your own.” Bear ashed his cigarette out the window. “Where I come from most eighteen year olds can’t string two sentences together, especially the girls that hung around the club, and you’re out here running a fucking orange grove.”
I laughed. “You make it sound like an accomplishment. When in reality I haven’t accomplished anything. Just the opposite. Maybe if I knew more, did more, I could have saved it.” I sighed. “There isn’t anything impressive about that.”
“How have you been living? Your family?”
“I got a job at the Stop-N-Shop a few nights a week.”
“THE Stop-n-Shop?” Bear asked.
“Yeah, the very place that started it all,” I sang, staring out the window as we passed row after row of my failure.
“I also used to drive over to Corbin to clean motel rooms on the weekends,” I said. “After I paid the grove’s expenses it was