BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (91 page)

The truth was she would have liked to ask Bruce if it was something he’d like to do. Maybe they could have gotten a group together. She knew Bruce spent a lot of time alone in the mountains and the chances were that he knew all the hiking trails. But after his question, his reaction, she wasn’t going to ask him.

“Can I ask you something?” Bruce asked.

Jenna nodded slowly, but she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it.

“Why Drew?”

Jenna sighed. There it was. The thing that kept ruining the good times between them.

“Why are you doing this, Bruce?” she asked.

“What am I doing? I just want to talk to you, the way we used to.”

“We never used to talk this way,” Jenna said. “You’ve never questioned my life and my choices the way you are now.”

Bruce shrugged. “I just want to make sure you’re happy,” he said.

Jenna shook her head. She was getting angry again, and she hated it. This was the second time in two days she was getting upset with Bruce, and she didn’t like it. It was like there was another side to him, and in five years she hadn’t seen it. Now suddenly she saw it all the time.

“You’re not checking up on me, making sure I’m okay, or happy… I don’t know what’s going on but you’re being weird. You’re acting like a scorned lover. An ex or something. What is going on with you? You’re never like this.”

Bruce shrugged again but didn’t answer her this time.

“Of all the people I’d known my whole life, the people that had their nose in my business since day one, you were the most down to earth.”

“Were?” Bruce asked. Jenna nodded.

“Exactly. Were. Since a week ago… no, actually more. Since you’ve met Tara you’re just different. You’re worse than the rest of them. Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

Bruce turned his head away from her, looking at the headstones. She waited for him to answer, but he never did. The atmosphere around them was thick and it kept building like it was going to crack open and something heavy was going to gush out. But it didn’t happen. It just hung between them, thick enough for her to touch with her fingers.

Finally Bruce turned back to her and inhaled to speak. Finally something was going to happen.

“I have to get going,” he said. “I’ll see you later, okay?” He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. It was something he’d done before, something that gave her butterflies usually. But this time it felt like a rebuff. A way for him to push her away without being completely rude. He turned around and walked into the trees, leaving her behind feeling like the wind had been sucked right out of her.

Only after he’d disappeared did she realize she would have to walk through the woods alone. She should have hurried after him when she’d had the chance. But now, she would brave it. She was independent and strong, and her mind was just playing tricks on her because she believed herself to be alone.

With Bruce gone, she was more alone than ever.

Chapter 5

“What the hell was that?” Bruce had Stephen up against the cliff that formed a backdrop behind the plateau. The rock was jagged and Stephen winced as Bruce pushed his back against it. He had his fingers wrapped around Stephen’s neck and he wanted to just squeeze until Stephen passed out.

“Please, don’t do this,” Rosa pleaded behind Bruce. She had her hands on Bruce’s arm, the one that held Stephen, but she was like a fly. He could just swat her away if he wanted to.

He didn’t squeeze. Instead he let go. Rosa rushed to her husband and threw herself into his arms, whimpering. Bruce was stronger than Stephen, higher up in the pack, and because he was a bear and Stephen was a wolf, he would win without much of a fight.

He was furious.

“I was just checking up on the village,” Stephen said in a hoarse voice, rubbing his throat where Bruce had grabbed him. His other arm was wrapped around Rosa, and it was difficult to tell who was consoling who. Rosa looked more shaken than Stephen was.

“We had a deal. The Family would leave the village alone as long as I didn’t say anything about us, about what we are. Why the hell were you down there stalking her?”

Rosa turned to him and her eyes glowed with the power of the animal inside of her. Raw emotion did that to them, the more they felt the harder it was to hide the animal.

“It was Tara. She asked him to check up. It’s not Stephen’s fault.”

Stephen looked at his wife disapprovingly, like he hadn’t wanted her to say something about it.

“What?” Bruce asked, narrowing his eyes at Rosa.

“Tara,” she said and she sounded like she was about to cry. “She ordered us to check on the village now and then.”

Bruce let out a growl from deep in his throat and turned his back on the pair of werewolves. Of course. Tara wasn’t to be trusted, why had he ever thought he could believe her?

Jenna had been at the cemetery to visit her parents’ grave. Bruce had gone after her and in the woods he’d found Stephen in wolf form, watching her. He’d shifted without thinking and attacked Stephen. Jenna was under his protection and there would be hell to pay if something happened to her.

He’d taken care of Stephen who had only put up half a fight before he’d turned and ran. Bruce had watched Jenna through the trees and she’d seen something. Her face had been white and he could smell her fear all the way to where he’d been standing. So he’d changed back, and gone out there so that she wouldn’t think something was wrong.

And she’d almost not believed him.

It was too close. Tara was sabotaging his cover by interfering. He was going to have to have a word with her. Just as he thought it, Tara appeared. She looked like a vision. It was as if she’d become even more graceful, and Bruce wondered if it was his power that had done that. In the five years he’d known her he hadn’t seen her like this.

Her hair was almost a blue-black now, compared to the ebony it was before, and her eyes were the color of ice. The pupils were normal, though, and besides her pointed teeth and menacing smile she almost looked human.

Almost.

It was impossible to miss the power that bled onto the plateau when she appeared, the heat that came with her.

“What’s this I hear?” she said like a mother that wanted to find out which of the children had started the fight.

“You can’t send them down to the village,” Bruce said. Tara laughed and it danced around him, touched his skin like butterfly kisses. He shuddered.

“Of course I can. It’s my job to keep an eye on things, to make sure the village is oblivious and where they belong.”

“But they were fine. Stephen was almost seen.”

Tara shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. And Bruce knew why. If Stephen had been seen, the human would have been killed. Easy. Problem solved, end of story.

But this was Jenna they were talking about. She wasn’t just some inconsequential human. It was Jenna.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that you’re doing this to drive me away from Williamsburg, out of your territory, on purpose,” he said. He watched her. She paced around him and her steps reminded him of her slinking about when she was a leopard. She moved like water, with a fluid grace created by muscles that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, not in a human body.

When she finally stopped she was in front of him, and her eyes were narrow, her pupils threatening to thin into slits, her eyes white.

“And if I didn’t know better, I would have thought you had feelings for that human.” Her voice was low, almost like a purr, and Bruce realized what it was about.

This wasn’t about watching the villagers, making sure that their cover was still in place. This was about Jenna, about the fact that Tara had smelled her on him that night she’d come down to the village over a week ago. This was one-on-one, jealousy. It was personal.

And it wasn’t that much different from what he felt towards Drew.

Except it wasn’t for the same reason. Tara wanted Bruce’s power, and if he wanted to be with someone else Tara would lose it. Bruce wanted Jenna as a person. They had different motivations, but it came down to the same thing – jealousy and the damage it could do.

“Stay away from them,” he said to Tara. “If you blow our cover because you can’t keep control of your own selfishness, this isn’t going to end with me leaving.”

Stephen and Rose both gasped. Bruce wasn’t supposed to talk to Tara that way. Any alpha had to be respected, but Tara didn’t do respect. She did fear.

But Bruce had had enough. Tara wanted him to be her mate, so she was going to get the full blow. He wasn’t going to be her pet.

Tara didn’t see it as a threat. She didn’t see his behavior as something that needed to be punished. Instead, now that he stood in front of her, ready to fight, she laughed as if it was a joke. Again her laughter danced around Bruce, and goose bumps crawled up his arms.

She stepped closer to him, and her power surrounded him instead of pushing against him – holding him there, holding him close, instead of forcing him away. It was different than usual, and he was suspicious. She was unpredictable. She was crazy. Bruce wondered how he’d never seen this side of her before, why he’d agreed to fall under her protection in the pack, never mind as her mate.

“Bruce, come now. We’re not like them. They don’t matter. When are you going to realize that? You can’t keep trying to be human when you’re just not, honey.”

Her face was so close to his he could smell her, and she smelled of animal. He tried to turn his head away, but she held him there. She was getting stronger and stronger, and somehow he didn’t believe it was all him. He didn’t feel weak or drained.

She inched her face closer, and it didn’t matter how hard he fought it, he couldn’t move. Whatever she was doing, it was powerful.

She was smiling, and Bruce was aware of her teeth, pointed and dangerous, and coming closer and closer. Her eyes were on his, but he refused to look away. He wasn’t going to submit, not now. He wanted her to know that he didn’t agree, that he was against her.

He was aware of Stephen and Rosa somewhere behind him, but he knew that they wouldn’t help him. They were too scared of Tara. And he didn’t blame them. She was being pretty damn scary, even to him.

When her face was just an inch away, she slid her eyes down to his lips. Then she placed her lips on his, and kissed him. It was a wet kiss, no tongue, but her mouth was over his, and she claimed him. He could feel it. She pulled him in as her mate, and he kissed her back. Not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t help it. The power was addictive. Magnetic.

When she finally let him go, he almost stumbled before he found his own balance again. She stepped back, smiled like she was satisfied, and walked away. When she’d disappeared into the trees, and Stephen and Rosa had filtered away to leave him alone on the plateau, he realized how much trouble he was in.

He couldn’t get away from her, not just because of her strength and her wrath, but because she had the power to make him want her. If she kept doing that, if she kept it up permanently, he would fall for her and choose to be her pet, her power source. He shook his head.

He had to get out of it. Somehow he had to beat her.

He was out hunting the whole night. He stayed out longer than he usually did. He couldn’t shake the feeling of Tara and her power. It felt like she was on his skin all the time, her fingers touching him even when she wasn’t around.

He could feel her lips on his, and the desire to please her, to make her his, that he didn’t really want. When he was in bear form he couldn’t feel it. So he stayed a bear for as long as he could. By the time the sun came up he was still a bear, and reluctant to shift back to a man. But he had to change back to human form if he wanted to retain humanity. He didn’t want to risk becoming more animal than man because of the amount of time he spent as a bear.

He didn’t want to become like Tara in any way.

Finally, when he felt he couldn’t wait any longer, he shifted. It was well into the morning, the sun was above the ridge and it cast a golden glow on the valley below and the trees around him. Bruce made his way through the trees, moving slowly.

He didn’t want to go back down to the village. He wanted to stay in his own cocoon for as long as he could. He walked through the trees until he found an old trail that wound its way down the mountain in a very long route. If he walked it, it would take him a good hour to get back to the village. That was what he needed.

He’d walked ten minutes when he heard voices. A man and a woman, and the conversation was strained. He could hear it in the tones of the voices, the man’s whiny, the woman’s forced calm. He ducked behind a tree, and a moment later their scent reached him on the wind. It was Jenna. He knew her smell. Jenna, and Drew.

He sighed. He just wanted to be alone now. He didn’t want to deal with her pleasing another man now. He didn’t want to deal with anything right now.

Their voices floated to him, and he could hear more of their conversation.

“You were the one that wanted to come for a hike up here,” Jenna said. “We can’t turn back now. It hasn’t even been half an hour.”

“It feels like it’s been hours. I just wanted to spend time with you. Why don’t we sit down, take a break, and then head down and have breakfast at the café?”

Bruce heard Jenna sigh.

“Fine,” Drew said again. Bruce could see them now. They didn’t look very upset but he knew Jenna, knew her body language, and she was annoyed. Drew didn’t share her passion for nature and the outdoors. “But I can’t keep going. Why don’t you head on up, and I’m going to rest here, and then when you come back down I’ll walk the last bit with you?”

Jenna chuckled without emotion.

“You’re going to let me hike alone after you wanted to come up here with me? Doesn’t that sound wrong to you?”

“I know. I’m terrible for saying it. But I can’t keep going. I’m not fit like you are.”

There was silence for a moment, but Bruce could imagine Jenna rolling her eyes, and he smiled to himself. Drew was no match for her.

A moment later, he saw Jenna walk by herself. Drew had sat down on a fallen log, and he seemed set on waiting there until she came back. Bruce watched Jenna as she followed the trail. She was beautiful. The morning light brought out the copper in her hair and it was like she glowed. Her cheeks were flush with the exercise and her eyes were the color of the leaves around her, alive and evergreen.

She stopped, and it was like she was listening. Or feeling. Or something, because she looked around her, like she was searching for something. Bruce held very still, and didn’t dare to breathe. He paid attention to what he felt around him, what it was she could have noticed. And he was aware of the atmosphere. It was loaded with her essence. And his. He was aware of how much space he took up as a person. Not just his body, but who he was in total.

Jenna looked around her, and suddenly she looked up. He stood a couple of feet above her, hidden mostly behind a tree, but somehow she still saw him. Her eyes met his, and a jolt traveled through his body. The shock of her seeing him filled him about as quickly as her eyes filled with anger.

She glanced back to where Drew was sitting with his head in his hands, and then she scrambled up against the rise toward Bruce, away from the trail.

He held out his hand when she was almost at the top and she grabbed it, letting him hoist her up the last bit.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed in low tones.

“I was out for a walk,” he said. “Usually no one uses this trail.”

Close enough to the truth. But she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head.

“I don’t believe you. You’ve been following me around since I’ve started seeing Drew. Why don’t you just leave me alone?” She took a deep, shaky breath and he could feel her own contradiction, her words that didn’t portray all her feelings. “I’ve seen you more the last two weeks than I’ve seen you in the entire five years we’ve been friends.”

“I wasn’t following you, I swear,” Bruce said, lifting his hands. Jenna glanced toward where Drew was sitting. From this vantage point she could see everything well, he knew it. She wasn’t going to buy it that he’d just been in the area.