Bebe (21 page)

“Eat. It’s not as bad as it looks.” He tried to smile, flashing her a glimpse of straight, white teeth. “Believe me, I’ve had backyard barbecue that tasted much worse than this. The kill’s fresh, too. So trust me, enjoy it while you can.”

Bebe held the cooked flesh in her hand, intensely uncomfortable, aching now and utterly repulsed. It was the first time she’d ever been given food that hadn’t come from a pantry cupboard or been served on a plate. Company notwithstanding, she didn’t think she could eat this.

“Try it,” Ben urged, sitting down beside her again. Leading by example, he took a healthy bite of his own share, which caused pink meat-juice to dribble into his beard. He rubbed it away with the back of one hand, chewing hungrily. So did everyone else, everyone but Will (who she couldn’t see) staring back at her as they ate.

Hesitantly, she tried a small bite. She didn’t like the smell of it or the fibrous consistency, but the flavor was, as Ben had promised, not bad. Still, what she knew of her fate left her tense and wary, and that made for a very awkwardly shared meal. Afterward, the hot meat sat in the pit of her stomach, a heavy indigestible lump.

“Think that big guy’ll come looking for her?” Greg broke the silence to ask.

Ben shook his head. “Not tonight. We’ll move in the morning, though. If we time it between storms, he’ll have a hell of a time trying to track us.”

“Where?” the old man grunted, yawning into his fist.

“The south ridge,” Ben said, after quiet consideration. “I saw some ground openings there that look promising. Not as big as this, but maybe smaller will hold the heat better than here.”

“I’ll watch the door,” Greg offered.

“Don’t bother,” Matt snorted. “He ain’t breaking out of those knots tonight.”

“He’s right.” Ben also stifled a yawn. “It’s late. We’re going to have a busy day tomorrow, so get some sleep while you can.”

Bebe came awake with a start when he touched her thigh. Although she’d heard what they’d said, she hadn’t realized she’d started to drowse or that her head was nodding.

“Bed down next to me,” he told her, bringing Will right out of the back shadows with a squawk of protest. He glared the younger man into silence. “That way I can make sure you’re not bothered.”

Bebe didn’t want to, but this was one silent argument Ben had no intention of losing.

There weren’t any beds. Just thick layers of hide mats laid out over the hard ground, just like at the Awful Place (although the mats there hadn’t been furry) before she went to live with Sir and Ma’am. Bebe lay down where he told her to; she was just too tired to keep resisting, although she did stiffen when Ben lowered himself behind her to share the mat. He spread his fur blanket over them both, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her back into the cradle of his hard body.

“There,” he murmured into her hair. “That’s not so bad, is it?”

His closeness effectively killed her need to sleep. She lay awake, staring into the fire long after all other movement stilled. For the longest time, nobody slept. There was a lot of deep breathing that resonated throughout the cave, but no snores.

Ben’s exhales warmed the back of her neck, even and slow. Eventually his arm around her waist began to shift in her mind from an unwelcome weight to a grounding comfort. The furs were unpleasant to touch but warm, and her stomach gradually settled, accepting the food it had been given. As her body relaxed, a myriad of minor aches and pains pushed its way to the forefront of her awareness. Eventually even that eased, and at last Bebe grew sleepy once more.

Until the long length of Ben shifted slightly behind her, his arm tightened a shade, drawing her faintly closer. He wasn’t breathing air so much as he seemed to be breathing her in, his face turning to bury itself in her hair.

His hand moved across her stomach, petting her, caressing comforting circles that ended when his fingers skimmed across the front folds of Tral’s coat. They hesitated only a moment and then stole their way inside.

His skin against hers felt warm and rough as his large hand spanned the width of her narrow waist. His hips moved closer, a hard bulge settling against her buttocks and pressing there. Ben inclined his head, burying his face deeper, breathing in her scent.

Frozen in his embrace, Bebe stared across the cave into the fire. Beyond it, it wasn’t difficult to make out the shadows of the other three men. Matt lay on his back, hands folded behind his head, staring unblinkingly up at the shadow-black creatures crawling and squabbling for space along the cracks and crevices in the high ceiling. Will lay on his side, staring just as unblinkingly straight back at her. Greg had his back to everyone, and Ben moved his hand again, softly touching, stroking the bare, flinching skin of her belly in circles. Caressing, aimless, endless circles.

Bebe trembled, but didn’t move. Not even when his fingers moved up over her ribs, the tips barely skimming the underside of her left breast. She closed her eyes then, turning her face into her pillowing arm. This didn’t feel right. She trembled, unsure what to do. He wasn’t Sir, and so she didn’t want to assume the position for him. But if she didn’t cooperate, would it be like in the Awful Place when the guards had pulled her from her cell and dragged her into the dark?

As the gentle circles continued their laps, bare skin to hot bare skin, encompassing greater territories of unexplored flesh, she began to realize that this just didn’t feel the same. Not like Sir, and certainly not like the night the guards had pressed her squirming body to the floor and pried her legs apart. For all his scary words, Ben hadn’t tried to hurt her, and the soft hesitance of his caresses, his gentleness, was slowly bringing to life a tiny, unfamiliar spark of wanting deep in the pit of her stomach just under his hand.

Her breath caught in the back of her throat as he followed the curve of her breast, molding it to fit the cup of his palm. The rasp of his calloused fingers caused her nipples to peak and tighten. Every touch, even the inadvertent brush of her clothes as she breathed, amplified this sudden and strange sensitivity all over her. Sensation, like thin, invisible strings, responded to his hand and tugged into her, traveling from the tips of her breasts all the way down into her womb and lower still, until she could feel it, that warming wanting, pooling between her legs.

Ben swallowed hard, his hips rocking ever so slightly into hers, rubbing that prominent bulge into the valley between her buttocks. His breathing was still slow but somewhat uneven now. The brush of his lips caressed her nape, the heat of his sighing exhale leaving her flesh tingling as he squeezed her breast gently once and then abandoned it. Fingers trailing lightly back down over her tightening stomach, he found the fur-trimmed waist of her borrowed pants. He slipped them under the gut-thong cord, the heat of his open palm branding her lower belly as he caressed a fiery path down her abdomen.

Thick masculine fingers wandered down over her mons, combing open the sensitive folds, seeking the wet heat centered within. Bebe drew a shaky breath, but her tentative cringe (she hadn’t been to the groomer all week; she knew she wasn’t as smooth as she was supposed to be) only shrank her deeper into his embrace. His mouth brushed the slope of her shoulder, branding her with feather-light kisses as he cupped her there, holding her in the heat of his hand. He swallowed again, hard, the tip of one finger sweeping along the silken seam, making her legs shiver before dipping into the luxurious heat of her body. A jolt of unexpected, unfamiliar sensation rocked her hips as his thumb searched for and found the tiny nub of pleasure hidden there, and Bebe caught her breath, choking back an involuntary cry.

Ben stopped. She could feel him trembling at her back, and yet he went no further.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and his hand withdrew from her and from between her legs. The absence of his touch left behind a waking ache, but he only pulled her coat closed again anyway. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s okay. Go to sleep.”

Raw need, low and throbbing, pulsed deep inside her. She opened her eyes, staring glazed and confused into the fire. Greg still had his back to them. So did Matt now as well. She found Will staring at her though. His hot and hungry eyes held her every bit as pinned as Ben’s arm around her waist. In the dim glow of the banked fire, she could see the front of his blanket moving slightly, as if he were rubbing his stomach, short, shallow up and down motions.

“Close your eyes,” Ben told her, caressing her hair back from her face. She could smell herself on his fingers. “I promise, nobody’s going to force you. Not even me. Close your eyes.”

So Bebe did. She shut out the cave, the fire and Will’s hungry stare. The restless wanting inside her refusing to be ignored as easily.

“Go to sleep,” Ben whispered, laying one last caressing kiss to the nape of her neck before he settled himself to simply hold her.

Eventually, she did.

CHAPTER TEN

The Sickness Returns

The hide across the entrance of the cave didn’t entirely block the dawning daylight, but it did keep the cavern washed in shadow dark enough for Bebe to oversleep. It took Ben’s hand on her shoulder gently shaking her awake before her eyelids fluttered open.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said and smiled at her. “We’ve got a long and busy day ahead of us. Best get to it.”

Groaning, already exhausted, Bebe closed her eyes again and tried to go back to sleep. Ben continued to shake her shoulder until, finally, reluctantly, she shrugged his hand away and rolled into a sitting position.

She felt awful: a little nauseated, a little sweaty, stiff and sore all the way into her joints. Both feet were swollen and throbbed horribly, and that was before she put any weight on them. Ignoring Ben’s open hand, she crawled to the nearest wall and gripped the rocks. It took three attempts before she could heave herself upright, and the instant she managed it, the pressure of standing very quickly became a crippling agony.

“You okay?” Ben asked, his half-amused smile fading somewhat as she limped a few steps along the cave wall.

Bebe nodded.

He didn’t look like he believed her, but he didn’t press the issue either. “Would you like to visit our spacious, five-star luxury bathroom?”

Leaning heavily against the rocks, she took another limping step towards the hide-covered door. Sighing, not feeling very well at all, Bebe nodded again.

“Want me to carry you?”

Every step was pure torture, sending shocks of burning pain radiating up through the soles of her feet and into the muscles and bones of her legs. To be carried would have been a blessing, and yet Bebe shook her head and struggled toward the rock entrance on her own.

“We’ll change those bandages when we get back then,” Ben said, motioning to Matt.

“I can take her,” Will said, and stood up from where he’d been warming his hands by the fire.

“You can get breakfast started,” the old man told him. Collecting two spears from the pile leaning against the rocks by the entry, Matt handed one to Ben as he walked past them. He glanced at Bebe, and then at her feet, only to avert his attention to whatever he could see once he peeled the hide back from the wall and looked outside.

“Looks clear,” Matt grunted as Ben hunkered down next to him to peek out the other side. “Wolves helped themselves to dinner, though. We should have buried it when we had the chance. We’ll need to hunt again.”

“We can worry about it once we’re moved. Right now, all I want to do is get out of here before that big fucker chews himself free.” Ben patted his shoulder, then glanced back over his shoulder at Bebe. “Stay with me, honey.”

Bebe hobbled slowly towards him, her legs already shaking. She hoped the bathroom wasn’t far.

The humans’ cave was embedded in the hillside in the basin of a shallow valley. Ben and Matt ventured outside first, their dark eyes constantly scanning beyond the sparse curtain of trees to the far snow- and rock-covered ridges that surrounded them on all sides. When he was satisfied that they were alone, Ben reached back through the hide and motioned for Bebe to follow.

“No sense taking her all the way out to the pits,” Matt said, as Bebe, step after painful step, joined them. “Won’t hurt anything if she pees right here since we’re not staying.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Ben agreed, glancing back over his shoulder once to make sure neither Will or Greg were watching them from behind the flap. “I just want to get far enough to avoid any prying eyes.”

They circled around the side of the cave, following the curving hillside until Ben felt sure they would not be spied upon. Ducking to see through the trees, with one last sweeping glance up at the surrounding ridges of eroded rock, he then spread his arms and gestured with his spear at the few trees and nearly leaf-barren bushes close by.

“Pick your stall, honey,” he told her. “The plumbing’s for shit, but the view’s damn near unbeatable.”

Bebe spent nearly a full minute silently regretting that she’d ever thought anything ill of Tral’s tiny bathroom back at the station house. Shoulders sagging, she hobbled to the nearest tree. It provided more substantial support as she struggled to squat low enough to avoid urinating on her clothes, but not so low that she dipped her fanny in the ice and snow. It also provided a shield between herself and the two humans. Now and then, as she went about the business of undressing, relieving, and re-dressing herself, she stole suspicious glimpses around the trunk at them. While she never found them actually, deliberately staring at her, their eyes were never still. They scanned the landscape continuously.

After that, it was meat again for breakfast before the men broke camp. With militant precision, Matt organized the younger men to pack everything that might immediately be needed once they reached their new wintering den, and those items were rolled into bundles to be carried via rope straps upon their backs. The largest and strongest among them, Ben heaved the wolf-ravaged remains of their previous kill onto his shoulders. The only thing Bebe was expected to carry was herself.