Bloodrunner Bear (Harper's Mountains Book 2) (6 page)

“You’re a complete slob,” Aaron muttered as he picked up a pile of Alana’s clothes and set them on the chair in the corner of her room.

Alana giggled and pulled another box out of her closet. “Your insults don’t sting me, Keller. My kitchen is clean. I just like to try on clothes in the morning.”

“And you don’t put them back on the hanger as you go?”

Alana ripped the tape off the box labeled
old shit
. Maybe it was in here. Yes! With a grin, she rifled through the rolled posters until she found the one she wanted. “Swear not to make fun of me,” she demanded as she waved the thin roll in the air teasingly.

“Oh God, is that the poster of me?”

“It totally is! And now you’re standing in my room.” She puffed air out of her cheeks and murmured low, “Aaron Keller is in my bedroom.”

He chuckled low in his throat and snatched the rolled glossy paper out of her hand. He pulled the rubber band off and tucked it in his pocket, the neat-freak, and then unrolled it. He let off a bellowing, single laugh and gave her the strangest look. “Are these lipstick marks?” He turned it around and pointed to his fourteen-year-old smiling lips, and sure enough, it was stained in her favorite and only lipstick color she had experimented with in middle school.

“Abort mission!” she yelped and ripped the poster out of his hands. Yep, she’d totally forgotten she used to make out with his poster.

Mortified, she started wadding up the poster, but he pulled it from her destructive grasp and shook his head. “Hell no, you don’t. We’re hanging this up.” He sauntered out the door, shoulders shaking with his laughter as he smoothed the wrinkles from the edges. “Where’s your tape.”

“I’m not hanging that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m really embarrassed now! Can we please just throw it away and pretend this never happened?” She lunged for the damning poster, but Aaron blurred it out of the way and held it too high for her to reach. Son of a mother-fluffin’ biscuit-eater.

She bounced around like an irate bunny, but she only successfully jiggled her boobs around and got a mere three inches off the carpet. Finally giving up, she crossed her arms and tried to look severe. “We’re
not
okay, Aaron.”

He smirked, spun on his heel, and started digging through her kitchen drawers. And damn it all, he found the tape in the second one. He probably smelled it with his super-sensitive bear schnoz, and now she couldn’t meet his eyes because he really was plastering the poster of himself onto the living room wall. Alana wanted to crawl under a rock and hide forever and ever.

Aaron stood back and admired his handy work. He was still laughing, the brute. “It wouldn’t have worked out with us, you know? I was a little shit when I was fourteen. Plus, I would’ve been prejudiced against your slobby ways.”

“Well, I’m prejudiced against all of your tattoos, Aaron Keller. I mean, did you have to cover up all your damned skin with…what are those? Skulls?” She strode off murmuring under her breath, “If my daddy knew I was hanging out with a tatted-up bad boy, he would have steam blowing out of his ears.”

“Oh, I’m a bad boy now?”

“Yes! And I’m a good girl.”

“No, you aren’t.”

She went to furiously scrubbing an already clean dish in the sink just to have something to do other than shoot mind lasers at Aaron. “Yes, I am. I read books, pay all my bills on time, and pick up my nieces from school on Fridays so Lissa can get a date night with Todd. I eat well, have a consistent and early bed time, say please and thank you—”

“Who says I don’t do that stuff?”

“You ride a bike that everyone hears when you coast down the street.” She jammed her finger at the faint holes in his ears. “Piercings for everyone to see, tattoos everywhere, a haircut that makes you look like a hellion, and eyes that glow like the freaking sun and let everyone know you have a monster grizzly bear just waiting to rip out of you. You’re a bad boy if I’ve ever seen one. Dangerous. Probably slept with a hundred groupies.”

“You’re so fuckin’ cute when you’re mad.”

Alana dropped the ceramic plate in the sink and spun around. “
And
you cuss.”

Aaron snorted. “You like when I cuss, and you like everything else. I can smell your arousal. Every time I touch you, you smell like pheromones. And if you’re such a good girl, if you’re so
perfect
, why does your room look like a tornado hit it?”

“Because I was trying on clothes for you!” With a gasp, she clapped her hands over her mouth and wished with everything she had she could gulp those words back down.

It was too late, though. They were out there, dangling between her and Aaron, and now his lips thinned into a straight line. He cast his attention to the open door of her bedroom, and when he looked back at her, his eyes were a muddy gold. “Explain.”

She swallowed hard and let her hands fall away from her face. This was where he would run, and there was no escaping his question.

“Alana,” Aaron said, angling his head in warning. “Just say it.”

“You ruined everything.”

Aaron locked his arms against the small kitchen table that stood between them, his triceps bulging as he trapped her in that inhuman gaze of his. He froze there, like a predator about to pounce on an unsuspecting prey, and chills blasted up her arms.

Be brave. Don’t let him see you weak.

“I had a plan, and I was excited about letting the lease to my coffee shop and apartment go. I promised Lissa I would try a few more dates with guys in the area, just so she would feel like I tried my hardest, and then she was willing to let me move wherever I wanted, no complaints, just support. And that’s a really big deal to me. Trey was my last date, and then I could’ve moved on guilt-free. But the whole damned time, I was comparing him to you and staring at the firehouse, hoping I would see a glimpse of you. I was more excited about you stopping by for coffee this morning than I have been about anything in a really long time. I mean, I couldn’t sleep last night. I think you almost kissed me, and I kept replaying that moment over and over. My chest wouldn’t stop fluttering, and I couldn’t get comfortable. So I woke up early, before my alarm, and wanted to pick out something cute to wear today. For you.” Alana wrapped her arms around her middle to ward off some of the vulnerability she felt under his disconcerting gaze. “I know it’s stupid because we just met, but you have to remember…” Alana gestured to the poster on the wall. “I kind of watched you grow up. And then I got to meet you, and you’re better than I imagined. And I don’t hate your tattoos and piercings. I actually really, really like them. Not on anyone else, but on you, they’re so…perfect.”

“Alana,” he drawled out, warning in his voice.

“I know. It’s okay. I get it. Let’s just forget this conversation and hang out until I go. Best buds and all. I swear I won’t fangirl out on you anymore.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like this doesn’t change things. It’s not like I don’t find you attractive—”

“Do you?”

“Fuck yes, Alana.” He gestured to his crotch, where indeed he had a giant erection. “It’s bonerville central every time I’m around you, but I’m not meant to pair up. Especially not now.”

“Why?”

“Because of my job. Because I don’t have control of my animal like I should. Because I have the King of the Asheville Coven trying to kill me. Because I’m trying to find my place in a new crew. Because I won’t be any good at being a mate. Because my life is fucking complicated, and I don’t want you to get hurt by it!”

“Sounds like a lot of excuses that will keep you good and lonely for the rest of your life. I understand, though. Really. You aren’t ready, and for me, I’m in a different place.” She offered him a sad smile. “Our timing is off.”
The story of my life.

Aaron let off a low growl that filled the room and lifted the fine hairs on her arms. Right before he stole his gaze from her, his eyes turned frosty. He strode into her bedroom, and when she padded in behind him to see what he was doing, Aaron was putting her shirts onto the hangers that were scattered all over her bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning up because this is my fault.”

Baffled, she asked, “The clothes?”

“Yeah, the clothes, the feelings, the almost-kiss, all of it. I fucked up.”

Alana sucked in air at the pain of those last three words. “That’s mean, Aaron.”

“I can’t do this! You smell sad, and my bear…I want to… Dammit, Alana, I told you we had to be friends. Just friends.”

“Caw!” Outside the window, a big black raven sat in the small tree in her landscaping.

Alana startled hard, but Aaron snarled and yanked the curtain over the window pane. “Fuck off, Wes!”

“Who’s Wes?”

“No one.”

“Is that a shifter out there?” she asked, jamming her finger at the swishing curtain. He looked like the one in the tree last night. “Why is he looking through my window?”

No answer.

“Is he in your crew?”

Aaron went back to hanging shirts like she didn’t exist, so she shoved him hard in the arm. “I’m not just some groupie you can ignore, Aaron. That shit doesn’t fly with me. Lock up when you leave.” She left her bedroom and grabbed her purse off the table by the door. Asshole could have all the silence he wanted in here. She was out on this.

The doorknob was cold in her hand as she yanked on it, but in an instant, the door slammed closed and Aaron’s giant hand was splayed against the wood. “You think this is easy for me, and it’s not.” Alana tried to face him but Aaron held her in place and murmured, “No, just let me say this.”

“Okay,” she whispered, rocked by the rawness in his voice.

“I feel good around you. My animal settles when you touch me, and I haven’t been able to think about anything else since I met you. And that scares the shit out of me, Alana. There is a hundred percent chance of my life hurting you.
Hurting
you, do you understand?”

No. “Yes.”

Aaron wrapped his arm around her middle and rested his forehead against her neck. He inhaled deeply and let off a long breath. “I don’t like you mad. Don’t like you upset, but I can’t help this awful feeling in my gut that I’m going to be the one to hurt you.”

“Then don’t. Just…don’t, Aaron. I’ll go easy on you. I’ll keep my expectations low, and we can just see how this goes.”

He huffed a humorless laugh. “Woman, you don’t understand. That’s not how it works for shifters. There’s no
seeing how this goes
. There’s choosing a mate, or not choosing. You. Feel. Dangerous.”

She rolled her eyes closed because, damn, it felt so good to hear him say something real. She didn’t know about shifter instincts, or the ins and outs of his culture or nature, but she understood what he’d just said. His animal was either in or out on a mate, and she felt big to him.

She understood that feeling. Even with her dull human instincts, Aaron Keller had taken up most of the space in her heart in a matter of days.

Slowly, Alana turned in his arms. She dared a look up at him, but his eyes were averted. There was a soft rumbling sound in his chest, so she pressed her palm there. “Look at me.”

Aaron grimaced, but let her see him. Green-gold eyes in a man’s face would’ve been terrifying before she met Aaron. Now, they were just beautiful. She cupped his cheek, her palm resting on the short blond scruff there. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

He looked at the scar on her lip, but just as she grew self-conscious, she noticed a difference in his growl. It was softer. Content sounding, somehow. Maybe he wasn’t looking at her scar like everyone else did. Maybe he only saw her lips.

Aaron dragged her waist against his and lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss was gentle, moving against hers easily. He seemed calm and steady, but inside of her, a fire had started in her middle and was expanding cell-by-cell outward. She slid her arms around his neck and parted her lips slightly for him. When Aaron brushed his tongue against hers, he tasted divine.

Suddenly, everything felt right and warm. Aaron pulled her purse off her shoulder and eased them backward toward the couch. The second the backs of his knees hit the edge, he lowered them down, holding her legs apart so she straddled his lap. Angling his head the other way, he pushed his tongue farther into her mouth, drawing a small gasp of happiness from her.

In an instant, he disconnected with a soft smack. “Are you okay?” he murmured in that deep velvet voice of his.

She smiled and nipped him. Easing back, she admitted in a shaky voice, “I’m better than okay. That was amazing.”

Aaron donned a proud rooster grin. Cocky man. She hated that on anyone else, but on Aaron, there was something so sexy about it. He should be confident. He was the most stunning man she’d ever seen in her life. Feeling daring, she slipped her fingertips under the hem of his navy fire shirt and brushed his skin right over his hip.

Aaron closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a soft moan. God, she loved his reaction to her touch. Leaning forward, Aaron tugged his shirt off in one smooth motion, then pulled her hands toward him until her palms rested on his chest.