Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 79599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79599 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
When I came upon the wreckage I was positive it was a crash, an accident. I was sure that there were two dead bodies lying in the road who’d died on impact.
I was wrong.
I ran to the next man who was lying face up, with his head turned to the side, his eyes and mouth were wide open.
A bullet hole in his cheek.
I gasped. Standing up, I backed up into the grove from where I came, like for some reason I had to keep my eyes on the wreckage and the bodies or they would pop back up and come after me.
That’s when I realized that my panic that one of the bodies would be Bear was for no reason. Both the dead men were wearing Beach Bastard cuts.
They’d come for me.
Bear hadn’t.
I knew he wouldn’t, but I still couldn’t help but feel disappointed and afraid all at the same time.
There could be more of them on their way.
Slowly I backed up until the trees had almost swallowed me entirely. Crickets chirped all around me. Frogs croaked and the bug zapper on the front porch could be heard zapping all the way from the porch, which was a good half mile away. Further and further I stepped until I backed right up into something big and hard that definitely wasn’t a tree. Chills shot up my spine as a hand came around my waist and another covered my mouth, muffling my scream.
“Ti, stop, it’s me,” Bear growled in my ear as I struggled against him.
I stilled.
He had come for me.
Bear loosened his grip and I spun around in his arms. The moon was big and bright, acting like a spotlight right above our heads. He was shirtless and covered in dirt. His normally blond hair and beard were streaked with dark mud. His jeans were torn at the knee. “How busy is this road?” he asked suddenly.
“Not busy. There is one other farm, but it’s back up the other way. We stop on a dead end.”
“Anyone scheduled to come up this way? Mailman, deliveries of any kind. I need you to think.”
“No, nothing. Mail goes to the box in town and the grove has been out of business for a while.”
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
There were no hoses anywhere, no running water since the water company turned off the supply when we couldn’t pay the bill.
THUD. Bear spun around. “What the fuck was that?” he asked.
“Oranges. They sound like that when they fall from the trees,” I said. With his back turned to me I saw the source of the dripping.
It was coming from Bear.
Blood.
Streams of bright blood that appeared black under the light of the moon dripped from the back of his shoulder, merging onto his belt, then falling onto the soft ground. “You’re hurt,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
Bear turned back around, his eyes darkened and glowed like blue flames. “I don’t give a fuck about my shoulder, Ti. What I give a fuck about right now is you taking off when I told you it wasn’t safe.” Bear looked down at me like I’d crossed him in a way I didn’t understand. “Maybe you didn’t believe me when I said the MC would be coming for you.” He nodded to the bodies in the road. “You believe me now?” he asked, his nostrils flaring.
I took a step back and he took a step forward, not allowing me the distance I wanted to put between us. “Why did you come?”
“What the fuck did I just say? I came because you didn’t listen. I came because it’s not safe and if I hadn’t come you’d either be dead right now or wishing you were dead once they got through with you,” Bear said. And for the very first time, I was afraid of him. Not because I thought he would hurt me, but because I’d never seen him so angry.
“I don’t understand you,” I said.
“You don’t have to understand me,” he growled, and as if he was proving his point he crashed his lips over mine.
I wanted to push him away. I wanted to tell him no. But after thinking he could have been one of those dead men in the road, my body wouldn’t let me. My brain wanted to scream at him, punch him, but when his tongue ran along the seam of my mouth seeking entrance my traitorous lips opened for him, groaning when his tongue found mine, pressing myself up against his dirty body. He cupped his hands around my face and kissed me like he was screaming at me, punishing me for disobeying him, for being in his life, for not being in his life.
I took his punishment and gave it back to him, telling him all the things with our kiss that I didn’t understand myself. The coolness of his rings pressed against the skin of my back underneath the hem of my shirt.
Bear pulled back, breathing heavily, staring through me like he could see right into my soul. “You just have to fucking listen to me, but as much as I want to have a conversation with you right now where you tell me what a shit person I am and I tell you that you’re the most anger inducing girl I’d ever laid eyes on. And much as I want to keep my mouth on you, we have another couple of problems I’m gonna need you to help me take care of first before they become bigger problems.” Bear wrapped a muddied hand around my neck and closed the distance between us.
“What?” I asked, trembling under the weight of his stare, somehow forgetting about the dead men lying only feet away from us.
“You know how to sew?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“Not that odd seeing as I’m bleeding out,” Bear said, releasing me and grabbing onto his shoulder. “It’s clean through, just needs some putting back together.”
“Shit. Here,” I said, ripping off my shirt I stood up on my toes to press it to the back of his shoulder blade.