Fuck it.
She closed the distance between them, fast and a little reckless, crashing her mouth to his.
It was a mistake. She knew it the moment her lips touched his and her whole body lit up like a firework. But she didn’t care.
She half-expected him to hesitate, to freeze, to do anything but kiss her back—but Bear’s response was instant and overwhelming. His hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, pulling her in with just enough force to make her dizzy, and his mouth took hers like he’d been waiting for permission to devour her.
He tasted like coffee and spearmint and something she’d never be able to explain, and when his other arm cinched around her waist to reposition her over the growing ridge in his jeans, she gasped into his mouth.
Yep. Hewasbig everywhere.
She rocked on him, and the growl that rumbled out of him instantly soaked her panties. His hands spanned her waist, his thumbs pressed under her ribs, fingers digging in when she rolled her hips again.
“Fuuuck,” he groaned.
She laughed. “That’s exactly what I want from you, Grizzly Bear.”
Bear’s eyes burned into hers, wild and hungry, and she didn’t have it in her to slow things down. His mouth came down on hers with bruising heat, and she clung to his shoulders, fingers curled in the soft stretch of his Henley. All the grief in her had melded into something closer to fury, a need to be consumed, to be pinned down and held.
He hauled her in, hard, one hand fisting her ponytail and the other still clamped tight on her hip. The hand in her hair angled her face so he could devour her deeper, his tongue rolling against hers. She ground against the thick bulge straining his fly, and got another low rumble out of his chest.
He wanted her as much as she wanted him, and fuck if that didn’t make her even wetter.
King took that opportunity to shove his head between them and slather the sides of their faces with his tongue.
“Ugh, King!” they groaned in unison.
“Sorry,” Bear added. “He doesn’t have any manners.”
She looked at the two dogs in the backseat. “This isn’t going to work.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but she silenced him with another kiss. When he tried to return the kiss, she pulled back and pressed a finger to his lips. “Hold that thought.”
She climbed back into the driver’s seat and started the Jeep. Maybe this was a terrible idea, but she had run out of good ideas a long time ago.
“Where are we going?” he asked, and she felt that low rumble of his voice deep in her belly.
“Summit Outfitters. I have a cot in the back room. It’s not much, but?—”
“Better than this.”
“Yeah.” She shot him a sideways glance. “Don’t you dare change your mind.”
“I won’t,” he growled. “Drive, Tink.”
six
Bear’s hand found her thigh two miles from town. His palm was wide and heavy, half on the inside of her thigh.
And then he flipped open the button on her pants.
Everything north of her navel went white-hot and static. He didn’t even bother with the zipper, just worked his hand inside her waistband, knuckles dragging rough along the skin above her hip. Her foot slipped on the gas and the Jeep surged forward. She righted it with a curse, and then his fingers were sliding beneath the waistband of her boyshorts, until two of them—blunt, callused, impossibly gentle for the size of them—pressed against the heat of her.
Her body went traitorously, humiliatingly, molten for him. She was soaked and as he dragged his finger through the dampness, he made a low sound—barely a noise, really, more of a seismic event somewhere in the world’s core.
Her hands locked on the wheel at ten and two. “Bear, I’m driving,” she hissed, but it came out just above a gasp.
“Multitask.” He found her clit with the pad of his middle finger and her hips jerked up so hard she nearly drove them into the curb.
