Then he made a s’more, and when he was ready to eat it, she waited to lick the chocolate off his lips. He laughed.
“Do you want another one?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll have another too.” Then they both melted their marshmallows, layered another s’more, and ate it.
And licked each other’s lips of the remaining melted chocolate and marshmallow, which morphed into the hottest kiss she’d ever had. Tongues stroked, and his hands went up her shirt until he reached her breasts and massaged them through her lace bra.
Then they heard the voices of three men coming down the trail.
“More of this later.” Grayson said it as a promise, cupping her face and kissing her again. “Let’s go and try to track down Younger, and then we can retire to our tent for the night.”
She was usually so mission-focused, yet she was ready to just ignore going after Younger and join Grayson in the sleeping bag for the rest of the night. She still wasn’t sure if they would both fit in it.
They both shared mutual sighs, grabbed their backpacks, and headed out on the trail to search for Younger’s scent again.
They walked about two miles when they discovered that Younger had left the trail and headed into the forest. She felt a sense of exhilaration, that the real hunt was on now that they were in the thick of the woods.
8
Suddenly, Grayson smelled a male grizzly bear in the area. He frowned. Shifter or one of the wild kind? He glanced at Kendra. She was smelling the air too. “Yeah, I smell him,” she said.
“Is he anyone you recognize?” Grayson asked, hoping the bear was a shifter like them, and she knew him.
“Sorry, no.”
He realized that it was the season when bears were mating, which could mean trouble for them if the bear took an interest in Kendra, if he wasn’t a shifter.
“But it could still just be a shifter. I mean, you’re new to the area. So if I hadn’t met you already, I wouldn’t have known you were a shifter. At least I hope he’s a shifter.”
“So do I.” They didn’t need a male bear chasing Kendra for some bear-loving.
Younger kept crisscrossing all over the place. Though some of the displacement of the scent was due to the wind, they had to keep moving back and forth, finding where Younger had bent plants while he was moving through the denser forest filled with an undergrowth of huckleberries, beargrass, serviceberries, thimbleberries, chokecherries, gooseberries, and young conifers like Lodgepole Pine, willows, and Douglas firs.
All the berries were bears’ favorites, though they preferred them a little riper. But they still could eat them before they were ripe. They were not as nutritious or as sweet as the bears and humans preferred, but if they were hungry, the bears would eat them.
Then they saw a patch of very large, dark red raspberries. They both paused to grab a few and fed them to each other, rich, firm, and juicy, a sweet flavor mixed with a bit of tartness. They plucked some more raspberries from the thorny shrub. They couldn’t help themselves. They loved berries. Then they kept moving when a light rain started.
They both pulled rain gear from their backpacks and put on their jackets, not wanting to get their clothes wet, even though it was just a light shower for now. Staying in it for very long could leave them soaking wet.
He sniffed at the air again. He was hoping they would run into Younger, not a wild bear!
“Younger is going this way.”
Grayson agreed. The problem was that talking loudly would let the bear nearby know humans were in the area without startling him, but they couldn’t talk loudly without alerting Younger to their presence.
He glanced at Kendra, and she smiled at him as if they were just on a lover’s hike. He liked the idea for sure. He looped his arm through hers and continued to walk together, looking for signs of Younger.
After walking about a mile, Kendra said quietly, “I think we should shift into our bears, leave our clothes in our backpacks, and search for him.”
“Yeah, we’re far enough away from the trail. If we find his campsite, we’ll rip it apart,” Grayson said.
She smiled. “As grizzlies, sure. Great idea.”
“He won’t have a place to keep him dry, warm, and more comfortable while he’s out here.”
She pushed her hair behind her shoulder. “Exactly. We still might get caught in a downpour. It isn’t supposed to get really bad until later, but you never know when it will actually happen. Is your backpack waterproof?”
