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With a quiet moan, she tilted her head, giving me more room. She didn’t know what it did to me every time she did this, exposed her throat to me like that. My bear shoved at me again to bite down, to claim her as ours. But I shoved him back. Telling him we would soon, but not yet. And not in a public bar. We needed to be patient to win our mate.
I ran my tongue over the scar that ran along her collarbone before moving to take her lips with mine. Wrapping my arms around her, I held her close as I took her mouth, devouring her until her body softened and with a moan, she melted against me. Running a palm up her spine, I buried my hand in her hair, cupping the back of her head to help me control the kiss.
fingers dug into my shoulders and when I broke the kiss, she whimpered as her lips chased mine for more.
“Time to go, Jolie. I need more of you than just your mouth. You gonna let me take you home?”
This was the other thing she always refused me. She would never come back to my place, or let me inside hers. It drove me fucking nuts. But no matter how many times she refused, I always asked. Every time she came to me, I tried to get her to let me in just a little bit more than the last time.
Her gaze lost the haze of lust and grew weary. Before she could shut me down, I rubbed my nose against hers.
“C’mon, Jolie. You’ve been coming to me like this for two months now. And you knew me a month before that. You know I won’t do a damn thing to hurt you. Let me take you home. I promise I’ll leave the moment you tell me to. Please, baby, give me this?”
Fuck, I was begging just to be let inside her house. I felt like a fucking pet looking for some affection, not a strong alpha male black bear shifter who should be able to just take what I wanted. Maybe if I cared for her less, I could do just that, but I refused to hurt her any more than she clearly already had been. I was hoping if I could get inside her house, I could find out more about her past, get some idea on how to knock down the wall she kept between us.
****
Jolie
Just like every time I got near this man, my mind went spinning, turning my thoughts to mush. When I finally got free of Trent and my foster father, I swore I’d never let another man anywhere near me. Battery operated boyfriends were going to be it for my future. And that had held true for the first fourteen months I’d been free. It hadn’t been hard really. I kept moving, not staying anywhere longer than a month so my foster father wouldn’t be able to find me. But for some reason three months after first moving to Serenity, Colorado, I was still here.
Who was I kidding? I knew precisely why I was still here and it had everything to do with the man who currently held me tightly against him. It made no sense.
I’d tried to leave town twice in the past two months but I just couldn’t make myself go farther than about twenty miles from town before I found myself turning around and coming back. It was crazy. I knew better than to stay in one place for so long. While I doubted Trent would come looking, in fact I suspected he was glad to be rid of me, my foster father was a different story. He’d want his property back where he could continue making money off my back. Every day I expected my foster father to roll into town. I was constantly on the lookout for him. As each week passed I grew more tense, but still I couldn’t leave. It was infuriating. This need I had for Neo was also infuriating. It was so strong, I couldn’t help but be suspicious of it. But no matter what I told myself, how hard I tried to resist, I inevitably ended up going back to him.
Every time I gave in and went looking for Neo, he was waiting and ready for me. He never turned me away and always, always took good care of me. So why shouldn’t I bring him home with me this time? Normally, I insisted we get a room here at the inn. Then I was out the door the moment we finished. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to spend more time with him tonight. Maybe it would ease the ache I had for longer this time, and it would be easier to stay away from him.
“Okay. Just this once. And you go after without any argument.”
“The moment you tell me to go, I will.”
I stared into his soulful dark brown eyes for a few minutes, trying to gauge the truth behind his words. In the three months since coming to Serenity, I’d never seen Neo once lift a hand in anger to anyone. And since I worked in the main office of the adventure tour business he ran with his three brothers, I saw him a lot. Even when the brothers started in on each other, I could tell there was no malice to anything they did to each other.
In short, he was nothing like Trent. Nothing like my foster father. And I really was sick of being so alone all the time. I had a small timber house on the edge of town. It was nice and quiet and out of the way. I mostly kept to myself and the townsfolk let me. It was best that way. Less people to notice when I left. Less people for me to miss when I went.
“Um, okay. You’ll follow me, then?”
He stroked his callused fingers down my cheek again before he responded.
“Sure, baby. Just let me fix up my tab, then we can get moving. You’re not the only one that’s hungry tonight.”
With that, he slipped off the stool and turned back toward the bar. Panic began creeping in as I stood staring at his back while he paid his bill. What had I just agreed to in my moment of weakness? I knew he wanted more from me, but I couldn’t afford to give in to my selfish desires for him. And not only because of who was coming for me. I was sterile. And a man like Neo would want a family. He deserved to be surrounded by a wife and kids, and I couldn’t give him that.
Before I could come up with a way to back out of things, he was leading me out of the bar and helping me into my car. Before he closed my door, he leaned in and gave me another kiss. Every time he took my mouth with his, I lost a little more of my heart to him. I was trying to resist him, really, I was, but just like I couldn’t seem to leave this damn town, I couldn’t resist him for long either.
“You right to drive? I can drive us then walk back here to get my bike after, if you need me to.”
I shook my head, clearing the fog from my brain.
“Nah, I’m good to drive. You’ll follow me, yeah?”
I was fairly certain he knew where I lived. Especially considering I had to put it on the paperwork when I started working at his company. But I kind of liked the idea of him needing to follow me to find it.
“Sure, babe. See you soon.”
By the time I was buckled in and had the engine idling, his Harley was rumbling next to my car. A small sigh escaped my lips at how fine he looked on that big machine of his before I focused back on the road and getting home. The sooner I got us back to my place, the sooner he could put out this fire that was raging inside me.
Serenity wasn’t a big town so it, thankfully, only took a few minutes before I was pulling up in front of my little house. After turning off my engine, I went to open my door and noticed my hand was trembling. Why the hell was I nervous? We’d had sex at least a half a dozen times before. Nothing new was going to happen tonight.Well, except for the fact you invited him over to your house this time.I shut down that thought quickly and jumped out of the car before Neo could make it over to my door to help me out. Because he would. I knew he would. He was big and strong and looked lethal as hell, but he’d always been a gentleman with me. In the two months we’d been hooking up, he’d never once shown any aggression. No matter how many times I pushed him away or refused his advances, he never got mad. Surely that counted as a sign he wasn’t a violent man like my ex and foster father were?
