Page 15 of Bear

She looked up at me with wide, brown eyes. “Are you going to hurt me? If you are, I can take it. I just can’t take not knowing.” She ended on a little sob before swallowing loudly to get her emotions under control. I had no doubt she was terrified. Any woman in her position would be, and she’d be smart to be scared.

“Already told you, honey.” I grinned down at her, stroking her jaw gently with my finger. “I’ll never hurt you unless you ask me to, and only with pleasure being the end result.” I winked at her, trying to lighten the mood and help her be at ease when she was anything but.

“What about your president or vice president? The other men in Grim Road?”

“Not lettin’ anyone hurt you. Is there anything else I need to know? I know Venus searched you. You told me about your phone. Is there anything else you need to tell me. Anything at all? Even if it’s just bits and pieces.”

“No.”

“What made you change your mind about telling me, Liv?” I needed to know this most of all. I knew we still had a long way to go to trust each other, but I thought she might have the same instinctive pull toward me as I did her.

“You guys might be a lot of things, but you’re not the kind of men to kill innocent people, let alone commit some kind of genocide. I wanted to believe you when you first picked me up and put me on your bike.” Pink tinged her cheeks, and I knew she was uncomfortable. Embarrassed or nervous, maybe. But I thought it was more than that. “And the second I jumped into your arms, something inside me settled. I felt safe for the first time in a long time. I want that feeling for the rest of my life. I tried to justify what Mr. Black wanted me to do with the fact that you were murderers. That you’d killed innocent women and children because you were being paid to. I thought I could deny the blood on my hands because I wouldn’t be the one to pull the trigger. But that was a lame justification. I’m not sure I could have gone through with it even if I still believed you were murderers, but after the way you treated me, how you protected me and never demanded anything, not even immediate answers, until you had me in a safe place. Those aren’t the actions of cold-blooded killers. At least not someone who could kill innocent people for money.”

I grinned. “I’ll take it, honey. Now. You OK?”

She nodded. “I think so. What do I do now? Crush didn’t turn on the phone here, did he? Because I don’t trust Mr. Black or anything he gives me. Just connecting to the network could be bad.”

“No. He took it somewhere else where he said he’d have more control over everything.”

“Good.” She whispered her response and ducked her head again. “Bear?” She didn’t look up.

“Yeah, baby.”

“I’m really sorry I intended to betray you.”

“You didn’t know me. Still don’t, but you know the important things.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“But just so you know I’ll do my best to never keep anything from you or mislead you, when I was in the Middle East, my team was assigned to that same fuckin’ village near Tripoli. When we got there, we were given the order that the place was to be… liquidated. No one was to survive to be able to give an account of what happened.”

She sucked in a breath. “Oh no…” I could see the fear and horror in her face as my words really sank in.

“Yeah. But I refused the order. We worked for the CIA, doing their dirty work. That village was too much, though. I wasn’t about to slaughter those people.”

“You promise? I mean, you’re telling me the truth. Right?”

“I am. That mission is how I ended up here at Grim Road. Rocket took me in and let me disappear. Everyone here has been in some form of Black Ops. We’ve all done some horrible things. But none of us would do that. Black tried to come after me. Tried to kill me more than once before I finally made it here. After that, Crush took over, and I disappeared.”

Olivia sagged against me. I don’t know if it was relief or if the adrenaline rush left her, but she looked exhausted. “OK. So, from this point forward, I’ll trust you. Bear, please don’t make me regret it. And I don’t mean that as a threat. I mean, you’re right. I want this thing with you. You claiming me, or whatever. I think I crave that sense of safety you give me because I’m willing to risk my life for this. Because, if it’s real, then I’ll have everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. If it’s not, then I’m no worse off than I was.”

“I swear to you, honey. You’ll always be safe. From now as long as anyone in Grim Road is around. I will always protect you.”

“All right, then.” She gave me a solemn look. “What happens now?”

“Tonight? You sleep. I’ll sleep with you if you want, but only to help you feel safe. Nothing physical is happening tonight.”

The look on her face said that surprised her. “You don’t want to… uh… have sex with me?”

“Oh, make no mistake. I very much want to have sex with you. But you’re not ready. And I’m not taking advantage of you. You are going to be with me as much as possible, and you’re gonna sleep in my bed with me. You need to get used to my touch, and I just fuckin’ want you in my arms.”

Surprisingly, that got a nervous laugh from her. “Never slept next to a man before. I might kick.”

I gave her my best wicked grin. “Good. I like my woman to have a bit of spirit.”

That got a better laugh, and she actually smiled. And, God, I was so fucked. The girl was absolutely gorgeous. That fucking smile was fucking breathtaking.

There was no way I was getting out of this with my man card intact. Because I was already pussy-whipped. I’d follow this girl wherever the fuck she wanted to go. And Goddamn the consequences.

---