Page 22 of One Reckless Summer

She scoots over in an invitation for me to sit, her eyes as welcoming as her mouth was last night.

“And?” she says, resting her elbow on the back of the sofa, leaning her head against her palm so she’s facing me as I drop onto the cushion next to her, the entire sofa popping up off the floor when I do. It’s taking everything I have to fight the urge to pin her down and have a feast between her legs. “What’s this city prejudice you have all about?”

Rain sprays against the windows sounding like a sea of pebbles trying to come through. The walls vibrate with the cracking thunder and white flashes of lightning cast shadows across the flawless skin of her face.

“We moved to Philly. I found out about being hungry and how mean whiskey can make someone.” I scratch my fingers over my jaw on a long exhale. “Short version, Dad left, Mom went off the rails. Whenever we stayed with Dad, there was a new step-mother. None of them good. My brother was ten, I was sixteen, when we moved into an even shittier part of the city with my mom, after Dad’s newest wife decided she wanted them to start their own family and we didn’t fit in. I was the man of the house, but I couldn’t protect my brother. Our house was robbed more than once. Within a couple years, my brother was running the streets. Mom was checked out. The city ate them both up and nothing I did changed anything.”

I palm my forehead, squeezing my temples with one hand as I rest my other on her knee like that connection is going to help me somehow. I don’t think I’ve said so many words in a row in decades.

Summer nods. “You lost a lot but the city didn’t take it.”

I don’t indulge in memories of the past often, and the uneasy tightness around my throat reminds me why. I don’t know what to do with emotion besides act out. It makes me want to punch and break things. That’s why I’ve distracted myself with dangerous activities. It doesn’t leave any room for remembering.

“What happened to your brother? You talk to him still?” Summer asks as I keep my eyes focused on nothing facing forward.

“A stray bullet. Came through our front fucking window. Nick died before the ambulance even got there.”

I look to see her fingers pressed to her mouth, eyes welling, but she doesn’t say anything and I appreciate her silence.

“Out here,” I explain, “I can protect Hailey. I know the dangers, and I know how to prepare for them, how to fight them. I’ve spent my whole life doing that. But the city is chaos. There’s no order to it. No honor. No hierarchy. It makes no sense to me.”

Another bolt of lightning cuts through the sky over the tree tops. In the bright flash, I catch a dark shape out the window lumbering around in front of the cabin.

Fuck, my pack is out there. I was so fucking turned around when she ran, I left it.

As the thunder shakes the house, Summer hunches over, hands looping behind her neck.

“You okay with storms?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the movement outside, giving her knee a soft squeeze.

“I’m okay so long as I’m not out in them.” She peeks up from her crouched position. “We’ll wait here until it passes, right?”

Daylight has turned into dusk under the storm clouds. “Yeah—” I start, but she cuts me off.

“What the hell is that?” she shrieks, pointing again at the window, only this time, I know it’s not just a spider. A series of three lightning flashes illuminate the sky, the woods, and the hulking bear rises onto her feet about fifty feet from the front of the cabin, sniffing the air as three smaller versions of her toddle along behind.

Instinct has me pulling Summer against me. Her soft to my hard. Her fear to my protective fury.

I take a deep breath of her. Leaning in to her damp hair, resting my chin on her head, wondering in some way, if this could work.

“It’s a bear,” I say. “Black bear. Not that mean, but not that nice either. Especially because she’s got cubs.”

“Aww, babies?” She pushes up on her knees, trying to get a better look.

“They’re cute, but with them here she’ll be aggressive.” I clear my throat, not sure how to say what I have to say next. “And my pack was out there. I dropped it to catch up with you. I had food and water in there, and my gun. So, I just provided mom and her cubs with a meal.”

Summer hunches into me, and I don’t try to stop her. Somehow, telling her about the past, explaining why I have to put Hailey first, has drained any fight that was left in me. Somehow, it’s made me want her more, not less.

As her body snugs against mine, my traitorous dick responds, and all the reasons I should push her away toddle off like the baby bears into the storm.

Her stomach let’s out a loud growl in the beat of silence and she snorts.

“You need food,” I say, pissed again that I left our supplies outside to be ravaged by a single mom and her triplets.

“I’m okay.”

“What did you have for breakfast?” I clear my throat, looking down to see her cock a half smile, with a sultry lick of her lips and a glance at my lap. “The Black Swan have a continental breakfast buffet for you?”

“I wish. The last thing I had to eat was…” She clicks her teeth together, wiggling her index finger at my lap.

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