Bear To The Bone (Bear Claw Security 1) (2 page)

F
or the second
time in her life, Carrie was receiving a kiss that felt like a promise.

The lips against hers were soft, and rough stubble on the man’s face grazed hers as he moved against her. His hand cupped her neck, holding her against him as her lips opened in shock, allowing him entrance. His tongue swept through her, lighting her with fiery heat.

But it was the firmness of the embrace, the insistence of his lips pressing to hers that made her feel like this contact was some kind of silent oath.

She’d been kissed like this just once before in her lifetime, at a much younger age, in a much different situation. Yet the feeling was the same.

Safety and a small thrill. Something new and adventurous but secure.

Still, she planted her hands on the bar and tried to keep ahold of reality as the man finished the kiss and pulled back.

Dark eyes met hers. So dark they could have been black, but they were blue. A deep, penetrating sapphire night fringed with dark lashes.

She’d known only one man with those astounding, dark eyes.

But that was impossible…

She blinked at him, but his expression was cool, calm, not giving away even a hint of the passion they’d shared as he released her neck and walked back in his heavy boots and motorcycle leather to the rowdy group of men seated in the back of the bar.

The Aces.

A motorcycle gang that had run the town for as long as she could remember. Then again, in a small country town, what else was there to do?

There were the normal people like her who ran businesses for tourists and tried to stay out of the way. And then there were the Aces. Men wearing leather who swaggered through town, obliterating things or lives as they pleased. Not that they’d ever done anything to her exactly. Not until recently, when they’d started invading her bar nearly every night to harass her.

She also saw them around town sometimes. Out in front of the auto shop they used as a front for the huge warehouse out back, where it was rumored they dealt in weapons and other unsavory trades.

It was so disappointing to see a man with such beautiful, familiar eyes sitting next to them.

What was Cage McCann doing back in Winter Falls? More importantly, what was he doing sitting there with the Aces, looking like he’d just achieved everything he wanted?

Her heart pounded as she turned back to the bar and began wiping it down. Anything to keep her eyes off the man in the corner.

His kiss still burned on her lips, and she looked up at him once more, as if still unable to believe he was there.

But it was Cage all right. An older version, broader through the shoulders than the teen she’d known ten years ago. He still had that striking, handsome look about him. Light, smooth skin that contrasted his black brows and thick, dark hair. The stubble shading his angular jaw gave a hard edge to his appearance, but she knew when he smiled, the effect was soft and devastating.

She sighed and looked away, heart still pounding.

She missed him every day. The ache was always present, like a phantom limb, but she’d reassured herself at least he’d gotten out of this place and away from the Aces by enrolling in the army.

She’d even had a few letters from him over the years. Each one was carefully treasured, tucked in a box under the bed. Now that she was twenty-eight and had yet to find another man who interested her, she supposed those were the only tastes of romance she would ever have.

Until Cage had kissed her tonight. Why had he done that? Had it been some kind of dare from the motorcycle club? They’d harassed her enough as it was. But she was never selling the bar. No matter how many times that gross officer named Harvey came to talk to her about it.

She had things to protect. She needed money to do it. But Cage wouldn’t know that. He didn’t know anything about her because he’d been gone.

She supposed in her wildest fantasies, she’d imagined him coming back, looking just like he had tonight. Tall, with those striking, dark-blue eyes, muscles, and a few lines on his face from the years apart.

He still smelled like a pine forest on a cold night. His chest was broader. All of these things she’d noticed during one short, searing kiss.

Would she be seeing him around town now? Having to face him, wearing the uniform of the men they’d both hated, was too much to ask.

For once, she considered just moving and selling the bar, as the Aces wanted her to.

But she couldn’t. She’d never been one to run away in her life, and she wouldn’t now.

She had roots in this town. Willow needed her. As the only mother Carrie had ever known, she could never let Willow down. Even if she had often told Carrie she should move on. Go on and make something of herself.

Well, Carrie had in a way. She’d completed an online course in business, gotten a loan from the bank, and bought the bar from the owner, who had also hated the Aces and was being coerced to sell to them for a fraction of the value.

Carrie had still gotten it for way less than it was worth, but it was more than the club had offered, and the owner had just been glad to get the cash and skip town.

And now Carrie was squarely in the Ace’s sights. But she wouldn’t cower before them.

Even if Cage was on their side now.

She felt her whole body tense at the thought of it and looked up to see him watching her with those hot midnight eyes.

She glanced at the clock and counted the hours until she could escape this place. Go home and process what had happened and maybe wait for Cage to come over and explain himself.

He owed her at least that.

C
age saw
Carrie wince as she looked over at him. He tightened one gloved hand into a fist under the table, frustration lancing through him.

He’d claimed her and tried to communicate against her lips that he would protect her. Just as he had when they were younger. Before he’d had to leave.

Her lips had been just as soft, the feeling of her breath against his just as surprising.

He exhaled and brought his frosty mug to his lips, downing it and keeping his eyes on the men around him, pretending to be interested, while in all actuality, his attention was completely focused on the petite, curvy woman on the other side of the bar.

She’d grown even more beautiful than he’d imagined.

And she’d stayed in the little town that had caused them so much trouble.

He could tell she was trying not to look over at him as she busied herself behind the bar, making orders for all the rowdy bikers at his table.

The Aces had taken to coming here several times a week as a means of trying to convince her to sell the place. He’d learned that much in the short time he’d been with them.

He’d also learned that more than one of them had been hoping to pick her up as their “old lady,” their woman, their property. And since she was going to be Cage’s mate, he just couldn’t allow that.

It’d been easy coming back to the MC culture. As someone who’d grown up in it as a kid, they’d accepted him easily as one of their own. His father had been one of their leaders after all.

But Cage wasn’t anything like the boy he’d been. A tour in the Army Special Forces and being a partner in a private security firm after had ensured that.

She brushed dark-blond, wavy hair back behind her ears and kept her soft-blue eyes down—as if she couldn’t even stand to look at him at all, when he couldn’t stop looking at her.

But it didn’t matter. He’d protected her, for now.

“That your old lady?” one of the men next to him asked.

Cage shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Thinking about it.”

“Better think about it soon,” Brick, the dark, stocky man next to him, said. He nodded to Harv, one of their officers. “I think Harv had plans, too.”

“Maybe the lady should choose,” Cage said.

Brick just barked out a laugh. “Yeah, keep believing that.”

Anger burned through him. He remembered his mother’s treatment at the hands of this gang. His mother had been a bear shifter, and his father hadn’t even known. He’d simply seduced her and not cared about the consequences.

Even when those consequences were Cage, a half-human, half-bear who could shift right now and tear apart any of these assholes.

He wasn’t going to let a single one of them get their greasy hands on his mate.

But he had to be careful. If he approached too quickly, she’d probably reject him, and that would leave her free to be picked up by the worst elements in the gang.

He hated that she owned this bar now, making her a target. And in showing up to try and take the bar, they’d gotten ideas of wanting more.

Wanting her.

And who wouldn’t? She was sweetness personified, her good heart obvious to anyone who met her. The little freckles over her nose and cheeks, her heart-shaped face, and her wide blue eyes didn’t help.

Then there were her lips. Plump and pink and innocent. And then they would spread into this wide smile that just knocked you on your ass.

She was just as killer on his senses as she’d been as a teen. Hell, he’d even been in love with her when they were both just kids trying to make their way in the world.

She had the kind of heart that was one in a million, and he’d come here just to make sure that kind of goodness didn’t get wiped out by this group of malignant personalities.

Not that all of them were bad. Some were raised in the club; some simply had no other options, no education.

Cage had never wanted this life. He’d known the second he was eighteen he was out of there. And he only had one reason to come back someday—to take Carrie as his mate.

But maybe he’d waited too long, because she didn’t seem that happy or excited to see him. They hadn’t made any promises exactly, but she’d always been the only woman in his mind. It had never been a question of if, but when.

She’d saved his life as a kid, and he had to pay that back. But making her fall in love with him, telling her what she meant to him, hoping a woman like that could pick someone like him, someone broken from birth… he guessed that was a scary enough prospect that he hadn’t come back until he was forced to in order to protect her.

Harv glared at him across the table. “You know her? We don’t hang out with the normals.”

“Yeah, but you’d like to,” Brick said, elbowing the man next to him to laugh at his joke.

Harv was deadly quiet. His black eyes silent and piercing as he stared down Cage.

Cage kept his cool.

“Grew up together,” he said. “A lot of years together.” He raised an eyebrow mockingly as he leaned back in his chair, letting his considerable height and build speak for itself. “She looks even better than I remember. I’m thinking of trying it out.”

Harv’s expression tightened. “I’ve already called it.”

“Come on now, Harv,” Cage said. “Club rules. She gets to pick.”

Harv shoved his drink down on the table. “We’ll see about this. What the prez has to say.”

Cage sighed. This asshole was going to cause him to blow his cover early if he wasn’t careful. “Go ahead and ask him, Harv. See if he lets you keep your patch if you break club rules.”

Harv’s eyes flashed, but he sent a quick look to Carrie that made Cage’s blood go cold. No one should look at her but him. But then Harv calmed down, standing slowly, hands on the table.

“We should head out,” he said. “Some of us got a long ride tomorrow.”

Cage would make sure he wasn’t going. It would give him time to see Carrie. Talk to her and see if he could trust her with the information that everything wasn’t as it seemed.

That’s if she was willing to let him within three feet of her.

The look of contempt she gave him as he stood to leave with the rest of the men, bringing up the rear to make sure none stayed behind to bother her, struck him hard.

Almost as hard as the look of pain in her eyes and that tight little frown in one corner of her beautiful lips.

He tried to send her a look of reassurance, one that told her to trust him. Like his kiss had. But she simply folded her arms and shook her head slowly, her message plain.

Shame on you.

He stiffened his shoulders against the feel of her disapproval. A man had to do whatever he could to protect the woman of his dreams.

But a part of him was hurt she could really believe that about him, that he’d willingly be a part of this gang. And if he was, would she truly just abandon him for that? After everything they went through together as kids?

The whole thing needed more investigation.

He gave her a silent wave and then walked out into the dark night, hearing but ignoring the conversations of his motorcycle “brothers.”

All he could really hear was the sound of her breathing, escalated and rapid, as her lips had been against his.

He intended to hear that again as soon as possible.

C
arrie didn’t see
Cage that night. She went home and sat in a chair in her living room to think over what had happened and didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep there until she woke up the next morning to a loud knock on the door.

She sat up abruptly, wiping the sleep from her eyes and trying to remember what she’d been dreaming about.

She’d been thinking of her childhood and then had a bunch of nightmares after that. Something about the Aces trying to take her bar away. Willow begging her for help.

She rubbed her eyes, her head aching.
Wake up, Carrie. That’s not going to happen. You won’t let it. You’re stronger than that.

Harvey’s gross, predatory grin popped into her mind, and she grimaced. Stronger than him, too.

She’d been worried about him harassing her almost every time they came into the club, but last night, she hadn’t had to. Cage had seen to that.

In the process, he’d broken her heart.

Groggy, she swung open the door without thinking and saw exactly the man she’d been thinking of standing on her porch.

Cage was still wearing his motorcycle leathers, the jacket with the patch, and dark jeans that fit in a way that made her mouth water.