Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Clint

“Thank you.”

The most astounding sex of my life. The tenderest sex of my life. The sweetest sex of my life. An absolutely perfect experience that blended together physical and emotional pleasure in ways I can’t even describe.

“Thank you.”

That’s it. She just tells me thank you and goodbye, I’m done and so are we.

Okay, she doesn’t say the goodbye and we’re done part but it feels that way to me. I do something I shouldn’t. My house is back against the woods. Granted, it’s only a couple thousand acres of woods. I own it all. There’s a small part of it, about twenty-three acres, which goes into the property that she wanted to develop, the Franklin Meadow Project. I wouldn’t give it to her.

That’s not the point right now. That’s not what I shouldn’t do. What I shouldn’t do is remain completely undressed and just walk into my backyard, head out of my back gate, and shift. Instantly the world changes around me and the cognitive dissonance fades to the background. Just the dissonance. I can still think. I can think in a somewhat detached way now.

The most intimate and beautiful experience of my life is with the one woman I can’t possibly feel intimate about. How does that happen?

I shouldn’t have slept with her.

She was clearly lying about wanting it. I think I know that from the beginning but it’s impossible to look at her body without feeling desperation. She needed to even the score to deal with her own cognitive dissonance. She was saved by a man she hates. She needed to screw me so she could get back to hating me.

And she felt the beauty and the intimacy just like I did.

It’s wonderful being a bear because these thoughts come to me like feelings, and the emotions involved don’t matter. As I lumber my way along, thrilled by the sounds of the forest and the smells and sights, I can get my head around the realities of the moment without the noise. We call this going wild . Shifters, I mean. When you shift in order to get a handle on the emotions or struggles of being human. We don’t call it that when you’re just shifting because the bear (or lion or wolf or dragon or whatever) is part of your nature.

And it feels pretty damned good to be a bear. The world is nothing now but the warmth of the sun, the feel of the breeze, and the smells of the woods. As always, I feel a longing to forgo humanity altogether. This is the nature of bears. There are some who believe that we are bears who become humans rather than humans who become bears. There are similar groups with every shifter type but there are actually bears who shift and spend twenty-five years or more as bears.

Most shifters believe we’re humans who can shift into animals. The only exception is the dragon shifter. They’re certain they’re dragons who can become human. Since there aren’t any natural dragons the way there are natural wolves or bears, that seems to make sense. Dragons also live for hundreds of years so who knows? In any case, when a shifter becomes a bear, there’s always a powerful moment where the desire to abandon everything human descends on us.

And the moment passes.

I suspect if you allow it to, the moment always passes. Or perhaps those who choose to remain a bear have nothing holding them to the world of men. It’s hard to tell. I know that from my very first shift, this longing has come and passed. Evidently, none of the other types of shifter experience this in any real way.

I’m by a small creek, well, not even really a creek. A rivulet? A trickle? Whatever the terminology, I pause and get a drink. It always seems that everything experienced in bear form is so much more than when I’m human. I wade into the water. Well, okay, I don’t wade. I step and splash because it really isn’t much of anything. But it’s fun.

Yes, bears can have fun. A lot of it. In fact, natural bears are very playful.

I let my mind relax and let go of the whole Olivia question completely for a while. I run back into the trees and snuffle around. I don’t particularly care if I’m a bit noisy tonight. I probably should care, since I’m not really that far from civilization and I’m much bigger than any natural bear. I don’t care, though. Instead, I’m just enjoying my freedom from human ties.

I actually lose myself for a while just chasing stupid things like bugs and a squirrel. I give it a shot climbing a tree. I don’t do too badly and I file that fact away. We bears aren’t the most agile of the shifters, but we can be surprisingly graceful.

But I’m not planning to test the theory of becoming a permanent bear tonight. So, I head for home. I pause briefly at the edge of the tree line and take in the calming effects of the sounds and smells of the woods around me. For some reason, I sense that I’ll really need to have that deep within me for whatever may happen with Olivia, or whatever may not happen.

I growl low and shuffle back into my back yard and shift. It’s a risky move, but I can’t expend the energy to care.

I walk into my house, not even having bothered to get dressed again. I only get two steps in when I see her. “Shit.”

Olivia tries to smile. “Well, that’s quite a greeting, Clint.”

Her eyes move over my naked body, but I’m too angry to feel embarrassed. This is my own home after all. “Olivia, we had our little moment. I don’t know how you got in my house ...”

“You didn’t leave the door locked; I tried calling for you. I just wanted to apologize for leaving so abruptly. I think I really didn’t finish what I started.”

“Well, you don’t need to start anything else. I, uh, accepted your thankfulness for rescuing you last night. We’re all good.”

She shakes her head. “No, we’re not. I can tell you think there should be more.”

She moves closer. I feel aware of my nakedness now because I can’t hide my arousal. She isn’t just in a robe this time, but it’s a skimpy little dress and I’m guessing no bra or panties. Yes, it’s that skimpy.

So, against my better judgment, I let her lead me to the bedroom and the whole thing happens again. I let her seduce me even though I know it’s the worst possible decision I can make.

And I let her do it again the next day.

I invite her the day after that to discuss the situation and try to figure out the best course of action for extricating ourselves from this crazy hate-fueled lovefest.It’ll be my last day before overnights at the Company 417 firehouse and I want to get things figured out before I go in. I won’t let this be up in the air while I’m at the firehouse.

She comes over and we fuck again instead of figuring things out. Oh, who the fuck am I kidding about having any self-control? We just fuck again.

But the worst damn thing about it all is that I can’t consider it to be just fucking.

Nope. It’s more than that.

When we’re together, there’s real feeling involved. It’s not just me using her body or her using mine. Damn it, we’re making love in the sense that the word love makes a hell of a lot of sense.

I know that we can safely call it making love and I’m completely at a loss.