Gray Back Alpha Bear(25)

“But I want to. I want to get rid of that power my mom has over me. I’ve given her too much over the years. I want to go swimming with you and take a bath with you. I want to go up to the Hobo Hot Pool and float around in there with you until our skin gets pruney. I want to swim with our kid when he’s old enough.” He looked over her shoulder. “I want to swim under the falls and see the world from the other side of it. But every time I try, I fuckin’ freeze up and my throat feels like it’s filling with water again, and I can’t force my damned foot into the waves. And I like you.” Creed angled his head and watched her reaction. “That’s what I wanted to tell you tonight when I came to your trailer.”

Gia’s heart stuttered, and she gripped his waist, right where two strips of muscle delved over his hip bones.

“Bombshell, the claws,” he said, pulling her nails from his skin, then pulling her arms around his neck.

“Sorry,” she said on a breath. “Wait, you like me like friends? Or you have a crush on me?”

“A crush. That one. I have for a while, but I didn’t know how to tell you without it looking like I’m just trying for a relationship for our kid. It’s not that.” He shook his head and pulled her knuckles to his lips. “It’s more.”

“You have a crush…on me?”

“Gia,” he drawled out, rolling his head so far back his Adam’s apple poked out from his muscular neck.

“Me, too! I do, too! I’m crushing…on you. Shit. Let me start over.” She exhaled slowly. “I like you back.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s bad,” she admitted through an apologetic grin. “I doodled our names together on my daily planner earlier today when I was penciling in our doctor’s appointment.”

Creed laughed a loud booming sound, and she relished in the deep tenor. He was feeling better now.

“You want to play a game?”

The smile dipped from his face, but amusement still danced in his dark eyes. “What game?”

“The Secrets Game.”

“How do you play?”

“For every secret we tell each other, we have to take a step into the water.”

Creed shook his head. “No. Gia, I want to get in the water, but it’s not going to happen tonight. I’m sorry. No.”

Gia pulled her shirt over her head. The cold wind was like a slap against her bare breasts, but she steeled her resolve. “Then you can go first. Tell me a secret, and I’ll step back into the water, and if you want to stop, we can, and I won’t be disappointed.”

Creed’s humor was completely gone now as he shifted his weight from side to side in that wild way Easton had been doing in the woods earlier. Creed’s eyes glowed silver, reflecting oddly in the blue moonlight.

“I didn’t kiss a girl until I was sixteen,” he murmured.

Gia stepped back by inches into the cold waves. “I got my first kiss when I was fourteen, but I didn’t feel like I’d ever really kissed anyone memorable until you. I still think about the first time you leaned down and pressed your lips against mine. I felt like I was falling, and you were the only thing holding me up. I got the same feeling when you kissed me on the landing. That stomach-dipping, excited feel, like when you’re going straight down on a rollercoaster and you’re scared, but at the same time, you don’t want it to end.”

Creed gasped then murmured, “Fuck.” Linking his hands behind his head, he closed his eyes and stepped into the wave, then back out. He opened his eyes, and they were wild and alarmed. His nostrils flared with the breath he heaved.

“Keep your eyes on me. I won’t let anything happen to you. Creed.” She waited as his eyes settled on hers. “I promise. Tell me a secret.”

“I almost lost my crew to Willa. There was this moment right after she’d Turned, and I was trying to keep her from killing Easton. She was almost dominant enough to disobey me and take my crew. It rattled me.”

Gia slid her sweats and panties down her legs and tossed them onto the beach, then took another step back into the waves. It was cold as frost, but she wouldn’t rush him or make him feel bad by crossing her arms over her chest and hunching into herself. Instead, she lifted her chin and said, “I touch myself while I’m thinking about you. It’s been only you in my mind since we were together five months ago.”

A growl rattled Creed’s throat as he paced the beach, ghosting the river’s edge. Inhaling shakily, he stepped into the water, then out. With a look of fierce determination at his feet, he stepped in again and stayed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispered.