Gray Back Bad Bear(9)

Matt’s shoulders jerked with laughter, and he shook his head as he’d done a hundred times tonight. He seemed just as baffled as she was that he was back here again.

“Go on,” he murmured in a deep, gravelly tenor. “I only have an hour before I have to head back to my place.” He frowned down at a phone as he set an alarm, and then followed her distractedly up the stairs.

The bed creaked under his weight as he settled onto it, over the covers. Plucking her glasses from her face, he sighed and set them on the counter beside the bed. He lay down behind her, rigid as a mountain until she pulled his hand over her hips and cuddled back against him.

“Relax, Griz. I won’t try to molest you anymore.”

Matt’s muscles softened, and he curled around her, spooning her like a pro. She smiled at the nylon wall and sighed as her eyes drooped with heaviness. There was a big old, scary-eyed grizzly shifter snuggling her, and she didn’t feel anything but safe. That was kind of funny.

And just as she drifted off, Matt whispered, “You aren’t what I expected.”





Chapter Three




Willa gasped and sat straight up. Sweat trickled down between her boobs, and she ran the back of her hand across the moisture on her forehead. What a dream. She’d been running through the woods from something big and always in the shadows, but she’d never seen its face. She’d only known it was horrifying.

The long rattle of a locust sounded from outside as Willa looked around. Had Matt really slept beside her? Perhaps not. She’d probably tossed all the covers at some point when she was running in her sleep from the dream monster, so there was no proof Matt’s giant frame had ruffled the comforter behind her. And he hadn’t left a single trace of proof he’d been there. Oh, wait. There was a folded piece of paper on the tiny kitchen table on the other side of the camper.

Willa tried to free her legs from the comforter, failed, and flopped onto the floor, but the future bruising didn’t deter her from scrambling up and bolting for the note.



You snore.

Here is a list of touristy shit to do around town.

Microbrewery competition

Hot Pool

Art Gallery

Saloon

Here are directions for tonight. 6 p.m. be there or be square, Nerd. Bring an overnight bag in case you beg me to spoon again.



Underneath there was a hand drawn map and step-by-step directions to get to Bear Trap Falls.

She hadn’t begged him to spoon, and she didn’t snore. Did she?

She unfolded the last lip of paper at the bottom.



P.S. You don’t really snore.



“Brat,” she murmured through a grin.

Aw, Matt was like her own little personal werebear concierge, giving her a list of ways to enjoy her vacation. Screw the bombshells. She was going to make a fun trip of this without them.

****

Matt checked his watch for the hundredth time and muttered a curse that it was only three minutes past the last time he’d checked.

What was wrong with him?

“Get your head out of your ass and get back to work,” Creed barked out from the top of the landing. His alpha was all riled up and pissed off about something, but hell if Matt knew what. Above him, Creed’s dark eyes narrowed, and he spat before he jerked his chin toward the skyline hooks that dangled on the hill between them.

Matt couldn’t even pop off like he usually did when Creed was being an asshole because this time his alpha was right. He’d been distracted all day. And working distracted on a jobsite like this would get him or one of the other Gray Backs hurt. Or worse.

He had to stop thinking about Willa. She was just his nerdy little sidekick friend who was going to point him in the right direction to which one of her friends he should bang first.

But that kiss last night against the camper…

Sheeyit.

A five-foot-nothing, smart-mouthed, pissed-off, lightweight, four-eyed geek was giving him a monster boner, and she wasn’t even here.

Maybe he should stand her up.

His bear snarled inside of him, and the sound rumbled up his throat before he could stop it. Easton was up on a log tying a thick wire cord around the middle, but he turned his blazing green eyes on Matt the second the first rattle of his growl sounded. Double shit. Easton was crazy. Rule number one around a crazy grizzly shifter: Don’t growl.

“Easton,” he said low, hands up as he backed down the side of the hill slowly. “It wasn’t a challenge.”

“You growling at me, Gray Back?”

“Okay, technically you’re a Gray Back, too, so that insult doesn’t even make sense.”

Matt crouched down as a massive silver grizzly exploded from Easton. Easton? His momma should’ve named him Beaston. Well, fuck it then. Matt hadn’t had a good fight in at least twenty-eight hours, and this was an acceptable distraction away from his lady problems, so okay.