Gray Back Ghost Bear(5)

He didn’t answer. Maybe he wasn’t even listening. He just kept sipping his beer and checking the food as if she wasn’t even there. Okay then.

“It’s just I don’t go on a lot of social calls, and I’m new in town, and I’ve never met a bear shifter. I’m camped out at a ranger station Mr. Daye set up, but I don’t know anyone yet, and I was hoping to make a good impression on you and your clan. Your crew! Sorry.”

“Damon Daye hired you?” Ah, so he was listening.

“Yes. Some animals were shot illegally on his property, so he put out an ad. It took me two weeks of phone interviews to land this job.”

Jason slid her a thoughtful look and nodded his head. “Congrats.” He leaned over and clinked his bottle against hers.

She smiled and ducked her chin so he wouldn’t see the heat in her cheeks. Then she took another swallow. “Thanks.” She bobbed her head back and forth and admitted, “You’re the first person to congratulate me.”

“So your name is Georgia and you’re from Georgia. Who made that decision?”

“My dad.” Before he went to prison. He gave her a name and then busted on out of her life because he couldn’t seem to stop robbing liquor stores like a super-winner. “He wasn’t the brightest apple of the bunch.”

“Mmm. Well, I like your name.”

“You do?” God, why did she sound like a teen with a crush? “I mean, you do. Because my name is awesome.” And she didn’t need the approval of some bear shifter—sexy or not.

Jason flipped the steaks, then shut the grill. He leaned on a sturdy table, one arm locked, the other gripping the neck of his beer. His leg was crossed over the other, and he looked like the epitome of confident male as he lifted his chin and studied her.

“You don’t smell like fear anymore, Ranger. Now you smell like arousal. You like what you see when you look at me?”

Her eyes bugged out of her head, and her heart was pounding so hard it was threatening to eject itself from her chest cavity. “I’m sorry?”

“Do you. Like what you see. When you look at me?” He said it slow in a deep timbre that warmed her middle.

Unable to speak while trapped in his dark gaze like this, she nodded once.

Jason opened his mouth to respond, but froze with his ear to the gravel road that led through the trailer park and into the mountains. He frowned and settled his gaze back on her. “Don’t smell scared around Easton, okay?”

“Who’s Easton?”

“You’ll see, just…don’t be scared. You’ll set him off.”

Wait, she didn’t want to set off anyone. Jason was scary enough, and he was being perfectly cordial. Georgia stood and gripped her beer. “Should I leave?”

“Fuck, Ranger, now you smell terrified.”

“I can’t help it. I worked around grizzlies in Alaska, and it was scary, and when I took this job, I didn’t realize I’d be working closely with brown bears again, and you are practically electric and—”

Jason yanked her arm forward, and his lips crashed onto hers. Pulling her close, he angled his head and thrust his tongue into her mouth. Shocked to stillness, Georgia wondered if any of this was real. The chill had disappeared and was replaced by a staggering warmth that heated her blood. He was like a furnace, pressing a heatwave against her. Jason’s lips softened against hers, and the next stroke of his tongue was gentler. Squaring up to her, his hands slid up her neck and cupped her cheeks.

Melting. She was melting against him. Melting to nothing as she leaned heavily against him. Dang, it had been so long since she’d been kissed, and never in her life like this.

Jason sucked gently on her bottom lip and eased back. “There,” he murmured with a slow smile. “That’s better.”

He pulled away so fast she had to catch herself from falling forward. And then he was removing steaks from the grill as though he hadn’t just kissed her silly. Panting, she fell back into the plastic chair and stared at the set of headlights headed down the mountain toward the trailer park. They flickered through the trees like lightning bugs, growing closer by the second.

Her panic was nowhere to be found. All she could feel was the slightly drunken numbness that only came with several shots of whiskey. Holy moly, that man could kiss. But she’d meant to be professional, and kissing a stranger she was supposed to build a working acquaintance with was definitely not that. She should leave.

“I should go. Thank you for the beer and the…lips.” She fluttered her fingertips in front of her mouth and stumbled away, knocking the chair over as she tripped to escape.