Page 91 of Jealous Lumberjack
Brandon’s smile cracks at the edges. “You barely know her. Not like I do. She couldn’t possibly be making rational choices out here. Not with this… caveman.”
Rational.
That word is venom in my blood.
He’s painting me as some kind of monster so he can keep claiming he’s the savior who wants to rescue his precious investment.
Every cadence in his voice is practiced to make the cops side with him, because he thinks money, a suit, a polite smile, buys the world.
I don’t even hear the rest of his oily words until the last thread snaps. I lunge.
Hands are on me, but I’m a hurricane fueled by grizzly power. And the next thing the little twerp in tweed knows, I’ve got him by the throat, I’m lifting him clear off his polished boots.
He’s small in my grip. So pathetically fragile.
He gurgles, fingers scrabbling at my forearm, eyes wide with a new, realistic kind of fear. The cops shout for me to stop. I don’t listen. There’s a sweet clarity in the choke—this man who thought he could chart my petal like a route on a map—mouthless now.
“What about those years she’s wasted on a sack of shit like you, hmm?” I say, voice a slow rasp. “How about an eyeball for every year? I’d go for those raisin balls of yours but they won’t be worth my?—”
“No.” Lily’s voice cuts under me, sharp enough to cleave. She steps forward, unblinking, unafraid. The sight of her steadying hand on my wrist does more than the cops ever could. Whatever ropes still hold the animal in me loosen because she asks for it. “You’re playing into his hands,” she says. “Stop. I don’t want my Bear in jail.”
God, I love her, but… I can’t make my fingers unfurl. Not yet.
She sways closer, sliding her hand up my arm. Then she rises on tiptoe, speaks for my ears alone. Maybe Brandon’s too. “How about I make a few promises, hmm?” she says, and then my stomach drops because the next words tumble out in the heat of the moment, raw and ridiculous and hers. “Whatever you want. You have two more holes to train into Goldilocks perfection, Big Guy, remember? I’ll do whatever you want. If you stay here. With me.”
For a heartbeat the clearing is a held breath even as Brandon’s face goes puce. And no, I wouldn’t mind at all if Lily gloating about how well she’s taken me inside her pretty cunt is the last thing this shit-bag human leech hears in his pathetic life.
The cops have their fingers hovered over their guns. The one with the Taser’s hand shakes. The situation tastes like a line I shouldn’t cross.
For Lily’s sake.
Her face is steady and wild and real, and I only have eyes for her. Her vow is a rope tethering me back from my breaking point.
“We’re going to need you to let him go, Hunter,” one cop shouts.
“One thing,” I rasp, voice thick with something that might be gratitude or want or the last of the animal. “Only one thing I need from you, petal.”
“I know,” she whispers, eyes still pinned to mine. “And you’ll get it. But not while you’re holding Captain Douchebag. Let him go, Bear.”
I hold the asshole tighter for a second more, feel the pulse in his neck under my fingers, then—enough. I hurl him like garbage into the dirt.
He lands in a crumpled heap, coughing, the dregs of his dignity shattered across my clearing. The cops close in, hiding their relief as they haul him up and away.
I wipe my hands on my jeans, the motion absurdly domestic after the violence. I’m breathing like I’ve run a race.
“You better get him the fuck off my mountain,” I tell the nearest officer, voice low and dangerous. “Charge him for wasting your time. For the tracker. For whatever illegal bullshit he’s done to try and own a person.”
The officers trade looks, then one cop shrugs and cuffs him. “You’re under arrest for…” His voice trails off as Brandon stammers and sputters, but his words are wet and small now.
And I can’t hide my smirk at the sight of brand-new cuffs click on weak, polished wrists. They lead him toward the squad cars, and I watch each protesting step Brandon takes, the man who thought he could own my woman, being put into the back of a cruiser.
When the officer goes around to get behind the wheel, I stride to the back where the weasel is still complaining.
Leaning into the window, I let the animal out one last time, low and ugly. “Last thing, asshole. Step a foot on this mountain again,” I warn, voice hard, close to a growl, “and you’ll leave with stumps for legs. Got it?”
Brandon looks like he’s seen death, and it’s not pretty. He swallows, all of his arrogance stripped down to a scared, whining little thing as the cop car hustles him away.
The others follow.