Boarlander Cursed Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 5) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online

hugging an ice sculpture.
    Mortified at her brash behavior, she froze, too embarrassed to look at his face right now, too horrified by her actions to let go. Was he shaking? No, that was probably her imagination. She was the one shivering.
    But Clinton was warm. So warm. Hot almost, like a heating pad against her entire torso. Clinton softened, muscle by muscle, and then he stunned her when he unfurled his arms from his chest and patted her awkwardly on the back. And when she squeezed her eyes tightly closed and hugged his impossibly taut waist even harder, he let off a shallow breath and slid his arms around her back. God, it felt so good to be hugged. Clinton pulled her tighter against him, and that’s when she heard it. His heartbeat was drumming fast, like a horse running full speed on soft earth. She moved her cheek over by inches just to feel it. To feel him. So fast. So hard. How was he upright and not passing out? His hand brushed up her spine and gripped the back of her hair at the base of her neck, and when he rested his cheek softly against the top of her head, an accidental sob left her lips. This was better than any kiss she’d ever had, any embrace, any compliment. For one blinding moment, she felt okay.
    And then he whispered something so terrifying into her ear, she froze against him, too scared to flee, too scared to give him her back. “I want to bite you.”
    She wasn’t okay. She wasn’t softening his heart. The desperation to connect with him had overshadowed her survival instincts.
    Alyssa was nothing but prey to a monster like Clinton.

Chapter Seven
     
    The vision of Shae scrambling away from him, out of his arms, was like shrapnel in his chest. Clinton huffed a pissed-off laugh. She’d tricked him into that hug at Moosey’s.
    That’s what women did. They tricked him.
    No. Not Shae. He remembered when they were fifteen, and he’d snuck into her window and spent the night with her for the first time. She hadn’t tricked him into what they’d done then, and she wasn’t tricking him now. She wasn’t her . She wasn’t Amber.
    He slapped himself in the head a few times to get away from thoughts of his second mate. That would bring him nothing but uncontrolled Changes and pain.
    The pre-dawn air was crisp and cold, and it was windier up here on top of his trailer. He liked sitting above the trailer park before everyone woke up. Before the noise. Before the disappointment he brought everyone.
    Clinton wrung the small yellow T-shirt in his hands and hated himself for what he was considering. She hadn’t left, and then she’d touched him. She’d hugged him. She’d split him wide open, and now he couldn’t fight anymore. He couldn’t leave her alone. Selfish Monster .
    He opened the wrinkled shirt and read the black lettering. Team Clinton. Everyone had a support group cheering them on for the upcoming Lumberjack Wars, but not him. He had a stack of shirts Beck had given him to pass out, but they all still sat boxed up in the vacant trailer where he left all his other trash. But now he couldn’t get the imaginings of Shae wearing his shirt out of his head.
    Dana had been mad when he hadn’t gone back for her daughter. She’d been like a mother to him once. He’d spent his youth eating dinners over at their house and going to church with them on Sunday mornings. She’d known what he was, and so had Shae’s dad, and they’d still loved him. Clinton ran his hand down his beard and stared at the first rays of dawn peeking over the mountainous horizon. Going back for Shae had been all he’d thought about in that testing facility, but something had happened while he was there that had made him too dark to track down Shae when he’d escaped. He couldn’t poison her. He cared about her too much to expose her to what he’d become. She would’ve gone right down to hell with him. She’d talked about being in the dark and not knowing where the light switch was, but he was no one’s