a start and a very sharp yelp. I was dreaming I was back with my husband and that he was beating me for oversleeping again. I was ready to beg and plead, and promise to get right to work, but something felt different. Jack would have never just put a hand on my shoulder and shaken me awake without beginning to yell right away.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Brooks said.
I turned around to face him. He looked like he had just woken up himself. His eyes were droopy, his T-shirt crumpled, and his skin had red marks on it.
Why was Brooks in my house? Oh. Wait. I was in his. I looked around, my memories slowly coming back to me. I was in his trailer, not the cabin, and I had slept on his couch. I looked down at my bandaged hands, feet, and finally, shamefully, I felt myself. He hadn’t touched me last night. He hadn’t touched me once since the forest. I looked up at him, and while he must have realized what had just gone through my mind, he didn’t comment on it. I could no longer look into his eyes.
“Good morning,” I said with a voice I wished wasn’t so shaky. Even with Milo there, who knew what he would do? Milo! “I will get to feeding him right now,” I said, having found my excuse to flee, and got up from the old couch.
Brooks blocked my path, and his hand accidentally touched mine. I retreated, nearly falling back down on my ass. Surely, he wouldn’t… My gaze dropped to his pants. He wasn’t showing signs.
“Easy, I just need you to get breakfast going. I have to leave for work, and I don’t have time to do it myself. I overslept,” he added, and he looked and sounded a little sheepish, if that word could be used to describe a guy his size and well, species.
I nodded, unsure of why he was being so civil, so restrained with me. He could have made me suck him off again – a bit of fun before work. Milo wouldn’t have been able to see us from behind the thick curtains of the bedroom area.
“Alright.”
I carefully side-stepped him and looked around his kitchen, which wasn’t more than a slab of wood, some cabinets, a coffee maker, and the world’s most ancient oven. I opened and closed every door, trying to see what I had to work with, which wasn’t all that much. How had his wife lived in such a way? This man only had one frying pan and two pots. Did they all eat raw meat, or what? Scrambled eggs and a side of bacon, and stale bread would have to do.
I cracked the eggs and warmed the pan while trying to ignore the sounds of him washing himself and the images of him lifting my dress and fucking me over the stove, while the eggs turned to black, ignored. What was wrong with me? Did I or did I not want this man to fuck me? I shook my head, mad at myself. Then it occurred to me how I’d spent the last few days, getting fucked in so many ways and positions, for hours upon hours, and I supposed this reaction was normal. I had grown used to sex. I had been trained to expect and accept it, especially since there was something in it for me too, namely orgasms and sensations and feelings I hadn’t experienced before.
I set his plate down and waited. I looked around, noting how different the place seemed to be now that it was bathed in rays of warm light coming from outside. It looked and felt less threatening, more homey, if a little shabby.
“You can eat too, you know,” he said and dug into his food.
“I’m not hungry,” I lied. The truth was there wasn’t much to eat in the house, and I wanted him to have a generous meal. Bears ate a lot, right?
Jack used to devour a dozen eggs a week, so surely Brooks would go through that in a day. I’d only had five to work with, and the bacon slices were thin, so perhaps he would still be hungry. I needed him to be okay with me. I didn’t want this – whatever this was – to turn into a repeat of what I’d had with Jack. Despite the fact that the bear shifters hadn’t beaten me, despite that they’d just fucked me and