Page 45 of Handcuffed to the Bear

He kissed her again. She was exquisitely careful this time, but there was still enough heat in it to leave him feeling like he was floating.

“I haven’t even asked if you’re seeing anyone,” she said breathlessly, after their lips parted. “I assume you would have said something.”

“Nope. You?”

“No. No one at all.”

She bit his lip gently; he kissed back, licked and nibbled. They explored each other’s mouths, learning each other’s bodies, a little at a time.

“Jack ...” she said softly when they parted again to lie, their faces inches apart, gazing into each other’s eyes. “Do you think there’s a future for us, when we get out of this? Is this really ... a thing? Or just desperation and loneliness.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

Casey smiled faintly. “I wondered if you found me terribly unattractive, since you hardly seemed to look at me at all.”

“No, God, anything but that. I was just trying not to creep on you. And I’m used to being around naked people.” Her eyebrows shot up. “Shifters, I mean,” he clarified.

“I hardly know any,” Casey said. “Besides my family, Wendy was the first I met.” A shadow clouded her clear gold-flecked eyes, but it faded before tears could gather—pushing the hurt back, he could see, into the tight ball of pain she’d grown used to carrying with her.

“What was she like?” Jack asked.

“She was great.” Casey’s face relaxed into a smile. “Really cheerful and funny, even though she was kind of shy. I think I told you earlier that we were both orphans. At least I had somewhere to go. I lived with my grandma after Mom died. Wendy came up through the foster care system. But somehow she never let it get her down. She still had so much warmth and light and joy inside her. She didn’t make friends easily, but once you did get to know her, she was the best, most loyal friend you could possibly have.”

And a perfect target for the Fallons: someone with no close family, and only a few close friends. Although the Fallons could never have anticipated the lengths Casey would go through to find out what happened to her friend.

“It’s funny,” Casey went on. “I haven’t talked about her since ... all of that happened. I’ve even kind of stopped thinking about her. Is that awful? I didn’t want the Fallons to catch on, so I didn’t dare mention her at work, and I don’t really know anyone else who knew her. It’s like she stopped existing, almost. I did itforher, but now I feel like Wendy would rather have been remembered for how she was, instead of me rearranging my life around some kind of ... of revenge quest.”

“But you didn’t know for certain what had happened,” Jack reminded her.

“No, but I guessed. I knew deep down that I wouldn’t find her alive and well. She’s probably here, Jack, in these caves, or if not, then on this island somewhere. I finally know for sure that she’s dead, and I feel like I should be all broken up about it, but I think I did my crying for Wendy years ago. It’s just a weird kind of relief to know what really happened to her. Is that weird?”

“Not at all,” Jack said gently. He stroked her hair, smoothed it back from her face. “It makes a lot of sense to me.”

“I wish I could have known her for longer. She deserved so much more than she got.”

“We’ll make them pay,” Jack promised.Or, if not us, then Avery and the rest will.But this was definitely not a kind of honesty he was prepared to dump on her.

“I know. It’s ironic, in a way, because Wendy was my gateway to the rest of the shifter world. I always knew from Mom and Grandma that there were more of us out there, but it wasn’t ‘til I discovered the Fallons through Wendy, and their whole company full of shifters, that I knew just how many of us there were.” She sighed. “The only problem is, I couldn’t ever really get to know anybody there, and I’m sure not going back afterthis.”

“Well, when Avery and the rest come for us, you’ll get to meet a whole bunch more shifters. Decent ones.”

She kissed him lightly, first on the lips and then on the nose, gentle nibbling kisses that sent warm rushes of heat through him. “You really trust them to come for you.”

“Yeah.” The depth of it surprised him. Maybe it took almost dying to figure out what you really had—and therefore stood to lose. “I do.”

“I don’t know what it would be like, to have people in your life you trust that much.”

“Neither did I for a long time,” Jack admitted. “Bear shifters are loners by nature. I don’t think I ever realized what I was missing until I met Avery.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “I could almost be jealous, the way you talk about him.”

“It’s complicated,” Jack admitted. “Actually, I probablyshouldtell you about Avery, because if we do end up ... doing something, if this leads to something ...” He raised his head and looked toward the mouth of the cave. The rain still fell, heavy and gray. “But maybe now isn’t the time.”

“I don’t think we should go anywhere yet.” She traced light patterns on his neck, played a little with the dark curl of hair at the top of his collarbone. “I know they’re out there, Jack. But ifwego out, we’ll just get soaked again and wear ourselves out. Let’s wait for the rain to let up a bit.”

“Probably best.” Hecouldget up. If he had to. But the longer he rested, the more prepared he’d be when he had to fight again.

“I was just kidding about being jealous. I wouldn’t, you know.”

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