Too Much to Bear (BBW Shifter Ménage) (3 page)

“It isn’t up to you,” he said finally, before pulling away
from her and moving her aside gently, pulling the door open and stepping out
into the night.

“We’ll be in touch,” he said, giving her a small wink before
disappearing into the darkness. Madison stood shocked into silence for a
moment, staring out into the inky black night, the sounds of humming insects
and rustling foliage in the wind completely silent to her as his words grew
larger in her mind and heart, like a wild, all-consuming disease of desire

“No and I won’t say it again. This is the last time I’m
answering the phone, Dustin,” she retorted haughtily into her phone, in a tone
much nastier than she actually felt. She felt like a wounded animal backed into
a corner.

“But Baby—” he said in his typical
‘pleading-for-forgiveness’ voice. The one she had fallen for so many times in
the past.

I’m not falling for it this time
, she told herself
before taking a deep breath, bringing a hand to her pounding temple.

“Don’t you dare call me that after what happened. I can’t
believe you had the nerve to call my cousin and get this number. Goodbye
Dustin, I hope you get exactly what you deserve in life!” she half-yelled into
the phone before slamming it into the receiver.

She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes but she
shook them away.

“I’ve been like a loose cannon lately,” she mumbled before
moving away from the black rotary phone on the living room coffee table. Since
she didn’t have cell phone reception up in the mountains she assumed it would
be her mother or cousin Jenny calling to check on her, or some telemarketer
looking for a Mr. Seth Brown. No one, not even her best friend Chelsea, had the
number to the cabin.

So she was very shaken to hear Dustin’s voice again, his
pleading, the torrent of lies that he told her so easily without any remorse.
Shaking her head in an attempt to banish the pain and mortification, she
stepped out onto the back porch, taking in a big breath of the fresh mountain
air to calm herself down.

Because it wasn’t just the phone call that was getting to
her—all day she had been running through the events of the night before
in her mind, replaying the look in Caleb’s eyes, the feeling of his hot touch,
soft like silk and yet burning like lava.

It isn’t up to you.

She should have been scared, should have slept with her
grandfather’s rifle cradled in her arms, but she couldn’t help it. She was
hopelessly turned on by his sexy words, seduced by the power that he showed
with each movement of his strong lips.

He was the kind of man that women warned their daughters
about, and he was
delicious
.

I can’t keep thinking about last night
, she resolved,
looking out into the beautiful scenery around her. She could see over the tops
of trees where she stood, the outline of purple mountain peaks in the distance.
She wondered briefly if she should go for a hike or read one of the many novels
she had brought with her to pass the time.

But before she could even think about which option was most
likely to distract her from her addled half-thoughts, she heard a pounding at
the front door. She jumped, startled out of her daydreaming and stepped back
into the house, making her way to the front door.

“Oh, hi,” she said, catching her breath as Will stood
smiling before her, his sandy hair tousled up carelessly and his gunmetal eyes
gleaming with a soft, ethereal kindness.

“Hey yourself,” he replied. “Sorry to bother you, but I was
taking a walk and I just thought I’d let you know that your tail light’s out.”

“Um, yeah I know,” Madison blushed. She had briefly thought
to go down the mountain to use the internet at the only McDonald’s for miles,
but she had backed her truck out into a bush in her yard by complete accident,
unused to the amount of nature that surrounded her vehicle at all times. A
branch smashed into her left tail light, and out of frustration she just locked
herself in her house and took a long, hot bath in which she stewed about her
incompetence.

“Just wanted to offer to fix it for you, since Officer Caleb
can be a real pain about things like that.”

“Oh, is that so?” she asked, her heart skipping a beat at
the mention of his name.

“Yeah, he’s a bit of a pain sometimes,” Will chuckled, “but
I do happen to have a few bulbs at my place and I’m not doing anything. I can’t
do too much about the cover, but why don’t I try to patch that up for
you?”
“Really?” Madison asked, surprised by his kind offer. “Are you a
mechanic or something?”
“No,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Just an eccentric kind of guy with too much time on his hands.”

“Well...I don’t think I could stand to get a ticket. Who
knows how far away the closest DMV is,” she laughed back. “Sure, that’d be
great.”

Somehow eased by his kindness, by the calm song of his voice
and the sweet tenderness of his gaze, Madison sat contentedly on her front
porch until Will came back with a toolkit and a bag of car bulbs. Realizing it
would take some time, she went inside and fixed up a casserole with the few
groceries she had bought before settling into the cabin the day before.

By the time he finished, Madison greeted him with some iced
tea and a hand towel.

“Sorry it’s not fresh brewed. I’m not exactly the best at
being domestic,” she joked as he mopped down his forehead. He laughed.

“Anything’s fine by me,” he admitted, taking a swig of the
iced tea and smacking his lips as he let out a satisfied, “ah.”

“How much do I owe you?” she asked, bustling over to her bag
on the kitchen table where she had her checkbook. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to
write you a check. I don’t have much cash on me.”

“No charge,” Will replied, holding up a hand and
shaking his head as she tried to protest. “Your company is more than sufficient
payment.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Madison insisted, but he walked
over to the kitchen counter, grabbing the pen from her hand and gently placing
it back down. The brush of his fingers against her own jolted her, causing her
to gasp in shock.

“Are you alright?” he asked with an amused grin as he pulled
his hand away from her.

“Yeah, sorry…” she mumbled, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.
She turned towards her fridge so that she could hide her mortified expression.

Control yourself
, she mentally chided herself as she
pulled the fridge door open and buried her face in the cool wash of air.

“Are you hungry?” she called over her shoulder, trying to
sound as casual as she could. “It’s the least I can do to try and repay you.”

“Actually, some home cooking sounds like it’d really hit the
spot just about now. I forgot to eat breakfast.”

“Really? A guy like you?” she asked, pulling out the iced
tea to refill Will’s drained glass. “I would have figured the guys up here ate
a fair share of fish and game.”

Madison didn’t mention it, but she also couldn’t help but
appraise his figure. He was leaner than most men she knew (mostly because the
men back home where preoccupied with looking like what they called “real” men,
which involved eating lots of meat and little else), but he was built in the
shoulders, which were deliciously wide. He was no longer the scrawny boy she
had known all those years ago.

“Yeah, I don’t do much hunting. I do fish, and I do like to
eat, don’t get me wrong. I just have the bad habit of forgetting to feed
myself,” he looked slightly bashful as he admitted it, drinking from his glass
for a moment. “I was raised by my Aunt Jeanine, but she moved about forty
minutes south of here to take care of her mother, so I don’t have anyone to nag
at me anymore. Don’t let that fool you though; I’m a mighty good cook.”

“Is that so?” Madison asked, smiling despite herself. She
served a big heaping of the casserole on a porcelain plate from the cupboard,
glad that she had thought to clean those the day before. She handed him the
plate and he looked at it appreciatively.

“This smells absolutely fantastic,” he mused before sticking
his fork into the thick, cheesy confection. Then he shoved it in his mouth,
closing his eyes as he hummed out his approval.

“This tastes just like the one my aunt used to make,” he
said, his tone slightly surprised. Madison couldn’t help but beam at the
earnest compliment—while cooking wasn’t her passion, she had been trying
to improve her culinary skills over the last few years. But Dustin refused to
try any of her creations, opting instead for anything that came from the frozen
aisle of the supermarket.

“It’s nothing fancy,” she said bashfully, serving her own
portion on a plate. Her mouth watered at the smell of it. She took a bite and
was surprised by how good it was. “Oh wow,” she mused.

“See?” Will replied, wolfing down more of it. “You’ve got a
talent.”

Madison’s stomach did flip-flops at his kind words—it
was something she was hoping to find out here on her wilderness retreat: her
passion, her talents.

Things she was so sure for years that she didn’t have.

As if he read her mind Will asked, “What do you do? Are you
a chef?”

Madison couldn’t stop the loud, ungraceful laugh that left
her. “Sorry, didn’t mean to mock you or anything. But no, not in the slightest.
I...I guess I don’t do anything,” she admitted, feeling deflated as the reality
sunk in. She had spent so much time thinking about Dustin, about how strange it
was to be in her grandfather’s house without him, about how Caleb had made her
feel, that she hadn’t considered her position long enough to realize what she
had become.

“Well, that can’t be true. You’re doing something now,” he
teased. “What’d you do before coming here?”

“I worked as a bartender at a trucker stop. How about
yourself?” she asked, eager to change the subject and find out more about what
Will had ended up becoming. “I really didn’t expect to find you or Caleb still
up here.”

Will laughed. “Yeah, what can I say? I love the mountains.
Caleb does too. We’re housemates now. Guess neither of us minded more of the
same.”

Madison raised her brows, slightly surprised by the information.
But then she felt that cursed heat spread across her milky chest as she
suddenly wondered if Will knew about her strange encounter with Caleb the night
before.

“So I ended up being a writer,” Will continued as he shoved
the last bite of casserole in his mouth. He chewed considerately before
speaking again. “Figured it was something that really fit the recluse
lifestyle.”

“You’re a writer?” Madison was impressed. She didn’t know
anyone who did creative things like that, and as a bookworm herself she had
always wondered how her favorite authors crafted such intricate worlds. “What
do you write?”

“Horror mostly,” he admitted, and laughed as he caught the
slight fall in her face. “I know, I know. Not everyone’s cup of tea. But that’s
really just my cover story. It’s better the town doesn’t know about my romance
pen name.”

“You write
romance
? No way!” Madison gushed. She had
never knowingly read a romance book by a man before, and something about the
idea of Will writing romance seemed ridiculously sexy. He looked slightly taken
aback by her reaction and hesitated.

“I do...I don’t know why I told you that. I guess I just can
sense that you’re not so judgmental.”
“How could I judge that? I love
romance novels! What’s your penname? Maybe I’ve even heard of you,” she said,
running through a mental list of her recent reads.

“Morgan Starks,” he said after a slight, embarrassed pause.
“But I’m sure you haven’t—”

“Oh. My. God.” Madison’s jaw hung open as she forgot to
breathe momentarily. She had read Morgan Starks’s
A Touch of Satin
at
least seven times. Her copy was worn and battered, with dog-marked pages and
soft strokes of eager lead, all indicating the sultriest of passages.

It was more than a page-turner. It was a blood boiler.

“I take it you’ve heard of me?” he joked, standing to take
his dish to the sink like Madison had never seen a man do before. But she was
still stuck on who he was—an absolute prince of the finest smut she had
ever read.

“
Heard
of you? I’m obsessed with you!
A Touch of
Satin
is one of the best books I’ve ever read!”

“Oh, well I’m glad you liked it. I guess I imagine most
people would think I was kind of sick in the head…” he chuckled.  Madison
was completely captivated by the melody of his laugh as it floated from his
thick, parted lips, the smooth, ethereal quality of his skin, the intensity of
his eyes and the feather lightness of his hair. Never in a million years would
she have guessed that the author of her favorite and most sensual erotic read
looked like a piece of erotic art himself—it was like a rugged angel had
fallen into her grandparent’s kitchen and announced he was E.L. James.

“I just can’t believe you wrote it,” she said, gushing
despite herself. “I guess I imagined that whoever wrote it could never
be—”

“A man?” Will suggested, his eyebrows raised.
“So
hot
,”
Madison finished, immediately bringing her hand to her mouth in mortification.
“Sorry, that came out wrong. I mean, I meant handsome, but it came out
so—”

Will laughed, taking the empty plate from Madison’s hands
and gently placing it in the sink.

“Don’t worry. I think you’re hot too,” he said in a low,
seductive growl that she couldn’t believe was coming from the mild-mannered
Will. But before she could even think to react, he had his hands pressed on
either side of her face, cupping it gently in his surprisingly calloused palms.

Then he leaned his face forward, moving towards her at a
rate that seemed to take eons. Yet every pass of breath between them stirred
something inside of her, made her feel more alive, more than she had ever been.
His lips touched hers softly at first, a graze of skin and heat. But it wasn’t
hesitance—she could feel it in the marrow of her bones. It was grace. It
was
seduction
.

Madison shuddered as he moved a hand up into her hair,
pulling at the band that kept it captive in a ponytail. She relaxed her own
hands at her sides, daring to bring them around his surprisingly hard waist.
Her fingers itched, anticipating the swell and bulge of muscle, if only she
dared to move them further, to explore…