Return To The Bear by T.S. Joyce Page A

“Did you get enough for both of us?”
    A nod and he moved toward a wobbly table held up with cardboard drink coasters under the wonky leg. He held out a chair and waited, his head canted. Shadows from the street light outside stretched across the chiseled angles of his face, and he seemed happy to remain in the dark and didn’t flip on the light switch behind him. He smelled like bear and his movements were smoother, more predatory.
    As gingerly as she could, she stood and sank against the cold plastic seat. He pushed her closer to the table and took his own seat across from her. He’d bought enough hamburgers to feed a small army of carnivores, along with two plastic containers that held loaded baked potatoes.
    “I had to drive two towns over and all that was open was a diner.”
    He said it like an apology, but a smile was already cracking her face. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a hamburger?”
    His dark eyebrow twitched and he tilted his head, studying her. “No. I don’t know anything about you.”
    “Oh.” Having a conversation with a shifter more bear than man was pointless and would likely result in her getting her feelings hurt, so she unwrapped a plastic fork and stabbed at her potato until all the cheese was mixed in. Then she removed the crinkling paper of a burger and sank her teeth into what tasted like a homemade bun. Juicy tomato, crispy lettuce and the man had sprung for cheese on the burgers. She didn’t even care if he was basically a bear in human skin right now. He was an angel in her book. An angry, growly angel.
    Minutes later, as she contemplated eating a second burger or not, Brody asked, “How long?”
    “Hmm?”
    “How long since you’ve had a hamburger?”
    “Since the Long Claws took over Blood Den. Two years.”
    He took his last bite and chewed slowly. Her eyes dipped to his sensual mouth. How could the man make chewing look so sex y. Brody’s nostrils flared and a slow smile crooked his lips. He swallowed and lifted his chin once. “Tell me what you need, Joanna. I don’t take hints well.”
    “I need…” What did she ne ed? For Brody to touch her. For him to kiss her stupid again, like he’d done by the pond. She needed for him to want her, but his earlier words echoed through her mind. He didn’t want her as a mate. He’d paid a debt by bonding to her. Nothing more, nothing less.
    She sighed and stood, then cleared the empty wrappers and containers while he watched her with a strange glow in his eyes. “What I need is to wash the mud from my skin.”
    He leaned back, draped an arm over the back of his chair and narrowed his eyes. The smile had gone from his lips, replaced by a grim line, one that seemed at odds with his face. “Do you need help?”
    She didn’t miss the somber tone of a man who made an offer he didn’t really want to. “Thank you for dinner,” she said as she grabbed the brown paper back of clothes from the bedside table.
    She padded into the bathroom and shut the door gently behind her and pressed her back against it. The way he looked at her tonight, so empty, promising her an empty bedding wasn’t what she had thought she was signing up for. She wanted more than Nathan had to offer, and now Brody was so hot and cold, he frightened her. Not because she thought he would hurt her, but because she wanted him to want her.
    Without meaning to, she’d given a man the power to break her.
    She turned to her reflection in the bathroom mirror and ran her fingers along the smooth edges of the healing knife wounds. No, she hadn’t given just anyone that power. She’d offered it to her unwilling mate. Tears burned her eyes and she blinked them back, determined not to cry for the stranger in the next room.
    What did she need? It had always been the same answer, the thing she’d risked her life for.
    She wanted to be touched.
    She needed to be loved.

Chapter Nine
     
    By the time Joanna had scrubbed her skin with a washrag and