Page 33 of Step Brother Bear

I’m too delirious from the pain to fully register his words, but something mends inside of me—ironic since my insides are actually being rearranged—but it’s like I’ve been waiting for those words my whole life. That I mean something to someone. That I belong.

He doesn’t stop. He’s a wild animal as he drives into me, taking his pleasure but still strumming me like a harp, making me sing. I reach my edge just as he sputters inside of me, stretching me even further to keep himself inside of me. Of course, it hurts, but it quickly turns into pleasure, enough to bring me to a point in my ecstasy I didn’t even know existed.

Once my second orgasm passes, I’m reminded what he is, who I am, and what all of this means. He holds me up, smoothing down my hair and mumbling happily into my ear. Birds chirp in the distance, light dances on the surface of the water—everything is perfect, except it’s not, because no matter what my swollen heart tells me, Derek is still my stepbrother. My stepbrother bear.

Chapter 14

“Derek, take your shirt back.” I grab the bottom, ready to pull it over my head and throw it over the car to him.

He scoffs, pulling my rumpled AC/DC crop-top out of the back seat and over his head. “Yeah fucking right. You think I want your ass hanging out for everyone in the grocery store to see?” He walks around the car, and I catch the full glimpse of him, the too-small shirt nearly ripping off his body and showing an ample amount of underboob, not to mention the bulging set of abs.

I sigh. He’s right. His shirt barely covers my ass, but enough that I won’t make any old ladies inside uncomfortable. Him, on the other hand? All eyes will be glued to him. I cross my arms over my chest. “I thought you could fight?”

He laughs, throwing an arm over my shoulder, pulling me against him, and kissing my cheek. My insides heat, and I blush, looking around the parking lot. “Wouldn’t be a good idea if I went full bear mode inside the Willy’s next to the chicken cutlets.”

“Excuses.”

“Yes, but a great one.” He lets go of me to retrieve a cart before we enter through the automatic doors.

“We could have gone home first,” I say as I catch the first gawker, a woman in her fifties, eying Derek from head to toe. I suddenly wish I could fight.

“This was on the way. I didn’t want to bother you by asking you to take me out again. Besides, I know you love looking at me with my titties almost slipping out.” He grins and bumps his shoulder with mine.

I blush and slap his arm. “I do not.” He simultaneously annoys me and flutters my insides at the same time. A true talent.

We head toward the meat aisle and Derek hungrily looks at the selection. “Didn’t you eat enough at the stream?”

He whips his eyes to me, taking a long glance from the top of my head to my toes. “Oh, I could definitely eat more. Always.”

How can I be so hot in so little clothing? I shake away his heated words, remembering we’re in public and Deep Water is a small town, so I must contain myself. “Do you have to eat more than an average man?”

He eyes the cuts, stacking slabs of red meat into the cart. “Yes. A fuckton more.”

“How can you afford all that?”

“Why do you think I don’t have my own place?”

“You spend all your money on food?”

“Yep.”

“Did you have like…a job?” It’s the most preposterous question, surface-level. I didn’t keep in touch with my family while in New York, least of all Derek. I know shit about his life after graduating, and even before that, really.

He laughs, looking at me. Instead of annoyance in his eyes, there’s a special sparkle, as if he loves my questions. “Yes.”

“Doing what?”

“I worked in construction.”

“Did you get fired?”

He shakes his head as a way to point to his almost-healed shoulder. “I can’t work with the injury, so I’m using all my savings to survive and staying with our parents in the meantime.”

We walk on, the cart completely loaded with meat. “Can’t you stay with friends or something?”

“Can’t. Ripped a guy's arm off, they kicked me out of the pack, remember?”

“Oh, right.”