The Bears of Blackrock, Books 1 - 3: The Fenn Clan (21 page)

“God fucking damn it! I want you, Josephine. I want to feel you.”

Kirk buried his face into her neck, kissing and sucking at her there as her body responded over him. His rhythm was perfect, and she gasped there, startled by what was happening. Joe looked down at the beautiful face of Kirk Fenn, and despite years of covering smiles and averting her eyes, let him watch her come. She exhaled in a desperate moan as her body succumbed to his efforts, even fully clothed, satisfied by friction and rhythm alone. He just kept smiling at her, only making it worse. She collapsed over him, breathless and panting in his ear as he chuckled under her.

“That’s one way to get the job done,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

She remained there over him, his hands warm against her ass, still kneading her gently. She turned her face into his neck, smelling him. “God, what are we? Fifteen?”

Kirk laughed, softly. “What’s a little dry humping between friends, right?”

Joe laughed, pinching his earlobe between her lips. “But what about you?”

Kirk turned to look at her. “What about me?”

Joe stared down at him. She remembered this feeling – the desire to please a man, to make him feel as though the world revolved around him for even a moment. She’d known that want before, so long ago she’d almost forgotten it, but this time, she was beginning to think Kirk Fenn actually deserved it. Joe took a breath, and moved from over him, reaching for the buckle of his belt.

“Whoa, sweetheart. What’re you doin there?”

Joe smiled up at him, tugging the belt free before unbuttoning his jeans. His hands shot to his groin, touching her hands, though he did not attempt to stop her.

“We’re both gonna be late for work,” he said, but his smile betrayed his true thoughts. He was nervous, but excited, almost blushing as Joe pulled his boxers out of the way to let his cock spring from beneath. Joe stopped a moment at the sight of him, her heart leaping with the sudden realization of what was happening. She hadn’t touched a man like this in a very long time – hadn’t wanted to. Yet now, as her eyes darted from his beautiful face to this rigid part of his anatomy, she felt a passion she couldn’t express in words. She wanted to please him, every part of him.

Joe took hold of him as he inhaled. Then she took him in her mouth.

Joe closed her eyes as she listened to him moan, his fingers gently clutching her hair. She relished the taste, the way he felt in her mouth, the familiar smell of his cologne and his laundry detergent surrounding her. She fought to pretend she wasn’t enjoying it, but her fervor only increased with each moan she drew, and each whisper of her name.

She moved with deeper purpose, relenting to a knowledge she’d wanted desperately to deny.

This was more than lust.

Kirk’s sighs grew more ragged, and she doubled her pace, desperate to know his taste.

Damn it, Joe, she thought. What’s happening to you?

Joe felt her face flush as she walked into the Blackrock Tavern ten minutes late. Gracie shot her a smile, then cocked an eyebrow as Joe grew close.

“Have a good morning, did you?”

Joe startled. Did she know? Did everyone know? Did he tell them?

The irrational thoughts must’ve played across her face, because Gracie simply laughed at her.

“You’re late, but you’re smiling. Must mean something good, right?”

Joe crinkled her nose. “Sorry about that.”

“Psh! No worries. Kirk’s your ride; it’s his fault.”

Joe made her way into the kitchen, pulling her apron from her locker and tying it at her back. Billy wasn’t working until evening shift that night, and Sarah wouldn’t be hosting until lunch. That left Joe and Gracie to contend with the crowd while Tiernan ran the kitchen.

Though it was only her second day, somehow Joe felt ready to take on the world.

The locals filtered in, took their usual booths, and the day began; an Eggs Benedict for Mr. Cooper, a stack of blueberry pancakes for off-duty Officer Black, and coffee and oatmeal for Maynard Talbot, an older gentlemen who liked to come in from the reservation on his way to Ellsworth. Joe smiled at each of them, topping off their coffees and refilling their juices.

“You seem to be in a good mood, girlie.”

Gracie wasn’t the only one to notice it seemed, as Tiernan swatted Joe with a towel on her way through the kitchen. She just smiled, feeling her heart race at each mention of her good mood. Their comments made her remember what it was that put such a spring in her step – the way Kirk moved beneath her, watched her every move, moaned at the touch of her mouth and demanded to kiss her for another five minutes, even after she’d brought him to climax in her mouth. And finally, the way he smacked her ass as she was climbing out of the truck to go to work, then smiled that heart rendering smile of his out through the windshield, waiting for her to go inside before he’d pull away.

“Tell me you’ll let me have you, tonight,” he’d said as they settled themselves after their roadside interlude. “Properly.”

Properly?”

Kirk’s voice dropped an octave. “Oh yes. Properly.”

Joe just smiled. “You’re making me nervous. Stop it,” she’d said. Still, Kirk asked again as they pulled down the road.

Yes, she said. He could have her properly.

Yes, and yes, and yes.

God, he was a good kisser.

Sarah was at the hostess station by eleven, and the lunch crowd began to filter in shortly thereafter, bringing in the working crowd from all over. It wasn’t hard to earn the business of locals when you’re in the middle of nowhere.

Joe made half a dozen mistakes, her mind flitting about like a moth, half ignoring people as they made their orders because she was too busy fantasizing about Kirk Fenn, and what he might look like naked.

“I ordered it without mayo.”

“Shit! I mean, sorry! My bad. Let me get you a new one,” she said to an apologetic plow driver, who seemed to feel as though her mistake was somehow his fault.

Joe hauled ass into the kitchen just as Sarah slipped in from the hostess station.

“Need a new Turkey Club. Sorry, totally forgot to hold the mayo.”

Tiernan gave her a feigned stern look, handing her a second club he’d been in the process of making just as Gracie snatched up the rejected plate. “I’ll split it with you.”

Joe nodded, laughing. She
was
getting hungry.

“Joe? There’s someone here asking for you.”

She and Gracie both looked at Sarah, and Joe’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

She instantly thought of Kirk. That he’d stolen away from work to see her over lunch. Joe turned for the door of the kitchen, light on her feet. “Where is he?”

“Right up at the front.”

Gracie’s brow hardened. “Table fifteen?”

“Yeah, fifteen.”

Joe ignored the senseless curiosity between them, happy to go greet her visitor.

Gracie reached for her. “Josephine, wait.”

Joe marched out into the restaurant, turning around the corner booth to smile at her visitor. The blonde haired man’s eyes set on her with familiar purpose, a sarcastic smile creeping across his face.

The world evaporated from beneath her feet, and the plate fell from her hand, shattering across the floor.

CHAPTER TEN

“You seem like you’re in a good mood, man. What’s going on?”

Kirk sat in the cab of his truck, cramming half a roast beef sandwich into his mouth as his cousin John jolted his arm in teasing demand.

“Come on, cuz. Lay it on me. What’s got you so light in the loafers?”

Kirk chuckled, almost spitting his sandwich onto the steering wheel. “I’m not light in the loafers, prick. That’s Tiernan.”

John scoffed, chewing on his own lunch. “Says you. I think it’s genetic.”

“Then what does that make you?”

John took a moment to contemplate this. “Well, I never pretended not to be light in the loafers, but I’ve been getting laid a while now, so that’s to be expected. Now, you on the other hand? You sly dog.”

Kirk swallowed hard, his face burning. He’d somehow forgotten his cousin John was just as much a bear as he was, and a bear would smell sex on a person for just
thinking
about what he’d done that morning in the cab of his truck. Shit! Where was his mind?

On Josephine, and on what he intended to do with her later.

“Hey, I’m not gonna say anything, pal. Chill out. Just wanted to congratulate you on the blessed event. Is this Rory’s mum, then?”

“Stop. Jesus Christ, does anyone in this family mind their own business?”

John took another bite, speaking with his mouth full. “Nope. If it makes you feel any better, Deacon’s moving to Boston for his lady friend.”

“Is he really?” Kirk asked, genuinely interested. The thought of his cousin no longer being the local EMT was bittersweet. He felt a strange relief to have Deacon when all hell broke loose and Kirk was called to a fire, or to save an elderly woman from the tub, but he enjoyed the thought of Deacon finding someone far more. That joy was in no small way amplified by his memory of his own morning.

“Yeah. No telling how
that
’s going to play out, but hey - guess the poonanny finally lured one of us away.”

John was seven years younger than Kirk and happily married. He’d reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Catherine Calhoun, just the previous summer. Despite Catherine’s status as an outsider, she’d somehow managed to sneak her way into the Fenn family without Patrick Fenn’s permission. The fact that she’d saved Deacon Fenn’s life in the process probably didn’t hurt.

John didn’t sound too thoroughly excited by Deacon’s paramour, but Kirk’s phone buzzed in his pocket before he could pry further into the Fenn family gossip. “Bah, he’ll be back. Maybe she just needs some convincing.”

John shook his head. “This chick doesn’t strike me as the convincible type.”

Kirk held up a hand to pause the conversation and took Gracie’s call.

“You need to get down here, now.”

The tone startled him enough to jostle his lunch right out of his lap. “What’s going on?”

“Your girl is losing her mind, Kirk. There’s some guy here, and she seems to know him. She’s inconsolable. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll be right there!”

Before he could put the phone down, Gracie spoke again. “There’s something not right about this guy, Kay. Hurry up, alright?”

Kirk tossed the phone down into the console and with just a word, John was out of the truck, watching Kirk barrel out of the work site in a cloud of dust and snow.

The restaurant was abuzz with strange energy as Kirk marched through the dining room, scanning for a familiar face. The blonde hostess recognized him instantly, rushing over to lead him toward the kitchen, shooting sideways glances over her shoulder at a table by the door. Kirk glanced over to see a blond man smiling as they passed, leaning in to sip his soda, nonchalantly.

Sarah pushed the kitchen door open, and the smell of panic overwhelmed him.

“You’re alright, sweetheart. Just breathe, honey.”

Tiernan was on the floor of his office, cradling Joe’s face in his hands. She was in a state, sweating and shaking violently, her hair clinging to her forehead and neck as though she’d been locked in a sauna.

“Josephine,” Kirk said, dropping to his knees before her.

She recoiled from him, as though she’d never seen him before in her life. She was panic stricken and wordless.

He took her hand, trying to get her attention. “Baby, you’re alright. Why don’t you come outside with me? I’ll take you home.”

She didn’t move, the act of merely shaking her head seemed to take all her strength.

Gracie brushed Joe’s sweaty hair from her face, turning her concerned gaze to Kirk. “That guy’s wrong. I don’t know what it is, but -”

Kirk shook his head, rising to his feet. “No. I could feel it, too.”

Kirk turned back out the kitchen door, marching into the startled dining room, his eyes fixed on the blond man’s smiling face. Even as Kirk glared down at the man, the smile remained etched there. It was rather disconcerting.

“Come on, pal. Lunch is on me,” Kirk said, grabbing the man by the shirt collar and yanking him from the booth.

“Whoa, guy! I’ve no quarrel with you. What seems to be the problem?”

The strange smile almost doubled, spreading over his face as though he relished Kirk’s anger - taking some dark satisfaction in it. He walked along on his toes, Kirk keeping hold of his shirt as they walked.

“Come on! Doesn’t Josie want to see me?” He called, deliberately yelling so that the kitchen could hear him.

Kirk threw the man out the front door of the tavern, watching with disappointment as the fellow caught his balance, remaining upright on the concrete.

“Hey man, I’m just here to see my old friend.”

“You’ve no friends here, pal,” Kirk said.

The man cocked his head to the side, giving a doubtful look. “We go way back. Just ask her. And I mean – way back.”

The man made an obscene gesture with his hips, and Kirk took a step forward just as the front door to the restaurant blew open.

Kirk turned to find Gracie barreling out the door, her hackles clearly up.

Kirk went at the smiling man. “Get in your car and leave. The police are already on their way.”

The man smiled, turning his attention to Gracie, before leaning in. “I’m just here to catch up, see how my little girl is doing. Did Josie send you out?”

Kirk almost crumpled at his words. This was Rory’s father. This monstrous thing, whose very skin oozed deceit – this man could claim Rory as his.

Kirk felt his blood boiling with such fervor, he’d stepped forward to grab the man without a thought. Gracie stepped past Kirk, placing her body between them, and backed the smiling man up into his vehicle.

She slammed his back against the driver’s side door. “Get off my property before I remove you.”

He laughed in her face. “Remove me, sweetheart? I’d love to see you try.”

With that, Gracie set a smile to her face that matched his own, and punched her fist through the driver’s side window beside his head. A burst of cheering could be heard inside the tavern.

The man startled, flinching away. His face changed instantly. In place of that leering smile there was now pure malice. He’d clearly not liked being shown up, least of all by a woman.

“You sad cunt. No man would want to eat your cookin anyway,” he said.

Police sirens echoed in the distance, and the man’s smile was restored. He turned back to Kirk, and the smile cracked into something that made Kirk’s insides shudder.

“Give
Theresa Little
a message for me, will ya?”

Kirk stepped closer, Gracie planting a hand to his chest to push him away.

Kirk snarled at him. “Go fuck yourself.”

The man ignored him, the smile as cheerful and wrong as ever. “Tell her I said, what’s hers in mine. Think you can remember that?”

The man flashed them a friendly wave before climbing into his car and pulling out of the parking lot as though nothing had happened. As soon as his car was on the main road, the police cruiser rolled into the gravel car park.

Officer Black took what little statement Josephine could give. She seemed changed somehow. The two weeks she’d spent in Kirk’s house – recovering and slowly drawing from within her shell – were a distant memory. She’d returned to the woman Kirk had found in the hospital almost a month earlier, broken and disconnected in her hospital bed. She answered his questions with single word answers; yes, no, Carson.

Kirk stood by helpless as he watched Josephine hardening with each passing moment.

“I need to get my daughter,” she managed to say as the officer took what few notes he could.

“We have an officer heading to the school right now, ma’am. Is there anything else you could tell me about the man? Why he might be here, now?”

“It’s all already on file. I need to get my daughter.”

After several minutes of pulling teeth, Officer Black agreed to take statement from Gracie, leaving Kirk to drive his splintering cargo across town to the Blackrock Middle School.

Josephine climbed into the passenger seat, silent. Kirk gassed it out of the restaurant, the parking lot still full of curious onlookers and locals, all watching and waiting for news as to what caused such drama in their favorite haunt.

Kirk sped down the main drag, undeterred by thought of waiting police cars hiding in on one of the dirt side roads. He was more concerned with Joe, who sat beside him, silent and still shaking. He reached for her, touching his hand to her knee. She shirked away from him, curling into the passenger door like some frightened animal. It broke his heart to see it.

A strange buzzing sound caught both of their attentions, and Kirk turned toward the door of the truck, pulling his fallen phone from the floor. His chest tightened as he answered it.

“Hello?”

Joe watched him as he listened to the female voice on the other line.

“Mr. Fenn. We still have you listed as one of Rory Little’s emergency contacts.”

“Yeah, I’m Rory’s contact,” Kirk said.

Joe stiffened.

“There’s someone here claiming to be her father – says he was planning to pick her up from school today.”

“No! Do not -”

Before he could finish his sentence, Joe was across the truck, yanking the phone from his hand. She gestured to him, frantically. “Go. Go! Go!”

“Hello? This is Rory’s mother. Is there not a police officer there? That man cannot go near my daughter! Do you hear me? Get him out of the school!”

Kirk listened closely, his foot pressing ever harder on the gas, despite the bends in the road.

“YOU DIDN’T LET HER GO WITH HIM, DID YOU?!”

Kirk’s chest clenched as Joe grew more and more agitated. He couldn’t hear the woman’s frightened responses, but he could hear her tone.

Joe lost all control, sobbing into the phone. “Thank you! We’ll be right there. Don’t let him near her, please! Please god!”

She couldn’t hold the phone to her ear anymore, and it fell to the seat between them. Then she curled into herself, her temple pressed to the window.

Kirk felt so helpless as Joe shuddered there beside him. He paused a moment, afraid, but finally gave in to the need and reached for her.

She exploded at his touch.

“How could I be so fucking stupid?!” She screamed, punching the dashboard over and over until Kirk feared she’d break something. He reached across, grabbing her arms, trying to stop her as he struggled to keep the truck straight.

“You’re alright, sweetheart. We’ll get her -”

Joe recoiled at the word. “Don’t call me that! I’m not your fucking sweetheart!”

Kirk startled at this. “I’m sorry.”

“This is your fault! You and your fucking pancakes, and your bunk beds! You made her want to stay!”

Kirk’s stomach turned, instantly. He frowned. “I didn’t mean to make -”

Joe began sobbing uncontrollably, almost choking on the words. “How did he find us? I was so careful.”

Kirk fought with a tightness in his throat, a rising boil to his blood. That morning had been so perfect – it had been everything he’d ever wanted to wake up to. He’d felt adored, and felt adoring toward this woman in a way he’d never found before. He wanted to comfort her and keep her safe – keep Rory safe. Yet in the small space of that truck, he felt as though Josephine was sailing away from him, further and further with each passing moment.

“Go faster! Where’s the phone?”

Joe began to scramble across the truck seat.

Kirk swallowed, wishing to understand her. He’d felt evil in every inch of the man, but what had he done to this woman. What had that creature done to make his Josephine like this? “Josey, please talk to me, baby.”

“Baby? Ha! Right, that’s right. Don’t pretend to care about me, Kirk.”

“What?” He asked, and his tone dropped.

“I’m so onto you, now. You’re having your fun with Rory - with your bunk beds, and your pancakes, and your fucking Peter Pan complex. Getting your dick sucked by her mom is just icing on the cake, isn’t it?”