Can We Park This? 🌶️🌶️🌶️

HELEN

~How am I going to explain this?~

~What is Sam going to say?~

We drove in silence.

Streetlights whipped by as we made our way through the city. I kept fidgeting and looking over at Sam.

But he kept his gaze focused on the road. His hands were gripping the steering wheel like he was anticipating a crash.

Back at the club, I’d tried to tell him nothing had happened, and he’d snapped.

“I can smell him, Helen!”

He hadn’t said a word to me since then. We’d walked back to his car, and I’d gotten in feeling like a scolded child.

My eyes drifted toward the sky, where the lit up hotels and office blocks disappeared into the clouds.

~How could he know about Chris?~

It didn’t make any sense. We’d spent all day together, and he hadn’t caught a whiff of anything suspicious. I didn’t know what had changed.

I started to sulk. It wasn’t fair.

He was the one who’d told me we should cool things. He’d said we were safer apart.

It wasn’t cool of him to come back here to surprise me and then get angry.

Grumpily, I wrapped my arms around myself and that was when I noticed.

The shirt.

My mother’s blue blouse.

I’d worn it on the day Chris had found me at the ice cream parlor. That night I’d been in a bad mood and had put it on to try to cheer myself up.

And later, I’d been wearing it in the gallery.

That must've been how Sam had managed to smell Chris.

I started to worry.

Up ahead, the traffic lights turned red and Sam slowed to a stop. When the car was stationary, Sam leaned forward onto the steering wheel and ran a hand over his face.

“Sam…” My voice came out small and weak. “I’m sorry.”

His head turned, and he looked at me with a mix of anger and sadness.

“You’re right. Something did happen. Right before you got here. But I’ve been having a tough time... I didn’t know if we... if we could…”

“Helen…”

“No, let me explain.” I wanted to come clean. I didn’t want there to be secrets between us. I wanted to get rid of this guilty feeling, get this weight off my chest.

“No,” Sam said, throwing his head back against the car seat.

“Sam?”

~Why won’t he let me explain?~

“Helen, I don’t think I’ve been ~completely~ honest with you.”

Here I was thinking I was the dishonest one. I wondered what he could have lied about.

~Has he found someone else?~

~Has he met some nice bear bitch who fits better in his world?~

“Helen, I love you.”

The light turned green, but Sam didn’t move.

“I ~love~ you.”

Cars behind us started honking, so Sam hit the accelerator and started driving again.

“I’m not upset about anything that’s happened since you’ve been back at school. I pushed you away—gave you plenty of reasons why we shouldn’t be together. Anything you’ve done…I can’t really blame you.”

I was speechless. The buildings outside began to thin out as we got further away from the city center.

“But I was wrong. I should have known it back at the lake. I shouldn’t have let you think this wasn’t the only thing that mattered to me. That I didn’t want you.”

Our surroundings became suburban. Identical houses lined the streets. There were fewer lights, leaving only those emanating from people’s living rooms.

“Helen, I don’t just want to be with you. I need to be with you. Because of the mark I gave you.”

“The mark.” I lifted my fingers to touch it and remembered it burning. “I’ve been feeling it.”

“I don’t think I was clear about what that mark truly means.”

“I thought it meant that we’re mated.”

“Yes, it does.” Sam indicated left and gently turned the car. “It means that we mated by the lake but it also means we will always ~be~ mated…forever. When bears mate, we do so for life. The mark of your mate is a binding contract with my people.”

“Like a marriage license?”

“Yes, but more than that. It means we’re connected. Our souls are bonded. It was foolish of me to think we could be apart when we have that bond.”

“But then why was I able to leave at all?”

The houses began to drop away, and I realized we were heading toward the woods. Trees started to spring up and whoosh by as the car glided along the road.

“Do you remember that night we first made love?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Do you remember the way I looked at you?”

~How could I forget it?!~

I thought back to that night. It was the first time I’d seen Sam shift in and out of his bear form. I remembered the way his eyes, still onyx black, had burrowed into my soul.

“That was the ‘mating look.’ When a bear in my community wishes to be mated with another bear, he gives them the ‘look.’ Usually they return it, and then they mate. Because you aren’t a bear, you aren’t able to give the same ‘mating look’ back.”

“Oh.” I’d never wished to be a bear more than at that moment.

“Because you aren’t a shifter, our mating bond is not as strong as it would be between two bears. That’s why we were able to be apart. But I don’t want us to be.”

We were driving down a narrow lane flanked by forest and darkness.

“I gave you my mark, and that means I am committed to you ~forever~. You are my mate, Helen. I didn’t explain it properly before because I wanted you to be able to choose.”

My head was spinning. It was all so much to take in.

“But I need you to know that I am committed to you, Helen. I need you to know that, and I hope there’s a chance you feel the same.”

“It’s starting to make sense.”

We pulled off the road and drove for a short while on a gravel drive, heading in the direction of the reservoir.

“When I was hooking up with that guy, I felt the mark, and it reminded me. That’s why I stopped. Because it wasn’t who I was supposed to be with.”

The road was bumpy, and there was no light outside the car.

“I’ve just been so confused since I got back to school. People found out about us. They freaked because our parents are married, and I started to second-guess things.”

I sighed.

“I started to question whether anything I’d felt back at Bear Creek was real.”

Gently, Sam pressed down on the brakes, stopping in a small parking area a little back from the road. We were surrounded by tall trees, and through a gap, I was able to make out moonlight glimmering on the reservoir.

“But I know how I feel now. Regardless of what anyone else says. Or how they make me feel. I ~know~ how I feel.”

I looked at Sam, and he met my gaze. Both of our expressions were calm, determined. Our intentions set.

Sam slid back in his seat and reclined it all the way.

“Come here,” he growled.

There was lust in his voice and darkness in his eyes, the bear within rising to the surface.

I climbed over the gear stick and straddled him, running my palms up under his shirt and pulling it over his head.

Pressing down on his solid chest was like pressing down on steel. I trailed a series of kisses along his breastbone, up to his shoulder, and along his neck.

His hands explored all of me before he finally lifted my former favorite shirt over my head. I grabbed it back from him and lowered the window.

“I don’t need this stupid blouse,” I said and flung the shirt away.

I looked back at Sam, his face half in shadow and his eyes onyx black.

I wanted to kiss him. Memories of every time we’d kissed, every intimate interaction we’d had, came flashing up in my mind. I yearned for his lips to press against mine, but something held me back.

~Does he hate me for what I’ve done?~

~Does he still see me the way he used to?~

~Or does he want to punish me?~

I bit my lip and waited for him to take control.

Sam’s fingers traced their way up along my body and over the lace of my bra. He snaked his arms behind me and tore through the strap, throwing the useless garment into the back seat. His hands cupped my breasts, and he used his thumbs to draw circles around my nipples.

Moving his hips, he commanded me to ride him. I could feel his cock pressing up against the fabric. Trapped and longing to break free.

Suddenly, he pulled me toward him. My breasts smooshed up against his bronze chest and my mouth found his at last. Our breaths mingled hot and fast and our tongues lapped at each other.

I groaned, feeling more turned on by the second. He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back, taking a moment to admire me in the moonlit car.

“Kiss me again,” he demanded.

I lowered myself back down, stealing his breath with a slow passionate kiss.

The interior was getting steamy, the windows fogging up. Our skin was slick with sweat.

Sam’s lips trailed from mine, along my jaw, the curve of my throat, along my chest. His tongue darted from his lips, curling moist circles around my nipples, sucking each stiffened peak, sending sparks of pleasure straight to my throbbing pussy.

My fingers went to work unbuckling his belt as his solid organ strained against the denim. Impatiently, I yanked his jeans and boxers down over his hips. Desperate and hot. Sam lifted his hips to assist, and I felt him press into me.

I seized his hard, engorged cock in my hand and began to stroke it, running my hands up and down his iron-hard shaft.

“Christ!”

Sam let his head fall back as he enjoyed my touch.

I knew my panties would be soaked by this point as Sam’s expert fingers undid the button of my shorts and the zipper. He tugged them over my hips and I maneuvered myself in the small space until they were off.

Our kisses grew more urgent as I felt Sam’s fingers dip beneath the thin fabric of my panties and part my sensuous folds.

“~Ah, Sam~!” A high-pitched moan tore through my throat, followed by a dragged out groan as one finger dipped inside, followed by two, then three, stretching me to accommodate him.

He circled my throbbing clit with the pad of his thumb—making my legs shake with tremors.

“Ride me,” Sam ordered breathlessly, and I ground against his hand.

Just as I could feel my orgasm building, my breaths getting sharp and short, Sam stopped. His hand left my pussy and grabbed my underwear. He tore it off, leaving me completely naked.

Sam gripped my hips as I hovered over him, guiding me toward his cock.

My palms settled on his sweat-coated shoulders. I was looking into two pitch-black pools that shimmered in the little light we had.

Slowly, he lowered me down onto the head of his cock before thrusting upward and filling me completely.

It felt hot and familiar—an intense, painful pleasure that completed me and sent me howling.

“You feel ~amazing~!”

I could feel the mark on my neck, but it wasn’t burning; it felt like the most amazing erogenous zone being stimulated.

This felt good.

It felt ~right~.

As he snatched in a sharp breath, I began to rock my hips back and forth, his impressive length moving inside my soaked chamber. He gripped my hips firmly, reaching with his thumb to stroke my clit.

My pussy fluttered helplessly around his girth, and his thumb rubbed mercilessly, pushing me toward an earth-shattering climax.

I bounced faster, moaning loudly and frantically as I chased my release.

Sam’s body arched as he came with a roar, filling me up.

My stomach muscles tightened, and I felt my inner walls constrict and pulse around Sam’s jutting cock. Lights flashed behind my closed eyelids.

“Yes!” I screamed as I came, my juices coating his dick.

The scent of sweat and sex filled the car.

Our bodies shimmered with the effort. Moisture had started dripping down the windows, each droplet forming its own unique pattern.

Sam pulled me close and held me.

“My mate,” he growled softly into my ear.

“I... love you,” I said, then kissed his chest.

~SNAP!~

A branch snapped somewhere in the dark.

We both sat up, but Sam kept his arms tight around me.

There was something outside the car.

“Helen, get dressed!” Sam said.

As quickly as I could, I got off him, climbed back into my seat, and started fishing around in the back for my shorts.

Before I knew it, Sam had pulled on his boxers, opened the door, and jumped out of the car.

“No, Sam. Wait!”