Chapter 8: Buckhorn Rumble 🌶

HELEN

“Get your fucking hands off me!” I yelled as he spun me back around on my barstool.

“And what if I don’t? What if I…”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence because a thick fist knocked the last words right out of his mouth.

The bastard dropped to the floor like a sack of onions.

I turned in the direction of the flying fist and saw Sam standing there with a dark look in his eyes. He didn’t say anything.

He motioned the other two toward him, as if to say, ~Come take your spanking, motherfuckers.~

But those two didn’t want to listen. They started backing up, hands raised, “We didn’t mean nothin’, partner. We didn’t know she was with you.”

“Too late for that,” Sam said, and grabbed one of them by the lapels, easily throwing him over the pool table.

I followed behind Sam, partly grossed out, partly turned on by his strength.

By this point, the third guy had picked up a pool cue, and I heard a loud thwack as he brought it down on Sam’s shoulder. The cue snapped, but it didn’t seem to slow Sam down at all.

He lunged straight for the third one, jabbing at his face as he cornered him against the wall.

“Sam, that’s enough,” I yelled. “STOP!”

Not that there were many patrons to begin with, but the few that were there had cleared out. To my left, I could hear Slim shouting, saying he was going to call the cops. But it seemed like nothing could stop Sam.

Two of the pool guys were sprawled out on the floor, but the third one was still standing, despite God knew how many punches.

At this point, he and Sam were going at it in the back corner of the bar, illuminated on and off by the swinging Budweiser lampshade.

They sounded more like animals than men—the sounds of meat slapping against meat and…~growls?~

I tried to get as close as I could, while also staying out of the way of Sam’s elbows.

And then, suddenly, I saw it, just a brief glimpse under the swinging lamp.

~That third guy, he looks different. He looks like… Like…~

~I don’t know…~

~More like a dog or something.~

His nose was bigger and he had hair all over his face instead of just a ratty goatee.

“Sam, what is going on with him? What is that?” I yelled. And I guess my words must’ve cut through, because Sam let the man fall and then turned around to face me, blocking my view.

“We gotta split, Helen.” And just like that, he spun me around by the shoulders and began to quickly walk me out. “We gotta get outta here before the cops come.”

“But what the hell was that, Sam? What was wrong with his face?”

“That was nothing. Maybe some blood. Who knows. I think you’re imagining things.”

“But Sam!”

And no matter how much I insisted that I’d seen something weird, he just marched me straight into the car, denying it all.

***

We drove back in fifteen minutes, which I imagined was record time. Sam was still high on adrenaline...and a belly full of booze.

We both were.

I tried to hold my tongue while he drove; I figured getting his blood boiling now might wind up with us and the truck going fully off-road.

I didn’t want to survive a bar fight only to wind up twisted around a tree.

But as soon as we walked in the door, I was right back at him. “You have some explaining to do, asshole.”

“There’s nothing to explain. There’s just some rough elements ’round these parts.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen ’em. They’re named Sam, and they’re violent psychopaths who like caving people’s faces in.”

“It’s not like that, Helen.”

“So what the fuck is it like, Sam?”

“Look, you’re an outsider around here, just some city slicker. You don’t know what those guys were. What they’re capable of. What they could do to you.”

“They were just a bunch of losers! You didn’t have to go all Thor on them!”

“You’re wrong.”

“You didn’t even give me time to defend myself. If I’d said two more words to those guys, their little dicks woulda fallen off and they’d’ve had to run back to momma to put them back on again.”

At this, Sam began to laugh. Just a chuckle at first, and then a full-on, side-splitting guffaw.

I began to laugh too, and pretty soon, both of us were on the floor, laughing so hard we had tears coming out of our eyes.

“Sam, tell me I’m crazy or that I’m drunk. But back there, I swear that third guy, it looked like he was turning into a dog…”

I couldn’t even believe my own words. “Or like a wolf or something. He had all this hair on his face.”

Sam sucked up his laughter and turned to me, looking me straight in the eyes.

“You ~are~ drunk, Helen. And crazy. Because men don’t turn into dogs or wolves.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. And it was pretty dark in there too.”

We lay there in silence for a moment.

“Penny for them?”

“Sam, can I ask you one more thing?”

He sighed and said, “Yeah, just ~one more~ thing.”

“It’s been bothering me since earlier... What did Luke mean when he said he was gonna scare the hunters?”

“He meant just that. Give them a scare, chase them away.”

“But is he gonna ~hurt~ them? Why can’t he just arrest them?”

“The hunters aren’t guys you can, like, arrest.”

“Why not?”

“Because the hunters who come to hunt on protected land, they’re not law-abiding fellas to begin with. So if you let them know you’re coming, you’re liable to get a bite of lead in your ass.”

“Oh no! Is Luke in danger?”

“Don’t worry about Luke. He knows how to handle himself.”

“So if all the Rangers can do is give hunters a scare, like, what’s the point of having them?”

“The Rangers’ job is to protect the wildlife in the area... They rarely hurt the hunters, but they do strongly encourage them to stay the hell out of our woods.”

“What’s so special about these woods anyway? I thought all woods get hunters at some point.”

“Not Bear Creek. This area was founded as a sanctuary for all life. It goes all the way back to our town’s constitution.”

Sam started to get a dreamy kind of lilt to his voice.

“And you saw those woods yesterday—how magical and peaceful they were. All the birds singing, the deer, the rabbits running around.”

“May I remind you that you killed two of those rabbits.”

“Sure, and we ate both of them. Sometimes we take from nature here, but we only take what we need. Only what we know we can eat. And we always try to give back.”

He continued, “Because the woods around here have a balance. And when these fucking hunters come in, they disturb that balance. They don’t have any respect for life; they come here only to leave with trophies.”

I felt like Sam wasn’t telling me the full truth, but I also enjoyed seeing this passionate side of him.

Sam talked about these woods as if he were a part of them. Just as at home in them as a rabbit or a bear.

And hearing how protective he was of the place he’d grown up in, I also felt a little safer knowing that we were family now.

We were still lying on the floor, me on my back and Sam up on his elbow next to me.

We’d lapsed into an easy kind of silence.

But I felt like a tension was slowly building with every second.

And looking up at him, I couldn’t deny how fucking good my stepbrother looked through the haze of my tipsiness.

And then he leaned down a little, and I sat up a little, and before I knew it, his lips were on mine, and I felt so thirsty I wanted to suck him up whole.

His arms went around me and he pulled me on top of him and I felt so powerful, straddling his hard, sexy body, my hands running across his sharp cheekbones and down his ropey arms.

~ What the fuck am I doing? This is my stepbrother! ~

“Sam!” I snapped my head up. “We can’t do this.”

“Yes, we can,” he said, reaching up and bringing my head down to his lips.

I kissed him again, lapping up the taste of his mouth.

But then the guilt hit me again.

“We can’t, we can’t, stop!” I insisted. “You’re my stepbrother, this is so…so WEIRD!”

“Yeah, and you’re my stepsister, and I don’t care.”

~Uhhh, this feels too good.~

~But it’s so, so wrong.~

~Fuck it, life’s too short.~

And I was back down there, kissing him again. I could feel him grinding beneath me like a wild animal. I felt his ginormous cock bulge beneath my cunt as he ground himself against me.

I wanted to hold his cock in my hand, feel the weight of it, but I didn’t dare push in case I crossed the line. So I just ran my hands up and down his body, what parts I could reach.

And then a growl escaped from his throat.

A ~real~ growl.

And I came to my senses.

~What the fuck am I touching? Is that fur? Sam’s a burly, hairy dude—but not ~this~ hairy.~

I looked down into his dark, black eyes, which were now open.

“What the fuck are you?” I asked, trembling.