Prologue
Ten Years Ago
So, this was marital bliss.
My husband of eight days panted above me so hard I was starting to worry that he was having a medical issue, which would really suck as we were camping dozens of miles away from anything resembling civilization. Kane slid in and out of me in quick furious thrusts, and I suddenly had an image of his manly bits as a boxing glove, punching my cervix.
“Baby, can we move around?” I asked as I attempted to rock my hips forward in with Kane’s thrusts.
“I like you where you are, Teagan,” Kane panted as he pinned my hips down. His shoulder-length curly blond hair dripped sweat onto my face as he hovered just a little way over me. “Stay right…” he groaned, “Right there.”
I gave up. I was beginning to understand those celebrities that got divorced immediately after their honeymoons. I was also a little afraid that Kane wouldn’t finish before all of the wetness dried up from my vagina like a sponge left out on the counter. It was getting a little uncomfortable down there. Why hadn’t I listened to my sister and brought lube camping?
Kane and I are in love, I had said. We don’t need lube on our honeymoon. Sure, we needed lube at home, but gripped in the sweet passion of our marital bliss, we weren’t going to need some generic brand Pleasure Jelly.
How wrong I was.
What I hadn’t anticipated was the eighty-five mosquito bites making me itch in places I had yet to discover on my own body. I also hadn’t anticipated the rocks that seemed to always position themselves under my ass in our two-person tent. Who knew that hiking forty miles through the wilderness on your honeymoon would be so un-romantic?
And, was that a bear?
I lifted my head as I heard the sound of cracking branches and footfalls outside our tent. Holy fuck, there was a bear outside.
Kane’s thrusts were really starting to become abrasive up in the deeper parts of my vagina, and I realized that a bear trampling through our campsite might be the perfect excuse to stop.
I touched Kane’s arm. “Bear.”
“Not now, Teagan, I’m going to cum.” He panted the words as he continued to impale his dick up against my cervix.
“Babe, finish quick. There’s a bear. He might get our food.”
As soon as I said it, I realized that it was true. Shit! The bear might get our food! And we only had a specific amount rationed for the rest of the trip. That was one thing that I realized on Kane’s chosen honeymoon, there was an unexpected weight loss component to it. That one he sprung on me. I guessed he thought it would be a great wedding present.
It was our first fight as husband and wife. If that bear took the remainder of our food, I would hunt it down and kill it with my bare hands.
Kane moaned out above me and pushed in deep, and I thanked all that was holy that finally there was a little lubrication down there. It was beginning to feel like he was taking a cheese grater to my vaginal walls.
“You feel so good, baby,” he whispered as he collapsed on top of me.
“Yeah. Uh-huh. There’s a bear,” I wheezed as his weight pressed me into the uneven rocks below. “There is a bear in our campsite.”
“What?” Kane lifted his head, and I got a good look at him for the first time in about thirty minutes. Once again, I had to marvel how good looking he was even under the blue-green glare of our electric lantern. He had the kind of perfect, chiseled model-esque face that had women passing him their phone numbers and room keys while we were on dates. That, and he was a twenty-eight-year-old millionaire and semi-pro tennis player. And yet, he wanted to marry a broke twenty-seven-year-old coffee shop manager from Bakersfield. Not that I didn’t love every inch of myself, but our matchup was pretty much at Hollywood rom-com level. I knew that. Everyone at our destination wedding knew that. Only my sister thought I was too good for him, bless her.
“That’s not a bear,” Kane said, still looking toward the closed tent flap. “It’s much too small. Maybe a raccoon.”
“That would be even worse.” I wiggled my fingers in the air. “They have those dexterous little hands that can get into practically anything.”
Branches snapped next to our tent.
“It’s getting closer.” I tapped his arm anxiously. “We can scare it off.” When he didn’t move right away, I tapped him harder. “The food.”
Kane groaned and finally rolled off of me. I felt around the tent desperately, looking for my underwear and shoving them on. As soon as I unzipped the tent flap and shone my flashlight out, two pairs of eyes reflected back at me.
“Wait, Teagan.” Kane pushed up beside me to look out of the flap. “Let me go out first.” He grabbed for my flashlight, but I pretended I didn’t notice and switched it to my other hand
“Look. It’s two large North American Timberwolves.” I tapped Kane’s leg. “Can you feel for my camera over there?”
“Get back in here, Teagan. I’ll go deal with it.” Kane pulled on a pair of jeans, grabbed a coat, and pushed past me. The moment he was outside, he grabbed for the tent flap and furiously zipped me in.
“No, Kane...” I leaned down and felt around for my camera. “Seriously. We’re more likely to be attacked by a raccoon. There have been like two recorded attacks from healthy, uninjured wolves in the last hundred years.” My hand circled the round, smooth camera case. I unzipped the tent and lifted my digital camera. “They’re going to get spooked and run away any second now.”
Now a total of four large adult wolves stood between the trees maybe a dozen yards away, and they didn’t so much as startle at Kane and my appearance. Kane stood feet away from the group with his hands out.
“Teagan, I said stay where you are. That’s an order.”
An order?
Rolling my eyes, I climbed out slowly, clicking images as I went. The night was cool, and I immediately felt my skin prickling into gooseflesh as I slowly treaded over the underbrush. The wolves’ pelts shone in the patches of moonlight. Not wanting to scare Kane any more than he already was, I stayed a good distance away and zoomed in as far as I could, snapping photos of the majestic animals as they stared straight at me.
The shushing and churning sound of a river grew louder as I walked, and I peered down, making sure I wasn’t getting too close to our campsite’s drop off. We’d camped about a hundred yards from a cliff over a river, and I knew I was hugging the cliffside close, but moonlight streamed in through the trees from this angle, catching the wolves as they turned to watch me. I tested the stability of the ground under me and then took one more step. After snapping a series of pictures, I turned back, only to find Kane inches away from me.
“Whoa,” I said, grabbing his arm. “I couldn’t hear you over the river. Look.” I held up my camera, showing my most recent shot. The photo had moonlight streaming through the trees and dappling two of the wolves. I turned the camera back to picture mode, thinking this would be an awesome moment to get a full moon photo of my new husband.
Holding up the camera, I said, “Say cheese!” I peered through the lens, only to find Kane glowering with an almost frightening look on his face. I lowered the camera. “Everything okay?”
“Card and Sons Pencils is bankrupt. It’s been heading that way for a while.” His voice was monotone, almost completely without inflection.