the bigger bear

’Dude, what the fuck happened last night?’

Questions poured out in cheap motel rooms or rented apartments for years. Team mates stumbling out of rooms, either watching wide eyed as the silent ‘who’ part of that question disappeared out the door or shooting glances back over their shoulder. Big black spots in their memories that would be glossed over when the tales were told later. Mitch supposed he could’ve torn them down with the truth but there was no point in opening up that Pandora’s Box. The gift of a body that was impervious to pretty much everything.

Four drinks in – two beers, an old fashioned and a shot of tequila – and she’d barged her way in like she was three times the size she actually was. Amusement had tickled at him as he’d waved the hipster dude with the hair, the beard and that well hidden stench of grunt over for another pour. A hand spread in the air – the first two shots going down smooth, with about as much effect as if it’d been water, the next held out in the air, a lure to firecracker. Or maybe the spark that’d lit it.

The dance floor, the threatened extension of it to the bar top that probably would’ve had the guy’s beard spontaneously combusting, the tiny body pressed to his as the tequila had bitten deep for her even if it hadn’t his. The strain in his shoulders as he’d bent to mutter the suggestion of him being the one getting lucky, the ’screw it’ rolling through his head before his hand had slid back and he’d hauled her up, threats of a puny olive stick ringing ineffectively in her ears. Mitch had no fucking doubt she’d have tried it, going for an eye or somewhere delicate.

Tequila to Jaeger and that heart pounding can of Redbull – the devil’s fucking brew unless you were desperate to chug cans of it to stay awake on patrol. No effect on him but that sticky sweet he’d licked from her mouth like candy sent his memories roaring back as they’d tumbled through his apartment door and he’d laid hands on her to toss her onto his bed like that little frame hadn’t weighed more than a couple of pounds. Care there not to crush it before he’d gone under, turning to sawdust like that sweetness in his mouth while he’d slept.

The grunt at that squirming reawakened it, left Mitch smacking his lips with a disgust as flopped over onto his back. The forearm that had been thrown across her, damp and still smelling of smoke and her, flopped over his eyes. Last night was mostly clear, the alcohol not biting, but at some point … Brow furrowing Mitch dragged his arm across his eyes, pressing his fingertips into them as just his hand was left. Her lips on it, blood welling for those moments before his body’s ability to wipe out just about any issue kicked in. The club and its throbbing air, perfumed with a whole array of things he didn’t want clinging to his skin this morning. Clouding, refusing to budge even as he mentally batted at it.

Movement in his room, a whisper of fabric, that low grumble that could blow like Vesuvius. Not staggered out the door yet for him to stare at like he was one of them for the first time. Mitch peeled his palm up, his other hand hitching the tangled sheets around bare hips – she hadn’t bitched too hard about hitching herself around them last night. ”Shirts are in the top drawer. What fuckin’ time is it?” Like she wouldn’t drown in them, soft cotton draping to her knees, an obvious sign of a walk of shame, if she was any more capable of this morning than she’d been last night. One corner of his mouth hitched, eyes narrowing as his hand fell back to his chest. Too early, probably too late for her if she’d thought it’d be a clean exit. You had to be quieter if you wanted to pull one of those off, a fucking bear of a guy learning to tip toe real smooth, real fast, after his first trip off base to a bar. Uniform bunnies didn’t slip out of bed, they clung to them and you.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 720

Jnr was always the one to walk out. Disappearing through the back doors of hotels, scanning the street, eyes that weren’t his own passing over his own son as he stood in another skin, always going home to his family like he hadn’t stepped into another life for those hot and heavy hours. There’d been a handful of times he’d been the one leaving someone’s place in the middle of the night snice he’d stripped out of the uniform but he wasn’t Jnr. This wasn’t a weekly occurrence. The woman was welcome in his place for as long as they were having fun, if breakfast came after, it came without strings. He wouldn’t scurry out like there was an ounce of guilt or shame on his broad shoulders.

Unlike her.

There’d been no laying out of the rules the night before, the promise of no recriminations whatever happened. There hadn’t seemed need for it but oh look, deer in the headlights as he looked at her through the slitted lids of his eyes, still crusted with sleep. Lips twitched, brows slowly hitching as he craned his head up to glance down at the sheets tangled around his hips. ”You weren’t calling it that last night. You’re one for talking about covering up.” He pointedly dropped his gaze to the one bit of fabric touching her skin. A scrap too small to cover much of anything, even on her. The rest was probably a road map to the bed, tossed aside in that hustle to get her under these sheets. Hands flickering fast over skin, greedy touches, dragging over his face as he covered a yawn now.

That palm dragged down to his chest, flattening over sleep warm skin. It probably wouldn’t stand up to the sniff test, last night layered on him in the scent of sweat, spilled liquor and the musk of good times. Claw marks too if the sharpness of her tongue was anything to go by. Wild of tooth and claw and a complete bitch come morning. Mitch laughed low, rough, coughing faintly as he finally peeled himself into a seated position on the bed. Knees drawn up slightly beneath the sheets, forearms looped loose on top. ”Why bother spending every fucking cent on stuff that’s just gonna wear out anyway.” Says the woman who wasn’t exactly wearing Armani.

Mitch gestured around the room, flicked fingers out towards the hallway. Hazel eyes slid sideways, caught sight of the jeans on his side, snarled up under one of his shirts. He kept his mouth shut though, just letting his gaze flick up to the drapes where light poured around the edges. Bright enough to slice like a laser into his brain, if he was as hungover as she probably was after the night before. ”It’ll be here somewhere. Wasn’t like you stumbled in the door with your pants already off.” He hadn’t been that quick. The memory of stumbling in the door with his fingers working their way under the tight band of her jeans biting at his knuckles was one of the only clear memories.

She rootled around anyway, a tiny form scrambling on the carpet, digging around under his bed without much luck. Wasn’t that a bitch when you were practically labelled a fricking leprechaun. Mitch propped an elbow on his knee, working the last of sleep from his eyes, scrubbing fingers through his hair until it’s rusty locks were practically standing on end. ”You wanna get in the kitchen and cook me up some pancakes?” he asked, artificial sugar dripping off his words before he barked out a low laugh. Mitch tossed the sheets off of himself, letting them tumble off the bed on the side she stood on. ”More capable than you, obviously. Oh look, there’s my pants…” And a thick string of smug to his voice.

Scrambling into them without his underwear Mitch headed for the bedroom door. He left her there, hands digging at her head like that was gonna stop whatever bugle was playing Taps in there. The cupboard above the sink pulled open, a bottle of pills open and two shook out to leave on the counter top for her. Buttons punched, a cup shove into the coffee machine. ”I guess the smell of coffee’s enough to tell you where the fuck the kitchen is. You take it black?” Like her sense of humour, if you could call that sour spill humour. Even she couldn’t find this happy morning after funny.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 751

There was no way in hell she’d been this brand of charming last night. He was self-destructive at times (thanks for fucking me up that way, pop!), but he was crazy and you’d have to be to want to take a mouth like that on full time. It’d be like a permanent roasting. Mitch paused, hazel eyes narrowing at her until his laugh trailed off. Hell, maybe he’d buy her a ticket up north, see if she wanted to single-handedly dismantle Jnr’s ego. Watching it would’ve been fucking glorious. Feeling that heat? Not so much.

It woulda been better if he had half a fucking memory of what had gone down after they’d stumbled in here last night. The gaping maw in his brain was frustrating – mildly concerning too – seeming to grow wider every time he tried to peer harder into it. She wasn’t exactly tossing out details here either.

Sitting on the edge of the bed a moment, long bare thighs stretching across the rumpled sheets, knees nearly brushing her hips, Mitch smirked. Rusty brows rising as he tilted his head. He didn’t remember her bitching too hard about that last night – except for the joke about her name. Fuck, was she really called Lucky or was that like her stripper name? ”Really fucking hilarious, huh?” he asked with a sneer. ”I’ll take incredible. Y’know, I don’t remember you having a problem with my jokes last night. Seemed to me you were pretty fucking invested.” Those fingers not as delicate as they looked gripping, that tiny form as fierce as her mouth. More flickering images running like an old fashioned projector behind his eyelids as he bent down to grab his pants and prove which of the two of them was winning here. Like it was some sorta morning after contest.

Leaving her to try and dig her pants out from their spot under his bed, Mitch padded into the kitchen. The bit that wasn’t a hilarious asshole dumped the pills out for her, offered up coffee at least. She could snipe all she wanted but he wasn’t gonna do this without sinking his first coffee of the day. Caffeine usually had just about as much effect as the booze last night should’ve done but he still downed buckets of it daily, writing not feeling the same without those moments of pause as he reached for the cup and gulped it down, still roasting hot.

Mitch waited for the coffee to start gurgling into the cup before he reached for the caddy of sugar he never used. One broad shoulder rose and fell in acknowledgement, his gaze cutting sideways to her as she tossed the pills back and bent over the sink to gulp them down with water straight from the faucet. ”You’re…” A bitch. The sort that burrowed into your life like a rabid possum, small and vicious in a way that made you think that maybe you wouldn’t mind losing a chunk of flesh or two to tear her out again.

He snorted through his nose, dumping a heaping spoon of sugar in – she could do with it to sweeten her the fuck up. Mitch held it out, eyes narrowing sharply at her. ”Bet that fucking hurt to say huh?” Managing a single thanks before she had launched back in at him. Useless? His upper lip peeled back from his teeth as he shoved a cup of his own under the machine. ”Being ridiculously tall’s my problem? Seems fucking backwards to me. You’re too damn small, y’know that?” Hadn’t felt ridiculous last night when he had her clinging on to him as they did that stumbling dance through the apartment. A diamond splinter bolt of pain rolled through his head as he pinched at the bridge of his nose. ”I don’t pass out. You’re remembering wrong. You were pretty damn hammered yourself, sweetheart.” There was that gaping hole in his memory though.

Cursing under his breath, heat rising up under the scruff of stubble on his throat Mitch turned away to pull open the fridge. First time in his life he hadn’t performed? Not that sounded like bullshit to him. He thumped the jug of pancake batter he’d batch made the morning before – helped to be prepared when you were in the mood to actually put something decent together for breakfast at home – down on the counter. ”You gonna bitch about the pancakes too or just about me?” Those needle teeth latching on, worrying until he wanted to be that asshole and kick her out pantsless out of spite.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 762

Had he lost his fucking mind last night or had she just saved her bitchiest self for the morning after? There had to be some sort of appeal beyond the compact little form that’d had no argument with wrapping itself around him like a damn koala with a redwood or whatever the fuck they ate.

Mitch raised a hand, pinched at the bridge of his nose, squinched his eyes shut for a moment as coffee started trickling into his cup. Too much of last night was still lost in those black holes, the bits between good, the sort of night that should’ve led to something that didn’t leave him wanting to bend over the counter to thump his head repeatedly against the granite. Hands gripping, exploring, that heat radiating down from the pit of his stomach until it was ready to burst out of him.

Now it burned behind his eyes as he looked up at her, his mouth pinched in warning. Red tinging his vision at the edges in a way that had the wiser part of him recoiling from the sting in his pride. He wasn’t one of those guys, wasn’t even about to shake her. He’d never laid hands on a woman unless he’d had to in a situation where it was her or him and his people and even then it left a bad taste in his mouth. ”If I wanted a bear instead of a bitch I’d have gone out into the woods, honey. You don’t get to blame … a lack of performance on me not appreciatin’ the package. Deflectin’ don’t work when you try and bounce it around too much.” But he done that, hadn’t he, turning that snapped so called insult around on her, and had gotten a verbal slap in the face instead.

Would Jnr actually have given a shit if it turned out he’d had the hots for Jimmy Connelly in high school instead of his sister? Probably would’ve been easier to cover up than the fact that his son had picked the trenches over a cushy office in city hall, less embarrassing too.

Personally he hadn’t given a fuck when Jimmy had come out. The guy who go sleeping with anybody he wanted, it was a free world. Hearing about his own lack of ‘sleeping’ was a kick in the teeth though, a piece of grit in his pride that she wouldn’t stop grinding in. Mitch hadn’t felt the bite of a headache when he’d woken up, not like she had but now she had one erupting behind his eyes with that fucking. Jesus fucking Christ. He sucked in a breath behind the cover his hand, let it out in a wave that did nothing to deflate that feeling. ”An hour, three, does it really matter when you’re so tiny a couple of shots probably you pickled.” Trust her. Like hell.

His hand peeled away as he stalked towards the fridge, a mutter even he couldn’t entirely pick apart falling out of his mouth – it still had that cottonwoollyness, just like his brain. What did he remember? Most of what had happened on the dance floor. The look on his face when he’d made the crack about him being the one to get Lucky. Flashes of the trip home, his hands slipping down the back of her jeans, shoving them off of narrow hips, the drag of his mouth down from her throat, the bounce of his knees against the mattress as he went down after her … Then it was like his memory plunged off a cliff. ”How about you just tell the damn story?” he asked with a bite. The jug hit the counter with a crack, his eyes cutting to her.

He could’ve marched back to his bedroom and saved himself the rest of that headache as he flung her jeans and everything else he’d yanked off of her when there’d still been the heat of something other than temper between them in her face. That bony ass disappearing out of the door before he slammed it behind her. It would’ve been a fucking dream but there was that masochistic chivalrous streak.

The pan clattered down on the stove top with his as much care as she extended that cat’s paw and knocked the batter all onto the counter. It oozed, taking the civility of breakfast with it. ”Bitch!” The word actually snapped out this time as he stared down at the spatter of batter across his arm. Was that pride on her face as she squeezed close to glare up at him with that smile on her face. Jesus, he wanted to wipe it off more than ever. ”Maybe if you weren’t such a…” The word his mom would’ve flinched at tripped out, coated with that venom. ”You’d have gotten some. You can’t help it though, can ya? It’s in every fuckin’ cell. Just waiting to be spat out. Anybody ever tell you they like you better with your damn mouth shut?” It was probably how she’d gotten what she wanted before. Drive someone crazy enough that they just lost it.

It was how she was getting it now. With a string of nastier descriptions spilling out like a toxic tidal wave, Mitch snatched at her hand before she could smack him again, hauling her up against him with it as she started to trail her other hand over him. Like he was gonna believe she suddenly wanted to play nice. His other hand caught hers, lifted them so he could get them both out of the way. His hand arm banded around her waist, hauling her up, his hips pushing until he had her back on the counter. This was probably the biggest fucking mistake he could make, sleeping with a wildcat, but at least he wasn’t gonna kick her out in an hour without overlaying the memory of last night with something far more indelible. Letting go of her wrists, Mitch dragged that t-shirt back off over her head, tossed it into the mess on the counter before he tunnelled his hand into her hair, tipped her head back and finally did what he’d questioned her about. Shut her up with a kiss that he felt right down in the pit of his stomach again.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS (Finish here or with yours?) * Word Count: 1070