A small victory, but a victory all the same. She hid her triumphant smile as he followed her inside. He lay down and held his arm out for her to cuddle against his side, and damn her emotions, the gesture almost made her want to cry again. Jenner was hard. Iron-tough and cold to others. She’d seen it when they’d been at the lodge. He could joke with the other guides, but from a distance. With her, he was letting her in little by little. He was exposing his softer side to her, and if that didn’t prove he was growing to trust her, she didn’t know what did.
She rested her cheek against his warm chest and traced the crisscrossing scars across his ribs. Quietly, so as not to spoil the magic of this intimacy, she said, “You said I would like you less when I found out the reason behind these, but I like you more.” I love you, actually. She left those words unspoken, though, because she hadn’t said them to a man before, and Jenner seemed the type to run from something that serious this soon. She would be patient and hope that his feelings caught up with hers someday.
His heartbeat was steady and strong under her cheek, and his lips pressed against the top of her hair, lingering there while he pulled another unzipped sleeping bag over them. He turned off the lantern, and the soft rain pitter pattered against the nylon of the tent.
In the dark, Lena curled against him and let the warmth Jenner provided slip over her. She fought to keep her eyes open for a little while longer because this was another moment. Another gift added to the many he’d given her today.
“Jenner,” she said sleepily.
“Hmm?” he rumbled in that sexy, deep timbre of his.
“I’m glad you were my first.”
And as she drifted off, warm and safe against him, she could’ve sworn he whispered, “So am I.”
Chapter Eight
Jenner resisted the urge to look back at Lena for the billionth time since they’d left Wolf Camp this morning. The deeper they got into brown bear country, the more he had to fight the instinct to turn around and take her back to the lodge where she would be safe. Because out here in this brutal wilderness, he wasn’t the only monster anymore.
Behind him, Lena was clicking away on her camera, and for as wary as he was of taking his mate deep into bear country, he looked around and tried to see what she saw.
This land had always called to him, but she’d shown him a couple of pictures she’d taken this morning while he’d been packing up camp, and he’d been stunned into silence as he’d cradled the camera and looked at the images she’d captured. The splintered railing of the corral had been at the forefront in one of the photographs, and behind it, the packhorses were resting with their noses beside each other. She’d discovered this moment of incredible serenity while he’d been rushing around trying to prepare for the rest of their trip. Lena saw the world differently. She found moments that he would’ve just walked by and never noticed. He didn’t have a creative bone in his body, but Lena had the uncanny ability to find beauty in the mundane. The proof of that was the way she looked at his body, as if he was some priceless artwork instead of a slashed-up man.
The smell of fur brushed his oversensitive nose, and he inhaled deeply, jerking his attention to the woods where it came from. They were close now, in the thick of the brown bears. A couple of miles more, and they would be to the river.
An overwhelming need to protect Lena washed over him again. His instincts had kicked up the second he’d decided to have sex with her. He’d been mistaken that it took the act of sex to bind them because just the conscious decision to sleep with her made his bear draw up and snarl his possessiveness. Mine, mine, mine. The smell of grizzly fur grew more pungent on the wind. Unable to keep his distance any longer, Jenner pulled his horse around at a trot, circling back until he was next to Lena’s mount.
Her smile was bright and instant, settling his territorial bear with nothing more than a look. “Hey you.” She lifted the camera under her chin and clicked a picture.
Jenner narrowed his eyes, but she looked so damned happy as she laughed, he couldn’t bring himself to reprimand her this time. “I’m going to pull out my own camera and give you a taste of your own medicine if you aren’t careful.”
“You have a camera?”
“Lennard makes us all take one out in case we can get pictures for the website.” He opened the flap of one of his saddle bags and dug to the bottom, then pulled out a small, black digital camera. Jenner turned it on and clicked her picture, only Lena didn’t shy away from the camera like him. Instead, she posed all cute in the saddle and gave him one of those boner-inducing smiles she’d been gifting him all morning. And in that instant, he knew he wouldn’t be showing Lennard any of the pictures from this trip. He chuckled and leaned over his saddle, guiding his horse closer. Cupping her cheek, he kissed her, brushing his tongue against hers once before the gait of their horses became disjointed and pulled them away from each other.
Lena clicked another picture of him.
Out of curiosity, he asked, “Why do you do that?”