Free Broken Bear by Gabrielle Demonico

success of the party, Jett and Daniella arrived back at her house a little after midnight.
    “Thanks Daniella,” Jett said as they entered her house. “I had a great time tonight.”
    She set her purse down on the kitchen counter and said, “What? How can you say that after what happened with Billy?”
    “Ah,” he scoffed as he waved his right hand. “That was no big deal.”
    She smiled and said, “Well, I’m glad one of us felt that way.”
    She picked up her purse to head to her bedroom. As she turned, he stood right in front of her. He was so close; she almost walked right into him.
    He nodd ed at her, smiled and said, “Aww, were you worried about me?”
    Daniella could smell him. The space between them felt tense, unfamiliar and a bit dangerous.
    “No, I…” she stammered.
    “You?” he said as he moved closer to her. His dark green pools flickered with risk. Daniella’s breath shortened. Her purse seemed as if it weighed a ton. God, he was hot. All she wanted to do was jump him. Every corpuscle in her body urged Daniella on and begged her to take action. While she fretted, doubted and restrained herself, he reached up with his right hand and touched her face.
    She was desperate to moisten her lips but she knew it would betray her need for him. Instead, her breath locked in her throat as she watched him and waited to see what he would do next. He smiled and moved in to her left cheek. He moved quickly and before she realized it, his lips were a whisper away from her flesh. Any instant, he might kiss her.
    He moved another inch higher and whispered, “Thank you for your concern.”
    Daniella’s lips quivered as he lingered in her ear but just as soon as he moved in, he withdrew from her.
    He smiled and said, “Well, we should get to bed don’t you think?”
    The next thirty minutes of inner dialog Daniella engaged in was unprecedented in her short life. It took every ounce of restraint she had not to throw him down on the kitchen floor. Nothing about any of their conversations or time together could have prepared for what almost happened.
    Still, she would not masturbate over it and give him an edge he didn’t deserve. Somehow, she managed to get to sleep in a short period in spite of what had occurred. It was rough but she did it.
     
    ***
    “ Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” a voice screamed from outside of the house.
    Daniella shot up from a dead sleep, her heart pounded.
    Holy shit, not again…
    “Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!” the voice screamed once more.
    Panicked, Daniella threw on clothes and ran out into the hallway. Jett’s door was open so she approached it with caution. As she reached it, she looked inside and noticed he wasn’t there. She grabbed a flashlight, a pair of nearby shoes and hurried out the back door of the house. Moments later, she headed up the trail behind her house that led into the woods.
    “ Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!” the voice cried out again.
    Her hands shook in an almost uncontrollable way. She wanted to utter his name but was too terr ified to do so. His screams stopped. The only sounds she heard now were the crunches of twigs and leaves beneath her feet as she walked.
    She followed the trail for anot her twenty yards when at last she saw something.
    His clothes, tattered and shredded , littered the path beneath her feet. She reached down and grabbed a fragment of his shirt. As she looked at it, she noticed it was cool and wet to the touch. Terror gripped at Daniella as the cloth fell from her hand and hit the ground. She raised her hand up under the light of the moon and saw blood coated her fingertips.
    “Jett!” she screamed in horror.
    She started to run up the trail and called out his name as she did. For another fifty or sixty yards, she followed the traces of clothing he left behind until they too disappeared, just as he had.
    She stopped, looked to her left and then her right when something caught her eye. In a clearing, she noticed a large shape on