Free Timberman Werebear (Saw Bears Book 3) by T. S. Joyce Page B

him.
    “We’re gonna get you girls that goat,” he promised. “Kellen, Brighton, let’s do this.”
    “Here we go,” Tagan said, clapping.
    Denison helped Danielle up, and she fed him her last grape, then dusted off the backside of her jeans. He gave that cute ass a squeeze and grazed his teeth against her neck. She shuddered, and he chuckled low. Oh, the ways he was going to make her say his name tonight. She’d been tormenting him all day in those tight jeans and being all cute as hell with her tiny kisses.
    He slung his arms around Danielle and Brighton, caught between his two favorite people in the world as they made their way to the next event. Brighton was practically humming with pent up energy that would be expelled through the five pound ax they were about to batter the logs with. This event was the most physically grueling, and Kellen had already removed his shirt and handed it to Skyler. Brighton’s team shirt went next, and Denison blew out his nerves in a puff of breath and reached over his head, then pulled the fabric away from his body.
    Danielle’s eyes went straight for the tribal tattoo on his arm, and he grinned.
    “Is that…” She looked up at him with such heartbreaking hope in her dark eyes. “Is that a badger?”
    His grin stretched farther. He leaned down and kissed her lips. They tasted like sweet, ripe strawberries. “Maybe,” he teased, then draped his shirt over her shoulder and jogged off without looking back.

Chapter Eight
    That tattoo. Oh Mylanta, that tattoo!
    Tribal symbols covered Denison’s left pec and flowed into abstract shapes that formed what definitely looked like a fearsome badger on his shoulder.
    Brighton stalled, smiling at her with his head cocked. He leaned forward, close to her ear. Close enough for her to hear his struggling whisper. “You’ve always been his.”
    Chills rippled up her forearms as he turned and walked away. Skyler and Brooke looked at her like she’d grown a floppy dong out of her forehead.
    “Uuuh,” Brooke said. “Did Brighton just talk to you?”
    “Does he not talk to you?”
    “Nope,” Skyler said, shaking her head for emphasis. “That man hasn’t talked to anyone since I moved to the trailer park.”
    “Oh.” She watched Brighton’s receding back. He was covered in curious scars, all perfectly straight from his spine to his side like tiger stripes, and aligned in rows like he’d been deliberately cut for decoration. “Maybe he talks to me because I’m Denison’s girlfriend…er, mate.”
    “Maybe,” Brooke said, following the others. Over her shoulder she said, “But I haven’t seen him talk to Denison either.”
    Holy shit. Well, that was a revelation. Danielle suddenly felt honored that Brighton had chosen to share that whisper with her. He always swallowed hard after he said something, as if it hurt to make that much effort to push air particles past his vocal chords. But he’d still done it…for her.
    The brothers climbed nimbly up onto springboards suspended halfway up the tall, vertical chopping logs, high up in the air. The boards bounced under them as they tested their balance. Kellen climbed up beside one of the Gray Back competitors and lifted his lip in a snarl.
    Denison hadn’t spared a glance at the Gray Back competitors until he was finished with each event. But right now, tension rolled off his shoulders when Matt took the log right next to him and stared at him with an obnoxious, empty smile on his lips.
    “Come on, Denison,” she said, clapping and hoping to hold his attention away from Matt’s whispered taunts.
    Brighton crouched down on his springboard, ax held out for balance like he was going to tackle Denison any second. It was the eyes. Denny was seething, the fury lightening his eyes to a snow white color.
    Tagan was standing closer to his competitors and called out something sharp to Denison, but she couldn’t understand what he said.
    Denison’s lips pulled away from his teeth as he