Gray Back Ghost Bear Read Online Free Page A

jerked off faster. The water made his skin slick, and he closed his eyes tighter, imagined burying himself in her completely. He groaned as the pressure built. Faster, faster, and he lurched backward until his shoulder blades hit the wall. He gripped himself harder and yelled out as cum shot up on his stomach in warm streams. His breath shook as he milked every thrust until his hips bucked erratically. With a sigh, he rolled his eyes closed and leaned his head back against the cold, plastic shower wall. Usually, this was the part where the guilt over Tessa kicked in. Where masturbating to another woman would make him feel like a cheater because Tessa was still around, filling up his head and making him feel bad about every mistake he’d made when they’d been together.
    This time, however, he didn’t feel anything but relief.
    Jason showered and turned off the water. He grabbed a towel from the hook near the shower curtain, but startled to a stop as he looked up to find Tessa standing across the bathroom, watching him.
    “You thought about her, didn’t you?”
    “Get out,” he said through clenched teeth.
    “You said her name.”
    Had he said Georgia ? Sounded about right, even if he hadn’t meant to. He didn’t have to explain himself to a figment of his psychotic imagination though, so he ignored her observations and toweled off his hair.
    Tessa’s eyes narrowed with fury as she whispered, “Go to hell.”
    As her skin melted away and her scream rattled his skull in the dramatic way she always left him, Jason muttered, “I’m already there.”
    ****
    Poachers were the worst part of this job.
    Most hunters were respectful of hunting seasons and bought the proper licenses. They took the hunter safety courses and practiced on their aim, planned all year to take an animal humanely and fed their families on the meat. And hell, hunters gave more to land conservation than any other organized group. She came from a giving community of hunters and had been raised on grass-fed, hormone-free game meat. It was that or starve because red meat was hard to afford on Mom’s single, small salary when Georgia had lived in Big Canoe.
    Poachers weren’t hunters, though. They were disrespectful thieves who took animals illegally, who traveled onto private land without licenses and killed what they wanted when they wanted. Poachers thought they were above the law.
    They were also notoriously dangerous, weapon-carrying a-holes trying their best not to get caught. Regular, legal-eagle, respectful hunters would chat with her, sometimes for hours about what animals they’d seen and passed up. She got a lot of helpful information about the land management of an area just from having a good report with the locals during legal hunting seasons. Poachers were different, though. They ran, and when they were cornered, they lashed out like injured predators.
    Georgia shook her head sadly at the expired deer that lay across the trail. The decomposition said it had died within the last couple of days. The scavengers hadn’t even found it yet. A bad shot to the back end was the cause of death. It hadn’t gone far, which proved that the animal had been poached on Damon Daye’s private land. There was no way it had traveled a mile west from the public land that surrounded Damon Daye’s mountains. Not with an injury like that.
    She wanted to strangle whoever had dared come into this land and caused trouble. Already, Georgia was falling in love with this place, and a fierce protectiveness had infiltrated her over the last week. She scanned the trail behind the deer and tried to put together where it had run from. She knelt down and touched a smear of dried blood on a broken sapling. Splintered branches and trampled, dry grass helped piece together what had happened. An hour of hiking, and she found an abandoned campsite. The makeshift fire pit held only charred logs and cold ash, and she could make out stake holes in the ground where they