“What time is it?” she asked looking at the pale light coming through the delicate white curtains that covered the outer wall of windows.
“Zero five hundred,” he said.
It took her a moment to work the time out. “You woke me up at 4:30 in the morning?” she yelped.
“I have to report at zero six hundred,” he said. He sprang out of bed and headed for the bathroom. She heard the shower turn on for the briefest wash ever known. Within minutes he was back and dressing in his clothes.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“No time,” he said as he put on his shoes and tied the laces. He whipped out his cell and asked for her number which he keyed in efficiently. “I’ll text you this morning,” he promised, bending to kiss her goodbye.
Hannah got up and had a leisurely shower before slowly and tenderly anointing herself with her fanciest scented lotion. Her breasts were red with beard burn as were her inner thighs. Her face was equally chafed. Her labia tingled too. She was going to have to insist that Jack shave before sex. Because this rash was just unacceptable. She throbbed between her legs and deep inside. Every tiny muscle felt as if it had been strained by unaccustomed acts. That she would just have to endure. Poor widdle me with a big bad bear. She giggled.
Lying against her fluffed up pillows drinking coffee, Hannah contemplated her blissful future. She was going to go to the market and buy the most delicious dinner and cook it for Jack. No, first she was going to go out and buy the toughest razor on the planet. Then buy food. Electric razor or blade? Blade, she decided. So much smoother.
CHAPTER TWO
November, three years earlier...
HANNAH LOOKED AT JACK as he sat on her narrow white leather couch. He had kicked off his shoes and put his bare feet up on the glass coffee table in an attempt to make his big frame comfortable. Somehow her froufrou boudoir with its pink and white delicacy merely emphasized his rugged masculinity, but her living room furniture just looked foolish with him in it. Thank goodness she had bought it all on Kijiji. She could probably sell every stark and uncomfortable piece without taking a loss.
She set their coffee cups on the table and sat down across from Jack in the angular steel and leather chair that pre-Jack had seemed so cosmopolitan. Now it just seemed skimpy and stiff. Armless chairs might look elegant but they weren’t comfortable. She needed furniture built for a woman who was five eleven in her bare feet. And for a man who stood six five in his.
Jack was flicking through the stations with her remote and she watched him critically. He had shown up tonight after a three day absence without any explanation. Just a, “Damn, I missed you, woman.” And the sort of kiss that made her forget her three days of worrying. Especially after his brand of reunion sex.
He was wearing a black tee shirt and black jeans, and with his bushy new mustache and sideburns he looked more like an urban badass than the genial, outdoorsy type she had met in The Bear Trap. The worn black motorcycle jacket which was hanging in her hall closet indicated this was no new style. She cleared her throat.
“What is it, honey?” he asked at once.
“Where have you been?” she blurted.
He narrowed his blue eyes and looked sharply at her. Then he grinned sheepishly. “My job ran longer than I expected,” he explained.
“You didn’t call,” she said. “I was worried.”
“Aw, honey, I can take care of myself,” he assured her. He got up and came over to her chair and knelt down and put his arms around her. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
“You could’ve called,” she insisted ignoring how hot his arms around her waist got her.
“I left my cell here,” he admitted.
“I know. It rang incessantly for the first day. I had to stick it in your drawer under your socks.”
He laughed and stood up. “I better go charge it.”
“Jack Enright,” she said firmly, “Aren’t you going to tell me where you were?”
“I can’t do that,” he said without evasion. He tried a sexy smile but the finally of his words lay between them.
It was too much. “Jack it’s obvious you have money. Lots of money. It sort of seems like you have a job. Sometimes. At times, not so much. Today you show up after three days without a single word of explanation. I can’t live like this. Where were you? And why?”
Jack looked at her as if making up his mind what to tell her. Hannah’s heart sank. He was going to lie to her. But all he said was, “I’m a freelance military contractor.”
“Like Blackwater in Iraq?” Hannah asked. Her face was as horrified as she felt. And yet hadn’t she feared he was a criminal?
“Well, I’ve never worked for them, but I work with similar companies, yes.”
Hannah’s brown eyes widened and she looked stricken. One hand covered her wobbling mouth. “You’re a mercenary,” she said accusingly.
“I am not,” he sounded outraged.
“You take money to go to war,” she said in a trembling voice.
“We’re not usually sent to a war zone,” he said mildly. “We mainly provide protection for Americans in places where there isn’t a lot of law and order.”
“You get paid to fight,” she insisted.
“I guess so,” he said. “Just like our troops.”
“That’s different,” she protested.
“You think?” he asked. “I get paid a bit more, but the deal is the same. I put myself in harm’s way so civilians can be safe.”
Hannah had wrapped her arms around her waist without noticing and now she swayed and moaned. Jack seemed to realize that he had stepped in it, for he reached out and tugged her to her feet. He wrapped her in his strong arms and rocked her gently. “It’s okay, honey,” he said soothingly.
“Does your family know what you do?”
“Well, sure,” he said.
“And they don’t mind? Your parents don’t worry? Or your brothers?” He had told her he had four.
“Well,” he said slowly, “Mom frets. But you know what mothers are like.”
“No,” Hannah said tartly, “I don’t know what mothers are like.”
Her only experiences with maternal concern came from her many foster mothers. They hadn’t abused her, but they certainly hadn’t worried about her. She had told Jack about her childhood and it hurt that he didn’t remember her confidences.
Her foster mothers had all been struggling to make ends meet and for them fostering had been just another way of making money. Looking back, it made sense that she got mac and cheese for dinner when their kids had hamburgers; and that her school clothes came from the thrift store while their kids got new stuff from Wal-Mart. And she could hardly fault them if they didn’t have love to spare for their fostered kids, when they didn’t have love enough for their own.
“Sorry, slip of the tongue,” Jack said into her hair, holding her even tighter. “You can take it from me, that my Mom would prefer me stateside.” He chuckled.
“So would I,” she said. She pushed away from his chest and looked up at him. “Couldn’t you find something else to do?” she begged.
Jack shook his head. He looked stubborn. “Not if you mean what I think you mean,” he said slowly. “I gave my word before I met you, and I won’t go back on it.”
She sighed. She knew final when she heard it. “But when it’s over,” she pleaded.
“I guess,” he said. “We can discuss it when I get back.”
Alarm seized her. “When are you going?” she cried.
He shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “Next week or next month. They haven’t said, and if they had, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why so hush hush?” she asked, alarmed all over again.
He shrugged. “It’s just the way things are in this line. It’ll be fine.” He rocked her against his erection and Hannah forgot her concerns in the hot tide of longing and excitement that making love with Jack released.
* * *
“You’re leaving tonight?�
� wailed Hannah. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I only got my orders today,” her lover told her, taking her nude body in his arms and silencing her objections with a passionate, openmouthed kiss. She forgot her unhappiness as his tongue slid along hers and played with the tenderest recesses of her mouth.
Jack’s big hands held Hannah’s head still as he suckled her tongue before turning to the sensitive spot at the base of her throat. He moved one hand to the nape of her neck and played with the soft curls that grew from that sensitive spot. Hannah’s womb clenched and her own hands began to move down her lover’s body towards his jutting erection.
Even though they had just made love and should have been satiated, they fell together on Hannah’s bed and twined their bodies into one with as much enthusiasm as if they had been months apart. Jack explored Hannah’s lavish curves with his long, muscular fingers, tracing the delicate mauve veins that lay under the creamy skin of her large breasts. He plucked at her sensitive coral nipples until they furled into distended red points that he took into his mouth.
As he suckled first one nipple and then the other, Hannah squirmed beneath him. She ran her eager hands down the black trail that bisected his bulging six pack until she reached the stiff cock jutting from his black thatch. Both were still damp from their first bout of passion. But Jack removed her hands from his hard shaft, and held her arms apart, looking at her as if to imprint her image on his eyes.
“You are so beautiful, sweetheart,” he rumbled. “I want a taste of your honey pot.” He moved down the swell of her alabaster stomach fondling her generous hips and kissing her tidy black bush. He reached behind her to squeeze the luscious globes which spilled over his big hands. He raised her hips and nuzzled her exposed pussy and inhaled deeply.
“Mmm, you were made for me,” he announced smugly. His shoulders forced her thighs wide so her secrets were revealed to his eyes and mouth. “Your scent makes me wild,” he told her before beginning to lick the pink folds he had spread open.
He lapped until her writhing hips signaled her renewed pleasure. His tongue swirled around the tight red bud before he dipped into her still swollen passage and thrust at the pink flesh. Hannah began to spasm in his arms but he did not stop his tender ministrations. He moved back to her straining clitoris and sucked lightly while pressing up firmly with two thick fingers inside her. She bucked and came again. And again.
Jack set her bottom back on the sheets. He kissed her with his mouth still damp with her sweetness, before positioning his cock at her entrance. Slowly he pressed inward, kissing her mouth, her cheeks, her closed eyes. He began to thrust slowly, leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world. Hannah lay almost passive beneath his bulk playing lightly with his curling chest hair and flat brown nipples as he roused her all over again.
She felt powerful, secure at last in her womanhood as she matched Jack’s gentle thrusts with delicate squeezes of her vagina. Jack was the first lover she had ever had who matched her appetites in bed and found her abundant flesh endlessly enticing. He had only been in her life for a month, but she had known from their first night that he was the one. The intimate soul deep bond she felt intensified with each day. He filled all the empty places in her heart.
Jack deepened his thrusts as his breath grew thick and his murmured encouragement and endearments became an indistinct rumble she felt rather than heard. She gripped his hips with her strong thighs and set her heels on his muscular buttocks as she increased her rhythm to match his faster pace. Together they pounded to orgasm. She felt her womb contract as he flooded her again.
She lay snuggled in his arms her head pillowed on his chest, until he felt her tears. “Aw, honey, don’t cry,” he said. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he promised, hugging her tightly.
Hannah brushed her tears away with a hand that shook. “How soon?” she demanded.
Jack hesitated. “I don’t really know, but I’m guessing six weeks, tops.” He stroked her long hair comfortingly.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Jack shrugged one massive shoulder. “We get our info on a need to know basis. Security is tight on this project and I haven’t been told much.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated firmly. “And if I did, I couldn’t tell you anyway.”
“But it’s dangerous? Right?”
“Possibly,” he admitted reluctantly.
“You might be killed?”
“I can take care of myself.” His voice was a confident rumble vibrating her whole body. The bastard sounded happy.
Hannah thumped his heavily muscled chest. “Have you ever thought that being a mercenary is not such a red hot career choice? Can’t you refuse?”
Jack looked up at her, his black curls rumpled and chaotic, his blue eyes sincere. “I have to go,” he said steadily. “Refusing this tour is not an option.”
Hannah’s heart sank. “Can you make it your last?”
“I will,” he swore. He kissed her tenderly and rolled out of bed. He vanished into the bathroom and she heard the shower come on.
He kissed her again, just as tenderly, when dressed in his uniform of black tee shirt and jeans and black leather jacket, he stood by her front door saying good-bye. “Lock up,” he said sternly as he did whenever he left. “Keep safe.”
On her condo’s CCTV, Hannah watched Jack stride out the elevators through the entry doors. He vanished into the darkness beyond the camera’s eye. She went into her bedroom, and lay down clutching his pillow and breathing his virile scent. She wept as if he were already dead.
CHAPTER THREE
Last June
ABOVE THE PSKEM MOUNTAIN Range eagles circled in the hot June updraft. Far below on the dusty road that cut thorough the ruined pastures of the Western Uzbekistan mountains six trucks crawled towards Kyrgyzstan. It was not clear that from their wide and uneven spacing that they were a convoy. In the fourth truck, the driver gratefully contemplated the boss’s folly in permitting ever longer gaps to grow between the vehicles so the occupants could avoid breathing one another’s dust. Only the boss was no fool.
Kirill Kovolenko was a grim, hard faced giant much like his passenger. Kirill’s barrel chest was made even bulkier by the Kevlar vest buckled around it. White sweat stains were visible in rings on his black tee shirt. His black hair, eyebrows, bushy sideburns and mustache were matted grey with dust. On his wide forehead there were greasy smudges where he had brushed sweat away. He held the truck steady with large capable hands as he carefully eased his vehicle off the main track onto an even rockier and narrower path.
In the front passenger seat Kovolenko’s boss, Mihaly Leskov, snored ripely in the sweltering air and did not stir as Kirill steered the truck away from the others. Leskov’s Kevlar armor lay discarded on the floor at his feet as a concession to the heat. On his lap lay a Russian police issue submachine gun. One great, hairy hand was set around its black grip and a thick forefinger lay ready in the trigger. The safety was off.
The air conditioning had failed two days previously. After breathing the fine grit that the winds threw up into the Uzbekistan desert air, Leskov had decreed that the windows stay shut. It helped keep the dust to a minimum, but the cab of the truck got hotter and hotter. Kirill had complained aloud and received a backhanded blow across the face and an order to leave the windows up. He had counted on Leskov’s determination to prove he was the tougher of the two to leave them that way. But now Leskov was the one without his armor.
Kirill changed gear as the path grew steeper, glancing at Leskov without turning his head, but Leskov slept on in the stifling air. Kirill let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Leskov was riding shotgun beside him because, while his subordinate was too useful to kill, he was too dangerous not to be watched. Kirill knew Leskov was justifiably less afraid of being ambushed by Uzbek bandits than he was of betrayal by his own men.
Two years ago the Russians h
ad dispatched Leskov to Tashkent to take charge of the Uzbekistan mob and crush an attempted rebellion by the Uzbek oil oligarchs. Leskov had quickly re-established the Russian Mafia’s dominance. His weakness as a leader was that he thought discipline was the same as ruthless brutality. His murderous rages meant that he was both unchallenged and unloved.
He despised the Uzbeks as yokels and treated them as cannon fodder. He disdained those Russians sent by Moscow as failures being punished by exile. He considered the Ukrainians dumb muscle. He especially loathed and ridiculed Western Ukrainians like Kirill. He trusted no one.
From the first moment Leskov’s recruiters had brought Kirill to their boss, Leskov had identified him as a bear shifter. Just as fast Kirill had spotted that Leskov was a cat. Even in his black suit and tie Leskov emitted the rank odor of tiger. Leskov had not questioned Kirill’s credentials as closely as he might have done, because he was distracted by having to deal with his bear.
Summoned to Leskov’s private gym, Kirill had found himself alone with the boss. Kirill had feared that Leskov intended to shoot him right there, but Leskov had just pointed his gun at Kirill’s head and coldly instructed him to shift. When he did, he was told to prostrate himself. Leskov had immediately shifted into a Siberian tiger that was fifteen feet from nose to tail and outweighed Kirill’s American Black by two hundred pounds.
The Siberian had pounced and put his great jaws at the bear’s neck. He had bitten hard enough to puncture thick bear hide and muscle. Kirill had known he couldn’t win the fight from that position, but then winning would have aborted his mission. He had gone limp and Leskov had bitten a little deeper before accepting Kirill’s submission and returning to human form.
For nineteen months, Kirill had known that Leskov’s distrust meant that he was watched more closely and was in even more danger than the others. It had meant that he had had no opportunity to report in eleven months, and since his mistake eighteen months ago, had been unable to slip off to the US embassy and get back to the States. He had cultivated stoic, boneheaded stupidity in the face of Leskov’s continual humiliations, earning Leskov’s open contempt. Contempt was good since it meant Leskov grew careless, witness his deep sleep now.
Bear Fursuits Books 1-4: Bear Fursuits Page 2