“Riley…” he kissed his way down her belly, snagging her panties as he went, baring her to whatever sensual delights he felt inclined to visit on her eager flesh. Riley felt just as inclined to let him.
Tenderly he urged her thighs apart and crouched over her, leaning down to kiss the swell of her belly.
“I feel so big already,” she said. “It's hard to imagine how much bigger I'm going to stretch.”
“Hush, love. It's beautiful.” He nuzzled her skin. His next kiss landed on the top of her mound. “Hmmm, you smell delicious, girl. I'm going to eat you all up.”
“Eaten by a bear.” She sighed. “I can think of worse fates.”
Then her teasing turned to soft whimpers as he kissed her lips open and took his first taste of her. Her hips bucked against the intense stimulation, but he held her down with a hand on her hip and plundered her tender sex with long licks and teasing tickles of the tongue. He probed every fold from the wet entrance to her body all the way up to her clit and back down again. “You're so wet,” he told her. “So wet and sexy.” One thick finger slipped deep into her well, not to thrust in and out, but to rub a little spot of nerves so exquisite, her toes curled into the sheets. “You were made for this, Riley.” He stopped talking then as his tongue claimed her clitoris with long, gentle licks. Each stroke drew a soft cry from her. Her orgasm built quickly, stoked by Russell's expert stimulation. His finger tickled her deep inside and his tongue mirrored the movement on her most sensitive spot.
“Come, baby,” he urged. “Come hard. I want to taste it.”
His sexy words drove her over the edge, headlong into ecstasy. Pleasure rippled from that secret spot deep within her, tightening her muscles and drawing cries from her mouth. Russell never let up for a moment. On and on he caressed her body until he had wrung every drop from her. Only then did he rise up, urging her to roll over into his favorite position. Though nearly totally drained, Riley lowered herself to her elbows and presented her sex for his taking.
“You, my love, are about to be mated by a bear,” he told her solemnly, running proprietary fingers over her sex, and then spreading the folds.
“Yes, please,” she urged. The sensation of Russell's thick sex inside her had become an addiction, and she wanted her fix of his love. Russ didn't disappoint.
Riley hissed through her teeth as her body yielded to his penetration. That first thrust still took her breath away every time. Biting her lip, she held still as Russ slowly pulled back, and when he surged forward again, she rocked back to meet him. The thickness of his sex spread her wide and he nudged deliciously on that special spot again. Riley squeaked at the pleasure. “Like that, little girl?” he asked her.
“Oh yeah,” she moaned. They matched each other thrust for thrust. Riley loved this. Russ' big, warm hands on her hips, giving himself leverage as he rocked in and out of her. Riley braced on her elbows, desperate to have her man as deep inside her as she could. His love radiated like sunlight out of him and into her, merging their hearts, their souls, into a single being. Pleasure and emotion peaked at the same time, while Riley wept into the pillow and Russell marked her once more as his own.
By the time his orgasm and hers had waned, Riley could scarcely remain upright. Her wobbly knees threatened to give out on her. Russell's hand on her hip suddenly became a support as he withdrew his softening sex and eased her down onto the bed, on her side, and pulled the covers over them. With his warmth curled around her body, sleep took her before she even realized she was dozing.
Chapter 14
Russell couldn't help smiling down at his lady. She looked so sweet, asleep on the pillow, a shaft of moonlight illuminating her pretty face. That same moon called him, begged him to come outside and dance and pounce in its silvery light. The bear wanted to romp. Only a short one, he told the eager beast. Tomorrow is a big day. Rising, he kissed Riley on the forehead, slid his hand once over the small swell where their child grew within her, and eased from the bed.
Tucking the blankets up around Riley's chin, he moved silently through the house and out into the chill of the night. Soon it will be getting too warm to want to go out in my fur, even at night. He tolerated the heat because he loved to play, but he knew he needed to savor the coolness while it lasted. Outside, thick clouds crowded across the face of the moon and concealed the stars. Russell didn't need the light though. He found it easy enough to ramble along his familiar property and into the woods beyond. At last, the cold began to gnaw at his human skin, and he unleashed the bear. His body stretched and thickened, growing impossibly tall. He pointed his black nose at the sky and opened bone crushing jaws to let out an earsplitting roar. Rising to his full height, he sharpened his claws on the same poor, tattered tree before moving into an easy lope, his huge paws supporting his weight on the uncertain snow.
The clouds above swirled, sometimes parting to emit a hint of sky, sometimes concealing the heavens from his view, until a gap revealed the starry image of his goddess. Russell bowed his head before her visible form and uttered a prayer of thanks in the ancient language of the bears.
A whisper, a rare reply, seemed to echo in his mind. Danger, danger. Return. What you love is threatened.
Russell blinked, not sure what to make of such a message. What danger?
Hurry! the misty voice insisted. Hurry… hurry! The word repeated in endless litany in his mind. He turned and ran for his house as fast as his powerful legs could carry him. In the clearing, everything seemed quiet. No sounds emerged from the house. Was I panicking for nothing? His nostrils flared. That same scent of garbage he'd noticed earlier seemed to have strengthened. But it's inside a sealed can, where no creatures can get into it. The stink thickened as a breeze blew past the door of the house. Russell nearly gagged. Loping toward his home, his heart began to hammer when he noticed the front door stood slightly ajar. He raced through, barreling past the kitchen and living room and into the bedroom, where he had left Riley, sound asleep.
The bed lay empty and crumpled, the comforter flung into the corner of the room, the sheets sagging to the floor.
Here, the garbage smell hung heavy in the air, seeming to belch like foul breath from the open door of the closet. Under its fetid stench, another, softer fragrance teased his nostrils. Soft woman… recently bedded… Riley! Russell stared, his mind refusing to draw any conclusions from the scene.
Following the trail of his lover's sweet aroma, he tracked, nose near the ground like a bloodhound, back through the house and out the still-open door.
Strange marks, rendered nearly unintelligible by many months of foot traffic, new snow, and more foot traffic, seemed to show a weighty figure in snow boots… and a strange parallel line between. The stink lay heavy on the ground. Desperate to make sense of the information, he followed the tracks to the shed. The lock had been cut. It lay, destroyed and forgotten, in a pile of pine needles. From there, the unmistakable impression of snowmobile skis cut a path into the trees and disappeared.
Already the scent, though visible, had clearly grown cold. At least half an hour had passed since they'd gone this way. Bear or not, you'll never catch up with them if they've taken the sled. His bear didn't care. Throwing his head back, Russell opened his huge jaws wide and shook the night with a roar of despair and rage. Then he rose to his feet and galloped toward town, just to one side of the snowmobile tracks. His heart pounded and his breath came in agonized gasps. His body, under the fur, grew too hot. But he never slowed his punishing pace, reaching town in record time. There, crisscrossing lines of traffic confused the images pressed into the snow, but the smell of his enemy still teased Russ, drawing him forward past the café, the church, the crumbling mansion where Riley had once lived, straight to the school's transportation yard. There, the school bus slept on the frozen asphalt. The tiny corrugated metal hanger also stood with its door ajar. The padlock had been cut, and bolt cutters lay in the snow beside his abandoned snowmobile. The scent was fresher here, as though not so much time h
ad passed. Hopeful, Russ raced away from the transportation yard to the runway the school used. Sure enough, his plane sat on the tarmac, both doors open.
With an earsplitting bellow, he ran forward. On the far side, a large, unkempt man was struggling with a smaller, slighter figure, trying to stuff her into the passenger's seat. Both froze and looked up at him.
“Russell!” she screamed. The man stared for a moment in mute shock, then he delivered a powerful blow to Riley's jaw with one huge fist, stunning her. He shoved her into the plane, slammed the door and circled around to vault into the driver's seat. By now, Russell was only a few steps from the plane. He bounded forward, ready to pounce, but it seemed his enemy had studied airplane controls, because the little vehicle began to race down the runway. He couldn't keep up, though he tried. It bumped against the ground once, twice. The snowbank at the far end loomed. Oh, God, no. Not a plane crash. But the miscreant managed to manipulate the wing flaps and the plane roared into the sky.
Stunned, Russell sank back onto his haunches.
Unsettled thoughts raced aimlessly in a white swirl through his mind, not one coalescing into anything resembling coherence. I have to do something. I have to… what? He had to get help. That much was clear. But you're a bear, Russ. Put clothes on.
Despairing, furious and deeply afraid, he meandered back to the edge of town, circling around the edge within the tree line, until he reached his clothing stash.
Pulling inward on himself with his bear snarling death threats and fighting him with each passing moment, Russell forced the animal back inside the man. He quickly pulled on jeans and a sweater, shoes, jacket and hat before hiking into the police station.
Lips numb, he explained the situation to the dispatcher, a kind, plump woman sitting behind a desk. Though he knew almost everyone in Golden, her name escaped him, and he was so far gone, he never thought to consider her name tag.
“I'll get you an officer,” she said. “Take a seat, please, Mr. Tadzea.”
Russell sank onto the sofa in disbelief, his confusion slowly turning to rage. Rage at Riley's brother – because who else could have taken her? But also rage at himself for leaving her alone when she knew and had repeatedly told him Danny was trying to find her. Idiot! How many times did you reassure her? How many times did you tell her to let her guard down, to trust you to watch her? He had never imagined an outcome like this. How the hell will they ever find her? There are hundreds of small planes in central Alaska. Dozens of official landing sites and who knows how many unofficial ones. Plus that idiot barely knows what he's doing. If they crash… Nausea churned in Russell's stomach and tried to climb into his throat. He swallowed, not wanting to consider what could happen to Riley and their baby if Danny crashed the plane.
“Russ?”
Russell's head shot up. The uniform registered first. Dark blue button-up shirt with black tie, black slacks and a dark, bumpy hat. Then the trim figure and 40-something face came into focus and he stared into the dark, concerned eyes of Jack Morris, a man he'd been friends with for years.
“Jack, Riley's gone. You have to help me find her!”
* * *
Using every mental resource she had, Riley fought her way to full awareness. It was like swimming in a pool of cold molasses. She felt sluggish. Every thought tried to stick and cling. Through the haze she observed the familiar thick jaw, cleft chin and bull neck of her brother. His dark hair hung in greasy clumps and wild curls around his shoulders. A manic light shone in his blue eyes. He wore a ragged and tattered plaid shirt under an old, unzipped and heavily stained blue parka. The stench of him – sweat and stale cigarettes mixed with a goodly amount of booze – made her want to gag.
“Danny,” she croaked, “what the hell are you doing? Turn this plane around and take me home.”
The sticky feeling increased and a buzz sounded in her ears. She became dully aware that Danny was doing… whatever this was. His mind probed inside hers, controlling her. Muted rage churned in her belly, but she couldn't quite express it.
He laughed a rude and sneering chuckle. “Hell no, little sister. You have something I want, and you're not going home until you give it to me.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Riley groused. “I gave you everything. The house, the car, Dad's life insurance. Everything. There's nothing else and I told you that.”
“You're a liar,” he snapped. “You know exactly what I mean. A whore too. Imagine my surprise at finding my 'innocent' little sister, not sleeping alone in the shitty apartment listed on her forwarding address, but naked in some man's house, reeking of sex. When did you turn into a slut, Riley?”
Riley ground her teeth, the only expression of anger she could manage. “You're wrong,” she replied, digging through her sluggish brain for an explanation. “Russell is my husband.” He is, at least in the way of bears. It works for me.
“Bullshit,” Danny snapped, and the plane jolted dangerously toward some trees. “You haven't been up there long enough to get married. And I never saw any invitation.”
Riley snorted. “There's no such thing as 'not long enough'. Russ is special. I'm lucky to have him. And for your information, it was a small, private ceremony with no guests.” She swallowed a bubble of hysterical laughter. Small and private… as he mounted me from behind in front of the fire. “You know, Danny, it was a really stupid thing you did, taking me out of my bed. Russ isn't going to let this go. You're going to regret it.”
He laughed. “You can go right back home to your jackass 'husband'.” Danny made finger quotes in the air with one hand and the plane lurched. “As soon as you tell me what I need to know. If you'd just told me in your dream…” He turned to face her and the plane jerked sideways.
“Watch the sky, damn it,” she snapped. “Do you even know how to use this thing?”
“Of course I do,” he shot back. “I've been training on crop dusters for the last month.”
“A month?” Riley shrieked. “You've been in training for a month, and now you're flying in unfamiliar airspace, in a remote, dangerous area, and you're not even paying attention. Have you ever actually flown on your own?”
“Cool it,” Danny snarled. The fuzzy feeling in Riley's brain ramped up to a loud whine, like a thousand mosquitos trapped inside her head. Her temples began to throb. Over the noise, she could barely hear her brother say, “I've taken over the controls a couple of times.”
“Have you ever landed?” Riley asked, groaning at the agonizing pressure.
“Once,” he replied.
Oh Lord. Unable to speak, Riley stopped struggling and slumped against the window. I can't distract Danny. I have to let him concentrate or he'll kill us both. Russell, please hurry and find us, baby.
Chapter 15
Russell sat on his sofa, half-lost in pointless ruminations as the police puttered around his house collecting evidence. All the stomping of boots on his wood floors, which once would have driven him insane, now seemed utterly unimportant next to the task of retrieving his beloved. A touch on his shoulder brought him to startled alertness.
“Sorry,” Jack said. “Can I sit? I have to ask you a few questions.”
“I didn't hurt Riley,” he gritted out between tightly clenched teeth. His jaws ached from the force, but he didn't relax.
“No one is suggesting you did. We all know how much you two love each other. It's been obvious from the beginning. But right now, we're trying to figure out what happened. You were the first to discover the crime. Help us reconstruct the events.”
Russ nodded.
“Did you notice anything missing from the house… apart from Riley, that is?”
Russell did a mental inventory. “Actually, yes. Riley has a book. It belonged to her father. It was on the table here last night, but now it's gone. What is that idiot doing?!”
“I have no idea,” Jack replied. “That's what you're going to help me with. When did you last see Riley?”
“I think it was about
eleven.”
Jack made a note. “Walk me through the evening.”
Russ leaned his head back against the sofa and tried to pull himself together. “I picked her up at seven, after parent-teacher conferences. We came home, and Riley was exhausted. She slept on the sofa while I made dinner. Oh, um, and I took out the trash. It smelled bad in here.” You're rambling, Russ. Be careful what you say. They don't know you're a bear. If that gets out, you'll have worse troubles… like more angry bears tearing the house down, with you in it. You can't save Riley if you're fighting them. “Okay, well, so… we ate dinner on the sofa and talked and then we… um…” Crap. I have to give away too much. “We went to bed. We were… um… in bed for a while. Then Riley fell asleep.” He broke off and looked up at his friend. Jack had one eyebrow quirked and his mouth was turned up on one side.
“Okay, then. What next?”
“I couldn't sleep. It was about eleven, I suppose. I wanted to get some fresh air, so I went outside. I don't know how long I was out. At least an hour. When I came back, the door was open and Riley was gone. The closet door was open, but I always keep it closed. Oh, shit.”
“What?” Jack's head shot up.
“He… shit, shit, shit. He must have been in the closet all evening.” Russell gulped. “He was right there when we were…” Nauseated and furious, Russ examined his fingernails, wishing he could unleash his claws and tear Riley's brother limb from limb.
“Calm down, Russ. How do you know he didn't come while you were out?”
Russell shook his head. “I was outside. It was so quiet… I would have heard someone approaching. The snow is so crunchy right now, you know? And if they'd brought a snowmobile or four wheeler…”
“Right. Noisy as hell. I see your point. So you think he was hiding in your closet? That's damned creepy, man.”
Polar Heat Page 15