Cole: Black Bear Outlaws #3 (Mating Fever) (6 page)

She nodded and guided my cock right where she wanted it. “Yes. It’s effective in getting results.”

Her sweet heat enveloped me as I pressed into her, slowly, taking my time to savor every inch of her. She tilted her hips and arched into me, sighing when I finally filled her.

I held still for a moment, letting her body adjust to me. “Okay, princess?” I whispered.

She nodded and let her eyes close. “More than okay. Perfect.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” I lowered my head, scraped my teeth down her long neck and pumped my hips.

“That drives me crazy,” she said as she wrapped her long legs around my waist, taking me even deeper.

“I noticed,” I murmured and nibbled at the swell of her breast.

“Cole?”

I lifted my head and smiled at her. “Yeah?”

She moved her hands to my ass and squeezed. “I think you’ve ruined me.”

My smile widened as pleasure wound through me. I pumped my hips slowly, enjoying the rapture on her face. “Yeah? How’s that? Have I turned you into a sex addict?”

“Yes, but that’s not how you’ve ruined me,” she said, running a nail down my spine as she moved with me.

Damn, that felt good. I arched my back like a cat and thrust, eliciting a small moan from her. “Because I’ve turned you into a sex goddess?”

“I already was a sex goddess.”

“True.” I slipped one arm under her leg, raising it even higher. Then I paused and stared down at her. “All right, how did I ruin you?”

She pressed her palm to my cheek, held my gaze and whispered, “After just one night, you’ve ruined me for anyone else. You’re it. The one. My mate.”

My heart swelled and nearly exploded at those words. “You’re right. We’re mates. Nothing can change that now. I hope you don’t mind putting up with me for the next seventy-five years, because where ever you go, I go.”

Contentment transformed her face as she smiled up at me lazily. “Mates. I’m yours and you’re mine.”

“That’s right,” I said. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”

“Yours,” she agreed.

I held her gaze for just a moment, and then I started to move, showing her exactly what it meant to belong to me.

***

I
woke to the faint sound of a motor buzzing in the distance and sat straight up, automatically reaching for Amberly. Only she wasn’t there. The bed was empty.

The whine of the motor came closer, far too close for comfort. Our camp was on private property, with no close neighbors. It was rare to see any boat out this far unless they were invited or lost.

I jumped out of bed and hastily grabbed a pair of jeans from my bag, pulling them on as I strode out of the bedroom. “Amberly?” I called.

Silence.

I tried again. “Amberly!”

Nothing but the whine of the motor.

“Shit!” I ran through the house, checking the bathroom and kitchen before I grabbed the shotgun from the hall closet and barreled through the front door.

The engine died immediately, and Cyrus held up his hands in a surrender motion. “Whoa. It’s just me. I came to make sure everything was all right here and let you know Chase recovered and destroyed that photographer’s film.”

I dropped the gun, relief crashing through me at the sight of my brother and his news. “Did Chase find out who sent him?”

Cyrus shook his head. “The guy dropped the camera and ran before Chase could identify him, but at least there won’t be any photos.”

Shit. That wasn’t good news. But we had bigger things to worry about at that moment. Amberly was missing. “Did you see anyone out there?”

He frowned and pulled off the dark sunglasses hiding his eyes. “No. Why? Should I have?”

“No. I just...dammit.” I turned and stalked back into the house. “Amberly?”

The living room and kitchen were exactly as we’d left it the night before. The room we’d shared was untouched. The only change I found was in the spare room. Right under the still-open window was a pile of clothes. Our clothes from the night before.

I heard Cyrus walk into the old house as I picked up the slip she’d been wearing and let out a growl of frustration.

“Where’s Amberly?” Cyrus asked, his tone tense.

I turned to him, doing my best to hide the sheer terror consuming me. “I don’t know. She was gone when I woke up.”

“When was that?”

I glanced at the wall clock. “Four minutes ago.”

He followed my gaze. “It’s nine-thirty.”

“I know,” I growled, unwilling to share we’d been up half the night.

“Are you sure she was here when you went to sleep?”

I gave him an impatient look and pushed past him, heading back into the bedroom I’d shared with her.

He followed. All it took was one look at the mussed bed for him to realize what had happened. “I see. Well, your boat is still here. If she freaked out and took off, she has to be on foot.” He waved, indicating I should follow. “Come on. Let’s go see what happened to your starlet.”

“She didn’t leave on her own,” I said.

“You sure?”

“I’m fucking positive.” I grabbed a shirt, stuffed my feet into my boots, and headed back outside, shotgun in hand. “I’ll check the back. You check the riverfront for any clues.”

He grabbed a second shotgun from the boat and started carefully scanning the vegetation.

I trudged around to the back of the house and immediately spotted a set of footprints leading down the dirt path into the woods. They were fresh, fully intact. I sucked in a breath, praying she was just out exploring the property. But why had she wandered off without saying anything? Surely she would’ve heard me calling her, right?

I got halfway down the path when the footsteps suddenly disappeared. I scanned the overgrown weeds.

Then my heart got caught in my throat. Right there at the edge of the path was a familiar bright pink shoe—a sandal I recognized. Amberly had worn them just yesterday while we’d lounged on the porch watching the water.

“Cyrus!” I called, already taking off in the direction of the river that ran south of the camp. It was a smaller body of water that forked off a couple miles downstream, but certainly big enough for a small fishing boat.

It didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. The brush was trampled and there were grooves in the earth as if someone had dug their heels in while being dragged. Obviously there had been a struggle.

I broke into a run, and came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the river. I bent down and picked up the second pink shoe. Kneeling there, I studied the indentation the boat had left against the shore until Cyrus caught up with me. “The bastard has her,” I said without turning to look at him.

“You don’t know that.”

My grip on her shoe tightened as I rose and turned to him. “There’s no doubt in my mind. The only thing I don’t understand is how I didn’t hear anything. Amberly isn’t a quiet woman, and she obviously put up a struggle.”

“Did you check to be sure the cameras were up and running when you got here yesterday? Or were you too busy doing...other things?”

I glared at him, then took off back toward the house. When we made it inside, I went straight for the security footage. “Amberly’s safety was my top priority. Of course I checked to make sure the cameras were running, the alarms, too. No one should have been able to infiltrate our property.”

He nodded, plugged in the digital viewer, and hit play. “Let’s catch the bastard then.”

I sat next to Cyrus and fell into stony silence when Amberly flickered on the screen wearing a long flowing skirt, a white tank top, and those pink shoes. She had a serene smile and appeared completely relaxed.

We watched as she explored the property, sometimes frowning in concentration and sometimes grinning in delight. She seemed so young, so free, so fucking happy...right up until the moment a man covered from head to toe with mud and wearing a mask popped up out of the vegetation—a section that was just out of the alarm zone—and wrapped a chain around her neck, cutting off her air. She’d never had a chance. No sound escaped her lips as she flailed her arms and legs, trying to get free.

I watched in utter horror as she was dragged off while I lay sleeping less than a hundred yards away. Raw pain stabbed me in the chest and I suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Catching him on tape had only proved to torture me. There was nothing to work with here.

“Son of a bitch! Unless she knocks his mask off, we’re never going to be able to identify him,” I said.

Cyrus leaned forward and peered at the screen. “Maybe not.” He pointed to the attacker’s hand, the one section of him that wasn’t camouflaged. “Do you see that?”

I paused the video, backed up, and paused again. Then the lightbulb went on. Holy fucking Christ. I
knew
him. There was no mistaking the small bear paw tattoo on his palm since I’d been the one to give it to him. And on that same arm, hiding under all that dirt was the word
loyalty
. Blood rushed to my head as the betrayal set in. Amberly, my mate, had been abducted by someone I’d once called friend.

I turned to Cyrus, “That bastard. By the time I’m done tearing him apart, there’s not going to be anything left to identify.”

He stood, stone-cold anger flashing in his normally kind eyes. “Not if I get to him first. No one fucks with my family. No one.”

T
he camp, if you could call it that, was nothing more than some plywood slapped together with some cutouts for windows. No glass or screens, just openings. There wasn’t even a dock for mooring the flat-bottom fishing boat. I was slumped against the rough wall, my wrists bound by electrical cords and my muddy feet restrained by standard issue prison shackles. Christ, where’d he gotten those?

Every part of me itched to shift. I would’ve gladly given myself over to the change if I hadn’t been sure the electrical cords and shackles would tear my hands and feet right off during the transition.

Fucking bastard.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed him. But he’d been smart enough to mask his scent by rolling in the mud. And who knows how long he’d been hiding in the brush, because there’d certainly been no movement. Not that I’d exactly been on high alert in my post-coital elation, but I had at least been aware of my surroundings.

My attacker reappeared in a change of clothes, the mud mostly gone, but his hair was wet and he stank to high heaven like a dead fish. I nearly choked as my gag reflex kicked in. “Nice scent.” It hurt to talk, but that wasn’t going to stop me from hurling insults at the jackass pacing in front of me. “It goes well with your dog-shit breath. I bet you have the ladies throwing their panties at you on a daily basis...well, I suppose that’s only if you pay them extra for that.”

“Shut up,
princess
.”

Nausea made my mouth water. How long had he been at Cole’s family camp?

He grinned, flashing those perfectly white teeth—likely the same ones I’d seen on the cameraman the day before.  “That’s right, sweetheart. I know all about you and your mate. It’s a fucking shame I wasn’t able to join in, but it was a fine show. Maybe we can do a reenactment once we get a few things settled.”

“Fuck you,” I spat.

He moved to stand in front of me and squatted down. “That’s the idea. Only when I make you scream it’ll be from my fists not—”

I spit in his face.

He jerked back, stunned. Then with lightning quick speed, he slapped me so hard my ear rang. “Do that again and you’re gonna find yourself wishing that momma of yours would’ve taken you with her when she deliberately drove that little car right off that cliff five years ago.”

I stiffened with shock as his words sank in. No one knew about that night, about the fact that her crash hadn’t been an accident at all. That she’d purposely killed herself just two days after learning about her stage four cancer diagnosis. Incurable, the doctors had said. Aggressive and invasive are the words she’d used. No amount of money was going to stop the disease.

I’d paid an obscene amount of money to keep the fact that her death had been a suicide out of the papers. Despite all my mother’s flaws, she’d been a respected manager in the industry, and I hadn’t wanted her legacy to be a tragic suicide. It was the least I could do.

The sack of shit sitting in front of me shouldn’t have had any way of knowing that. To my knowledge, only the first responders to the scene and two reporters knew the details of her death, and they’d all signed nondisclosure agreements.

“Who told you that?” I demanded.

He sneered. “It’s amazing what a P.I. can dig up, no matter how hard you try to bury something.”

Was he serious? This backwoods piece of shit had someone investigating me? “Who are you?”

He laughed. “A friend of Cole’s.”

“That’s not possible. Cole would never be friends with someone like you.”

He shrugged and held his arm out to me, pointing at a fading tattoo that read
loyalty
. “See that? Look at the initials underneath it.”

I squinted, trying to make out the elaborate scrawl.

“It says BBO. Want to know what it stands for?”

I stared at him in stony silence. No doubt he was going to tell me whether I cared or not.

“Black Bear Outlaws. Cole inked it himself.”

“Cole? Right. He doesn’t even have any tattoos. Why would he do such a thing?”

He let out a laud laugh. “Jesus, you really should get to know someone before you hand over your pussy.” Shaking his head, he added, “Cole Doucet used to apprentice at a tattoo shop before the Doucets started their security firm. You’d have to ask him why he doesn’t have any tats... everyone else does. Half of them are his work.”

Ask him? That wasn’t going to be easy considering I was currently this jackhole’s captive. “What do you want from me?”

His gaze dropped to my chest, then lowered to my exposed thigh. “I’m pretty certain the answer is obvious.”

I gritted my teeth and tugged at my skirt, trying to cover as much of myself as possible. “You’re saying you’re so desperate for female companionship that you followed us out to Cole’s camp, covered yourself in mud to avoid detection, and then waited all night for your opportunity to drag me off to this hell hole? Wouldn’t it just be easier to pay for it?”