Smoke (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 7) Read online

  She panted and clutched at him, and the sound of her pounding pulse caressed his hungry cock.

  Tyler dropped his hands to her waist and lifted her up onto the counter. He slid the narrow straps of her dress off her shoulders, along with her bra straps, and pushed the top of her dress down, exposing her breasts.

  “God, you’re gorgeous,” he breathed, and she arched her back, offering herself to him.

  It was an offer he didn’t intend to resist. He and his bear both wanted to taste every inch of her and to hear more of those luscious moans.

  He bent his head to her warm, soft curves and proceeded to do his best to drive her crazy with his lips, tongue, and fingers.

  Every gasp and whimper just encouraged him. He wanted to hear her moan for him…hell, he wanted to hear her scream his name. And he was willing to take all the time she needed to get to that point.

  He flicked his tongue over her nipple and slid his hand up the inside of her smooth bare thigh. She eagerly parted her legs for him as he trailed his fingers higher, pushing up the hem of her sundress until he reached the taut cotton shield of her panties.

  Tyler traced a fingertip over the fabric covering her clit and finally got the moan he’d wanted.

  He was definitely in his happy place now, surrounded by the taste and scent of a sexy woman who wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.

  Mary was clutching at his shoulders again as he repeated the light, teasing stroke over and over until he could feel her shaking.

  The whole time, he continued to kiss and nibble on her breasts, enjoying the noises she was making in response to his caresses.

  “Tyler…please,” she begged and tried to grind herself against his hand.

  Tyler raised his head from her breasts and grinned at her. “Anyone ever tell you how incredibly gorgeous you are?”

  “I could say the same thing about you,” she responded, sounding breathless.

  Encouraged, he reached higher and hooked his fingers under the waist of her panties. “I want to taste you.”

  Mary raised her hips in reply, and he yanked her panties down over her bare feet before dropping them to the kitchen floor.

  Then he moved between her thighs and draped her legs over his shoulders.

  Tyler took a moment to appreciate the sight of Mary spread out like dessert on the countertop. Her lips were swollen with his kisses, and her breasts were bare and flushed, the nipples hard. The hem of her dress lay crumpled and bunched over her hips, exposing her sweet pussy to him. Her folds were swollen and flushed with need, and the scent of her arousal was potent and intoxicating.

  He was so hard now that it hurt. He wanted to open his jeans, impale her on his aching cock, and then fuck her until she screamed his name.

  Later, he promised himself. He had some unfinished business to take care of first.

  Tyler bent and gave her pussy a long lick. She tasted like pure honeyed desire, and the sound she made was music to his ears.

  “Yeah, like that,” he encouraged her. “Make some noise for me, gorgeous.”

  And she did, as Tyler enthusiastically set to work driving her crazy with his mouth. He fucking loved hearing her enjoying his efforts.

  When he could sense that she was getting close, he yielded to her ragged pleas for him to fuck her and obliged with a couple of fingers. She liked that, especially when he started using his thumb to stroke her clit while thrusting with his fingers.

  Tyler leaned over her, his hand never slowing its rhythm. “I want to see you come,” he ordered, then lowered his face to her breast.

  He took her nipple between his lips and drew on it hard.

  Mary made a guttural sound and climaxed, her hot, wet pussy clenching his fingers in a pulsing rhythm as she moaned and clung to him.

  He couldn’t wait to feel her come like that when he was buried balls-deep inside her.

  Soon.

  When the pulsing of her climax finally subsided, leaving her looking dazed and good enough to eat, he kissed her mouth, long and slow and deep.

  When he finally drew back, he asked, “So, will you? Be my girlfriend?”

  He swallowed hard and waited for her answer. He hoped to God that he hadn’t moved too fast. Wasn’t going to send her running for the hills.

  Instead she gave him a slow smile, filled with promises. “If you promise to cook for me…and do this again.”

  “I can’t wait,” he assured her, feeling so happy he could float away.

  Tyler’s bear rose up inside him and gave a mighty roar of triumph.

  “Maybe you don’t have to,” Mary said.

  Tyler saw the hunger in her eyes and knew he didn’t have the self-control to make it all the way to the bedroom.

  He needed to get inside her, and fast. Every fiber of his being was screaming with the need to take her hard and fast.

  Mary was one step ahead of him. Her fingers were already unfastening the waist of his jeans.

  Then the first responder apps on both of their phones sounded simultaneously.

  “Fuck,” Tyler said, with vehemence. His bear howled with frustration.

  “Dammit,” Mary said at the same time.

  * * *

  Hawkins Hardware was on fire, and the flames were visible from one end of Main Street to the other.

  Like most of the other volunteer firefighters, Tyler kept his helmet, SCBA gear, and turnouts with him at all times. When the first responder app sounded, he and Mary had run to opposite ends of the house—she to change back into her police uniform, and he to put on his bunker pants and boots.

  He grabbed his helmet and SCBA tank and met Mary at the front door. Thanks to their shifter speed, only thirty seconds had elapsed since the alert had sounded.

  “I’ll drive,” Tyler said grimly. The alert had given the address of the fire, and sure enough, he could see a black column of smoke rising into the still, oppressive air.

  The summer sun was beginning to sink behind the mountains, but it was still hot as hell outdoors. And it was only going to get worse once Tyler had to don his helmet and jacket.

  With Mary following close behind him, he dashed for his pickup. They piled in and headed for Main Street.

  The big ladder truck was already parked along the curb when Tyler and Mary arrived at the scene of the fire. Black smoke billowed from the front door of the hardware store, and the fire engine’s ladder was extending to the roof of the two-story, century-old brick building.

  One of the firefighters would have to climb up there and chop a hole in the roof.

  Tyler pulled up behind the fire engine and scrambled out of his pickup, pulling his jacket and helmet out from the extended-cab storage area behind the seats.

  He noticed that Mary looked tense and could guess the reason why. It had been less than twenty-four hours since the fire that had destroyed her home.

  “You gonna be okay?” he asked her, putting a hand on her shoulder. He could feel the tension running through her muscles like an electric current.

  She nodded. “I’m the closest police officer to the scene. It’ll take Uncle Bill at least twenty minutes to get here from his place, and Kenny lives on Dean’s ranch. And it’s not like I have to do very much—just go interview the witness.”

  “Witness?” Tyler followed her gaze to the man who was helping Mark Swanson connect a hose to the nearest fire hydrant. “Aw, shit.”

  He’d known that Zack Barenkamp worked at Hawkins Hardware, but somehow hadn’t expected to see the other bear shifter here. Zack’s face and clothes were soot-stained, and he wasn’t wearing his turnouts, so he’d probably been at work inside the store when the fires broke out.

  “Remember, you’ve got an alibi…me.” Mary said, only half-joking. “There are benefits to being my boyfriend, you know.”

  The smile she gave him hit him in the gut like a hard punch.

  “Now, you go fight that fire, and I’ll go talk to Zack.” She paused, and her smile deepened, becoming positively devil
ish. “And then we can attend to our, um, unfinished business back home.”

  Home. He liked how that had sounded.

  “Fuck yeah, that sounds like a great plan, Officer Jacobsen,” he told her and headed for the ladder truck to grab a hose.

  Her flavor lingered on his tongue as he worked, and he could still smell her sweet scent drenching him. The sooner he and the other volunteers finished up here, the sooner he could get Mary right where he wanted her…in his bed, beneath him and screaming his name.

  Chapter 10 – Up in Flames

  “So you were alone in the store when the fire started?” Mary asked Zack ten minutes later.

  At first, Zack hadn’t wanted to stop his firefighting efforts to talk to her.

  But then Dane Swanson arrived on the scene and discovered that not only had Zack left his turnouts at home, but he was coughing and covered with soot. When he heard that Zack had been inside the store when the fire began, Dane had ordered him away from the blaze and asked Fred Barker to treat him for possible smoke inhalation.

  Zack was now standing next to the paramedic van, which had pulled up to the scene of the fire a minute or so after she and Tyler arrived. He was scowling under the clear plastic oxygen mask that Fred had slapped on him.

  Mary noticed the dark, fist-sized bruise on Zack’s jaw and was reminded that Zack had been telling everyone earlier today that Tyler was the arsonist. She suppressed the protective growl that rose inside her, along with her wolf.

  As the only law enforcement officer on the scene, she needed to be a neutral party right now and get all the information she could about how the fire may have started.

  “Yeah,” Zack answered and stopped to cough. “I smelled something burning, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher and went to the back of the store to check it out.”

  Mary saw him cast longing glances at the bustle of activity as the BPRFD’s other volunteers continued to arrive

  Dane stood in the middle of the bustle, directing the volunteers and calmly imposing order upon chaos.

  “Dammit, I need be over there, helping—” Zack said.

  “You are helping,” Mary told him. “By telling me what happened.”

  Zack’s scowl only deepened.

  “You smelled smoke and went to the back of the store,” Mary reminded him in a crisp tone.

  “Yeah,” Zack answered, his eyes glued on Tyler.

  Mary followed his gaze and saw her new boyfriend effortlessly dragging a heavy hose over to the building. There, he joined Mark Swanson and Dimitri Medved in guiding jets of water into the hardware store’s interior.

  “And?” With an effort, Mary dragged her attention away from Tyler’s heroic pose.

  And how did you agree to be his girlfriend so quickly? The rational part of her brain wanted to know.

  Shut up. He’s ours now, and you liked how he kissed and touched us. Her wolf’s instant response startled Mary with its vehemence.

  But she couldn’t disagree, not with Tyler’s scent all over her and a pleasant tingling from beard-burn on the tops of her breasts, which were now safely concealed under her uniform.

  Zack continued, “When I got to the shelves where all the pillows and cushions for outdoor furniture are located, I saw a wall of flame maybe four or five feet high. I knew that my extinguisher wouldn’t do jack shit against a fire that big, so I made sure that no one was in the store before I got the hell out and called for help.”

  Zack Barenkamp might be a jerk, but at least he was a jerk with some common sense.

  “And that was it?” Mary asked. “You didn’t see or hear anything suspicious around the time that the fire started?”

  Zack shook his head. “My shift started at 6:00 p.m. Only one or two customers came by before the fire started around seven.”

  “Can you identify those customers?”

  Zack rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, but I can guarantee you that none of them started that fire. Roy Bagweshi came by to pick up some WD-40, and then Fred Barker needed a new set of wire cutters. Oh, and my uncle came by to drop off some dinner for me.”

  Another dead end. Zack was right—neither Roy, Fred, nor Owen were likely arson suspects.

  Mary sighed. Who’s setting these fires…and why?

  Her gaze was captured once more by the sight of Tyler, almost unrecognizable behind his SCBA mask, aiming a hose into the store’s interior as dark smoke billowed out of the shattered plate glass windows.

  “Maybe you need to talk to him,” Zack sneered. He was glaring at Tyler.

  “Why?” Mary asked him, trying to clamp down on her wolf’s protective anger. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  Something in her expression must have alerted Zack, because he just clamped his lips together and shook his head. “I just have a gut feeling about that guy.”

  “And I happen to know that he has a solid alibi,” Mary snapped.

  Zack’s eyes widened at her vehemence. He leaned forward and took a deep sniff. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You…and him?”

  And with that, Mary realized that it was only a matter of time before the entire town knew that she and Tyler were more than just roommates.

  * * *

  It took nearly two hours to extinguish the fire at Hawkins Hardware.

  Tyler was bone-weary by the time he and the others began rolling up hoses and packing away equipment. His day had started well before dawn, and now it was well after 9:00 p.m. The late summer sunset had darkened to a faint tangerine glow above the mountain peaks, and the first stars had come out.

  But he didn’t want to leave and go back to his house without Mary. And she was still hard at work.

  Bill Jacobsen and Owen Barenkamp had arrived at the store a while ago, as had Bill Hawkins, whose family had owned Hawkins Hardware for three generations. Tyler had caught glimpses of Mr. Hawkins’ shocked, disbelieving expression as he saw the damage.

  It was nearly the same expression that he’d seen on Mary’s face this morning as she watched her home burn. Tyler hated that he and the other firefighters hadn’t been able to save her house or the store.

  Flashes of bright white light in the building’s interior marked where Mary, Dane, Sheriff Jacobsen, and Owen were now conducting a preliminary investigation of the scene by flashlight.

  Fred Barker and the paramedic van had already left, and Mark was pulling the ladder truck away from the curb when a shout went up from the inside of the building.

  “Hey, you guys!” Sheriff Jacobsen called. “Found something!”

  * * *

  At Uncle Bill’s shout, Mary followed Dane to the back of the store.

  Now that the fire was out, the inside of the hardware store consisted of blackened brick, broken glass, and huge puddles surrounding twisted piles of scorched junk that had once been the store’s metal fixtures and inventory.

  The acrid smells of burned plastics, chemicals, and God only knew what else overwhelmed her keen wolf-shifter sense of smell, and she was thankful for the mask she was wearing.

  Owen had set up a search grid that covered the store’s interior. Dane and Mary had been assigned to the front half of the store, while Uncle Bill and Owen concentrated on the back half, where Zack had reported seeing the fire start.

  When Mary and Dane arrived, Uncle Bill was carefully putting a palm-sized wad of paper into an evidence bag. He was standing next to a badly burned bin filled with melted lumps and scraps of charred fabric. A shelf tag, badly blackened but still faintly legible, identified the contents as having once been patio furniture cushions.

  “What did you find?” Dane asked, looming over her as he peered at the contents of the evidence bag. His voice sounded muffled through the mask.

  Owen answered. “It looks like a time-delay incendiary device.”

  Mary shone her flashlight on the bag. It still just looked like a wad of soggy paper to her. No wires, and nothing that looked a timer, either. Just the faintest trace of cigarette smoke.

  Ow
en must have seen the question in her expression. “It’s pretty low-tech but effective, and almost guaranteed to burn up completely in a fire. We got lucky this time.” He looked grim.

  “But how does it work?” Uncle Bill asked. “And can we trace any of the materials used to construct it?”

  Owen shook his head with a regretful expression. “Unlikely. This kind of incendiary device is fiendishly simple to make using common items. You take a cigarette and use a rubber band to bundle it with a few matches. Then you wrap the whole thing in a twist of paper, leaving just the end of the cigarette sticking out. You light the end of the cigarette, put it somewhere near flammable materials, and walk away.”

  “And then the cigarette burns slowly until it reaches the matches, then the whole thing bursts into flame…with the arsonist long gone?” Dane asked.

  Mary shook her head. “That’s just evil.”

  “And it would explain why none of us ever found any accelerants at the previous fires,” Dane said thoughtfully. “I wonder if the previous investigator found any cigarette butts. The reports didn’t mention anything like that.”

  “And now we have proof that these fires are the work of an arsonist,” Mary said, feeling hot anger kindling inside her chest.

  I’m going to catch the bastard who burned down my house down and nearly cooked me alive.

  “I’ll send this to the lab for analysis first thing in the morning,” Uncle Bill said, tucking the evidence bag into his pocket. “Let’s see what else we can find.”

  Owen shone his flashlight beam into the half-melted cushion bin.

  “Hey, wait…that doesn’t look like it belongs here,” he said and leaned into its depths.

  He straightened up, and Mary saw the burned remains of a work glove in Owen’s latex-gloved hand.

  Uncle Bill reached into his pocket for another evidence bag. He leaned forward and sniffed at the glove just before Owen dropped it in the bag, then shook his head.

  “Too stinky in here to get a good whiff,” he said. “I’ll try later, once I’m in a place with clean air and my nose has had a chance to recover from all this.” He waved his hand to encompass the destruction all around them. “Okay, back to work, troops.”