by Amy Star
Emily gaped at him and he let out a little chuckle. Then they both erupted into laughter and Sam held his sides while Emily wiped tears away from her eyes. It was so like Lily to have some sort of quip on the ready, and hearing Sam’s impression of her was more than she could bear. Her ribs hurt and she clutched at her tummy until the laughter finally dwindled down.
She sat up next to Sam and looked into his eyes. He gazed back, and she remembered the first time she’d seen him as a Bear, the softness his eyes had held back then, now reflecting off of hers.
“I wasn’t sure… what I mean…. how you saw me?” she said softly.
He reached out and cupped the side of her cheek with his palm. She closed her eyes. His fingers where they touched her were like funneled coals, synaptic fire; an uncompromising desire that inhabited both of them, sliding in their blood.
“Let me show you.” He replied even softer.
He drew his mouth to hers and she stiffened when she felt his lips pressing into her. She kissed him back and raised her own hand to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. She let out a little moan as his tongue forced between her lips and into the cavern of her mouth, and she moved to meet him. Their tongues darted back and forth, and she felt a warm flow of saliva move from his mouth into hers. It was like a jolt.
She kissed him harder and plunged her tongue into his mouth. It was enough to cause him to open his eyes mid-kiss. She felt him reach behind her, his hands spread wide over her lower back and she let out another little moan as her shirt hiked up and his fingers explored the ridge of her spine.
“Is this okay?” she heard him whisper into her neck.
She replied by pulling at his shirt until he got the hint and peeled it off his back in one swift motion. She did likewise, letting him help her pull her T-shirt over her head. He kissed her again and his hand settled on the top of her breast and squeezed gently. In another moment she felt his hand moving under the bra and couldn’t restrain a little gasp as his thumb brushed over her nipple. It responded to his touch immediately, hardening, and she writhed into him harder, his strong arms enfolding her in an embrace that went beyond human.
In all her life, she had never known any other Bears aside from her parents. And even then, she had never been physically close with another of her kind. It was like stepping into a raging river. Each time she tried to plant her feet and find some solid ground the animal in her promised to sweep her away and plunge her into the torrent of her own desires. For once, she let herself be carried into it and Sam’s hand became faster, teasing her breast all the way out of its bra, her nipple almost aching with the pent-up passion she had restrained.
“Suck it, please,” she murmured, drawing his head toward her chest.
He obeyed wordlessly, his hot breath arching down her collarbone and the grooves of his lips tasting every inch of skin on the way until at last she felt his tongue tickle over the areola. She let out another gasp and covered her mouth as he placed his whole mouth over it.
“Let’s get you out of that,” he said, coming up at last and kissing her forehead.
Maybe because she’d already seen him naked numerous times she didn’t feel the same sort of hesitance at undressing, but she relished in the experience of having him do it. He pulled off her bra and gently coaxed her onto her back as she fiddled with the zipper on her jeans and popped the top button. She struggled out of the jeans and more goose-bumps rose on her belly as he gently pulled down the elastic on her panties to reveal the thin bristles of her pubis.
She didn’t know what to expect when his hand trailed up her inner thigh and caressed the dark folds of her labia, only that it was the purest form of pleasure she had known since finding out that she was not the only Bear in the world. Sam kissed her chin and she leaned her head back, letting him lick at her neck as his other hand maneuvered deftly over her crotch. Emily covered her mouth a second time when he dipped a finger into the crevice between the folds and found her ready. He drew his finger, already wet with her, up over her belly button, leaving a small dark trail, like the path of a snail.
In moments he was out of his jeans as well and perched above her as she leaned into the couch on her back. Gently she spread her legs and looked down. Sam had changed again – the look in his eyes was the same one she had seen when he was in Bear form. As if in this moment, even though he was still in human form, every other part of him had transformed. He grunted and she saw his penis swell, hard and stiff in front of her, its head engorged and swollen red with blood.
“Put it in,” she pleaded, her voice suddenly reaching a desperate timbre.
Carefully he rested the shaft against the small divot and she felt it press against the bottom of her clitoris. The experience was like another electric shock, something that caused her whole body to tremor and she raised her back, arching her breasts toward him.
He guided his member closer to her vagina and pushed gently against it, causing Emily to squirm as it worked its way into her. She tried to relax and allow him entry, but the feeling of having another person in her was almost too much to bear and she reflexively clenched the inner muscles of her vagina. Sam must have felt it because he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, trying to keep from coming all at once.
“You’re so tight.” He murmured.
“I know… deeper, please, fuck me, Sam.” She replied, her hands clutching at Sam’s wrists as she leaned into her and his hips bucked.
There was a wet sound and Sam opened his eyes and looked down at Emily. Her hair was splayed out on the pillow like a thousand golden scrolls, and he had become the scribe, the one to write her tale. She was beautiful and as she began to move back and forth Emily opened her mouth in pleasure, her eyes dreamily half-closed as he worked her towards an orgasm.
“I’m almost there.” She murmured, gripping his wrists harder and opening her legs wider to him.
He plunged in deeper and deeper, and Emily felt her insides burning. She let out a deep scream that bubbled up from her belly, which was already in spasms with the beginning of the orgasm. Sam leaned over her as he came inside her, burying his mouth against hers to muffle the scream of her pleasure and she wrapped his legs around them. An explosion seemed to rocket her insides, and she wrapped her legs around him and thrust viciously into him, eager to experience every moment of the orgasm for as long as it lasted.
She shook, her whole body like one single tremor lulling into the night, and exhaled slowly as Sam relaxed into her. She felt numb, drained, utterly exhausted, and she couldn’t help but smile as she ran her fingers through Sam’s hair. He pulled back and looked deep into her green eyes again and kissed her. Then slowly he withdrew from her. They lay side by side. They didn’t need to speak – speech was, like Lily had famously said once before, ill-equipped to them. They only needed touch.
For long hours afterward, until Emily finally fell asleep against his chest with Sam’s arms wrapped around her and the blanket covering both of them on the couch, the flames in the fireplace seemed to dance, as if in celebration of something that was beyond a mortal understanding.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning when Emily awoke, there was already a shaft of early sunlight coming in through the kitchen window, illuminating the latent dust. She propped herself on her elbows and looked around, but there was no sign of Sam and the fire was dead. Outside she could hear some sort of bird warbling a complaint.
Absently she stood up and the memory of the previous night returned to her. She smiled again in spite of herself, and looked down at her naked body, at the triangle of her hips as they swam into her nether regions. In a way, she could still feel Sam inside her, a swelling presence that had explored her in a way no one else ever had. She blushed instantly, and felt another tingling below her navel.
On the kitchen counter there was a note from Sam saying he had decided to run some errands first thing. It was a hastily written note and she wondered why. Did he have some sort of misgivings about what
had happened last night? It had all just sort of happened. She made a mental note to try and talk to him about it when he returned. In the meantime, she was hungry.
She was halfway through pouring coffee into a mug and serving some scrambled eggs on two plates when Sam finally burst in again. He was out of breath, but the sight of Emily again with her hair down and pouring yellow yolks onto a plate in her underwear was enough to make him grin like a puppy and he picked her up and kissed her again, pulling her by the waist into him.
“I made eggs, I hope you don’t mind. Oh, and coffee. Is everything okay, why are you breathing so heavily?”
“Looks delicious,” he said, sitting down, “and I’m breathing heavily ‘cause I got a look at you.” She tossed a piece of toast at him and was surprised at his reflexes as he snapped it out of the air and took a bite. “Seriously, though, just some trouble with scheduling.”
“Nothing too serious?”
That familiar tension line in his jaw popped out again and he lowered his eyes. “Well, I was supposed to take a couple of hunters into the woods on Monday, but it turns out that they had to reschedule… the only time they could get off from work was….”
“Was what?” she said, sensing a trap.
“Tomorrow,” he shrugged apologetically.
At another time Emily would have been a bit put-off – it had, after all, been his idea to fly all the way out here with her for the weekend. But at the same time the development in their relationship, and his apparent comfort with how things had turned out now, had made her a bit more forgiving. She shrugged.
“I understand… does that mean you’ll be heading off tomorrow?”
Sam paused again. “When it rains, it pours,” he said, “we have to head back to Fairbanks today actually. Apparently the faucet in Lily’s cabin and two of the others also burst last night and there’s water everywhere. I’m going to have to work today and tomorrow just to fix it. I’m really sorry, Em, it looks like the weekend’s busted.”
She felt sympathetic toward him. He was probably the same age as her, but he was the double owner of cabins and a tour company. Plus, she could see how awful he felt about it. No doubt he had been running around Trapper Creek all this morning trying to work something out so as not to disappoint her. She reached across the table and touched his hand.
“But what about the hunters then? If you have to fix all the plumbing over the next two days-”
“Then I’ll probably lose one of my big paydays,” he shrugged.
There was silence across the table as the two of them ate, and again Emily could tell that Sam was quite distraught over matters and doing his best to try and put on a brave face. She bit her lip again and fumbled with her eggs, her appetite suddenly lost. An idea was rooting around her in head, but was only half-formed, like a halo of ice around a puddle; nothing had crystallized yet.
“What if…” she began, and waited for Sam to lift his head toward her, “what if I helped you? I mean I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with the hunters and all. Or with plumbing but… I mean do you actually fly the hunters in?”
His brow wrinkled. “Well, sometimes… I’ve actually got Al at the airport that can handle the flying. But someone needs to help the hunters unpack, it’s mostly a grunt job, but you know… customer service.”
“Well, I could do that!” she joked, flexing her bicep comically.
Sam shook his head and then paused when he saw she was being serious. He sat up and crossed his arms and his eyes were lost, staring at the empty plate of eggs, and Emily could see that he was mulling it over.
“
Are you sure, Em? I mean, I know you’re strong… hell, you or Lily could kick my ass singlehandedly on your own,” he said, and Emily smiled even though she knew that probably wasn’t accurate. At least, not in human form. “But these hunters, they’re rough-back, y’know. You think you can handle them?”
“If you’d asked me that a month ago, I would have said absolutely no, but now…” she smiled back at him. “Things are different. Besides, it’s like you said… if you miss this chance, it’ll affect your company.”
Sam still seemed a bit unconvinced and gave her a long hard look, but she returned it with an equally stolid expression until at last the rise of his shoulders fell and he sighed and had to laugh.
“Crazy girl,” he muttered.
She stood up and crossed the table and sat down on his lap, straddling him as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “That’s me,” she winked, “so what do I do?”
***
After they’d finished eating and clearing the dishes and Emily had gotten dressed, Sam took her over to the air field again where he introduced Al, an older man in his 60’s that had cheery eyes nested behind years of sun-wrinkled folds of skin. He seemed always at the limit of his own emotions and about to break into laughter, even though he never did, and he and Emily hit it off immediately.
“You didn’t tell me that you were hiding a super-model!” he accused Sam, pointing a craggy finger at the younger man.
“Knowing you, I thought it’d be safer that way,” Sam flashed back, and Al beamed a smile and kissed Emily’s hand.
He had been a bush-pilot all his life, flying from Alaska down into Northern Canada – a huge map on the wall of his small office had tacks and lines of string attached to it, and when Emily inquired, Sam secretly put a finger to his lower lip as if to warn her. The warning was apt, because given the opportunity, Al would wax eloquent on all manner of places he had been. He had even more stories about Alaska than Sam did, and Emily highly suspected that her new boyfriend had acquired the penchant from this old-timer.
Finally, Sam looked at his watch and made a quick apology. If he was going to catch the hardware store before it closed, he’d have to leave now for Fairbanks. Outside of Al’s office Sam turned and wrapped his arms fiercely around Emily’s waist again and they shared another passionate kiss.
“Al will tell you everything you need to know. You can use the car and the cabin for tonight, and he’ll pick you up tomorrow. Are you sure about this, Em? You really don’t have to. I fucked up, this is my problem.”
“You didn’t do anything,” she said, “besides, I want to help. And like you said, it’s good to get out of Fairbanks. This way I’ll get to see even more. Besides, Al seems like a really sweet old guy. Just promise me we’ll do something next week.”
“Cross my heart.” he murmured and kissed her again.
From the small office that doubled as Trapper Creek’s airport tower she watched as Sam took off in the Cessna, becoming a small dot on the horizon. She had lied when she said she was totally okay with helping him – obviously, she wanted to. But it was still strange to suddenly be far from Fairbanks and any other kind of support, even though Al in his wheeled chair beside her, a cup of overly sugared tea in one hand, gave her a comforting smile.
Risk taker Emily, she said to herself again. That’s right.
CHAPTER FIVE
The call came in late afternoon on Sunday while Sam was busy at Lily’s cabin. Apparently, a message had been picked at the Fairbanks airport, and Lily was the first to hear about it when she overheard something at the café. She’d quickly put both new interns in control of the café and had sprinted back down to the cabins.
Sam was just coming out from under the sink when she burst in, tears in her eyes and breathing hard, and Sam had to sit her down on the wooden stool by the kitchen table until she could get her breath back enough to speak clearly.
“Settle down, Lil! It’s okay, just tell me, what’s going on?”
“It’s the plane,” Lily said, breaking into fresh tears, and her shoulders quaked.
“What about the plane?” he asked more seriously.
“The Fairbanks Airport picked up a message from them, a mayday. Something about a propeller malfunction … then the radio cut out. The Army’s already been alerted; they’re supposed to be sending in a search and rescue team in a few
hours!”
Sam was visibly jolted and grabbed Lily by both shoulders and held her, his hands becoming like vices until at last she let out a little squeak of pain and he snapped out of it and released her immediately.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” he blurted, wide-eyed.
Lily stood up and gave him a hug, wrapping her tiny arms around him. “Sam,” she could only breathe, “what are we going to do?”
Sam stood there for a long time, and Lily could tell that he was in shock. She had always suspected the connection between Emily and one of her oldest friends since childhood. As she clung to him now and placed her head against his chest, she could hear his heart like a hammer, trying to pound its way out of him. He was afraid, and that scared her because she’d never known Sam to be scared of anything. He was like a rock, even when the rest of the world shook around him. But now, he was paralyzed, unable to move from the spot.
“Sam, wh-”
“I’m going to find her,” he interrupted before she could finish her sentence, and she pulled back and gave him a look.
