Bearing the Late Thaw (Ice Bear Shifters Book 5) (7 page)

Christine grinned as she stuffed a large strawberry into her mouth. “I can’t wait!”

The clan members talked and laughed easily with Christine, asking her questions about her life back in Texas. Christine asked them questions about their lives and backgrounds as well, and she started to feel like she was truly getting to know them. For the first time since she had arrived in Glacier Point, she didn’t feel loneliness nipping at her heart. Falling in love with Neal had made her happier than she’d ever been, but she had still been missing the comfortable, familiar feeling of a good group of friends. Tonight, she felt like she’d found that again. Neal looked over at her and smiled, squeezing her hand and giving her a warm look that sent a little thrill all through her. Christine didn’t want the night to end.

As dinner wound down and the clan members sat around drinking another round of iced tea or beer, Delaney tapped her glass to get everyone’s attention. Once everyone’s eyes were focused on her, she stood and started speaking.

“I’m so excited to have all of you here, and to meet Christine. Christine, having you here with Neal makes our family feel complete. I hope you’ll come out to the cabins often. Now, I don’t want to take anything away from Christine’s big night of meeting everyone, but I have an announcement to make. It’s so hard to get everyone from the clan in the same room these days that I’m going to take this opportunity to announce to all of you that I’m pregnant. Eric and I are expecting our first cub in November.”

Gasps of excitement filled the room and one of the guys let out a whoop. When the chorus of congratulations had died down, Kat and Tyler exchanged glances and then Kat spoke.

“Okay, this is crazy, because Tyler and I actually had planned to announce tonight that we’re expecting as well. Also due in November! I can’t believe it, Delaney—our little cubs are going to be the same age!”

The clan members were overjoyed, letting out more cheers and congrats, until Hannah stood up and shouted for everyone to be quiet. “You guys, this is insane. Alan and I are expecting a baby, too, and I’m also due in November. Which means there are going to be
three
new cubs added to the clan that month!”

The room went wild. Everyone was talking and cheering at once. Neal leaned back into the couch and covered his face with his hands, trying to hide the happy tears that he couldn’t hold back. But it didn’t take long for him to give up and just let the tears fall as he stood to hug his clan members. Despite his tough guy, alpha exterior, his love for his clan members ran strong and deep. Christine stood as well, and shyly went to offer her own congratulations to her new friends. They gratefully accepted her well wishes, and hugged her warmly without hesitation.

Later that night, Christine went with Neal back to his cabin. She was going to spend the night with him here, and he would take her to work in the morning. After she changed into PJs and brushed her teeth, she came out to an empty bedroom. She went out to the living area to find Neal. The room was completely dark, and Neal’s silhouette stood against the front window. He was looking out at the dark, snowy scene, and running his fingers through his hair like he did when he was worried.

“Hey,” Christine said, sidling up next to him. “What’s wrong?”

Neal looked down at her and put an arm around her, drawing her close. He kissed the top of her head, and then sighed. “I’m just worried about finding the Blizzards. The news of the new cubs is so exciting, but it also drives home for me just how important it is to get rid of the Blizzard threat. I don’t want everyone in the clan to be constantly looking over their shoulders, worrying that a Blizzard attack is going to threaten our youngest members. I’m alpha. I need to step up to the plate and get this figured out. I just wish I knew what to do. Every strategy I’ve tried for finding them has been a dead end.”

“You’ll find them,” Christine said, her voice sounding sure.

Neal ran his fingers through his hair again. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’m at a loss about what to do right now. If the spring thaw doesn’t show up soon, I don’t know if we’ll be able to find them this summer. We might not have enough time to search while the snow is gone. And I can’t stand the thought of them still roaming free out there once the newest cubs come in November.”

Christine reached down for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Just keep searching. You have a plan, and you just need to keep following it. You have to find them, eventually. And when you do, I know they won’t stand a chance against your attack.”

Neal pulled Christine into a full hug. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll find them. And when I do, there’ll be no mercy for those brutes. It will be a new season of peace for the Arctic clans.”

Christine hugged him back as she looked out at the snow in the faint moonlight. She silently hoped that the Blizzards would be found soon—both for Neal’s sake and hers.

Christine struggled to focus on work the next day. The mountains of documents to review didn’t seem to be shrinking at all, and most of the boxes she was examining right now weren’t related to the client’s lawsuit. There were piles and piles of historical information on Glacier Point from decades ago that had nothing to do with the actual oil drilling. It almost seemed like someone at the oil company had just been obsessed with learning the history of Glacier Point.

On the bright side, she had finally received an email back from her boss, saying that they had ramped up their efforts to incentivize people to go work in Glacier Point. He expected to have a group of seven attorneys there by the end of the following week. Christine had no idea how the firm had suddenly convinced so many lawyers to show up in Alaska, but she wasn’t complaining. With that many people helping, the project could potentially be knocked out within a month.

Christine sighed as she opened up a new box of documents to find what looked like copies of old Glacier Point newspapers. She flipped through them quickly, just to make sure that nothing of importance was hiding in between the yellowing newspaper pages. As she neared the bottom of the box, a big red circle that someone had drawn around a headline caught her eye. The headline read “Hidden Gems Beneath Glacier Point’s Surface? Local Research Scientist Suspects So.” Whoever had drawn the circle had also written an address near the top of the page, with a notation to call someone named Jim and see if he had a map to Black Ice Caverns.

Christine froze. Wasn’t that the name of the caverns where Neal thought the Blizzards were hiding? She started frantically flipping through the pages, trying to find more documents that might have information on where the caverns were located. She had neared the bottom of the box when she found it—a dirty, yellowing sheet of paper with a map on it. The detail was incredible. Every passageway and entrance seemed to be marked, and several large cavern rooms were labeled with the names of various gemstones. “Sapphire”, “Jade”, and “Amethyst” were written on several of the caverns. A large cavern near the middle was labeled “Greenhouse,” and several passageways appeared to snake away from it. Christine became excited as she studied the map. She had to call Neal. It looked like what she had just found might put an end to his searching.

Christine ran to the old warehouse office, where the firm had paid to install a working phone. There was no answer at the tattoo shop, so she called his cabin. He picked up on the fifth ring.

“Neal! I was beginning to think you weren’t going to answer!”

“Yeah, I was just heading out,” he said. “I got a late start getting out to the tattoo shop today. Not that it matters when I get to work. Still no tourists here, since the winter doesn’t seem to want to end.”

“Well, I have something that I think will cheer you up. You need to get down to the warehouse, now!”

“Okay… do I get a hint?”

“I think I found a map of Black Ice Caverns.”

Christine heard Neal suck in his breath on the other side of the line. “Really? How? Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty sure. Just get your ass over here and look at it.”

“On my way,” Neal said, and hung up the phone.

Twenty minutes later, Neal stood in the dusty warehouse in between piles of boxes and grimy papers. He whistled as he studied the map that Christine had handed him.

“This is definitely it,” he said, his voice growing excited. “The map is obviously old, so it might not be completely accurate. I know the Blizzards have closed off certain entrances and passageways in the tunnel. But that doesn’t matter. They can’t have changed everything. Most of these entrances should still be intact, just hidden.”

Christine smiled. “Who would have thought that my boring old document review job would help you in your search for the Blizzards?”

“Christine, this is huge. Your ‘boring old job’ may have just saved our clan. I guess whoever made this map was interested in gemstones hidden beneath the surface, but their work outlining all of the passageways is going to make it easy for us to find and flush out the Blizzards.”

Christine beamed as a mixture of relief and hope washed over her. She knew Neal had been carrying a heavy load around, always worried about when the next attack was coming. She hoped that this map would help him find peace for himself and his clan.

Before Christine could say anything further, Neal was sweeping her off her feet and spinning her around. She squealed as her feet left the ground, and the room whirled around her from the safety of Neal’s arms. He set her down again and kissed her deeply, holding her close as he planted his lips passionately against hers.

“I knew keeping you around was the right choice,” he said, giving her a wink. “I just had a good feeling about you.”

“Did you now?” she said coyly, batting her eyelashes up at him.

“Woman, don’t look at me that way unless you want to turn me on. Those eyes of yours drive me crazy.”

“Maybe turning you on is the plan,” Christine teased.

Neal growled, and pulled Christine close again. She could feel his hard dick standing at attention and pressing against her as he once again put his lips on hers. She melted into his touch as he let his hands slide down her lower back and land on her ass, grabbing one cheek in each hand and using the leverage to push her groin against his. She felt moisture dripping into her panties as the passion of the moment started heating up her body.

“Neal, we’re in the middle of a warehouse. A warehouse where I work,” she said, a weak attempt to stop the ecstasy that was already running through her body.

“There’s no one else here,” he argued, pushing his tongue into her mouth and making her moan in delight.

She pulled back to look at him. “I know, but, it just feels wrong.”

“Sometimes being a little bad can take you places you’ve never been before,” he said, grinning at her with a devious look. “Places you definitely don’t want to pass up.”

He put his lips back over hers and reached down to unzip the front of her gray dress slacks. He slid his hand down between her panties and her skin, using his middle finger to find and tease her dripping wet clitoris.

He pulled his mouth away from hers and moved his head to the side of her head, where he could nibble on her ear.

“You’re so wet,” he panted out, his own level of passion clearly rising. “I love that I do that to you.”

Christine’s only response was a moan. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her sensible side told her to that banging her boyfriend in the middle of the piles of legal documents she needed to review was probably not a smart thing to do. But she couldn’t bring herself to care about that anymore. She was past the point of no return, and all she could think about was how badly she wanted Neal’s dick inside of her. Heat and pleasure seeped through every inch of her body as he continued to tease her sensitive opening with his finger, wiggling back and forth with just enough pressure to cause her to tingle on the edge of explosion. He drove her crazy, filling her with intense passion but never letting her come. She moaned again as pulled his finger out and pulled down her pants and underwear. He quickly unbuckled his belt buckle and pushed his own jeans and underwear down, freeing his bare, rock hard dick to press against her.

He pushed her up against a metal pillar in the warehouse, and she shivered and giggled as the cold metal touched her bare ass. He looked directly in her eyes as he slid into her, and the risk and excitement of the moment heightened all of the glorious sensations she always felt when she was making love with Neal. She knew there was next to no chance that anyone would walk in on them, but the mere possibility that someone
could
set her heart racing. She felt overwhelmed with emotions of ecstasy and danger as she let Neal press his hands on either side of her head against the pillar and ram into her over and over. The sensation of him filling her was overwhelming and made her whole body tremble and tingle. Every nerve ending stood alert as she felt a familiar tightening in her stomach that extended down into her vagina. The tightening grew stronger and stronger, radiating sparks of heat throughout her body until she exploded into the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced. As her inner muscles contracted ferociously around Neal’s dick, she tilted her head upward and screamed out his name. The sound echoed across the open space of the warehouse and was joined by Neal’s roar as he came into her with a warm, pulsing stream of passion.

Breathing heavily, Christine fell against him, spent and happy.

“I can’t believe I just let you bang me at work,” she said as Neal reached down to gently pull her pants back up.

“I couldn’t help myself,” he said huskily, kissing her forehead as he shimmied his own pants back up and started buckling his belt. “You looked so sexy in your tailored pants, and I’m feeling pretty giddy since I’m pretty sure you just changed my clan’s future.”

Neal reached for the map. “This paper is falling apart. Is there somewhere near here I could make copies?”

“There’s still an old copy machine in the office. I don’t know if it has ink, but there’s paper in it. Try it and see if it still works.”

Neal nodded and went to the office. A few minutes later, he returned triumphant. “Well, it sure creaked and groaned a lot, but it still works. I made several copies so each of the guys can have one. I’m going to call an emergency clan meeting and make a plan.”

“Okay. Anything you need me to do?” Christine asked.

“Not right now,” Neal said, bending down to kiss her on the lips. “You’ve done a great deal already. Call me when you get done with work, okay?”

Christine nodded. “Okay be careful.”

“I will,” Neal said. Then he kissed her once more and was gone, taking the stack of map copies with him as he disappeared out the side of the warehouse.