Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy (25 page)

‘Sex’.  It felt like too weak a word.  Too clinical.  Yet ‘making love’ was too soft, too gentle.

This, right now, was phenomenal.  Crushing pleasure that swept me up in its relentless current, and a
connection
.  It was something I’d never felt before.

When I finally pulled away, I looked into his eyes, and I realized something.

This was Ed.

Chapter
Twenty

T
wo hours later, the barge popped free of the sand.

I was cuddled in Ed’s lap when it happened, both of us reclining on his camp chair.  The boat lurched slightly, and then adopted that free-floating feel.

I jumped on the controls, getting the engines started and backing us clear of the sandbar.  While Ed got dressed, I guided us over to deeper, safer water.  He then held the wheel while I pulled on my own clothes.

As we got underway once more, I felt a sense of loss.  In the couple hours we’d been together, it felt like Ed had become a part of me.  We’d made our own little world, where nothing else mattered…

Now, we were separated by clothes, and distance, and the noise of the engines.  Every mile I drove upstream seemed like a mile I left our private little world behind.

I couldn’t quite believe we’d done it.  I felt giddy as I mentally replayed what we’d done.

And confused.  I wondered how Ed would treat me now.  Had it just been a one-off?  Would he pull away from me again in the future, say ‘we shouldn’t’?

What the hell was he still hiding?

As we unloaded the barge, I flushed hot every time I exchanged glances with him.  As Ed rode past me on Dotty’s lawnmower, I ached.  I pressed a hand to my belly, watching him drive it up to her cabin. 

He’d cum inside me.  I’d let him cum inside me, wanted him to, asked him to.  I was on birth control, and I knew it was a silly, girly thought to even have, but… I wondered.  There was less than a 1% failure rate on the pills I was taking, not that I’d missed any of them, or planned to.  And not that anything created with Ed could ever be termed a failure…

God,
I just couldn’t seem to tear my gaze from him.  The sight of him, the memory of what we’d done made me smile so hard, my face ached.

Our last stop was about five miles farther upstream than I usually went.  There, we unloaded a pallet of dog food onto a waiting four-wheeler trailer.  The dog mushers happened to live right next door to Clint Lascomb—the guy that had saddled me with $15,000 in credit card debt, after refusing to pay for my services.

As I worked, I glanced upward toward his lodge.  I could see the guests inside, still sitting around the dining room tables chatting.

Clint hadn’t been answering my calls.  He’d been avoiding me.  He wouldn’t be expecting me now, which would probably work to my advantage.

We finished transferring the dog food.  “Just wait for me a minute, will you please?” I asked Ed.  He nodded, and watched as I climbed up the bank toward the lodge.

I let myself in the front door, and caught the attention of Clint’s teenage daughter, who was serving drinks.  “I need to talk to your dad,” I told her, being quite pleasant because I saw a lot of myself in her.  It wasn’t her fault her dad was a scumbag.  He probably wasn’t paying her to illegally serve drinks, let alone to deal with irate customers.

My heart beat faster as the man himself came down the stairs.  He was tall and urbane-looking; his slacks and shirt ironed, his short grey hair recently trimmed.  His smile didn’t reach his eyes.  “Suzy,” he said.

I nodded in greeting, and then cut to the chase.  “You owe me money.”

“Let’s not talk about this here,” he said, somehow making me feel like I was being inappropriate.  He smoothly wrapped his arm around my shoulders and guided me out the front door, and out of earshot of his guests.

The action irritated me, as I knew he had an office.  If he planned on doing business with me, on treating me with respect, he would have taken me there.  His move also felt controlling, like he was managing me.

I shook him off.

“Now, what was it that you needed?” he asked, that fake-ass benevolent smile in place.

“You owe me money,” I repeated.  “Fifteen thousand dollars.  I’d like you to pay your bill.”

“Fifteen thousand?  Wow, are you sure—”

“I can show you receipts,” I told him, “adding up to over fifteen thousand, yes.”

“Hm,” he said.  “Well, I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a bad time.  I just made some investments, and I haven’t got a lump sum like that on me at the moment.”

“That’s fine,” I said, even though it really wasn’t, and I knew he was weaseling out of it again.  I could see a dozen guests through the window right now.  At over $300 apiece per night, that was at least $3600 sitting at his dining room tables, right now.  And that wasn’t all of his guests, and it wasn’t counting the fortune in alcohol his daughter was currently illegally serving.  Or her tips, which this piece of work was probably confiscating.  So, this man would probably make enough to pay me in just a couple days.  Moreover, he probably had several times what he owed me in a bank account
right now
, despite what he said.

“I’ll take payments.  A couple thousand a month would get you paid off in just a few months.”

Clint was starting to turn back toward the door.  “Definitely something to think about,” he mused, while his attitude said he couldn’t be bothered.

Unwilling for him to escape so easily, I reached out and caught his arm.

He paused, looking down at my hand on him.  He didn’t react like Ed had.  No, his gaze, when it lifted, was cool and vaguely threatening.

I removed my hand.

“There a problem here?” Ed asked from behind me.

I hesitated, some part of me wanting to keep business matters private.  But looking up at the jackass that owed me a lot of money, seeing the self-satisfied gleam in his eyes, decided me.  If he wasn’t going to pay his bills, and conduct business in an honest fashion, fuck it.  I’d ruin his reputation; I’d tell everyone.  Starting with Ed.

“Clint owes me $15,000 for services rendered,” I said.  “Which he’s refusing to pay.”

“Now Suzy, you know I just haven’t gotten around to it,” Clint said.  His manner had become strangely defensive with Ed here.

“It’s been five months,” I said.  “Five months since your last outstanding bill. 
Two years
since your first.”  Obviously it’d been stupid of me to continue doing business with him, but he’d promised and cajoled, and kept stringing me along.  And I just kept wanting to think the best of him.

Ed looked at Clint.  “Can I talk to you a sec?”  In a move very similar to Clint’s, he guided him several feet away.

I watched them closely, straining my ears to hear their conversation.  But Ed was talking very quietly—and it
was
Ed doing the talking.  Clint started out shaking his head, but then he quit.  As he listened, he began to look more and more perturbed.  I could practically feel the tension rolling off him.

Clint glanced at me, nodded, and then strode off into the building.

Bastard
.  Denied once more, I turned to leave.

Ed caught my hand.  “Wait for him,” he said.  “He’s coming back.”

I was very aware of Ed’s hand on mine.  “What did you say to him?”

Ed shrugged.  “I encouraged him to pay you,” he said.  “Explained what happens to people who displease you,” he added, his eyes laughing down at me.

I snorted.  “I kinda like the idea of tying him to a chair, but I wouldn’t be near as gentle with him as I was with you.”

“Gentle?  Is that what you call it?”

Ed was suddenly very close, overwhelming my senses.  His thumb rubbed softly along my lifeline, making me shiver.  I now knew exactly what he felt like inside me, his hands rubbing over me, gripping my hips in the heat of passion.  He brought the memories we’d made just that afternoon straight back to the forefront.

I stepped closer, gazing up into his eyes, thinking I might just love this man.

Clint banged back out through the door.  He handed me a check.  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked.  The question was directed at Ed.

I looked down at the check.  It was written for $20,000.  “But, this is—”

“It’s interest, and for your troubles,” Clint said.

I stared at him, open-mouthed.

“Was there anything else you needed?” Ed asked, giving me a little nudge.  When Clint asked it, he made it sound like I was bothering him.  In Ed’s mouth, the words were considerate.

I shook my head.

Clint nodded to me, nodded to Ed, and ducked back inside.

I turned around to find Ed already walking back toward the barge.  I hurried after him.  “How did you…?”

He shot a me a look which morphed into a slow, wicked smile.  “I’m the boss, remember?”

W
e didn’t get me back to my place until nine o’clock that night.  I’d thought about inviting Ed in, but he was all business as he helped me wrap things up on the barge.  Then, with a murmured ‘good night’, he was gone.

I was a little sad that he didn’t stay—hadn’t even tried to stay—but I decided not to think about it too hard.  We were moving fast as it was; I’d only really known him for a week.  And Ed was kinda unpredictable, so for now, I’d give him his space and try not to push matters.

It was as I was getting ready for bed that I heard an engine approaching.  I cocked my head, and determined by the sound of it—a deep, fluctuating grumble—that it was not a boat.  Four-wheeler, then?  There was a whole network of four-wheeler trails through the woods, though the ones out back of my cabin were overgrown with grasses, so seldom were they used.

The four-wheeler was getting closer.  I stepped outside, and peered into the trees.

I saw it approaching, a blue machine with two riders, and… two walking behind?  But the two behind were moving funny, almost as if…
Oh
.

The four-wheeler emerged from the trees, and suddenly the picture became clear.  Two adolescent girls were in the saddle, driving slowly enough that the two men being dragged behind, at the ends of a pair of ropes, could follow—but not so slowly that they could do it comfortably.  The two on foot stumbled along with their bound wrists out ahead of them.  They were tall, well-built, and blond.

The brothers.  I recognized them… barely.  They were wearing nothing but woven grass loincloths, and had mud smeared here, there, and everywhere in between the reddened splotches of bug bites.  Zack had several long claws hanging from a leather thong around his neck.

They looked feral.

The girls on the four-wheeler had long, braided hair, no makeup, and, improbably, skirts.  Thick tights concealed their legs.  They guided the machine to within a few feet of me and swung to the left, and I saw the Kuskana River Bible Camp sticker on the front fender.

I immediately began to jump to conclusions.  Fearing the worst, I stepped forward.  “What did you do?” I asked the boys.  Ed’s story hadn’t been too terrible because they were all in the same age group.  But Zack and Rory?  In their upper twenties, at least!

“We found ‘em livin’ in the shed,” the girl in back said with a soft southern accent.  “Thought we’d go ahead and bring ‘em back for ya.”

“You… did they…” I swallowed hard “…
do
anything?”

The girls smiled at me, their faces empty of understanding.

“We may be dirty, Suzy,” Zack said, “but we’re not
that
dirty.  We were just looking for shelter.”

“Yeah, after we lost our clothes, we had to find
something
,” Rory agreed.

I looked them over.  “You were only out there for two days.  How
did
you lose your clothes?”

“Well, there was this bear, and we were hungry, and for what we had planned, we needed to get close, so we needed camouflage, and so we—”

I held up my hand.  “Never mind.  Just—never mind.”

I turned back to the girls.  “Thank you so much for bringing them back,” I said, even though it tasted like a lie coming out of my mouth.  “They’re helping me with some repairs on my roof,” I explained.

The girls looked up at my roof, then back at me.

“They’re also a little—” I spun my finger around my ear “—special,” was the word I settled on.

A look of understanding dawned.  “Ooooh,” said one.

The other climbed down and started to untie their wrists.  “You poor dears.  We thought you might be escaped convicts, criminals.  Not—”  She stopped to make the most deliciously emasculating cooing noise I’d ever heard.  “We just didn’t realize.  I’m sooo sorry,” she gushed.

Zack and Rory shifted from foot to foot, looking embarrassed.  I enjoyed their discomfort as the girl untied them.

“Oh how cute!” the girls said as Mimi bounded up, not noticing the way the brothers flinched back.  They stooped to pet her.  She preened, and made them giggle as she lipped at their skirts.

After I offered them gas for the return trip, which they politely declined, and after Mimi had gotten her fill of attention, the two girls were on their way.  Their engine sounds faded as they drove back into the woods.

I opened my front door, then turned and looked at the brothers.  “Come in,” I ordered.  “Now,” I added when they hesitated.

They trooped into my kitchen, barefoot and shivering.  I closed the door, turned around, and looked at them.