Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy (19 page)

He grinned at me.

The drive to my place took just a few minutes.  He pulled in to the dock and tied us off, and then gestured for me.  “C’mon.”

I shook my head.  “I’m not moving until you tell me what you’re up to.”

“You know,” Ed said, “a sit-down strike would be a lot more impressive if you didn’t weigh like ninety pounds.”

I would have made a rude gesture, but my hands were tied.  I stuck my tongue out at him instead.

“Don’t make me come in there after you,” he said, his eyes on my mouth.

“I don’t believe you have it in you to come for me,” I said.  “In fact, I think you might be gay.”

He lunged for me.  I shrieked and intentionally fell backward into the boat, wedging myself in the bottom.  I used my feet to push my float coat-swaddled self away from him, then used them for leverage as he tugged at me.

Every time he started to lift me, I squirmed out of his grasp and wedged myself deeper into his boat.  My legs were like wild things, kicking and pushing.

He lost his grip on me for about the fourth time.  I laughed, exhilarated.  I was eluding Ed with my hands tied behind my back.  If I could do this, what
wasn’t
I capable of?

Then he straddled me, grabbed me by the hair, and he kissed me.

Oh…
shit
.  I moaned under the onslaught of his lips.  This wasn’t like the time over my sink, when I’d been the aggressor.  No, this time he had a grip on my hair, and he held me still as his mouth slanted over mine.  It was rough, and bossy, and so hot I melted like a popsicle in June.

In the slimy, grimy bottom of his boat, he held me down and kissed the hell out of me.  I gasped air through my nose and finally let my eyes close as he gained access to my mouth.  His grip on me tightened, and the way his tongue thrust against mine had my lower belly twisting into aching, needy knots.  Hot moisture welled between my thighs.

I fell into his kiss.  The rhythm of it, the hot slide, his taste.  My arms were starting to hurt from lying on them, but I barely noticed.  The muscles of my legs softened, and I melted completely.

Less than a second after my boot heels thumped to the deck, he adjusted his grip on me and hauled me up out of his boat.  He threw me over his shoulder, and in two strides was up on my dock.

“Fucking hell,” I grumbled.  “Fucking, fucking hell.  It was a ruse.”

His hand landed on my ass and he squeezed.  “Not entirely,” he said.  He carried me easily, taking the steps up to my yard as effortlessly as if I were a sack of flour.

I decided to make it less than easy for him, and started to squirm and kick.  “Let me go!”  I yelled.

“In a minute,” he said, managing me.

It made me mad.  “I hate you,” I grumbled against his firm back.

“I really don’t think that you do.”

I kicked some more, feeling irate.  Ed was manhandling me.  And I kinda liked it, but I was powerless to do anything about it, either to escape or to jump him.  If I just had my damned
hands
free…

“Suzy,” he said, and then he swung me down off his shoulder, setting me on my feet at the base of my porch steps.  I swayed with a head rush, but he steadied me, looking down into my eyes.  The blue parts of his eyes were that vivid blue-green of an alpine lake, and they sucked me in and shut me up in an instant, drowning any protest I might have made.

“I know everything about you,” he said.  His hand slid against my jaw again, his fingers threading into my hair.

“Bullshit.”

“I know you grew up and went to school in Palmer.  I know your favorite ice cream is Moose Tracks, and that you sell sex toys, and that you’re a bossy, mouthy little shit.”  The soft way he was gazing down at me belied the harshness of his words.

I stared up at him, completely confused.  Had nice Ed decided to reappear?

“Promise you’ll quit asking questions,” he said in that warm, hypnotic voice.

Nope, thug-Ed was still in my yard.  But oh, it was tempting.  If he’d just continue to look at me like that, I’d do whatever he wanted.

I could look the other way.  It was a strain on my personality, but I could grow and change as a person.  I could do it.

I had opened my mouth to finally capitulate…

When Gary shot him.

Chapter
Sixteen

E
d jerked, and he got a funny look on his face.  His knees started to fold.  When his shoulders had descended below my line of sight, I saw Gary standing about twenty feet behind him.  With a gun.

Then Ed collapsed.

“No!”  I fell to my knees next to him, feeling my throat closing up, and my chest tightening like it had at the end of
Gone with the Wind
.  Could this really be it?  Ed was going to be taken from me before I even got to know him?

I would have pressed my hands to his chest, but they were still tied behind my back.  His eyes had closed, and he was lying so very still.  There was no blood, but I was sure there was a hole blown into his back.  He was probably bleeding out in my yard.

“Why did you shoot him?” I wailed as Gary approached.

“He was manhandling you,” he said.

“Nooo,” I moaned, tipping forward until my forehead pressed to Ed’s chest.  His body was still warm.  I started to sob.

“Calm down, Suzy, geez.  Here, straighten up a minute.”  Gary pulled on my shoulder, and then he heaved Ed over onto his side.

Before I could glance away, I saw it:  A tuft of colorful feathers protruded from between Ed’s shoulder blades.  A dart.  Gary had shot him with a dart.

“Helly told me I need to stop killing people,” Gary said.  He reached down and plucked the dart from Ed’s back.  “But I really, really like shooting them.  So,” he grinned into my teary eyes, “I got a dart gun.”

“We were just looking for my missing brothers,” Helly said, elbowing past him.

“So he’s going to be okay?” I whispered, finally realizing Ed’s chest was rising and falling with his breaths.

Helly caught sight of my face.  “Dammit, Gary, way to scare a gal.  You okay, Suzy?  What did Ed do to you?”

“The guides tied me up,” I explained.  “And then Ed made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”  My tears were flowing freely now, and I quickly became a relieved, blubbering mess. 
He was alive!

“Whoa, wait.  He made you a
sandwich
?”  Helly got me zipped out of my coat and freed my wrists, then came around to hunker next to Gary.  “Back up a bit.  Explain.”

I explained how I went to the bar looking to interrogate the guides, and wound up tied up on a chair.  And then Ed had made an appearance and tried to warn me off.  I explained how they’d called him ‘boss’.

“If they’re calling him ‘boss’,” Gary pointed out, “then he’s responsible for your having been tied up.  And I don’t think we should let that slide, even if you do have a soft spot for him.”

My tears were starting to dry, and Gary was making a certain kind of sense.  People didn’t respect you if you let them walk all over you.  Ed had sorta walked all over me.

Ed was alive, and for the moment, he was unconscious.  So, really… he was ours to toy with.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

Helly laughed and grasped Gary’s arm.  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked, looking delighted.

He grinned at her.  “Absolutely.  But you have to make the sammich.”

“No,” she said, shoving to her feet.  “I’m not making him a sandwich.  That’s dumb.”

Helly looked at me.  “Suzy, do you have a sturdy chair?”

“T
hank you guys so much, but you don’t have to stay.”

“So you don’t want even the teensiest bit of help torturing him?” Helly asked.  “C’mooon.  I’ve been wanting a piece of Ed for quite some time.”

“No, no, I’ll be fine.  There will be no kneecap-smashing, no ‘pieces’.  You guys go check out the bar.  I’ve got this.”

“I don’t think she’s going to be torturing him,” Gary commented, guiding his soon-to-be fiancé toward the door.

“What the heck do you mean?  Of course she’s going to torture him.  Why the hell else would we have just tied him to a chair?”  Helly tried to shrug off Gary’s hand, but he refused to be escaped.

He bent and whispered in her ear.

Helly gasped, and whipped around to look at me.  In one second flat, her shocked expression morphed into a wicked smile.  “You go, girl.”  Then she skipped out the door.

Gary shouldered his dart gun, and gave me a ‘Whatcha gonna do?’ shrug.  “We’ll be back in a couple hours to check on you,” he said.

I nodded.

Then Gary followed my bloodthirsty best friend out the door.  “Hey, can I tie
you
to a chair?” I heard him call.

I eyed Ed.  They said he’d be out for another hour, so…

It was time to prepare.

First, I took a shower, scrubbing and shaving everything.  I moisturized with the nicest-smelling lotion I had, until my legs were as soft as a baby’s butt and smelled like violets. I finger-combed my hair and left it loose to curl down my back.

Then I got dressed in my sheerest, shortest pink baby doll nighty complete with push-up bodice that made me look like I had boobs.  Sparkly necklace to dangle into and draw the eyes to the newly-created cleavage.  Dainty little heeled sandals. Panties, I conveniently forgot.

I even made myself up.  Eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss to make my lips wet and kissable-looking.  I gathered up my courage, and peeled off the Band-Aid, so it didn’t ruin the effect.  The cut was healing nicely, I discovered.

Finally, after coming downstairs and finding Mimi doing unspeakable things to Ed’s leg, I pushed my goat out her door, and locked it behind her.  Then I sat down in a chair in front of Ed, crossed my legs, and settled in to wait.

After all that screwing around, I didn’t have to wait long.

Ed’s eyes fluttered open.  He looked dazed.  Disoriented.

I waited until some semblance of sense had started to seep into those lovely hazel eyes.  He looked around, and it appeared he was recognizing my cabin.  Then his shoulders bulged as he tugged at his arms, and realized they were tied.

His gaze shot to me.

I smiled, uncrossed my legs in an extremely indecent manner, and stood up.

He looked stunned, but it was no longer just from the tranq dart.  He was taking in my attire.  I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he dragged his gaze from my face, past the tiny scrap of sheer satin and lace I was wearing, all the way down to the peep-toe that revealed my toenails were electric blue today.  And sparkly.

“So.  Ed,” I said.  I really, really wanted to maintain my poker face, but my smile couldn’t be contained.  I had him just freaking exactly where I wanted him, and neither of us would be running away.  Not this time.

He swallowed again, his eyes stuck to the spot where my negligee in no way concealed the outline of my nipples.  “Yeah?” he rasped.

“I was wondering if you could help me with something,” I said.  I twirled a strand of hair around my finger, going for mockingly guileless.

His gaze met mine.  “Sure,” he said.  He did it in his innocent nice-Ed voice, as though I was soon going to forget that he’d threatened me with a sandwich.

I stepped closer, just between his knees.  Gary had decided tying his ankles to the chair would be wise.  Personally, I’d laughed at the idea of Ed trying to squeeze the life out of me with his legs, like that Russian James Bond lady… but I deferred to Gary’s superior people skills.  Ed was an unknown, he outweighed me by a hundred pounds, and we didn’t have a chaperone, so I couldn’t be too safe.

I reached toward Ed, and fingered the first button of his shirt.  “You see,” I said, “I’ve got this mystery I’m trying to solve.  A couple mysteries, actually.”

“The gold nugget,” Ed said, swallowing again when the back of my knuckles brushed his neck.  His first button slipped free, revealing an inch or two of his undershirt.  Like I said, way too damn many clothes.

“Yes…”  I brushed my fingertips along his skin just above his neckline for a moment, smiling when I felt his shiver.  Ed was lots of things, but unaffected was not one of them. Inwardly, I rubbed my hands together in anticipatory glee. “…and the other one, the one I’m focusing on right now, is that of the dual-personalitied Ed and his merry band of kidnapping guides.”

“Mmm,” he said.  He seemed very distracted by what I was doing to his buttons, and his eyes were super-glued to my chest.

But he was still nice-Ed, and I wanted to see bad-Ed again.  I wanted to see the one that had gazed up at me with those dark, promise-filled eyes, the one that’d loomed over me, trying to scare me off.

I yanked his shirt the rest of the way open, making buttons fly.

His chest tensed up, his pecs making an impression on the thin white cotton stretched over them.  I licked my lips, looking over my newest obstacle.  I could push that shirt up, but it would only go to his armpits.

I’d rather just have it out of the way.  Giving him a little smile full of promise, I crossed to my knife drawer, and pulled out my kitchen shears.

Now
I had his attention, as I moved back in front of him holding the big scissors.  I flexed my fingers a few times, watching his expression become just a little apprehensive.  That’s right, I thought.  Scissors cut sandwich.

I lowered my shears to within a bare inch of his crotch, and could have heard a pin drop in the resulting silence.

“Sure you don’t have anything to tell me?” I asked.

He shook his head.  He wasn’t even breathing, his eyes following those scissors as closely as if they were a poisonous snake.

I made the first snip up through the center of his shirt, revealing a couple inches of his tensed-up abs.  I made the next cut, and the next, watching his face, his eyes, enjoying unsettling him.

If nice Ed were just a two-dimensional Nice Ed, I might feel bad about this.  It’d be taking advantage, torturing him, stepping up to a point where he couldn’t meet me.  But I’d seen the other Ed; I knew he could handle it, and I honestly doubted he’d snap.

Only one way to find out for sure.

I tossed the scissors aside and spread the halves of his shirt apart.  As I’d noticed before, Ed was built.  He had a wiry strength, spare and perfectly proportioned.  His pecs weren’t overly bulky, but they were firm and well defined, and he had a double row of abs marching down his flat abdomen.

He had a damn cute belly button, I noted.  I wanted to dip my tongue into it.

I looked into his eyes, which had narrowed somewhat on me. 
There he is.

I smiled lazily at him.  I put a single fingertip in the dent between his collarbones, and started to trail it down his chest.  “So.  You’re going to tell me,” I said, “just exactly what I want to know.”

“You think you can get me to talk?” he asked.  He seemed amused.

I leaned in farther, until my mouth was a whisper away from his.  “I can get
anyone
to talk.”

He searched my eyes.  “I believe that,” he said, as his muscles jumped under my touch.

For someone with so much beard, he had surprisingly little hair on his body. I’d expected him to have a pelt under all those clothes, but he didn’t.  His skin was soft, just a shade or two darker than mine, and it stretched in the most glorious way over a whole lot of firm man.

“So we can do this the easy way,” I suggested, as I smoothed my fingertips over the abs I’d been admiring.  “Or—”

“Or we can do it the
hard
way?” Ed asked, a wry twist to his lips.

“Yes.”  I slid my hand into his lap, and squeezed him through his jeans.  He was already hard, and way more than a handful.  I started to breathe a little faster, a heady cocktail of excitement brewing inside me.  I swayed toward him in a momentary lapse of self-control.

He shifted under my touch, and from his expression, I could tell that Bad Ed was in the house.  “I think I prefer the hard way,” he said.

That look on his face was pure challenge, and it made me burn.

I went for his fly, and his abs rippled as I slid my hand under the waistband of his underwear.  He sucked in a breath as I wrapped my hand around him.  I held him, feeling his hardness, his size, and watched his eyes flood with heat.

I pulled his waistband aside, and transferred my gaze.  His cock was circumcised, and smooth, and rose several inches from his lap.  In my few fumbling experiences with sex with clothes on, there hadn’t been much left sticking out to work with.  But it didn’t seem like that would be a problem here.

“I’m kinda small,” I said, trying and failing to wrap my hand around him.

His mouth worked, and finally he was able to push out words. “You don’t say,” he said.  His eyes fluttered closed as I rubbed the sensitive spot at the base of the head.

“Yes.  It’s gonna be a tight squeeze,” I said in my innocent voice, watching his face.  I squeezed him, then paused.  “You sure you don’t wanna tell me what I want to know?”

“Jesus, if it’s going to make you stop, I would never.”  His chest heaved, and his hips moved subtly, pushing him into my hold.

“What if…” I slipped my hand away “…I’ll only continue if you give me something.”

His lids lifted and he looked at me from beneath his lashes.  “You are very cruel.”