Two Captains, One Chair: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy (23 page)

Chapter
Nineteen

I
t was starting to rain harder, so I threw on my raincoat as I stepped back out of the cabin.  I checked the tarps, making sure everything was covered.  The load hadn’t shifted much, as our grounding onto flat sand had been a relatively soft one.

“What’s the plan?” Ed asked.

I looked up at him, finding his eyes a bright spot in a gray world.  The sky was gray, the tarps were gray, the river was gray, even the damn aluminum of my boat was gray.  But his eyes were a swirl of rich color, the deep browns of which were making me crave dark chocolate.  My stomach grumbled, suddenly hungry.

“Well, we could call for help,” I said, grudgingly.  But I didn’t want to call for help.  As a woman on the river, doing ‘men’s work’, every call for help was a strike against you and your reputation of being able to fend for yourself.  I was small and cute and liked sparkly things, but I wanted people to know I meant business.  And if
that
meant spending a few hours on a chilly river to prevent word of my faux-pas getting out, then so be it.

“I’m not sure what they’d do, anyway.  Hook us to a tow rope, maybe?”  I also wasn’t sure how much they’d help tugging on us with their little baby-boats.  If my three 180s couldn’t tug us out, what good would a 40 horse do?  I rubbed my head, feeling raindrops trickling against my scalp, and then pulled my hood up.

Ed didn’t seem to mind the rain.  His hair was black with it, the shoulders of his shirt darkened.  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic about that plan,” he noted.  “Do we have another choice?”

“The weather said heavy rain today.  That should make the river rise, which would then pop us free of the sand.  Get in the damn cabin,” I added.  “You’re gonna catch cold.”

I could see in his eyes he was laughing at me, but he turned and went into the relative warmth and dryness of the little cabin without argument.

Damn, but I liked that he could follow orders.  I followed him in.

“So we can ask for help that probably isn’t going to help, or we could wait it out?” he asked, recapping.

“Yeah.”  I sloughed off my raincoat, and started digging in the pile in the corner.  I wanted lunch.  I couldn’t think without some sugar onboard.

“Any idea how long it would take for the river to raise us free?”

I got out my little crystal ball.  Or at least, that’s what I did in my head as I rolled my eyes at him.  “No, I don’t.  Could be an hour.  Could take all day.  Where the hell is my lunch?”

He helped me search for it, and I finally arrived at the conclusion that in my scatterbrained Ed-mania this morning, I must have left it at home.  I shut down the engines because their drone was driving me batshit crazy, and then I slouched in my captain’s chair.

“Just great,” I said, drooping.  I had no food, it was raining like an SOB, and I was stuck on this goddamn river.  At that moment, I could have killed for a latte.  With whipped cream, and… coconut.  I could almost see the drive-through coffee stand on the opposite shore, flanked by palm trees and lit up by a beam of sunshine.

My mouth was filling up with spit when Ed spoke.  “I’d be happy to share mine,” he said.

I looked at him.

“I brought two sandwiches.”

My lips twitched.  “What kind?”

“Roast beef.”

“Now, see, I think you would have been much more successful if you’d threatened me with a roast beef.”

“You’re afraid of roast beef?” he asked.

“No, but I’m thinking a nice thick slab of meat would have made much more of an impression than your limp little peanut butter and jelly.”

His beard split around his smile.  “I’ll remember that,” he said, digging in his lunch cooler.  He tossed me one of the sandwiches.

I peeled the plastic wrap back, and unabashedly inhaled his meat. 
Ahem
.  His meaty sandwich.  I ate it.  Fast.

Then I did the same to the pack of chips he threw me.  And the cookie.

Finally, my little belly bulging over my folded-down overall bib, I leaned back in my chair and sighed.  I’d be a lady later, when I was in a cute green dress and dangly earrings.  Right now, I intended to laze in a mild food coma, and forget my current situation.

He eyed me.  “How ya doing?” he asked.  “Better?  For a few minutes there, I was afraid to get my hand too close.”

“It’s not your hand you should be worried about,” I mumbled.

I heard him moving around a little bit, probably tucking his lunch away.  A nap was sounding really good…

My lids popped open when I felt my chair move slightly, creaking under additional weight.  He had his hands propped on the arms to either side of me, and I looked straight up into his eyes.

“What should I be worried about, then?” he asked.

I gazed up at him, trying to figure out what he was talking about.  I’d zoned out for a few moments, and my mind read like a blank slate.  Plus, of course, him being this close was making it hard to think.  Damn, but I loved it when men loomed.

“What?”

“I’m seeing about a hundred freckles right now,” he mused, his gaze sweeping over my face.  “I’m thinking about kissing every single one.”

“You slobber on my face and I’ll have you thrown overboard,” I said.

“You and what army,
Captain
?” he asked.

I put my hand against his chest, and I was going to push him away so I could sleep, but the contact instantly changed my mind.  I curled my fingers in his flannel shirt instead, feeling how warm he was even through the damp cotton.

His thighs brushed my knees, and I suddenly realized we were alone.  Alone in complete silence except for the patter of rain on the roof.  No one was out on the river in the middle of the week, and especially not in this weather.

I was stranded with Ed, the man who I desperately wanted, and I was thinking about taking a nap?  Suddenly I was a little embarrassed about my own priorities.

He leaned down and kissed my nose.  “How do you feel about having sex with a man who has the use of both his hands?”

Inwardly, I did a happy dance.  “I think that might be okay,” I breathed.

“Even if that man has a big… secret?” he asked.

“Especially then,” I said.

He cracked a smile.

“We don’t have any condoms,” I pointed out, even though I really didn’t want to.  I mean, I was on birth control, but…

He moved to the freckles on my cheek, but he didn’t slobber on me.  I’d categorize what he was doing more as butterfly kisses.

I sighed and let my eyes close.  If I said I didn’t like Nice Ed, too, I’d be deluding myself.  I was thinking about telling him we wouldn’t be risking anything if he just ate me out again, when he spoke.

“I brought some.  Condoms,” he clarified.

My breath caught as his head dipped farther, and his lips brushed the tender skin below my ear.  I was pretty sure I didn’t have any freckles there, but it felt so damn incredible, protesting was the last thing I’d be doing.

I tilted my head back with a moan.  My hand snuck around his back, stroking the warm, firm muscle I found there.  If every man were built like Ed, I would have gotten into massage therapy in an instant.

I spread my thighs and pulled him between them, finding out my stool was damn near at the right height for such activities as the hardness in his pants brushed against me.  I dug my boots, still dangling their laces, into the backs of his thighs.

He’d moved down to my neck.  As he kissed and nibbled, and made my whole body light up with pleasurable goose bumps, he reached back to fumble with my boots.  One at a time, he pulled them off and let them thump to the deck.

I moaned, shoving my hands in the collar of his shirt, eager to feel as much of his skin as possible.

The buttons on my left hip tugged, and then he was pushing his hand into my pants.  I gasped, my belly trembling as his hand slid down.  He paused over my mound for a couple moments, warming me from the outside.

Then, his finger found me, and slid inside.  He slid in deep, and rubbed my clit as he did it, making me gasp and my hips rock against him.

A man with the use of both hands was definitely—frickin’—better!

He started a rhythm, a long plunge-and-press, and looked up at me as I writhed under him.  My nails curled against his skin, and my legs tightened around him.  I groaned, tugging at him, beginning to pant.  I was falling into the sensations he evoked.  Every time his finger withdrew, I wanted it back.  I wanted two.  More.

“Talk to me,” I rasped.  “Tell me a secret.”

He groaned.  “You’re insatiable.”

I arched on the chair as he slid another of his strong fingers into me. 
Yes!!
  He was stretching me, watching my reactions.  Learning me.

“Okay,” he said.  “I’ve had a crush on you since the first moment I saw you.”

I gasped, looking up into his eyes.  “But that was…”

“Several years ago, I know.  You were in your teens, and I was working for your dad at the time, so you were off-limits.  And then I got into—what I’m into—and the fact that you’re a raging gossip was a big problem.”

I made a mental note to ask him more about that later, and wiggled closer, until I was practically lying in the chair, my pelvis jammed against his, his fingers caught between us.

“Another,” I demanded. I started on his shirt, unbuttoning furiously.

“You’re the littlest, bossiest woman I’ve ever been with,” he said.  “I want to fuck the hell out of you, but I’m afraid a stiff breeze might break you in half.”  His fingers curled inside me, stroking a spot that made me squirm.

I grinned breathlessly up at him.  “I’ve always had a little too much hell in me.  And it’d take something stiffer than a breeze to break me in half.”  I shoved his undershirt up and got my hands on his chest.  I writhed with increasing urgency, riding his hand, pushing myself against him.

“Yeah, but…”

With a growl, I grabbed him by his hair.  “Ed, you’re not gonna split me in half with your dick.  It’s big, but don’t flatter yourself—it’s not
that
big.”

His lips curved.  “You’re supposed to tell me it’s huge, it’s the biggest you’ve ever seen,” he pointed out.

“It’s decent-sized,” I allowed, rolling my eyes.

He straightened up slightly, looking affronted.  “
Decent
-sized?”

“Look, it
is
the biggest I’ve ever seen,” I admitted, “but I’ve been sheltered.”

He got an evil glint in his eyes.  “So I’m bigger than… who?  Someone around here?”

I blinked at him.

“Fess up, little gossip,” he crooned.

“Take off your pants,” I returned.

He got right down over me, so that his breath was mine.  “Are you trying to cut me another deal?” he asked.

“No, I’m trying to fuck you silly.  Silly-er,” I amended.

“God, you talk a lot,” he observed.

“Is that a problem?” I asked.  I was reaching the point of no return, his fingers rubbing against my clit driving me beyond all reason.  I clung to him, having trouble following the conversation.

Why were we still wearing clothes?  Is this how it was always going to be between us, mostly-dressed sex in chairs?

He was hitting that spot again, with slick, curling plunges of his fingers along my clit.  The flames inside me roared.  “Unnmm, yes, yes, right there.  Ohhh.  Please take your pants off.  Please, please.  I want you inside me so fucking bad. 
Please
,” I begged, clawing at him.

“Keep saying stuff like that,” he muttered, “and you can talk as much as you want.”

“No!” I moaned as he slid his fingers from me.  I felt empty, throbbing, antsy with desire.  I saw he was fumbling with the front of his pants, and I knocked my chair over in my haste to climb out of it and shuck my own.  I shoved them down, and kicked them across the room.

Then, as Ed rolled on a condom, I pushed at his flannel shirt.  I got it over his shoulders, and then he shrugged it off.

I was trying to push his undershirt up when he grabbed me.  He lifted me up in his arms and covered my mouth with his.  I curled my legs around his waist and my fingers in his hair, and tugged him closer as we careened across the room.

He cracked his leg on the fallen chair, nearly tripped on my crumpled overalls, and then slammed me up against the wall.

He muttered an apology, but I’d barely noticed.  Ed was against me, a whole lot of that bare skin against mine.  He had me pinned, and his hands were moving over me greedily.

His sheathed cock was wedged between us, and I wiggled eagerly against it.  I freed one hand from his hair, snaked it down, and lifted myself up as I guided him exactly where I wanted him.

With a little nudge of his hips, he pushed just into me.  He groaned, and I was right there with him, shuddering, barely able to see past the pleasure.  Just holding on, panting in the scent of his hair.