Northern Exposure: Compass Brothers, Book 1 (2 page)

In addition to the misfits, a few others rounded out the mix. Foolish men and women, who didn’t comprehend the risks, attempted to make a quick buck. Adrenaline junkies on a permanent high soared from hazard to hazard. Still, for the most part, broken men littered the gorgeous, frozen landscape.

Silas saluted the deceased captain of the crabbing boat with his refilled glass then downed the next dose of poison too. Despite his tarnished past, Captain Robert had saved Silas’s ass a time or two during the tours Silas had served harvesting on the vessel before he moved on to long haul driving along treacherous routes. He remembered the screams he’d heard on occasion when the captain had a particularly bad night and the times they’d drunk themselves into oblivion to avoid the darkness a little longer.

Hopefully the man had found peace at last.

He started a mental list of all the comrades he’d lost in the extreme positions he’d mastered—expedition guide, crabber, big rig driver and pilot on top of his current gig as an oil rig motorhand. After several dozen, their faces blurred in his mind.

Could have something to do with all the alcohol he’d consumed in those ten years. Or the numbness infecting his soul as he wandered so far from the place and people he loved.

Silas glowered in an attempt to scare off the woman headed straight for his permanent spot at the dive. In this mood, he’d make no kind of company for a lady.

“Knock it off, Compass.” Red, nicknamed for the bright jacket he wore on the job, elbowed Silas’s ribs. “I’ll take her off your hands if you’re not hungry. It’s been a long time since I had a meal that fine.”

Silas squinted, trying to focus despite the solid drunk he’d been heading toward. Red had a point. A sweet thing like her didn’t wander into their territory often. In fact, women in general were in short supply here, at the end of the world.

The deficit made him long for the squandered plenty of his youth. And provided the perfect opportunity for him to slake his lust for men.

Rough, raw craving would build inside him for months until he surrendered to gnawing need. Companionship came at a high price around here for most men, but once rumors of Silas’s edge had spread, he’d had a line of willing partners a pointed look and a nod away.

For the past six months or so, he’d spent the majority of his off time with Red. The man made it easy on him, never asking for more than Silas could give. After the first time they’d hooked up—when Silas had allowed the man to suck him off in the bar’s grimy bathroom—Red had made it clear he’d welcome a quick fuck in the back of a truck, a shared night with some woman they happened across or whatever else suited Silas’s violent mood swings.

Silas never allowed himself to take advantage of the more generous offers lurking in Red’s eyes, though. Shit. Those emotions grew day by day. He dropped his head in his hands, spearing his fingers through his unkempt hair as he realized he’d have to distance himself from his roommate before the man got hurt. He’d move out after their double shift this weekend.

Two people and two people alone inspired more than carnal savagery in him. It wouldn’t be fair to give Red hope that Silas’s longing for Lucy and Colby would change in this lifetime. If ten years hadn’t killed his dedication, nothing would.

Hell, Silas couldn’t bear companionship some days. He didn’t remember how to be a friend. It’d been too many years. Pride in a hard day’s work and the reassuring discomfort of a solid hangover, which insured he’d passed out for at least a few hours before heading to the job to do it all over again, propelled him forward through week after week.

“Your friend looks like he could use some cheering up.”

Why in the hell did his surly temper attract women like bees to honey? It seemed the more he growled and tried to warn them off, the more they wanted in his pants. Insane. Every one of them. Just like him.

“And what about me?” Red turned to the woman with his best imitation of Silas’s genuine misery. “Maybe
I
need some of your healing touch.”

“Don’t worry, handsome. I’m the kind of woman who can handle two strapping men at once.”

The sassy introduction made the corner of Silas’s mouth curve up despite his resolve. Tough Alaskan women reminded him of Wyoming cowgirls in a hell of a lot of ways.

Sexy ways.

Here, like home, the imbalance in the population of men and women made folks open to some interesting possibilities. He glanced at the brazen woman out the corner of his eye. Through vision blurred by windburn and too many fingers of Jack, she bore a slight resemblance to Lucy.

At least, how Silas imagined the woman of his dreams might look today. A riot of red-gold curls and bright blue eyes had his cock hard in an instant.

How had he gone so long without seeing her? His parents? His brothers?

His stagnant life disgusted him. Working toward someone else’s dream. No land to show for it. Nothing like his great-great-grandfather had built and no one to pass it on to anyway. Just fistfuls of cash and far too many meaningless fucks. That might not have seemed so bad in his early twenties, but he’d be thirty soon for Christ’s sake.

“Lucky for you, Silas and I like to play hard too.”

“Not tonight, Red.” Silas shook his head then shoved from the bar. He staggered two steps toward the door before his bunkmate and the cute barfly chased after him. “Count me out.”

His friend’s jaw went slack.

“Shush, Si.” The woman’s soft entreaty teased the side of his neck.

Shit, no one had called him that in ages. He didn’t give a shit how she’d found out his name. He had a reputation around these parts.

It sounded…nice. Right.

“Let me make you feel good then tuck you in.” The woman ducked beneath his arm and plastered herself against his side. Her soft breasts covered in a fuzzy sweater cushioned his ribs. Without thought, his hand dropped to her ass.

Maybe she had a decent idea. Some of his desperation morphed into desire, relieving the pressure on his heart. Still, as the front door banged open and they piled into Red’s all-wheel drive truck, he cautioned the minx.

“I’m in one hell of a mood tonight, sugar.” He couldn’t be sure she’d heard since she didn’t pause her exploration of his jaw on her path to his lips. He stopped her before she attempted to indulge in mouth to mouth. Ever since Colby he hadn’t indulged in the intimacy.

She straddled him, grinding against his erection through his jeans.

He took her delicate shoulders in his hands and shook a bit until her gaze met his. “Do you understand?”

She paused and a slow smile spread across her plump lips when she noticed the beast straining to slip its chains. He couldn’t hide the feral desire in his eyes. Not that close.

“I won’t be gentle,” Silas growled.

“Promise?” She bit her lip. “Is it so difficult to believe I
like
it rough, Compton? I heard you could give me what I need.”

Gravel pinged off the exterior of the truck as Red departed in a lurch for the seedy dorms a bunch of the oil workers shared. Not having a place of his own to take a woman had never bothered Silas before. Tonight it did.

He wanted to make her scream.

He was too old for this clandestine nonsense.

“Amuse yourselves for a bit. I’ll have us there in twenty minutes.” Red careened along the treacherous roadway, dodging snowdrifts and frozen road kill. He peeked over at them groping each other every couple seconds.

Silas decided to give the man a show. He flipped the truck’s heater to the max then unzipped the woman’s down vest. He shoved the puffy, ice blue garment from her shoulders before burrowing his hands beneath her sweater. Her satiny skin seared his work-roughened fingers. She didn’t squeak or flinch when the calloused surface of his palms scraped her nipples.

Instead, she moaned then arched closer. Her hips rocked, searching for some contact on her pussy. Even through the layers she wore, he could smell her arousal.

“Mmm, you’re a dirty girl, aren’t you?” He pinched the puckered tips of her breasts.

Hard.

“The sweetest looking ones always are.” She tilted her head then purred, “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

If only her theory were true then Lucy wouldn’t have fled when she’d caught him and Colby messing around. One moment had changed the course of his life forever. If Lucy had stayed, or come closer—curious—he and Colby could have taken turns gifting her with pleasure after pleasure.

Silas had already brought the hungry woman on his lap to multiple orgasms, wishing she truly was the girl he longed for, by the time they reached their quarters. He refused to call the shithole home. Only one place deserved that honor, and it sure as hell wasn’t some cinderblock dormitory in the middle of frozen-fucking-nowhere.

He threw her over his shoulder and strode for the back of the building. Red ran ahead to their window, hopping through the pane they left unlocked most nights they went out. No matter how rough their fuckmate liked things, flaunting an eager woman to an entire crew of isolated, horny men suffering eternal boredom couldn’t be forgiven.

Silas wrapped his hands around her dainty waist then handed her to Red. After he pulled himself up and through, he shut the window tight, covering it with thermal protectors. Hands on hips, he took stock of the situation. The ride had sobered him some, enough to assess his two willing partners, who ripped each other’s clothes off on the bare mattress in front of him.

He crossed the ten meager steps to their door, which opened into the dorm’s hallway. After a quick check through the peephole, he wedged a chair beneath the knob. Things could get loud. He wouldn’t chance anyone coming to investigate, hoping to bust in on the action. In the past decade, he’d had to fight off more than a few overzealous brutes.

Despite his less than sterling track record, he wouldn’t stand for a woman to be hurt. Unless he inflicted controlled pain that detonated an explosion of rapture.

From the steady slaps and moans behind him, he figured Red had a head start in that department. Silas let the man have his fun because once he joined the game, the tables would turn and Red would beg to please him. It happened without fail.

Memories of the man bending over for Silas had precome dribbling from the head of his cock. He padded toward the couple wrestling on the sagging bed. In the glow from the bare bulb over the can—the sole light in the room—his mind played cruel tricks. Red and their hookup resembled Colby and Lucy.

Why had he never noticed that about Red before? Maybe his subconscious obscured the real reason he’d allowed the man to worm closer than anyone in years. Silas stroked his stiffening shaft and permitted his imagination to run wild.

“Get on your hands and knees, baby.” Red directed the woman to present herself to Silas. “He loves to fuck from behind.”

His roommate spread the woman’s legs until her pussy lips separated, the moist tissue glistening in the diffuse light. Silas didn’t lose concentration as he reached to the table beside the bed for a condom, ripped it open with his teeth then rolled the latex over his throbbing cock.

“She’s had enough teasing, Compass.” The other man dipped his fingers in the drenched slit awaiting him. When its owner cried out, Red painted her arousal over her clit, playing with the sensitive nerves there. “Take her.”

How could he resist a gift like that? Silas pretended the wanton beckoning him was Lucy.
His
Lucy. The girl he’d grown up with, shared his aspirations with, known from the first instant could handle the rough Wyoming lifestyle. The woman he’d lost before he’d had a chance to make her his own.

He shucked his shirt then unbuttoned his jeans.

“Jesus, that never gets old. Wait ’til you see him, honey. He’s gorgeous.”

Silas’s pants dropped to the floor.

“A bonus, for sure. But I’m more concerned with how he fucks. I need it. Bad.”

Silas practically ran to the bed then leaped upon it. If he had it to do over again, he’d make sure she never went without again. He’d stake a claim so primal she’d never dare to date another man. No, he’d establish a bond so essential she’d thrive in the aftermath of his attention and that of the man he’d come to realize he craved equally.

Silas wrapped the fingers of one hand in the hair of the woman. With the other, he shackled Red’s wrist and guided the fervent man to surround his cock. His partner understood what he demanded.

Red caressed the thick hard-on in his grasp, aligning the purple tip with the entrance of the woman’s pussy. The first touch of Silas’s cock on the woman’s hot flesh threatened to scald him through the thin barrier protecting them both. They all moaned their approval. Red fed Silas’s erection to the woman, using her ample arousal to lubricate the thick, veined shaft.

When all of Silas’s length tucked into the humid channel, he shifted his hips so his balls rested on Red’s hand. The man cupped him. Red peered up at Silas, his head tilted, awaiting orders.

“Get down there,” Silas barked. “Lay on your back between our legs. Suck my balls. Lick her. Make it good. I’m going to ride her hard. She better come before I do or your ass will be too sore to sit tomorrow.”

He saw the momentary debate waging in Red. The man must have considered disobeying him on purpose. He relished a tinge of pain with his pleasure. In the end, he complied as though he could tell Silas wasn’t in the mood for games tonight.

No, Silas needed the real thing. If he didn’t find an outlet for the rage and frustration building inside, he’d shatter. Thank God his bedmates required the same.

The woman writhed on Silas’s impaling cock, trying to shove him deeper as she ground herself on Red’s face. When his roommate’s tongue lapped along the center seam of his sac, Silas pulled out of the woman’s pussy, drawing his cock across the eager muscle licking juice from his full-blown erection.

He changed direction, sinking inside the woman once more, loving the pressure that built on his plump head before it squeezed past the clenched ring of muscle guarding her entrance. She shrieked as he bottomed out with one fierce push.

Silas set a rhythm none of them could withstand for long. He blanketed the woman’s back, biting her shoulder when he realized she smelled like Lucy too. Strawberry shampoo always propelled him to the brink of madness. He pounded her pussy, gauging her excitement from her pants, which edged toward screams. The talented manipulation of Red’s tongue over her clit and Silas’s balls enhanced his assault.