Northern Exposure: Compass Brothers, Book 1 (3 page)

Silas ran one hand along her waist, up her center then filled his palm with her breast. He squeezed hard, concentrating on driving through her tightening grasp.

“You like that. Don’t you, Lu?” He growled in her ear and redoubled his strokes.

“Damn straight. Except my name isn’t—”

Colby must have nipped her to cut her off so quick. He whispered, “Don’t ruin Compass’s fantasy.”

Lucy nodded then shuddered beneath Silas as Colby resumed his treatment. When Silas sensed her hovering on the brink of orgasm, he knelt upright, never altering his course inside her clinging sheath.

“Harder?” he roared then jammed his hand beneath her.

Colby sucked the finger Silas extended, coating it with saliva and the excess from their partner’s soaked pussy.

“Yes!” Lucy surrendered. Her whole body went lax in his hold, allowing his cock to plunder a fraction of an inch deeper. “Make me come. Oh, God. Please. Make me come.”

Silas yanked his finger from Colby, allowing the man to return to his exploration of Lucy’s clit. He spread her cheeks wide with one hand then notched the tip of his spit-soaked finger in her ass. She rocked toward him at the same time he inserted his digit in her tight, hot hole.

Then she spasmed, choking his cock and his finger, threatening to drown Colby between their legs. She wailed. Her tremors continued for long minutes as he fucked her with slower, steady passes, massaging her clenching passage. When at last she sighed, he pulled free. A viscous strand of her fluids stretched between them, decorating Colby’s cheek.

The man swiped the evidence of their debauchery from his face then ingested her pleasure. He never blinked, never took his stare from Silas’s raging hard-on. “My turn? Please, Compass?”

“Damn straight, Colby.”

The man prepared Silas, stripping the condom from his cock and replacing it with a fresh one in a matter of seconds. When he flipped onto his knees at the speed of light, Silas chuckled. “So eager. Is that cock of yours nice and hard? Let me see.”

Colby whimpered and rolled to his side next to their recovering mate. Sure enough, his cock stuck straight out—red and defined by his lust.

“Very nice.” Silas smiled as he inspected the man’s tool. “It’d be a shame to waste a quality boner like that. Lu, you want more?”

Lucy cracked her heavy eyelids and grinned. She rotated to her back then spread her arms and legs in welcome.

“You want me to fuck her?” Colby verified, unwilling to risk misbehaving.

“Get in there. Put that cock in her pussy so I can fuck you both at the same time.” A rush of pure adrenaline more potent than ten bottles of whiskey made him drunk on pleasure as he watched Colby suit up then slide home.

The motion of his partner’s hips as he screwed deeper on every pass was jerky—not as refined as Silas’s expert fucking—but that didn’t keep Lucy from whimpering as Colby’s hard-on stimulated the swollen walls of her ultra-sensitive pussy.

“There you go.” Silas petted Colby’s flank as he pressed tight to their woman, his cock embedded as far as he could reach. “That’s the way.”

Without warning, Silas dropped a resounding spank on Colby’s ass. The slap of his palm reverberated throughout the room. Colby lunged forward, forcing a cry from Lucy beneath him. Silas grinned then did it again, and again, until the man’s ass glowed red in the artificial twilight of the room and Lucy’s restless heels drumming on the bed proclaimed her ready for another round.

Silas leaned over and snagged a half-empty bottle of lube from the table beside the bed. The cool gel soothed his flaming palm as he slathered it over the length of his cock.

“Hurry.” Colby grunted as Silas fucked in tiny strokes, trying to hang on. “I’m not going to last much longer.”

He didn’t have to ask twice.

Silas pressed his hard-on into Colby’s crack then clenched Colby’s ass as he tipped his hips forward. He kept the bulbous head of his cock from popping out of the tight ring of muscle with two fingers on the top of his shaft while he overcame the man’s last resistance. Once the ridge of his fat head penetrated the tissue strangling it, he sank several inches deep in one thrust.

Colby shouted then drove forward into Lucy. Silas watched her nails dig into the exposed skin over his partner’s shoulders, leaving half-moon indentations as proof of her approval. That she enjoyed her men fucking did more to arouse him than any of the delicious friction they generated together.

Silas pumped his cock into the depths of Colby’s ass, massaging the man’s gland repeatedly. The powerful body beneath him began to tremble. Lucy soothed Colby, urging him to come in her pussy, accepting the dark desires that ensnared them all.

She shouted her satisfaction at the same time Colby milked Silas’s cock with his ass as his orgasm struck. Assured he’d pleased his partners, Silas allowed his restraint to evaporate. He flooded the condom nestled in the man’s back passage with spurt after spurt of his seed and still his climax continued.

He closed his eyes and floated, nearly weeping with the joy he found in sharing himself with his lovers.

For a few seconds he embraced the heat, thawing his heart. Until he crashed to earth and realized the pair in his bed weren’t his lovers at all but merely his roommate and some willing woman they’d carted home from a bar.

“Son of a bitch.” He ripped himself from Red’s still shuddering body and dropped to his knees on the floor beside the bed. A wave of nausea assaulted him, but he swallowed the bile burning his throat.

In the background he heard Red whispering to the drowsy woman in his arms. It added another weight to Silas’s conscience to inconvenience her when she’d been so generous, but he couldn’t stand to return and pretend the couple in his bed was comprised of the people he craved.

Even after all this time.

Some things
never
changed.

“Get dressed, honey. I’ll take you home.” Red gathered the thong dangling from their gear stacked in the corner before helping her arrange the rest of her clothes. “If you want to snuggle up there, I’m game.”

“But Compass…”

“He always sleeps alone.”

Chapter Two

Red lights swirled across the steel structure, casting eerie shadows as the whine of sirens scared sane men toward the exit. Silas grabbed a helmet, a fire jacket and a hatchet from the supply station then fought against the current, deeper into the rig. The incessant scream of the emergency warning and the
clomp
of work boots on the riveted grate walkway made it impossible to hear anything above the racket but he caught a glimpse of Red in his peripheral vision.

No mistaking that jacket.

He grimaced as he considered the conversation he’d have to have with the man tonight. Investigating a dozen rig fires sounded more appealing than undertaking that task. Christ!

As a motorhand, he could have left this duty to the roustabouts but he always volunteered. Other than a couple minor sparks, which he’d extinguished easily, there’d never been an issue.

Red, on the other hand, could be a problem. Silas didn’t do emotions. Not anymore.

Together, the pair wove between the thinning crowds, picking up speed as they burrowed into the belly of the station. Machinery lined the walls of the control room they burst into. Silas shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears when Red slammed the thick door shut behind them, cutting off the roar of the evacuation and dimming the squeal of the alert.

They worked through their checklist, finding no signs of trouble in any of the monitored rooms on camera. Another faulty sensor probably caused the ruckus. They’d had a handful go sour lately. Now they’d have to work two hours longer on a standard eighteen-hour shift to recover the lost time. Not that Silas had anything better to do but some of the guys tired faster than he did and a bunch more couldn’t withstand the frigid cold that long.

Mistakes occurred in bad conditions.

“Hey, Compass…”

“You got something?”

“Nah. My side’s good to go.” Red cleared his throat then continued. “You don’t have to explain.”

“What?” Silas took his eyes from the instrumentation to glance over his shoulder.

“I can tell you’re ready to move on. What I’m sayin’ is I know you’re done. With me. With us.”

“There never was an
us
, Red.” Son of a bitch, this was not the time. A bitter taste filled his mouth when his bunkmate flinched. The guy didn’t deserve his asshole treatment. “I mean—”

“Don’t.”

When Silas’s eyebrows drew together, the other man explained.

“Don’t lie now. You’ve always been clear you were about no strings and all that shit. It’s good. Anyway, I booked a ticket out of here. Ah, you kinda reminded me of what things used to be like. What it could still be like if I quit hiding in deep freeze. I’m going home, Compass. Leaving tonight.”

Silas found he couldn’t speak around the shock clogging his throat. When he didn’t respond, Red swiveled, focusing his attention on the task at hand. Silas did the same as his mind whirled. Red was heading home.

Respect, admiration and envy warred for top billing.

The drill shaft and seven chambers remained to clear. When only two were left, Silas asked, “You think you can go back? To normal stuff? Your old life?”

“I’m gonna try.”

“Son of a bitch!” Silas’s eyes bulged.

“It ain’t
that
crazy—”

“Fire! Sector A. Engine room.” He smashed the button used to engage the chemical suppressant system. Nothing happened. “Oh, fuck. It’s busted. I’m going in.”

“Silas! No!”

If the man tried to persuade him further, the entreaty disappeared beneath the blast of the alarm, which crescendoed when Silas ripped open the door and skidded around the corner toward the site of the trouble.

He leapt over the handrail to the level below rather than take time scrambling down the treacherous incline on the access ladder. Adrenaline made his hefty axe light as a feather in his grasp. He kept running, ignoring the fact that every step put him closer to danger. If he didn’t stop the fire from spreading, it would ignite the gas vent in the chamber three doors down.

The men who’d evacuated wouldn’t be guaranteed safety. Red and the other crewmembers troubleshooting the alarm from inside would stand no chance. Not to mention the ecological disaster that would follow on the heels of such a catastrophe.

He dropped his shoulders and sprinted, thanking God for each second that passed without an epic kaboom. At least he wouldn’t have time to suffer if things ended in the crapper. They’d be obliterated before they had a chance to register their demise.

A Zen-like surrealism cocooned him as he charged along the corridor, thankful he’d kept his affairs in order. If something happened to him, everything important—his parents, his brothers, the ranch, Lucy and Colby—would benefit from the odds he’d beaten for ten years.

He slowed as he neared the pod containing the fire, trailing his fingers along the metal walls to test for conducted heat. Nothing yet. Maybe one of the other guys had coerced the suppression system to kick on.

Or not.

A bang sounded from his left like a rifle shot, spurring him to jump a solid six inches off the ground. Not the mother of all detonations. More like a water pipe bursting as steam built inside it.

Silas tapped his fingers on the door to the engine room. Warm, but not impossible to touch. He had to try to stop the chain of events while he could. He kicked the long steel door handle with the heel of his boot, popping the entrance open even as he ducked to the side.

No flames shot out of the exposed portal. A nervous laugh tumbled from his chest as he figured he’d watched too many movies during the long, dark Alaskan winters.

“You’re a crazy bastard, Compass.” Red caught up, his breath sawing in ragged gasps that reminded Silas of the time he’d made the man come hard enough he claimed to have seen stars. “Gonna get us both killed and cracking up about it.”

“Head out, Red. Tell the rest of the guys what’s up. Move them as far away as you can. A bunch of them have families.”

“
You
have a family, Compass. You go.”

“Don’t argue—”

“Not this time. I’m not your bitch anymore.” Before Silas could do more than gawk, his bunkmate slapped Silas’s ass then darted through the gaping doorway where he disappeared in the thickening haze of smoke.

Silas tugged his shirt over his nose and mouth then dove after Red, his bright jacket blurred by the shimmer of heat waves in the charged air. The clang of metal on metal reverberated through the hiss and pop of flames, which seemed to grow with every slam of Silas’s heart against his ribs.

Sparks flew from the junction of Red’s axe blade and the pipe running from the fire suppression system, but several mighty blows didn’t make enough progress in denting the surface for Silas’s liking. He checked over his shoulder. Flames billowed higher and higher—obscuring his vision—in a semi-circle that would soon cut off their exit route.

A fit of coughs threatened to keel him over.

Fuck this.
They didn’t have time. He shoved Red toward the door, knocking the man farther from the worst of the danger. With a roar, Silas laid all his energy into swinging his axe at the black valve capping the end of the pipe.

A plume of chemicals formed a beautiful rooster tail as they sprayed over the blaze, dampening the worst of the flames. The angle of saturation didn’t quite match the intended zone due to his improvised delivery method. Within seconds, a couple of spots smoldered but the troubling line of fire headed for the main vent had extinguished.

He turned to Red in time to catch the man’s grin and fist pump. Backup would be here in no time. They’d clean up the rest. Silas’s knees went weak.

How had they ended up so lucky? Insanity would rule the bar tonight for sure.

Still, the toxic chemicals wreaked havoc on his lungs so he’d wait for later to celebrate. He neared Red, about to pound the man’s outstretched fist when his partner’s eyes widened.

Silas flew across the room and slammed into something unforgiving before the blast deafened him. His ears rang as he tried to figure out where he was and what had happened. When he struggled to climb to his feet, his left leg gave out, sending a wave of pain crashing over him. He wished he hadn’t looked at his thigh when he caught sight of something white poking through his ripped jeans. Blood slicked his hands as he dragged himself along the floor grate, shouting for Red.