by Shaye Marlow
Two Crazy,
One Wild
Shaye Marlow
Two Crazy, One Wild
Shaye Marlow
Copyright © 2017 by Shaye Marlow
All Rights Reserved
This story is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.
Also by Shaye Marlow
Alaskan Romance
Two Cabins, One Lake
Two Captains, One Chair
Two Brutes, One Barista
Two Crazy, One Wild
Erotic Sci-fi
Erotic Adventures of an Alien Captive
Dreamer Awakened
Firefighters Erotica*
Serviced by Firefighters
Shared by Firefighters
Sandwiched by Firefighters
Spanked by Firefighters
*A Newsletter Exclusive!
Sign up for Shaye’s Mailing List to get the fastest updates on her new releases, as well as her Starter Library, including Two Cabins, One Lake, The Erotic Adventures of an Alien Captive and the Firefighters story bundle, all free!
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank everyone who made this book possible. Family, friends, supporters of all sort (Facebook, Twitter, and Newsletter stalkers, I’m looking at you), beta-readers, brain-stormers, editor-lady extraordinaire, and all the wild and crazy people who inspire me. You’re all awesome, and I hope you enjoy that which you’ve helped wreak.
Chapter One
ZACK
Several minutes and several people passed, ignoring my pleas for help, before Ed bent to swipe the note off my chest. I wiggled, trying to call attention to my bindings.
He opened the note and read, dark brows climbing. “You two idiots went up to Furious George’s?”
“We didn’t know it was there,” I said.
“We were hunting,” Rory said. My brother was sprawled next to me, also tied at wrist and ankle, a bruise blooming on his cheek. “We were just headed up to that valley, trying to get the giant bear we’d heard about, and we came across this… this compound.”
“Furious George’s,” Ed said. “It’s a hunting lodge.”
“And there were these guards, and these Rottweilers, and—”
“This woman,” I said. “She was beauty, and grace—”
“And Rottweilers,” Rory stressed. “He’s the reason we got caught. Zack saw a leg up on a balcony, and just walked outta the woods like a nimrod.”
“It wasn’t just any leg. It was a gorgeous leg. And when the dogs started barking, that leg straightened up and she walked to the railing…”
“So? What did the woman attached to the leg look like?” Ed asked.
“I couldn’t tell. There was a light on behind her head. She was wearing a red dress… but then there were the dogs, and Rory hit them with bear spray, and the breeze kicked pepper into my eyes.”
Ed’s beard creased, and he rubbed a hand over it. “Go on.”
“That’s it. I was crying, I couldn’t see shit, and then Curious George’s goons were on us. All I know is she had shortish dark hair—”
“And a smokin’ figure,” Rory added.
I shot him a glare, then nailed him with a knee.
“Hey!”
“That’s ‘Furious’ George,” Ed said. “Furious. As in angry, mad, unpredictable, unreasonable—and his hunting guides aren’t much better. You two need to not go up there ever again, m’kay? And definitely, definitely, stay away from his lady in red.”
I stared up at the plaid-clad voice of reason, trying to imagine a world where I never saw the owner of that leg again.
“What’s the note say?” Rory asked.
“It says next time he’ll throw you in the river.” As threats went, it was a pretty good one. The Kuskana River flowed by just fifty feet away, wide and swift and cold enough to kill.
“Well, that’s fine then. We’ll just go around,” Rory said.
“You can’t go around. He owns the whole mouth of that valley, a hundred acres at least. And then, there’s class five rapids on one side, and a friggin’ mountain on the other—and before you suggest climbing the mountain, it’s a very steep mountain. Cliffs, really.”
“So we’ll fly,” I said, watching another couple fishermen walk by us on their way to the bar.
“No one will fly you up there. George shoots at airplanes.”
“Then we’ll fly,” I said.
“You have a pilot’s license I don’t know about? Or a plane, even?”
“I’ll get one,” I answered. “I always wanted to learn.” Glancing at Rory, I saw he’d’ve given me a high-five if his hands were free.
Ed scoffed.
“Hey, I have a question for you,” I said, twisting to look at the Gold Bar. The log building appeared to’ve sunk into the ground over the years, possibly from the weight of its customers. The place was bursting with activity, shadows moving in the windows behind the neon lights. Feet stomped as fishermen banged the silt off their boots, and laughter wafted out as the scarred door swung open. It seemed like most of the residents and tourists on the river were in there this evening, drinking and gambling and fighting.
“Yeah?” Ed said.
“How come nobody stopped to help us? We were lying here an hour, a bunch of people passed, and nobody untied us.”
“You’re not well-liked on the river,” Ed said.
“What are you talking about? People love us,” Rory said.
“Your internet following may love you, but real life people? Not so much.”
Rory shook his head.
“You need more convincing? The barbecue last week: Did you get an invite?”
Rory and I looked at one another. “There was a barbecue?” he asked, voice small.
“Two weeks ago, you guys ran out of gas halfway to the landing. Remember how you called for help, how nobody came until your sister finally bailed you out?”
How did he even know that? “Nobody was at their phone,” I said.
“Nobody answered their phone,” Ed said. “Big difference.”
Rory’s bottom lip wobbled.
Either not seeing the tears swimming in my brother’s eyes, or not caring, Ed tucked the note back under the rope lashed across my chest. “Here’s what I’m gonna do. Since you two don’t seem to understand how bad of an idea it’d be to go back to George’s, I’m going to give you a little more time to think about it. Another hour, maybe. Just until you change your mind. Sound good?”
“We’re not gonna change our minds,�
� I called to his retreating back.
“Yeah,” Rory yelled. “We’re gonna get that bear!”
Chapter Two
ZACK
Two Days Later
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Rory said as we snuck through the trees, our rifles strapped to our backs. We both wore camouflage, and a green beanie covered my light hair.
“We don’t have a choice,” I replied. “I called around. No one wants to teach me to fly.”
“Well, if you’d just go to town instead of telling them they have to come out to the woods, to stay at our place for a month, to live with a couple men of questionable habits…”
I glared at him past sun-dappled cranberry leaves. “They didn’t know that. There’s no way they could have known that, about the habits. And have you been to town lately? It’s a hellhole.”
“So? You’re big and tough. You coulda handled it.”
“I didn’t want to handle it,” I said as we crept closer. “Listen. All we gotta do is skirt the edge of his property. I won’t get drawn in like last time, and we’ll make it through just fine.”
Behind me, crunching softly through dead leaves, Rory muttered to himself. We’d made it another fifty feet before he spoke up. “And tell me again, because I’m still trying to understand: Why was it, exactly, that you felt the need to walk out into the open last time?”
“There was a leg. A beautiful leg, and the woman attached to it was an angel,” I said. “An angel in red.”
Rory snorted. “You’re an idiot.”
I let an alder branch snap back and whack him across the face.
“Ass!” he hissed.
“Shhh. We’re getting close.” I could see the log building through the trees, hear the rumble of the generator. As we moved closer, I made out a group of men—hunters or hunting guides—drinking on the porch. And as we got closer still…
We froze, staring at the dogs lying at their feet.
“This was a bad idea,” Rory whispered.
I turned my head to whisper back. “We’ve got the sound of the generator. We’ll just take it really slow, be really quiet, and we’ll be fine.”
We were about three steps into that plan when the generator cut out. The silence rang. I tried to hush my breathing, to hunker low without moving my feet.
The screen door opened. “Hey, guys,” a woman purred.
My ears perked, my skin tightened, and every hair on my body stood on end.
The woman who emerged was not wearing red, but she was the woman in red. She was willowy and wonderful, with short dark hair that floated around her head in waves. Her top half was wrapped in something black, while the bottom filled out a pair of jeans in a way that could’ve inspired even a brute like me to poetry.
I tore my gaze from her legs to check out her face, but she was looking down at one of the guides. No matter how I squinted, no matter how I strained, the most I could make out was her profile. A graceful forehead. Delicate dark brows, and beneath them, long dark lashes. Straight little nose. Pointy chin.
I hadn’t realized I’d moved until I felt Rory’s hand on my arm. Glaring, he dragged me back and punched me in the ribs. I took it just as silently as he’d given it. Then I went back to watching.
She was flirting with the guides, her laughter dancing on the air like butterflies. Her hands were slender and expressive, atop wrists I wanted to wrap my hands around. She was so lovely, she made my chest ache.
She braced herself on the arm of a hunting guide’s chair, and leaned down.
Rory grabbed me again, preventing me from going to her, from keeping her from touching that man, from grabbing her, and turning her, and looking down into her eyes and falling under her spell...
“That’s it,” he hissed, tugging at me. “We’re going.”
On the porch, a dog’s head swung our way, ears pricked.
But the Rottweiler could only hold my attention so long. Beyond him, my angel was touching that man’s face, flicking a slender finger across his lips. She was a flirt, my lady in red. A seductress, I decided, watching how she held the attention of everyone present, how she worked the porch.
My eyes burned from staring. My muscles strained, longing to charge in there and smite everyone who so much as looked at her. God, she was beautiful.
Rory was pulling at me again, but I refused to move. A minute passed as I watched her. Then two. In the third minute, she lowered herself to sit on one of those jerkface bastards’ laps.
A branch snapped, and I realized it had been under my foot. Because I was moving forward.
The dogs were on their feet, all of them with ears and eyes trained on our location.
Our cover was blown. So really, I had nothing to lose.
With a war cry, I charged from the woods.
“Dammit, Zack!” Rory yelled from behind me.
The dogs didn’t know what to make of me, roaring like a madman while running straight at them. All but one leapt aside as I exploded onto the porch, and that one failed to get its teeth into me because my legs were churning too fast.
My lady threw herself aside just in time.
I hit the guy she’d been flirting with—the guy she’d been sitting on—head-first, and knocked him back off his chair and through the railing. Amidst a spray of wood splinters, we toppled three feet to the ground. I straddled him, then began punching him in the face.
One of the dogs bit my arm, so I punched him in the face, too. The Rottweilers had me surrounded, were growling at me. I growled right back.
Then something hit my skull, and it was lights out.
I woke up to the sound of Rory wheedling. “You don’t want to do this,” he was saying. “We could die, and you’d be charged with murder. Imagine the jail time, the weight on your conscience.”
Over his voice, almost drowning it out, an engine rumbled. A plane, I decided, recognizing the bumpy ride, the howl of the wind. Opening my eyes confirmed it, though it did seem odd that one side of the plane—the side my feet were sticking out of—was lacking a door. My heels seemed to rest on the horizon, my toes supporting a layer of puffy clouds.
Next to my feet were Rory’s, though his were doing a shoddy job of cloud support. They wiggled urgently and he bumped me as he struggled against his bonds.
Rope. We were both tied at ankle and wrist with rope.
A man stood over us. Beneath his whipping hair, his face was battered, and his smile—which revealed a missing front tooth—was mean. Recognition niggled.
“Do it,” a woman said. Not just any woman. My woman.
Jerkface slipped his arms under mine, and hauled me to a sitting position.
Rory’s begging had increased in volume and pitch, but it was what lay past him that held my attention: the woman in the pilot’s seat, wearing a headset over her dark and unruly hair. She glanced over her shoulder at me, and she had big gray eyes and ruby-red lips, and… she winked.
Jerkface shoved. Because I was fucking heavy, it took a few pushes. Then my ass scraped over the doorframe, and out I went.
I was free-falling, hurtling through the air, the wind roaring past my ears. I yelled in delight.
Above me, I just barely heard Rory’s scream.
The trip was disappointingly short. I smacked into water, the impact and icy coldness knocking the breath out of me.
It also woke me up. Quickly, I reviewed the major points: I’d been pushed out of a plane, I was tied up, and now I was in a river so cold it burned.
Priority #1: Get un-tied. Because, unlike some people, I had about 10% body fat, and was sinking like a stone.
I strained at the rope wrapped around my wrists, twisting and pulling. The cold numbed the pain as skin scraped and tore. Within a few seconds, my hands were free, and I hauled myself to the surface. I gasped in a lungful of air, treading water with my arms.
It quickly became obvious: I needed my legs. I tried to shed the rope around my ankles the same way I had the one at my wrists. My
shoes came off, but the rope only seemed to tighten.
I went under again as I jackknifed to claw at the rope, and sank as I fumbled with the knot. I pried and yanked, then forced myself to slow, to think, to find an end. My lungs burned as I pushed on it, loosened a loop, tugged. I drifted in the cold darkness as I did it again. My lungs were burning when the ropes finally loosened, and I kicked them away.
I wanted to shoot to the surface, but I couldn’t tell which way that was. I couldn’t see anything in the silty water, couldn’t tell which direction the bubbles were going. I was on the verge of freaking out when my feet brushed something, something sandy-soft yet solid. I launched myself off of it, swimming strongly in the opposite direction.
What felt like eons later, I surfaced and gasped the sweetest breath I’d ever known.
I spun around, looking for Rory, and spotted him floating just upstream. The arms I used to pull myself forward were heavy with cold.
He screamed when I grabbed him—which is good, at least he was conscious—but he also started to flail as best he could with his wrists and ankles tied.
“Stop it,” I ordered, my voice slurred. “Just float,” I told him. “I got you. I’ll get us to shore.”
Rory settled down, and I began towing him across the current. “Can’t believe you did that,” he mumbled.
I’d always been able to tell what Rory was thinking, and now he was referring to the way I’d lunged out of the woods and randomly tackled a guy. “She’s beautiful,” I said, referring to my lady in red.
“She’s evil,” he argued.
“I’m sure… she was forced… to do that,” I panted, churning wooden legs.
“Bullshit! She was grinning,” Rory said faintly. “She was the one who hit you.”
“What?”
“When you were… hitting that guy. All the guides were… standing around, completely shell-shocked. But not her. She took a piece of the railing, jumped down, and she knocked you out.”
“Huh.” Did it make my angel any less perfect, if she was a little evil? Hell, no. If my wiener hadn’t been frozen, I might’ve gotten a hard-on just thinking about it.
