Two Brutes, One Barista: An Alaskan Romantic Comedy (Alaskan Romance Book 3)

by Shaye Marlow

  “And we should start going on Bigfoot hunting tours just as soon as we get to Oregon,” Thea chirped, nodding as though it were settled.

  “Hey! That is not what I said.”

  She’d scooped up the baklava, and I chased her out into my brothers’ yard, where all of my siblings, Gary, and Wreck were gathered in camp chairs around the fire.

  “That’s not what I said,” I insisted as we worked together to dish out the dessert.

  “Just give it up,” Gary advised, accepting his piece.

  “But you don’t even know—”

  Thea shot me a grin, and it was so damn cute, I could deny her nothing. It was disgusting, really. I was completely disgusted. And… charmed. And in love.

  And, the baklava was amazing.

  I helped Thea into the chair farthest from Wreck, but then had to sit next to him myself. Not that he was such a bad guy, having helped rescue Thea, twice. He was staying for another week while he looked into the alleged Bigfoot that’d been seen while we were chasing down my brothers. And in the meantime, he’d come over and offered me his hand, along with a proposal.

  His hand to shake, and a proposal of peace, not marriage. He might have been suave, with his accent and his silk pants—the whole package sweetened by a pretty decent sense of humor—but his ears were still really irritating, and besides: Despite what my brothers had to say on the matter, I simply didn’t swing that way. Unless it was my fist, of course.

  After I’d accepted his proposal, he’d offered to help me get back into fighting shape. We’d both gotten hot and sweaty on my brothers’ weight set, grunting and groaning with effort. He’d been beside me, helping correct my squat form, and behind me, saying, “Harder. Harder!”, and in front of me, murmuring, “Oui, that’s it”, and under me, egging me on as I rose and fell.

  … Okay, okay, I’ll stop. Anyway, Wreck and I were getting along. I may have even found a new friend, though that wouldn’t stop me from totally annihilating him when we finally got into the octagon together. He’d already started making arrangements for our fight.

  The thing of it was, it didn’t really matter whether I won or lost. I was happy either way. I was happy, because I could fight again, because my shoulder was healing. Because of my crazy, supportive family. And, above all, because of Thea.

  “The adventure,” Thea prompted.

  Sweet, dirty Thea.

  “It needs an end,” Helly said. “Esmita and our common—but uncommonly sexy—green-eyed, black-haired hero immediately found out they were extremely sexually compatible, but then her father shat all over the idea of them getting hitched,” she explained.

  Was that a blush on Gary’s face? Nah, had to be the heat from the fire.

  “So, on that front, we need more sexcapades—which I can probably come up with on my own—leading to some solution to the royalty problem, and ultimately an HEA,” Helly said.

  “HEA?” Wreck asked, showing surprisingly little surprise at the proceedings.

  “Happily ever after,” Gary supplied. “They get hitched and ride off into the sunset, and in the epilogue, everyone’s sublimely happy and hugely pregnant… or so I’ve heard,” he said, muttering the last as he sank deeper into his chair.

  “And the other love interest was Bigfoot?” I asked, glancing over at Thea.

  Who’s real, she mouthed.

  I shook my head, holding her gaze. “Actually, I felt a real connection with that troll.”

  “Yeah. That troll had her priorities straight,” Rory said appreciatively.

  “Dammit,” Zack said, “I want a beer.”

  “Okay then,” Helly said. “Let’s go with the troll.”

  “Does anyone else want a drink?” Zack pushed to his feet.

  Hands went up all around. “If you have a good vin rouge, I would take a glass,” Wreck said.

  I shook my head. “There’s none in the house.”

  Zack walked over to the shop, and emerged with a shovel. Then, he carried it into the woods.

  I looked at Rory. “You didn’t.”

  Rory winked.

  “But why?”

  “You were depressed,” Helly said.

  “Yeah. You remember the first thing you said to me, that first day, when you walked in the door?” Rory asked.

  I shook my head.

  “‘Vodka’,” Rory said. “And then you took the bottle—the whole bottle—and you drank yourself into a stupor. Fell asleep curled around it. So, Zack and I went out that night, and buried the rest.”

  “You…” sweethearts “…fuckers,” I managed.

  Zack, staggering under the weight of a huge, damp, dirty box, returned to the fire. “Requests?” He started passing around drinks. He even found a nice red wine for the MMA champ among us. Wreck made a face at receiving a bottle instead of a glass, but it appeared he’d make do.

  “Okay, so this troll,” Helly said. “You’re not the same species. Big barrier, there. Let’s say her goal in life is to have a baby, and you can’t give her that. But she gives great head, and she puts up with your shit, and you wanna spend the rest of your life with her, under that bridge. What do you do?”

  “First of all, fuck the bridge,” Rory said. “I’m gonna buy us a big house, and a really big bed, and I’m gonna spend years in it making absolutely certain her and I can’t make babies.” Wreck reached forward, and he and Rory clinked bottles.

  Helly paused, her pen hovering over her notebook. “Huh. That might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

  Rory grunted.

  “This is a magical world, right?” I asked. “So, go find someone who can turn the troll into a human, or our Gary look-alike into a troll, Shrek-style.”

  “All right. I have buy a house and pump her full of cum, and I have find a wizard to make you both the same species. Third choice?”

  We all looked at one another. “Kidnap a baby?” I asked.

  “Or, you know, it’s called adoption, if you do it legally,” Thea pointed out.

  I leaned over and licked a stray drop of honey from her lips, making her giggle. And then, because I didn’t want to stop touching her, I tangled my fingers with hers. Even just holding my hand, the woman was petting and caressing me. I didn’t think I’d ever get enough of her.

  “And kidnapping, or adoption,” Helly scribbled down. “If you buy the house and have lots of sex while she ages and you pretend everything’s all right, it’s not gonna go down like Nicholas Sparks’ Longest Ride,” Helly said, winking at me. “She gets fed up, and goes out to a troll bar, and gets knocked up by a big troll in a wife-beater. And then that redneck, mulleted, sperm-filled troll comes and smashes you upside the head with a board with seven rusty nails driven through the end of it—”

  “That’s oddly specific,” Rory muttered.

  “—and takes your house, and your woman,” Helly said with finality. She transferred her gaze to me. “You go and find a wizard, but he’ll only perform if you offer the right thing, and I’ll work more on that later…”

  She flipped a page. “Going back: Kidnapping doesn’t work, and if you adopt… It just so happens that there are troll babies up for adoption as well. You take two of each, and wind up elbow-deep in poo for the next four years. Your hair falls out, your orally-fixated wife loses interest in your schlong and turns into a shrieking harpy, and you haven’t had sex with anything but your fist in months…” Helly said, looking straight into Gary’s eyes.

  He chuckled. “Tell us how you really feel.” The backstory here was that Gary wanted kids, and Helly did not. He’d wear her down, though, I was sure.

  “What about the princess?” Rory asked. “She seems a lot lower-maintenance than the troll and the baby factory.”

  “How do you plan to circumvent the king’s order that you and his daughter shan’t wed?” Helly asked.

  “I don’t,” Rory answered. “I’ll be her lover, and that’s good enough for me.”

  “Then she weds someone
else.”

  “Then, we have threesomes,” Rory countered.

  Zack leaned forward to bump his brother’s fist.

  “Then… fine. You and your new prince and princess have a love affair for the ages, and,” she looked up and held Rory’s gaze, “you find out you really like to take it up the butt.”

  Wreck burst out laughing.

  “Other options?” Helly asked sweetly, looking at Thea and me.

  “I propose a tournament. The last man standing wins the hand of the princess,” I said, bringing Thea’s up to kiss. The firelight reflected in her eyes, and shone copper in her hair. I hoped our kids—adopted, stolen, or otherwise—got her hair.

  Helly nodded. “And another choice?”

  “Hey, if nobody else’ll say it, I will,” Gary said. “Knock off her old man.”

  “Mmm-hm. All right. So you kill the king. How do you propose to do it?”

  “Double-tap to the head,” he promptly said.

  “Poison’s always a good choice,” Rory said, sneaky bastard that he was.

  “You could run him over with a carriage,” Zack suggested.

  “Or hire an assassin,” I said, looking pointedly at Gary.

  “Guillotine,” Wreck put in.

  “It was Dotty, in the woods, with a strap-on!” Thea snorted, then dissolved into a fit of giggles.

  I grinned at her, remembering the first time she’d said that, and thinking I was in love with a woman who couldn’t hold her liquor. But I was also thinking that, due to our official ‘couple’ status, I wouldn’t have to walk her to her door, drop her off, and let nothing else happen. In other words, if she tried to jump my bones tonight, I wouldn’t beat her off with a stick.

  “They run ballistics,” Helly said, looking at Gary, “and you’re taken to the dungeon. They behead you the next day. And speaking of beheading, the king refuses to hold still for your guillotine,” Helly said to Wreck. “But nice try. Poison… You get away with it,” she told Rory. “Except, as it turns out, women can’t inherit in this kingdom.”

  Rory shrugged.

  “If you run him over with a carriage… hmm. You don’t quite manage to kill him, even on the second go-round. It turns out the king’s a scrapper, and he pulls himself up onto your carriage despite lacking the use of his legs, and he grabs you and pulls you to the ground, and chokes the shit outta you. The last thing you see is his livid face. He has Esmita’s eyes…”

  “This sucks,” Zack muttered, tossing his empty into the fire.

  “Final choice,” Helly said. “The king goes on a boar hunt, and finds Dotty in the woods with her magical strap-on. She proceeds to fuck some sense into him, and upon his limping return, he blesses your marriage six ways from Sunday.”

  We all stared at her.

  “What about the tournament?” I asked.

  “Well, isn’t it obvious?” Helly asked, looking from me to Thea. “J.D., you win the girl.”

  Epilogue Two

  ZACK

  The whirring drone of a lawn mower was the first thing that filtered in through my darkened senses. I woke up slowly, feeling groggy. Almost… drunk.

  I blinked up at the ceiling, then frowned. I didn’t recognize it. Which… wasn’t so very strange.

  A warm leg slid along mine, and I turned my head, expecting to see the face of my latest conquest. And, hoping she was a babe. There’d been a couple times—

  It was Rory.

  I stared over at him a few moments before it fully registered. He was naked, in bed lying next to me. That leg rubbing up against mine? Hairy man-leg.

  Nasty flash-backs of a time we’d woken up coated with cherry anal lube skittered through my head.

  I jerked away and leaped from the bed.

  At least, I tried. My wrists yanked against the hard bands of metal encircling them, and my ankles did the same. I knew what those were. I’d felt them on a few occasions, in and out of the bedroom. They were…

  A glance confirmed.

  …handcuffs. One on each extremity, securing me to a very sturdy iron bed. Rory, too, apparently.

  Rory and I were both handcuffed to a bed. We were spread-eagled, side-by-side, naked, in a room I didn’t recognize.

  My jostling had woken him, and I could see in his eyes that he, too, was wondering what the hell was going on.

  I searched my memory, looking for some clue. We’d been cleaning out front of the post office, picking up litter left by those Bigfoot crazies. J.D.’d been with us, helping, and then he’d left, probably to bone his new girlfriend. Dotty’d come down with some of her sweet iced tea, and… and… That was it.

  I lifted my head, taking in the log walls, the seventies-style orange curtains.

  There was a man sitting in one corner. A silver fox, lounging back in his chair, smoking a cigar.

  “Harv,” I said, feeling a rush of relief. Rory and I hadn’t been taken by bloodthirsty Amazons or deranged fans—now that would’ve been terrible—and our buddy, our hero was here. I was able to calm my racing heart, knowing the situation must be under control.

  “Harv, what’s going on?” I asked.

  He drew on his cigar, a long inhale, then blew it out. The motion really emphasized his strong, square jaw, and smoke curled out of his nostrils, making him look like a beast. The man really was spectacularly manly. I sighed, feeling again that sweeping awe, knowing in my bones I was in the presence of greatness. Looking at Harv was like riding a Harley till the speedometer maxed out, or witnessing a sunset over the Grand Canyon.

  “I like to watch,” Harv said.

  My wandering mind sharpened in an instant. “What?”

  He didn’t answer. Just sat there. Smoking.

  Watching.

  He liked to watch. That’s what he’d said, right? He liked to watch.

  He liked to watch, and Rory and I were chained, naked, to a bed.

  I didn’t know much, but I knew this couldn’t be good. Looking into Rory’s eyes, I saw he agreed.

  “Harv, buddy,” Rory said, starting to try and talk our way outta this. Whatever this was.

  The door swung open. And in stepped… one leg, encased in skin-tight, shiny black leather. And another. And above them: a torso, laced into a leather corset, also black, and shiny.

  It was a woman. One in a cat-suit. One… with a cloud of white hair.

  She kicked the door shut with an authoritative motion of one four-inch, spike heel. The door slamming made a very final, very ominous sound. One that made me flinch. One that made my balls shrivel, and try to crawl up inside my body.

  She was tapping the business end of a riding crop in her hand. Not some frou-frou crop like you’d find at one of Suzy’s girl parties. No. This one could’ve made a horse think twice about misbehaving.

  Tap. Tap. Tap, went the crop.

  I realized I was trembling.

  “So,” a leather-clad Dotty said. Those blue eyes were gleaming. “Let’s talk about some of the choices that you made.”

  THE END

  Author’s Note: If you enjoyed this story, please please please leave a review! Every single one counts, helping others find my work, and ultimately helping me to produce more stories like the one you just read. Also… I love hearing from my fans! Shoot me an email at shayemarlow@gmail.com to let me know what you think. I’m active on Facebook, where you can like/follow/friend me for free stories and news, and on Twitter, for more immediate ramblings. I also have a Mailing List, just click to sign up! Please stay in touch, and thanks for reading!

  If, somehow, you’ve made it this far without reading the first book in the series, and you’d like to figure out what the heck you missed when Helly and Gary got together, check out:

  Two Cabins, One Lake

  Free with Kindle Unlimited!

  If you enjoyed this, and feel up to something steamier still, you might like

  my erotic, romantic, sci-fi adventure:

  The Erotic Adventures of an Alien Captive

  Also Deli
ghtfully Free, with Kindle Unlimited.

  Need more Alaskan romance, NOW? Check out the one-of-a-kind paranormal Alaskan Fire by one of my favorite authors, and fellow Alaskan, Sara King!

  Alaskan Fire Excerpt:

  Chapter 1: Meet Jack

  “So I guess Candy told you my brother called in a favor ‘cause he’s blowing chunks?” Blaze’s ‘replacement’ pilot was striding over to her from the brand new Mercedes he had parked with a gravel-slinging spin into the Bruce Rogers’ Flying Service driveway not a minute before.

  Blaze, who hadn’t really thought about what a Bush pilot should look like, was now finding herself very concerned. The skinny kid approaching her was dressed in ragged cut-off shorts, a skateboarding Bart Simpson T-shirt, sandals, and sunglasses. He looked for all the world like an out-of-state transfer student Blaze might have shared a class with in Business 101, not at all like the plaid-and-jeans-clad Bush pilot, Bruce Rogers, who was supposed to be flying her and the rest of her worldly possessions out to her new life in the Sleeping Lady Lodge.

  “You’re Lance?” she asked, trying not to wince as she attempted to calculate how old the kid was. He barely looked past eighteen. And, now that she got a good look, his hair was still wet from a shower.

  “Yep.” He spun the keys of his Mercedes on a finger and stuffed them into the pocket of his pants. Holding out his hand and peering up at her, he said, “You Blaze?”

  “Yeah, Blaze,” she said, taking it.

  “You’re tall, Blaze,” he said, still peering up at her. “You got a little Viking in your family, then?” As if she hadn’t heard that a million times already in her life.

  “Six-four,” she agreed, forcing a smile. “You know how to fly one of these things?” She gestured at the floatplane that was secured to the dock beside her.

  “Oh sure,” Lance Rogers said, peeling off his sunglasses and glancing at the Cessna 206, which was approximately the size of a sardine can. “Been in those things since I was a kid. Did my first solo at twelve, much to the consternation of my dad.” He grinned at her, showing a perfect white smile, even further removing him from the ‘Experienced Bush Pilot’ column in Blaze’s head. “Didn’t fly again until I was sixteen, after that. Dad started locking the keys in his safe.” Rubbing the little blue airplane beside him like an old friend, Lance said with a note of wistful regret, “Never did figure out how to hotwire ‘em.”