Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 35

After several more minutes and a few homemade bandages later, Chloe was done playing doctor. The bandage had essentially been wrapped around the piece of bare metal that had her leg trapped, but Chloe said it was the best she was going to get and that as long as Astrid didn’t move too much, the blood loss would be minimal. After that, we deployed the parachute and did our best to wrap her in it so she could stay somewhat warm.

Once we were done arranging for Astrid to be as comfortable as possible, I asked, “What do we do now?”

“Well,” Chloe said, looking back at her unconscious patient. “She’s not going anywhere, so neither can we. Besides that, I can’t tell if the transponder in the helicopter is busted. The state of the cockpit doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope, but on the off-chance that it’s working, they could track us down using it. There’s also a chance more of Tanaka’s guys could as well, but I think the good outweighs the bad.”

She shielded her eyes from the drizzle as she looked up at the sky. “It’ll be dark in another hour or so. We should make a shelter for the two of us. Some place close by, but not next to the chopper in case someone else is out here looking for us that can use the transponder.”

We started setting up a small shelter by locating a few saplings near each other. By bending them toward the others and tying them off near the top, we had the beginnings of a dome. Next, we wove small branches and greenery through our frame. Within an hour, Chloe and I had built a small hut that could keep us mostly dry. The supply bag had a tarp, but when I suggested using that for the roof, Chloe insisted that it would serve us better as a dry place to lay down for the night.

Once our shelter was completed, we laid out the tarp and moved our packs inside. Darkness had just set in, and the temperature was dropping several degrees, forcing my body to vibrate spontaneously from time to time. The cold had been bearable, but it was starting to get to me. Thankfully, the little can of Sterno was giving off a decent amount of heat, and we finally dropped to the floor of our tiny home, huddled around the little can, where we sat in silent contemplation for several minutes.

“Any idea how they’ll be able to find us if the transponder isn’t working?” I asked.

“Any idea what your phone’s battery is at?” Chloe asked.

I shook my head. “I think it was less than fifty percent.”

“I installed a tracking chip in you,” Chloe admitted.

My eyes lifted from the little flame to look at the pretty woman sitting across the flame in her wet clothes. I’d forgotten everything she did in Vegas with Shea’s help. “Oh… so they’ll know exactly where to find me?”

“Maybe,” Chloe said.

“Maybe?” I asked, needing some clarification.

Her eyes flickered up to me, and she looked… apologetic?

“Something like that is a pretty big invasion of privacy. I felt justified in doing it so I could track you, but I didn’t want just anyone to have access to it. There would be too much opportunity for abuse, and I don’t think you would have appreciated it.”

“True,” I said. “Thanks for thinking of that.”

“Well, I didn’t want to be the only one with access. Since I’m with you so much, I anticipated we could run into an issue where I couldn’t be the one to track you, so I only gave the tracking data to one other person.”

“Who?” I asked, intrigued.

“Psalter,” Chloe said. “I trust him completely. Especially since you have him on retainer. I gave it to him in Europe. The problem is, no one else knows he has it, and he’s been so busy tracking down VanCamp that I don’t know how long it would take him to learn that we’ve disappeared.”

“It shouldn’t be more than a day,” I said. “When we don’t come back tomorrow night, Erin’s gonna activate a search party.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said. “The chances are someone will spot the wreckage during a flyover, but that might not happen, and if the transponder is busted, then they have no way of tracking our location. They might not think to inform Psalter for days.”

I groaned. There were many scenarios where we could be rescued within twenty-four hours, and just as many had us stranded for days, if not longer. “Okay. When we get out of this, I’d like Erin and Helen to have the tracking information, too.”

“You trust them enough?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah. I do,” I said.

“Okay,” Chloe said, and we grew silent again.

The quiet persisted until Chloe finally said, “I’m gonna go check on the guy you tied to the tree.”

I looked up from my pack, where I’d retrieved one of my two remaining shirts. “What?”

“He knows you’re out here. If he got loose, and if there’s a big enough bonus for your head, he needs to be dealt with.”

“Chloe,” I said. “You shouldn’t go back out there. It’s dark. How would you even know where to find him?”

My bodyguard held up a compass. “This was in the pack. It glows in the dark and everything.” Then she held up a small flashlight. “I’ll be fine with these two things.”

“Chloe—”

“Marcus, my job is to keep you safe. Let me do my job.”

I stared back at her for a long moment. A month ago, I wouldn’t have even argued with her. Not when she had that stone-cold killer vibe radiating off of her as she did now. However, I’d grown in the last month.

“It just seems unnecessary. I feel like I did a good job tying him up. Besides, even if he did find us, it’s just one of him. We handled three.”

“Don’t be naive, Marcus. We got lucky. If this guy did get loose and can track us down, he might be the lucky one. Especially if we’re asleep.”

“Chloe, you’re amazing, and I’m sure that, given enough time, you’d be able to make it there and back, but it’s cold, dark, and wet. You said we need to conserve. How is traipsing around the forest all night conserving? What are the odds that he even shows up?”

She looked away from me instead of answering, emboldening me to continue, “Besides… you parked us yards from the wreck for this exact reason. He’s gonna find the wreck before he finds a little shelter made of trees.”

“Astrid’s there,” Chloe pointed out.

“And that’s a concern,” I said. “But if I had to choose between losing you and her, I’d keep you every time.”

Finally, Chloe looked back at me, her features dancing in the flickering light of the Sterno can. She studied me for a long, silent moment and finally said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” I asked, finding it hard to believe what I’d just heard.

“Okay,” she repeated.

I wasn’t sure what to do now that I’d won the argument. “Okay,” I finally said.

“It’s going to be cold tonight,” Chloe said. “There’s some warmers in the survival pack. How about you take two or three of them and tuck them in her blankets. She’s lost a lot of blood, so she’ll need the extra warmth.”

“Okay,” I said, eying her. “What’re you gonna do?”

“Deploy the other two chutes so we have bedding.”

“Oh,” I said, blinking. I half-expected her to leave while I was gone, but it sounded like I’d actually convinced her.

“I’m not going to leave as soon as you’re gone,” Chloe said. “You made some good points. I’m not that stubborn.”

“Cool,” I said, a little thrown off that she was actually listening to me. I retrieved three pocket warmers from the pack.

“Better make it two. I don’t know how long we’ll be out here, so best to play it safe,” Chloe said.

I put one back and went out into the cold night air, immediately regretting it. I’d cut some of the tarp off and rigged it as a flap over the opening of the hut, and I was surprised at the difference in temperature. It wasn’t warm in the hut by any stretch, but it was definitely several degrees colder out here.

When I arrived at the wreck, Astrid was still unconscious and showed no signs of waking. I activated the warmers and placed them under her parachute blanket before returning to the hut. I ducked inside and immediately stopped in my tracks.

Chloe was on her knees, her back facing me, hanging both her damp shirts on a line stretched a few feet across near the top of the dome. The wet denim had also been removed and sat nearby, waiting to be hung out to dry. That left her in nothing more than a plain black bra and a pair of French-cut white panties.

The closest I’d come to seeing all of Chloe was that night when I fucked Ashlee and Shea in Vegas and spied her watching us from the doorway where our two rooms connected. She’d been fingering herself as she watched us, wearing nothing more than a pair of panties and some kind of thin cotton top. Considering I was in the middle of a threesome, I didn’t get a chance to see much.

I knew Chloe was fit—you had to partake in a certain amount of athleticism to do the kind of job she did. Still… seeing it in nearly all of its glory…

She didn’t have the body of a runway model. Her waist wasn’t as small as Tara’s, Bobbi’s, or Erin’s, and her shoulders were a touch more broad than was typical, but there was no denying that Chloe was very much a woman. The freckles that dusted her face liberally coated her upper back and shoulders, with a fewer amount scattered across her lower back all the way down to the subtle dip that was the subtle beginning of an asscrack hidden underneath her panties. Her lightly sunkissed skin looked like my fingertips could glide right over it. Taught muscles rolled underneath, suggesting what I already knew—she was lean, fit, and could handle a lot of physical exertion. The little firelight flickering across her golden skin only emphasized the well-developed muscles that played across her back and shoulders.

And her ass… God… that ass looked like it could total a truck that ran into it, judging by how firm and toned it looked.

Chloe looked over her shoulder as she reached for her jeans and caught me watching her. I reflexively averted my eyes and scooted into the hut, acting like I hadn’t just been staring at her.

“Take off your clothes,” Chloe said, hanging her jeans across the line.

“What?” I asked, looking at her.

“Your clothes are wet,” my bodyguard said. Finished hanging up her clothes, she turned slightly away from me, reached behind her, and unhooked the fastener on her bra. “Take them off.”

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To Be Continued...