Chapter Six

Figured it wasn’t bullets that got me into trouble. No, it was those forget-me-nots. When Blondie wasn’t looking, I’d flattened them between the soles of my spare boots after carefully wrapping them in one of his fancy napkins.

Jesus.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that damn dog I didn’t own, and how if I did, I wouldn’t have spewed all that truth about my mom and pop and Erica. Then again, I wouldn’t have woken with Blondie’s pillow held to my chest and the singsong of birds—cardinals, he called the scarlet-feathered ones—instead of the usual fugue of my nightmares.

I was supposed to regret having laid all my pain out in the open for Blondie to witness, but I didn’t. It’d been a long time since I’d spoken about my sister and then only with Liz because the woman knew how to keep a secret. It was those rare moments that had cemented our friendship, along with our daily target practice sessions.

We’d sat side by side on the cross-country route from Epsilon to Alpha, when I’d started out at the bottom of the Corps food chain, sharing a hard bench under a canvas awning. We’d both ignored the jokes of the other recruits and the jostles of the road.

One day we planted asses outside on a pit stop, raking the stench of body odor from our noses and stretching the cramps of enclosure from our muscles, when she said, “Penned up again, huh?”

Chewing on a piece of grass, I’d looked at her short cap of hair and shrewd eyes. “Yup.”

“You don’t say much.”

“Neither do you.”

She held her fist up for a bump. I hit it hard, waiting for her to wince. She blew across her knuckles. “Don’t hold back or anything.”

“Not a problem.”

The clouds wandering across a limitless sky had put me back on the shore of the northern ocean with my sis when Liz mentioned, “Never thought this was for me, but my dad got offed by Nomads and my mom went suicide right after. I ended up an instant orphan. The Corps gotta be some kind of family, right?”

I’d repeated the Company credo by heart. “Regeneration, Veneration, Salvation.”

“You believe that?”

“What’s not to like about a perfectly tight slogo?” I grinned.

She’d looked at a group of Corpsmen with their jocks out, seeing who could hit a seed head with piss, but she was paying real close attention to me. “What’s your story?”

“Same as you. Nothing else for me. No other redemption in this world.”

Liz was my junior, tight in her aim, ready for a fight, relentless when needed and not just a hard-core grunt. When I gave the bad news to a civilian family, she did the cleanup. I’d seen her comfort everyone from rebels to lifers in the Corps.

She’d consoled me too. Not in a let’s-exchange-spit way and not in a girly gotta-have-you way either. The best thing about that woman was her heart, and she didn’t show that to anyone. Liz kept her feelings tucked away, but even out of sight they ran deep. It came out in actions, not emotions.

The time she gave me robo-fish was the first time I stepped into her apartment, following a trail of feminine perfume through stark hallways as bleak as my place until I reached her bedroom. Brightly colored with worldly comforts, some of which were smuggled items, her room was a hidden haven full of pillows and lit candles, artwork hanging on every wall. She’d backed me out, shutting the door behind us. “Pretend you never saw that.”

That was our motto, right?

Three days after the forget-me-not fiasco, driving farther into the Wilderness, I still hadn’t received any coms from Liz.

Blondie must’ve been inside my head, a space already crammed with too many people. “You’re worried.”

I composed my face, becoming a blank image. “Better?”

“No.” Touching the corner of my mouth, he drawled, “What are ya’ thinkin’ about?”

I placed his hand back where it belonged, on his side of the Cruiser. “How about all those people we left to rot back in Alpha, for starters?”

“I wouldn’t worry about them.” He kept his eyes on the unfriendly woods we slowly drove through, tree limbs and leaves slapping the windshield.

“The fuck’s that mean? They have no water!” I hit the brakes and turned to him. “You don’t give a shit about the casualties of this war, do you?”

Dragging his eyes back to me, he snapped his teeth together, the muscle in his jaw bulging. “You think I’m nothin’ but a monster anyway.”

“Moot fucking point.” My finger stabbed his chest with every word. Damn right I did. Part of me did. Sometimes. But, Christ, I was the same as him, working to keep a repressive regime in power. Even out here, I was proving myself to be a grade-A hypocrite and a dickhead to boot.

I pushed the driver’s seat back another hitch, glaring ahead.

“Fine. Believe what you gotta. But don’t think you can keep getting away with playin’ me two ways. You want me; you hate me. And I’m the one head fuckin’ you?” His arms crossed over his chest presented me with a stalemate.

He was turning me inside out. A roiling knot invaded my gut. “Liz. She’s the one I’m worrying about most.”

He braved a tentative touch to the back of my hand. “Your second?”

“She’s not just my second, and I’m not talking about her.”

A flicker of hurt dimmed his eyes and pressed his mouth closed. He snatched his hand back.

“What? No snappy comeback?”

His answer was low. “Not this time, Commander.”

Fuck. I hate this. This…this…feeling bullshit. At the start of the journey, I’d had no reason to apologize to him. There’d been nothing between us, except that very first top-mark blow job after months of wanting. Now there were names, nicknames, hell, sometimes there were even endearments when we were bedding down for the night. This shit scared me.

I drove; he sat.

I sulked; he moved next to me until our forearms rubbed. I clasped his hand in mine, making sure to slide my fingers all the way between his, rubbing the hill of his palm just the way he liked it.

I relaxed into the ride the very moment he started to whistle, tapping his heavy signet ring in time on the armrest.

During the day, I tried to maintain my distance as the kilometers from Alpha grew. The bogs became bayous. Through low-lying ground, the jumble of tree roots, the sharp smell of soil and slow-moving water, we pushed farther into no-man’s-land.

Nomads’ land, to be very fucking precise.

When the way became impenetrable, Blondie would jump out to cut through the clog of prickles and brambles, slashing at interlocking tree limbs that looked like they’d been hugging one another for a century or more. He always found the route, always on the other side of some wild scree.

The first time he’d ambled to the back and pulled out his badass machete, I almost jumped him on the hood of the truck. It was one hell of a weapon, wielded by one hell of a man.

I’d waited until we set up camp that night to pounce on him.

My latest battle had nothing to do with the Company, the rebels, or any other faction. It was out-and-out warfare between my head and my heart. Keeping it cool during daylight, versus nighttime, when I unleashed my passion for him.

So far our nighttime escapades outranked everything else. Sundown found us scrambling, desperately tearing at clothes, gasping, grunting, lunging, coming. Committing every single Company sexual crime except outright fucking, because I was saving myself for marriage apparently. Though, knowing he’d lusted after me for months made it damn near impossible to shut down the sheer intensity of desire I felt for him. Add in our solo vacation from rules, I was determined to make full use of our downtime.

Turned out the Wilderness was a lot more hostile than me.

Blondie stood on a shallow bank on the fifth night. In the dim lighting, I saw he’d tossed off his boots and socks, working his toes into the cool mud. His shirt was sent the same way as his footwear, his fatigues slung low so his skintight white briefs caught on the rounds of his ass. Shoulders curling inward, his arms worked, and he sighed.

He’d pushed his pants below his cock. He was getting himself off.

Fuck.

I left the fireside, stalking beside him. He was bathed by the orange glow of the moon, his erection strapped to his abdomen, the veins a highway to the darker head.

Releasing his bottom lip from his teeth, he glanced at me with half-mast eyes. “No baths tonight.”

“I’ll clean you up.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” My voice lowered, my cock was turgid. I needed to get my hands and mouth on him pronto. Starting with firm laps all down his torso, I kissed his nipples until they puckered tight and hot for a nibble of my teeth.

“Sweet hell, yes, honey,” he whispered.

My fingers took over the torture of flicking and twisting the satiny nubs until his hips rolled and his head kicked back. I tickled his sinewy sides with my tongue, then wet the soft curls that sliced through his rippling abs, following to the money spot where his glorious cock grew from a base of dark blond hair. I bit near the top of his dick, right on the spot he was widest. If he was ever inside me, Jesus, he’d stretch me more than any man ever had.

“Ahh, fuck yeah. Your mouth is so hot. Suck me. Suck me hard.” His head was thrown back, but his eyes focused on me.

My palm slid up the velvety weight and all his veins throbbed. Trapping him against his stomach, I soothed, “Shhh,” before taking one ball into my mouth.

“Oh yeah!” Thighs trembling under my hand, he chanted, “Yeah, baby, yeah. That’s better…That’s…”

He lost his voice when I moved my head further between his legs, my short hair rubbing the root of his cock. I lapped and licked and suckled his other sac until they were both shiny pieces of fruit I rolled inside my fingers. When I let his cock go, it stood in a broad arch, distended, glistening, moving in a tempting dance.

Blondie’s hands found my face, pulling me away. Looking down over his rugged body, his breath chugging, he said all breathless and sexy. “I need to be in your mouth.”

“Not yet.” I slapped his ass with a smart blow, smiling when he hissed and a droplet of precome drizzled from the tiny lips of his dick’s slit.

Now that, I was having. I scooped it onto the tip of my tongue, roughly turned him around, and went to work on all those bundles of muscles of his back. He flexed and groaned and swayed into my fingers, my mouth, crying out when I hit the sensitive joints of his spine. My forefinger trailed the line of sweat trickling down to his ass. Those goddamn beautiful globes fit into my hands, and sure enough the twin dimples at the base of his back were just begging for my tongue. Diving in to lap and lick, I gripped his crescent-shaped buttocks hard.

He reared away on a moan and thrust back with a guttural, “Oooh, your hands, man.”

I swatted him again, and he shivered. I made wet paths all over his rear until I reached the sweet divide. His ass was so fucking tight, I had to squeeze my tongue into that steamy clasp, and that was exactly where I wanted my cock the next time I came.

“Mmm.” I hummed when the tip of my tongue traced the warm line that led to his gorgeous pink bud. I didn’t use my hands to spread him, enjoying the way his ass clutched my tongue, grinning when he swiveled his hips to get me deeper.

His hands fell to his cock. I captured his wrists and cuffed them behind his back. With one, two, and three stabs against his starred flesh—reveling in the taste of man and musk, sweet and dark—I ordered, “You. Don’t. Touch.”

His fingers curled, his hips wiggled, and he gasped when my stiffened tongue dove inside. “Then you better, ’cause I need to come, Caspar.”

Removing my face from the sexy heaven of his ass, I swiveled him around. “Then you better ask me politely.”

He stole his dick across my cheek, down my chin, up my throat. I strained backward. His hands quivered before he yanked me to his balls, but I held off, lashing a quick spiral of my tongue to the throbbing length. For damn sure I wasn’t gonna suck anything until he said please in that low southern drawl.

“I could just fuck my hand.”

I leaned back. “Go for it.”

His fist around his dick, he pleaded in a husky tone, “Fuck. Please, Caspar, you’re killin’ me.”

My hand wrapped around his, I took his long, leaking shaft into my mouth, tonguing under his deep red head, closing my lips around him, pushing my throat down until he pulsed all the way inside.

He shouted to the stars, widening his stance. I slurped back, leaving a wash of saliva all down his cock, laughing when he grunted, “More.”

I opened my mouth, watching his face collapse in pained arousal when he pushed himself inside. “When are you gonna fuck me, big man?”

My face was turned to the side, the heat of his cockhead stretching my cheek in a manly caress. Fingers tenderizing his ass, slipping down and in, I let go with a rough pinch. “You’re not ready for me.”

“The hell I ain’t.” Pushing onto my fingertip until it squeezed inside him, he pitched forward, catching himself on my shoulders.

My finger plunged inside that clenching passage, my throat impaled by him. It took only one more deep suck before he blasted inside my mouth. His fingers convulsed in my hair as his ejaculate washed down my throat.

With a final press, his muscles released, and his mouth opened on a shout. “Yes, Caspar! Swallow it.”

I rose to my feet and kissed his plump lips, stroking my tongue inside, thrusting my hips when he bit the tip and soothed it gently. I burned my mouth against the whiskers on his chin, kissed his dimples, and put my cheek to the soft razor-shorn side of his hair, holding the longer strands in my hand.

I admitted against his ear, “I’m not ready to fuck you.”

My shirt shredded in his fists, he shoved my pants aside, running the pads of his fingertips from my scalp to my ass and back up again.

He turned his head and took my lips. “What do you need, honey?”

Slamming my eyes shut over his endearment, I croaked, “Go to the truck and bend over for me.”

His pupils dilated, he flushed.

“Now,” I demanded.

I took zero time following him as he bent over, as I’d ordered. I could get used to this.

Just once, I swiped my hands down his back, raising goose bumps.

Braced on his arms, all his muscle showed: his big biceps, his flexed forearms, the fan of sinew spreading from his spine. “Very nice, lover.”

He sucked in a breath and arched his back.

“Even better.” I stepped into the lee of his legs until my cock pointed skyward against his ass. “Not gonna fuck you yet, but here’s an idea about what it’ll be like when I do.”

I nipped the nape of his neck and parted his ass cheeks. When I slowly let them go, his rear hugged my dick. I was so swollen, a glaze of release made his cushioned home slick for my taking. From the balls of my feet to my thighs, I rammed between his tight, clenched ass over and over again. “But you’re gonna be good and wait, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Yes!”

Fuck, he was hard again. The pump of his hips backward and forward timed with mine; his hand was at work down in front. Our sacs slapped loudly while my dick sawed up and down, and my head was so sensitive, it was gushing more come every time I crested between the hot domes of his ass, never penetrating.

“Good. Now I’m gonna come all over this ass.” I grasped his hips, hauling him with me until I balanced both of us on my thighs, gritting out, “Aw fuck!” I exploded in a pounding rhythm, sandwiched against his ass.

Each furious lash of come made me groan and made Blondie jerk. Placing my palm on his back as his body seized in another climax, I lowered his chest to the truck, coating him in another white whip.

Then I covered him with my body, the hot wetness clinging between us, running down his ass to my cock. His skin was warm from my slaps, his back sticky from me.

My mark was all over him.

I loved that.

It took a good few minutes to come around from seeing stars to seeing the actual stars, bright in the black sky above us. It sounded so quiet after our shouts and gasps and yells. Quiet, like a big blanket had fallen over us.

We heaped together and I groaned, “I’m fucking wiped.”

“Mmm, me too, big man. You just…” He rubbed his face over my hair, whispering, “That was amazin’.”

All my damn muscles relaxed from the day’s rage against myself, and I smiled. “Yep.” Steadying myself, I hefted Blondie into my arms, carrying him toward the tent.

“The hell, Caspar?”

“Figured it’s the considerate thing to do, since you let me come all over your backside. And I’m just letting you recover so you’ve got enough energy to bring me some food later.”

That was partly true. The man built up an appetite in me for something bigger than sex or food. It made me want to take care of him, too.

*  *  *

For a few more days, it was all birds and flowers and fucking, but not exactly.

Fucking with my mental gear. Most definitely.

We’d completed the southern route and now headed northeast into a place that used to be called Tennessee. Distant mountains marched one behind the other in a bleary blue terrain. Mountains, just in time for hoofing it. The upcoming weeks of physical exertion better take me out of my head space, because it was getting crammed in there.

The day we ran out of gas was the day I got my ass handed to me. We were reconfiguring our supplies for the on-foot portion of our trek when Liz’s com came in.

Throwing down the duffels, I punched the buttons on my D-P. “Liz? Liz!”

She came across in full static. “Commander, do you copy?”

“Status, Lieutenant?”

“Can’t…hear. Rebellion has gone…Revolution level.”

I cupped the D-P to my ear, reeling when the crack of gunfire sizzled across our transmission. “Fuck! Liz?”

She suddenly came over clear-voiced. “Sir. The attack on the water supply in Sector Five was replicated internationally in all sixteen Territories. It was internally synchronized by digital remote.”

I narrowed my eyes at Blondie, the head of technological acquisitions. This intel wasn’t simply Nomad plus rebel work. Right.

“Dire all-Territories-wide situation taking place, Commander. Gotta embrace the suck.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, her having to make the best of a shitty situation. “What are your orders?”

“Continue to Beta with evacuees, but they’re in trouble too, sir.”

“Keep the civilians safe.” I hoped Leon and his mother were with them. “Defy the chain of command if you have to.”

An electronic squeal shorted her words. “Contaminant…chemical released…a hoax.”

“What?” I shoved a finger into my ear, deafening the buzz of daytime’s loud insects.

“Forty-eight hours after…” Shouts crackled across the squawk box. “Water clean. Enough time for CO control to slip. SHIT!”

Holy shit. “Lieutenant, alpha23bravo06SITREP.”

“That was a close one. Almost got me by a cunt-hair.”

I couldn’t even manage a chuckle, seeing her curled in a ball, examining the crosshairs of her scope, not her crotch.

“Sabotage. A flash point. Some fucker out there’s a real smartass. Manipulating the control of essentials to create chaos.”

A screaming whistle made me drop the D-P. When I picked it back up, she was speaking in chopped-up sentences again. “Need to…tell…my dad…the Nomads—”

Hunkering on my heels, I pressed my head to the hot metal door of the Cruiser. “Liz, you get hit?”

There was no smart-mouthed retort. Static followed the silence.

I lost her. I bent over and breathed heavy. In, out. In and out. I stowed my D-P in my pocket, straightened up, and went back to work stripping the Land Cruiser.

When I raised the hood, disconnecting wires and leads, planning on putting a bullet in the head gasket, Blondie lifted my finger from the trigger. “You don’t want to do that.”

“I need to shoot something. So, the Cruiser or you?”

He turned his back, a tall blank emblem as I recocked and fired.

All afternoon, we wound through foothills picking our way though untrammeled brush and brambles, and I thought about Liz.

After we set up camp in a forest glen, Blondie went off on his own, equipped with his portable sat system, the sophisticated Company version of the D-P. Confusing SOB. It was probably a good thing he left me alone because I was a grouchy motherfucker and I still wanted target practice on something or someone.

I grabbed the ax from the loop on my backpack, laid it across my shoulder, and tromped into the woods in the opposite direction. Bastard might have made it his life’s work to spy on me, but I had better things to do, like taking something down, building up a sweat, and backing away from the precipice I’d been teetering over since Liz’s coms cut out.

I picked the biggest tree I could find and gave a few practice swings. Pressing the blade into the bark, I tested my aim, swung back and…stopped. I placed my forehead against the papery white bark before backing off. I was still gonna chop some damn wood, just not that particular tree; thing was too noble. With its fragrant bark curling back, the pink undersides were too close to the color of Blondie’s goddamn lips.

Fucking ridiculous, sparing a tree because it reminds me of him.

I toed up to a maple and sliced into it before I could notice the way the leaves had turned from deep green to the same red as the head of Blondie’s…Yeah. Not thinking about his cock, either.

Ripping off my sweat-soaked shirt, I hacked over and over again. Wood chips a maelstrom of grenades raining over me, I watched the trunk weave left with every huge blow.

Yelling, “Timber!” just because my pop had told me about that tradition once, I gave a satisfied laugh when the behemoth wavered to the left, suspended for a few seconds at an impossible angle, then crashed to the forest floor with ground-shaking vibrations.

For the next hour, I chopped wood until I had to wipe the perspiration from my eyes and use my shirt to dry my stomach. The scent of sweet sap filled the air, instead of me being the sap for a change. I humped the loads of wood camp side and was busy stacking it all neat and tidy, orderly, the way I liked shit, when Major Head Fuck ambled into the clearing, hitting me with another slug of mistrust. He’d been gone for more than two hours, no doubt reporting to the CO, quite possibly about my sexual deviancy.

Exhaling with finality, I slammed the ax head into my chopping block one last time, raising my arm to wipe my forehead. He leaned down, inspecting my afternoon’s work; then he swerved over to gather a bead of sweat from my shoulder with his tongue.

My nostrils flared, my fingers curled, and I fought to hold my neck steady rather than tilt it sideways, offering my throat for his kisses.

He tapped the teasing curve of his bottom lip and arched an eyebrow. “If you needed a workout, you could’ve waited for me.”

“Fuck you,” I growled.

His other eyebrow shot up in surprise. “That’s what I meant.”

That response raised my temperature another notch. “Where the hell were you?”

“Had some business to take care of.” His loose grin aimed at my groin tightened my nut when he said, “See you do too.”

No brainer. Soon as I saw Blondie, I busted a boner no matter the circumstances.

“You get a report on the rebellion?” I ignored the blatant situation in my pants.

One eyebrow remained high in a silent question, which went something like, What’s your fuckin’ problem this time? “Sure, what I’m entitled to. Goes along the lines of what your lieutenant told you.” He shrugged. “The rebels are in league with Nomads, and they’ve amassed international unity in high proportions. And, of course, the upgrade to Revolution.”

“Why don’t you look worried?”

“Why do you look like you wanna shoot me?”

“Probably the same reason as always. I don’t fucking trust you, Company Man,” I sneered. “Every time you traipse off into the trees to hit your knees with InterNations cock shoved down your throat, I sit here and think about all the traitorous tidbits you’re describing to your CEO.”

The cunt-ass Cutler in question still held a black ball against me because he’d been dumb enough to get caught with his pants down while his assailant slipped past my troops.

His tone turned brittle. “How about we fight it out and get it over with.” Dropping his shirt, he raised his fists.

“Give you more ammo by assaulting a Company executive? Don’t think so.” I couldn’t look at him when I quietly admitted, “Besides, I’ve gone down heartbreak road before, and I don’t plan on a return trip. So you do what you gotta do. Hit me; turn me in. It doesn’t matter. I’m done.”

He came at me, his hands raised, only to take my face between them. At my reactionary flinch, he inched away, whispering, “Damn it, man. You still think I’m gonna work you over?”

“Second nature.”

Dejection sank his shoulder. “Will you ever believe me?”

“Your kind isn’t in good standing. Once you’re Company, you’re a lifer. Just like your children will be after you, and on and on. You were born to it.”

My harsh words had the desired effect. He retreated a couple steps, saying, “You’re a goddamn hypocrite, you know that?”

Blondie was right, and it was better that he believed I was an asshole rather than good relationship material, so I swallowed down the truth of his words without even trying to dispute them. After a few moments of nodding, he lifted eyes that were resolved. “It was your birthday that night at the Amphitheater.”

There was no one to remember it anymore except Liz, not since the Plague had taken my family. “That’s right. You’ve seen my file.”

“What did you wish for that night?” Blondie asked.

“Huh?”

“You haven’t heard of it?”

“Birthday wishes?” I’d heard of the odd cake, a lighthearted spanking to toll every year. Those were nice dreams but nothing like what I’d experienced. And I had no recollection of this wishes bullshit.

“In the old days, they used to blow out candles on their cake. One for every year. Makin’ a silent wish, and if all the candles went out, it was said their wish would be granted. You don’t know this?”

I lined up the shelves of wood. “Nah. We had a real special tradition in Epsilon; maybe you haven’t heard of this one. We presented ourselves to the Tribunal for a nice committee viewing, just to see how we were coming along year after year. Questions were asked and answers recorded to measure intellectual aptitude; physical trials were performed so our future work roles within the Territory could be identified and redefined. In later years, we got to answer a battery of questions based on sexual orientation.”

Blondie’s face flushed with anger. “That doesn’t happen in Alpha.”

“Seems Epsilon was full of fun surprises. Anyway, I had a cake once. It was an experience I don’t want to repeat.” I smiled at the memory. “Sis baked it. Let me put it this way: I’m a better cook than she is. Than she was.”

He stroked the back of my hand. “If you’d had a wish that night, what would it have been?”

I turned my palm over, joining our fingers. I went balls to the walls. “You. I would’ve wished for you.”

“Same thing I wanted.”

“Blondie—”

His fingertips dusted across my mouth. My breath stuttered when he said, “I can give you me.”

I started to step away, but he encircled my hips. “I know you can’t trust me, Caspar.”

That statement was so loaded, it made my head spin as much as his slow caress over my abdomen. Can’t, because he truly was untrustworthy? Can’t, because he finally understood my hard limits? Or why not both reasons, for bonus points? I saw one truth through it all when I delved into his eyes. He was sad that I would never trust him.

“Yeah, I get it,” he said. “And I’ll take what I can get. But understand this, big man. I want more. I want all of you.”

Before I could retreat, he tilted his head and let loose with that sensual, breathy drawl. “Lemme love you tonight.”

I swallowed when his lips dragged down my neck. “Okay.”

“Good.” He sauntered to the tent and back to me, a small cloth bag in one hand. He pulled me after him. “Wanna show you something I found earlier. You’ll like it.”

“Ah, but will I love it?”

With a rumble of laughter, he towed me to his side, joining our hands. The fat silvery band on his forefinger dug into my flesh the way I liked it.

The sun had fallen away, leaving room for a bright full moon chased by wraithlike clouds to light our short hike. The day’s warmth still lingered, and I imagined this might be our last temperate evening with the directional change of our journey.

The night filled out with the low hum of creatures, insects, and nocturnal scavengers. Wings flapped overhead, and I looked up in time to see a large snowy white and auburn speckled bird with no neck at all, propelling loftily along, adding its own song with an echoing, “Hoot-hoot, hoot-hoot.”

“Barn owl,” Blondie said.

Barn owl. I’d have to add that one to my D-P. I’d kept track of all the animals and plants we’d come across. While the resonant hoot-hoot, hoot-hoot faded, a new noise hit my ears. A wet splashing pattern like heavy rain, but there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. “What’s that?”

“C’mon.” He hurried us toward the rushing sound.

Around a bend, I stopped dead in my tracks. In awe of the curtain of water falling from a cliff of rocks four meters above, I murmured, “That’s a—”

“Waterfall, yeah.” Hopping onto a rock, he held his hand under the cascade, then flicked it toward me.

“Never seen one in real life.” The noise had amplified to a deafening thunder at our approach.

“Not too many around, least not that you can get to anymore.”

The water dripped down my face. So clean. I’d never witnessed this wonder of nature before. I couldn’t take my eyes off the waterfall or the man beside it.

His voice so rich, I heard him above the pounding water. “I know how much you like fresh water.”

My lips split for a grin. “Yeah, this sure makes a change from my shitty little shower back in Alpha with that trickle of reprocessed liquid.” He’d been paying such close attention to me out here. The flowers and now this. My heart sped up. Instead of worrying me at being so intimately watched, he aroused me, attracted me more than ever before.

I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. We both laughed when I fell smack on my ass, trying to unlace my boots.

At my feet, he took over. “Let me.”

“Okay. But hurry up. I need to get in there, man.”

Dimples plugged into his cheeks when he smiled up at me. “I can see that.”

I groaned, stepping into the pool. The falling water flicked my calves with fizzy coolness. I wanted to feel that effervescence on my cock. Over my shoulder, Blondie was shedding his pants as hastily as I had, and the heated look in his eyes reminded me of the night I’d bathed him with my tongue. Memories made my spine tingle, my cock stretch all the way up to my belly button and beyond. I held my hand out to him, helping him in, backing us up until the water reached my hips and we stood directly under the rapid flow.

He was so hot and hard against me. There was nothing like the muscles on a man’s body. Settling my cock beside his so our wet rubbing made my tip pulse and my ass pucker, I grabbed his hair in a sleek ponytail and slanted my lips to his. Tongues coiled and teeth clashed, mouths pulled and suckled during our hungry kiss. He slowed me with his hands low on my pelvis, undulating against me to some earthly tune that made my blood race with fever to suck him, fist him, fuck him wild.

I reached for the long hot pole of his cock, and he nudged me aside. “No. I said let me love you.”

My lips at the corner of his mouth, I growled, “Get on with it.”

“You are so impatient.” He reached back, coming up with that small bag he’d brought, and emptied the contents. He held out a bar of spicy scented soap. I’d never wanted to be cleaned up so much in my life.

His hands looped along my shoulders, spreading a lather that floated over my chest and joined the water’s jets as they brushed around my cock. He got behind me, and this time I didn’t mind at all. Fingers digging in, surrounding me in his brusque caresses and the same scent that clung to him all day long, he dipped both hands to my ass, two soapy fingertips sliding inside me.

His delicious whispers set me off. “So fucking tight, honey. Your ass is gorgeous. Can’t wait to fuck it.”

A frigging whimper escaped my throat at the thought of him lowering over my back, spreading my ass with his palms, and smoothly working his cock inside me. Fuck. I didn’t let anyone top me—hadn’t for a long time—but I’d let Blondie. Nathaniel.

He kissed and lathered and teased all over my armpits, my ribs, my groin, stopping just short of my dick. When he grasped me in both soapy hands, my eyes slammed shut and my breath flew out as I held back my orgasm.

“Love how hard you get for me, honey. This big cock for me?”

God-fucking-damn. “Yes!”

“Hmm.” He applied more pressure, frothing me inside fists, tightening when he got to the dark engorged head to twist, let go, and start back again at the bottom.

The waterfall aimed acute points at my dick, hitting me with a one-two punch that had me on the edge, on my tiptoes, my back arched and my neck thrown back.

The eroticism of what we were doing drove a scorching dagger into the pit of my belly. Caressed by the water, held over a cliff by Blondie’s sure, smooth motions, I mashed his hair in my hands, garbling such fucking nonsense I had no idea what I was saying anymore.

His lips moving down the line of my abs, his husky laughter made me moan. “You love this, don’t you? You’re such a sensualist; aren’t you, honey?”

I shook when he finally sank his lush lips over the head of my dick, his tongue so damn talented as it swiped and swirled, teasing out the most sensitive flesh of my rock-hard cock.

Bracing my hands on the outcropping behind me, I gasped. “Sensualist?” He made me feel naive, almost young. I hadn’t felt that way in years.

He hummed, popping off the dripping head of my shaft just as I was ready to fire off. He applied more masterful tongue work up and down the stiff sides of my cock until I jerked uncontrollably from head to toe. “Pleasure from touch.”

He took me all the way down his throat and my head fell back. As he pulled off, the insides of his lips released my head with an obscene kiss. “Pleasure from sounds. You like how much I love suckin’ your sexy cock, don’t you?” Blondie pursed his lips over the broad tip, created a tight seal, and hummed into me.

“Oh fuck.”

“Pleasure from taste.” He kneeled up, stroking his length for a dab of precome. He held it out on his fingertip. I sucked that honey, devouring his finger like it was his cock.

I was near demented with the need to come. “Yes, I love it. More.”

His chuckle went straight to my balls when he made love to my cock again, his hands ranging around my thighs and onto my ass for a rough handhold. “You’re so damn beautiful, Caspar.”

Savage, I yanked him away. “I want you to come with me.” I brought him to his feet, steadied him inside my embrace, and kissed his mouth until he broke away to watch the glide of our wet cocks massaging together between our stomachs.

“Fucking gorgeous.” I moaned.

I moaned even louder when his hand, soaped once more, joined us inside his fist. “Ahh.”

“Jesus. Jesus. Caspar.”

Hearing the slap of our balls banging as we stroked was a goddamn barrage of sensation, I couldn’t hold off any longer. It grew from the low of my back, twisted my nuts high, and set off a blast that made me yell.

His cock jerked beside mine. Through the overspill of come, he kept hold of us, kept me on my feet.

The water washed away our semen and we were left under that free-flowing stream, hugging each other.

Later, in our bed of soft blankets over hard ground, he whispered with a kiss, “You believe me now?”

*  *  *

Three nights later, I woke to a brisk chill. It was colder now that we’d forged into the mountains. The frosty air didn’t make a dent inside our nest of arms and legs. Body heat, mmm. Cuddling closer to Blondie, I relished the rush of arousal racing down my body.

We weren’t fucking yet, but we weren’t fucking with each other anymore either. There were too many cards on the table for me to keep a poker face. Not that I knew the game. Gambling was another strictly off-limits pastime, though I’d heard about the shakedown artists.

A branch creaked. Then another.

Dry tinder broke to the left of our tent. I sat up, hushing Blondie when he sat upright beside me. Cocking my head, I heard the telltale snap of another twig and the almost imperceptible crunch of hoarfrost underfoot.

I won’t let another get captured, not on my watch. Instinct kicking in, I leaped to my feet, grabbing the SIG under my pillow and the one on top of my backpack. I had a few seconds to wish I’d gone to bed fully clothed instead of bare-assed, because then I’d have my knife too.

Thinking was overrated.

Breaking free of the tent, I caught wind of them before I saw them. They’d covered their scent with the musky oil of the deer I’d watched earlier in the day. Clever fucking Nomads.

There were six, camouflaged to such perfection I was able to count them only when they moved, showing their positions. True hunters, they hid among the trees, stealing closer and closer.

I circled; they encircled me.

The moon’s light glinted off a metal edge. Knives.

Feeling Blondie behind me, I hissed, “Get back inside. Now.”

He stood his ground, armed like me. “Not happenin’.”

“You’re wasting my time. Retreat!”

They darted nearer. Protect this man. Recognizing the stubborn jut of his chin, I did the necessary thing. My elbow sent back in a high jab, the blow with his cheek shuddering along my arm. I almost dropped my gun, but Blondie dropped first, unconscious.

This was a threat I knew how to neutralize…hostiles.

They came at me in twos, long-haired Wilderness dwellers, one leading and one flanking.

Good tactics.

The closest pair met my fist in the solar plexus and my heel in the sternum, dropping like the forbidden dominoes Erica and I had played on summer nights.

The second duo learned fast; they were at my rear before I’d flattened the first. I hopped over Blondie and hunkered in a defensive pose in front of him. Arms raised, roaring, they fell on me as one. I dropped onto my back, drop-kicking a lithe man with the crunch-punch of both feet to his stomach so he flailed through the air, smacking into a tree trunk with a resounding thud.

His guard wrestled under my shoulders, pitting his face into my back and ripping his teeth into my skin. I struggled to my feet with him clamped on and reached behind, rewarded when my fingertips pressed his pulpy pulse points until his bite relaxed and his legs gave out under him.

I heard Blondie’s moan. This wasn’t the must-have-you-now moan I was used to, but a bleat of pain.

I wasn’t killing. I was gonna question these wild men first. That was the plan, until I swung around and saw a Nomad with a hand ax raised to carve out Blondie’s chest.

Slinging over him, I readied myself to take the blow meant for him.

Aw shit.

An anguished shout twisted Blondie’s voice exactly when the blade sliced into my right shoulder, “Caspar, no!”

The weapon dug in and drew back, my blood flowing from the gash in its wake. I lifted my head in time to see the butt of the weapon dripping with my blood crashing toward my cheek.

Now, that fucking hurt.

I shook off the dizzies enough to stay aware, but I couldn’t move for the ringing in my ears. Besides, my feet had migrated to the southernmost Territory. My eyes still worked though, and there was Blondie on his feet, his fists a fury against the man who’d taken me down. He didn’t let up until the Nomad dropped to the ground. Then he cracked his forehead to the last savage standing, nutting him three times in quick succession.

His ballistic offensive was awesome to see, and I regretted thinking I needed to protect him from the vicious thugs.

The final fucker capsized, I coughed a laugh, curious at the warm iron taste under my tongue.

Ah, blood. Old familiar.

My weak laughter brought Blondie to my side. He touched my shoulder, and my stomach heaved. “Caspar? Caspar? Stay with me, big man.”

I slurred, “Ambidextrous…S’okay…”

He slapped my face. “Wake the fuck up, Caspar!”

“Just a flesh wound,” I mumbled, and then…

Lights out.