Chapter Nine

The sound of splashing water snuck into my sleep-addled brain. I burrowed my nose into a mound of pillows, the hit of Blondie’s masculine scent making me shiver awake. Peering out, I saw him at the washstand. His abs crunching, he bent over the ceramic bowl. He whipped his head up, water dripping down his face, saturating his stubble, his cheeks scrubbed pink.

I sat up to watch the show. “Goddamn, you look good like that.”

“Like what?” There was that breathy voice again, warmth rolling through me as he prowled in my direction.

Blondie leaned over me, and my heart knocked a boulder-sized hole in my chest. “Wet. Warm.” Naked. Jesus, my voice was a little breathless, too.

He inched closer, his arms braced on the bed. I reclined into the cushions, licking my lips. Just when I thought he was gonna kiss me, his mouth slid to the side, landing beside my ear. “Time to get up, lazybones.”

Cranking my arm around his neck, I strong-armed him to the mattress. With a kick of my hips, I groaned, “Trust me; I’m up.”

His hands moved across my back. “Yeah, I can feel that. Matter of fact, I felt it all night, big man.”

“Mmm.” I nibbled his stomach, heading south. “Keep you awake?”

“You kept me up.” His grin was full of dimples, delight, and desire.

“Still up, I see.” My fingertips coasting low, I lifted them away to watch his erect cock levitate toward my hand.

His drawl turned my body inside out. “That’s a given where you’re concerned, but—”

“Lemme guess. You’re hungry?”

The hand that cradled my head became a fist for a furious skull rub. “Yep!”

We started roughhousing in bed. I hadn’t done that since the last time a man had ventured into the no-go zone of my heart. On this glorious morning, Blondie was in need of a takedown.

He scrambled away before I could retaliate, but I latched on to his calf and hauled him back. With his wrists restrained, I rose above him. I kept his eyes in my sights as I lowered my lips to his silky nipples. Mouthing them to tight tan peaks, I waited until he started moaning; then I pushed him out of bed.

After a long, back-cracking stretch, I rubbed my bare chest down to my stomach, enjoying the way he looked at me, his mouth parted, eyes blazing blue buttons. “Yeah, I’m hungry, too.”

Pulling on my clothes, arming myself, I swatted his ass in the direction of the door. “Let’s go.”

“You’re a tease.” He stepped outside.

I slammed him against the Love Hovel, sinking my hips against his. “Not a tease when I offered to fuck you last night, lover.” I poured a long, slow kiss over his mouth.

His grip dropped to my ass, driving me to distraction point, and I disengaged our mouths with a final pluck of lips. “Morning, Blondie.”

We didn’t exchange words while we walked to the mess. Our fingers brushed, but I put a stop to the lovey-dovey crap just shy of hand-holding. I felt relaxed and good, aside from resembling a human punching bag and boasting a prick as hard as a steel pike. Once entering the main thoroughfare, we were given wide berth—except for that dog and those undaunted kids—instead of pitchfork salutes.

Progress.

At breakfast, there were more of the Freelanders making friendly with longtime enemies, us. Seated at the far end of the table, Miss Eden watched me, her observation prickling along my skin as tangible as the spiky herbal leaves she’d massaged me with. When I directed my gaze at her, she broke contact, blending in.

Keeping tabs on Eden, who excused herself back to the cleanup crew, linking fingers with Blondie’s out of sight, under the table, I barely had time to shovel the hot food into my mouth before a round of back slaps hit my shoulders, followed by a rugged chorus of, “Back to work, man.”

Blondie let me go with a smile, running his fingertips up my thigh. “Yeah, back to work, big man.”

I handed my cleared plate to Eden. It was replaced by her hold on my wrist and a square waxy package pressed into my palm. “For your lunch.” She held tighter. “Remember to feed your soul, too, Caspar.”

I staggered a step when she released me. “Yes, ma’am,” I whispered, but she’d already moved on. Her eyes cut a straight line to Blondie’s, and at a small nod from him, she urged me, “Git on now, son.”

Conscripted to the crops, I briefly wondered what Blondie’s work detail entailed when I saw him walking toward the meeting hall. For once, I didn’t want to know. Not out here, in the sun with my hands dug into the soil, on my knees. I suddenly understood the meaning of worship.

The simplest things lured me in: working outside under a big sky instead of caged inside a claustrophobic city with a network of spies. Sitting down to eat with a roomful of friendlies. Hell, even the Love Hovel had some merits. Mostly Blondie’s big body in my bed, our bed.

But then again, the head knocks from yesterday could’ve caused a concussion.

My muscles blistering, I bounded from track to track, shanking my scythe on repeat. There was a kink in Blondie’s plan for my convalescence, though. What with my all-night erection, the heavy petting, and hauling in hectares of wheat, I wasn’t getting a whole lot of R & R.

Stopping for a breather, I patted down my face and neck, looking over the wide swath of wheat I’d cut down. Raising my arms, I stretched left and right and looked around again. A feeling swelled in me, something I’d lost along the Corps road I’d taken. Pride without the price of jaded prejudice. That warmed me more than the bright autumn sun.

Sweat beaded on my brow, but I kept at the hand harvesting, not hating it at all. In my periphery, the lone tractor cut closer and closer until it abutted my lanes, taking down four widths to my one. Envy was another new feeling. I wanted to drive that goddamn thing.

The rangy young farmer hopped down beside me and introduced himself. “Micah.”

“Cannon.” I put my hand in his.

He shoved his cap back, revealing sweat-matted shaggy blond hair. “You’re settin’ a good pace.”

“Trying to keep up with you.”

Tossing me a strip of dried savory meat, he praised, “Not bad. Oughtta keep you around for next summer’s cotton crop.”

I took a bite and chewed vigorously so I wouldn’t say something impossible, like how I suddenly wanted a future here so badly I could taste it. And like the frigging spicy meat I chomped on, it tasted a thousand times better than the food I’d dined on in my bare room alone in Alpha, or the CO crap I’d ingested from babyhood.

I was relieved when Micah finished his ration without further comment. He slapped the side of the growling green monster. “Say, you wanna have a go?”

“Fuck yeah!” I jumped up on the rig and sank my ass to the curved iron seat before he could change his mind.

He got on behind me, shouting above the roar as I put her in gear. “You ever been on a tractor?”

“Nope.” I loosed the clutch and shifted the round black knob. “But I’ve commanded a tank before; can’t be too different.”

“That’s right; you’re our Corpsman.”

I kept a close eye on the furrows I was running down, a flush from more than the morning’s exertion spreading on my face.

He slapped my shoulder the same way he had the tractor. “Yessir, we all got a calling.”

I zipped my lip, glaring across the golden waves of the wheaten horizon. Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance. Where was the accusation? I wasn’t a good person. I didn’t deserve their confidence.

Two trips around the perimeter, I left a trail of flattened sheaves in our wake. Coming to a stop, I went ground level and started working backward, Micah beside me as we bundled and stacked, bundled and grouped. Eventually a pair of sandal-shod feet attached to slim ankles hopped on top of the bale I was roping.

I followed shapely legs, the flare of tits to the comely face of one of the water bearers. She dipped her fingers into the pail and sprinkled cool water over my face. I straightened up. My discomfort in the presence of the brazen woman grew when I saw her sister in charms accompanied her.

“Ladies.” I nodded.

That single word was all it took to start them simpering in my direction. Damn it. I didn’t want to piss them off, but I was about to inform of my preference when Micah stepped in, smothering a smile.

“Just the water, Jonquil, Lyra.” He tipped his head and the dipper, bringing a full scoop to his lips. “Don’t think our man’s interested in your wares, ladies. And y’all are full aware I got my own bed warmer.”

As they traded small talk and we drank our share, I glanced at Micah’s finger, the gold band winking.

“You’re married?” I asked when the oversweet perfume of desperate female was replaced by the scent of fallen wheat.

“Seven heavenly years. My wife’s Kamber. She oversees the education side of things.”

“You really have all types of lifestyles out here?”

Scratching behind his ear, he chewed on a stalk of grain. “Guess we’re a little bit like that Amphitheater you’ve got in the Territories. Open-house kinda thing.”

“Underground open house,” I corrected. “You’ve heard of the Theater?” I snapped off a stem for myself.

“More than that, been to one.”

“What Territory?”

“Gamma.”

He referred to the Midwestern Territory, a fertile belt that added up to his profession. “You grow up there?”

“Sure did.”

“Why’d you leave?”

He hooked his cap over his forehead, squinted at the sky, and planted his hands on his hips. “Just wanted my freedom, man.”

The ache in my gut spread through me as I stood in silence for a long while, wondering why it made sense only now. I’d spent years broadcasting a fuck-you vibe about the idea of freedom. For the first time I wished I’d gone with Sis’s fanciful stuff. I could’ve been here, too. But I wouldn’t have met Blondie if I’d traded my path for another.

Point was, I’d been too much of a coward before my family died, and later, too neck-deep up Corps ass to scope out other possibilities. Now it was too late. Wishful thinking and want never got me anywhere good.

I was glad to see an influx of stragglers crossing outside the fields. The odd combo of Freelander scouts ushering unmistakable Territory refugees and rebels—their hairstyles and garments looking worse for wear but still slick and fitted next to the Freelanders’ grown-out locks and rustic garb—gave me a great reason to slap the Closed for Business sign on my brain.

My thoughts dissembled ever further when I saw Kale. Dressed in mismatched armor, carrying the hand ax he’d surely used to cleaver my shoulder, he halted adjacent to me. He looked like he’d been run down by a tank and reversed over a time or three. That was something I took pride in, too.

I jerked my chin at him. My silent challenge returned by his heavy eyebrows meeting in the middle and his throwing arm raised.

Micah stopped beside me, winding a malleable strip of wheat between his two fists in the manner of a garrote. “You’ll wanna stay away from that one. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

“I don’t run from anybody.”

“Your murder, my friend.”

“Gonna be his.” I sneered at Kale’s retreating back.

“C’mon.”

*  *  *

We leaped the fence and fell in line. All villagers and newcomers were headed in one direction, to the meeting hall. “What’s going on?”

“Seems the Elders are presiding.”

The meeting hall was a seething press of bodies. Blondie was taller than most, and it took me only a few seconds to pick him up on my radar. He was leaning over Eden, their unheard words fast, their hands moving just as quickly. She finished speaking and raised her palm to his cheek. He didn’t recoil until he met my stare. His eyes unreadable, he invisi’d himself into the throng of bodies as she walked up to the stage and sat at a table occupied by the counselors of the Commune: Hills; Darke, who was leader of the militia; Rivers, who oversaw all things related to water resources; Forrest, the head of the foragers; Kamber, the schoolteacher; and Hatch, the resident inventor.

Hills called order, his voice a low register cutting off the whispers and raised questions. “Friends. Friends! There’s been a rash of refugees today, escorted by our rangers to safety.”

Claps and shouts were quelled by his wrinkly hand slicing the air. “They’ve come from Alpha Territory.”

I broke into a cold sweat, rivulets down my back that had two names: Liz and Leon. I hoped like hell they were among the refugees.

“More are on the move, coming our way. I ask that every one of you extend the hand of welcome.”

Cheers drowned my ears.

Darke took over, his charismatic speech inciting the citizens. “Revolutionaries join with us today, too. They will rearm and deploy back to Alpha with as many as we can spare beside them. The Territory is not won, but it’s weakening, and we will bring down the Company. We need volunteers to join them. Able-bodied men and women with the cause in their hearts, hear me now. WE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM!”

“Live in freedom! Love at will!”

Hands shot up in the air amid shouts. Mine was one of the first. Rushing to me, Blondie tacked it back to my side. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“The only honest thing I can.”

His grip tightened. “You keep your mouth shut, Caspar.”

“Fuck off!” I bit out. I wasn’t made to idle this way. Hell, if I was good enough to work like a mule, I was good to go, and we should have been laying tracks north or—

He backed me out the open side of the building. “You’re so goddamn naive.”

I wrested my wrists free and stormed back and forth. “I’m up for ass-kicking detail.” I raised a finger. “Don’t you tell me what to do, Company man.”

“You’re really gonna go out there, against your own men and women?”

Fuck. “Fuck!”

Blondie was right in front of me when I wheeled around. “So what do you wanna do?” he asked.

“Go on a shopping spree in the munitions building and follow it up with a killing spree.”

He shook the hair from his eyes. “You can’t.”

“You’re not in charge.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m your charge.”

Goddamn him! He got me again with his Company words.

I paced, blowing off steam until I was deflated. “Well, they need less talk, more action.”

“Double that.” He clasped his hands behind his neck, a gesture that said the storm was over.

Deep in my bones, I knew it was just beginning. Never mind his breathy words or bedroom eyes. The too-good-to-be-true was gonna end so fucking badly. The sooner, the better. “We’re leaving tomorrow, heading north to the Outpost. Enough of this lying low shit.”

“Okay.” His agreement was way too easy, figured he had to follow through. “Give it one more day.”

“Screw that.”

“It’s smart to see if any other info comes in from Alpha.”

“Fine.”

The meeting adjourned, the Freelander volunteers and Revolutionaries made for munitions, and I wanted to tag along, grab a new gun, maybe a bayonet. That was a no-go, so I made do with second best. “Can I at least check out their maps?” Ammo is off-limits, but aerials should be on the table, right?

“Think I can manage that, so long as you stay put while I arrange it.”

I pasted a smile on my face. “Where am I gonna go without you?”

I tore up more ground than the tractor, watching all the comings and goings, waiting for Blondie’s return. A few minutes later, he beckoned to me from across the dirt-trodden road.

Inside a damp, dug-out basement lit by flickering outdated lightbulbs, a table was laid with crumbly old maps in pastel colors and bleeding ink. I pulled up a chair, my fingers drawn to the fine paper with jagged edges. This was so much better than the untextured flat screen of my D-P.

I marked our start point in Alpha and followed the circuitous path south and west before our trek had taken the northern route that landed us here. Smoothing out the paper, pinpointing the Outpost, I measured the clicks in my head and memorized the final jag. All the while, Blondie watched me. The back of my neck heated just as sure as his lips had licked a trail to my ear. Because it didn’t matter how dire the situation was, with him I always thought with my dick first, heart second, and usually never my head.

Maybe it was how close we were, every day.

Maybe it was the life-and-death thing.

Maybe I didn’t give a shit for a change.

The raised formations were bumps beneath my fingertips. I closed my eyes and hung my head, hearing our breaths chug in slow, sexual exhalations. Running my hands over his sculpted body, trailing the pads of my fingers to his sacs, waiting until he asked me to suck him into my mouth, I thought of all the things I wanted to do to him.

My hands shook when I rolled the maps. I shuttled the chair from the table and stood, my back to him. My voice rumbling, I asked, “What do you wanna do now?”

“I got some plans, Caspar.”

Jesus Christ. My temperature soared and shivers spiked up and down my spine.

On the walk to our caravan, we didn’t talk or touch or intimate anything about the future, our future. We had none, so why bother?

What we did have was at least a couple more weeks.

Tension of a different kind mounted when we stepped inside and I got a load of the claw-footed tub that, besides the giant bed, dominated the scant space.

Wisps of steam from the water whispered damp tendrils around us. I licked my lips. “Plans?”

He tore off his shirt and found a bottle. “Bourbon and a bath, big man.”

“Drink first.” I held out two cups.

“Before kink?” His eyebrow arched.

I sank the shot and got one more, kicking off my clothes. Lowering myself into the warm water, I hung my arms over the sides. “How’d you manage this?”

My cock filled about double size when he undressed lazily, his thatch of blond curls flashing from between the unzipped panel of his pants. “Flat-out bribery and good old-fashioned coinage.” He dropped a kiss to my lips.

I knocked back the rest of my drink and watched him so hard I didn’t blink. When his pants hit the floor, so did my mouth. I almost lost my grip on the glass. His shaft rose in a rigid dark pink totem straight to his navel.

He pushed forward on my shoulder blades. “You gonna let me in?”

That’s the damn question, isn’t it? And how much is letting him in gonna cost me?

I bent my knees and scooted up for his entry into the tub. In the small of my back, his erection arched, and his hands slippery with soap found my chest. I gave my sore muscles and my mind over to his foamy massage.

“Harvest festival tonight,” he mentioned

“Hmm. They’re still gonna celebrate?”

“Gotta give thanks to the earth. You’ll like it; won’t hurt a bit.”

“Heard that before.” I drove my ass against his ramrod cock, chuckling when he gasped.

“Comin’ with me?”

“This a date?” I asked, my heart halfway up my throat.

“Yeah, I’m askin’ you out, Caspar. Come with me.”

I tilted my head and scraped his jawline with my teeth, taking a light bite of his chin. “Always.”

His eyes slid shut and he sidled back. “You might regret that.”

Spilling bathwater all over the floor, I turned around. “Don’t mess with me. Not tonight.”

A hoarse whisper came from him when I hefted him from the water. “I won’t. Fuck. What are you doin’ to me?”

I was patting his lower back where the deep dimples mirrored those on his cheeks, brushing his buttocks with one end of the toweling and using the other to stroke his thick cock inside the textured cloth. “Drying you off. Shut up and take it like a man.” I rolled the towel and sent it flying against his ass, landing with the lash of a whip.

*  *  *

Since it was a date—likely the first and last I’d ever have—I relented on the whole hand-holding deal on the way to this harvest fest. It was either grab his hand and weave our fingers together, or grab his ass, clothed in a fine old pair of jeans that clung to his form. While he’d reinvented himself again wearing his long hair loose and soft, face stubbly, I’d stuck to my tried-and-true fatigues.

People wandered toward the meadow’s call of music and the bonfire beating off the incoming hoarfrost. Night was falling, blackness challenged by the twisting red and orange flames. The late October moon was a huge yellow orb constellated by bright stars.

Makeshift tents had been set up, and inside them floors of straw were strewn with cushions; flags of fabric glowed in the light from stands of candles. A circle of men and women were dancing and singing off to one side; another group had gathered in a tight ring, their conversation punctuated by beats of loud laughter. The Territorian refugees stood alongside them, immediately gathered into the fold. I’d gone out earlier, tracking each one down and asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of a lean youth named Leon or a Corps lieutenant by the name of Liz Grant. No one had any info, and the two had not turned up at the commune.

Drawn into one of the tents, Blondie slid down onto a pillow and settled me inside the V of his wide-open thighs. Jonquil, Lyra, and a few other young women held court, wantonly writhing around each other, their arms raised with tiny finger cymbals, sending a hypnotic ringing over the audience. Their gauzy garb was sheer enough to show the deeper color of their nipples and the sinuous movements of their hips.

Forward as ever, Jonquil beckoned to me with her curled fingers making a seductive tune. Bystanders encouraged me with whistles and hollers. I shook my head to decline her invitation, but she wasn’t left wanting.

“I’ll dance with you, Jonquil.” A slim young man with black hair that dashed across his forehead fell in time with her, and soon other men danced, their musculature offsetting the femininity of the women.

Blondie settled me closer, slipping his palms up and down my forearms, raising goose bumps. Vibrant, exotic, foreign. That’s what this place was. Full of life and purpose. My impulse to call the commune hell compared to my usual bare-bones, party-line existence was on the losing side of a civil war with the idea of the Freelanders, their lives out here, and what they stood for.

Blondie’s fingers sweeping up and down the back of my neck made it impossible for me to throw my usual guard up. I tilted my head, kissing him deeply while he clutched my arms.

“Is this the singing-around-the-campfire part?”

A grin formed on his lips. “This’d be it.”

Jonquil raised her fingers in a bell-like salute when we left, and Blondie asked, “You got a girlfriend now?”

I deflected by pocketing his ass and asking, “Where are the kids?”

His smile went downright sinful. “Oh, they ain’t allowed at this type of celebration.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He winked and backed away. “You’ll see. Lemme go get us some drinks. Stay away from that woman, mind.”

Before I had time to process being dumped on my first date, Micah ambled over, giving me a hearty handshake. “I wanted you to meet my wife. Kamber, this is Cannon.”

The voluptuous red-haired woman greeted me with an easy smile. “Micah’s been tellin’ me all about you.”

Suspicion strolled up my back and settled on my shoulders like an old familiar jacket.

Micah squeezed my arm. “No need to be shittin’ your pants or pullin’ out your machete, my friend.”

Machete? I needed to pick up one of those, too.

“Just told her about your first time out on the tractor and how you didn’t drop the clutch, like most Terries.” He prodded me forward. “C’mon, let’s go get you a tipple or two. Take the rake handle outta your ass.” He brought me and his wife across the field, cutting through singers and dancers, talkers, and so many strangers whose only reaction to our intrusion was calls of, “Hey there.”

At a brace of casks laid shoulder to shoulder on wide planks, he accepted a glass for his woman, then asked, “What’s your pleasure, besides that Rice fella? And where’d your date get to, anyhow?”

The blazing bonfire was well at my rear, so I knew that wasn’t what heated my face. I coughed into my hand to cover up the impulse to deny he was my date. Rubbing a palm over the top of my head, I eyed the barrels. “I just call him Blondie.”

Micah’s laughter boomed and Kamber giggled while I cut loose with a grin.

“Blondie, huh? Guess that suits him. Now, what’ll you have?”

While I pressed a tankard to my mouth to stop any other disorderly admissions, he took a glass in one hand and accepted a pipe in the other. Inhaling deeply, he spoke through a cloud of thick, sweet-smelling smoke, “Want a toke?”

“What is it?”

“Just a little homegrown,” Kamber said.

The marijuana smelled good, but I needed to keep my eyes peeled, my thoughts straight. I declined.

The press of a tall body behind me made me close my eyes and inhale a different, more welcome scent. “Thought I’d lost you, but I see you’ve been in good hands.” Reaching around me, Blondie clasped Micah’s hand and brought Kamber’s to his lips. “Micah, Kamber, what do you think?”

“Think it’s startin’.” Micah’s white-blond eyebrow lifted and his chin jerked toward the fire.

Blondie bent his lips to my ear. “’Bout damn time.”