by Rie Warren
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 heartbre
ak 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 fuck
ing 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.
