by Rie Warren
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 fi
ne 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.”
Chapter Ten
I followed his gaze and saw why the kids were put to bed early. Inhibitions rendered to intimacy as bodies meshed in a tangle of limbs, searching fingers, and searing kisses. This orgy reminded me of the Theater, except it wasn’t contrived by lack of time or threat of capture. It exuded warmth and welcome and was 100 percent tantalizing. Especially the trio who formed the centerpiece of carnality. A large ebony man stood naked with a fair woman and a lean young man writhing against him.
His arms wrapped around me, Blondie mentioned their names. “That’s Darke, who had you all fired up at the meetin’ earlier. The other man is Wilde, and the woman is Tammerick.”
Now I knew what he’d been up to. Getting in good with the people while I’d gotten the lay of the land. “They’re all together?”
“Good as married, in the eyes of the commune and their gods.”
Wilde’s voice was low. “I wanna suck your release from Tam, Darke.” His hands were white against the other’s brawny black chest.
“Tam.” Darke barely managed her name when the slimmer man got to his knees and slithered his tongue up Darke’s wide shaft. “Bring our woman to me.”
Wilde lifted her against Darke until she coiled her arms behind his neck and her legs around his huge thighs, her pussy spread above his cock. A spear of black flesh working into a tight pink tunnel. Massaging the swollen meat, Wilde helped his lover enter her. Tam moaned, the wet slink of Darke’s aroused shaft pushing into her flushed lips.
Blondie’s teeth tugged my earlobe. “I want you spread above me, Caspar, your cock in my face.”
Tam’s breasts thrust up, and Wilde buried his face between his lover’s legs, suckling her clit. He slipped lower and slurped her essence from the hard pumping piston, down to Darke’s slapping black balls.
I was shaking inside Blondie’s hold, shoving my fingers into his hair, when he bit my throat.
Darke grunted, “Yeah, Wildeman, feels so fucking good.”
Wilde sat back on his heels, handling his long shaft, tasting Tam’s cock-filled cunt and the cock itself.
“You want him?” Tam whimpered down at Wilde.
He pressed his face against Darke’s thigh—the pale against dark beautiful—and panted, “Yeah. He feels good in you? Gonna come, baby?”
He pinched her labia together, a slant of a smile spreading over his lips when her pelvis undulated. She orgasmed with a scream, and Wilde went to work on Darke’s balls, bathing them in his saliva and her heavy cream.
Darke held Tam up in his arms. “That’s right. You want my cock? You want it too, Wildeman?”
Wilde attacked the pulsing veins of the dick before him. “Lemme li
ck our baby’s cream off you, sweetheart.”
Tam arched back when Darke withdrew, his cock dripping with her. He kept Tam against his body with one hand and grabbed Wilde’s hair with the other, planting his throbbing cockhead between his man’s parted lips just as jets of white come propelled out.
I was sweating, my muscles tensed, Blondie swearing behind me. When I looked back from attacking his lips, Wilde had lined up behind Darke, his hands running over the straining muscles.
Blondie pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and cursed when someone across the field shouted his name. His hands dragged from my chest as he answered the call with, “Comin’!”
No shit, him and me both.
The cold reinforced my loneliness when he pulled away. “Come with me. I gotta do this one thing; then we’ll dance.”
I was at my breaking point and wasn’t sure how far I could walk, dragging my hard dick between my legs. “Don’t dance.”
He grinned at me. “You will.”
I stayed back when he crossed to Miss Eden. He sat on a stool matching hers, their knees almost touching, their fingers plinking the guitars on their laps in time with each other. Firelight danced off his dark blond hair, skimming the guitar strings, striking the ring on his finger.
His hands mesmerized me, fingers tapping out a rhythm before they began singing. Then…Jesus. His voice was like the high-rising birds he sang about, a revelation. I hung on to every word, and he watched me all the while he strummed and let the words flow:
These birds are a reminder of who you used to be
Uncaged and unfettered, so wild and so free
See, I know I was your captor and your guilt was the key
But my heart was too heavy for one bird to carry
It’s like a war here and there are minefields everywhere
And there are no war heroes, only senseless fear
And we’re the cowards, doing what we can to survive
And there are no war crimes
’Cause here no one, no one, no one, no one’s fine.
