by Rie Warren
He ambled on, song on his lips and his hand reaching back, waiting for mine.
Lunch was gruel, aka canned crap, that we’d picked up from the soldiers to replenish our supplies. Our table was a cool carpet of moss, my seat Blondie’s lap, and the view a little stream beside us.
He was less than impressed. “Tastes like a bag of nasty after a tank’s backed over it.”
I took another big mouthful of the nondescript shit. “Yup.”
“How can you stomach it?”
I moved to sit in front of him, my knees bent over his, my feet planted beside his hips. “Reckon it was all I knew before you. I didn’t really care much about food or other pleasures at the time.” I shrugged, chewed, swallowed. “Only enough to survive on.”
“You’re not just surviving now.” He replaced my raised spoon with his warm lips.
“Not with you.”
Too few hours later, dusk threatened.
“Your hair is getting shaggy,” he mentioned.
“So’s yours.”
“You like it.”
I grinned, not about to deny that.
“And you need a shave,” he added.
“You gonna tell me I smell like shit next, Blondie?”
Sniffing along my collarbone, he licked the hollow there. “You smell so good. All man. Musky, natural, you always smell fresh from a good fuck.”
Well, that made me horny. I dropped my pack and pushed his off, too, ready to march him to the next solid tree trunk and take him. He shook his head, holding up a hand to ward me off. I halted when he squatted over my pack, purely because his ass was my wet dream come to life not because he’d ordered me to.
He pushed stuff around, digging deeper. Coming up with my shaving soap and straight blade, he launched a smile. “Can’t do anything about your hair right now, but you don’t like not being clean shaven. Let me.”
Making a fire, warming water, layering my throat, cheeks, and chin in foam, he straddled me. “Now, keep your hands to yourself. You get me worked up, I’m liable to slip.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing and bit my tongue to keep from groaning when he cupped the nape of my neck and dragged the blade through lather until it hit the corner of my mouth.
My lips tilted; my hips swiveled.
He sat back. “Like to live dangerously, do ya?”
“Wouldn’t be here otherwise.” I positioned his blade at my throat.
“Good thing I love you, then, ain’t it?”
Oh, man, it really is.
He shaved me, taking his sweet time, kissing my clean skin, making it tingle.
“That’s nice.”
“What is?”
“Being taken care of.”
“Hmm.”
He mopped up the last of the lather, laying a warm cloth over my face. “I’ll always take care of you, you know?”
“A few more hours and we’ll be at the Outpost.”
“Uh-huh,” he agreed, “and there could still be one other operator out here. Anonymous number thirteen.”
“Yeah.” I wiped my chin and looked around for my shirt.
Blondie wet his lips. “We can spare one more night.”
Hell yeah.
* * *
“What’s that?” I eyed the present he set in front of me.
“Why don’t you open it and find out instead of watchin’ like you think it’s one of my bombs set to go off in your face?”
We hadn’t moved from the copse beside the stream where he’d shaved me. The night fell around us, a bright pattern of cold-weather stars turned into crystals high above.
“Well, it’s too small to be a flower.”
Heaving a long sigh, Blondie rested the back of his head on the ground. “You could just open it, Caspar.”
I remembered how anxious I’d been over the cuff I’d given him. I was equally nervous now. My stomach ranging through dips and rolls, I fingered the newsprint he’d wrapped the gift in. He must’ve taken it from Fort Knox.
“Is there a message here?” I peeled back the paper, letters swimming before my eyes.
He peered at me. “Yeah, there’s a damn message. Fuckin’ open it already.”
The thing rolled out into my hand. Heavy, metal, round. A ring. It warmed in my palm.
“You gonna look at it?”
I’d seen it on his forefinger. A thick band that was worn and rounded on the edges. It broadened to the Rice family’s Landowner crest, a spray of grain engraved inside the oval. I held it up, admiring the workmanship, unable to slip it on. When a glint of firelight hit the inside of the band, I blew a fine line of breath between my lips.
Everything.
In simple script, inside the ring. No initials, no date. No beginning, no end. Just me and him, endlessly.
Holy shit.
“That there was my granddaddy’s. He’d have wanted you to have it.”
I couldn’t fathom that. What Territorian in his right mind would want his grandson to hook up with the likes of me? But he hadn’t been a citizen, hadn’t even had the chance to become a Freelander. Hamme Rice had been the last of a massacred breed, the Landowners.
I closed my fist around the ring, bringing it to my chest.
“Now it’s yours, same as me.”
“I can’t.” I put it on the ground between us.
A small smile etched the corner of his mouth. He didn’t pick up the ring. “What was all that before, huh?”
“Guess I’m not as graceful at accepting gifts as you.”
“Ya don’t say.”
My heart hammering in my chest, I snatched the ring back and sat on my heels. It looked so light, but it was heavy with meaning. I slipped it onto the first finger of my right hand; the band didn’t make it past my knuckle.
“Try your left hand.” He’d come closer and his knees butted mine.
“What?”
Sitting up real straight and real still, he tugged on my fingertip. “Ring finger, left hand.”
“A promise ring.” The words scraped my throat.
“An engagement, if you’ll have me.” He slipped the ring over my fingertip and stopped there, a question in that one small gesture.
In answer, I rolled the band all the way down, my heart banging.
There should’ve been celebrations. Instead, after a long kiss, he ducked his head. “We’re contracted now.”
I pushed up his chin. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to shake my hand to seal the deal instead of asking for my hand.” I wondered when I’d exchanged my manhood for girly worries. “Like I’m a business transaction.” My short thumbnail already catching on the ring in a motion I could easily see becoming habitual, I frowned. “If the only reason you’re giving me this is because you know we’re screwed, then you can take it back.”
I started twisting off the ring, but he stopped me.
“I want you to be mine, Caspar. You know that. But I need you safe first.”
“So this is how you propose?”
“No. This is how I make sure you stay alive, so I can be with you again.”
Frustration and futility overrode the joy I’d felt when he’d made it clear he wanted me long term. “So you think I’m gonna do what you tell me because of this piece of metal?”
I just want a minute to kiss him. I want this cracked-up thing between us to be a sacred union, not a commodity for safe-keeps.
“Let me go in alone.”
I shot that idea right down. “Not gonna happen.”
“Please.”
“No fucking way.”
“Fine.” He rubbed his eyes. “You finish your escort detail; then you’re gonna turn right back around after debrief and disappear. You hear me?”
“No.”
“Why are you so pigheaded? I have to fight you on everything?”
“Yeah, maybe you do, baby.” I sank back to my ass and tinkered with the ring. “So what does this really
mean, then?”
“It means you’ll remember me.”
“I don’t want to remember you, and I’m not very good at waiting. I want to have you.”
“Don’t be a stubborn ass. I can’t do my job if I’m worrying about you.” His words were a shock of cold water thrown in my face.
“Funny. Worrying about you is my job,” I scathed.
At loggerheads over nothing we could control, we went to our separate corners—or trees—boxing with our own demons. Me with a ring and a promise, him with a leather cuff and my heart.
Eventually we came together for one last mealtime. We didn’t talk, but touched, apologies in our fingers as we ate from each other.
The fire smoldered to glowing ashes, but the one inside me remained ignited, burning high. Our backs against a fallen log, I had my arm around his waist, and his was draped over my shoulder. Our boots tapped together and the November stars shone like jewels.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Well, this was a nice vacation.”
He rolled his head to the side, squinting at me until I squirmed.
His fingers finding mine, his boots stilled and he made me look at him. “You know we’re more than that.”
I remained silent, kicking over the ember of a log.
We’d been together through bitterness, suspicion, battle, and into something like bliss.
It didn’t goddamn matter. “You’re fucking Company, man.”
“What if I wasn’t?”
“Quit dicking me around.”
“I’m not.” Exasperation tinged his voice.
Strapping my arms around myself so I wouldn’t touch him, I glared at the sparks dying out in front of us.
“So, you think this is our last night together, huh?” he asked.
“I think our outcome at the Outpost looks pretty frigging grim.”
“You just gonna waste it glarin’ at me?” He stood, stripping down. “Or are you gonna fuck me?”
At his call to action, I shed my clothes and wrapped my arms around his thighs, tumbling him on top of me.
Our lovemaking was a passionate mixture of motions and emotions.
My tongue flattened up his shaft until I hit his round head. Wrapping my mouth over him, my deep suck was punctuated by his sharp groan. “Not goin’ anywhere, honey.”
I danced down his erection, grunting when he positioned my thighs next to his head. Rough hands guided my hips over his face until my cock parted his lips. He held my butt firmly apart and let me fuck his sweet pink mouth.
Rubbing my cheek against his saliva-wet cock, I managed, “I’m not gonna lose you, Nathaniel.”
Lifting my head, I looked underneath me, along his body. The head of my cock perched at his mouth, his tongue snaking around me. I pushed off of him and spun around, replacing my mouth with my fingertips, slick and ready to open him.
His head shake sent strands of dark blond hair into my eyes. “Not goin’”—he ran his lips up my jaw until he found my mouth—“anywhere.”
I took his nipples, his belly button, the trail of fine hair between my teeth, slithering between his legs. My tongue joining my fingers, I dipped inside, moaning at his taste and tight hole. Two fingers, my tongue thrusting, his channel dilated.
As he pulled me up his body, we joined. In heat, in need, and…oh fuck, in love.
I slanted all the way inside, my hands tangled in his hair, our breath shared. His lips and tongue spoke a language that needed no translation. Pure desire. His words inside my head, his big body spread below me, his slick hole taking me harder.
Not leavin’ you. Ever.
His arms curled around my back, fingers pressing into my muscles. Our chests strived together while our bodies writhed, hips, bellies, thighs, and cocks. The flat slick slide of tongues tasting, flicking, sucking.
I squeezed and stroked him, his cock bolting in and out of my fist and his voice cracked like it always did when he was ready to come. “Anything, I’ll give you anything, Caspar!” He grabbed my biceps and tilted up to take the full force of my rapid thrusts.
“Anything?” I sucked his nipple until he cranked his pelvis higher, grinding into me.
“Everything, Caspar.”
Oh fuck, fuck!
His ass bore down on me as he came with a surge of power bending him near in half.
A few sharp thrusts later, I yelled, “Yeah, yeah!” rocketing off inside of him. “Oh fuck yeah, baby.” I blindly smoothed the sweaty strands of hair from his temples. “Everything.”
“Nothin’ wrong with us, honey,” he said softly.
The moon drowsed above us. I no longer heard the soft padding feet of nighttime foragers, and the birds went to sleep, too, but we stayed awake. The roughened pads of his fingertips rubbed the back of my neck, and I almost goddamn purred.
“Tell me what you wish for, honey.”
On my elbow, I traced the sexy curve of his bottom lip. “As in birthday wish?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Rolling onto my back, I crossed my arms behind my head and looked up. Stars. Sky. Freedom. I looked at him. Blondie. Nathaniel. My lover. My heart expanded with hope I couldn’t afford now and that I’d never fathomed seven weeks ago at the Amphitheater.
“A life I can be proud of. It doesn’t have to be peaceful or easy.” I turned sideways and whispered, “I want to remember this feeling. I want to feel.” Pursing my lips over his quickly, I added, “I want to be allowed to love you.”
His throat moved, but nothing came out.
“I wish for the same thing I wanted the night of my birthday. You. More of you. Endless days and nights with you.” My mouth trembled, the ring on my finger a watery vision.
I watched those steadfast stars and knew they were in my eyes right then. “I love you, Blondie.”
That seemed to be good enough for him, because after our days of running, nights of loving, he fell asleep with a smile on his lips.
Having no fondness for sleep myself, I stayed awake just to watch him, touching him with the most loving light caresses so he wouldn’t wake. Dawn would come. It always did, and I’d already forfeited too much time with him.
* * *
Morning started out shitty with snow. It could’ve been pretty—all the white fluffy flakes falling into pristine mounds, unmarred by the touch of people—if I didn’t feel like I was walking toward the type of hell even the Love Hovel with all its garish delights couldn’t compare with.
We were so close to the Outpost, I could taste hate and distrust in the air. Or maybe that was just me being a bitch about the snow on my tongue and coating my eyelashes.
The closer we got, the further me and Blondie distanced ourselves.
Seven fateful weeks. Eight hundred kilometers. From Alpha Territory in the southeastern block of the former United States, through the Wilderness on a winding path. Our pit stop at the commune felt like years ago. The Outpost wasn’t situated in any of the Territories, yet it belonged to the InterNations. To the Company. Northwest of that magnificent mountain range people three generations ago called the Appalachians.
Eventually, the path we trod turned into a narrow road cleared of fallen snow. It must’ve been the work of Outpost people, so recent only a thin dusting of the white stuff puffed under our boots, drilling together, Left, left, left right, left…
Underbrush and rubble had long since been bush-hogged. This pathway was well maintained, pointing toward civilization. The kind I now hated, the type I’d have to mold myself into once more.
In about half an hour.
We walked forward, hands linked across the space separating us until the walkway turned into a narrow paved road, salted against ice. Our fingers slipped away, hands falling to our sides. Clinking my Glock, the ring on my finger rang clear as a bell through the drifting white hush.
We approached wicked steel gates looming five meters high. Regulation razor wire, speakers, gun towers, halo lights—all the usual tricked-out accessories—emphasized their evil
presence.
My breaths came faster; my feet slowed to a halt. “Thank you for the ring, baby.”
His smile was so pure. “Promise ring. Remember that.” Shaking the snow from his hair, he started toward me. “Caspar, I—”
The gates groaning inward cut him off.
The sixteen Territory flags all flapping in the wind was the sight I focused on as the gates opened. I didn’t know why they bothered. It was a waste of fabric, if you asked me. They were all the same from the insignia, colors, and of course, the slogo: Regeneration, Veneration, Salvation.
Close-circuit cameras dotted around the compound homed in for our close-ups displayed on the massive data screen bolted to the front of the Outpost building. Even out here in the heart of the Wilderness, you needed your daily mind-feed.
More of a mansion than a bunker, the Outpost itself was a bit too fucking swank for my liking. The building looked white, clean, and corrupt. The centerpiece was a big fat rotunda for big fat CO fuckers to preach their prohibitive publicity from, no doubt. On either side, two wings came forward in blocky marble shoulders, adding to the imposing atmosphere of the building. The architectural crap was kept to a bare minimum and the windows were one-way eyes, always on the lookout.
It had been called Greenbrier Bunker in Old History. Seeing as they’d pretty much bulldozed the green part into the ground, preferring cold concrete to nature, the new name for this secret locale was simply the Brier, as befitted the sweet-ass rumble-wire decorating the barricade. Aka the Outpost, or as I liked to call it—especially seeing all the weapons raised, locked, and loaded—Screwedville.
I finally dropped my sights to the semicircle of soldiers and higher-ups. They represented an odd mix for a firing squad from crisp fatigues to pressed suits to—Jesus Christ——that thorn in my side, the blade to my shoulder, and now the noose around my neck.
Goddamn fucking Kale.
He just had to be unlucky number thirteen, the missing party from the recon unit.
Click, click, click.
That was all the pieces of this cunt of a puzzle coming together. Oh, and the sound of hammers cocked. I scanned over the guns pointed at us. Correction. They were all aimed at me. Turned out I was right to hold on to that last little splinter of suspicion.
