“Hey. It’s okay.”
Casey puts a hand on my arm. My insides crawl with self-disgust and I shake her off.
“It’s not okay. Don’t ask again.”
“But—”
“Never ask again.”
Her eyes fill with tears, then she turns her head away. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll just...” She gestures to her room.
I’m torn. My instinct is to pull away, go back into my cave, but with my old wounds reopened, I need her more than ever. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m terrified of the change.
I go to her. I can’t not choose her. “Scoot over.”
Her eyelashes glisten, but her face opens and she hops to the side, making space for me.
It’s almost... couple-y.
* * *
I’ve been with the guys. Poker. Beer. I can tell the moment I see her that she has something she wants to get off her chest. She’s almost jumping and her whole face has transformed. She looks open and happy like a child on Christmas Eve.
“What’s up with you?” I shrug off my jacket and hang it on the hook, then kneel to untie my boots, one after the other, as I glance up at her.
She gestures to her mouth.
“Yes, you can speak.”
I grin. She has learned.
“Josh called.”
I narrow my eyes, sifting through my memories for a Josh. “Your brother?”
“Mm-hmm! Alex has moved out of state!”
Me and names. New search. I have no idea.
“The guy!”
I still have no clue.
“Dude. The reason I left Florida to begin with.”
Oh.
I... should be happy.
For her.
I should be happy for her. Why does it suddenly feel as if she can’t get out of here fast enough?
“That’s... great. You can go back home, then.”
Her eyes shine like dark opals, excited, relief lighting her features.
“I feel so free all of a sudden. I didn’t even realize how heavy this was.”
“Everything gets twisted up here. You’re so far away from everything. From all the crap.”
“That’s why you like it here? It’s... free?”
“It’s free. It’s a prison.” I shrug, then I pat her on the shoulder, a little cheerier than I feel. “Cool, Keagan. Congrats.”
She holds my gaze, studies me in silence. I think she’ll say more on the matter, but then she twists her lips and turns. “Thanks, Hooper.”
I look at her back as she disappears into her room. I shouldn’t feel uneasy about her sudden eagerness to leave. I’ve fucking told her from the first minute I saw her that she needs to leave. Us getting skin on skin hasn’t changed that.
I’m still standing, dumbfounded in the hallway when she sticks out her head in the door opening, so fucking cute that I could eat her. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll do just that.
“Well, are you coming?” she asks with a mischievous smile.
She doesn’t need to ask me twice.
* * *
The pickups are lined up outside the cantina, waiting for us workers to hitch a ride to the front of the pipeline. We will soon need to move the camp. It’s a massive endeavor that needs to be done every few months as the work progresses.
I tilt my head in a goodbye to Casey. She’ll be riding with another pickup, the first in the line, maintaining a truck somewhere. A couple of vehicles have begun moving. I have my hand on the handle when everything explodes, an invisible hand sends people and vehicles flying and a wall of fire shoots toward us. The roar is deafening and then everything goes silent. At first no one makes a sound. Then the first cry of agony sets off a second, and a third. The pickups are wreckages of twisted metal, and the tool tent has collapsed, flames licking torn tarp. Thick black smoke billows up toward the dark sky, obscuring the stars. My ears ring and when the first shock wears off, I quickly pat down my body to assess any damages. Arms and legs are in place. I ache, but there’s nothing that indicates I’m wounded.
What the fuck happened? What did we even store in there that could explode all by itself?
As I push to my feet and take in the men strewn around me, some getting up, some hollering in pain, and some too still, too quiet, my insides jolt in white-hot fear.
Casey!
I stumble toward where I last saw her as I begin to take stock of the wounded. Red spreads in the snow, people begin to move. I run. Past a boot. I fear to know what’s inside. My training kicks in, years of working as an EMT making me realize I’m needed.
I just have to... It’s selfish as fuck, but I really need to see her and know she’s all right. She’s kneeling by a man, his face bloodied, her hands on his chest, pumping. Her face is wet with tears.
I nod and turn. Beanie comes running toward me as I sink down by the nearest wounded.
“What happened?”
“Get Max! Get every medical equipment you can get your hands on. We need helicopters to evacuate the wounded.” I tear at the jacket, trying to get it open. I need to see why he has trouble breathing.
“What happened?”
“Beanie! Go. Get. Max.”
I look around me as I fight the zipper. I need resources. I need to allocate the men who can stand up to apply tourniquets, stop bleeding, free airways. We need to get people inside, away from the numbing cold. It’s disaster medicine and I need to decide who to try to save and who not to waste time on.
In the corner of my eye I see a flustered Max, huffing as he runs toward me. “What happened?”
The fuck? Why does everyone keep asking me that? I don’t fucking know. I look around me and make a quick calculation.
“We need ambulance helicopters, military helicopters, everything every city and base nearest to us can send.”
Max pants heavily after the run, his face blank, his eyes unfocused.
“Stat!” I roar.
I catch the attention of a couple of men who are standing up. Standing is a good sign, it means they can work. “Prio one is to make sure people have free airways. Prio two is to stop bleeding. Prio three is to get people inside. Get them into the cantina. Go!”
Side by side with everyone who haven’t lost a limb, I make my way through the wounded. It’s heartbreaking to see the dead. Some I have worked with since I came here. I don’t have red, yellow, and green tags to indicate what level of medical attention everyone needs, but I make up a system to open the jacket of the dead, a sign that they will have to wait until we have taken care of everyone else.
The tool tent is still smoldering when the exhausted team gathers in the cantina. There are wounded everywhere. We have lost four men. They have been put in a shed behind Max’s office, side by side, covered with blankets. More will die before the day is over. Evac is on its way, but it will take hours before the first helicopter arrives.
The snow is sooty and bloodied. Shrapnel of metal is spread in a vast radius around the epicenter of the explosion. The smell of burnt flesh has dissipated, but the lingering smoke makes my eyes water.
I’m soaked with sweat and still I shiver violently. It’s the shock that’s catching up.
“You should get inside.”
Casey’s voice makes me turn. I haven’t seen her since right after the explosion. Her jacket looks as messy as the snow and when I look down on myself, I realize that’s the state we’re all in.
“I can’t sit,” I mutter. I’m beyond exhausted, but with the adrenaline coursing through me, I’m too riled up to rest.
She wipes her forehead and then pulls her ski cap further down. “What do you think happened? A gas canister?”
“They don’t explode unless something ignites them.”
“There’s nothing in there that should catch fire spontaneously.”
“We’ll think about that later. I need to go see to my men.” I spin on my heels and head for the cantina. I just needed a breather, but there’s no peace to be had.
My every muscle aches, but my insides ache even worse. The pain is indescribable. These are my people, the ones I’ve spent every waking hour with for the last year and a half. I meet Casey’s eyes across the room. She’s kneeling by Ryder, holding his hand while Jack cuts up his pants, looking for the source of the bloodstain that keeps growing on his pant leg.
Beanie sits on a chair, staring emptily at nothing. He’s in shock, and of no use. I go to fetch him a glass of water and he takes it with both hands, shaking violently, spilling some of the content.
“You did good, man,” I say. I don’t know what else to say. I’m not good with comforting. I could use some myself, to be honest. I look up at Casey again. Every inch of me yearns to feel her, hold her, clutch her to me. It’s going to be a very long day.
When the first transport arrives, we have lost Sam since a couple of hours back. Frantically, desperate for the aid for our wounded, we help load them on the floor of the helicopter. A doctor has come with the chopper, a surgeon in a military uniform. I fire off my reports to him and together we make the heartbreaking choices of who gets to go first. He leaves me with a stash of gauze, antibiotics, and morphine. Our own supplies didn’t last long.
“Hang in there,” he says and pats my back. “You’ve done good. More help is on the way.”
I nod. Numb. I can’t fight the exhaustion now that I know this will soon be over. It’s only the adrenaline that has kept me going, but it’s leaving me and I’m so, so tired.
Night has fallen when there’s finally nothing left to do. A few men are strewn in the cantina: sooty, exhausted, and still riled up and jittery. Some have gone back to their trailers. I doubt any of us will get any sleep tonight. Tomorrow the rest of us will start evacuating. A team from Track Line Corp, their insurance company, and the cops will arrive, and work will be shut down for God knows how long. I have nowhere to go. I don’t know where I’ll be in a couple of days from now.
Casey left a little while ago, shooting me a glance full of pain.
Tomorrow is another day. I won’t sleep tonight, but I fucking need to hold her one last time.
Chapter Eighteen
Casey
I shed my outdoor clothes on the floor in the hallway and leave them where they are, then I fall onto my bed and wrap the comforter around me. My stomach is a tight knot, and images from today play on repeat. Blood. Torn-off limbs. It doesn’t look anything like in the movies. I wish I had never learned that. I can’t unsee all the chunks of human parts. Nausea rises and falls. I dart up and retch over the wastebasket, but nothing comes up. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I stare at the shadows. I haven’t lit any lamps, and there’s only a faint difference between black and near-black. The silence is terrifying. If I make an effort, I can hear the faint buzzing from the tiny fridge, but the distant, ever-present clanking sounds from the front of the pipeline have died.
I don’t know how long I’ve stared at nothing when steps on the front stairs announce the arrival of my trailer mate, my almost-lover, and my almost-friend. Cole.
My heart sinks. He must be so much worse off than me. He’s known these guys since way back. This has been his family, his home.
Cole Hooper was a hero today. He took command. He saved lives. Stopped bleeding, straightened and splinted fractured limbs. He’s a natural leader, and an incredible man. I don’t know why everything went so wrong in his life.
He slams the door shut. Silence. Then he pushes open my door, filling the doorway as a looming shadow, tall, broad, and strong.
“How are you?” I whisper.
“I need to shower,” he says. His voice is darker, different, absent and still acutely, desperately present.
“Me too.”
“Then come.”
I crawl on hands and knees across the bed, entranced, breathless as I reach for him. He pulls me to my feet and into his arms, crushing me to his chest.
“It’s all so fucked,” he groans.
“Come,” I say and break free, taking his hand, pulling him with me to the bathroom.
I flick on the light and turn the knob, getting the water flowing. Cole stands, apathetic, his gaze distant and dark. His hands are dirty with dried blood under his nails and in between his fingers. He doesn’t move.
“Oh, God. Cole.” I unzip his jacket and pull it off his shoulders. He reeks of smoke and a sharp metallic scent. Searching his gaze, looking for any sign of objections, I then proceed with his pants, tossing the outerwear out into the hallway. Closing the door, I let the bathroom steam up, trying to warm us up. I shed my clothes down to the last thread, then pull off his sweater, fighting to get it over his head. Cole barely helps, just stares at me with his empty eyes.
Finally, we’re both naked, and I pull him with me into the shower, under the stream of water, rubbing my hands over his beard, reaching up, threading my fingers through his hair, soaking it, trying to get the soot and blood out. He lowers his gaze to mine and a whole slew of emotions passes across his face, then he pushes me against the wall, his hand between my legs, crushing his mouth against mine. I’m shocked by the sudden intrusion and as he plunges his tongue into my mouth, he thrusts his fingers inside me.
“Mmph,” I say, shooting up to my toes, trying to ease the pressure. I’m not ready. I didn’t expect this.
“Quiet,” he growls. “I need you so fucking much, you have no idea.” With the water streaming down on us, he lowers his head and catches a nipple between his lips, nipping and teasing it hard, as he keeps pumping his fingers in me. I clutch his hair and arch into him as fire licks my insides. My pussy swells, gets slick, accommodates to the forceful intrusion.
I moan and get a hand over my mouth. He shoves my legs apart with a knee in between them, then grabs my thigh and lifts it, pushes it against the wall and lines up his cock. For a moment it rests against my entrance. I hold my breath. Our eyes meet, then he thrusts inside in one rough move. If I had any leverage, I’d double over in shock, need, and from the first stinging pain, but I’m crushed between Cole and the wall as he pulls out then pushes back inside, a deep growl reverberating through his chest. My whimpers mingle with his groans, turning to moans as I adjust, getting slicker.
Cole fucks me, wild, feral, his eyes filled with pain and despair. I clutch my arms around his neck and wrap my legs around his hips, taking him, all of him, letting him have his way with my body. Water pounds from above, Cole thrusts at a punishing pace as his large hands knead and pinch my flesh down to my butt. A finger prods at my asshole, pushing inside with ease. I have no resistance left. When he takes my body, the images from today dissipate. I can’t hold a single thought when he pumps a finger in my ass in pace with his cock pounding my pussy. I whimper, gasp, swallow water, plead and beg.
Leaning his forehead against mine, he stills for a moment. “I’m taking your ass.”
My insides jolt and a frightened ‘no’ crosses my mind, but never makes it to my lips. I’m heated jelly in his arms, liquefied and moldable. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want him, when I didn’t want him to use me and make me his in every possible way.
I can’t quell the whimper that escapes me when Cole lifts me off his cock with ease into his massive arms, spreading me wide, pulling my ass cheeks apart. I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself for the intrusion, but then we shift and lean to the side. I bury my face against his chest, rocking with him as he moves. When his hand finds my tightly clenched hole again, it’s slick with something oily and a sweet scent of strawberries fill the room. Circling his finger around my anus, he then slides it inside with ease, pumping it in and out before he adds a second, spreading me open.
“You won’t,” I whisper. Not knowing if it’s really the truth. I already know I’ll hurt, maybe not physically, but he will break my heart. It’s already happening. I’m clinging on for dear life to the last few moments with him, no matter what they entail.
Then I have no more coherent thoughts when he thrust his fingers in my ass, deeper, harder. It’s as if everything stills for a moment when he shifts and pulls out, replacing his fingers with the thick head of his cock.
“I’m so fucked,” he groans. “I’m such a fuck-up, but I can’t—”
I cry out as he lowers me on his erection. I have no leverage. He controls my every move, how heavy I sink down, how rough he thrusts up. My breaths come in short gasps as he spears me, mercilessly filling me and I clutch around his neck, tearing at his hair, biting down on his shoulder as I pant and moan.
“I can’t stay—” Thrust. “Away.” Thrust. “Fuck!”
“Then—” I gasp, “don’t.”
“You don’t know what you’ve done.” He slams into me, harder, rougher, clamps his hand around my throat, tighter, increasing his pace.
I mewl, helpless in his rough embrace.
“Tell me you want me,” he pants.
“I want you,” I cry.
“I’m so fucking stupid.”
“No, you’re not. You’re amazing. I lo—” I bite down on the last word. No, I can’t. That’s not what we are. We’re not lovers. We’re something else. I just wish I could make him see how amazing he is.
“Don’t,” he snarls as his pace turns into a brutal, relentless ravaging of my body. He takes. I give. But everything about him, physically and mentally, rubs me the right way. As his groans turn to near-feral growls and he finally roars his release, and as I feel him pulsate inside me, my insides tense into a tight coil and then I explode with him. It’s a dark, all-consuming, ferocious orgasm that pulls me into a black void of near unconsciousness. I sob and pant. Inhaling water, I cough and sputter. If he didn’t hold me up, I’d buckle and fall.
Commanding Casey Page 15