by Rie Warren
Fuck it. After last night with Blondie, I was smug as hell.
Blondie. Obviously my inner guard dog was making big old puppy eyes at the man, trusting him enough to let my back down. Make that surprise number whatever, but who was counting anymore?
I didn’t see him when I rolled over. Good thing, considering I’d almost gone ballistic on a pack of vociferous, oh-so-scary feathered friends. What I came face-to-face with was flowers, of all the goddamn things. A bundle of those blue ones from down by the creek were right next to me, where Blondie had slept in my arms.
A token from Mother Nature I’d been starved of in Alpha.
“Mornin’.”
His husky whisper punched me up straight, the delicate blooms all but strangled in my big fist. His hair was wet and loose, his eyes so frigging soft. In his hands he carried a couple plates of food. Shit that smelled heavenly.
My voice was rusty from disuse when I returned, “Morning.”
Nodding at my hand, he smiled. “They’re called forget-me-nots.”
Of-fucking-course they are.
Chapter Six
Figured it wasn’t bullets that got me into trouble. No, it was those forget-me-nots. When Blondie wasn’t looking, I’d flattened them between the soles of my spare boots after carefully wrapping them in one of his fancy napkins.
Jesus.
I spent a lot of time thinking about that damn dog I didn’t own, and how if I did, I wouldn’t have spewed all that truth about my mom and pop and Erica. Then again, I wouldn’t have woken with Blondie’s pillow held to my chest and the singsong of birds—cardinals, he called the scarlet-feathered ones—instead of the usual fugue of my nightmares.
I was supposed to regret having laid all my pain out in the open for Blondie to witness, but I didn’t. It’d been a long time since I’d spoken about my sister and then only with Liz because the woman knew how to keep a secret. It was those rare moments that had cemented our friendship, along with our daily target practice sessions.
We’d sat side by side on the cross-country route from Epsilon to Alpha, when I’d started out at the bottom of the Corps food chain, sharing a hard bench under a canvas awning. We’d both ignored the jokes of the other recruits and the jostles of the road.
One day we planted asses outside on a pit stop, raking the stench of body odor from our noses and stretching the cramps of enclosure from our muscles, when she said, “Penned up again, huh?”
Chewing on a piece of grass, I’d looked at her short cap of hair and shrewd eyes. “Yup.”
“You don’t say much.”
“Neither do you.”
She held her fist up for a bump. I hit it hard, waiting for her to wince. She blew across her knuckles. “Don’t hold back or anything.”
“Not a problem.”
The clouds wandering across a limitless sky had put me back on the shore of the northern ocean with my sis when Liz mentioned, “Never thought this was for me, but my dad got offed by Nomads and my mom went suicide right after. I ended up an instant orphan. The Corps gotta be some kind of family, right?”
I’d repeated the Company credo by heart. “Regeneration, Veneration, Salvation.”
“You believe that?”
“What’s not to like about a perfectly tight slogo?” I grinned.
She’d looked at a group of Corpsmen with their jocks out, seeing who could hit a seed head with piss, but she was paying real close attention to me. “What’s your story?”
“Same as you. Nothing else for me. No other redemption in this world.”
Liz was my junior, tight in her aim, ready for a fight, relentless when needed and not just a hard-core grunt. When I gave the bad news to a civilian family, she did the cleanup. I’d seen her comfort everyone from rebels to lifers in the Corps.
She’d consoled me too. Not in a let’s-exchange-spit way and not in a girly gotta-have-you way either. The best thing about that woman was her heart, and she didn’t show that to anyone. Liz kept her feelings tucked away, but even out of sight they ran deep. It came out in actions, not emotions.
The time she gave me robo-fish was the first time I stepped into her apartment, following a trail of feminine perfume through stark hallways as bleak as my place until I reached her bedroom. Brightly colored with worldly comforts, some of which were smuggled items, her room was a hidden haven full of pillows and lit candles, artwork hanging on every wall. She’d backed me out, shutting the door behind us. “Pretend you never saw that.”
That was our motto, right?
Three days after the forget-me-not fiasco, driving farther into the Wilderness, I still hadn’t received any coms from Liz.
Blondie must’ve been inside my head, a space already crammed with too many people. “You’re worried.”
I composed my face, becoming a blank image. “Better?”
“No.” Touching the corner of my mouth, he drawled, “What are ya’ thinkin’ about?”
I placed his hand back where it belonged, on his side of the Cruiser. “How about all those people we left to rot back in Alpha, for starters?”
“I wouldn’t worry about them.” He kept his eyes on the unfriendly woods we slowly drove through, tree limbs and leaves slapping the windshield.
“The fuck’s that mean? They have no water!” I hit the brakes and turned to him. “You don’t give a shit about the casualties of this war, do you?”
Dragging his eyes back to me, he snapped his teeth together, the muscle in his jaw bulging. “You think I’m nothin’ but a monster anyway.”
“Moot fucking point.” My finger stabbed his chest with every word. Damn right I did. Part of me did. Sometimes. But, Christ, I was the same as him, working to keep a repressive regime in power. Even out here, I was proving myself to be a grade-A hypocrite and a dickhead to boot.
I pushed the driver’s seat back another hitch, glaring ahead.
“Fine. Believe what you gotta. But don’t think you can keep getting away with playin’ me two ways. You want me; you hate me. And I’m the one head fuckin’ you?” His arms crossed over his chest presented me with a stalemate.
He was turning me inside out. A roiling knot invaded my gut. “Liz. She’s the one I’m worrying about most.”
He braved a tentative touch to the back of my hand. “Your second?”
“She’s not just my second, and I’m not talking about her.”
A flicker of hurt dimmed his eyes and pressed his mouth closed. He snatched his hand back.
“What? No snappy comeback?”
His answer was low. “Not this time, Commander.”
Fuck. I hate this. This…this…feeling bullshit. At the start of the journey, I’d had no reason to apologize to him. There’d been nothing between us, except that very first top-mark blow job after months of wanting. Now there were names, nicknames, hell, sometimes there were even endearments when we were bedding down for the night. This shit scared me.
I drove; he sat.
I sulked; he moved next to me until our forearms rubbed. I clasped his hand in mine, making sure to slide my fingers all the way between his, rubbing the hill of his palm just the way he liked it.
I relaxed into the ride the very moment he started to whistle, tapping his heavy signet ring in time on the armrest.
During the day, I tried to maintain my distance as the kilometers from Alpha grew. The bogs became bayous. Through low-lying ground, the jumble of tree roots, the sharp smell of soil and slow-moving water, we pushed farther into no-man’s-land.
Nomads’ land, to be very fucking precise.
When the way became impenetrable, Blondie would jump out to cut through the clog of prickles and brambles, slashing at interlocking tree limbs that looked like they’d been hugging one another for a century or more. He always found the route, always on the other side of some wild scree.
The first time he’d ambled to the back and pulled out his badass machete, I almost jumped him on the hood of the truck. It was one hell of a weapon, wield
ed by one hell of a man.
I’d waited until we set up camp that night to pounce on him.
My latest battle had nothing to do with the Company, the rebels, or any other faction. It was out-and-out warfare between my head and my heart. Keeping it cool during daylight, versus nighttime, when I unleashed my passion for him.
So far our nighttime escapades outranked everything else. Sundown found us scrambling, desperately tearing at clothes, gasping, grunting, lunging, coming. Committing every single Company sexual crime except outright fucking, because I was saving myself for marriage apparently. Though, knowing he’d lusted after me for months made it damn near impossible to shut down the sheer intensity of desire I felt for him. Add in our solo vacation from rules, I was determined to make full use of our downtime.
Turned out the Wilderness was a lot more hostile than me.
Blondie stood on a shallow bank on the fifth night. In the dim lighting, I saw he’d tossed off his boots and socks, working his toes into the cool mud. His shirt was sent the same way as his footwear, his fatigues slung low so his skintight white briefs caught on the rounds of his ass. Shoulders curling inward, his arms worked, and he sighed.
He’d pushed his pants below his cock. He was getting himself off.
Fuck.
I left the fireside, stalking beside him. He was bathed by the orange glow of the moon, his erection strapped to his abdomen, the veins a highway to the darker head.
Releasing his bottom lip from his teeth, he glanced at me with half-mast eyes. “No baths tonight.”
“I’ll clean you up.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely.” My voice lowered, my cock was turgid. I needed to get my hands and mouth on him pronto. Starting with firm laps all down his torso, I kissed his nipples until they puckered tight and hot for a nibble of my teeth.
“Sweet hell, yes, honey,” he whispered.
My fingers took over the torture of flicking and twisting the satiny nubs until his hips rolled and his head kicked back. I tickled his sinewy sides with my tongue, then wet the soft curls that sliced through his rippling abs, following to the money spot where his glorious cock grew from a base of dark blond hair. I bit near the top of his dick, right on the spot he was widest. If he was ever inside me, Jesus, he’d stretch me more than any man ever had.
“Ahh, fuck yeah. Your mouth is so hot. Suck me. Suck me hard.” His head was thrown back, but his eyes focused on me.
My palm slid up the velvety weight and all his veins throbbed. Trapping him against his stomach, I soothed, “Shhh,” before taking one ball into my mouth.
“Oh yeah!” Thighs trembling under my hand, he chanted, “Yeah, baby, yeah. That’s better…That’s…”
He lost his voice when I moved my head further between his legs, my short hair rubbing the root of his cock. I lapped and licked and suckled his other sac until they were both shiny pieces of fruit I rolled inside my fingers. When I let his cock go, it stood in a broad arch, distended, glistening, moving in a tempting dance.
Blondie’s hands found my face, pulling me away. Looking down over his rugged body, his breath chugging, he said all breathless and sexy. “I need to be in your mouth.”
“Not yet.” I slapped his ass with a smart blow, smiling when he hissed and a droplet of precome drizzled from the tiny lips of his dick’s slit.
Now that, I was having. I scooped it onto the tip of my tongue, roughly turned him around, and went to work on all those bundles of muscles of his back. He flexed and groaned and swayed into my fingers, my mouth, crying out when I hit the sensitive joints of his spine. My forefinger trailed the line of sweat trickling down to his ass. Those goddamn beautiful globes fit into my hands, and sure enough the twin dimples at the base of his back were just begging for my tongue. Diving in to lap and lick, I gripped his crescent-shaped buttocks hard.
He reared away on a moan and thrust back with a guttural, “Oooh, your hands, man.”
I swatted him again, and he shivered. I made wet paths all over his rear until I reached the sweet divide. His ass was so fucking tight, I had to squeeze my tongue into that steamy clasp, and that was exactly where I wanted my cock the next time I came.
“Mmm.” I hummed when the tip of my tongue traced the warm line that led to his gorgeous pink bud. I didn’t use my hands to spread him, enjoying the way his ass clutched my tongue, grinning when he swiveled his hips to get me deeper.
His hands fell to his cock. I captured his wrists and cuffed them behind his back. With one, two, and three stabs against his starred flesh—reveling in the taste of man and musk, sweet and dark—I ordered, “You. Don’t. Touch.”
His fingers curled, his hips wiggled, and he gasped when my stiffened tongue dove inside. “Then you better, ’cause I need to come, Caspar.”
Removing my face from the sexy heaven of his ass, I swiveled him around. “Then you better ask me politely.”
He stole his dick across my cheek, down my chin, up my throat. I strained backward. His hands quivered before he yanked me to his balls, but I held off, lashing a quick spiral of my tongue to the throbbing length. For damn sure I wasn’t gonna suck anything until he said please in that low southern drawl.
“I could just fuck my hand.”
I leaned back. “Go for it.”
His fist around his dick, he pleaded in a husky tone, “Fuck. Please, Caspar, you’re killin’ me.”
My hand wrapped around his, I took his long, leaking shaft into my mouth, tonguing under his deep red head, closing my lips around him, pushing my throat down until he pulsed all the way inside.
He shouted to the stars, widening his stance. I slurped back, leaving a wash of saliva all down his cock, laughing when he grunted, “More.”
I opened my mouth, watching his face collapse in pained arousal when he pushed himself inside. “When are you gonna fuck me, big man?”
My face was turned to the side, the heat of his cockhead stretching my cheek in a manly caress. Fingers tenderizing his ass, slipping down and in, I let go with a rough pinch. “You’re not ready for me.”
“The hell I ain’t.” Pushing onto my fingertip until it squeezed inside him, he pitched forward, catching himself on my shoulders.
My finger plunged inside that clenching passage, my throat impaled by him. It took only one more deep suck before he blasted inside my mouth. His fingers convulsed in my hair as his ejaculate washed down my throat.
With a final press, his muscles released, and his mouth opened on a shout. “Yes, Caspar! Swallow it.”
I rose to my feet and kissed his plump lips, stroking my tongue inside, thrusting my hips when he bit the tip and soothed it gently. I burned my mouth against the whiskers on his chin, kissed his dimples, and put my cheek to the soft razor-shorn side of his hair, holding the longer strands in my hand.
I admitted against his ear, “I’m not ready to fuck you.”
My shirt shredded in his fists, he shoved my pants aside, running the pads of his fingertips from my scalp to my ass and back up again.
He turned his head and took my lips. “What do you need, honey?”
Slamming my eyes shut over his endearment, I croaked, “Go to the truck and bend over for me.”
His pupils dilated, he flushed.
“Now,” I demanded.
I took zero time following him as he bent over, as I’d ordered. I could get used to this.
Just once, I swiped my hands down his back, raising goose bumps.
Braced on his arms, all his muscle showed: his big biceps, his flexed forearms, the fan of sinew spreading from his spine. “Very nice, lover.”
He sucked in a breath and arched his back.
“Even better.” I stepped into the lee of his legs until my cock pointed skyward against his ass. “Not gonna fuck you yet, but here’s an idea about what it’ll be like when I do.”
I nipped the nape of his neck and parted his ass cheeks. When I slowly let them go, his rear hugged my dick. I was so swollen, a glaze of r
elease made his cushioned home slick for my taking. From the balls of my feet to my thighs, I rammed between his tight, clenched ass over and over again. “But you’re gonna be good and wait, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Yes!”
Fuck, he was hard again. The pump of his hips backward and forward timed with mine; his hand was at work down in front. Our sacs slapped loudly while my dick sawed up and down, and my head was so sensitive, it was gushing more come every time I crested between the hot domes of his ass, never penetrating.
“Good. Now I’m gonna come all over this ass.” I grasped his hips, hauling him with me until I balanced both of us on my thighs, gritting out, “Aw fuck!” I exploded in a pounding rhythm, sandwiched against his ass.
Each furious lash of come made me groan and made Blondie jerk. Placing my palm on his back as his body seized in another climax, I lowered his chest to the truck, coating him in another white whip.
Then I covered him with my body, the hot wetness clinging between us, running down his ass to my cock. His skin was warm from my slaps, his back sticky from me.
My mark was all over him.
I loved that.
It took a good few minutes to come around from seeing stars to seeing the actual stars, bright in the black sky above us. It sounded so quiet after our shouts and gasps and yells. Quiet, like a big blanket had fallen over us.
We heaped together and I groaned, “I’m fucking wiped.”
“Mmm, me too, big man. You just…” He rubbed his face over my hair, whispering, “That was amazin’.”
All my damn muscles relaxed from the day’s rage against myself, and I smiled. “Yep.” Steadying myself, I hefted Blondie into my arms, carrying him toward the tent.
“The hell, Caspar?”
“Figured it’s the considerate thing to do, since you let me come all over your backside. And I’m just letting you recover so you’ve got enough energy to bring me some food later.”