by Jaymin Eve
Dylan shifted his lips to my neck and sucked on my flesh there, marking me in a way he'd never attempted before. Any other time, I'd have spiraled into panic that Blake would see, that he'd punish me, but in the heat of the moment, I didn't care. Blake could get fucked; I was going to run. The second I got my chance, before leaving camp, I was running. He'd never see me again; he'd never hurt me again.
And Dylan would help me. Of that, I was sure.
"Dylan!" I screamed, my orgasm exploding through my pussy. My head tipped back and my muscles tightened through my whole damn body as I came.
"Fuck me, you're so gorgeous," he groaned, waiting patiently as my inner walls clenched around him, fluttering with my seemingly never-ending climax. His lips moved over my throat, kissing and sucking as he went. "I want your mouth, Brooke."
I groaned but nodded eagerly. A moment later, he was on his feet with me on my knees in front of him. My whole body felt loose and relaxed, my core still throbbing from my orgasm, and I eagerly parted my lips to take his cock.
"Goddamn, that's perfect," Dylan muttered, staring down at me as I swallowed his dick. I could taste myself on his silken flesh, and it only served to turn me on more. The fact that he could give me such intense, mind-blowing pleasure when all I'd ever known before him was pain...
"Fuck yeah, just like that, baby," Dylan growled, his huge hand grabbing a fistful of my hair and his hips bucking forward. My throat ached as I took him deeper, my hand pumping his lower shaft in unison with my mouth, but I could sense he wasn't done yet.
For a few minutes, he let me suck him off. Or rather, he fucked my mouth. But then he used his grip on my hair to gently coax me back to my feet.
"I need to hear you come again," he confessed, pushing me back onto the bed, then flipping me over onto all fours. His strong hands gripped my hips, and he pulled me back against him as the tip of his cock pressed against my pussy. "Will you scream for me this time, Brooke baby? Will you come on my dick again?"
I just moaned, not confident I was even capable of words as he pushed back into me. Fuck me, he was huge. Luckily, I was wetter than a damn slip-and-slide, and within moments he was fucking me again with a ferocity that made my eyes water—in the best kind of way.
It didn't take long before I was doing exactly what he'd asked for. I came hard, bucking on his dick, which pushed him over the edge into his own release a moment later. He pulled out swiftly, coming on my lower back with a low grunt and heavy exhale. Then we collapsed on his bed in a sticky tangle of limbs.
As we lay there together, neither of us speaking, a weird sense of determination filled my veins. One thing I was quickly coming to realize, something Dylan was helping me to understand, was that broken things could be fixed.
I didn't have to remain broken forever. And I didn't want to.
Maybe I should tell Dylan everything after all. He could help me disappear.
14
The rest of the night was like a chapter from a romance novel. We showered together, and Dylan washed my hair for me, soaping me all up, then getting me dirty all over again.
We fell asleep well after midnight, and I knew the next day of camp would be all the more painful for it. There was no way in hell I'd accept any special consideration from Dylan either, so I would just need to grin and bear it.
That’d be easier to do now that I wasn't trembling in fear and anxiety around the camp leader. Nope, now I just trembled with arousal. Dammit.
"Stop looking at me like that," I scolded him as I buttoned up my shirt the next morning.
He just smirked. "Like I wanna make you late for forest survival skills this morning?"
I glared. "Exactly like that." I turned back to the mirror to check my outfit, then groaned when I spotted the dark marks on my neck. "Dammit, Dylan!"
He just chuckled—the big fucker—and pulled on a pair of dark gray cargo pants. Damn, that was a good look when he had no shirt on. All military and shit.
I took my shirt off again and swapped it for a high-neck top, something to cover the damn hickeys he'd left like he was a damn teenager, not a twenty-three-year-old billionaire CEO.
Wow. That sounded so implausible when I put it like that. Then again, Delta didn't seem to operate in the "normal" world with the rest of us, so what the fuck did I know?
"Come on," he said, brushing my hair back to kiss me gently on the lips. "Let's get to breakfast. Today is a rough one, and there won't be any lunch. You'll need to fill up this morning."
I cringed. "Good to know." Now that he mentioned it, I was really hungry. I guessed a whole shitload of fucking did tend to build a bit of an appetite.
He held my hand as we left the cabin but dropped it as we came closer to the dining hall. A flicker of hurt zapped through me, but I quickly shook it off. He wasn't trying to be a dick; he was trying to save me from the negative attention of other campers and guides. It was one thing to be accused of sleeping around; it was a whole different thing to present hard evidence.
This was exactly what I would have wanted him to do this morning, so these hurt feelings could just fuck right off. My emotions were all over the place lately, and it was going to be an issue. Escaping from Blake would require a level head, quick thinking, and no mess. Why had my life never felt messier?
Dylan steered me toward the buffet, giving me one of the larger plates in his not-so-subtle reminder that I wasn't eating enough for his satisfaction. Today I didn't mind though—I was fucking starving with my stomach rumbling every couple of seconds to remind me.
Everything looked fresh and delicious, so I wasted no time piling my plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, grilled tomato, and lots of breakfast potatoes, because they were crispy and salty and... perfection.
Dylan, who had a body like a professional athlete, took almost as much food, but he'd gone heavier on the scrambled eggs and lighter on the bacon. I mean, the guy worked out a lot, clearly; he'd run every one of the obstacle courses without faltering. So he could probably eat what he wanted and never gain a pound. I, on the other hand, looked at doughnuts and they attached to my hips. Hence Blake keeping me on a diet since around the day I first discovered carbs.
Dylan stayed close to me, and I could have sworn I felt a light brush across the back of my neck as I walked to the table. But when I turned, he had both hands on his plate. There was a wicked grin on his face though, and I narrowed my eyes at the sight.
That perfect fucking smile.
When we reached the table, I sat and eagerly unrolled the cutlery and napkin provided. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been this hungry, and clearly, a night of fucking was exactly what I needed to stimulate an appetite. I didn’t know what to go with first, but the bacon just looked so good, so it had to be the right choice. I almost drooled at the thought of the salty goodness, and when I bit down, I closed my eyes so I could truly appreciate the full experience.
Dylan chuckled, and as my eyes opened, my mouth filled with saliva. And not in a good way. "Ugh," I said with a cough, before I launched for the napkin and spat the entire lot into it. "The bacon is terrible." I knocked some out of Matthew's hand—he was on the other side of me.
Everyone stared at me blankly for a beat, and I looked around. "Seriously. It tastes like off fish or something. Did someone check the expiration date?"
When I turned to Dylan, he was staring at me with eyebrows drawn. "Our meat is flown in fresh daily from the top slaughterhouse in the state. There's no way it's bad."
He reached for my plate, grabbing up the bacon I'd bitten into and had dropped in disgust. Jaws dropped around the table as he bit into it, and I swallowed down a gag as the memory of eating it hit me.
My appetite was gone, and now I just felt nauseous.
"It's fine, Brooke," he said after he ate the whole thing. "Tastes great."
I looked at my plate again, wondering if I was getting sick or something. My throat did feel a little tender when I swallowed, but I'd been putting that down to a night
fucking and not refueling. "Yeah. Maybe I'm just not feeling bacon today," I said quietly, hoping, now that I'd made a stupid scene, everyone would forget it and just go back to what they'd been doing. "Never mind."
The guides started to eat again, but Dylan was still staring at me. "Are you anorexic?" He asked it so quietly that no one could have heard, but it still hit me hard in the chest.
"I'm not," I said shortly. "Not by choice anyway. But I've been regularly deprived of food over the years, so I'm sure I'm somewhat malnourished."
This conversation was making me sick now, so I shoved my plate away and stood. "If you'll excuse me, I think I need a minute in the bathroom."
I glared down at Dylan, even though, technically, he'd done nothing wrong. It was probably a fair question to ask someone who was acting like I was. But I couldn't explain why the bacon tasted bad. It just did.
"Brooke." He reached for my hand, but I jerked it away before he could touch me.
"I'm not going to throw up," I hissed between my teeth. "I don't even have any food in my system. And I'm not bulimic either, okay!"
Storming off, I didn't look back, too determined to get out of here so I could have a minute to myself. Again with the randomness of my emotions, but now I couldn't even enjoy food in peace.
Thankfully, the bathroom was empty, and there was a lock on the main door I decided to use… because fuck them all. I crossed to the sinks, wanting to wash my hands and face to feel more refreshed. Staring at my very pale face in the mirrors, I knew Dylan was right about one thing: I had to eat. My stomach was still swirling with nausea after the bacon, though, and it felt like if I did eat, I'd prove myself a liar and vomit everywhere.
But I loved to eat. I wasn't anorexic or bulimic; fuck, I smuggled extra bits of whatever food I could find into my room and Mary did the same. It was hard because Blake had everything controlled through a computer system that inventoried our pantry, but we managed to get a little extra for me most weeks.
The bacon had to be bad. There was no other explanation, but... Dylan had eaten it. Could my taste buds change that quickly? What even caused taste buds to change...?
Maybe it was a virus and this was an early sign.
Leaning forward on the sink, my boobs ached a little when they pushed against my bra, and it reminded me of that sharp jab of pain with Dylan earlier. My body was fucking betraying me, aching and… Holy fucking god. No!
In a blinding epiphany, a new possibility hit me.
My period was late this month. Only by a couple of weeks, and that was fairly normal for me during stressful times, but combine it with all the other shit happening... What were the chances of another reason that could explain it all? Could I actually be pregnant?
I mean, it would explain a lot of my symptoms, and Dylan wasn't always the best at pulling out. But we'd never had a scare before now. It had to have happened on the last night we were together, and so much of that was a blur of pleasure and sadness because I’d thought it was our last time.
Fuck. It couldn't be that. I refused to believe it because that would change every fucking thing. I couldn't run while pregnant, but I also couldn't bring a child into the world while constantly looking over my shoulder for Blake.
Would Dylan step up and be there? I mean, this was a hell of a commitment, and I had no idea if he'd try buy me off and pay for an abortion or insist I have the child. Either way, it was a hot fucking mess, and I was not in any way—mentally, financially, or physically—ready for it.
"Brooke!" he banged on the door as he called my name. "Are you okay in there?"
I jumped, panic only making the nausea worse, and when I dashed into the stall, I did exactly what I’d been hoping I wouldn’t: I threw up.
15
There was hardly anything in my stomach, so I pulled myself together quickly and raced back to the sink to wash my face and rinse my mouth out. Dylan banged again the moment the water came on.
“Brooke,” he warned.
Goddammit. The absolute last person in the world I wanted to see right now was the possible father of my maybe child. A huge part of me held out hope this was a virus and that my period would make itself known at the most inopportune moment—like the day I wore white pants.
I should go to the cabin and put white pants on right now, just to encourage it to appear and prove that my wild assumption was nothing more than just a bad theory brought on by lack of sleep and not enough food.
"I'm busting through this door in three fucking seconds, Brooklyn."
He would too.
Giving my pale face one final look in the mirror, I drew on years of discipline and schooled my features. Not even Dylan fucking Grant would weasel this secret out of me, not until I knew for sure, because there was still a very large possibility it wasn’t a baby, just a nasty virus that gave me tender boobs and a weak stomach.
Totally plausible.
The door burst open, making the lock dangle uselessly just as I was crossing to open it. Dylan’s eyes were like ice chips again as he ran that scrutinizing gaze across me. "Don't lock the door on me," he bit out.
He moved closer, and I fought the urge to wipe at my mouth and make sure there was no evidence of my sickness. "Yeah, sorry, must have accidentally hit that when I came in."
We both knew I was a liar, but he didn't call me out on it. "Today's trials are about to start. Hunting. Don't you think you should have some food?"
My stomach swirled, but he wasn't wrong. "Yeah, maybe some toast. I should be able to eat that fast enough."
He crossed his arms, staring me down. Clearly, he wasn't going to leave me alone until I did, so I abandoned my attempt to get my shit together in private and just stormed out the door. I expected all fucking eyes to be on us when we emerged because this was starting to become a bad habit—Dylan barging in on me in the bathroom—but the room was nearly empty and the few people still here were busy in the kitchen. A burst of relief hit me hard.
Nice to have something go my way today.
Dylan steered me toward the kitchen, where he requested some toast, and then, when it arrived, I ate it with just a tiny spread of butter and chased it down with a glass of water. It tasted somewhat normal, and I felt better afterward.
"I might be coming down with a virus," I murmured to Dylan as we started to walk from the dining hall. "My throat feels a little funny, and I think that's why the bacon tasted like shit."
He surprised me by reaching out and pressing his hand to my forehead. I almost jumped out of my skin. "You do feel a touch warm," he said, his fingers lingering longer than needed to test my temperature. "Just do your best to keep up today, and if you feel worse, wave me over."
"Thanks," I said.
Even though we were outside, Dylan still took a second to brush his hand across my lower back in an almost caring gesture. My heart pounded hard, and I was so much more invested in him than I had ever admitted to before. It had been six weeks of trying to forget and move past this relationship, and now I was back to the beginning. Or worse.
"Is this kinda weird to you?" I asked, drawing his full attention. "This place we're existing in? What do you want from me, Dylan?"
And how much would you freak out to have a baby on the way? Asking for a friend, of course.
Up ahead, the others had come into view, and I could hear Matthew giving out instructions. But my focus was solely on the man beside me.
"I don't have answers for you, Brooke, but I can tell you this... We have something here to explore. I think we owe it to ourselves to at least give that a shot. Don't you think?"
A shuddered breath escaped me. "I'm afraid of getting hurt."
Why I was being so honest, I had no idea. Could I blame that on the maybe baby, too?
He stopped me, hand cupping my face as his thumb stroked across my lips. "No risk, no reward."
Then he pressed his lips to mine, and before my head could stop spinning, he was gone, long-ass legs eating up the distance between us and the m
ain group. No one was looking our way, thankfully, so I was able to stumble along as well and join the back of them without anyone noticing.
"If you're in a survival situation, learning what you can eat and how to build a fire and hunt can save your life," Matthew continued. "So today, you will work in teams of two, each with a supervisor." He clapped his hands together. "Grab a pack; it will have the basic essentials so we can get started."
The guys, chatting loudly, moved toward where the bags must be stacked. I couldn't see anything from my spot, and since I didn’t have a single friend in this group, outside of a couple guides, I figured I'd just wait and team up with whoever was left.
Only it turned out there wasn't an even number of us here still, with more than a few having failed out and been sent home. So, by the time the guys were teamed up, there was only one pack left. Mine. And no one to team up with.
"Looks like you're with me, B," Ben said, popping up beside me. Dude was stealthy, which was probably the reason he was a guide here.
Crossing my arms, I shook my head. "Am I supposed to have the help of a guide? Are you giving me special treatment because I'm a chick?"
He held both hands up on either side of him, face drawn in mock horror. "How dare you suggest such a thing. We are a professional establishment. You're going to find it's even harder since you'll be doing ninety percent of everything yourself."
His lips twitched, and a small laugh burst from me. "You're an idiot."
He gave a shallow bow like he was proud of his new title. Then he waved his hand toward the remaining backpack. "Ladies first."
I let loose another snort of laughter, surprised that I actually felt a little better. My stomach wasn't churning as I started to walk across the rocky ground, and it wasn't until I caught sight of Dylan's broad shoulders that I remembered the possible shitshow of my life.