Born to Be Wylde (5 page)

K
EN
got out of the tub gingerly. His body ached as if someone had shoved something up his ass, which was exactly what had happened. His penis was still hard, but when he looked at Wylde, he took in the slack face, the glazed eyes.

Compassionate, Ken took his hand, tugging him from the water. “Come on. You can’t sleep in there.”
“Mmmmm.” Wylde didn’t react as Ken patted him dry.
“I can’t believe I almost forgot the condom before I let you…. I mean, I’m clean, but—Oh God, Wylde, who am I with you? I’m not myself. I should… I should wipe the floor.”
He was trembling.
Wylde pulled him close and nuzzled his neck.
Ken shivered in response.
Wylde took his offered hand like a child, and Ken led him into the bedroom, leaving water on the floor along with a crumpled linen bath sheet, which was most unlike him.
He pulled back the quilt on his platform bed, making room for Wylde, fluffing a pillow for Wylde, but then Wylde climbed on top of him.
A moment later, Wylde snored.
Ken listened to him, stroking his back. His ass was sore and he was unfulfilled, but if Wylde had wanted to ram into him again, he would have opened himself.
“I love you,” he whispered his secret.
His answer was another snore, Wylde’s bigger body crushing him into the bedding, one hairy leg thrown possessively over Ken’s, his long hair covering them both like a silken blanket. It was just like it had been in the cave. He’d been possessed again.
Lost in that hair, in those muscled arms, Ken closed his eyes. He could hear the slight sounds of his cabin settling, the breeze off the ocean making the wood flex, water dripping from the roof…. Now he would sleep.

K
EN
drove his official vehicle onto a gravel shoulder in the middle of a desolate stretch of his patrol route. His heart was pounding. He gripped the steering wheel and looked at Wylde, who was sitting beside him, who had in fact insisted on accompanying him this morning on his first day back on the job.

Sweat ran down the channel of his spine. He cleared his throat. “Here. It was here I found her.”
Wylde’s blue eyes were troubled. His hair was pulled back in a charcoal ribbon, one that Ken had lying on his bamboo dresser, almost as if he’d bought it as the perfect accessory for Wylde.
He remembered how they’d woken up together and they both had been too shy to talk about the night before… and he’d taken out a comb and stroked it through Wylde’s long hair, holding his gaze… and then they were kissing, and they’d have done more than that, but Ken had to get back to work.
“Yes. I found you here. You were cold, bruised.” Wylde swallowed and his eyes flashed. “I used to watch you. I thought you were cute, but you’d never….” He shrugged. “And then I found you inside a pit dug in the ground, halffull of water.”
“Wylde,” Ken breathed. So it wasn’t just a nightmare for him, coming back here, it was also difficult for his new friend.
“You cried when I lifted you in my arms.” Wylde closed his eyes tightly. “I had to make you safe.”
Heart pounding, Ken bowed his head. “It was raining that day, heavily. I could have drowned. He beat me and then he left me to die.”
Wylde’s fingers covered Ken’s on the steering wheel.
“Just… give me a moment.” Ken wiped a hand over his chin. “It’s a cliché when the cop returns to the scene where he nearly died, and….” His voice cracked. “And it’s all macho action movie from then on, you know?”
“I don’t know,” Wylde said.
Ken laughed. “No, you wouldn’t. And you don’t have expectations I’m supposed to live up to. I don’t have to be a macho cop or a serene Asian man.”
“You’re serene?” Wylde’s brow rose, since Ken had fussed before leaving his cabin that morning, cleaning the bathroom, making the bed… but Wylde hadn’t commented, as if he understood the ritual was grounding.
He’d sat on Ken’s bed and watched him dust and straighten things around him. Ken felt stupid thinking about it now, but it had felt like his house was out of order. In fact, he knew it was because he’d taken a lover into his bedroom for the first time.
Wylde was what was out of order.
Wylde got out of Ken’s marked SUV and came around to the driver’s side. He stood there, looking in gravely at Ken, and Ken had the feeling he’d wait there all day. He was truly here for Ken, solid.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Ken climbed out of his SUV, brushing a crease in his khaki uniform. “What do you do? In the real world, I mean,” he asked. “I shouldn’t make assumptions that you are merely a mountain man or something.”
“I own a spa,” Wylde said. “Called Wylde Man.”
Ken blinked. “Oh, wow.”
“I had money from my grandpa’s estate. My friend Alec helped me invest it, set it up.”
“So let me guess. Getting in touch with your primal self? Mud baths and forest hikes?”
Wylde looked a little uncomfortable, and Ken felt bad. He was delaying returning to the scene. He had to do it, but he sure didn’t want to. But Wylde wouldn’t know he was teasing.
“It is what I know,” Wylde said. “Alec said I had to make a living in the real world, and all I knew was being in the forest… and also how to feel good, like using hot springs or mud on my skin. I took classes in massage therapy.”
Ken reached out and cupped his cheek. “I remember you gave me the most awesome massage! Wylde, really, I think it sounds amazing. When this is all… done, I’d like to sign up for something.”
“I have you down for Cave 101,” Wylde said, his lips curling into a tiny smile. “You don’t get to come out until I give you an A plus.”
“See, you do have a sense of humor under the stoic wild-man thing.”
Wylde put his arm around Ken, and Ken’s shoulders loosened. He let out a breath. “Okay. Let’s take a look. I’ll need you to tell me everything you remember, and I’m going to write it down. I have to prevent this person from hurting anyone else.”
“You will,” Wylde said.

T
HE
ditch where Wylde found him was still there, the ground disturbed, torn up by a combination of the weather and the killer. Sick, Ken stared into it, thinking that without Wylde, he would be buried there now and his parents might never have known what had happened to him.

Wylde was crouched by the trench, frowning as he touched some smeared grooves in the gravel. “Something heavy dragged here….”

“From when you rescued me?”
Wylde cocked a brow. “I carried you, so no.”
Ken shook his head, briefly amused. “Of course you did.

What was I thinking?” He sobered. “Maybe that was left when the killer removed Andrea’s body from the scene. I really wanted to bring her home to her sister.” His throat tightened as he thought again of how her sister had begged him to make that happen.

“She’s important like family, Ken?” Wylde cocked his head. He was still working to understand him, Ken knew, the same way Ken struggled sometimes to understand Wylde.

“Yes, she’s important like family,” Ken confessed. “And more. It would have helped me get some support out here in tracking this guy down. I haven’t had a lot of luck interesting anyone in this case. The disappearances were too strung apart over the years, so there is skepticism from law enforcement.”

“I can find her,” Wylde offered, eyes riveted to Ken’s face as he came to his feet in one graceful move.
Ken felt that cold feather run down his back. “Wylde, no! This guy almost killed me. I couldn’t bear anything to happen to you….”
Wylde smiled at him gently and then lifted Ken by the arms, as he had done in Ken’s bathroom, so they were at the same height. He leaned his forehead against Ken’s.
“Put me down! You can’t just do things like this!” Ken huffed. His breath caught in his throat because whenever they touched…. “It’s my job to handle this. I know you spent a lot of time alone growing up, but you have to…. Wylde, you have to try being like everyone else.”
“Why?” Wylde pushed him against a cedar tree and pressed his lips against Ken’s as if he was imprinting his soul into Ken…. “You said you liked different. That it was… beautiful,” Wylde whispered.
Huffing, almost dizzy, Ken stared blankly at the forest around him.
Just a moment before, he’d had a leg curled around Wylde’s as Wylde’s tongue slid against his. He’d made that soft whimpering sound that made Wylde growl in reaction, claim his mouth.

K
EN
thought he was a different, maybe not just a freak. Wylde took a deep breath, pausing as he knelt beside
some mushy tracks on the faint trail he was following. The
killer had dragged the body through the rain and then
paused here where there were some imprints in the ground
that made Wylde think he’d had some garbage bags stashed,
waiting, weighed down by spring puddles. The man had put
the body in the bags and then alternately dragged and
carried it.
He spotted a bit of green plastic and something else, one
of those elastic silk hair things women wore. It had been a
bright color before it had been soiled.
Wylde didn’t touch it. He would bring Ken here; he
would show it to him. He knew Ken needed to do this right,
according to his law-enforcement rules.
He ran deeper into the woods, looking for traces of daysold tracks.

A
FTER
taking pictures and doing all he could at the scene, Ken forced himself to continue his patrol. There had been no sign of Wylde, and his gut was eating him with fear for his friend.

What if Wylde actually found the killer? God, he hoped he’d have enough sense to come to Ken, to let Ken handle this appropriately! Wylde had such strange, primeval ideas, almost like a caveman who wanted to protect his mate.

Then it struck Ken that he might have a way of getting in touch with his missing lover. As he reinflated a tire on a kid’s bicycle and then watched the boy head safely down the branch of road toward where he lived, Ken looked up the Wylde Man spa on his BlackBerry. He found a listing in Sullivan, a small town farther north.

He listened to the advertisement for the spa in Wylde’s raspy voice. Get in touch with your primal self. To make an appointment, leave a message….

Color stung Ken’s cheeks as he remembered getting fucked on the side of his tub. Wylde was certainly the guy who knew how to get in touch with the primal self!

“Wylde,” Ken said. “Call me, please. You need to let law enforcement handle this.” Then the formality of the cop fell away and he continued, “I’m frightened this man will hurt you.”

K
EN
arrived home hours later to see a light on in his kitchen. His heart started pounding, even as he remembered he hadn’t given Wylde a key. He slammed the door of his SUV closed and carried in the groceries he’d picked up on the way home.

Wylde…. He was still a little sore from last night, but he wanted it to happen again. He wanted Wylde’s cock inside him, he wanted to be pounded, taken… and yeah, he wanted to come this time. He just had to teach his lover to slow down a little, to touch him. Maybe this time Ken would ride him, look down into those burning blue eyes and see how he was pleasuring his man—

His father waved from the window above the sink, and Ken let out a breath, a little embarrassed he was hard after thinking about Wylde. He missed him! He was worried about him. And it was getting dark, damn it, and Ken had brought enough California rolls for Wylde. If he’d only get his gorgeous ass back here!

“Hey, Papa,” Ken said, putting down the plastic bag on the kitchen counter. His father hugged him, and Ken patted his shoulder. “I have sushi.”

“I can’t stay long, Kakumi,” Makoto Ito said, shaking his white head. “But thank you for your invitation. Your mother was taking a nap, so I took the time to do some grocery shopping of my own and then stop by here to see how you are doing. I also wondered if you had more of the ikebana vessels so I can put some irises by your mother’s favorite chair. You know she loves fresh flowers.”

“I’m fine,” Ken reassured, knowing his father was still frightened for him. “The bruising is fading fast. And of course you can take however many vases you want. I have some rough brown clay pieces with feldspar from Japan that would be an excellent contrast for an iris flower—”

“I’m so grateful you are feeling better. I wish I could thank this mysterious rescuer of yours,” Makoto said, leaning against the counter and watching Ken put his food away. The sushi he left out because he was hungry and planned to eat as soon as his father was gone.

Ken cleared his throat.
“Oho!” Makoto said, raising his eyebrows as a warm wash of color flooded Ken’s cheeks. “He is not like the others you meet at that disco you visit. He is someone special.”
Remembering his whispered words of love last night, Ken avoided his father’s sharp gaze. “He went after the killer! I couldn’t stop him,” he said, exposing the fear that had tormented him all day.
“He is protective of you,” Makoto noted.
“It’s my job to do the protecting; I’m the cop,” Ken griped.
“Well, maybe you should tell him that yourself,” Makoto nodded to the screen door, and Ken’s eyes widened. Wylde stood there, soaked by the downpour that had begun shortly after Ken had arrived home.
His hair was snaked across his muscular chest, and there was a smear of fresh mud across one lean brown cheek.
He was also naked.

Makoto followed, grinning with his eyebrows raised as he stared at the tall nude stranger standing in the rain with his hands on his hips.

“Wylde, what are you…?” Ken handed Wylde the dishcloth.
Wylde took it, blinking at it.
Ken growled in his throat but then hugged him. “You didn’t call me back, you big lug,” he said. “Oh God, I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I couldn’t call you back, Ken,” Wylde said. He frowned at the dishcloth. “What’s this for?”
“Cover yourself,” Ken whispered, conscious of his interested parent watching their byplay.
“You didn’t want me to cover myself last night.” Wylde looked down at himself. “Besides… too small. Now.”
“Oh, it is a little small, but….” It would hang like a cloth on a peg. “My father’s here,” Ken warned.
Wylde looked through the screen door at the familiar white-haired man who was watching, waiting. “Ken’s nice. You must be proud.”
W
EARING
Ken’s bathrobe, Wylde sat across from Makoto and Ken at Ken’s worn maple kitchen table, the wood scraped and spare, a clean surface like the rest of Ken’s house. The older man was staring at Wylde. Sometimes he smiled.
Ken was braiding his hair. He said it was wet and Wylde would get a cold if they just left it that way, but Ken’s face had softened as he worked. It was like the dusting, Wylde thought. Ken liked to make things a certain way.
Makoto took a sip of the Japanese beer Ken had served with the sushi they’d divided between them. “I’m glad my neighbor, Mrs. Simpson, could stay with my wife,” he said. “I wouldn’t have missed meeting you, young man.”
“I am happy to meet you too, Mr. Ito,” Wylde said. “I want to give your son wildflowers. All right?”
Makoto’s eyes widened, and he covered his mouth as if hiding another smile. “Yes, it is fine with me. Better than that disco Ken visits. I don’t think he met many nice men there.”
Wylde frowned and looked over his shoulder at Ken, but Ken avoided his eyes.
“Should I get those ikebana vessels for you so you can go home to Mom?” Ken asked, looking like he wanted to get his father to leave though Wylde wasn’t in any rush. He was learning more about Ken from Makoto.
“If you like.”
Wylde didn’t want to get sidetracked. “Where is this disco Ken visits?”
“Wylde….” Ken shifted in his kitchen chair. “You wouldn’t like it.”
Wylde looked over his shoulder again. “I want to do what your other boyfriends do.”
Ken shook his head. “You can’t.”
Wylde felt his gut knot the way it had when he’d been so dumb, made that mistake about giving another guy flowers. “Why not?”
“Because you’re nothing like them,” Ken said softly.