In His Command (10 page)

I swallowed when his lips dragged down my neck. “Okay.”

“Good.” He sauntered to the tent and back to me, a small cloth bag in one hand. He pulled me after him. “Wanna show you something I found earlier. You’ll like it.”

“Ah, but will I love it?”

With a rumble of laughter, he towed me to his side, joining our hands. The fat silvery band on his forefinger dug into my flesh the way I liked it.

The sun had fallen away, leaving room for a bright full moon chased by wraithlike clouds to light our short hike. The day’s warmth still lingered, and I imagined this might be our last temperate evening with the directional change of our journey.

The night filled out with the low hum of creatures, insects, and nocturnal scavengers. Wings flapped overhead, and I looked up in time to see a large snowy white and auburn speckled bird with no neck at all, propelling loftily along, adding its own song with an echoing,
“Hoot-hoot, hoot-hoot.”

“Barn owl,” Blondie said.

Barn owl.
I’d have to add that one to my D-P. I’d kept track of all the animals and plants we’d come across. While the resonant
hoot-hoot, hoot-hoot
faded, a new noise hit my ears. A wet splashing pattern like heavy rain, but there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. “What’s that?”

“C’mon.” He hurried us toward the rushing sound.

Around a bend, I stopped dead in my tracks. In awe of the curtain of water falling from a cliff of rocks four meters above, I murmured, “That’s a—”

“Waterfall, yeah.” Hopping onto a rock, he held his hand under the cascade, then flicked it toward me.

“Never seen one in real life.” The noise had amplified to a deafening thunder at our approach.

“Not too many around, least not that you can get to anymore.”

The water dripped down my face.
So clean.
I’d never witnessed this wonder of nature before. I couldn’t take my eyes off the waterfall or the man beside it.

His voice so rich, I heard him above the pounding water. “I know how much you like fresh water.”

My lips split for a grin. “Yeah, this sure makes a change from my shitty little shower back in Alpha with that trickle of reprocessed liquid.” He’d been paying such close attention to me out here. The flowers and now this. My heart sped up. Instead of worrying me at being so intimately watched, he aroused me, attracted me more than ever before.

I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. We both laughed when I fell smack on my ass, trying to unlace my boots.

At my feet, he took over. “Let me.”

“Okay. But hurry up. I need to get in there, man.”

Dimples plugged into his cheeks when he smiled up at me. “I can see that.”

I groaned, stepping into the pool. The falling water flicked my calves with fizzy coolness. I wanted to feel that effervescence on my cock. Over my shoulder, Blondie was shedding his pants as hastily as I had, and the heated look in his eyes reminded me of the night I’d bathed him with my tongue. Memories made my spine tingle, my cock stretch all the way up to my belly button and beyond. I held my hand out to him, helping him in, backing us up until the water reached my hips and we stood directly under the rapid flow.

He was so hot and hard against me. There was nothing like the muscles on a man’s body. Settling my cock beside his so our wet rubbing made my tip pulse and my ass pucker, I grabbed his hair in a sleek ponytail and slanted my lips to his. Tongues coiled and teeth clashed, mouths pulled and suckled during our hungry kiss. He slowed me with his hands low on my pelvis, undulating against me to some earthly tune that made my blood race with fever to suck him, fist him, fuck him wild.

I reached for the long hot pole of his cock, and he nudged me aside. “No. I said let me love you.”

My lips at the corner of his mouth, I growled, “Get on with it.”

“You are so impatient.” He reached back, coming up with that small bag he’d brought, and emptied the contents. He held out a bar of spicy scented soap. I’d never wanted to be cleaned up so much in my life.

His hands looped along my shoulders, spreading a lather that floated over my chest and joined the water’s jets as they brushed around my cock. He got behind me, and this time I didn’t mind at all. Fingers digging in, surrounding me in his brusque caresses and the same scent that clung to him all day long, he dipped both hands to my ass, two soapy fingertips sliding inside me.

His delicious whispers set me off. “So fucking tight, honey. Your ass is gorgeous. Can’t wait to fuck it.”

A frigging whimper escaped my throat at the thought of him lowering over my back, spreading my ass with his palms, and smoothly working his cock inside me.
Fuck.
I didn’t let anyone top me—hadn’t for a long time—but I’d let Blondie.
Nathaniel.

He kissed and lathered and teased all over my armpits, my ribs, my groin, stopping just short of my dick. When he grasped me in both soapy hands, my eyes slammed shut and my breath flew out as I held back my orgasm.

“Love how hard you get for me, honey. This big cock for me?”

God-fucking-damn.
“Yes!”

“Hmm.”
He applied more pressure, frothing me inside fists, tightening when he got to the dark engorged head to twist, let go, and start back again at the bottom.

The waterfall aimed acute points at my dick, hitting me with a one-two punch that had me on the edge, on my tiptoes, my back arched and my neck thrown back.

The eroticism of what we were doing drove a scorching dagger into the pit of my belly. Caressed by the water, held over a cliff by Blondie’s sure, smooth motions, I mashed his hair in my hands, garbling such fucking nonsense I had no idea what I was saying anymore.

His lips moving down the line of my abs, his husky laughter made me moan. “You love this, don’t you? You’re such a sensualist; aren’t you, honey?”

I shook when he finally sank his lush lips over the head of my dick, his tongue so damn talented as it swiped and swirled, teasing out the most sensitive flesh of my rock-hard cock.

Bracing my hands on the outcropping behind me, I gasped. “Sensualist?” He made me feel naive, almost young. I hadn’t felt that way in years.

He hummed, popping off the dripping head of my shaft just as I was ready to fire off. He applied more masterful tongue work up and down the stiff sides of my cock until I jerked uncontrollably from head to toe. “Pleasure from touch.”

He took me all the way down his throat and my head fell back. As he pulled off, the insides of his lips released my head with an obscene kiss. “Pleasure from sounds. You like how much I love suckin’ your sexy cock, don’t you?” Blondie pursed his lips over the broad tip, created a tight seal, and hummed into me.

“
Oh fuck.”

“Pleasure from taste.” He kneeled up, stroking his length for a dab of precome. He held it out on his fingertip. I sucked that honey, devouring his finger like it was his cock.

I was near demented with the need to come. “Yes, I love it.
More
.”

His chuckle went straight to my balls when he made love to my cock again, his hands ranging around my thighs and onto my ass for a rough handhold. “You’re so damn beautiful, Caspar.”

Savage, I yanked him away. “I want you to come with me.” I brought him to his feet, steadied him inside my embrace, and kissed his mouth until he broke away to watch the glide of our wet cocks massaging together between our stomachs.

“Fucking gorgeous.” I moaned.

I moaned even louder when his hand, soaped once more, joined us inside his fist.
“Ahh.”

“Jesus.
Jesus
. Caspar.”

Hearing the slap of our balls banging as we stroked was a goddamn barrage of sensation, I couldn’t hold off any longer. It grew from the low of my back, twisted my nuts high, and set off a blast that made me yell.

His cock jerked beside mine. Through the overspill of come, he kept hold of us, kept me on my feet.

The water washed away our semen and we were left under that free-flowing stream, hugging each other.

Later, in our bed of soft blankets over hard ground, he whispered with a kiss, “You believe me now?”

Three nights later, I woke to a brisk chill. It was colder now that we’d forged into the mountains. The frosty air didn’t make a dent inside our nest of arms and legs.
Body heat, mmm.
Cuddling closer to Blondie, I relished the rush of arousal racing down my body.

We weren’t fucking yet, but we weren’t fucking with each other anymore either. There were too many cards on the table for me to keep a poker face. Not that I knew the game. Gambling was another strictly off-limits pastime, though I’d heard about the shakedown artists.

A branch creaked. Then another.

Dry tinder broke to the left of our tent. I sat up, hushing Blondie when he sat upright beside me. Cocking my head, I heard the telltale snap of another twig and the almost imperceptible crunch of hoarfrost underfoot.

I won’t let another get captured, not on my watch.
Instinct kicking in, I leaped to my feet, grabbing the SIG under my pillow and the one on top of my backpack. I had a few seconds to wish I’d gone to bed fully clothed instead of bare-assed, because then I’d have my knife too.

Thinking was overrated.

Breaking free of the tent, I caught wind of them before I saw them. They’d covered their scent with the musky oil of the deer I’d watched earlier in the day.
Clever fucking Nomads.

There were six, camouflaged to such perfection I was able to count them only when they moved, showing their positions. True hunters, they hid among the trees, stealing closer and closer.

I circled; they encircled me.

The moon’s light glinted off a metal edge.
Knives.

Feeling Blondie behind me, I hissed, “Get back inside. Now.”

He stood his ground, armed like me. “Not happenin’.”

“You’re wasting my time. Retreat!”

They darted nearer.
Protect this man.
Recognizing the stubborn jut of his chin, I did the necessary thing. My elbow sent back in a high jab, the blow with his cheek shuddering along my arm. I almost dropped my gun, but Blondie dropped first, unconscious.

This was a threat I knew how to neutralize…hostiles.

They came at me in twos, long-haired Wilderness dwellers, one leading and one flanking.

Good tactics.

The closest pair met my fist in the solar plexus and my heel in the sternum, dropping like the forbidden dominoes Erica and I had played on summer nights.

The second duo learned fast; they were at my rear before I’d flattened the first. I hopped over Blondie and hunkered in a defensive pose in front of him. Arms raised, roaring, they fell on me as one. I dropped onto my back, drop-kicking a lithe man with the crunch-punch of both feet to his stomach so he flailed through the air, smacking into a tree trunk with a resounding thud.

His guard wrestled under my shoulders, pitting his face into my back and ripping his teeth into my skin. I struggled to my feet with him clamped on and reached behind, rewarded when my fingertips pressed his pulpy pulse points until his bite relaxed and his legs gave out under him.

I heard Blondie’s moan. This wasn’t the must-have-you-now moan I was used to, but a bleat of pain.

I wasn’t killing. I was gonna question these wild men first. That was the plan, until I swung around and saw a Nomad with a hand ax raised to carve out Blondie’s chest.

Slinging over him, I readied myself to take the blow meant for him.

Aw shit.

An anguished shout twisted Blondie’s voice exactly when the blade sliced into my right shoulder, “Caspar, no!”

The weapon dug in and drew back, my blood flowing from the gash in its wake. I lifted my head in time to see the butt of the weapon dripping with my blood crashing toward my cheek.

Now, that fucking hurt.

I shook off the dizzies enough to stay aware, but I couldn’t move for the ringing in my ears. Besides, my feet had migrated to the southernmost Territory. My eyes still worked though, and there was Blondie on his feet, his fists a fury against the man who’d taken me down. He didn’t let up until the Nomad dropped to the ground. Then he cracked his forehead to the last savage standing, nutting him three times in quick succession.

His ballistic offensive was awesome to see, and I regretted thinking I needed to protect him from the vicious thugs.

The final fucker capsized, I coughed a laugh, curious at the warm iron taste under my tongue.

Ah, blood.
Old familiar.

My weak laughter brought Blondie to my side. He touched my shoulder, and my stomach heaved. “Caspar? Caspar? Stay with me, big man.”

I slurred, “Ambidextrous…S’okay…”

He slapped my face. “Wake the fuck up, Caspar!”

“Just a flesh wound,” I mumbled, and then…

Lights out.

I
battled through a suffocating mass of blankets, trying to wake up. My eyelids sealed shut, I pushed my legs out straight and cupped my jaw, rubbing down the unfamiliar scratch of stubble.

Stretching my arms overhead, I halted with my right arm half raised.
“Fuuuck.”

I remembered, my eyes peeling open, blinking in the rays of sun, conducting a furtive inspection. Bell-like sounds tinkled from outside, but the unknown source of the noise was the least of my concerns. I decided I was dead for sure and this was my own personal purgatory.

“Hey, big man.” That voice was discordant with concern.

No wonder I’d overlooked Blondie while I’d quickly scanned the room. There was so much shit packed into this little place, he was partly hidden by a heavy drape and a cascade of molting books in the corner of the room. The small wooden chair he perched on didn’t look sturdy enough to hold his long frame. His hands between his knees, he sat forward, and his face caught the light falling from a window framed in the arched roof of what had to be less than a two-and-a-half-meter-high ceiling. At the top of his cheek was an angry red cut surrounded by raggedy tissue.

I’d done that to him with my elbow. I focused on his failure to take orders, not my relief at seeing him sitting there in one piece. Hating the way my blow discolored his face, I grunted, “You shoulda stayed in the tent.”

He strode toward me, his hands braced on either side of my hips. “Guess I’d better remember that for next time.”

From the corners of my eyes, I saw him taking stock of my injuries, while I scanned him the same way, making sure of his welfare. I’d been taught a life-and-death lesson on the importance of protecting my people. Problem was, I hadn’t realized how quickly Blondie had slipped inside my superior defenses, putting down stakes. When the hell had he become my people—my man instead of my mission?

I cleared my throat and glimpsed beyond him, tempted to shade my eyes from all the gypsy gimcrack. “What is this anyway?”

The space was jammed with a crazy combo of fabrics overflowing every surface. Mismatched lights hung from the low ceiling, some with the old-fashioned style of bulbs instead of the flo-strips I was used to, a couple holding stalks of candles. It was a treasure trove of shakedown delights for scavenging pack rats. The platform bed I lay on seemed designed for my particular torture. Silks, satins, and velvets draped over my legs, dripping off the edges, hitting me with sensory overload.

Considering this odd abode was small, I should’ve felt right at home. Instead I felt squeezed in tight, a band around my chest just like the one wrapped around my shoulder.

I sat up. “You gonna answer me?”

“It’s called a caravan.”

“Where?”

“Forty kilometers farther north of our last camp. Chitamauga Commune.”

I’d had my suspicions, but hearing him state the fact so calmly sent a charge of anger through me.

I tossed back the blankets. “Nomads?” Sitting my ass down when I listed to the left, I demanded, “Are we being detained? Because this crib is way too frilly to call itself a jail cell.”

He pressed me back to the bed. “Not exactly.”

I fought to keep myself upright until he withdrew his hands. “Meaning what?”

He didn’t even tug at his ponytail when he said, with direct eye contact, “I made some trades for safekeepin’ and safe passage.”

Safekeeping, right. From a band of primitive punks one step above animals.

“What kind of trades?”

“Intel.” His blue eyes were pinheads, needling me. “But don’t worry none. The info wasn’t on a need-to-know basis.”

He was either a damn good liar or, oh yeah, he was a damn good liar. Another factoid to store in my file of fuckery, making me wonder what kind of pull a Company exec had with a pack of Nomads.

“So your enemies let you stroll around like any old wildling?” I put my good forearm over my face and scoffed, “Good to know I’m not the only one you’re double-crossing.”

“That’s me, all right.”

At the skin of anger in his voice, I lifted my arm, cranking my head in his direction.

On his feet, his dimples disappearing inside the terse void of his face, he bit out, “And they’re the Company’s enemies.”

I needed to get out of this abysmal place. I hauled myself to the opposite side of the bed. “Same deal.”

Man, if his head tricks had me dizzy, the slash to my shoulder had me swaying.
More shit to hate.
Before I could bat him away, he eased me down. His calloused palms pursed around my ribs. His lips pursed too. “Stay the hell down, Caspar. You lost a lot of blood.”

I grinned. “The pain feels great.”

“God, I oughtta punch you. Maybe that’d make you stay still.”

“Yeah, but you’re more likely to give me a spanking.” When his pupils doubled, I doubted the wisdom of my remark and blamed it on the wheelies splitting my vision.

His head lowered until he kissed me. Soft, gentle, hot. The tips of our tongues touched and traced away.

“Seein’ you out like that, Caspar.” He grasped the back of my neck, groaning. “Asshole, you need more protection than me.”

I bit his earlobe inside a pinch of teeth. “The hell I do.”

His smile curved against my forehead. “Let me check that dressing.” He unwound the bandage, warning, “This is gonna hurt, honey.”

The ripping pain roared up to my ears and heated my scalp, but I didn’t flinch. “Feels good.” This was nothing compared to the psychic agony I’d known inside and out. “Do it again?”

“Shut up.”

He prodded the neat black stitches quilting the skin of my shoulder and gathered a warm cloth. With each dab, the cut became clear. It was deep, ugly, and the swollen edges were raised.

He grazed them lightly with his mouth, getting me all good and tongue-tied before saying, “We’ll be stayin’ on for a few days.”

I shoved him away. “No fucking way.”

“You think you can hike the remainin’ couple hundred kilometers in this condition, you stubborn shitheel?” He threw the stained cloth toward a ceramic basin.

“I told you, I’m ambidextrous. Got full use of my left arm.” Seeing the rise and fall of his chest, the expanse of his shaft along the seam of his pants, I seduced, “Be happy to demonstrate.”

His laugh was low and shaky. “You gonna use sex to get your way?”

“Only with you.”

His face cleared of emotion.
Good, he’s learning.
“That’s not funny.”

“Neither is this situation.” Sick of being bedridden for all of the ten-minute duration of my consciousness so far, I got to my feet, holding myself upright against the wall. “You expect me to do what? Sit around in this?” I crushed the lace of a curtain in my fist. “Just fucking wait it out? There’s a Revolution, man. I’ve got a job to do.”

His head shaking pissed me off. But worse was the smell making my nose itch. “And what the goddamn hell is that stench?” It clung to my skin. It wasn’t Blondie’s soap, his scent.

His eyes rose over me, taking a return trip to my groin before landing on my lips. “It’s their homespun soap. I gave you a sponge bath.” He took a step forward. “Minus the sponge.”

Damn it.
My face scorched, and so did my need to fuck the man already. Tucking it all down, I returned to glare territory. “Stay here and what? Sing some songs with a bunch of gypsy bandits I loathe and who hate me right back?”

“You don’t hate ’em.” His voice lost its hard edge.

Mine was just starting up. “Fuck off.”

“You wanted to live among ’em, remember?”

“Correction, my sister wanted me to join up. I know jackshit about these people except what I’ve witnessed, and that has nothing to do with the bogus BS Sis believed.” She’d been the dreamer, a woolgatherer of romantic notions that had no place in my systematic don’t-screw-with-me makeup. I’d never made fun of her ideas, but I’d never given this way of life the time of day either and I wasn’t about to start now.

“You’re denyin’ the call of fealty, the freedom of choice?”

“Moot point.” I shut down his arguments, which ran too close to Erica’s for my comfort. “They’re not gonna roll out the orgies and garlands for me anyway. I distinctly recall doing a number on three of them.”

“That’d be an understatement.”

“Besides, even if I was inclined to get my sing-along around the campfire on, I don’t know any songs.”

He burst out in laughter. “You do know one.”

“Yeah, that fucking Brown Eyed ditty you keep whistling. And that’s getting old too.”

Doing the conscientious routine, I took stock of the painfully overpretty room, coming to a stop when I spotted our gear piled against the far wall. I lurched toward my pack, cursing when my legs got tangled in the mountains of motherfucking covers intent on taking me down.

“Hold up, Caspar. What’s your rush?”

I had to get to my D-P, check in. “Liz.”

When his hand dropped onto my shoulder, his low, fast words ripped another gash through me, this time an untidy hole in my heart to go with the one on my shoulder. “There’s been no word.”

“You went through my stuff?”

“Not like you did mine that first night, anyway. I glanced at your screen because I knew you’d be concerned. You got nothing from her.”

“How the hell’d you access it?”

“Bein’ head of tech has its perks.” He waggled his thumb.

“That’s great. Got the keys to the Company’s kingdom at the tips of your fingers? You had no right.” I scrubbed my hand down the back of my neck and peered over. His grin was gone, replaced by some of the self-hate I saw in myself. “Fine. It’s okay, but it’s not okay, you know?”

“Pretty much sums us up, huh?”

That didn’t need an affirmative. “How long have I been out?”

“About twenty-four hours.”

“That’s not right.”

He winced. “I got some drugs to knock you out before I stitched you up.”

“Shit.” I exhaled. What I really wanted to ask was if he’d been with me the whole time. Instead, I kept my face a stoic shell.

He knew that game too. “Other than organizing our…stay, I’ve been right here.”

“Guess you had to protect our gear.”

“’Course. That’s exactly why I never left your side.”

Bet the smooth fucker was wearing a half smile making way for his dimple. A swift glance in his direction confirmed my suspicion. Reaching across the bedding heaped with pillows, I brushed that dimple. It didn’t escape my close attention the way he held in a breath while his cheek clenched. I also noticed that right above my fingers was the cut on the crest of his cheek.

I turned toward him, cupping his face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Yeah, you did.” His eyes shut as he leaned in to my touch.

“I’m sorry, Blondie.”

I moved my hand to the strong column of his neck and looked at his fists. Both were tight around a hank of lace, like he wanted to strangle it or was trying not to touch me. I smiled, until I saw the crust of blood on his knuckles. “You’re not supposed to get hurt on my watch.”

“Does it still count if you’re the one doing it?”

My breath whooshed out. “I said I was sorry.”

“That’s not what I’m talkin’ ’bout.” His breath beat near the side of my mouth, going at the same pace as my heartbeat working itself up to bursting point.

“Then yeah, it counts.” Taking a gut check, I realized it counted more than I cared to inspect. After a slow exhale, I got close enough to taste his lips, to lick the bottom one with a light swipe. The air was thick, lashing us as tightly together as the fabric smothering my legs. I pulled back after a slow dive in, our lips parting softly.

“It’ll probably scar,” I murmured.

“Won’t be the only one I get before this thing is over.”

Another slammer to the chest. While I was recovering, he stood. “We need some food.”

“You and your food. Frigging only thing you ever think about.”

Back to form, he bent over and flicked my earlobe with his tongue. “Not the only thing, big man.”

I swatted him away, boosting to my feet in search of my clothes. I managed to dress with my usual economy of motions, only slowing when I pushed my right arm into the sleeve.

Looking at the door, I went back and pulled out my weapons. “On second thought, I’m bringing my friends.”

“Go for it. They’ve been discharged.”

I strapped the KA-BAR to my thigh and grumbled, “This’ll do.”

The visual bombardment grew to what-the-fuck proportions outside. I jumped across the rickety three steps to a bright stamp of green grass inside a little fence that surrounded the caravan. Painted a cheery red, the fencing was the innocent younger sister of the badass barbed wire I had lifelong knowledge of.

I stepped back and got a load of our patchwork prison. The wagon was done up in that same red on the bottom half, Blondie blue on top. At various points along the scrollwork eaves hung the wooden and metal noisemakers I’d heard inside. I took a last glance at the caravan, amazed something so small could contain the sprawling bed, the two of us, and a whole lot of eyesore.

The morning sunlight paled next to the colorful contraptions sitting together in neighborly plots. A network of winding narrow pathways created with no grid system in mind converged toward a single unpaved road that widened enough for five men to walk abreast. There was nothing in this helter-skelter that resonated with my Epsilon Territory upbringing or my military training. Outbuildings of wind and rain-lashed boards huddled together in the center of the village, their open doorways providing views inside a trading hall, and next door, a workshop accommodated two different types of old-fashioned, unfamiliar textiles machines. Across from the textiles site was a larger, more carefully constructed building inside which rough-hewn tables were arranged in a circle.

“Schoolhouse,” Blondie informed me.

I pointed to the structures farther out from the main road, edging up to the half circle of dense woods whose tall trees guarded the commune. “Those?”

“Munitions.”

Great. “And?”

“Medical.”

With the forest forming a natural boundary on the far side, fields and meadows to the left, and a lake deep enough to appear black over on the right, I felt a tug of admiration at the situation. Bastards had a sweet deal here.