In His Command (19 page)

I’d watched his murder until his feet stopped twitching. Until he stilled, his voice never to be heard again, his heart no longer beating in time with mine. Trembling all over, I put the lid back on all the visions that had made my sleep a recipe for night terrors unless I was wrapped around Blondie.

Some cruelties couldn’t bear the light of day.

Drops of sleet had melted on Blondie’s face, glistening in his stubble, reflecting the orange firelight. But his eyes held no life. They were bleak blue stones. He was gonna talk, and I didn’t want to hear it, whatever he had to say. Not yet.

“He’s the reason I opted out of life. Want to know the most fucked-up thing? Alejandro would’ve loved the commune, man. That was his scene. He should’ve been there, not me. He’s the reason I started getting it.”

His hand slid up my arm to my shoulder; his fingertips ghosted my chin and fell away. “He must’ve been a good man for you to love him so much.” He struggled, his face torqued in torment. “I…ah, damn it all. I envy your love for him.”

I studied my palms, the smearing black ink surface damage only. I took a hit of air, then another. The dark blemish in my heart lifted, taking with it the hidden scars that had numbed my emotions for so long. I felt lighter for telling someone about Alejandro, for letting go of our brutal fate, for remembering the moments when we were so right together.

I drew Blondie to me, my arm around his back. His shoulders shook, his whole body was quaking. “Hey.”

He didn’t respond, his face turned in the opposite direction.

“Hey, baby.” I touched his cheek.

He jerked away.

“Nathaniel, what’s wrong?”

He staggered to his feet. Face red, he admitted, “Jesus Christ, Caspar. You still love him.” He raked his hair forward. “That’s why you couldn’t say it to me the other night. You love Alejandro.”

With his hair pulled over his face, he tried to close a curtain between me and his emotions.

Not gonna happen, baby.

I laughed in a way I’d forgotten. Loud and from my stomach that was suddenly unknotted. “You’re really a stupid shit sometimes, aren’t you?”

He sputtered, “Cannon—”

Stalking forward, I was filled with intent. “Caspar. My name’s Caspar.”

The kiss I gave him shot straight to my toes and right through the roof of my head. Deep into his mouth, my tongue was all over his. I tried not to whine when he slicked the insides of my lips.

He pushed me back, pivoting away.

Like that was gonna put me off. His heartbeat sped beneath my forearms crossing over his chest from behind. His damp tendrils brushing my neck, I sniffed at his throat, licked a throbbing vein. “’Course I love him. I always will.” Still as a tree caught in that breathless moment between standing and falling, he made no noise. “He taught me to love.”

His attempts to wrangle away stopped when I nuzzled his jaw. “Losing him, that’s why I couldn’t feel anymore. That’s why I didn’t want to love you.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. You know, you’re not as smart as you think.”

Swiveling in my arms, his eyelashes swept across flushed cheeks. “Caspar…”

I pulled his hand to my heart, where the beats thundered for him. “Doesn’t mean I can’t love another. I love
you
, Nathaniel.”

He froze for maybe an instant, but it felt like hours. Maybe I’d misheard him the other night. Was I a fling to him? Had I gotten this all messed up in my head?
Aw shit.
“Think you could say something here?”

His lips were parted, his hair messy, his expression challenging.

Here we go.

I grinned.

“You just told me not to ask you to love me, you fuck.”

“Yeah, I’m not so good with words.” I uncurled his fingers from the fist balled at his hip. “Not real good with emotions, either.” I pulled; he pulled away harder.

So not happening.

He strained from me. “You’re just figuring that out?”

I kissed the corner of his lips. “Nah. Just thought you should know, babe.”

He yanked again to free his hand. “What are ya’ sayin’?”

I’m not going anywhere, baby.

“I might be a big dumb asshole.” I shrugged when he muttered something that sounded like agreement under his breath. “But I love you, Nathaniel.
Blondie
. And I’m pretty sure you love me, too.” When he opened that luscious mouth again, it was to bend down and slam it onto mine. His kiss was better than words. Breaking away for a second, he skipped his lips to my ear. “I never thought I’d hear you say that, Caspar.”

“Get used to it.”

That quiet unsure interlude lasted another few seconds, and then we were all about the kissing. Wild kisses where our noses bumped, our teeth scraped against tongues, and our mouths bruised. Blinded by those intense kisses and his intimate moans, I thrust my hands between us and scrabbled with the button of my pants.

The wet cloth was a bitch to work with. Stuck to my groin, suctioned onto my thighs.

Elegantly stripping down in front of me, he raised an eyebrow as I hopped on one foot. “Need a hand there, big man?”

“Fuck you.” My boots banged against the wall when I threw them, echoing across the empty room.

“Please do.”

I couldn’t get at him fast enough. Tackling him to the floor, I strained above him, so erect my cock danced against his in midair.

“I’m gonna make love to you, Blondie.”

“Oh, are ya?” That damned arched eyebrow of his daring me.

“Damn right,” I growled, rolling him onto his hands and knees.

He moved so sensually, his ass raised in my hands, my cock dividing his tight buttocks and running along the seam. I drew my hand up the musculature of his back, rubbing his shoulders, using them for leverage while I rode outside on the crease of his ass.

I needed lube, wanted him sleek and ready, and to hear that wet slurp when I entered him. With a kiss to his spine, I whispered, “Just getting us wet, sweetheart.”

“Mmm,”
he hummed, my fingertip dipping inside.

Adding more drops, I massaged my fingers together inside him and gasped when he squeezed around me. “So good, baby. You’re gonna take me so good tonight.”

Sucking in a breath when I massaged his swollen gland, he exhaled with a hiss, “
Yes
, I’m ready for you.”

“Yeah, you are.” I breathed into his ear. “But I gotta make this hard cock nice and slick for you.”

“Fuck.”

“Soon. And once I start, I’m not gonna stop.” I smiled while he squirmed beneath me, making sure he heard the cap opening and the slippery sounds of me jerking off behind him, my harsh breaths on his neck.

He arched below me and I patted his ass with my cock. I leaned over and interlaced our fingers. “I’m right here with you, babe.”

“Okay,” he rasped.

Not good enough.

I flipped him onto his back and cupped his face. “Nathaniel, I am right here, only with you.” I watched his eyes as they opened and blinked slowly. “Every time we’ve been together, it’s been you.”

His hands wandered from my hair to my ass to my thighs; then he opened the taut curves of his bottom to me.

Teasing his rosy star with the crown of my cock, I vowed, “I love you, Nathaniel fucking Blondie Rice.”

He rose to capture my lips. “You say the sweetest things.”

I slapped his sweet ass. “Now you say it.”

“Already did.” He smirked.

Painting his ass in precome and wedging a finger deep inside, I demanded, “Again. Before I make love to you.”

“
Ahhh
, I love you, Caspar! You cocky motherfucker.”

I took my time reacquainting myself inside his warm clasp. “So tight, babe. Gonna have my tongue inside you tonight, too.”

Fully sheathed, I stopped. His was a burning grip surrounding my dick and making my nads tingle. With every thrust, I bit him lightly. Nipping his shoulder, his wide ribs, the underside of his biceps. I pinched his nipples and his hole seized around me.

I thrust to the hilt, circling my hips inside his warmth, waiting for his welcome gasp before pulling out all the way. Watching his bottom close, I opened it again, spellbound by the sight of him spreading around the head of my cock and sucking me in. Over and over again until my preejaculate squished in his ass and foamed at my base and a sheen of sweat covered our muscles.

He was shaking and gritting his teeth, thrashing with each thrust. “Feel so good like this.”

Lowering until I was completely on top of him, I held his head off the floor and kissed him with slow, soft tastes. “You make me good.”

Faster, harder, I drove him across the floor until he braced his hands against the wall, shoving back onto my cock and wrenching grunts from me. His gorgeous dick rammed into my stomach every time his ass hit my hips. His pubes rasped my groin, and mine scoured his full pink balls.

“You gonna come like this?” I spoke in a rumble that came from so deep within me.

He didn’t answer, frantically forcing his body up to mine. I slowed down.

“Ahh, Jesus! Don’t stop. Faster. Fuck me fast, honey!”

I pounded into him and held still. “Answer me.”

“Yes!” That affirmative led to a litany of others when I resumed a furious pace. “Yes, yes, yes.”

I found his mouth and sucked on his lips. His shaft grew, his testicles compacting, and I followed suit, my orgasm called by his. Eruptions of come coiled between us. We were sticky all over with seed and sweat. After I licked him clean, he kissed me, making his body the bed I fell asleep on, his arms and legs the blanket keeping me warm.

Sometime during the night the sleet tapered off and with its diminishing patters we stopped worrying. We started feeling safe for the first time since we’d left Chitamauga. We talked in whispers about our future but not how we were gonna make it happen. We traded hopes about how our lives were going to be when we returned to the commune, with friends and family. I didn’t believe it for a second, but I could do that make-believe thing, for one night, for him.

“After I find Liz.”

“After we find Liz.” He pulled me into a sleepy embrace.

Q
uitting the fort the next morning, we dragged ass on purpose. After our lovemaking, after admitting my love for him, I could’ve run all day, I was so refreshed, but I preferred to dally. So did he.

The weather, flowers, and wildlife—none of it registered on that final day. All that mattered was a series of moments, flashes of what could be that I wanted to record on my D-P, preserve in color, savor forever.

Walking across a meadow that never woke from its frosty slumber, we held hands. His fingers tightening around mine, Blondie closed the gap between us. Our footsteps crunching to a stop, we turned together, not to face a new danger, but each other. I ran my fingertips over his whiskers so bright in the sunlight, warm to my touch. When I kissed his jaw, the rasp of his stubble stung my lips as it had the first time I’d kissed him. His mouth held the freshness of blossoms and something so much more sensual. I hummed when our tongues danced and groaned when his arched to the top of my mouth.

We walked on, his head on my shoulder and my arm around his waist, our thighs brushing, smiles permanent on our faces.

At midday he was whistling. Van Morrison, I assumed. It was light and lilting like birdsong.

“I regret the time I spent hating you, baby.”

His whistling ceased.

“We had it so easy, those first couple of weeks, didn’t we?”

He blew the hair from his eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t say easy, big man.”

“But it could’ve been, if I hadn’t been so suspicious. I wasted so much time with you.” I blinked quickly to rid myself of visions of what-if.

Plucking a twist of grass, he chewed on the stem, regarding me. “I don’t regret it. You wouldn’t be Caspar otherwise, if you’d just hopped into the sack with me.”

He ambled on, song on his lips and his hand reaching back, waiting for mine.

Lunch was gruel, aka canned crap, that we’d picked up from the soldiers to replenish our supplies. Our table was a cool carpet of moss, my seat Blondie’s lap, and the view a little stream beside us.

He was less than impressed. “Tastes like a bag of nasty after a tank’s backed over it.”

I took another big mouthful of the nondescript shit. “Yup.”

“How can you stomach it?”

I moved to sit in front of him, my knees bent over his, my feet planted beside his hips. “Reckon it was all I knew before you. I didn’t really care much about food or other pleasures at the time.” I shrugged, chewed, swallowed. “Only enough to survive on.”

“You’re not just surviving now.” He replaced my raised spoon with his warm lips.

“Not with you.”

Too few hours later, dusk threatened.

“Your hair is getting shaggy,” he mentioned.

“So’s yours.”

“You like it.”

I grinned, not about to deny that.

“And you need a shave,” he added.

“You gonna tell me I smell like shit next, Blondie?”

Sniffing along my collarbone, he licked the hollow there. “You smell so good. All man. Musky, natural, you always smell fresh from a good fuck.”

Well, that made me horny. I dropped my pack and pushed his off, too, ready to march him to the next solid tree trunk and take him. He shook his head, holding up a hand to ward me off. I halted when he squatted over my pack, purely because his ass was my wet dream come to life not because he’d ordered me to.

He pushed stuff around, digging deeper. Coming up with my shaving soap and straight blade, he launched a smile. “Can’t do anything about your hair right now, but you don’t like not being clean shaven. Let me.”

Making a fire, warming water, layering my throat, cheeks, and chin in foam, he straddled me. “Now, keep your hands to yourself. You get me worked up, I’m liable to slip.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing and bit my tongue to keep from groaning when he cupped the nape of my neck and dragged the blade through lather until it hit the corner of my mouth.

My lips tilted; my hips swiveled.

He sat back. “Like to live dangerously, do ya?”

“Wouldn’t be here otherwise.” I positioned his blade at my throat.

“Good thing I love you, then, ain’t it?”

Oh, man, it really is.

He shaved me, taking his sweet time, kissing my clean skin, making it tingle.

“That’s nice.”

“What is?”

“Being taken care of.”

“Hmm.”

He mopped up the last of the lather, laying a warm cloth over my face. “I’ll always take care of you, you know?”

“A few more hours and we’ll be at the Outpost.”

“Uh-huh,” he agreed, “and there could still be one other operator out here. Anonymous number thirteen.”

“Yeah.” I wiped my chin and looked around for my shirt.

Blondie wet his lips. “We can spare one more night.”

Hell yeah.

“What’s that?” I eyed the present he set in front of me.

“Why don’t you open it and find out instead of watchin’ like you think it’s one of my bombs set to go off in your face?”

We hadn’t moved from the copse beside the stream where he’d shaved me. The night fell around us, a bright pattern of cold-weather stars turned into crystals high above.

“Well, it’s too small to be a flower.”

Heaving a long sigh, Blondie rested the back of his head on the ground. “You could just open it, Caspar.”

I remembered how anxious I’d been over the cuff I’d given him. I was equally nervous now. My stomach ranging through dips and rolls, I fingered the newsprint he’d wrapped the gift in. He must’ve taken it from Fort Knox.

“Is there a message here?” I peeled back the paper, letters swimming before my eyes.

He peered at me. “Yeah, there’s a damn message. Fuckin’ open it already.”

The thing rolled out into my hand. Heavy, metal, round. A ring. It warmed in my palm.

“You gonna look at it?”

I’d seen it on his forefinger. A thick band that was worn and rounded on the edges. It broadened to the Rice family’s Landowner crest, a spray of grain engraved inside the oval. I held it up, admiring the workmanship, unable to slip it on. When a glint of firelight hit the inside of the band, I blew a fine line of breath between my lips.

Everything.

In simple script, inside the ring. No initials, no date. No beginning, no end. Just me and him, endlessly.

Holy shit.

“That there was my granddaddy’s. He’d have wanted you to have it.”

I couldn’t fathom that. What Territorian in his right mind would want his grandson to hook up with the likes of me? But he hadn’t been a citizen, hadn’t even had the chance to become a Freelander. Hamme Rice had been the last of a massacred breed, the Landowners.

I closed my fist around the ring, bringing it to my chest.

“Now it’s yours, same as me.”

“I can’t.” I put it on the ground between us.

A small smile etched the corner of his mouth. He didn’t pick up the ring. “What was all that before, huh?”

“Guess I’m not as graceful at accepting gifts as you.”

“Ya don’t say.”

My heart hammering in my chest, I snatched the ring back and sat on my heels. It looked so light, but it was heavy with meaning. I slipped it onto the first finger of my right hand; the band didn’t make it past my knuckle.

“Try your left hand.” He’d come closer and his knees butted mine.

“What?”

Sitting up real straight and real still, he tugged on my fingertip. “Ring finger, left hand.”

“A promise ring.” The words scraped my throat.

“An engagement, if you’ll have me.” He slipped the ring over my fingertip and stopped there, a question in that one small gesture.

In answer, I rolled the band all the way down, my heart banging.

There should’ve been celebrations. Instead, after a long kiss, he ducked his head. “We’re contracted now.”

I pushed up his chin. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want to shake my hand to seal the deal instead of
asking
for my hand.” I wondered when I’d exchanged my manhood for girly worries. “Like I’m a business transaction.” My short thumbnail already catching on the ring in a motion I could easily see becoming habitual, I frowned. “If the only reason you’re giving me this is because you know we’re screwed, then you can take it back.”

I started twisting off the ring, but he stopped me.

“I want you to be mine, Caspar. You know that. But I need you safe first.”

“So this is how you propose?”

“No. This is how I make sure you stay alive, so I can be with you again.”

Frustration and futility overrode the joy I’d felt when he’d made it clear he wanted me long term. “So you think I’m gonna do what you tell me because of this piece of metal?”

I just want a minute to kiss him. I want this cracked-up thing between us to be a sacred union, not a commodity for safe-keeps.

“Let me go in alone.”

I shot that idea right down. “Not gonna happen.”

“Please.”

“No fucking way.”

“Fine.” He rubbed his eyes. “You finish your escort detail; then you’re gonna turn right back around after debrief and disappear. You hear me?”

“No.”

“Why are you so pigheaded? I have to fight you on everything?”

“Yeah, maybe you do, baby.” I sank back to my ass and tinkered with the ring. “So what does this really mean, then?”

“It means you’ll remember me.”

“I don’t want to remember you, and I’m not very good at waiting. I want to have you.”

“Don’t be a stubborn ass. I can’t do my job if I’m worrying about you.” His words were a shock of cold water thrown in my face.

“Funny. Worrying about you
is
my job,” I scathed.

At loggerheads over nothing we could control, we went to our separate corners—or trees—boxing with our own demons. Me with a ring and a promise, him with a leather cuff and my heart.

Eventually we came together for one last mealtime. We didn’t talk, but touched, apologies in our fingers as we ate from each other.

The fire smoldered to glowing ashes, but the one inside me remained ignited, burning high. Our backs against a fallen log, I had my arm around his waist, and his was draped over my shoulder. Our boots tapped together and the November stars shone like jewels.

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Well, this was a nice vacation.”

He rolled his head to the side, squinting at me until I squirmed.

His fingers finding mine, his boots stilled and he made me look at him. “You know we’re more than that.”

I remained silent, kicking over the ember of a log.

We’d been together through bitterness, suspicion, battle, and into something like bliss.

It didn’t goddamn matter. “You’re fucking Company, man.”

“What if I wasn’t?”

“Quit dicking me around.”

“I’m not.” Exasperation tinged his voice.

Strapping my arms around myself so I wouldn’t touch him, I glared at the sparks dying out in front of us.

“So, you think this is our last night together, huh?” he asked.

“I think our outcome at the Outpost looks pretty frigging grim.”

“You just gonna waste it glarin’ at me?” He stood, stripping down. “Or are you gonna fuck me?”

At his call to action, I shed my clothes and wrapped my arms around his thighs, tumbling him on top of me.

Our lovemaking was a passionate mixture of motions and emotions.

My tongue flattened up his shaft until I hit his round head. Wrapping my mouth over him, my deep suck was punctuated by his sharp groan. “Not goin’ anywhere, honey.”

I danced down his erection, grunting when he positioned my thighs next to his head. Rough hands guided my hips over his face until my cock parted his lips. He held my butt firmly apart and let me fuck his sweet pink mouth.

Rubbing my cheek against his saliva-wet cock, I managed, “I’m not gonna lose you, Nathaniel.”

Lifting my head, I looked underneath me, along his body. The head of my cock perched at his mouth, his tongue snaking around me. I pushed off of him and spun around, replacing my mouth with my fingertips, slick and ready to open him.

His head shake sent strands of dark blond hair into my eyes. “Not goin’”—he ran his lips up my jaw until he found my mouth—“anywhere.”

I took his nipples, his belly button, the trail of fine hair between my teeth, slithering between his legs. My tongue joining my fingers, I dipped inside, moaning at his taste and tight hole. Two fingers, my tongue thrusting, his channel dilated.

As he pulled me up his body, we joined. In heat, in need, and…
oh fuck,
in love.

I slanted all the way inside, my hands tangled in his hair, our breath shared. His lips and tongue spoke a language that needed no translation.
Pure desire.
His words inside my head, his big body spread below me, his slick hole taking me harder.

Not leavin’ you. Ever.

His arms curled around my back, fingers pressing into my muscles. Our chests strived together while our bodies writhed, hips, bellies, thighs, and cocks. The flat slick slide of tongues tasting, flicking, sucking.

I squeezed and stroked him, his cock bolting in and out of my fist and his voice cracked like it always did when he was ready to come. “Anything, I’ll give you anything, Caspar!” He grabbed my biceps and tilted up to take the full force of my rapid thrusts.

“Anything?” I sucked his nipple until he cranked his pelvis higher, grinding into me.

“Everything, Caspar.”

Oh fuck, fuck!

His ass bore down on me as he came with a surge of power bending him near in half.

A few sharp thrusts later, I yelled, “Yeah, yeah!” rocketing off inside of him. “Oh fuck yeah, baby.” I blindly smoothed the sweaty strands of hair from his temples. “Everything.”

“Nothin’ wrong with us, honey,” he said softly.

The moon drowsed above us. I no longer heard the soft padding feet of nighttime foragers, and the birds went to sleep, too, but we stayed awake. The roughened pads of his fingertips rubbed the back of my neck, and I almost goddamn purred.

“Tell me what you wish for, honey.”

On my elbow, I traced the sexy curve of his bottom lip. “As in birthday wish?”