In His Command (17 page)

“Shh. Shh.”
He rose over me, the tendons in his arms pulled tight. Our bodies were painted in bites and marks and wetness. Slowly, he lowered. “
Shhh,
honey.”

I shouted when his cock turned against mine.
“Aaah.”
Shushing be damned.

Our hips rounded, the columns of our dicks butting from balls to ballast.

His hair sweeping over my face, he straddled me, stroking our cocks together in his fist. Stretching our penises and leaning over to add the sting of his tongue to his hands.

“Oh yeah.”
Flexible motherfucker. I liked that.

The glide of his fingertips and the suction of his mouth, the turgid thrust of his cock rolled against mine. Our groins swiveled, groans merged.

Come fountained over our abs and chests, hitting my chin.

Nuzzling. Warm. Satisfied…sort of.

In a damn sleeping bag on top of a mountain with the threat of death ready to deepthroat us at the Outpost.

And yet I wanted more of him.

Down the other side, into the valley that had been pretty from above, daybreak was the usual backbreaking full-out run. They weren’t slackers, that was for sure. Labored shouts trailed us, heavy boots finally falling away. We’d earned a respite, but not really.

The second night of the last leg, I woke to tickles, my sleep-deprived swollen eyelids parting. In the gloomy light, Blondie sat cross-legged in front of me. Tucked next to my face was a bouquet of winter bulbs, their blooms nodding closed.

I reared back. It was the same stuff we’d laid over Freelander and Revolutionary graves. I didn’t like flowers so much anymore. “They smell like death.”

“They didn’t die in vain, Caspar. Flowers smell of hope; that’s why you like ’em.”

“I don’t need you to analyze me.”

“Don’t be so defensive.”

“Don’t be so annoying.”

“Annoying?” Crouching over me, a small smile played on his lips. I brushed the hair off his cheek, rubbing my thumb along the short shaved side above his ear. “Cheerful, whatever.”

“You think I’m cheerful?” Nestling in to my hand, he enjoyed my comforting caress.

“Hell of a lot more easygoing than me.”

He sat back, eyes twinkling. “Probably a good thing. One moody motherfucker’s enough.”

Launching into a playful punch, I ended up wearily snuggling him and planted a kiss on top of his head. “I’ll watch; you sleep.”

An hour later, the stars shrouded in wispy clouds, I heard him mumble my name.

“Mmm?”
I burrowed in to his body, taking advantage of his slumbering heat.

“Can’t sleep.”

With a little smile, I said, “Want me to tell you a bedtime story?”

“Nah, but I’ve got a story to tell.”

I went completely still. If Blondie was gonna talk about his past, I was all ears.

“It ain’t a fairy tale, though.”

“Tell me, baby.” The moonlight lined the frosted grasses in silver, flirting with his hair when he lay down inside my arms. My fingers flickered through his polished locks, cupping his neck.

“Back when my momma came of age, there wasn’t the overruling hate for the Company. They were the saviors of our race, the stewards of the earth’s resources, you know? My father was sent to decommission her family land, and since the Freelanders and last Landowners weren’t yet a threat to Company dominion, it was easier to strike a bargain than a flintlock.

“He’d come knocking down the door of the plantation, acting as if he owned it. But one step inside the foyer, he pulled up short. He fell for a pretty girl.” Blondie’s face was sketched in hard planes, too much like mine, distancing himself from his past, relegating it to Old History.

“Cut him a deal, he did. Allowin’ Granddaddy to keep his land for the privilege of courting his daughter. Beautiful, innocent, different Eden was so unlike the contrived Territory women of his approved matings. She wasn’t unaffected either. Infatuation, youth, maybe the idea of adventure, made her agree. My father was a good-lookin’ sumbitch. That was all heady stuff for eighteen-year-old Momma, that and the thought she was saving her daddy’s land.

“It was just after their Validation of Union that he announced the plantation had been incorporated into InterNations holdings. Helluva wedding present. See, he had no problem breakin’ his word. Still doesn’t.”

Eyes blazing, his drawl turned tight and clipped. “That killed Granddaddy, givin’ his daughter to a scumbag like my father. It didn’t make a damn dent in my daddy’s agenda, although he very generously gave Momma leave to bury Granddaddy in the plot outside Alpha walls.”

“Holy shit.”
Those grave markers, the ones he took a moment to honor our night at the Amphitheater.
The letters came back to me: HARM.

“Hamme and Harmony Rice, my grandparents. Never did get to meet ’em.”

“Baby.” I tried to cut in, but he turned away.

“You wanna know the really sick thing? Father loved her. He still loves Momma. I think he would’ve done anything for her so long as it didn’t interfere with his plan for InterNations domination.”

I grabbed his hand, softly swiping my thumb over knuckles flexed bony white.

He blew out a breath. “She didn’t really have a choice after that, with nowhere to go, especially not with her position so well-known. She was the wife of a hotshot executive and had become pregnant.” Drawing his hand from mine, he dragged his hair forward. “Hurts like a bitch, talkin’ about this, Caspar.”

I remembered how Miss Eden closed down when I’d asked about her Territory past. I cradled Blondie’s cheek, already worried about how this would end.

“I mean, there’s no way she could love him, not after what he did, right? Who would? But he was oblivious. Maybe because he was away so much cleanin’ up Company crap, maybe ’cause he was an obtuse motherfuck, or just plain old wishful thinking. When he was home, he spoiled her, us, anything to win her affection. After a spell, things got ugly. And when the verbal abuse got him no gains, well, it took only one punch in the face to knock her out. He was a pretty big guy, and she’s so small. I was eight.” He squatted, arms doubled over his knees, keeping himself together through sheer will.

I saw the little boy he must’ve been, making himself as small as possible, wishing he was big enough to stand up for his mother.

Speaking in a daze, he didn’t even notice me rubbing my palms over his shoulders to comfort him. “He was contrite. ’Course he was.
He loved her
. It was disgusting, watchin’ him apologize, listenin’ to his excuses.

“Once the bruises faded, she told him he wouldn’t ever get the chance to hit her again. Damn, it was good to see her stand up for us. It was goddamn great to watch him cower, fucking coward that he is. For once
he
had no choice. She asked for land, the rightful property stolen from her family. He gave it to her. Rich, fertile acres. Chitamauga Commune.”

He shook himself back to the present. “Of course there was a price for leavin’. She would vanish—her death faked so he wouldn’t be known as the CO cuckold or, worse, get demoted. She had to disappear and give me up. Give us up.”

“Who’s us?”

“My twin brother, Linc. He’s top-level Corps. We’re a little bit”—he grimaced—“estranged. He fell in step with Daddy’s new regime once Momma was gone. I found ways to keep in contact with her, but he put her on radio silence.”

An itchy feeling of unease crept up my skull.

He jumped up to his feet, pacing with emotions too big to be contained. “Things went a little south then. Linc was always the star pupil; all I had were my skills.”

“And your father?”

His face shaded under his arms, he said, “He lost his love, along with any semblance of humanity. Adolescence sucked, man. There were the socials for meeting sponsored CO teens. Dates were monitored, graded for long-term compatibility. You had your equivalent traditions in Epsilon; you told me about it.”

Blondie’s eyes were far away. “Then there was the Proving Ceremony when we turned eighteen.”

Jesus fuck.

Hands up under his armpits, he rocked sideways. “This is what bein’ bred into Company means. A debut. I been through my initiation. My brother loved it all.”

“You were with a woman.” The scratchy discomfort turned up a notch.

“Not a woman, Caspar, a girl my age. So damn pretty—not my type at all.”

“You saying I’m not pretty?”

He chuckled and sat beside me. “Farrow was her name. She was as naive as me, so how the hell we were supposed to just get it on in a roomful of our peers and executives, I got no idea.”

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Nothin’ to it; that’s what Linc told me. Bastard passed with flyin’ colors. No one could doubt his prowess with women. Wasn’t like that for me. Farrow was smart and sure, but put anyone in that position and she’d freeze—anyone with any feelin’, that is. They let us get into the bed naked before they filed into the room. A cold, sterile room about as sexy as an exam cubicle.”

The horrific scenario filled me with rage; my hands balled to punch something.

“We held hands under the blankets. It was a damn miracle there were blankets to begin with. But that wasn’t all. Electrodes were attached to us, measurin’ heart rate and blood pressure. Keepin’ tabs on arousal. Bet mine spiked”—he blinked up at me—“in fear. I couldn’t do it. No way in hell could I do it. She was shakin’ so hard, her teeth rattled. I made no move on Farrow except to hug her before I slipped out of the bed, the deed not even started, let alone consummated. I faced the frowns of disapproval, the victorious grins of people I’d considered friends. I walked bare-assed outta that room, thinkin’ I could just get gone and go to my mom. Shoulda known it wouldn’t be that easy.”

He dropped his head. Unclenching my fists, I reached for his hands. “What happened?”

“Father caught up before the doors even closed behind me. Linc was waitin’ in the hallway, too. It was like we weren’t even brothers; the way he glared at me said exactly what Father voiced. ‘You’re a disappointment, Nathaniel. I should have sent you off to the Nomads with your mother a long time ago.’ I wished he had. I’d thought, I’d hoped—Jesus, I’d really hoped—he would. Maybe I’d messed up his image enough he’d have to let me go, declare me dead, too.”

“He didn’t, did he?”

“Hell no. Mercy was for the weak. I learned that lesson the old-fashioned way.” Putting on a tough, cold voice, Blondie said, “‘If you can’t get a wife, you’ll get me the world. I want the respect of all the Territories. You will not be another black mark against my reputation, boy.’”

I was torn between finding a target to demolish like the tree branch beside us and reaching out to him. “How the
hell
did you get through that without being scarred?”

He turned his face up to me, and it felt like he was showing me his sliced-up heart. “You think I’m not scarred? Trust me. Father made sure I was, maybe not on the outside, like Momma, but on the inside. I got taught a lesson on the many reasons why I couldn’t screw up again.”

“Your brother, he just let this all go down?”

He threw back his head and sighed. “Let it go down? He helped him out. Made sure I walked the straight and narrow.” His blue eyes pierced my soul when they hooked mine. “Survivalist training was in order. I was sent from Alpha into the Wilderness with no supplies. One thing was certain: He wasn’t raising pussies. His punishment brought me to starving point, and then I learned the crafts of my people. Momma found me. I was taken in.”

I had to take his hand in mine, stopping him from raking his hair back again and again. “You couldn’t have gotten away with that long.”

“Six months was all. Until word came Linc was out in the Wilderness with a crew of Corps trainees, searchin’ for me. I had to be planted away from Chitamauga, away from my mother, away from my true family so I could be squired back to Alpha to take up my position as the esteemed son I was supposed to be. Least those six months were a good ride.” His smile was breathtaking. All innocence and hope over the cruel wisdom.

“Rice is a Freelander name, your Landowner family name.”

A fainter smile fastened to his lips. “That’s right.”

“How is it you were able to keep Eden’s maiden name?”

“That was my price, for staying in Alpha after they brought me back while I made like the good protégé.”

“You don’t hate her for deserting you and your brother?”

“In that situation, would you rather your momma took a punch or take the heat yourself?”

I’ve already done the same thing for Blondie twice.
He knew my answer.

“I wasn’t gonna watch him suck the soul outta her. I learned how to take care of myself. I earned my place.” His fingers skipped across my mouth. “Sound familiar?”

I nodded, bringing him close to me. “Your brother go by Rice?” I didn’t know any top brass by that name.

“No. He chose our father’s surname.”

The creeping misgiving curled its fingers over my scalp and I bit out, “What’s Linc’s last name?”

T
he family name is Cutler.”

Holy shit.
“Commander Cutler…Beta Commander Cutler is your twin!” I could barely breathe, let alone pronounce the words.

He assented, spreading his hands around my sides as if to hold me in place while the entire goddamn universe toppled to a new axis. Linc Cutler—his goddamn brother—was the man overseeing the recon unit out to get us.

“Your fricking family’s got a hard-on for us?”

“It looks like they do now.” His chin took on that stubborn tilt.

The double whammy followed so fast, I was glad Blondie’s hands kept me solidly on the ground because the bottom of my world fell out.

Nathaniel Cutler, Linc Cutler…and fucking CEO Lysander Cutler.

“Motherfucking hell!” Because it wasn’t bad enough the famous commander was his twin brother; the supremacist Alpha CEO just had to be his dear goddamn daddy, too. The man who already had a toe tag picked out just for me.

I almost puked up my left nut, reliving that very first oh-shit moment at CO HQ when I’d been made to stand stone-faced while his cunt of a father promised a demotion for Liz. When I’d been ordered by the head of Alpha Territory to escort
his son
safely to the Outpost.

Goddamn it!
When I screwed up, I did it from the top and got ass-fucked from behind. It didn’t get much worse than this.

“I’m gonna kill your father.”

“Not if I do first.”

“Why have you stuck it out with the Company?”

“Linc’s a Cutler through and through, but I have to believe I can save him.” I recognized his closed-book look when he said the next. “And I got other reasons.”

“Jesus, thought I had it bad.”

“Oh, you did.” Sitting beside me, he shrugged. “We all do, in one way or another. It ain’t a competition though, ’specially since you don’t like that shit.”

It was hard to keep a straight I’m-so-fucked face when he made me laugh. “You remember everything I say?”

Blondie pulled me close, lightly kissing my lips. “Everything you say, honey, and everything you’ve done since I first saw you.”

His statement could’ve been dangerous to me. Instead it sounded devastatingly romantic. I had to have his lips, his tongue pressing against mine. I needed his body. My hands shaking—for once not from cold—I tugged at his pants, battling the snap and zipper. “I need you inside me.”

When my palm found his cock, he ground his forehead against mine, his voice cracking. “What?”

“You. I need you inside of me, Nathaniel. I want you to take me, have me.” I stroked up, catching my thumb on the lip of his hard, broad head and slipping slowly all the way back down. His beautiful tumescent cock filling my fist with virile flesh and pulsing veins.

“Oh hell. Caspar.” He yanked his pants down his thighs, kicking them off his feet. Moaning into my mouth, he ripped through my clothes until he got to my chest, twirling my nipples, then pulling them between his lips.

A rush of laughter came from me. I’d never seen him move so fast. As my chest rumbled, he peered up and soothed the skin he’d been nibbling.

His voice low and gentle, he asked, “You ever had a man inside you, honey?”

A memory slammed into me—skin the color of the milky coffee I’d had at the commune, brown eyes above me, deep words with a foreign lilt,
Mi corazón, Caspar
—and my head whipped aside.

“Caspar?” His hands stilled, my shaft half revealed to the night. “Did someone hurt you?”

I met his eyes with all the honesty I could muster. “Not like that. Not with intent.” Wriggling free of my fatigues, I linked my fingers with Nathaniel’s and brought them to my mouth. “I haven’t let anyone in for a long time.”

Kissing his fingertips, taking one inside for a long, slow suck, I shoved the memory away, concentrating on the man I had right here. “I want you.”

“I won’t hurt you ever,” he whispered.

My lips shifted with a smile, one that fled when his mouth trailed from my earlobe down the middle of my torso, wetting the thick line of hair until he buried his lips at the base of my shaft. Sucking me deep, he loved my cock with his tongue until I rode his lips.

I writhed to go further, shouting when his throat opened and all I knew was the tight cavern of his mouth and tongue. “Oh Christ!”

He went all the way down on me so many times. I fisted his hair and forced my fingers to relax before I hurt him or bludgeoned him to death with my dick.

Finally pulling up, his lips were swollen and my cock was a deep red.
“Mmm,”
he murmured, licking at me, spreading our moisture up and down my shaft.

The click of the lube bottle preceded the glide of a solitary finger slipping over my sacs, running tight circles over my pucker. I jerked when his finger worked inside me, my hips bearing down, my breath coming fast.

“Can I add another, honey?”

I nodded quickly, spreading my thighs. On my elbows, I watched this sexy man between my legs, his mouth drifting up and down my cock and his fingers threading into me. His head moved the same way it did when he kissed me. In and out, up and down, side to side. Counterpoint moves that kept me on edge and so erect tremors racked my entire body.

He slurped my cock with obscene noises and chuckled every time I snuck up for his lips and down for his fingers; his torrential tease made me smack my palms to the ground, groans leaking past my lips.

He licked straight between my cheeks stretched by his hands. “Gonna fuck this sexy ass.”

He pulled out a condom, but I grabbed his wrist. “Come in me, please. Fill me, Nathaniel. I need to feel you.”

“I’ve never been with anyone like this before.”

I swallowed hard. “Me neither. I’ve never wanted to.” I’d never made love before with no protection, no pretense.

That set him off. On his knees in front of me, his features were stern in sensuality, locks of hair falling forward as he surveyed my body and returned to my face. “I’ve wanted this. I never thought you’d let—”

“Enough talking, babe. Fuck me.”

He was so erotic above me, holding my thighs back, watching the thick ridge of his cock enter me. I groaned when the head disappeared inside me.
Jesus, he’s a big boy.

His fingers found my face. “Okay?” he panted.

“Fuck yeah.” I lifted my hips and he slid farther in.

His cheeks flushed, eyes feverish, he hardly spared a look from my ass parting for his cock, but when he did, a sheepish grin flashed over his lips at getting caught staring. His moan was long and low as he sank all the way in.

The feel of him rocking into me made me grunt. His big cap and wide shaft hit me just right. I was stripped down to the essence of being fucked by my lover, his hands at my hips and mine rooted in his hair.

Every kiss, every caress, every endearment and gasped curse was precious.

He hit his stride, chest heaving as he stretched over me. From that angle, he smacked my gland, sending a full-body thrill through me along with a ragged groan.

“Hell yeah. You like that, big man?” Blondie lunged again, and the feel of him was making me insane. His shiny, slippery cock poised at my entrance, he demanded, “Tell me you like it. Tell me you want me to fuck you.”

“Ahhh, fuck!”
Squirming to get closer, I considered throwing him onto his back and sinking right down on his dick to get him back inside me. “Fuck me. Fuck me like that, babe.”

Sweat glistened on his chest, each thrust driving me wild with lust. My balls ratcheted high, cock stretched up from my belly, beating against his abs. When he kept spearing into me, my back snatched off the ground and my head swerved from side to side.

“You gonna come, honey?”

“Yeah!”

He licked his palm with that delicious pink tongue and curled it around my cock, grinning when my erection leaped and I bucked beneath him. “That’s right. Come for me, Caspar. Come on my body.” He concentrated on the head, strumming it fast, his eyes low-lidded and his piston hips pushing, fucking.

I doused his chest, shoulders, throat as I cried out, laughing because I had no fucking idea how he could still be talking. I was barely breathing, more like moaning.

His mouth ran away with him. “Aw yeah. Feels so good, goddamn tight, honey. Fuck
FUCK!
” My orgasm, my joy squeezed him inside and he practically screamed, coming inside me. “I love you! I LOVE YOU!”

I stopped laughing then.

Dropping onto me, his hands ranged over my face and his lips found mine. He said it again. This time quietly, tenderly. “I love you, Caspar.”

Not exactly the way I thought it would go down but…
damn
. My stomach clenched, and my heart crowded my chest. Our mouths met in a soft kiss.

“
Shh,
honey.” He swiped under my eyes, staying against me, a jumble of arms and legs. The pounding of our hearts slowed to a gentler pace.

Those words, in his voice, replaced the fear, the huge hole of hate and hurt that always left me hungry and haunted.

Curling around him, I tucked my lips to his neck, blowing away strands of hair until I met his skin. I kissed the little divot there for a long time, listening to his deep breaths, the ones pulling my arms tight across his chest.

I couldn’t say it back yet even though I felt the words swelling inside me. All I could do was hold on to his love, hold on to him.

A blast of wind sheared across my face the same time as Blondie said, “We’re not gonna make it.”

We’d pushed ourselves to the limit, tromping over bleak mountains, splashing through icy streams, staying one step ahead. The love we’d shared two nights ago was the only thing keeping us warm anymore. Lack of food added to hardly sleeping had taken its toll.

“They’re gainin’ on us.”

The cold teeth of a gale-force wind spat fat plops of rain over us.
And fuck you very much, Mother Nature.

Breaking from the headlong run, I clasped my knees, squinting at him. “What did you say?”

We couldn’t outrun anymore. We might outlast, but it was imperative to get to the Outpost, still another two days’ travel away, before them, before rumors—or real truths—wrecked our reputations.

“We need a plan.”

“Well, you’re handy with strategies.”

“You’re the commander,” he volleyed.

As I clasped the back of my head, the steady beat of rain pissed on the very last shred of
Holy fuck. Nathaniel “Blondie” Rice loves me.

And it wasn’t the normal kind of rain we had in Alpha. It was a pelt of ice forming rivulets down my face and into the neck of my jacket. “Odds ain’t bad.”

His smile cantered, dimples showing. “Ain’t?”

“You’re growing on me.”

“Odds ain’t in our favor, either.”

I stamped my feet. “It’s all in the prep work.”

Our hearing split between the incoming storm and the oncoming recon troops, we kept ahead until nightfall, gaining a couple hours.

No plastics, no explosives. Our guns were loaded and we had ample knives. I didn’t know if Blondie had any experience slicing and dicing, but I didn’t have time to show him the ropes. Maybe during all the
character building
atrocities his fucker of a father had put him through, he’d learned the right grip, stance, and thrust.

I took his direction when he found a deep pool of mud. It was chilly enough my nuts thought about taking a walk off my body and sending me a message on my D-P from warmer climes.

While we slathered up, going dark as night in deep-cover camouflage, he gave me a little lesson in the Freelanders. “They’re classic Fifth Column in the Revolution.”

“Fifth Column?”

His neat white teeth shone amid the black mud. “It’s Old History.”

“New history to me.”

Sleet painted our black-out clothes to our bodies like a shitty second skin.

Checking his weapons, he said, “Fifth Columnists are saboteurs. Sympathizers.”

“With the rebels, the Revolution?”

“Yeah. There’s an underground movement goin’ on, Caspar. You saw the Freelanders fighting with the rebels in Alpha. The same thing’s happening throughout the InterNations; the two sides have joined up against the Company.”

“You have anything to do with that?”

He settled against a tree trunk and looked me over top to toe. He didn’t say a word.

“We’re not gonna report them.”

“Nah.”

“Ever.”

“Nope.”

“They’re your family,” I added.

“Part of it.” He slunk forward, only his eyes and lips uncovered. He rounded my waist with his forearm and brought me up sharp. “Half my life. You’re the other.”

“How’d you get Leon out?”

“I used the ‘Cutler’s mah daddy’ card.”

“Why the hell would you take that risk?”

“For you.” He bent toward me. “But if I catch that boy askin’ to give you a blow job one more time, all bets are off. I’d do the same for you.” He held my face in his hands, coming away caked in more mud.

Again with the gut check. “I don’t want you saving me.”

“You worry too much.”

“You don’t worry enough.”

“So, we gonna stand here until our dicks fall off and fight about it? Or are we gonna do somethin’?”

“You ready?”

“Affirmative.”

We doubled back. It took us twenty minutes to catch up with the first crew of Corpsmen, the ones most uninjured by our little TNT tête-à-tête a week ago.

I signaled the numbers—five—and we circled to their rear.

The pouring shitstorm worked in our favor, rendering night visors null and void and noise undetectable. They were spaced out beautifully—at least they’d been taught that much—scoping back and forth through the thick woods.

At the end of the column, I tackled the rear guard without a sound, cold cocking him into oblivion and dragging him into the underbrush.

Blondie leapfrogged ahead and pulled the same number on the next soldier, his actions impressive and dangerously choreographed.

By the time we got to the lookout, we’d left a trail of his four comrades scattered behind. Tapping him on the shoulder, I flashed him a white smile amid the sea of black that was my warrior face, bringing my hand down on his wrist before he could grip his pansy-ass blaster.