Chapter 18
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
PHOENIX
I gave Aubrey a few days before I cornered him again. A myriad of emotions played across his features when I reached out and gently traced a long cut across his bicep that had faded to white. This scar looked deeper.
I watched in fascination as the anger on his face was chased away by worry.
Guilt.
His eyes flicked down to my stomach where I’d earned my own newly formed scar, and Aubrey frowned.
“One time, the Order sent us on a mission a few cities over. Far enough away that the people aren’t like we are.
” Aubrey’s brows drew together like he was seeing the image of what he was saying as he spoke.
“We were supposed to be getting supplies from an old armory, and the entire town was full of infected. We found out later their water supply had been contaminated by rain runoff and they’d been drinking it without realizing.
It’s kind of dumb.” He glanced down with an almost embarrassed expression.
“I actually got it putting a table in front of a window. The glass broke out and cut me. I couldn’t move back or we would have been swarmed. ”
“We?” I said carefully, and he flicked his gaze up to me with another frown.
“Yeah, we. Me and Ben.”
Mine.
That scar was mine.
That little piece of Aubrey that he’d tried to keep hidden away from me over the last few weeks was mine now, and I didn’t realize how addictive it would be to have the taste of him on my tongue.
I leaned in, and he tensed when I drew his arm up.
When I ghosted my lips across the faint white line, I didn’t mistake the soft, trembling exhalation he tried to hide as he pulled away.
“You’re a freak, Phoenix.”
I just grinned and lifted my hand, looping my finger through his collar so I could tug him behind me. “Maybe, but you’re still going to follow me, aren’t you?”
He looked almost helpless when he nodded.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Two days later while we were walking along the perimeter of the resort with the rest of the group, putting bits of scrap metal and board on the broken parts of the fencing, I wrapped my hand around Aubrey’s waist and pulled him into a rickety shed I’d spotted a few yards ahead of us.
I could still hear the others in the distance, but that didn’t stop me from sliding my hand down his pants and grabbing hold of his cock.
“Do you really think—” He tried to bring his hands up to cover his mouth and hide the sound of his moans, and I caught his wrists with a devilish grin.
It was easy to pin them both above his head so he couldn’t hide what was happening.
Easier still to slowly stroke his dick before I lowered my head and brushed my lips along a jagged-looking curve that trailed along the inside of his elbow.
“Oh, fuck you, Phoenix,” he hissed when I did it again, and he realized what I was up to.
“Mmm, better start talking before the others find out what we’re doing. I know Zero likes to watch, but I don’t know about the rest of them.”
He swallowed down another low whine, biting his lip to the point that I watched a little rivulet of red streak from the corner of his mouth. I leaned in, licking the coppery taste from his skin before doubling my efforts, my hand rough and fast as I stroked him.
“I… oh… fuck… fuck you,” he whined again, and his green eyes went wide in desperation, because it was obvious that the voices that had been trailing off earlier were getting closer again.
Even more, I felt his cock pulse in my hand when he heard them—I knew he was addicted to danger, but I didn’t realize that addiction extended to the danger of getting caught fucking around.
“Not unless you tell me.” The low, teasing rumble of my voice only served to make him more desperate, and the flex of his hips in tandem with the way he ducked his head and bit my shoulder in a vain attempt to hide the sounds he was making told me I was going to win this little war.
Sure enough, when I heard Cutter calling my name, Aubrey let out another choked sound and lifted his head to my ear so he could whisper his confession.
“There’s a little river that runs through the park downtown.
Have you ever seen it?” I was so caught up in the feel of how hard he was in my hand, how desperately his hips were rocking and the thundering of his pulse beneath my fingers that I completely forgot what we were talking about.
When I finally caught up, I nodded. I’d seen the water before, but I never went into it. It led into the ocean and…
“You decided to go swimming?” I actually had to bite back the sound of laughter before I was the one who gave up our position in my little game. I focused on squeezing his cock and teasing his slit with my thumb until he whined and nodded.
“It was hot. Fucking infected freak of a fish. Huge teeth, razor-sharp fins. I… oh, fuck…” he moaned when I let go of his wrists and dropped to my knees in front of him, yanking his pants down in one fluid motion. “At least I had a good dinner that ni—ahhh, fucking fuck , Phoenix.”
He came down my throat the instant I swallowed around him, and I groaned, lapping at the salty taste and sucking him through the little shivers and shakes that nearly made him collapse.
I just managed to drag his pants up as the door to the shed slammed open. It wasn’t Zero, who probably would have gotten hard realizing what we’d just done .
It was Cutter.
He glanced between the two of us—Aubrey sweaty and flushed, his lip still bleeding and his hands tangled in my vest in a vain attempt to hold himself up.
And then his gaze flicked to me. My swollen lips, the obvious way I was still hard in my pants. The hurt, angry look in his eyes made me scowl, and my arm slid around Aubrey’s waist almost automatically.
“Come on. We should keep moving.”
“What about—” He cut himself off when Cutter made an almost strangled sound, and I smirked.
“You can take care of it later.”
The red that raced across his cheeks told me that as much as he might have said he didn’t want to, I’d see Aubrey on his knees before the day was through.
When we got back to the plaza later that afternoon, he half dragged, half shoved me into the room, chasing me into the shower so he could drop between my legs with an almost angry expression as he swallowed me down.