Epilogue
Cain
Two Years Later
Inever knew life could be this good.
A couple winters passed, and we spent most of them cooped up inside, keeping each other warm. It didn’t snow a lot here, but when it did, it was always red.
Bowen wasn’t afraid of that color anymore.
We spent spring and summer and fall outside most of the time. He loved learning how to grow things in the garden, loved lying shirtless in the sun—always on top of me.
His hair had grown so long that I put it up in a ponytail for him every day now.
He loved wearing it up, and I loved getting to see every inch of his beautiful face.
The scars had faded a bit; they were no longer the stark reminder of what he’d gone through that they’d been in those first few months.
He was happy. Genuinely happy, and knowing I was the one who’d given him the opportunity to find that happiness made me incredibly proud. It made me happy.
He was also obsessed with me—and it was very mutual. Whether it rained or not, he wanted to be skin to skin, to have me inside him, filling him up. To sate himself on my cock as he rode me until he was so exhausted he couldn’t move anymore.
We’d learned that the easiest way to calm him when the rain or snow came was having sex. I let him take all his horny aggression out on me, and we both loved it.
We were able to turn a once agonizing thing into something he actually liked. No, loved.
He’d figured out that if he said, “Please,” he always got what he wanted. I was helpless when he used that word and looked at me with those big, beautiful eyes.
Utterly, hopelessly, happily helpless.
When spring arrived, we went to the river every day. Swam and fucked and played. Luna didn’t like the water much, so she sat on the bank and kept watch for us.
I wanted to take him out to the river again today so I could give him something special I’d made, but I couldn’t find him.
It was burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted to see his smile when I placed it in his hands.
“Bowen?”
I poked my head into the bedroom, but it was empty.
Where the hell had he gone?
I’d fallen asleep on the couch after breakfast because I’d been up all night with Bowen.
There was a big storm and he’d needed me. A lot. Many times and in many different positions.
It was a good night, but I was exhausted.
“Bowen? Where are you?”
I was coming more and more awake every time I was answered with silence and empty rooms.
After checking every single room and not finding him, my heart started to pound.
He’d disappeared? He’d disappeared again. Had someone come and taken him? Was there another one? Another bastard out there?
I’d kill him. I’d kill them all.
“Bowen!” I called, panic racing through me. I sprinted down the hall to the stairs, jumping up them three at a time and bursting through the door. “Bowen! Bo—”
He was standing a few feet in front of the door, hand outstretched like he was about to open it, staring up at me with wide eyes. “Oh.”
Panic turned to relief and relief became frustration. I scooped him up, holding him against me to make sure he was real. I was never letting him out of my arms again. Or my sight. He’d just have to stay right here. Forever.
He locked his legs around my waist and threw his arms around my neck, nuzzling into my throat with a contented sound.
“‘Oh?’” I said, turning my face into his hair and inhaling. “That’s all you have to say? Oh?”
“Why are you shaking? What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t—if you leave, please tell me where you’re going. Please.”
He slid his fingers into my hair and said softly, “Okay. I’m sorry. I just wanted it to be a surprise.”
I choked on a laugh. He was obsessed with surprises.
Pressing a kiss to his head, I asked, “Okay. What’s the surprise?”
He leaned back, bracing his hands on my shoulders and looking up at me with a bright smile.
“I made something for you,” he said, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
I gripped his chin and lowered my head until our lips were almost touching. “What bad things have you been up to?”
His eyes were riveted to my lips, and he licked his own. “Just things.”
I leaned closer and slid my tongue along his bottom lip. He whimpered and tried to suck on it, but I was holding him in place too tightly. He growled in frustration, his eyes flashing to mine and full of irritation now.
“Sorry. That was mean,” I murmured, slipping my tongue past his lips. He moaned and sucked on it, then glided his tongue along mine, pressing himself closer to me. Sometimes he just wanted to slowly taste me and bite and suck on me, but no matter what he did, it never failed to make me hard.
I wanted him in every way it was possible to want someone.
“So where are we going?” I asked once he seemed satisfied. For now.
“To the apple orchard,” he said with a big grin.
I huffed a laugh. Of course. “Alright, let’s go.”
I used to make this trek alone or with Luna. Once, I’d been a lonely man that carved faces in trees because it felt like there was a perpetual hole in my being that grew wider and deeper every day.
Bowen had stepped inside that hole and filled it until I was drowning in him. He’d completed me in ways I didn’t know were possible.
He was the very essence of strength and perseverance. He’d survived a hellish existence and was still able to regard the world with the innocent, insatiable curiosity of a child.
He was my sun, guiding me out of the dark and showing me everything that had been hidden in the shadows.
He pointed somewhere to the right. “Over there. Go that way.”
I went that way.
We walked for less than five minutes before he said, “Stop!”
I stopped.
“Do you see it?”
He twirled his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck nervously as he watched me look around for his surprise.
I had no clue what I was supposed to be looking for. All I saw were trees, bushes, mushrooms, apples, more trees—
Oh.
My heart sped up, and I stepped closer to the tree right in front of me.
There was a crude heart carved into the bark, a C and a B in the center and an arrow going through the outside.
Those were our initials.
“I read about that in a book and I wanted to make one for you. Did I do it right?”
I knew exactly which book he was talking about. “Yeah, you did it just right.”
It was perfect.
“I love you, Cain,” he whispered.
It was hard to breathe past the lump in my throat, let alone speak. I cleared my throat and kissed his cheek. “I love you too, Bow. More than you could ever know.”
The love in his eyes, those possessive hands, his beautiful smiles…they were all mine and they made every second of every day better. I wanted to live for an eternity with him, experience ten thousand lifetimes of Bowen getting to live freely with me in our bunker in the woods.
“I’ve got a surprise for you, too,” I said.
His eyes lit up and he smiled wide. “Really?”
I nodded, sliding him to my left hip so I could reach into my pocket.
When I pulled out the small stuffed rabbit—pink, his favorite color—Bowen gasped and snatched it from my fingers.
His eyes glistened when they found mine, and the disbelief there made my heart ache. He looked down at the rabbit, stroking an adoring finger over its head, feeling the softness of its ear between his fingers, fiddling with the blue button eyes.
A tear spilled down his cheek, and the pure joy in his smile when he turned it on me was the greatest gift I’d ever received.
“Thank you,” he whispered roughly. He sniffled, then laughed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He leaned in and nuzzled his cheek against mine, then pressed a soft kiss to my lips.
He bit down on my bottom lip, then drew back to look me in the eyes. He smiled, pointing at the heart he’d carved with the pink rabbit I’d made him. “That means you’re mine. Only mine. Just for me.”
“That’s right. I’m all yours. Just for you.”
“Promise?”
We’d found an unimaginable happiness in our little pocket of the world.
And it was enough.
He was enough.
“Yeah, I promise, Bow.”
THE END