Chapter 51 #2
“I remember being in a field,” he says, sounding almost wistful despite everything he’d just confessed. “And I could see the stars again. Always the same ones. After a while, I started to talk to them…since no one else was listening.”
I smile even as my chest feels like it’s going to split open. “They talk back?”
“Sometimes,” he says, and I think I can hear him smiling, too. “They sent me them.”
Them. My heart hammers in my chest as more of his words from the train return to me, along with Dolly’s. “Who is them, Cy?”
He’s quiet again for a while, and I wait. Wait for what I already know is coming. “There was a wolf and—”
“A little bird,” I finish.
“Yes.” His head draws back so he can meet my eyes. “They stayed with me until I made it out, but after, I didn’t see them anymore. I told myself it was because they escaped, too.” His gaze searches mine. “So I went looking for them and hoped…I’d get lucky enough to find them.”
I was looking for you for so long. In every face I passed I looked for you, hoping that when I saw you, I would know.
And he had. He’d called me wolf the first night we met. He’d known, but…he can’t have. Things like that don’t happen.
As if he can hear my thoughts, Cypress smiles. “You don’t believe me.”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding and roll my eyes. “Give me a minute to wrap my head around it, would you?”
His smile broadens. “Take all the time you need, wolf. Although, I would like to point out, you did say you thought you had been looking for me, too.”
I did. I had said that. And in truth, I believe it. For so long, I’ve felt like I’ve been looking for something, but I’m also not one to…
“I’ve never put a lot of stock in fate,” I say, glancing down to where his hand is now clasped in mine, his thumb no longer tapping. “Or in luck.”
“But you choose to believe in God?”
“Suppose I do.”
“You choose to believe an unseen being can take things from you.”
My jaw ticks. “Yes…”
“But not that the universe might give you something instead?” he asks. “You only believe in divine providence when it’s to your detriment? Not when it’s to your benefit?” He frowns. “Rather pessimistic view of things, don’t you think?”
I open my mouth to respond, close it, then restart. “Are you the benefit in this situation?”
Cypress grins. “Of course.”
I roll my eyes again, but since I also start kissing him right after, I’m not sure I make much of an argument.
Not until a few minutes later when we’ve both broken away panting for air.
“Wait.” I put a hand on his chest to keep him at bay.
“The little bird. If you think I’m the wolf, then you think there’s another person out there, too? ”
He nods while trying to chase my mouth.
“That you’ll love?” I confirm, staying just out of his reach.
“We,” he corrects. “That we will love. It isn’t them unless we’re both infatuated.” He sighs, still smiling. “You’ll find her first. That’s what I saw in the dream. She appeared with you and then came to me.”
“She?”
“Just a feeling.”
“Cy, it was a dream. It wasn’t…” I start to say, then immediately regret it, not wanting him to think I’m belittling whatever he had to believe to survive.
“And yet, here you are.”
I frown, unable to dispute that point even if I want to dispute the argument as a whole. For the most part.
I had been honest about being with multiple partners before.
Helped, sometimes. Made everything that was overwhelming a bit quieter.
But even so, none of those times were for more than a night, me moving on before the sun was even up.
None of them were like Cypress, and I have trouble imagining that there could be another person I could love the same way… that could love me.
“A bit greedy, don’t you think?” I ask him, the hand I had against his chest skimming lower. “Not that I would mind some reinforcements.”
“There’s three chairs,” Cypress mutters, taking my cue and moving to help with our clothes. “You may not believe in fate, Aiden, but it seems you have been planning for it all the same.”
I shake my head, sitting up so I can tug my shirt off, then his. “Would you stop talking about the chairs?”
“Sure,” he obliges, letting out a heady sigh when I lunge for him, lifting his hips so I can rid him of his pants, too. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Right now?” I ask, kissing him once more before lying on my back again so I can free myself. “Nothing that doesn’t end in you saying please.”
“Ah, well, you see…” He rolls, quickly straddling me in a surprising show of speed for someone who had another brush with death not more than two weeks ago, though I suppose nothing at this point should surprise me about Cypress. “I think it’s my turn.”
“Your turn?” I ask, watching him reach for my discarded shirt and twist it into a makeshift rope. He holds it out in a line over my chest, eyes on mine while he waits for me to place my hands in the center. Once I do, he wraps the fabric around my wrists and knots it.
“Quick release,” he murmurs, guiding my bound hands over my head. “You want me to stop…all you have to do is say.”
I nod, a bit of nerves but mostly anticipation pooling in my gut as his hands trail slowly back down my arms and chest, exploring in a way that someone who didn’t know him better might interpret as lazy. “Why do I have a feeling that nothing else about this is going to be quick?”
“Why rush things?” he asks, taking me in as his teeth press into his bottom lip.
My thoughts skip, darting around for something to do, because surely there’s something. “We should—we should plan out our next steps. Go into town. Resupply. Get word to Dolly.”
Cypress makes an affirmative noise, though he doesn’t seem to be focused on anything other than my eager response as he skims his fingers lightly across my abdomen.
“Dolly will have figured out what happened to us. Just like she will have already punished those responsible. She’ll trust us to make our way back. ”
“Even so,” I argue, not sure why. “We need to—”
“Wolf?”
I realize that I’ve closed my eyes, arching my back to try to guide him. “Hm?”
Cypress grins. “Thought you didn’t want to talk.”
We don’t for a while after that. Not until it really is his turn to hear me say please.
My knees and my still-bound hands in the soft dirt as he takes his time in taking me from behind.
His chest against my back, his mouth once more against my ear, as he murmurs in return, “That’s it. Just like that, wolf. So perfect.”
Never like this, I think again. It’s never been like this. I’ve never let it be, never could have. With anyone but him.
“You liked that, didn’t you?” Cypress continues, running that damn mouth again as he thrusts into me hard and deep. “Watching me?”
Fuck, I had, and I’d like to tell him just how much I’d liked watching him work himself up while he straddled me, how much I’d liked waiting for him to put me out of my misery, to let me touch him while I was completely at his mercy.
I understand now exactly why he’d said that position was his favorite.
“You want to come?” he asks, his hand between my legs stroking my cock at the same pace with which he’s fucking me. “You had enough?”
Against all reason, I shake my head, and he actually laughs. “Fuck, you really are perfect.”
Perfect. God, it really does feel like he’s right. Like nothing could be better. And I decide right then that even if I don’t believe in dreams, I believe in him without question. I believe he’s mine. That I belong with him and he with me.
And I would do anything to keep it that way.