Chapter 23
23
I wake up in my cot, aching and itchy with sweat. I jerk up upright remembering the gun, Julian, the pain —
“Nope,” says Ben, coming to sit at the edge of my cot. “Lie down. Relax. You got shot, and then you fainted. I patched you up, but you’re gonna need time to recover.”
It all comes rushing back to me like a nightmare. Darcie, orgasmic, sinking into the riverbed. Julian, wild-eyed, accusing me, pointing a gun at me. And Ben. Kind, patient, oblivious Ben. What does he think is going on here? That we all have a regular run-of-the-mill fever?
“I see the wheels in your head turning,” Ben says, stroking my hair. “But I need you to relax, okay? You’re lucky to be alive. If you hadn’t seen that shot coming…” he swallows, glances away. “Get some rest. I need to find Julian.”
“But the gun—”
He pats his thigh, and a rush of relief crashes over me when I see the gun is there, safely holstered. “Fleming wasn’t hard to disarm,” says Ben, smiling in an almost self-satisfied way. That alone, his sly bravado, sends a little thrill to my core.
“Come here,” I murmur, reaching for him, suddenly euphoric with the realization that I survived being shot, that Ben is still safe, that he’s here, that his fear of my death means he might care about me as much as I care about him.
“I gotta go.”
“No, come here.”
He hesitates. He’s in my thrall, but his gaze is pure, Her influence nowhere to be found. He’d do anything for me. I see it in his face, this unconditional care. Every part of him is focused on me right now. It hurts my chest.
He gives up resisting.
He crawls onto the cot with me. He knows exactly what I want, and I love that. Straddling me, still fully clothed, his expression trusting and already lit with undeniable desire, he pulls on my bottom lip with a gentle thumb. His voice, when he speaks, is so deep, so tantalizing, so full of carnal promise that I arch beneath him.
“If you had died,” he murmurs, “I would have dropped fifty nukes on this planet from space. There’d be nothing left. Not a single growing thing.”
I smile. I can’t help it. I care about him, I realize, more than I’ve cared about anything in my life. More than my mother. More than this godforsaken planet.
“I’d do the same,” I whisper.
He smiles back.
We’re in a bubble here in my tent, a safe haven, and I revel in the way Ben talks about my hypothetical death. Like it would ruin him. Like he might love me. My gunshot wound throbs, but the pain is distant, muted. All I care about is Ben’s weight on the cot with me, his finger on my mouth, the ache at my core. I wrap my hands around him and pull him down, our mouths tangling with needy moans.
He’s so good to me. So good for me.
“God, you get me so hard,” he rumbles between kisses, his hands seeking under my shirt, hot and rough against my skin.
Good .
“Undress me,” I gasp, as his teeth find the tender spot beneath my ear.
He pauses, lifting himself up to meet my gaze. His hands brace on either side of me, his arms flexed. So gorgeous. “I need to be distracted, Ben. I need you .”
“You got shot.” He nibbles my ear. “I could hurt you.” He dips his head down, treating me to a long, deep kiss. He groans into me, and I respond, gripping his shoulders with ravenous fingers.
I realize with heady wonder that I hardly feel any pain, not with Ben’s full weight on my body, not with his tongue in my mouth, not when I’m soaking wet and ready for him.
“It doesn’t hurt when your hands are on me,” I murmur. “Undress me.”
This time, he obeys.
His movements are gentle but deliberate as he pulls my shirt up and over my head, careful not to jostle my bandage. He unzips my cargoes, removes them slowly, and sets them aside. I’m naked except for my panties, already almost completely undone. Every shift of Ben’s muscles, his heated gaze when my bare breasts meet the night air… everything he does works me into a frenzy.
Delirious with desire, I run my hand from my breast to my inner thigh, sighing his name.
He’s still fully dressed, gun still strapped to his thigh. He stands over me, his hot gaze roving over my form as if I’m a priceless artifact, a work of art.
“Look at you,” he breathes.
I catch his gaze and with a distant spark of relief, see that he’s still Ben, still mine. Not Hers. Never Hers. Not while I’m here.
Finally, he takes my ass in his warm hands. He squeezes once, then slides my panties down so slowly I could come from anticipation alone. When he starts to shed his own clothing, I reach up, grabbing his wrist.
“No,” I say, breathless. “Keep them on. Unzip your pants.”
He does as I ask, his gaze never straying from mine.
“Take out your cock.”
He shimmies his briefs down, awkwardly, until his cock springs free. My mouth waters at the sight of it.
“Look at you ,” I can’t help but echo his words. “You’ll do anything for me. You’ll give me anything. Would you fuck me just like this?”
He groans assent and falls upon me hungrily. His mouth takes mine with fervor, and I relish the uncomfortable pressure of his belt buckle jamming into my hip, the cold metal of his zipper pressing on my belly. There’s something perfect about him just like this, like he’s a soldier designed just for my pleasure. All I need is his exquisite cock.
But I still want more. I want everything. And whatever I am, whatever I have to give, it’s his. Forever.
I close my eyes as he kisses my neck, his mouth moving to my collarbone, my breasts. I gasp, arching my back as he sucks on one nipple, then another. He bites, gently. And all the while, his bare cock slides against my pussy, up and down, building that friction I need so badly. I’m soaking wet. If he angles himself just so, he could slide in… he could fill me up, slamming into me over and over.
I’m so close already. All he’d have to do is apply the right pressure in just the right way. My skin is on fire. I grab at him, almost delirious, kissing him, rubbing against him desperately, needing more.
“Ben,” I gasp.
He understands what I want.
Inhale: he draws back, the tip of his cock teasing at my entrance.
Exhale: he slams into me so hard and deep that I slide up the cot, its frame shuddering.
I cry out a muffled curse as he pulls out, then slams into me, again. Again. I’ve never felt anything like this. With only a few thrusts I’m already on the edge, ready to fall.
For a moment, it’s as if the tent is gone. The cot is gone. Nothing exists but Ben and me, our bodies moving together in perfect tandem, taut with pleasure. He, fully clothed. Me, naked and dripping with sweat. My wound is open and bleeding, red dripping from the bandage. But it feels beautiful to me.
“I need to touch you,” Ben murmurs, stilted, like he’s so close to coming it takes everything not to.
I let him pull out of me, as bereft as it makes me feel. I let him grab me by the hips and flip me over. My eyes flutter shut as he pulls me up to lean against him, my back against his chest, head against his shoulder. He lifts me by the hips, just enough — fuck — and slams into me again from this new, deeper angle. A moment later, his hands slide around to my front, one teasing my nipple, one dipping low to tease my cunt with purposeful fingers.
This is Heaven. This is bliss. And when his fingers curl upward, applying pressure to my clit as he fucks me, I sob with ecstasy.
“There,” he growls, his breath hot against my ear. “You like that?”
His belt buckle jingles with every thrust. His dog tags stick to the sweat on my back. I’m vividly aware of the gun, strapped to his leg. With that thought, my core tightens, and a wave of orgasmic euphoria consumes me.
Julian leans against the tree, head bowed, hand braced against silver bark. They’re breathing hard, but shallow. Their other hand dips below their waistline, moving steadily. They fall into the tree, their shoulder braced against the trunk, their face a mask of pleasure. Their head falls sideways, and their cheek presses gently against the bark.
“You’re so close,” Ben murmurs. “You feel so tight, so wet, so perfect. I could fuck you for days, Jones.”
The ache inside me tightens and tightens until I’m gasping, writhing under Ben’s touch.
Gnarled boughs lower themselves slowly. The twin moons light the plain all around, the grass shimmering, reaching as always, reaching eagerly toward Julian.
Ben stops thrusting. He holds me, his fingers pressed to my sensitive core, as wave after wave of pleasure rocks through me.
The tree at Julian’s back begins to morph. Its bark moves and curves to open up, revealing a horrible blackness beyond. Julian sighs, throwing their head back, sinking into the dark as if it’s thick black oil. And the tree nudges them in, its roots curling around their feet and ankles, pulling them down, down into the maw.
I begin to descend from my climax at the same time that Ben comes, and I’m almost swept up again as he gasps my name, making helpless little sounds as he empties into me.
As we descend from that impossible high, I return to myself one molecule at a time, slowly sinking down from the heavens. The sky fades and dims, and we are back in the tent, and it’s just me and Ben, body to body, this quiet connection.
He lays me down gently, mopping my brow. He tucks me in with tender words. He zips himself up. He gently cleans my wound, and I barely notice. I’m still delirious with pleasure, even as the pain returns. I’m wrung out. When he replaces my bandage with a fresh one, I can hardly keep my eyes open. He murmurs more low-pitched words, reassuring, and intimately soft. And when he’s satisfied I’m comfortable, he disappears for a moment. Soon, he returns with a cup of water and a cup of pills, and I swallow both, too exhausted to protest.
I’m on the verge of unconsciousness, unable to let myself drift off, terrified that when I wake, Ben will be gone.
I can’t think about Julian. I won’t. It was a nightmare. Unreal. Just like Darcie. None of this can possibly be real.
“Jones,” Ben says, my name an endearment. He kisses my forehead. “I need to go find Fleming, okay? Dose them up with something strong. Your painkillers will kick in soon. Try to get some sleep.”
But it’s not the pain I’m worried about. It’s Ben, out there. With Her. It’s Julian. It’s Darcie. “Stay,” I protest, my voice far away. My eyelids are so heavy. I’m so tired. “Stay with me.”
“I won’t be long.”
“She’ll take you…”
“Shh. Go to sleep. I’ll be back before you know it.”
I wake up in the dark, my shoulder an aching pulse. My head aches, too, and my body is sore, stiff, resistant to movement.
I roll over to my uninjured side in the cot, peering into the dark as my eyes adjust. “Ben?”
No answer.
I check my watch, and it’s three o’clock in the morning. My heart sinks. Ben’s gone. Everything in the tent, our fucking, his sweet words in the aftermath, is a blurry haze. Either I’m losing my grip, or those painkillers were strong . Sitting up gingerly, I flick on my lantern, blinking in the sudden light.
And then it really sinks in: Ben went after Julian. Jesus . He’ll never find them. Julian’s gone. And I left my walkie in the plain, discarded with my jacket.
I have to go get him, bring him back here. He could be wandering in the plain, the forest, all alone. I can’t just sit here fucking around, gunshot wound or not.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I lean over the edge of my cot, reaching for my clothes, and something catches my eye. My mother’s jacket. It’s draped across a chair that Ben must have brought in, now ruined with my blood. And discarded on the floor, probably after falling out of the pocket while Ben was tending to my injury: my mother’s journal.
I sit there, motionless, watching the notebook as if it will make a sudden movement, or disappear.
Go find Ben. Go get him before something happens to him, if it hasn’t already.
The journal calls to me.
I slide out of bed slowly. My shoulder burns. I get on my hands and knees, and a strange sensation pulls my gaze down. The floor is carpeted in plant growth. A shiver curls through me. Was it always like this? Did it grow just for me? Digging my fingers into the moss, I know it was the latter. I fucking hate it. I’m about to rip up clods of the growing things, pluck them from their beds, and crush them in my fists when something stops me.
A voice.
No, a sensation, a knowing. It’s the same thing I felt when I pressed bare skin to the trees in the forest and knew their ages. The same call I felt when I discovered my mother’s waterfall for the first time. The horrible desire for decay, to sink in, to be swallowed whole and cradled in Her womb. The same way I always feel Ben when he moves through the forest.
I listen intently.
The grasses whisper beneath the twin moons, flowing like a sea, undisturbed. Until… There — Ben. I feel his movements, boots against dark soil, body pushing through tall grass. He’s alive.
Thank God.
I reach for my mother’s journal, pulling it into an embrace. Then I crawl back into bed, gasping as my shoulder jostles, the notebook in my arms. I’m breathing hard; even that small amount of movement has winded me. There’s no way I can go after Ben now. I’ll just pass out on the way.
And this journal is important. I need to read it now, to understand this place. To understand my mother, to understand myself . She left it for me, knowing that I’d come here. And whatever truth she left in these pages? I can’t go on until I know it.