Chapter 10
Have a piece of me
Moros—another week later
He’s avoiding me.
Ignores me when he’s supposed to be practicing, which means listening to my instructions, and I can’t call him out on it in front of the other recruits without outing him. And myself.
I never should have fucked a recruit.
The elders would have my ass.
Michael would take away my job, my peace.
And none of Amo’s peers seem to know he’s into men.
This is a fucking mess.
I never should have messed around with Amo.
And yet … a box of baked goods has shown up on my doorstep every sunrise for the last seven of them.
I accidentally stepped on the first one.
Okay, the second one, too.
Who the fuck leaves a box like that on the ground? Down low with no note and among the bugs crawling around? I never expected anything to be sitting there in the first place, let alone a second day in a row.
By the third, I happened to look before I walked outside.
Each one was different, and all of them were delicious.
If he’s slowly poisoning me, I’m falling for it.
“Amo.”
But then he does this shit where he completely blocks out my presence and turns his back to me.
It’s pissing me off.
“Amo.”
What’s worse? I need a second set of hands to help me get supplies out to Wilson.
He’d radioed yesterday to say he was running low, that the hordes were thickening, and several of his arrows have broken.
Leaving him much longer is gnawing at the pit of my gut and making me feel shit I don’t want to feel; shit I’m not keen to keep living with.
Growling when the rest of the recruits pile into the back of the truck intent on heading back to base, I snag Amo’s elbow before he can disappear between the other bodies.
“Kitten.”
He can’t hide the shudder behind the mask of indifference pinching his face no matter how hard he tries.
“Don’t do that,” he hisses and jerks away.
“Do what?” I ask low and dip to catch his sight. “Call you kitten?”
His plump lip curls, and he looks away. “I’m leaving you alone, Moros. Okay? I don’t know what else you want.”
“You’re leaving me alone?” I scoff. “The boxes showing up every morning would argue different.”
Shoulders deflating, his eyes roll. “They keep you out there and it’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“I know,” he blurts out, cheeks toting a pink tint that has my cock jerking to life. “I was trying to be nice!”
“Then be nice again.”
That stops him.
Makes him blink at me.
Has the hazel of his eyes darkening in the rapidly fading light as his brows bunch together.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Shaking my head when the air shifts, the group of recruits getting restless in the truck bed, I grab his elbow again and pull him a few more steps away.
“I have to take some shit out to Wi—”
“Okay,” he rushes out, his face lighting up.
“—lson. You’re not even going to let me finish as—”
“Nope,” he interrupts again, a smile playing on those thick lips. “I miss him.”
There’s a ping of something that doesn’t make sense in my chest and I snap my mouth shut.
Without another word to him, I snag the duffels out of the truck and pass the keys to Cassia. She stares at them like I handed her more than just the keys to the only thing that’ll get them back home by dark but doesn’t say a word as she accepts and turns away from Amo and me.
He said yes to helping me carry this shit. That’s all that matters.
So why do I want to ask him how he can be so attached already?
Missing someone that sucked your dick once? It doesn’t compute to me.
It took at least twice for me to even wonder what Wilson was up to
I look out for him. There’s a difference.
We’re just … not like that. We shouldn’t be.
I toss Amo the second bag as the truck takes off, leaving us alone for the first time in a week.
His curls, tossed onto the other side of his head today and tinged a weird pink, blow in the wind and collect near his chin.
Eyes narrowed like he’d rather be throwing knives at my head, I see the thoughts all racing across his face, his brain muddling through all the possible responses before settling on something that makes his lips curl into a smirk.
My cock immediately thickens.
I may have fucked up.
“So, what are you, then?”
Busying my hands with tightening the straps around my shoulders, I shake my head and start in the direction of Wilson’s post. “What?”
“You said you weren’t gay, but I don’t know. Having your dick in my ass and my cum on your lips feels pretty gay.”
Definitely fucked up.
“Okay,” I snap and let loose a huff as I hook my thumbs into the straps of the bag and pull. “I’m sorry, alright? I shouldn’t have said you were bothering me, but you fucking are.”
“Ugh, why can’t you just be normal?”
“I am normal.”
The smack of his lips immediately follows the thud of the bag hitting the grass at my feet and my stomach knots.
“I’ll wait until you’re back to go see him. By myself. Bye.”
Amo stomping off in the opposite direction makes those knots grow tighter, especially when I note that his shoulders are up near his ears in a defensive posture that I don’t fucking like.
I shouldn’t care that he’s mad.
But he keeps taking my words at face value instead of hearing me out and—
None of it matters.
He can be frustrated with me. He should be. It’s better for him to be than to keep up the facade that this will go farther than it has already.
It’s just a fuck. If I’d known he was a total virgin, I wouldn’t have taken his sweet ass.
I certainly would not have asked Wilson to join in.
It was all a mistake.
“I’ll walk you back.”
The weight of the packs doubled across my shoulders feels like they get heavier as I walk past him. His heavy gaze on me doesn’t help.
“I can get back on my own, Moros,” he mutters from close behind, the thickness of his words slithering down my spine.
“I know,” I growl back, my jaw clenched.
And I do know. I fucking taught him how to survive out here with nothing but a knife and his wit.
So why do I keep wasting daylight?
The silence that falls between us is thick. I work my neck one way, crane it the other, but nothing seems to alleviate the tension riding down my back.
We’re nearly halfway back when he huffs so loud, it makes me spin around, hand poised on my holstered blade.
“Just give me one of them,” he demands, his hand out and fingers fluttering. But I can’t focus on either as the sight beyond his head registers. “I can’t watch you—”
“Smoke.”
Whatever words he’s about to say next are lost as I toss a pack in his direction and fucking run.