Chapter 32
Try again
Wilson
Raising my fist to knock on the door feels like I’m triggering every nerve ending in my body. My own fist feels too heavy, my muscles too weak.
I know Amo is on the other side, hopefully waiting for me, but I’m so damn drained. This just feels too familiar with Moros, and I don’t know why I keep letting him destroy me like this.
It’s been ten years of shit like this with him. I should have learned to let him go a little bit by now, or have some faith in his tenacity, but I’m having a hard time finding it.
Seeing him with Amo … he’s different now.
Still an asshole, but he asked Amo if he needed us. Actually asked, though during sex probably doesn’t count, but it does for someone as closed off as Moros.
What they don’t realize is that it’s me. I’m the one who needs them both. I don’t feel right when they aren’t with me, even in the home I made for myself among the trees and rot.
Leaving Moros behind nearly killed me tonight and I just … I need Amo in my arms. To feel him. To know that I haven’t lost everything that stumbled into my place that day weeks ago.
I force myself to knock against the panel, the quick rap louder than the shot from a gun. It takes a moment for shuffling on the other side to come through the door, a feminine voice hushed just behind it.
But as soon as it opens, my insides tingle and it feels like I can breathe for the first time since Moros was locked away.
“Wilson!”
The impact to my chest knocks me back a step into the hallway but I catch him—I’ll always catch him—and hold him tight.
Fuck he feels good.
“You’re here,” he mumbles against my pulse, his arms banding around my neck, his legs around my waist.
“Yeah, baby. I’m here.”
“How was he?”
I work a swallow down my throat and step into his place, kicking shut the door behind me. “Alive.”
“Okay …” he breathes out, leaning back just enough to slam me in the gut with his watering gaze. “Will you tell me what happened? Who was that guy? And… am I fucked up for wishing he’d gone through with it?”
My breath is loaded. My arms going numb but there’s a hint of a smile pulling at the corner of my mouth.
“Yeah, I will. And no, you aren’t. Just … let me hold you first. Please, baby?”
He nods and wriggles until I let him slide down my body to plant his feet on the floor.
I’m hammered next by the harsh glare from across the room, one I can feel burrowing into the side of my head, and though I would rather ignore the woman digging her concerns into my skull telepathically, I meet her gaze.
“Cassia. Good to see you.”
She huffs, crossing her sinewy arms over her chest.
“Oh, c’mon,” Amo whines, rolling his eyes. “Can you not harass him, please?”
“It’s my job to make sure he’s good to you, Amo.”
“I am,” I say with conviction, though it comes out sounding just as tired as I feel.
Not once does her hard scowl soften.
I want to sever it, this weird connection she’s made while she assesses me. Especially when I feel Amo step away from me, his warmth cooling in his absence; my need to follow him a strong pull.
“Then why are you here?” she finally asks, a sharpness taking over her eyes.
“For him,” I say softly and tip my head in the direction I felt him go. “And for me.”
Her head tilts, lips pursing.
“Honest.”
My brows tip up. “I have no reason not to be.”
“Then tell him the truth about Moros and you. How you spent all the time together and now you’re both with my guy? Spill it.”
I shrug one shoulder. “Moros is a damaged, grumpy asshole. I balance it out, I guess.”
“Like candied nuts!” Amo proclaims, his grin evident in his voice.
Cassia blinks hard for a long moment then a laugh bursts from her lips. It’s contagious, eliciting my own chuckle as Amo comes to my side and tucks himself beneath my arm.
I hold him tight.
“I said that on purpose,” he swears up at me with big eyes and an even bigger grin.
“I believe you, baby.”
Just having him near me has my chest inflating. Smelling his scent has my heart leaping. But feeling him against me, even when it’s just the two of us?
Heavenly.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” I ask him and a redness blooms on his cheeks.
“Of course you can,” he whispers, his fingers finding my beard and twirling the ends softly. “C’mon, big guy. My bed is calling.”
He takes my heart and my hand and leads me down a short hall, dismissing his friend without a word.
His room is small. Smaller than the one across the hallway, but it’s bigger than my place. I almost miss the scent of earth and leaves until he closes us in, trapping his smell and mine together.
Warm fingers brush my waist as Amo turns into me, dipping beneath my shirt and lifting the material from my skin.
“If you want to have sex, we can,” he murmurs distractedly, and I help him get the fabric the rest of the way off my head. “But if you don’t want to …”
I follow his curls with my gaze when he dips, those fingers curling in the waistband of my pants to tug those down too. The filled pockets make a thud as they drop to the floor around my boots.
“We don’t have to.”
My dick is filling regardless of my words, and he spins away from me with his exhaustion evident in his turned-in shoulders. He’s quick to strip himself, flashing me his tight ass as he climbs beneath the covers.
When he lifts them in invitation, I follow.
“I asked the apothecary how to make lube.”
Snorting, I settle on my side and tuck some of his curls behind his ear.
“Aloe and oils.”
His smile is soft, his body softer as he scoots close enough that his chest touches mine.
“Funny enough, they told me to ask you.”
Those lithe fingers of his dance across my chest, twirling my hair around the tips as he goes.
I used to hate it. But it’s hard to hate something my baby seems to like.
“Show me how to make a cherry flavor? For Moros.”
My grin grows. “He’ll love that.”
The air between us thickens at his mention and I clear my throat.
“That man he hurt … it was his dad, Amo.” The gasp of recognition and shock makes my stomach tighten but I continue—I promised him I would. “He’d trained Moros and me when we first got here. He’s an asshole but he was good at what he did. It made us good.”
Swallowing back the emotions, I force myself to focus on the heartbeat next to mine. The softness of his skin. The way it prickles at my touch.
“Moros was in a frenzy. Something I was all too familiar with when we’d found this place that his dad was building up. There were too many people. Too many suspicions about his status. So, I locked us in a room just like this one.
“He chased me. Fucked me. Ate anything I sat in front of him.
“We’d been out there, on our own for so long. Scavenging and hunting and barely surviving. I didn’t wanna ruin it so soon.”
Amo’s tear-filled eyes meet mine in the dark and my stomach grows even tighter.
“What happened?”
“His dad found us. Walked right in on Moros mounting me like the animal he was.”
I swallow hard past the lump building in my throat and I pull Amo closer.
“Then what?” he asks quietly.
“He turned without a word, leaving Moros and me alone. I thought he’d let it go.
Everything had gone on as normal. As if he’d never seen his son fucking another man.
As if his son wasn’t born infected like the ones he was—” a wave of anger takes over me and I roll to my back.
“He turned away the infected, Amo. Even if they hadn’t yet turned. And I knew that. We both did.
“Once the storm passed and the frenzy was long gone, Michael kept training us. Joking and laughing all the while and still, I could see the things in his eyes. The knowing in his demeanor.
“The next storm was approaching. I’d learned to smell it coming—the heady scent of iron thicker than normal—but we had time. And a job to do.
“Michael escorted Moros and me out to the Outskirts, instructing us to make quick work of the horde moving in. The rain was close, but I knew we needed to protect the people. If anyone could mow down a mob of decomposed, it was us.”
Amo’s sniffle makes my chest ache, but I continue. Now that I’ve started spilling our past, now that I know I want Amo in my future—our future—he needs to know where we come from. Even if it hurts.
“And we did.” My smile is bitter. “Moros and me, we did it.
“Then the rain came. Clear at first. But that didn’t stop Michael from leaving us behind.”
“No.”
My eyes prick with the memory, the fear I felt. The helplessness and hopelessness.
I’m still haunted by the look on Moros’s face when he realized what had happened. What had been done. That there was no time to find cover for me.
“We were drenched to the bone when it turned red. Too far from camp and the comforts we’d gotten used to. Too far from shelter.”
He rolls close to me, his smooth body shaking against mine and I wrap my arms around him tight.
“For days, I was fevered and sick. Unable to navigate back. Unable to control Moros. And when the storm finally broke, I almost died.
“And I recall every bit of it like a reoccurring nightmare.”
I bury my face in his hair and inhale deep.
“They refused to open the gates for us when we made it back weeks later. A decontamination process, they called it. So little by little, Moros stole wood and tools. Food and drink. And he built a shelter high up from the ground, away from eyes and teeth.
“I’ve lived there ever since.”
Amo’s harsh breath flies across the hair on my chest, his thin arms banding tight around me.
“Then how … how did you become Guard.”
My chuckle is dark, and I feed my fingers into his hair, tangling my digits in his strands.
“Moros finally broke in. Destroyed the place that they’d built. Swore that if they ever treated anyone the way they did us, he’d return. And then he killed every one of them he could get his hands on, careful to leave at least one behind.”
“His dad.”
I nod.
“Michael bargained his original promise for his life—Moros and I guard the community from the outside, teach the newcomers, keep them safe. And in exchange, he’d leave me and Moros be.
We’d be out of sight, out of mind. He’d give us whatever supplies and manpower we needed to survive.
Food and water would be ours. Shelter … from the storms. It’s all we ever wanted, so Moros agreed with a promise to come back if it was ever broken. ”
“And today was it?”
I sigh. “Yeah, baby. Today was it.”
Glassy eyes meet mine, his lashes already damp. “Because of me?”
My lips thin and I brush my fingers down his cheek.
“No, not because of you, baby. For you. And me. And anyone else that comes after us who’s just a little bit different.”
Those tears collecting on his eyes fall and land on my chest.
“I don’t want him to die for me, Wilson.”
My jaw clenches, but I force what I hope is a reassuring smile and tug him back down to me.
“He won’t. I promise.”
He thumps me in the stomach. “Don’t promise shit you can’t keep!”
I can’t help the loaded chuckle. “I trust him and his ability to survive. That’s all.”
“But you’ve seen him survive! I haven’t. All I know is the grumpy asshole that pretends to hate my cherry treats but eats them anyway.”
That one gets a full laugh out of me, each breath taking some of the darkness along with it.
“Fuck, I love you, baby. You’re so funny sometimes.”
His fist jams into my gut again, but this time he uses me to push up and look down at me.
“I can’t help it. I need the salty to my sweet and the warmth to his cold! Ugh!”
He shoves his hands beneath my arms, his fingers wriggling in my armpits and I gasp on a chuckle. It gets louder, the noises I’m making, almost uncontrollable, as he tickles me.
Holy shit, I don’t think I’ve ever been tickled before.
I writhe and I push at him, his persistent hands sticking to me like glue.
“Fuck me, I can’t take it,” I choke out, tears squeezing past my lashes, a wheezing cough tearing up my throat and I grab his arms, forcing them back.
The Amo that stares back at me looks like a damn menace with his grin so wide, he’s showing teeth and his eyes screaming madness.
It makes me laugh harder.
And it leaves me open for him to wiggle those tickling digits back into my armpits for another assault.
“I. Love. You. Too!” he chants between giggling breaths and my heart … it feels mostly full.