Chapter AFTER 1
FOREST
The bed is luxurious and soft, the bedframe beneath it is sturdy. Still, the headboard slams against the wall with every thrust.
Tucker fucks like he’s trying to expel the wolf within, the last vestige of a life he’s eager to forget.
The harder he fucks, the harder he pants.
I stare up at the painting hung over the bed—the last one he ever painted of me, lying naked in the worn bed of Wilde Manor.
My fingers curl into the satin sheets and my toes bounce on the bed as I arch back, savoring every inch of his width.
His nails dig into the flesh of my hips, deeper and deeper until he bucks forward one last time, emptying himself inside me with a howling final grunt. His sweaty head drops down, blowing hot air over the nape of my neck.
In the loft apartment overlooking the city, it’s not so quiet. Wailing sirens are an all too common occurrence, even when we’re thirty-four floors in the sky. And the fucking honking—it never ends. Impatient people screaming with their horns at cars and pedestrians alike.
Tucker loves the noise. He swears it keeps the whispers at bay. In the stillness of quiet, it gives him too much time to think.
There’s a stack of books on a desk in the corner of the room—-The Bible, The Qaran, Gita, Tao Te Ching, The Analects of Confucius, and The Kama Sutra. The last book is flipped open to a page called Dhenuka. There’s a photo of a man railing a woman in doggie position.
He reads so much these days, hoping he’ll find the cure for the hole in his heart in another religion.
So much of his life was a lie built upon a thing that didn’t even exist. As much as I try to put myself in his shoes, the truth is that I can’t.
I never believed in the Wilds the way he did.
There were times I felt something, but to believe with my whole heart?
Sometimes, when he tosses and turns at night, guilt weighs me down like a heavy blanket. It’s easy to say we were rescued from that place, but a part of him was absolutely destroyed when the veil was lifted. Sometimes, I wonder if he would have been better off if I had never shown back up.
I turn on the news.
On the one-year anniversary of what happened out there, the media regurgitates the same known information.
I’m glued to the screen anyway. It’s a surreal feeling watching yourself on television, broken and tired, sitting in the back of an ambulance.
The anchor goes through the motions, reaching the most recent development as a clip flashes of my mother leaving a federal court.
A crowd gathers around her, screaming questions she’ll never answer.
She’ll spend the next twenty years behind bars for embezzlement, forced labor, and human trafficking.
It’s not a harsh enough punishment for what she did.
Tucker’s father is still alive, too. He raised the other three kids, but swears he had nothing to do with what they did.
Instead, he got locked up too for the same crimes as my mother.
The shortest possible version of the story is this—my father and his brother created a real-life cult out of a fictional story my grandfather had written.
They were charismatic men who preyed on the weak, bringing them into the Wilds, but only after convincing them they had to give up everything they owned.
It’s easy for the outside world to judge.
And judge they’ve done. The victims of the deceit have been flamed as idiots and morons who deserved what they got.
It’s never that simple, though. I don’t know what it took for someone to make that deal, but I know people have their fucked-up reasons for all the stupid things they do.
The victims of my family weren’t stupid.
They were lost in a world that’s all too easy to get lost in.
My mother served as the primary proxy for the outside world. While I’ll never know the full truth, I’ve figured out that my father, my uncle, my mother, Tucker’s mother, Tucker’s father, Bash, and Zeva’s husband all knew.
Tucker finally comes out of the bedroom, sipping on a bottle of water as his soft cock swings between his legs.. I turn off the television before he can see it. It’s not that the footage itself upsets him. Rather, he swears the media caught him at all the wrong angles.
He parks himself beside the floor-to-ceiling window and stares out at the wild urban jungle below. There isn’t the slightest bit of concern that someone down below could see him in his naked glory. It’s one of the many things he can’t shed from his time in the Wilds.
Nudity.
He’s sworn off underwear. Tried boxers, briefs, thongs, and jockstraps. Hated every single one.
Sometimes, he’ll stand at the window for hours. I’ll leave in the morning to go run some errands and come back to find him still standing there.
I’ve gotten used to the smell of urine, especially in the summer months.
In the concrete world beneath the city that never sleeps, trains rip by.
In this city, you’re never quite out of place.
Tucker and I are dressed to impress in matching navy suits.
As always, Tucker holds his arm out over my chest, protecting me from the big scary subway.
Somewhere along the way, he heard rumors that people are frequently pushed onto the tracks just before a train rolls into the station.
For this reason, he’s paranoid about making sure to stay as close to the concrete columns as possible.
When the A train arrives, Tucker watches the crowd get on and off, grabs me by the hand, and pulls me to the last car.
It’s the least crowded, but at 4PM on a Friday, there’s no such thing as a light crowd.
Tucker stands with his back against the doors and his arms crossed over his body while I stand in front of him, holding onto a stainless steel bar.
He watches me.
Still, always watching.
A smile hitches across his lips, pushing his groomed muststache upward. He leans forward, hangs a hand around the same rod I’m holding onto, and kisses me softly. Marking me. Letting everyone in the damn car know I’m his.
I let him kiss me, too. Even when I notice a tall man staring.
Tucker notices the man too and passes him a glare—daring him to say something.
A look passes over Tucker’s face. Dangerous and volatile.
No matter how hard he tries to outrun the ways of the past, he can never quite outrun the rage threaded in his soul.
Homophobia is a new experience for Tucker.
The Wilds and the people in it never batted an eye at two men sharing intimacy. It’s natural.
One day he’ll snap and I won’t be able to stop him.
The train rolls into the station, the brakes crying in squeals and scrapes. The doors part open and I give Tucker a slight shove forward onto the platform.
Bright, sterile white lights flood the gallery as observers swarm, glasses of champagne in hand.
Tucker sits on a large white block beside a reporter from the New York Times. I laugh as I watch him squirm. He hates talking to people, especially those prone to prying. That’s life in the public eye.
On our way into the Cult Boys exhibit, a circus gathered around the stoops. The media, as always, profits off tragedy. Reporters screamed questions at Tucker and me, all of which went unanswered.
The crowd inside is larger than expected, filled to the brim with notable figures and rich folk alike. Some are here to be seen. Some are here because of an actual interest in the art. It doesn’t really matter which when the donor class is paying our bills.
Hundreds of Tucker’s paintings hang on the walls of the gallery.
The one thing consistent in all of them is my face.
Both of our naked bodies are on display, sometimes in promiscuous positions.
Exposed and laid bare for the world to ogle.
And I don’t even mind that I’m standing in a room full of people looking at me this way.
Noah approaches from my left and hands me a glass of champagne. “You look like you need a drink.”
“I didn’t think you were going to make it.” I reach out and shake his hand. “How was the flight?”
“Bumpy.” He chuckles. “Seven had an iron grip on my wrist the entire time. He insists we are driving back home, but I’m not really in the mood for a road trip these days.”
Before I left to go back to the Wilds. “Did a new neighbor ever move in?”
“Yeah.” He pats me on the back. “She’s an older woman. She’s quiet. Doesn’t have visitors coming and going at all hours of the night.”
I roll my eyes and take a sip of champagne.
“Seven wants me to ask you something, and feel free to say no.”
I turn to him, intrigued. “He couldn’t ask himself?”
“You know Seven. He doesn’t like asking for favors.” He turns to meet my gaze. “Broken Highway is going to print in a month, but he thought it’d be a good idea if you’d write the foreword.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a writer.”
“He says that makes it even better. More authentic or something.”
I turn back to the paintings on the wall. “Let me talk to Tucker about it.”
A breeze lashes the rooftop of the apartment complex. This high up, it always seems to be windy.
“There’s too many trees,” Tucker says flatly, staring at the street below. “We should cut them down.”
I snicker. “I think you’d make enemies relatively fast if you were to cut down what little greenery is left in this city.”
“Enemies don’t scare me.”
“They should.” I lean against the railing, the wind whipping at my tank top. “I want a peaceful life.”
“It’d be a lot more peaceful with fewer trees.”
Anything that reminds him of the Wilds haunts him.
It’s why our apartment faces west. He was adamant that he never wanted to see Central Park.
The comfort he once found in the green scenery of the wilderness has been replaced by discomfort and disdain.
Besides, so many weirdos prowl that park—if SVU is to be trusted—and I can’t take the chance of Tucker stumbling upon one of them and joining my mother in prison.
“Seven wants me to write a foreword for his book.” I sigh. “He’s found so much closure in writing, and I think he believes it’ll do the same for me.”
He doesn’t even have to think about the proposition. He turns to me with a hand—no longer calloused—upon my cheek. “Write it.”
“I don’t know.” I lean into his touch, reveling in the way his strong hand always comforts me. “Haven’t we been exposed enough?”
“The whole world has seen your cock.” He laughs quietly. “What’s a few words?”
Maybe he’s right.
As much as I try to pretend I’m not affected by what happened out there, the trauma is tangled in my roots. Maybe this is what I need to close that chapter of my life for good.
He swallows a lump in his throat. “Is this a bad time to tell you I’m horny as fuck?”
I drop my gaze to his short white shorts where his thick cock tents against the fabric. I drop to my knees and pull the shorts down his thighs.
He watches me..
Always fucking watching with those steeled eyes.
He leans back against the railing, holding the weight of his body still with his elbows as I take his cock into my mouth. The taste of him, of musk and flesh, sates a hunger deep within me. And then sweet, but salty, coating the back of my throat.
Every time I take him—in my mouth or elsewhere—a part of him becomes a part of me.
Forever.
Always.