Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

Crow

Too many thoughts were going through my head to focus on just one. There was panic because I left Cyrus alone in my living room. Chosen had been very particular about his space and his things, and I’d learned to be the same. We could never touch anything that was his. He was the only one afforded privacy, locks, or anything he could use to keep others out but that no one else could have to keep him out.

Plus, being out here alone all this time, I didn’t know how to have someone else in my home, to leave them alone with my things and give them the chance to find something to use against me or take something that was mine.

Even stronger than that was the desire rushing through my body like a wild, untamed animal. I’d taken him hard and fast, and it wasn’t enough. I wanted to bury my cock in his body over and over again, wanted to fuck him until neither of us could move because I’d never in my life experienced something like that. Being with Hillary had been confusing and an obligation. Being with Bruce was a way to get off, and while yes, fucking Cyrus had been the same, it had been all-consuming too, this ache I didn’t feel would ever be soothed.

Even the thing I’d done with my tongue, I’d never done that before—licking someone, tasting someone. I didn’t even know where the urge had come from, I’d just known I wanted to taste him, that I might die if I didn’t taste him.

And then there was the guilt. I’d fucked him and come inside him. I’d used him like he was nothing more than a hole. I’d been rough with him while he had a black eye from an ex-boyfriend who’d wanted to use him the way I had. Who’d had expectations because Cyrus had invited him over, and now I…what? Treated him almost the same way, as if his ass was payment for whatever it was I was doing with him. The thought made my gut churn. Made me hate myself.

But I still needed him again.

You left him alone. You emptied your balls in his ass and left him there naked.

I found an old pair of flannel bottoms in my dresser. They would be too big on him, but they would have to do. After getting a shirt, I went into the bathroom off my room and got a towel for him.

When I headed back to the living room, Cyrus had pulled his pants up. I couldn’t help wondering if his ass was sticky from my cum, if I could smell myself on his skin, smell the pleasure his body had given me.

I nodded toward the clothes in my hands. I knew I should find words to give him, to apologize or explain or make sure he was okay, but they were locked up too tight at the moment.

This was a mistake. The little lamb deserved better than to be here with someone like me.

Cyrus took the clothes without a word and went toward the bathroom. I shouldn’t follow him. It was wrong—he deserved privacy—but my feet moved anyway.

You want to be close to him. He fascinates you. It’s not just the worry of having someone alone in your space.

He left the door open for me.

“I can turn around,” I told him.

“You can look at me. I like to be looked at,” he said, but then he gave me his back.

I didn’t take my eyes off him as he opened the glass shower door and fiddled with the knobs as if he was at home. That wasn’t something I’d ever seen anyone do here, in the house I rebuilt. He was sad, though. He wasn’t comfortable. I’d hurt him, made him feel even more empty and alone than he had before.

Cyrus took his shoes off, then stripped out of his clothes. He didn’t hide himself from me, and as mixed up as I was, I didn’t disguise my visual appraisal of his body.

He was too skinny, his skin too pale, but to me, he was beautiful, like this thing I shouldn’t touch but couldn’t keep my hands off, and one time, when I plucked him from the shelf, I would drop him and break him. I knew that, but I also knew I would keep taking him down over and over again because I didn’t have it in me not to. I was too addicted to him, too obsessed with him.

There was a light dusting of dark hair on his arms and legs, and where I’d held him too tightly, there were marks on his hips. His cock was soft, crusted dry cum on his glans. It hung over his balls, which sat up higher than mine. Cyrus turned around and got into the shower, his ass perfect, round and tight.

The purple spot on his neck drew my eyes. Had I left teeth prints there? Would he let me do it again? Because I wanted my mark on him.

I watched as Cyrus showered, cleaning his body. There wasn’t a modest bone in his body as he took care of himself as if I wasn’t there studying every move he made. My fingers twitched when he got to his ass, hated that he was wiping away the evidence that I’d been inside him, that some of my cum would be washed away.

I’d never done that before, released inside a person without a condom. Just something else I’d done wrong for Cyrus that felt right to me.

A few minutes later he turned off the water, stepped out, and grabbed the towel to dry himself. My dick was still sticky from what we’d done—my cum and his ass—yet it started to plump again just watching him.

The bottoms hung loose on his hips, my T-shirt large on him too.

Cyrus picked up his shoes and dirty clothes. “What should I do with these?” His voice was so soft, broken, yet in the ways that counted, it was stronger than mine because at least he was using it.

I took them from him, stopping at the washer in the hallway, throwing them in and turning on a load. I placed his shoes beside it.

Talk to him. Tell him something.

But I only directed him to the living room. His plate was still on the counter, with a half-eaten sandwich and untouched vegetables, and I motioned to it, but Cyrus shook his head. My hand wrapped around his arm as I tried to pull him toward the counter. I’d wanted to feed him, but all I’d done was jump on him and rut into him like an animal. He needed to eat.

“I’m not hungry, Crow. You don’t get to tell me when to eat.” He jerked his arm away from me, and despite the frustration raging inside me, I let him.

He walked around the room, looking at my things, before making his way to the bookshelf. He touched each book, running his fingers along the spines, which made me twitch and shift as I reluctantly gave him free rein. I liked to see him in my clothes, though, wanted his scent on them and for mine to seep into his pores so any man that neared him would smell me on Cyrus’s skin.

Finally, he plucked a book from the shelf, took it to the couch, and curled up in the corner as if trying to make himself smaller.

I sat in the chair across from him again, the same one I’d been in the first night Cyrus was in my home, and just watched him as he read.

*

A few hourslater, Cyrus looked at me over the top of his book. “I’m hungry,” he said hesitantly, as if he didn’t want to admit it.

Again, I had to bite back a smile, this action that was so unfamiliar to me.

I nodded and went into the kitchen. He didn’t leave the couch, his legs curled up beneath him as I took chicken from the fridge, seasoned it, and put it in a skillet.

“I’m negative…if you’re curious. I’m a bit of a slut, and I’ve fucked a lot of guys.” I couldn’t stop the low snarl that pulled from inside me, but Cyrus didn’t notice or wasn’t acknowledging it. “I was always checked regularly, though. I got checked again when I left rehab, and I haven’t been with anyone since the night that sent me to rehab in the first place. But there were four of them that night. You should know.”

“Don’t,” I spit out, finally finding words again.

He set the book down and headed toward me. “Don’t tell you the truth about me? I’m a whore and a drug addict, Crow.”

He was trying to rile me up, to get a reaction out of me because…because I’d made him feel like a whore. Because I’d used him and then walked away, and all that had done was reinforce the negative feelings he had about himself. “Shut up.”

“It’s true!” he shouted at me.

“Shut. Up!” I slammed my hands down on the counter. My breathing came out in hard, quick puffs, chest rising and falling rapidly. Words chased each other around in my head, making it hard to capture any of them. I wanted to tell him he was strong, that he’d been through a lot and he didn’t hide himself on a mountain. That he didn’t nearly break people’s hands or fight children in foster care. He hadn’t let his mother die for him. I’d watched him when I’d gone to town, saw him return a wallet when a man dropped it outside the coffeehouse, heard him speak to customers in the hardware store. He was kind and bighearted. Brave and… “You brought my food,” was all I said.

“Jesus, with the fucking food,” Cyrus cursed. “I did that because I was curious about you, because I’m actually a little obsessed with you, if I’m being honest. Not because I’m some good guy.”

“And I am?” fell softly and brokenly from my lips. He didn’t know how I’d worshipped Chosen, kept his secrets and put him above my own mother. He didn’t know that I would have blindly followed him anywhere, done anything, hurt anyone because I needed him to be proud of me.

That a part of me had wanted to be Chosen one day too.

My gaze tilted down toward the chicken, and I turned it. “I’ve never fucked without a condom.” My words were coming easier now, if for no other reason than I knew he deserved them. “I’ve never…seen a doctor, but I take tests at home.”

“Are you shitting me? You’ve never in your life seen a doctor?” he asked, and my gaze shot to his in warning. “I’m sorry. That’s just scary.”

“I have kits at home because there’s a man I fuck.”

“I didn’t mean just that. I meant as a whole. You should really see someone just to make sure you’re healthy.”

What I’d said to him was a partial lie. There had been a physician who’d believed in Chosen’s ways. He helped with things we needed and sterilized the men. I’d seen him a few times when I was young, but Chosen didn’t want me to go to a doctor often.

I couldn’t say those things out loud, though, couldn’t talk about The Enlightened to anyone.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “I can take a test. There’s still enough time to get down the mountain to send it off before the snow comes.” The results came by email.

“It’s okay.” He fiddled with the end of the shirt he wore—my shirt. “So you can’t leave here when the snow comes?”

I continued to cook. The desire to ignore him, to keep my voice inside me was strong, but I fought it for him because I thought he needed it. “Depends on how much we get,” I said roughly. “It’s dangerous. There’s a point I won’t test it.” Maybe on the snowmobile, but I didn’t tell him that.

“Do you ever get lonely?” the brave little lamb asked.

My gut twisted. It was a complicated answer, and I feared that my response would show him even more that something was wrong with me. In some ways, yes, I felt loneliness, I had my whole life. It lived inside my bones, inside my head, but then, there was another truth too. “It’s lonelier down there…than it could ever be up here.” Being around a large group of people didn’t make anyone less alone. This would always be my home. I would always belong to this mountain.

Cyrus’s gaze shot up, colliding with mine. “I feel that too,” he said quietly, then walked back to the couch and sat down to read.

I watched him for a moment, tried to imagine him up here with me for the winter…maybe longer. Forever. Because I didn’t want him to go.

“I know…I see it in you. The sadness. It clings to you even when you smile.”

Cyrus’s chin began to shake, his gaze darting away. “No one else sees it. I can fake it well.”

Not to me.

We didn’t talk after that, words difficult for both of us, I imagined. I finished dinner, and we ate in silence, Cyrus on the couch and me in my chair. When he had to use the bathroom, I allowed him to go by himself, my heart racing the whole time. When I had to go, I hurried as much as I could, worry clogging my airway that I would come out and he would be gone.

It was late when he yawned, and I stood. I went to him, held my hand out to him. Cyrus stared at it for a moment before he took it, and I helped him to his feet.

I didn’t bother with the lights, something I never did, as I led him to one of the spare bedrooms and nodded toward the bed. He squeezed my hand tighter before letting go, walking over, and climbing in.

“Will you stay with me?” he asked.

The words filled me up, were more than I deserved. “Yes.” I turned out the light, sat on the floor against the wall, and stayed in that same spot all night while he slept.