Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

Crow

“How did you learn to build things?” Cyrus asked when we were in the shop the next morning. I was still trying to sort through all the confusion in my head about him—why I’d let him stay, why I had him in my shop, building chairs, so both of us could sit down, when one day he would leave.

Why the thought of him going felt…wrong. Like it wasn’t the way things were supposed to be or like the whole damn world would tilt off its axis when that happened.

“Why do you always try to get me to talk?”

My little lamb chuckled. “Because I like the sound of your voice…and I want to learn more things about you…and it would be awfully boring up here if we didn’t speak.”

There was a pinch in my chest at hearing he was already bored. Would Cyrus even last the winter? Would I have to make the dangerous trip down the mountain to take him home?

You wouldn’t have to take him home. You could refuse. You could keep him here.

Which would make me like Chosen, wouldn’t it, and there was nothing I wanted less than to be like him.

Talk to him. Make him want to stay.

“Some I learned…before.” Cyrus stilled beside me, a chair leg in his hands, but no longer sanding. I didn’t look at him as I continued to work. “We had to be useful…me even more than the others.”

“Why?” he asked gently, as if the question scared him. Or maybe it was my possible answer that did.

The thing was, in some ways, my mouth wanted to just open and let it all spill out, to tell him the truth, tell him everything, not because I wanted him to know or because I wanted to relive it, but because I didn’t want to deny Cyrus anything. It was so damn confusing. “I don’t understand why I struggle to say no to you.”

He nudged me with his arm. “Maybe it’s my charm.” I turned his way, cocking a brow, and Cyrus chuckled. “Okay, so apparently, it’s not my charm. Maybe it’s just…we get each other. Deep down to the bone, something about us is connected. I feel it, Crow.”

I sighed because I felt it too. Part of me wanted to evict it, to incinerate it because no good would come of it, but the other part wanted to hold tight, to fucking imprint it into myself.

“Because I was The Chosen’s son. More was expected of me in every way.” More Enlightenment, more Clarity, more pain, more Worship.

“Your dad—”

“Chosen,” I cut him off. He was not my dad. He hadn’t wanted to be, either, not in the typical way that families existed. Not in the way they were in books I’d read.

“Chosen…what kind of things did he expect from you?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, or maybe I just didn’t want to. This was already exhausting. My chest squeezed tight, breathing becoming more difficult.

“You don’t have to tell me. I’m sorry for being nosy.” Cyrus’s warm, gentle hand rested on my forearm, and I tensed. “I’m sorry.” He pulled away. “Sometimes you’re okay when I touch you, and others it seems to be harder.”

“I didn’t get affection the way you did. Chosen had rules about emotions and affection, especially with me, especially as I got older. My mother was rarely allowed to hug me. Everything I needed I was supposed to get from him, and he didn’t think I needed that. It was all to make me strong. To make me into someone who would blindly follow him, to take scraps he gave me, like Hillary.”

But I did like it when Cyrus touched me, even if I didn’t show it to him. I liked it when he would rest his head on me and suck my cock for hours…

“Jesus, Crow. Why didn’t your mom—”

“She tried,” I snapped, cutting off his words before he could go any further. My heart already spiked just hearing that.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. It feels similar to when people asked me why my mom didn’t stop doing drugs. It’s not that easy. People like to throw stones at others for their choices, when most of the time, we’re just doing the best we can.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. Somehow I knew he would get it.

“He brainwashed her, and you, and everyone else. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t their fault either.” My brave little lamb surprised me by pushing the wood away and jumping onto the table. “Come here, Crow.”

He tugged on my shirt, and I let him lead me to stand between his legs. He wrapped them around me, then his arms too. I let him do that as well.

“If you’ll let me, I’ll hold you and touch you every damn day.” He dropped his forehead against mine, and I reached up, held on to his hips. “I want to kiss you, Crow, but I won’t. One day I hope you’ll let me, but if not, that’s okay too.”

He brushed his nose against mine, and damned if I didn’t tremble. When I inhaled, it was Cyrus’s breath I was taking into my lungs. My hold on him tightened. The things I wanted to do to him…the way I wanted to consume him.

“I love the way you smell.” His lips ghosted close to mine, but they didn’t touch me. I growled in response. “The way you feel. The way you make me feel. If I could, I would take away every bad memory you have and replace them with something good.”

This time it was me who moved, but I didn’t go far, just burying my face in his neck and letting my teeth bite into him. I didn’t break the skin, but Cyrus gasped. His hold on me tightened, a hand fisting into my hair.

“Yes…please, Crow. Mark me. Make me yours.”

I sucked his skin hard, drawing the blood to the surface with my mouth in pull after pull. My dick throbbed, but this moment wasn’t about fucking him. I’d finally given him my mouth on his cock, and while he wanted it on his lips, I couldn’t give him that yet, but this I could and would willingly do.

I moved to the other side, only briefly seeing the red splotch on his throat before doing the same in a new spot. Everything between us was animalistic, which suited me well. I knew I wasn’t like most people, that the years up here alone had altered something inside me, but I was okay with that. But he… Cyrus needed it too. I felt it in the way he touched me, saw it in the heat that blazed in his eyes.

When the proof of whom he belonged to was in his skin again, this time it was me who pressed my forehead to his. I didn’t stay long, though, instead dropping my head to the side. With my hand on his nape, I led Cyrus’s mouth to my throat.

“Crow…” he said breathily, before pressing soft kisses to my skin. It made me tingle, made my skin feel like it glowed as he kept doing it over and over again, making designs on me with his mouth before he did what I did to him, drawing me in, biting and sucking until it hurt. I wouldn’t stop him, though. I would have let him keep going and taking what he needed from me, but Cyrus stopped. “Being up here with you is the first time I’ve felt like there isn’t something wrong with me…which is strange because the things we do…most people don’t do them.”

“We aren’t most people.” We were outsiders. Outcasts. And I was going to hold on to that for as long as he allowed me to have it with him. “Let’s make your chair.” Cyrus nodded and jumped down. “See this spot? You missed it. There’s a rough area.”

“Okay.” He smiled at me like I’d just given him a gift. “Will you teach me how to make other things?” I nodded. “And to work on the truck.” I nodded again. “I’ll make it so you never regret bringing me here.”

“I never will, little lamb.” I couldn’t.

We built both the stool and the chair, but I told him we would wait until tomorrow before we finished sanding and staining.

We’d skipped lunch, so I knew we had to make it inside for dinner. I turned off the lights, then grabbed his beanie and pulled it down over his head. When I reached for his coat next, Cyrus looked up at me with watery eyes.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m just trying to figure out how someone who grew up the way you did is so good at taking care of someone else. And how I’m the lucky person you do it with.”

Was this not something people did? Chosen hadn’t with my mom. No one on the compound had, but it felt natural with Cyrus.

“I’m not helpless,” he told me again. Clearly, it was important to him.

I frowned. “I would never think that. You’ve been taking care of yourself your whole life.” And now it was my turn. “I need control. These things make me feel like I have it.”

“These things make me feel important and nurtured.”

And he needed that. I could see it in the way he watched me. When one of his tears slipped free, I brushed it off with my thumb, then sucked it into my mouth.

He moaned. “Everything you do is hot, and you’re not even trying.”

I rolled my eyes and helped him into his jacket, then put my winter wear on, including boots. The moment we stepped outside, a blast of cold air buffeted us. I was used to it but felt Cyrus tremble. We’d gotten some good snow, the ground coated, making it hard to walk. I would have to get out the snowplow soon. I’d been using salt and shoveling a trail for us daily.

As we were traipsing back to the house, I saw movement to the right. I grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“What’s wrong?” Cyrus asked.

“Nothing,” I said softly, then pointed to the white rabbit.

“Oh my God. He’s so cute.”

He heard Cyrus and jumped away.

“It’s a snowshoe hare. They change from brown in the summer to white in the winter.”

“Jesus, is there anything you don’t know?”

I nodded down the mountain. “How to live down there.”

“You’re not missing much.” Cyrus took my hand, threading our fingers together and tugging. “Come on. Let’s go have dinner, and then we’ll start looking for a show to watch. I still want you to try some.”

I…didn’t want that at all. The internet was overwhelming enough sometimes, but because of Chosen, I understood it was something I’d needed to know and that it would help me.

But like everything else, I would do it for Cyrus.

We took our snow boots off on the porch.

“Do most animals hibernate?” he asked when we got inside.

“Yes. We might see some elk, deer, or bighorn sheep, but likely not. Most will move down the mountain some, to find less snowy ranges.”

“There are bighorn sheep on your mountain?”

I smiled. It was beginning to feel more comfortable on my face. “Mm-hmm.”

My head was starting to hurt from all the…everything. I wasn’t used to this, and it took a lot out of me.

“I’ve never seen one in real life. Are they aggressive?”

“Not typically, more so during rutting season.”

Cyrus pumped his brows. “Is this your rutting season?”

I chuckled, something else I was getting more used to doing.

We made tacos for dinner, then Cyrus asked for my laptop. I grabbed it and logged in to the streaming service I’d purchased, then sat beside him on the couch and watched him scroll.

“I’m trying to figure out what kind of show you’d like.”

I didn’t think I would like any, but I kept that to myself.

“Maybe we’ll start with a movie. Have you ever watched a movie?”

I shook my head.

“Not ever?”

“I saw some in foster care, shows played too, but I tuned them out. The outside world wasn’t allowed here.”

“For no one?”

“Chosen had internet access. No one else.”

“Baby,” he said, and I cocked my head.

“Baby?”

“It’s a term of endearment, like I’m hoping little lamb is.”

I knew that, but no one had ever called me baby but Bruce. The way Bruce said it was nothing like the way Cyrus did. It didn’t fill me with warmth like it did coming from Cyrus’s lips.

“Sorry. It just came out.”

“You apologize a lot.”

“Sorr—shit. I know. Comes from a lifetime of messing up or just not wanting to give someone a reason to walk away from me.”

My insides vibrated with anger. I’d always known I would hate the outside world, but I hated it even more since meeting him. I could never like a place that made him feel so bad, so lonely, where there were people who wouldn’t want him. How could anyone smell the sweetness of his skin and want to do anything other than devour him?

“Now you’re mine.” I pressed my finger into the mark on his neck, hoping he knew that meant I didn’t know how to walk away even if I wanted to. Even if he wanted me to.

“Yours,” Cyrus echoed.

“No more talking.”

He nodded, knowing what that meant for me. Cyrus picked a movie about someone kidnapping a guy’s family. We set the laptop on the coffee table, and then he knelt, looking up at me with pleading eyes. When I nodded, he took off my pants and underwear, then relaxed between my legs with my cock in his mouth.

The movie was strange and loud. It made my head throb, so I just carded my fingers through his hair and watched him instead.