Chapter Seventeen

“Oh my God…” I whimper, eyes closed, head pressed back into the pillow.

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Drake croons through an audible smirk, dragging his lips over my throat while he pulls, then pushes in deeper.

The burn below my waist is so intense, I’m afraid I might pass out. And every time his cock pushes on a certain spot inside me, I see stars.

“You’re so annoying,” I huff a laugh that turns into a moan when he thrusts again, holding my ass tight in his hand, hips rippling against me, slow and steady.

I’m fucking sweating, this is so good. And yes, it’s summer, and we’re inside our new trailer we bought last year, which turns into a sweatbox from June to September. Especially when we’re doing bad things together.

“You love it.” He licks a line over my Adam’s apple, biting my chin before going for my lips.

“I do… I fucking love… fuck, I love your cock in me.” I’m clinging to him like a vine, holding him as close to me as humanly possible.

I want him deeper than deep. I want him to live inside me forever, that’s how utterly amazing it feels.

“I love my cock in you,” he repeats my words on my mouth, picking up the pace.

His hips move faster and harder as he fucks me into oblivion, our tiny bed creaking, the whole damn trailer rocking with his pumps. Drake holds my face, kissing me, groaning in my mouth while harsh breaths escape me into his, my moans mixing up in cries of ecstasy for the impending orgasm.

Every time we do this it’s better than the time before. It took a while for me to warm up to it, after everything that happened. But Drake didn’t mind. He was just there for me, in whatever ways I needed him. As a friend, a brother, or on occasion something like a boyfriend, only not really. It’s hard to explain, but we’ve been living out here for almost two years, and so far, it’s working.

I wasn’t sure in the beginning… That first year was tough, but we made it through.

Together.

Eight months ago, I couldn’t take it anymore. We’d done just about everything else two men could do to each other, within reason of course. Everything but this, which I’d been afraid of for too long.

I woke him up in the middle of the night, pleading with him to fuck me. To erase him from my history and be my first.

Drake was wary initially, because he didn’t want to scare me or hurt me. But it’s Drake. I love him, I trust him, and just thinking about him makes me rock hard.

He eagerly obliged. He lost his virginity to me, and as far as I’m concerned, he took mine. That first time doesn’t count. It was the first time I’d consented to being fucked, and so it was my first time. With Drake… my foster brother.

And we’ve been humping like gay rabbits ever since.

“I’m gonna fucking come,” I whine, wrapping my legs around him to keep him as deep as fucking possible.

“Come for me, beautiful,” he growls, a command if I’ve ever heard one, and it sets me off.

My dick aches out stream after stream, all over the both of us while I gasp and groan, tingles sheeting my entire body.

“Come with me, baby,” I croak, out of breath and hoarse, holding his face before mine so I can look at him while he has an orgasm. For me.

He’s so damn sexy sometimes I can’t stand it.

“Anything for you.” He shivers, the telltale sign he’s about to burst.

And then he takes my lower lip between his, sucking and biting, crying out nonsense into my mouth while his long, beautiful cock swells up inside me, releasing a climax that fills me up. It’s the best feeling on earth, knowing I’ve driven him to this.

That he does this with only me. Only I make him feel this way.

Mine.

Drake comes down slowly, kissing my lips and my jaw and my neck, while I lazily trail my fingers up and down his back, touching his muscles, up his neck to the shaved sides of his hair. I remember when I did it for him… when we cut each other’s hair.

It’s been just us for so long out here. I’m not complaining, but sometimes I wonder what’s going on outside this little bubble of safety and undying happiness.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” Drake whispers, nuzzling behind my ear.

“It wouldn’t be hard to guess,” I murmur. He picks himself up, gazing down at me for a moment. “What?” I ask when he says nothing for a solid minute, just staring.

“Nothing,” he answers definitively and presses a chaste kiss on my chin. “I’m going to make you dinner.”

He pulls out of me, slowly, though it still feels strange enough to make me grunt. Then he gets up, grinning at me over his shoulder before grabbing a cloth to clean me up.

We take a quick shower, then head outside to build a fire and get ready for dinner.

I’m sort of amazed at what we’ve done out here in only two years. We’ve grown a small garden, built a hunting shack where we skin animals we’ve killed. I’m decent, but Drake has shot a couple of deer for us so far, which according to him makes him a master hunter. He tried hanging the antlers of the buck on the wall inside our trailer and it fell down and almost maimed me.

I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was pissed.

We have a small boat too, which we use for fishing. We’re basically like two Davey Crockett’s, or some shit. We live off the land, and the land has been good to us.

To be honest, I don’t miss anything about the outside world. We have a cell phone, but the service out here is shit and we rarely use it. We use our battery-powered radio more, for music and CD’s. The way we see it, if we could make it through that first winter without freezing to death or eating each other, there’s nothing we can’t do.

We’re invincible, and more important than that… we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.

We make occasional runs, not necessarily into the nearest town, but to a cabin a few miles south of here. There’s a guy who lives there, Chet, who trades with us. If there’s stuff we want or need, like books, medicine, or clothes, he’ll get them for us and trade. It’s amazing.

Getting back to the roots of civilization. No money, no taxes, no goddamn capitalism.

We’re like frontier men, and it’s the best kind of bliss.

Drake and I have marked out spots on the land based on how far we get before seeing other people. We joke around and call it our territory. I know it doesn’t really belong to us, but that doesn’t matter. Out here, we make the rules.

As far as we’re concerned, these woods are ours.

I get the fire going while Drake grabs us some leftover venison. I’m setting up plates and forks as he starts shouting at me from inside the trailer.

“Dude, please come out here so I can actually hear what you’re trying to ask me,” I bark, lips curling into an amused grin as I shake my head.

He pokes his head out of the trailer door. “I’m asking if you want corn or tomatoes, or both, deaf ass.”

I chuckle and look up at him, ready to answer when I see him glaring over my head, eyes narrowing at something behind me. Turning quickly over my shoulder, I make out the form of what looks like a man, wandering through the woods a few yards out.

I glance back at Drake, and he already has his shotgun in his hand, stomping down the steps.

“Drake, chill!” I whisper-shout, jumping up and scurrying over to him.

“I’m not going to shoot him,” he huffs, eyes locked on the figure. “I’m just being cautious.”

“Why would you assume he’s here to attack us?” I stand in front of him, blocking him as he tries to maneuver around me. “It’s just a hiker, Drake. It happens.”

“Yea, not often,” he grumbles. “He’s on our land. I won’t let anyone threaten my family.”

My family. Meaning me.

Swoon.

I push away the warmth at his protectiveness and straighten up. “He’s hiking. At least wait until he actually threatens us before breaking out the shotgun.”

“If I wait for him to threaten us, then it’s already too late,” he grunts, aiming the scope toward the hiker. “I’d move if I were you.”

I sigh and step out of the way, distracting myself with cooking dinner, while Drake watches the hiker. He says it’s a man, probably in his late twenties, and he seems to be alone. He watches him as long as he can until the guy disappears out of sight.

“Will you come eat now?” I mutter at him when he finally puts the gun down. “It’s cold.”

“I’ll warm you up.” He grins, plopping down next to me on the log we turned into a bench, slinking his arm around my waist and pulling me closer to bite my earlobe.

“I meant the food, asshole.” I smother my smirk and shift through the chills he’s giving me.

“Ohhh, right. The food,” he hums in my ear, almost more arousing than him biting and sucking on it.

I shove him, and he laughs, digging into his food while I just watch him, because I already finished eating, while he was busy protecting us.

The sun sets, and it’s dark all around, the only light from the crescent moon and the glowing embers of a dull fire. I’m roasting a marshmallow I probably won’t eat while Drake talks about some plants he’s been studying in the books he got from Chet. He says they can do a lot for the human body, but mainly they can be made into psychedelics, which he’s sort of fascinated by.

Drake’s been mentioning this for a while. He was always a science nerd, for as long as I’ve known him, but in the last two years, he’s been studying chemistry and botany more and more. He tries to teach me, but I’m more interested in reading fiction, or learning about history and the social sciences.

Even though we’re no longer a part of society, so to speak, we still understand how important education is. I’ve been reading up on sociology, because I think it’s very interesting how a society comes to be. But Drake is all about biology and chemistry. He talks about wanting to grow more, and we both agree that if we could build a greenhouse of some kind, it would be hugely beneficial to us in the long run. We could make our own supplies, our own medicine.

I enjoy thinking about the future, but I don’t bring it up to Drake often. He likes to focus on the moment, and I agree with that. But I also don’t think it hurts to plan, especially since we’re becoming self-sustaining and we need to be prepared for storms in winter, floods, poor crop harvests, stuff like that.

“I was thinking of going up the mountain,” he murmurs, fingers grazing up and down my thigh. “I want to go farther… See what I can see.”

“You think that’s safe?” My eyes are stuck on the flaming marshmallow as it singes into a black ball.

“We’ll never know until we try, right?” He leans into my side.

I turn my face to look at him, the glow illuminating his pale skin and sharp lines. I still remember when I first met him, how small he was. He sprouted up like crazy as a teenager, and now he’s huge, his presence even more overpowering. Those eyes, marbled in color, could be potentially startling, but I love them. They’re different, which is what Drake is. He’s one of a kind.

“Right,” I whisper, inching closer to his face. His eyes drop to my lips, fingers slinking up my thigh, closer to where I’m hardening up quick.

A twig snaps to our right, and we jump, heads springing in the sound”s direction to see a man.

The same man from earlier.

“Hi. Sorry to burst in on you like this.” The man gives us a kind smile, his eyes falling, maybe to observe how close we’re sitting.

Drake’s hand leaps off my leg. Seriously, I don’t think anything has ever moved so fast. I peek at him, watching his jaw clench as he scoots away from me, eyes narrowed on our new friend.

“Who the fuck are you?” Drake grunts, and I see his left hand reaching for the shotgun at his side.

The man catches on and lifts his hands. “I mean you no harm. My name is Pete. I’m out here to hike and camp, and I saw you guys. Figured I’d introduce myself since I haven’t seen anyone else in days.”

Drake is eyeing the guy as if he’s an intruder, studying him with squinted eyes, likely trying to determine if he can be trusted.

So I decide to give the man a smile. Might as well play good cop bad cop. The dude’s right, after all. We rarely see other people around here, which is why it’s come to feel like our own little solitary woodland haven. But there are still people out there, and good ones at that.

Drake doesn’t trust anyone, and I suppose I shouldn’t either. But I’m inherently positive, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Drake would call it stupid, or na?ve.

I like to see it as hopeful.

“I’m Darian,” I introduce myself. “This is my brother, Drake.”

The man’s forehead creases for just a moment before he smiles back. “Nice to meet you bo—”

“You’re on our land,” Drake hisses, fingers still curling around his gun. “That’s why you haven’t seen anyone else around here. It’s ours.”

I glance at my brother like he’s lost his mind. Sure, we like to claim this land is ours, but technically, it’s not. We don’t have any sort of property rights over it, and we certainly can’t willfully shoot someone for trespassing.

Pete appears partially nervous, but also intrigued as he nods, palms still facing us like he’s being held at gunpoint, which he almost is by my crazy brother. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll leave if you want…”

“Don’t be silly.” I nudge Drake with my elbow until he finally takes an audible breath, and a much-needed blink. “You can hang out for a bit if you want. We’ve got marshmallows.”

I grin, and Pete smiles back, though his wary eyes stay on my brother for a moment. Drake releases the gun and does this subtle nod that I can tell means, I guess you can sit.

Pete takes off his backpack, sitting down on a stump by the fire. “Thanks. I really appreciate it. Like I said, I’ve been out here for a bit, and I haven’t seen anyone else. Which is kind of the whole reason I came out here in the first place, I suppose.”

“Us, too,” I tell him, shaking my burnt-to-hell black blob into the fire and grabbing a new marshmallow out of the bag, stuffing it onto the stick and handing it to Pete. “We came out here to get away from all the bullshit, but it’s definitely cool to meet a fellow camper.”

Pete chuckles, taking the stick and aiming the marshmallow into the fire. I feel Drake shifting farther away from me, and I peer at him for a moment, wondering what exactly his issue is all of a sudden.

“How long have you guys been out here?” Pete asks, sounding friendly, rather than prying. Still, I’m hesitant to give away details of our lives or situation. We don’t know this guy.

“It’s been a while,” I say through a kind smile, while still conveying the need for privacy.

“Well, I’m jealous of that trailer. The thing looks awesome.” He observes our home. “All I’ve got is a one-person tent.”

“Trust me, that was us until only a few months ago. The trailer was a necessity, though. Working plumbing and shower? Yes, please.”

Pete laughs. “Yea, bathing in the lake is cool for a while, but I can’t imagine it in winter.”

“It sucks,” Drake rumbles, leaning forward with his curious eyes on our new friend. “The winters out here are brutal.”

Pete swallows, visibly intimidated by my brother. “I bet.”

The conversation keeps going from there. Pete tells us about him, how he was a lawyer in LA and when he found out his wife was cheating on him with his brother, he sold his practice, his house, and all his earthly possessions, and decided to come up to Washington to hike the mountains and do some soul-searching. He seems like a good guy. He’s older than us, though it doesn’t necessarily seem it. Drake just turned eighteen, and my birthday is next month, whereas Pete is twenty-eight.

But age is just a number. Drake and I have seen enough shit in our lives, been through unparalleled horrors which have given us the kind of wisdom only life experiences can provide. So we’re getting on just fine with this older dude.

We agree to let Pete camp on our land, and he sets up his tent about a quarter-mile north from our trailer, closer to the mountain. Drake went inside before we did, so by the time the fire is out and I’m heading in, I expect him to be asleep. But when I get inside the trailer, I find him by the window, staring out in the direction of Pete’s tent.

I sigh, audibly, to make sure he knows he’s being ridiculous. “Why are you so paranoid?”

He aims his snake eyes at me, and I want to tell him that shit doesn’t scare me like it does other people. “I’m not paranoid, Darian. I’m being smart. We don’t know this asshole. Outsiders can’t be trusted.”

“Outsiders?” I grin, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Yea.” He glares. “People from society.” He lets out a breath and blinks hard, standing up and inching to me, placing his hands on my waist.

Insecurities take over, and my eyes fall to the floor between us. “You didn’t want to touch me in front of him…”

His slips his fingers under my chin, lifting my gaze back up to his. “We don’t know him, baby. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I just…” he trails off and shakes his head. Speechless and sincerely confounded. I know the feeling.

It’s easy for us to play pretend out here in the woods, when we’re all alone. We can act like whatever we’re doing is fine. But when strangers come in, it doesn’t necessarily feel fine. And the thing is, I can’t tell if I would rather give up humans for Drake, or if that’s stupid.

People are a resource; humanity is civilization and vice versa.

Drake is happy with me now, but in two more years? Five, ten, thirty? I can’t make him stay out here, just him and me, forever. He needs more. He deserves better.

“I get it.” I nod, pulling him into me, wrapping my arms around his neck, hugging onto him hard.

His arms slink around my waist and he holds me harder, kissing my hair.

“I love you, Drake,” I murmur, and I feel him shudder. “I think we should let Pete stay. I think if we meet more people along the way, like Chet or anyone else… I think we should take them in, too. We can take in strays because we’re strong. And it’s the right thing to do.”

He’s still for a while, just breathing while we hold each other, his lips lingering by my neck while he stays in his thoughts.

And I wish, so badly, that I could hear them.