Born to Be Wylde (7 page)

H
E WAS
kissing Wylde’s neck, unable to stop himself from touching, tasting. He had felt so desolated, and now his body and soul were thirsty for touch.

When he bit Wylde, the bigger man paused. They were in sight now of the meadow below Wylde’s cave. “Now, Ken?”
“Yes, now!” Ken cupped Wylde’s sex when he was lowered to the ground, appreciating the length. He didn’t care if it was rough again, like the night before. He needed that cock inside him.
Wylde opened Ken’s jeans and shoved them down before turning Ken to face a cedar tree. Ass in the air, legs apart, Ken looked over his shoulder with heavy eyes as Wylde pulled out lube and a condom from the sack he’d brought from the cabin.
Wylde hesitated. “I don’t….”
“I’ll put it on you, sugar,” Ken said, turning around to take the plastic disc. He leaned down and licked Wylde’s cock, and Wylde’s hands tightened around Ken’s skull.
He rolled the condom on expertly and then turned around to face the tree again. He was going to be taken, fucked in the wild. Frankly, the idea turned him on, and he was through resisting it.
“Two fingers and, uh, you better use a lot of lube.” Ken raised his brows at Wylde’s thickness.
Wylde braced one hand on Ken’s hip while putting two fingers up him.
Ken grunted, caught between the burn and the need to be open, so he could take it, what he needed.
Wylde stroked him, watching his face as if trying to decipher what Ken liked. His hands were still marked up from trying to salvage Ken’s pottery. Ken’s throat tightened.
Seeing that, he knew Wylde loved him.
His shoulders relaxed, and he felt a tired peace replace the gutted feeling. He didn’t know what happened next. He had no idea where Wylde lived when he wasn’t in his cave. And he’d lost his studio. And there was someone hunting him. But here with Wylde, he felt it would all work out somehow….
Wylde held his prick in one hand and pushed against Ken’s dimple, holding his gaze as he breached Ken, slower this time, as if remembering what Ken had asked for before they’d been interrupted.
Slow….
And then the bulbous head stretched Ken, making his hands clench into the bark of the tree as he offered his ass, sweat breaking out on his forehead. And then Wylde was lodged deep inside him.

“
U
HHHHH
!” Ken’s head fell back as Wylde pulled out and then thrust back in. Wylde’s hands went above their heads to cover Ken’s, and Ken turned his palms around so they were holding hands as Wylde fucked him.

Wylde was trembling, sweat on his forehead and upper lip, which was streaked with ash. He looked like some kind of barbarian warrior from the past, claiming what was his.

Ken smiled a little, remembering how Wylde had cupped his prick in front of Jim. He’d probably put Ken in chains before he’d share him with another man, and that was a kinky thought.

“Ken….” Wylde’s lips glanced against Ken’s, his grip holding Ken securely as his cock slammed inside him. Ken could tell he was already on the verge, lit so fast!

“Touch me, baby,” Ken pleaded. “Touch and stroke me.” Wylde let one hand fall and wrapped it tentatively around Ken, studying his face. Seeing his lover needed visual cues, Ken let what he was feeling live in his eyes. “That feels so good.”

“Mine,” Wylde said.
“Well….”
Wylde tugged a little harder, and Ken gasped, pushing

Wylde’s hand reached down to play with Ken’s balls, stroking and rolling them gently, so Ken’s throat tightened again. He felt cherished, impaled, taken. Wylde wanted desperately to please him.

Ken shifted, lifting one foot so it was on the side of the tree, and the angle of penetration changed. “Oh! Oh, Wylde….”

Wylde thrust harder, his breath hitting hot against Ken’s skin. “Ken.” Saying Ken’s name, his body stiffened, and he bit down on junction of Ken’s neck and shoulder, marking him as he filled the condom.

Ken flashed back to how he’d felt when Wylde was stroking his cock in front of another man, like he was a prize of conquest. He really shouldn’t…. Not politically correct…. He came hard, spurting against the bark, Wylde’s willing captive.

T
HEY
went back to the stream where Wylde had first cared for him. This time when Wylde walked under the water, Ken joined him, lifting his face up and letting the chill wipe away the miasma of smoke and loss. He had to duck out quickly, laughing at how cold he was. Wylde soaped him up with a new sandalwood bar taken from Ken’s cabin.

Ken watched, content, as Wylde took his time, kneeling at Ken’s feet, doing a thorough job, as if Ken were something he owned and he was going to take care of him. He stretched out his arms, and Wylde did them and then his hands, almost fondling his fingers as he watched Ken with sexdazed eyes. It made Ken harden again, so he was reluctant to take another icy shower against his stimulated body.

Wylde took the decision from him, swinging him off his feet and ducking them both underwater.
Ken spat out some, sputtering, “You didn’t let me do you!” as Wylde sprang back from the falls.
“Sometime I make you do me,” Wylde said, and Ken’s mouth went dry as he pictured himself on his knees like a concubine, soaping Wylde. Oh yeah.
Wylde picked up their supplies and then put Ken over his shoulder. When Ken laughed in shocked surprise, he smacked his butt.
In response, Ken rubbed his erection against Wylde.
When they got to the cave, Wylde started the fire and lit a small lamp that Ken had previously missed seeing. It might have been his first clue he wasn’t the captive of a true mountain man.
As Ken sat on the bed, nude, skin still glistening with moisture, Wylde made his tea, though for some reason he used a tin cup and not the crudely made one that Ken had admired previously. Ken remembered drinking Wylde’s tea when he’d been so weak. It had felt almost like a ceremony, welcoming him back to life.
“You’re safe,” Wylde said in soft voice. “He won’t look for you here.”
“Wylde, I can’t hide forever,” Ken growled. “He has to live around here. It’s just… two small towns connected by one road.”
Wylde lifted a brow. “Then the road is the connection.”
“I know.” Ken finished his tea and put it back near the fire.
Wylde spread Ken’s legs and pulled out the lube and another condom, one palm flat on Ken’s lower belly, above his straining cock. Ken’s eyes widened.
“Oh,” he murmured.
Wylde rolled the condom on himself this time, obviously having learned from Ken doing it previously. Then he touched some lube on it, and then he mounted Ken.
Ken spread his legs wider.
“Warm you up,” Wylde said.
“Oh yeah,” Ken agreed, digging his hands into Wylde’s ass.

“
H
OW
are we going to catch him?” Ken mumbled sleepily a thousand years later. He was a little sore, but the discomfort only made him semihard, reliving how full he’d been, how wanton.

He’d always been so controlling with his partners, even slightly prim, calling the shots. But that didn’t work with Wylde, from the first moment his big palm had shoved Ken back on the bed, commanding him to rest because he needed to rest.

Ken blinked. Oh shit. Then he looked at Wylde. “One of the fellas who worked the fire this evening said he knows an Alec Danvers, a deputy in Sullivan. You know cops… we talk.”

“Um.” Wylde’s expression remained impassive. “I lived with him and his fiancée. They tried to teach me how not to be a freak.”

“I called him while you were helping with the fire in my studio,” Ken confessed. “He said you can handle yourself. Did he give you the bowie knife?”

Wylde sat up, his long hair snaking over his nude body like a seductive merman who’d left the sea for his lover. “He made me promise never to use it in anger, Ken. Only to protect myself, to keep safe when I camp out here.”

“You had a thing for him, didn’t you?”
Wylde flushed, looking shamed.
“That must have hurt, liking someone who was

straight.”
“I was so dumb,” Wylde whispered.
“No, baby. I’ve done it too, and I didn’t grow up in the

woods. I’ve pined for a few guys….” Ken sighed.
“No more pining, Ken!” Wylde sounded jealous. “No more,” Ken promised. Then he chewed his lip.

“Look, if you can show me what you found earlier, I need to see it. Just understand that I have to take him down in the proper way.” He swallowed thickly, remembering his bruises, the pain and fear, his studio…. “I have to.”

Wylde cupped Ken’s cheek. “All right, but I will be there, Ken.”
“Okay,” Ken said. “I love you.”
Wylde grunted something against his armpit, pulling the sheepskin over both of them, but Ken smiled. He didn’t need the words. He felt it against his skin.
N
EXT
morning Ken was treated sleepily to honey and early berries on a slab of bark. He drank Wylde’s tea, thinking he might grow to like it as he leaned against the larger man. Wylde had an arm around him.
When Ken had eaten his fill, Wylde produced one of his leather laces from his pants. Ken watched, a little dazed as Wylde used it to tie his wrists together. “Hey!”
But then Wylde pushed Ken on his hands and knees, and Ken felt slippery fingers, very gentle, at his entrance.
It was a love game, but he knew to Wylde, it was also a statement—that he would tie Ken’s wrists and that Ken would accept it.
“Uhhhh.” Wylde was…. Ken sweated through two heartbeats of adjustment. Wylde was solid, inside and over him. He fisted one hand in Ken’s spiky hair.
“Kennnn.” When he began to move, Ken pushed back, white hot, mating hot. They slammed together, and then Ken trembled, coming, and Wylde pushed his head down and used him, deep, until he stiffened and cried out.

M
UCH
later, they were sitting in Ken’s official SUV, Ken tapping the wheel while Wylde watched him, seeming okay with waiting all day while Ken mulled. “I looked at the mailman, but he’s married with two grandkids living at home. He was home having a barbecue when Andrea went missing. I looked at the local library guy who delivers books along this stretch. He has another part-time job farther south. He travels a lot to Europe to take photographs….”

Ken chewed his bottom lip. “No.” He took a deep breath, readying himself. “Okay, show me what you found.”
They got out of Ken’s SUV, and Ken followed Wylde down a rough deer track off his patrol route.

S
ICK
, Ken used a pen to poke through the plastic bag, which held some women’s clothing. It was spattered with brown stains. Blood. His eyes pricked with tears as he imagined Andrea’s last moments. He’d been lucky. She hadn’t.

“This will help, Ken?” Wylde asked, kneeling nearby but not too close, since Ken had asked him to stay back.
“It should finally bring other law enforcement in,” Ken said. “They can’t ignore it anymore, say it’s random.”
“Why did no one look into it before?” Wylde asked, raising a brow. “Strange.”
“The guy who had the route before me, Marty Grimble, he was more into fishing and hiking, I guess. He used to tell me to let it go, to just enjoy having such an easy patrol.” Ken stilled and looked up at Wylde, his stomach doing a sick flop. “Oh.”
Ken came to his feet, rubbing his belly. Cold sweat coated his back, the same as it had when he’d first found Andrea and felt a residue of the killer. “I never looked at one of us. He beat me and he left me…. He works part-time now, so he was just starting his shift that day. He must have had some kind of call to answer that interrupted him before he could finish the job,” Ken theorized. “But he was coming back for me….”
“I found you.” Wylde looked frustrated, like he wanted to come to his mate but was blocked by Ken’s imperative about protecting the evidence.
“Do you think there is any chance you can find Andrea for me again?” Ken asked. “I promised her sister I’d try to bring her home.”
“I can try. The trail goes deeper into the woods. Last time, I ran out of daylight.”
“Wylde.” Ken watched his lover fading into the trees. “Please don’t take any risks. You said he was watching you last time.”
Wylde pulled his long hair back, tied it with leather cording. His face was still and grim, and Ken was reminded that this man had grown up in the forest. Somehow he’d survived, found shelter, food…. He didn’t think the way Ken did. He was impatient with social niceties. He went his own way. He was basic, pared down.
He was a hunter.
“I want him to watch me, Ken,” Wylde said. “Then I know he’s not following you.”

He could almost feel Ken’s concern like a gentle net around his skin, feel how that made him different, changed inside. The last time he’d been truly loved had been when his grandpa was alive.

But it was because of Ken he had to do this, lose himself again.
He thought of the bruising on Ken’s face and body and, despite the way he was standing up, how restless he still was in his sleep. Ken was an orderly man, like his row of neat pots drying before he glazed them.
Wylde knew that he would never be someone neat, orderly, who fit in. He hoped Ken could make room for him in his bed. If he did not, Wylde would sleep outside on the pine needles until Ken was ready.

As if he were a dark genie who had been raised by Ken’s thoughts, Deputy Marty Gimble was leaning against Ken’s official SUV, waiting for him, a high-powered rifle cradled in his arms.

Heart thudding in his throat, Ken stared at the man who he was sure had beaten him, intended to kill him, leave him in an anonymous grave somewhere. The friend and coworker who had been stalking and killing people on this stretch of road for over ten years if Ken was right.

“I got a call from Alice at dispatch that you’d found something, Ken,” Marty said in a calm voice. “So I had to come out here, make sure you had backup.”

So they would play it that way? Swallowing thickly, aware that the other man could shoot him at any time, Ken headed up the slope from the ditch. Anger burned in his blood when he thought of how scared he’d been, of how much he’d hurt…. He’d trusted this man. When he’d first taken the job, he’d deferred to him. Frankly he’d secondguessed himself about his theory of a stalker because Marty had laughed it off.