The Wild Read online

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she whispers.

  I nuzzle against her hair. “I told you I wanted to protect you from the bad stuff.”

  “I grew up being so angry at her…”

  “Shhh,” I coo. “It’s okay.”

  We stay cuddled together for a long while before I speak again.

  “She lost another baby right before your tenth birthday.”

  Devon tenses in my arms. “I feel so bad for her. I…I’m devastated and it was just the one baby.”

  “You’re going to be okay, Dev. I promise. You’re going to pull out of this and one day we’re going to have the family we deserve. But until then…” A growl rumbles in my throat. “I won’t sleep until I’ve hunted him down.”

  She relaxes her body and turns to face me. Her palm goes to my bearded cheek and she smiles for the first time in a week. “I want him to suffer.”

  I grab her pinky with mine and kiss her knuckle. “That’s something I can deliver, sweetheart.”

  * * *

  * * *

  While Dad works on his fence, I whittle a small branch. I’m making a cross to hang on the wall beside our bed. For Peach. I don’t know if our baby was a boy or girl but I feel like it was a girl and I named her Peach. It’s been two weeks since we lost her. I sit for hours working to make it perfect. I even carve her name into the branch. As soon as I hang it, I cry so hard I eventually pass out.

  “You need to eat something.”

  I blink away my sleep and scrunch my nose in confusion. It’s dark outside. How long did I sleep for? I accept the steaming bowl of stewed bear that no longer turns my stomach. My stomach grumbles and I gratefully eat it.

  I steal a look at Dad as he undresses after a hard day of work. He strips down to his boxers and I can’t help but roam my eyes over his perfectly sculpted body. All of the physical labor has molded him into an Adonis. My heart seems to pump blood for the first time. I watch him as he strolls over to the door and slides the heavy branch into the slot. It’s durable and keeps any would-be predators out.

  “Fence is finished,” he says as he roots around in the cave for something.

  I take another bite of my stew and then smile. “Really? That’s great news. The gate too?”

  He nods. “Bears aren’t getting in.” He doesn’t mention people and it wipes the smile from my lips.

  When he returns, he’s holding one of his few precious liquor bottles he has left. I devour the rest of my stew while he adds some logs to the fire. He takes my empty bowl and sets it on the table. Then, he saunters over to me. The fire casts delicious shadows all over his body. His black boxers stretch over his impressive cock that isn’t even hard right now. Heat floods down south and I blush. The last person who’d been inside me was Ezekiel. A shudder ripples through me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, concern written all over his handsome face. He swallows back some liquor.

  I hold a shaky hand out to him. “I was just remembering how Ezekiel…” I trail off and tremble.

  “Drink, baby.”

  Our eyes meet and I sip down the liquid fire. It burns me all the way to my hollow stomach. Just above where I’m not carrying my baby anymore. This thought has me drinking again. And again. And again. The bottle gets pried from my grip. Dad drinks greedily from it as he towers over me, his gaze glued to my bare breasts.

  I reach for the bottle and he relinquishes it. We pass it back and forth until my entire body—no my whole soul—is blazing.

  “I don’t want him to be the last thing I remember,” I blurt out, my eyes teary.

  He polishes off the bottle and tosses it onto the bear carpet. With haste, he pushes down his boxers and his heavy erection bobs out. I lie back on the pillows and open my body to him. He settles on top of me but doesn’t make any moves to enter me yet. Instead, he kisses my throat.

  Possessive.

  Hungry.

  Feral.

  As if he’s trying to mark me with his teeth.

  I whimper and my body thrums with the need for him to slide into me and erase the horrors. His cock rubs against my clit dizzying me. Our mouths finally meet and he kisses me as though he requires me to breathe.

  My dad, my best friend, my lover pushes into me suddenly. No warning. Just one thrust, driving home. We fit. Perfect and whole. I claw at his flesh as I kiss him in desperation. His powerful hips thunder against me as he fucks away the heartache and pain. Nothing else exists in this moment except us.

  He flows through my veins hotter and more fervent than the alcohol I just consumed. With him, it isn’t one sensation, it’s all of them.

  Love. Lust. Darkness. Light. Right. Wrong. Sadness. Happiness. Anger. Everything.

  When his fingers move to touch my clit, I shake my head. “Just fuck me.”

  He growls. “Hell no. You’re getting off, baby. I’m not playing this game again.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about and the moment he touches my clit, I don’t care. He knows me better than myself. I need to disappear from reality for a moment. His fingers are experienced at touching me and I soon lose control. My back arches up off the mattress as I cry out in pleasure. The orgasm is intense but it chases away all the evil that seemed to be haunting me. His teeth sink into my throat and he bites me hard enough to remind me that I’m alive. When I moan, tears of joy sliding down my face, he comes with a groan. Hot, explosive cum jets deep inside of me. And selfishly, I pray for another baby. I don’t want to replace Peach but I want a family with Dad.

  Once he’s done coming, he pulls out and lays beside me. His fingers trace patterns all over my breasts and stomach. I stare at his handsome face that’s relaxed and happy.

  “Do you love me like you loved Mom?” I ask, my voice but a whisper.

  His thumb runs across my lips. “I loved your mom a lot in the beginning. But over time, I fell out of love with her. We just didn’t connect anymore. I wanted to love her. I forced myself to love her. But I wasn’t in love with her.” He leans forward and kisses me. “But you? I fucking love you more than words can describe. It isn’t a feeling—it’s like a storm that crashes into me and obliterates me. I can’t stop it. I wasn’t prepared for it. I just know that it’s the best thing and scariest thing to ever happen to me.”

  I frown at him. “Why the scariest?”

  His palm slides down to palm my breast as he frowns. “Because I’ve never felt like I couldn’t live without someone. What we have makes no sense outside of this cabin. It defies the rules and logic we were forced to learn. Laws are being broken—all of them I’m guilty of. Despite the chances we’re taking to be together, I’m diving headfirst. I don’t stop to think about repercussions or reality. All I know is I want you. If that means keeping you here forever all to myself, I’ll do it. I don’t want to return to society if it means what we have is seen as disgusting or wrong. And that scares the hell out of me. When I truly think about the fact that I’m a forty-year-old man who is sleeping with his seventeen-year-old daughter, it fucks with my head. I live every day with this battle of morals. The fact that I’m easily cutting out the part of me that cares what people would think says that I’m losing myself. I’m not the man who drove that RV out here. I’m some beast the wilderness created. I take what I want and that’s you.”

  Tears slip out of the corner of my eyes. “You didn’t have to take me. I gave myself to you. I’m yours. Here or out there. I always was.”

  He smiles and leans forward to kiss my nipple. His breath is hot against me. “Tomorrow I’m going to hunt down that motherfucker. Then, I’m going to come back and make love to you until you’re pregnant again. I won’t let anything happen to you. So help me, I’ll kill every fucker on this planet before I let another person even look at you. You’re my secret. My everything. Nobody deserves to be in your presence. Mine.”

  His possessive words aren’t playful. He’s dead serious. Just the thought of seeing anyone frightens me. I feel safe when it’s just me
and Dad locked away by ourselves.

  “Promise?”

  He grabs my pinky with his. “On my life. Because if anything comes between us and hurts you, my life doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Dad works on packing a bag. Food. Weapons. Other supplies he needs for his hunting mission. Once he’s got one ready, he takes me back to our first campsite. He rummages through the RV looking for things and I work on the mangled trailer. A lot of stuff is smashed and destroyed. It’s been picked over by animals. With the patience of a saint, I slowly pull everything out. There’s more stuff toward the back of the trailer. The trailer was nearly smashed in half but once I move stuff around, I am just small enough to squeeze through the dented metal. It’s dark aside from a few holes in the side of the metal that allows sun to shine in. One of the first plastic tubs I open up has clothing in it. I pull out a piece and hold it to the light. I immediately recognize it as one of the frilly dresses I wore as a baby for our three-year-old pictures. Tears well in my eyes. Mom kept this. Despite her detached personality, she was determined to take these memories with her. Memories of Drew and I. The dress is so pretty. It would have been perfect on Peach.

  A sob catches in my throat, but I swallow it down. I stuff the dress back in the tub and seal the lid. One day I’ll pull this box out and properly look through it. The next box I open has books and notebooks in it. It’s my box. I let out an excited shriek as I pull some novels into my lap. I find a pencil bag and one of my notebooks I’d planned to write in. Greedily, I stuff my arms with them before sealing the lid. I’ll come back for the rest later.

  It takes some maneuvering but I eventually squeeze out with my haul. Once I’m out of the trailer, I find Dad sitting on a rock starting to skin a rabbit.

  “Can you try and save the pelt?” I ask as I approach. “I think I can use them like I used the bear skin.”

  He looks up at me, blood running down the back of his hand from the rabbit and grins before nodding. Out here in the wilderness, with the snow as our backdrop and him looking positively feral as he skins the game, I feel my heart rate quicken. He’s the kind of handsome you’d see on the cover of a romance novel or some Alaskan hottie calendar.

  And he’s mine.

  “You’re blushing.”

  I bite on my lip and shrug. “Just thinking about how hot you are.”

  His dark eyebrow lifts. “The feeling is mutual.” He winks and the bird inside my ribcage flutters. “What do you have there?”

  I smile and sit down beside him on the rock. “Some books to read and a notebook. I’m going to write.”

  He leans over and kisses my temple. “You’re glowing. Are you happy?”

  “Right now, like this. I’m happier than I thought I ever could be.”

  “Good. Me too.”

  Eventually he finishes with the rabbit and we head back to the cabin. He hands over the pelt and I set to washing it. I’ll need to stretch it and oil it with the leftover bear fat but I’m excited to start collecting the soft furry pelts. It will be perfect for when we do have a baby to line the bed with. I’m sitting in the chair singing an old song Mom and I used to sing on the radio when I feel as though Dad is watching me. His features are dark as he cuts the rabbit meat for our meal.

  “What?” I ask, heat creeping up my neck. He’s been inside of me more times than I can count and I still get all heated and embarrassed when he stares at me as though he wants to devour me.

  “I love when you sing.”

  I smile and continue with my task making sure to sing every song I can think of since he loves it. Once we’re both done with our tasks and eating, he boils some water.

  “Before I leave tonight, I want to bathe you.” His voice is husky and raw. It sings to the woman inside of me that can’t get enough of the beast inside of him.

  While he finishes with the water, I peel off all my clothes. His gaze is greedy as he roams it over my bare flesh. He sits in one of the chairs and places the steaming pot on the table.

  “Come sit, Pip.” He pats his knee.

  I walk over to him. He helps me sit on him so that I’m straddling his thighs. My sex feels open and exposed. It makes me want to ask him to put his fingers inside of me to fill the space. These thoughts make the blush spread down to my breasts.

  “Are you embarrassed?” he asks as he sweeps my hair around to one side. He combs through the knots with his fingers, a brow lifted in question.

  “I’m turned on,” I admit.

  His smile is predatory but I’m not afraid. “I’m always turned on around you.” He grips my wrist and guides my palm to where his erection is stiff and throbbing inside of his jeans. “See.”

  Instead of touching me where I want, he sets to getting the rag wet and wrung out. Slowly, he runs the scalding hot rag along my flesh. I hiss because it burns but it feels good because he’s the one doing it. Quickly, it cools. He runs it along my breasts and my nipples become hard pebbles. Leaning forward, he flicks his tongue out and tastes one.

  “Your little nipples are my favorite things to put in my mouth,” he breathes hotly against my breasts.

  I let out a whimper and run my fingers through his unkempt hair. He has me lift my arms where he washes underneath them and then he moves down to my stomach. My heart catches in my throat when his fingers linger on my stomach, both of us having a moment of silence to acknowledge our loss. Hot tears spill down my cheeks and splash his arm. He sets the rag on the table and takes both of my cheeks in his palms. His lips press to mine and then he licks away my tears like a lion would lick the face of his lioness. I tilt my head back slightly and let him clean away the hurt. When I’m good and dry, he continues licking to my jaw and down to my throat. His palms roam my body in a way that feels halfway between him marking his territory and checking for ailments. Concern and possession. Equal parts obsession.

  “Mine,” he murmurs and then his fingers are right where I want them as he kisses my throat. One finger pushes inside of me followed quickly by another. The heel of his palm grinds against my clit as he uses his fingers to fuck me. “Always so wet for me. Good girl.”

  I whimper and rock against his hand. The pleasure sensations rippling through me are intense and overwhelming. I love how he plows through me every time we connect. He ruins me. Destroys me. And I love the feeling as he desecrates me.

  His hand gropes my small breast while the other works me from the inside. Reality abandons me as I lose myself to the moment. I come hard and with a shriek when my orgasm strikes. I’m weak and dizzy and in near tears from the pleasure as he stands with me in his arms. He carries us to our bed and lays me out before him. I stare greedily at him as he rips off his shirt and bares his stone chiseled chest at me. His pectorals twitch and his abs ripple with movement. My mouth waters to run my tongue along the solid V-shaped muscles that point straight to his cock that owns me.

  I’m spread open and waiting. My arousal dripping as the need for him becomes almost unbearable. He’s quick with his movements in undressing but not quick enough for my liking. The moment his jeans and boxers are gone, I stare at his cock that points right at me. Long. Thick. Veiny. I know from experience that it feels like velvet in my hand. Soft and pliable on the outside but hard and unbreakable beneath. He tastes of salt and musk and him. My stomach practically growls for him.

  He grabs my ankle and kisses the bone. Then, he slowly trails hot kisses along my calf and to the inside of my knee. The moment his beard hair tickles along my inner thigh, I let out a moan. He kisses the entire journey to my clit. There, he kisses me in an obscene way that would probably make people blush. Desperate and hungry. Sucking as though he wants to pull it right from my body and devour it for a snack. I’m still so sensitive from my last orgasm that I come with his name on my lips. And then his kissing continues along my stomach, between my breasts, and then to my lips. His tongue dives inside my mouth the exact moment his cock pushes inside of me. I moan in surprise at the intrusion but he doesn’t give me a chance
to recover. Like a wild animal, he thrusts against me. Words of praise and vows of love are murmured against my lips as our bodies mold together as one.

  I’m everywhere all at once.

  I’m nowhere but here.

  My mind is a cacophony of thoughts and out of control sensations as he shows me what it feels like for two souls to bind.

  Threaded together. A tight braid of man and woman. A link that cannot be severed. We’re beyond the thrill and needing to feel good. We’re in love. Madly. Deeply. Desperately. Sickly.

  I’ll die without him.

  I understand his words from before.

  One cannot survive when the other half of your heart bleeds out. They’re connected, which means you bleed out too.

  He grunts out his release. The heat burns me from the inside and, once again, I pray for a baby. When love is this intense, this explosive, this real, miracles happen.

  I want my miracle.

  * * *

  * * *

  She sobs from the porch as I walk backward away from her in the dark night. I don’t want to fucking leave her but I have no choice. The motherfucker who beat my daughter and then raped her, causing her to miscarry our baby, still lives and breathes somewhere out there. I will track him down and I will kill him. I’ve armed her with a shotgun that she’s to use first and then ask questions. Nobody will touch her. She has enough food and firewood to keep her safe in the cabin until I return.

  I will return.

  “I love you,” she calls out.

  “I love you too.” I wave one last time and turn away. The echo of the door closing shut and the branch locking her in calms my erratic heart. Leaving her is so fucking hard.

  The pack is heavy on my back and the .45 stays in my grip ready to fire. If I see any bears, I’ll kill them with a quick pop to the head. But if I see Nathaniel, I’m going to incapacitate him before taking my time murdering the sick fuck.