Page 36 of All Your Days (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #4)

Chapter sixteen

Eli

When we crash into each other, it takes only seconds to get naked again, beard burn and trauma and bruises be damned.

And thank God, because I’ve been dangerously close to coming in my pants ever since he stripped off to bathe earlier.

He was there all gorgeous and naked, and I had to pretend I wasn’t sneaking looks at his heavy dick swaying between his thighs as he lathered himself up.

I swear he did it on purpose. I sure did.

He didn’t look when it was me getting all wet and naked. He just sat and stirred the stew like it was life or death.

I thought maybe he had regrets about what we did in the trailer. After everything he said back at the outpost, I’m not fooling myself into thinking that it meant anything other than two people helping each other at the worst of times.

Just like now.

Because it’s either sink into him and the feel of his hands on me, or face everything. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be strong enough for that. So right now I’m gonna do the dumb thing, and ignore the dark and scary feelings and nightmares lurking—it’s easy to do with his lips on mine.

He devours me with his hands as much as his mouth. Gentle pressure on my jaw with his thumb has me refocusing on the sweep of his tongue against the seam of my lips and I open to let him taste me. The stew tastes good on him.

One strong hand cups my jaw, fingers flexing against my neck. The other skims across my back until his arm is wrapped around me. I yelp into his mouth when he lifts me from my kinda awkward spot next to him, nearly throwing me onto his lap.

Because I’m a helpful kinda guy, I work with him to straddle his thighs, shimmying up until our straining dicks are pressed between our stomachs.

The slickness pooling there smears all in the hairy strip on his abs, the one that tickles my ultra sensitive crown with each erratic thrust of my hips.

Considering we spent all those hours fucking, I don’t know how our dicks are even up to it. I shouldn’t be so painfully erect and close to coming that the slide of his cock against mine has me ready to shoot.

It does, though. My hands dig into his shoulders, my teeth into his lip.

The air between our mouths grows humid with my desperate pants.

I set the pace, his hands squeezing my arse while I rut mindlessly against him.

Blurry-eyed, I watch him, his eyes screwed shut, a fine sheen of sweat beading on his brow. The sun burns my fevered skin.

It was too dark in the trailer last night. Too chaotic. There're only flashes, impressions that I can’t seem to catch hold of. It’s nowhere near enough. I want more. I want to see his face and know what he looks like when he comes. I want to burn it into my memories forever.

The neediness in me is almost as desperate as it was last night, only without the frenzied burning feeling.

I wriggle in his lap, trying to get my hand around him, but as I lean back, my arse moves in his hands.

His long slender fingers slip between my cheeks.

When they brush against the sensitive, puckered rim of my hole, it’s over for me.

Even knowing I was close, it still takes me by surprise, my cock jerking, spilling all over us. The roll of my hips slows as my orgasm takes me over. Jacob strokes me like a cat, one hand circling my hole, the other kneading my lower back and arse cheeks.

When I gain control of my hands again, I continue with my original plan—only now I have all my cum to jerk him with.

“ Fuck, Eli . Fuck. Yes, faster. Just there. Keep goin’…

” Jacob whines, his head falling back in pleasure.

Through the burn of him squeezing my sensitive back, his fingers digging into bruises he made only hours ago, I follow every instruction, memorising the velvety feel of his cock against my palm.

I’m gonna draw this. Draw our bodies against each other, his swollen cock pressed against my softening one, my hand stroking him.

He doesn’t have to tell me when he’s gonna come, I can feel the way he swells at the base and every muscle in his body locks. It’s incredible to watch every tiny detail when his cum joins the river I’ve made.

Enthralled, I can’t take my eyes away, even when his forehead drops to mine. His chest rises and falls sharply as he tries to get himself back together.

“I think we’re gonna need another bath.” He laughs in disbelief.

“Yeah, looks like it.” Cum coats my hand, our stomachs, our cocks, our laps. I’d lick it off, but somehow the red dirt has already gotten into the sticky mess.

“Come on.” Jacob smacks my arse sharply. I gasp in shock, lord knows it wasn’t enough to hurt. His grin is positively wicked, making my heart skip wildly in my chest. “How about I wash you, and you wash me?”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Blow jobs by the wash basin, another handy in the tent when it’s too hot to sit in the sun any longer—it’s incredible all the ways we avoid the horrors we’ve been through with sex.

I even pushed Jacob over the saddle he was cleaning, licking his hole and jerking his cock until he came all over the leather, meaning he had to clean it all over again.

It works until the comfort of the sun disappears and the night brings too many shadows for things to hide in. Until dinner is eaten and cleaned up and there is nothing much else to do. That’s when reality starts to poke its ugly head in.

Alone together, it’s too quiet. Until now it was easy to pretend that the others were just out, getting water, out scouting on watch, out taking a leak. Around the campfire with only the stars and our two remaining camels, the people we’re missing loom like giants.

“So, we need to keep watch, right?” Sitting around the camp stove, I squeeze out through a yawn. Jacob looks just as beat as I am. We’ve taken care to drink enough water and eat what we can, but recovering after the Rains takes time.

“I think we can go without it. We got the camels, they’ll warn us.

It’s not ideal but it’ll do. Anything out there is gonna be too wrecked from the Rains to cause trouble.

” Jacob nods at the camels tied strategically around the single tent we cleaned out earlier today, moving all the stuff back into the trailer.

Neither of us suggested we set up the spare tent.

“You still right to sleep together tonight?” Well, never suggested until right now, apparently, with Jacob bringing up the issue.

I take a deep breath in through my nose, releasing it slowly from my mouth, trying to figure out how to say there is no way I am spending this night not plastered to him, without saying that exact thing.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Understatement of the year, Moby would declare.

Fuck. I miss him. The pain of it hits me like a punch to the guts. I came so close to never seeing his face ever again. The idea is unbearable.

“Are you—are you okay?” Jacob asks, shifting closer. He rests his hand on my shoulder. It’s not quite the hug that I need, but then, Jacob’s never seemed like a hugger, so the simple touch feels like more than a hug from anyone else.

“Can we just go to bed?” Tears are building and there is no way I’m going to be able to hold them in. I would rather they come in the dark. I swipe at the strays that have already made their way down my cheeks.

Jacob squeezes my shoulder gently and my heart aches. I wish… I wish it could mean all the things that I know it doesn’t. He stares at the fire for a second and nods sharply.

“Yeah, let’s go.” He shoots upright, so I stand, too, brushing the dirt from my pants.

Too soon, camp is too dark and too quiet, Jacob and I squished into a too small cot, with our emergency bags and his rifle within immediate reach.

Neither of us take off our boots.

Getting back home as a two-man team is just as good a distraction as sex. Well, not good . Sex is definitely my preferred option out of the two, especially sex with Jacob. But I guess survival works in a pinch.

Home .

The idea of it gives us a purpose. Something to work towards.

A reason to keep putting our feet one foot in front of the other.

It’s not easy. Not a single second of it.

The sun seems determined to test our very limits.

Sweat coats our skin, our clothes sticking and rubbing, chafing painfully.

The sweat stings the palms of my hands, too, where I cut them to shreds on the rough handle of the bore pump when we refilled our tank.

It’s not easy, either, when the fence for the Blue Creek station begins. We don’t say a word about it. Just keep to the clear side of the road and our eyes straight ahead.

“Do you wanna stop and get some of those flowers?” Jacob asks, pointing to a small bundle of pink flowers popping out of the dirt.

“Yeah, thanks. I didn’t see them.” It’s one of the few things we’ve said to each other—him pointing out interesting bits to slip between the pages of my notebook.

He even stopped the whole train just to dig out an old stew jar so I could safely collect an interesting moth I found with a furry body and big patterned wings.

It’s a perfect specimen, and I know Moby will love it.

Jacob has been nothing but sweet, kind, and attentive ever since we woke up from our night in the trailer. And while he wasn’t exactly the sweetest apple before that, he wasn’t a total dickhead either.

Something’s changed. The wall he’s always kept himself hidden behind has gone. It’s nothing obvious. I can’t say one particular thing that points to it. It’s his entire being. The way he exists. It’s just… different. He’s open. Happy.

I don’t trust it.

More specifically, I don’t trust that it’s permanent .

I don’t trust that it’s not just a reaction to what happened and that we’re not going to get back to The Facility and he’s going to be the same closed off Jacob he was before we left—and I’ll be left out in the cold, to deal with the fallout of this shitshow of a trip on my own.