The Wild

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

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.”

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

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

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

to 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.

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

“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.”

screams are on repeat. Next, I put a bullet through the skull of the unconscious man on the floor. Then, I turn around but the kid is already bolting. I storm outside after him. He runs away from me quickly. I manage to pop off two shots that hit him in the shoulder and back thigh. His howls of pain fuel me on but Devon is crying out my name.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

As much as I want to go after the fucker, I can’t leave her in this state. I rush back inside and go to her. The guy is still on top of her. When I push him off, I’m enraged to find he was in her ass. Blood is everywhere. She’s shuddering so hard I think she’s going to vomit. I drag him and the other guy out of the cabin so she doesn’t have to look at them. Then, I’m back inside pulling her into my arms.

She’s sobbing so much and I can’t fucking fix her.

My shaking palm smoothes over her silky hair and I kiss her so many times. I promise her everything will be okay. She trembles out of control. I don’t know what the fuck to do. All I can do is clutch her pinky.

And then it happens.

A low, guttural howl rips from her chest. “Noooo!”

Hot liquid soaks the thighs of my jeans. Jesus. Fuck. No

daughter around. Slamming her head into the side of the cabin, hitting her over and over, kicking her. She screams and pleads. And then the unthinkable happens.

He pins her to the bed face down. The motherfucker pulls his dick out and pries her thighs apart despite her struggling. I know the moment he starts raping her because the blood-curdling scream makes my heart turn black with rage.

“STOP!” I bellow this order out on repeat but it goes ignored.

Helplessly, I have to watch as he slams into her over and over again. Her sobs tear out pieces of my soul and toss them all over the cabin. I can’t watch and yet I can’t allow her to be alone through it. Our eyes meet and I beg her to stay focused on me.

The kid grunts out his orgasm within seconds. Then he’s standing and walking over to Ezekiel.

“My turn,” Ezekiel growls.

“No!” I shout.

He kicks me hard in my still sore ribs and I howl in pain. The kid takes his place but he’s not as strong. As soon as Ezekiel mounts my daughter, her screams are louder than before. He’s hurting her worse than the kid. I go black with rage and I shake off the piss ant despite the blade sticking out of my arm and the pain in my side. I yank my gun from my pocket and put a bullet right through Ezekiel’s face. He grunts and collapses on Devon whose