Of course roads now teemed with the infected, who seemed unable to swim or survive in water. It was safer at sea, especially since Parker wasn’t immune to the virus like Adam.
But he couldn’t help fantasizing about finding a home with Parker somewhere. Maybe even a community. All the years since his family had died he’d hidden himself away, and now he ached for more.
Head bent, Parker examined the map, muttering to himself. “She said twenty-nine and seventy-eight, yeah? That’s…hmm. Too far north for the Caribbean.”
“Have you been?”
Parker’s brief smile was too sharp. “No. Dad and Eric sailed down the winter after Eric graduated college. Dad said I was too young. I followed their progress on a map.” He ran his fingertip down and across to the Caribbean. “Eric loved the Caymans. Always joked that he’d run away there once he made his fortune trading stocks.”
Adam went close and wordlessly rubbed his hand over Parker’s hip. They’d discussed investigating the Caymans when they presumably made the Caribbean. Since leaving Cape Cod, progress down the coast had been relatively slow since Adam still had a lot to learn about sailing.
It was possible Eric was still alive, although Parker rarely talked about it. Adam knew Eric had called the night the virus took hold and had been escaping into some kind of bunker with his billionaire boss in London.
Sometimes Parker would pore over charts, which to Adam looked like maps with extra stuff on them, scribbling notes on a transatlantic voyage. But when Adam asked about it, Parker always scoffed and said it was a daydream—that sailing south in good conditions was one thing, but crossing the Atlantic would be much more difficult. And even if they did, finding Eric would be a challenge to say the least. If he was even alive to find.
Still, Adam often found him staring at the maps, and all Adam could think to do to help was take him to bed, holding him and making him come so Parker could fall asleep.
Parker jabbed a blue swath. “East of Daytona. That doesn’t make any sense. There’s nothing there.”
“How far from where we are now?”
Parker gave him a long look. “We’re not falling for these people’s crap. Right?”
“But why would they try to lure us out into the middle of the ocean?”
“To steal our shit? Take
Bella
? Eat us for dinner? The possibilities are endless.”
“Or maybe they want to help. We’ve met some good people. It’s possible.”
“My dad always used to say, ‘If it sounds too good to be true, it is.’ And some message on the radio telling us exactly what we want to hear? That there’s a safe, awesome place out there? Is too good to be true. Since when are you gung ho to trust strangers? After what those fuckers did to you—” He clenched his jaw, his eyes shadowed.
“I’m fine, Parker.” Adam tried to draw him close, but he spun away.
“Let’s keep it that way.” He scrubbed at his hair, pulse jumping as he stalked to the kitchen and chugged a bottle of water from the little fridge. “We have to be smarter.”
He was right, but Adam still wanted to find out more. It couldn’t hurt to have more information. “Agreed. I’m just curious how far it is. Just so we know our options.”
“Okay, solely for the record, we’re off the coast of Virginia now.” Parker returned to the table and pointed to a spot on the map. “The naval base is here. Well…was.”
Adam’s stomach clenched at the memory of the acrid smoke choking his senses, still not enough to mask the rancid smell of the swarms of infected on shore, the eerie chattering sound they made so loud even Parker could hear it drifting over the placid water of the bay.
They’d hoped perhaps the navy would be organizing…something. Anything. Some kind of official response. But if there were navy ships at sea that could help, they remained silent.
Parker swallowed hard and dragged his finger lower. “So we’re about here.” He lowered his finger. “Daytona Beach. This supposed island is about here, on the other side of the Gulf Stream.”
Adam peered at the map. “You’ve never heard of any islands there?”
“No.” Parker scratched his belly, and Adam’s gaze followed the trail of dark hair to his groin before forcing his focus back on the map.
“But there could be?”
“I guess so. A private island. I don’t remember ever seeing any mention of it, though.”
“Would you have?”
“Maybe. My dad said when I graduated high school, we’d sail down the coast. I did a bunch of research into it. But when senior year rolled around and it was time to actually plan, he was too busy at work, so.” He snorted.
“I’m sorry.” Adam ran a hand over Parker’s head and kissed him softly.
“Yeah.” Parker’s eyes went distant like they did when he remembered the time before the virus.
Adam understood grief and the waves in which it came and went. It had been more than fourteen years since his parents and sisters had died, but sometimes the pain struck like a two-by-four, merciless and blunt. Other moments it slithered in unannounced, insidious and endlessly patient.
“I’d come out by then, and I think he was terrified of a summer of awkward silences. He tried, but me being gay made him so uncomfortable. It was like he didn’t know what to say, so he basically stopped talking to me altogether except for surface stuff.”
Pulling Parker into his arms, Adam traced the knobs of his spine with his fingers.
“I just wish we’d gotten the chance to…I don’t know. A chance for him to really know me. As a grown-up.” He forced a laugh. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s not. Not even a little.”
Parker clung to him. “I know you understand. And it was so much worse for you, being there in the car when they died. I just—” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Screeching tires and shearing metal. Glass exploding. The terrible silence and so much blood he could taste it, choking on death.
They stood in each other’s arms as the cabin brightened inch by inch, until Adam quietly asked, “Have you thought any more about our route?”
Swiping at his eyes, Parker stepped back and returned to the map. “Okay, so there are pros and cons to sticking closer to shore. Another storm could blow in like last week. And that was nothing, not a real nor’easter. Always a risk to go offshore. But if we do, we’re not going near this Salvation Island.”
Adam nodded, but the woman’s low tenor echoed in his mind:
It is safe here.
Since taking to the sea, avoiding contact with creepers and survivors alike had been far easier. When the radio did crackle to life with reports from ham radio operators and other watercraft, the news had not been heartening.
The sickness apparently spread unchecked, with more and more people either dead or infected. There were more rumors of the religious zealots who’d allegedly brewed the virus and unleashed it in coordinated attacks across the world. The Zechariahs had apparently claimed responsibility, but Adam and Parker hadn’t heard anything from the group itself.
It was impossible to know what was true, and he supposed it didn’t really matter in the end. What mattered was surviving. Keeping Parker safe.
Adam said, “We don’t have to decide today which route to take.”
“Nope.” Parker yawned, stretching his arms over his head and flexing his lean muscles, his soft cock swaying. He shuffled to the small fridge and took out another bottle of water, passing it to Adam wordlessly before sticking his finger into a bowl of chocolate pudding they’d made with powder and boxed almond milk.
The
Bella Luna
was equipped with both a hydro generator below the surface of the water and a wind generator high on the main mast. Parker had explained that each one worked best under different sailing conditions while Adam tried to cram the information into his head along with all the other things he was learning.
He was just grateful they had electricity. Out on the deck with a cool breeze over the water and a frosty beer in his hand, sometimes he could forget about the rest of the world.
Sometimes.
Leaning a hip against the table, Adam said, “They might have medicine there. A doctor, even. At Salvation Island.”
Parker exhaled noisily. “And they probably have lies and betrayal and sex slavery. With bonus cannibalism.”
Pulling at the moist label on his water bottle and ignoring Parker’s hyperbole, Adam looked at the map. “If something happened to me and you were alone, you’d need people. Even if nothing happens, it would be good, don’t you think? For us not to be alone?”
His eyes on the pudding, Parker’s heart skipped, reaching Adam’s ears. “What, I’m not enough for you?” He tried to smile.
“That’s not what I meant. Of course you are. You’re everything. But we don’t know what’ll happen. Maybe we could check them out from a distance. With my vision and the binoculars, we could be miles away.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you as long as we stay smart.” Parker abandoned the pudding and hugged him, pressing his face to Adam’s chest. He was several inches shorter than Adam’s six-one, and he fit so perfectly. Adam held him close, breathing in the salty scent of sea air and sweat from Parker’s skin. “You’re a big, bad wolf, remember?”
Adam chuckled as Parker rubbed against his chest with his stubbly cheek. Parker was like a cat, and Adam his willing scratching post. As he ran his hands over Parker’s back, the woman’s voice echoed in his mind again.
It is safe here. All are welcome.
“But if we—”
“Dude!” Parker jerked out of Adam’s grasp. “We just went over this. Like, I didn’t imagine the shit-show that went down at the Pines, right?” He stalked to the head and flipped on the shower, waving his hand under the water as if he could will the generator to heat it faster. “Did you wake up with selective amnesia today?”
Adam chugged the rest of his water, biting down a retort. When he swallowed, he calmly said, “No. But there were pros and cons to the Pines.”
Parker yanked the shower curtain closed after him. “I’ll grant you that movie night and the palatial suite were awesome, and the chef knew his stuff. But my fond memories of our time there are just a tiny bit tainted by that part when the batshit scientist guy and Ramon the werewolf and professional bag of dicks held you captive and did tests on you. Aka
tortured
you.”
“I heal quickly.” When he thought of Ramon, Adam’s anger and hurt was tempered by regret that he hadn’t found out more from him about being a werewolf. There was so much he’d never had a chance to learn from his parents. Would he ever have the opportunity again to meet someone else like him?
“Oh, so what they did was okay?” Parker’s voice rose as he switched off the shower and stormed out, a few curtain rings flying off the rail. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“No, no.” Adam hugged Parker from behind, wrapping around him tightly as Parker tried to get by. “I’m sorry. I’m not saying it was okay. It wasn’t. I just worry. We might need allies. We don’t know what’s coming. We’re even more vigilant now than we were then. We won’t be fooled.” He pressed his lips to Parker’s damp hair.
Parker relaxed a bit against him. “I want to believe that, but…”
“Shh. It’s okay.” Another day was beginning, and it could be their last. Adam didn’t want to fight. Still hugging him close, he inhaled Parker deeply, holding his essence in his lungs until there was nothing else, the fear and uncertainty fading away.
He rubbed against Parker’s ass, the adrenaline from their argument quickly transforming into desire. Here, pressed against Parker’s warmth, Parker’s heartbeat filling Adam’s ears and drowning out any other voices, nothing else mattered. Here, together, they were safe.
Kissing his way down the side of Parker’s neck, Adam stroked over his chest and lower to his cock, which thickened quickly in his hand.
“No fair,” Parker whined. “You play dirty.”
Growling low in his throat, Adam whispered, “And you love it.”
Parker moaned as Adam nudged him the short distance to the cabin and pushed him facedown on the bed. Adam wanted to drop on top and cover him completely, keeping the rest of the world at bay.
When Parker spread his legs, Adam knelt between them. He licked the water from Parker’s flushed skin, kissing and teasing. He hadn’t shaved in weeks, and he rubbed his scruff against Parker’s ass until the skin reddened beautifully.
“Tease,” Parker muttered. “My ass can take more than that. Need more.”
Adam spread Parker’s cheeks and blew across his hole before kissing it ever so lightly, his lips barely touching the puckered flesh.
Parker groaned. “If you’re trying to get me to beg, it’s working.”
The sun filled the cabin through the long and narrow portholes, and sweat dripped down Adam’s spine as he chuckled and briefly flicked with his tongue.
Parker’s little cries of pleasure joined the gulls circling overhead, and the boat rocked gently as the tide swelled. Adam kissed Parker’s inner thighs now, caressing his hips in teasing circles.
With an impatient huff, Parker pushed his knees under him and jutted his ass in the air, reaching back to spread his cheeks. “Come
on
.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure what you want.”
With a growl of his own, Parker glared over his shoulder. “Adam.” His eyes went soft and vulnerable, and his voice was barely a whisper. “Need you.”
The urge to hold Parker close and never leave their little cabin again swelled, and Adam leaned over to kiss Parker tenderly before whispering in his ear, “You want my cock? Want me to fill you up with my cum? Hmm? You like that, don’t you?” He stroked Parker’s hips harder now.
“Yes,” Parker hissed. “I love it.”
“Or do you want my mouth today?” He kissed Parker’s hole. “My tongue?” With a long swipe, he licked along his crack.
Shuddering, Parker gasped. “All of it. Please.”
Closing his eyes, Adam took a deep breath and let the transformation begin, hair spreading thickly over his face and around his eyes—just enough so he knew Parker could feel it. Could feel the slight prick of claws on his hips and the tip of fangs against his hole too.
Parker trembled with a groan, and Adam could smell the pre-cum that flooded Parker’s dick and surely dripped from the end. “All of you,” Parker muttered.