On the Mountain

by Riley Hart

“I want to kiss you, Crow, but I won’t. One day I hope you’ll let me, but if not, that’s okay too.”

When I inhaled, it was Cyrus’s breath I was taking into my lungs. My hold on him tightened. The things I wanted to do to him…the way I wanted to consume him.

I turned off the lights, then grabbed his beanie and pulled it down over his head. When I reached for his coat next, Cyrus looked up at me with watery eyes. “Did I do something wrong?” “No.” He shook his head. “I’m just trying to figure out how someone who grew up the way you did is so good at taking care of someone else. And how I’m the lucky person you do it with.”

“I need control. These things make me feel like I have it.” “These things make me feel important and nurtured.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” “You’re not. I just…miss my mom. I miss her more around this time of year. She loved Christmas and the snow, and I wish she could be here with us. And I wish I wasn’t so helpless and needy and that I had things I could give you too. I want to give you a happy Christmas, and I don’t even know if you celebrate. And I want to be useful to you so I’m not just a man who interrupted your life. I don’t have anything to give you except my ass. Sometimes my mental illness makes these feelings of worthlessness and sadness feel so much bigger, like they’re breaking me down. It lasts a little while; sometimes days, sometimes more.”

“You.” “Me what?” “You give me you. Not just your ass. All of you. Your…feelings, your words, your smiles. You.”

I shared story after story about my mom with Crow, showing him how special and perfect she was, even though she was an addict. People tended to hear drugs and automatically write someone off as a bad person, but she wasn’t. She was the best person I’d ever known, followed by the man allowing me to keep her memory alive.

“I love you,” I whispered, then held my breath. Crow released my fingers, confusion clear on his face. “Why?” “Because I was meant to love you. I exist to love you, to belong to you.” Crow’s expression was so soft, so gentle, while at the same time, his eyes were wild, untamed. He answered by leaning in and pressing his lips to mine, just once, but it was all the answer I needed. Somehow, even though I wasn’t anything special, Crow loved me too.

I got turned on and wanted to fuck, but I’d never looked at someone and ached before. I’d never lost my breath because they were so fucking beautiful, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

“No one has ever been this nice to me. No one has ever made me feel like I matter. I’ve always been something people can throw away. I don’t know how to deserve this.” “You already do.” I’d told him last night. Cyrus gave me himself. That was all I needed. “She said you were her sun, but you’re mine too.”

“You give me control,” I told him. “That’s something I will always need. I told you last night, you give me more than I ever expected I’d have.” Cyrus looked up at me, his gray eyes so gentle and open. “I know.” “Giving you what you need, that is my purpose.” People had joined The Enlightened because they thought Chosen was their way to salvation. It had been ugly and wrong—the things he had done—yet I’d wanted it so badly back then, to make Chosen proud. Now I knew my salvation was the man in front of me, and it was beautiful and right and I would never let him go.

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.” My gaze snapped to his. Crow had never said something like that to me before. I hadn’t thought it was something he would ever be able to say. “Pout more often. Got it.”

“I’ll find you,” he said. “You can’t hide from me, little lamb. I can smell you…smell how much you want me…the muskiness of your desire, the scent of sugar that always clings to your skin. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to fuck you.”

I didn’t talk during sex, not in the way I knew he wanted me to, but the words threatened to spill out now…open your pretty legs for me, give me your hole…you’re mine…mine to fuck and mine to love.

“Please, baby. Please,” he begged, and a snarl escaped my mouth. I hadn’t understood why anyone would want to be called that, but hearing it from him now, when he was beneath me, open and needy, it made me feel like the king of the jungle, the alpha, like I belonged to him the way Cyrus belonged to me. Chosen had owned me, and that had done nothing but hurt me, yet this…this was like Cyrus was showing me who I was, not telling me who I had to be. Like I’d been lost, and the only way to be found was through him.

“Sex has never been as raw and honest as it is with you,” he told me. It didn’t feel like enough. I wanted to give him everything. Wanted every part of him to be mine, for Cyrus to melt into me and for us to be one. I stood up and turned him so we were facing each other. “Don’t move,” I ordered, and he nodded. My heart banged against my chest, blood rushing through my ears as I leaned in and pressed my lips to his again.

“Open.” My lips brushed his as I muttered that one word, and he did. I flicked my tongue into his mouth and nearly went weak in the knees. This…yes, I wanted this, so much. He tasted so sweet, so mine.

I’m sorry I can’t share her with you. Sorry I’m not right. That you’re cold because of me, when it’s my job to take care of you. To protect you. I love you.

There was fear in his hold…and sadness, but there was also love. How, I wanted to ask him. How can you love someone as broken as me? But then maybe that was why he could—we’d both been dropped time and time again, cracks in our armor, little pieces of us breaking off, but somehow, together, we filled in each other’s imperfections. All my cracks and chips were sealed in by Crow, and his by me.

I shook my head. He’d had to help me piss? Shame washed over me. I was supposed to take care of him, not the other way around…but then, that didn’t feel right. It was like some archaic law, something Chosen would have said. Wasn’t the point of loving someone that you took care of each other? That you gave each other what you needed?

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Crow. I have nothing without you. I am nothing without you.” I shook my head. “No. You’re everything.” I closed my eyes, breathed, and wished I could smell him rather than the menthol in the air. “I have nothing without you… I am nothing without you,” I returned the words Cyrus had just given me.

“I plan to keep taking care of you until you’re well. Anytime you need me, for the rest of my life, I’ll take care of you.”

It went against all my instincts, everything about who I was, to allow someone to feed me, to give me food they made. To let myself depend on someone that much and to trust them, but this wasn’t just anyone. He was my world, and there was nothing I wouldn’t give him.

One moment I was outside the room, the next I was inside, and…it was me. Right in front of me. A large canvas rested on an easel, with the most beautiful painting I had ever seen.

“This is what you do? When you come out here? Paint me?” “I painted other things before I met you…nothing but you since.” My heart… I couldn’t put into words what it did. The truth was, I didn’t have a heart anymore. Not one that belonged to me. I had given mine to Crow. It was his, in his possession, and always would be.

“Do I really look like this? Am I really this beautiful to you?” I heard Crow move behind me, until he was right next to me. “I keep painting because they never turn out as beautiful as you are.”

Never guess the pain the man had caused, but most monsters were like that. They made you believe they cared, that they wanted what was best for you, made you believe they were the only answer, the only ones who could help you, when really, they were the ones who would break you. Monsters hid in plain sight, slowly chipping away at your choices, at your possibilities, and that was what the monster in his painting had done to every single one of them.

“Turn,” I said gently. “Crow?” He looked at me over his shoulder. “I need… I need to see you.” Because this wasn’t just for him. This was for me as well. One of the last steps I needed to take, one more thing I would own, take it back from all the things that happened to me in the past.

“You are my sun too. My life was darkness until you gave me your light.” “Crow.” His voice broke on my name, and he reached for me, tangled his hand in my hair, resting it on the back of my head. “I…I love you,” I told him, then kissed his tearstained lips.

There’s this strange concept that men don’t cry. That we don’t show emotion and that having emotions makes us weak. I believed the opposite, that it made us strong, and when I let go and gave in to the tears, Crow was right there with me, crying for the boy he’d been and all he’d lost, but hopeful too, I thought, in our future together.

“I love you,” Crow said into the dark, stroking my hair. “You are…everything to me. My salvation, my reason for being.” I climbed on top of him, his arms wrapping around me as I nuzzled my face into his hair. “I love you, Crow. You’re my reason too.”