by V. K. Ludwig
“What?”
“Stop it,” he whispered once more and pressed another kiss onto my mouth, then pulled away for good. “Stop it. What are you doing?”
“I want you to touch me!”
He angled his hips away from me as if there was a chance his erection had gone unnoticed, which strained each square inch of his briefs. “But I did touch you. That’s what you wanted, right? And now it’s done.”
“But I want more,” I breathed.
I let my fingers trail along the stray hairs below his bellybutton and lifted the waistband of his briefs.
Fear paralyzed my bones, making me hesitate for a fraction of a breath. Was I ready to do this?
Adair took the weight from the question off my mind. His hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled my arm back up. Then he looked me deep in the eyes and shook his head once more, confusion trembling his lips. “You need to stop before I lose control.”
“What if I want you to lose control?”
Breath burst in and out of him in short, rapid puffs. “I don’t understand. Is this another one of your games?”
“I want you to sleep with me!”
“No. No, no, no.” A smile came and went from his lips, and he swallowed hard. “You don’t understand what you’re asking for. Touching you like this is one thing, but having sex is an entirely different… if anybody finds out…”
“Nobody has to find out.” I ripped my wrist from his hand and let it dive back down, this time running my palm over the fabric of his briefs and along his bulge. “We’ll keep it a secret. I swear. Please do this for me.”
His shaft filled my hand and strained toward me.
“Oh fuck,” he moaned. “You need to stop.”
“I want you, Adair,” I whispered and tugged on his briefs. “I want to learn what it feels like to have you inside of me.”
My clit throbbed between my legs, begging me to convince him, burning me up from the inside. I looked down between us, catching a glimpse of his erection which seemed so much bigger and alive than on drawings.
No matter how fast I breathed, I couldn’t draw in the oxygen quicker than my despair depleted it. I didn’t know what to do but didn’t want to to do nothing either.
At last, I wrapped my fingers around his penis. A deep groan came from deep within his chest. He rocked his hips, pushing his shaft through the opening I created and letting the tip of his penis shove against my shirt where he left behind little droplets.
I jutted my chin toward it and searched for his eyes. “Did you ejaculate?”
“You’re funny.” He gave a quiet laugh. “Not yet, but I’m damn close.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, lifted me up, and placed my legs around his hips. Shifting my weight to the left, I made sure not to put too much pressure on his wound. Three steps later, he pressed my back against the wall and planted fiery kisses along my neck.
“Are you sure you want me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I moaned.
With little effort, he dropped me a bit deeper, grinding himself against my crotch. Delicious shudders came and went, blurring my thoughts and turning me near dizzy. This was so much better than the books had described it, and he hadn’t even penetrated me yet.
A door slammed somewhere.
Another shudder came, left, and never returned.
“Where is everyone?” came muffled from behind the door.
“Shit.” Adair dropped me to the ground like a sack of beans, picked up his pants and fumbled with his belt. “If Hazel finds us like this, I’m screwed. Try to look as if nothing happened.”
“But nothing happened,” I said, not even bothering to hide my disappointment.
“Enough to get me exiled. Shit. I’m so stupid.”
A knock on the door.
“Ehh… give me a second,” Adair shouted, his voice two octaves too high. “Where the hell is my hoodie?”
“Why are you in here?” Hazel asked, her body half inside the room with brows so furrowed, they touched in the center.
“Um, I…” I could feel my lips moving, but my vocal cords had somehow abandoned me. “Adair and I —”
“Two guys made trouble at the store,” Adair said.
“I know, they brought Ben into the clinic so I could treat him for the concussion you gave him.” She paused for a moment and examined us, her lips slightly parted as if she was so focused on figuring us out, she forgot to close her mouth. “But that doesn’t explain why you guys are in here. You know… shirtless and all.”
“I helped him clean his wound and put a stitch band on it,” I said, immediately regretting how I had blurted it out.
“Uh-huh.” Hazel gave a slow-motion nod. “So what is all that talk about with Ruth asking for another guard? It’s spreading like wildfire among the single guys… which is pretty much every dick in this town.”
Adair and I exchanged a quick glance.
“A misunderstanding,” he said. “You get how those guys are.”
“Well, you better go and contain that misunderstanding, because they’re already lining up at the longhouse to apply. Rowan’s pissed. He didn’t call yet?”
Adair picked up his hoodie and fumbled on the sleeves. “Not yet.”
Hazel pointed at his stomach as he dressed himself. “Still need me to look at it?”
“I’m alright. Can’t even feel it anymore.”
“Adair,” Hazel said, the undertone of her voice carrying a particular annoyance, “there’s no need to be so tough all the time. You’re allowed to be in pain, okay?”
“Well. I’m not.”
Hazel turned around and left the room, a “whatever” sounding from the hallway.
I flung my hands to my chest, the tension slowly retreating from my body. “That was close. Next time we have to —”
“There won’t be a next time.” The gaze he sent across my body had changed from desire to something that resembled disgust. “I shouldn’t have let my damn guard down. What the hell was I thinking?”
A chill climbed into my core, and no matter how much I shifted my weight, I couldn’t rid it. This experience with Adair brought me closer to what I was searching for than anything else before. How could I let go of it now?
“Nobody will find out!”
With each step I came closer, he retreated by two. “Nobody will find out? Are you serious? I didn’t even get my cock wet yet, and we were almost found out.”
“We’ll be more careful then. Nobody will know.”
My voice sounded like the one of a beggar, but at this point, I cared little. Replacing Adair suddenly didn’t seem like an option anymore. Not only because of what happened in the store but also because I enjoyed how he made me feel.
“Do you understand how much convincing it took to have me assigned as your guard?” he asked. “And you know why? Because they all think I can’t do it. They all expected me to take advantage of it as soon as I brought you here. And here I am… guilty as charged.”
He stomped over to the door, pulled it wide open and did that stabbing thing with his finger again. “Out! Now!”
I just stood there and stared at him for a moment. The seriousness in his eyes, the strength in his arms and the pure masculinity of his presence — I needed it all, and I was willing to fight for it. Even if I brought unfair weapons to the battle.
I slowly walked over, shifted my weight toward him, and let my voice fall into a whisper. “If there won’t be a next time, I guess it’s better if I go to Rowan and tell him what happened.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” I gifted him an innocent smile. “Your law says no man can touch a woman, not the other way around. The way I see it, I have far less to lose than you. Besides, then he will have to assign me another guard.”
He cocked his head, his eyes suddenly a darker and colder shade of blue. “Are you blackmailing me? For sexual favors? Seriously, Ruth?”
I pointed at the blue ray above his holo-ba
nd. “Oh, look. Rowan’s calling.”
Chapter 6
Adair
I looked over the well-muscled bouncers, hunters, and scavengers lining up in front of the longhouse. Laughter emanated from most of them, but others blurted dares and challenges, flexing their muscles and strutting their chests.
“Wow, Hazel wasn’t kidding,” Ruth said, the way she eyed every single one of them making my teeth grind.
“Stop staring at them, or they’ll feel encouraged,” I mumbled. “And for everything that’s still holy, please don’t approach them. I won’t save you a second time.”
“Oh, you won’t? Guess it’s the perfect moment to look for a replacement.”
She glanced over her shoulder and flicked a crotch-high punch toward me as if turning her down was a bad thing.
I couldn’t wrap my head around how she had wanted this the whole time. Stupid me figured she enjoyed the tease and the thrill. In reality, coming off the water overwhelmed her body with a bunch of new-to-her sensations — poor girl.
“Do you know him?” she whispered and pointed at a guy less than twenty feet to our right as I pushed us a path through the crowd.
“His name is Clay,” I said in a sharp tone. “He trains the boys in school in group combat.”
“Oh, so he likes children?”
“He likes to stay alive. But what’s it to you anyway, considering you told us a hundred times you’re not interested in finding a husband.”
She grabbed the collar of her jacket and tugged it higher. “But I do like children.”
“Woman coming through,” I shouted, and pointed at the wide alley which formed in front of Ruth.
“He looks strong,” she said, the tone of her voice making it clear she tried to get to me. Taunt me. “Taller than you, too!”
My stomach hardened, suppressing an uncomfortable tingle which bubbled somewhere in the darkest pit.
Ever since I touched her and tasted her lips, I felt as if she was nobody’s to claim but mine. Hell, I had claimed her already. Kind of. If touching boobies counted.
The thought of any guy seeing what I saw, touching what I touched, feeling what I felt made me sick to my stomach. No matter how crazy the experience, I didn’t want to share it. Especially not with a guy named after a piece of dirt.
“I heard someone say he’s gay,” I said loud enough for her to hear, but not too loud so it would reach his ears. The last thing I needed was another punch in the stomach.
Her gaze drifted off him. “Oh.”
We made our way inside the longhouse where Rowan stood next to his throne, looking stressed out as shit.
A row of eager applicants leaned against the walls, their mumbles and unhappy grunts mixing underneath the high-arched ceiling. A hint of desperation clung to the air, along with traces of too much beer too early in the day.
“Explain this shit,” Rowan said and waved his fanned-out hand toward pretty much every single guy under the age of fifty this village had.
Ruth positioned herself next to Rowan, arms crossed in front of her chest. “Yes, Adair, explain this.”
She looked down at me with a raised chin, her lips pressed into a thin line, but she couldn’t hide that stuck-up smirk which tugged the corners of her mouth.
“A misunderstanding,” I mumbled.
“Well, this misunderstanding is gonna cost me an entire day spent at the longhouse, instead of going sledding with my family,” Rowan said, then pointed at me and turned his attention to Ruth. “He got himself into a fight today to protect you. Obviously, he’s doing his job, so please tell me what’s wrong between you two! You’re not getting on with each other?”
Her features softened. “We get along, but… I believe Adair is neglecting some things I feel should be his duties as well, other than protecting me.”
Rowan flipped up a brow. “Like what?”
“Like showing me the differences between the Clans and the Districts.” She worked a puppy-dog smile onto her face and cocked her head toward Rowan, her lower lip pushed out, and her shoulders slumped. “This was a huge change for me, and Adair should help me to adjust to my new environment. There are things I don’t understand and… well, considering how much time he has to spend with me, I say he should teach me.”
Oh, she was gooood.
Rowan looked at me from a lowered head. “And you’re refusing to teach her our ways?”
Our ways? If that meant having my way with her, hell yeah I refused. But he didn’t know that, of course. It was not like I could have filled in the dirty details.
I gave a light-hearted shrug. “I believe Ruth is just overwhelmed with the change, and maybe a bit confused.”
“How about you enlighten me?” she snarled, her death-stare biting me all over like a rabid bulldog, refusing to let go.
Rowan swung his palms up in an appeasing manner. “Now, now, kids. No need to bark at each other. How ’bout you tell me why I had to throw Ben into jail as soon as he quit emptying his stomach backward onto the exam table?”
I stepped up to Rowan and lowered my voice. “He said things.”
“What things?”
“The way he talked about you was disrespectful, and he said you, um, said you…”
“Said I what?”
I catapulted the sentence from my tongue. “That you’re fucking that traitor bitch. His words.”
He broke the eye contact and cleared his throat. “This shit is spreading like a virus, and I got no clue how to stop it.”
“By eliminating hosts,” Ruth said, making both Rowan and me swing toward her.
He leaned into her. “Repeat that.”
“Mmh… if you don’t want a virus to spread, eliminate the hosts.”
“But hosts are people in this case,” I added.
She shrugged.
“I need someone to infiltrate them,” Rowan said and rubbed his palms slowly against each other. “Someone we treated like shit in the past but is one of us. But who? Who?”
I didn’t dare answer, considering the many options.
“Ah, yes,” he shouted, a devilish smirk moving onto his lips. “Let’s see if we can convince Uncle Peter to do it. All I need to find out is who the hosts are. The rest is easy.”
“You want me to talk to him?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I’ll do it. He’s scared shitless of me, which helps if you’re trying to convince someone. But I need all of us to get together this Thursday at nineteen-hundred sharp so that we can discuss that damn business with the burn pit.”
“But we don’t have the results of the bone yet.”
“What bone?” Ruth asked, her gaze darting between Rowan and me.
Rowan squinted his eyes and jutted his chin toward the door, and we all sidestepped away from the group of men in front of us.
“You tell her,” he said.
“When I went to the burn pit that night to look for pastor William,” I said, darkness clasping my throat once more, “we found a human bone. Hazel is trying to figure out if it’s from a female or —”
“Or from the pastor,” she said and clutched on her stomach. “You think the council did that?”
“It’s their front yard, isn’t it?” Rowan blurted.
“No,” I added quickly. “I mean, we don’t know what happened yet, so we can’t say if the council has anything to do with it. And apparently, they had no comment when Rowan inquired.”
“Not a sound from them,” he added. “But still. It’s their god damn front yard.”
She let out an uncontrolled whimper but quickly contained it by throwing her hands onto her mouth. Pity sucked the air out of my lungs. At least in those regards, Ruth was unspoiled and innocent, and I wished she would have been spared the details.
Rowan patted me on the shoulder as if he had read my mind. “She had to wake up to reality at some point, Adair. This isn’t fucking kindergarten. Which brings me back to your issue.”
He stared at us for a while, clapped his h
ands, and pointed at the table in the corner behind him. “Know what? You two sit down over there. I give you ten minutes to find common ground, or I’ll assign her a new guard. I don’t have time for this shit, because I’ve got a virus to kill.”
I walked over with heavy legs and flung my ass on the rough-sewn time-out-chair, something inside me pouting like a little schoolboy. Ruth sat down across from me, her hands once more in front of her chest, and her body angled away from me.
“Why me?” I asked after a while. “Because I happen to be there and it’s convenient?”
Her eyes dropped to the frayed edge of her chair. “I like you.”
“You do?” I asked, my voice suddenly brighter than it should have been.
She spun around and searched for my eyes. “Don’t you agree we get along? I mean, we laugh when we watch a movie and talk while you cook for me. I think you’re a great guy.”
“A great guy?” I scoffed. “You might be the only woman in this village who feels that way.”
“Why would you say that?”
“If more women would think that, I would be at home with my wife now, changing my son’s diaper. It’s pretty obvious, don’t you agree?”
She glanced over her shoulder and, after making sure nobody was looking, slid her chair half an inch closer to me. “I’m not confused, Adair. This is just something I was always curious about, and the Districts kept me from exploring the things I feel when you are close to me.”
“You feel things when I’m close to you?” I leaned over and rested my elbows on my thighs, a prickling sensation growing somewhere inside my chest. “What things?”
“Inside my body,” she said and gazed around once more, then went on in a whisper. “My heart-rate picks up, and my body tingles. It’s like every single part of me is screaming out for you and wants you to touch me.”
The prickling sensation grew, spreading through my veins and into my limbs. Her body screamed for me? Another question pushed into my mind. One that sent my heart into a hurried rhythm, though I didn’t understand why.
