by Reese Rivers
“What’s your problem now?” I ask him.
He rolls his eyes and turns away from the grill. “I was thinking about raiding Princess’s secret smoke stash but then she’d know I was creeping on her last night.”
“Best not to anyway. Do you really want to go through withdrawals again when they run out? Do I need to remind you of your near-death at our hands the last time you quit? We barely tolerate your cranky attitude now. Go ahead and see what happens if it gets worse from withdrawals. There is a lot of room here to bury a body.” I warn him with a smile full of teeth, making Linc and Grayson laugh.
Kelsey steps out of the camper at that moment with an uncertain little smile on her face. Her wet hair is twisted up into another bun on top of her head and she’s changed her top to a band t-shirt. She’s kept the cut-offs though and left her feet bare. What really captures our attention is the five bottles of beer she’s holding by the necks that are starting to frost up from the outside heat hitting them. She holds the beers up like they’re a peace offering and moves to the table to hand them out.
“I brought these over earlier and put them in the fridge. I thought they’d go well with the tacos but I forgot, sorry.”
Grayson takes the bottle she holds out to him but then snags her fingers and kisses them, making her blush. “I think we need a law that you aren’t allowed to apologize for anything. You’re always saying sorry for giving us the best things, Kells.”
She pulls her hand away and takes her seat but I see her rub her fingers together where he kissed them with a twitch of her lips. She watches us drink our first cold beer in two years with a small contented smile on her face while she sips at hers.
“I’m so glad someone’s here to drink those,” she tells us. “There’s a few cases left and they’re getting close to expiring and going funky.”
Dev sets down his half-empty bottle and cocks his head. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that, Princess, between the four of us, we’ll make short work of what’s left. Told you we’d pull our weight around here.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes at him. She’s getting her balance back with Dev needling her and I’m forced to concede his point about her steadying up when he’s pushing attitude her way.
“You’re going to have to be more careful though.” He tells her, causing her to arch an eyebrow in question. “If you keep this up, feeding us, bringing us beer after being on your feet all day, I’ll have to come up with a new nickname for you.”
She sips her beer and flashes him a smirk. “Like what? I kind of like Princess, it fits. I’m a princess and you’re the beast.”
That causes him to chuckle. “I am. I’ll have to think about it but I’ll find the right one eventually. In the meantime, I think payment should be made for your efforts today.” She starts shaking her head but he reaches down and pulls her bare feet into his lap. “What say you, boys? Isn’t the customary payment for a woman working all day and then taking care of her men a foot rub?”
Fucking Dev! I just got finished saying we need to slow down with her.
Devin
Those fucking eyes of hers are big, wide, and sexy as hell again as she tries to pull her feet away and off my lap but I hold on tight and when I press my thumbs into her tender arches her head falls back with closed eyes and a delicious moan slips out from between her parted lips. My jaw clenches and I know that every cock around this table just went rock hard, including my own. I work my fingers and thumbs into her feet and torture myself by listening to every little noise of pleasure she makes as I rub the ache from her tired feet. I rip my eyes from her ecstasy-filled expression and turn them to the others and try not to laugh at the smoldering looks on their faces. Linc’s gripping his beer bottle so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. When he finally tears his eyes from her face and meets mine, I give him a look that tells him to start talking or we’ll all end up coming in our pants. He nods with a jerk of his head but has to clear his throat twice before he can finally speak.
“I was a firefighter. Before, I mean.”
I give him a what the fuck look at the pure randomness of his statement but her eyes pop open and she looks to him in surprise, so whatever works. I ease off with the pressure on her feet and just stroke them as she smiles at him.
“Oh, wow! I’ve always had such respect for first responders. I can totally see you as one.” She frowns slightly. “Were you on shift when everything kicked off?”
Linc pulls at the label of his beer, looking down as he remembers that day. “I was. I … we, lost a lot of good men that day. Those of us who made it back to the station stuck it out for two days. By then it was pretty obvious we weren’t going to be able to do much and the Chief called it. Sent us home to be with our families.” He looks around the table and lands on Grayson. “I found Gray first.”
Grayson nods and picks it up. “I was stuck in an office tower at work, along with a few others. It is crazy to think of how fast stuff happened. We were fairly safe but we had already used up most of the little bit of food that we had. I knew it was only a matter of time before the power failed and we lost the running water. I was hyping myself up to make a break for it when the elevator dings and out steps Captain fucking America in full firefighter gear and a huge bloody ax over his shoulder. He cleared the way for us and we went back to our house to see if these two had made it.”
Kelsey looks expectantly at Oliver to continue the story but he just nudges the plate he made up for her and waits. She gives him an exasperated look but picks the taco up and takes a bite so he leans back and carries on. Fucking guy is obsessed with feeding her.
“I was an engineer and on a job site when the first reports started coming through people’s phones. I packed up and drove home and then waited for the rest of them to get there. Linc and Gray came home on day three and we found Devin on day four.”
Kelsey looks to each of us in turn. “You all lived together before?” When Oliver nods, she asks, “What about your families?”
“This is our family. We all made it out together.” Oliver states simply and I nod my approval.
She doesn’t need the sad, pathetic details of our childhoods or the foster and group homes we bounced from. We made our own family and that’s all the detail that matters. Her eyes turn to me and I tense up.
“What did you do before all this?”
“Read a lot of books. Warped a lot of minds.” I tell her, not wanting to ever go back to that day and the days that followed before my brothers pulled me out. Her brow crinkles at my non-answer as she nibbles on a chip but she lets it slide, instead asking for an even worse answer.
“Where were you when it started?”
“In hell.”
She lowers the chip from her mouth and I see the sadness and pity form in her expression but before she can say anything we all hear a series of thumps from the middle camper. Her head turns in that direction, a look of surprise on her face and I see the hope start to bloom that Gavin’s recovered enough to get up but I don’t believe in fairy tales. She jerks her feet out from under my hands and jumps up but only takes two steps towards the camper before I get my arms around her waist and lift her up against me, spinning her away.
I meet Linc’s eyes over her shoulder. “Deal with that.”
He gives me a hard nod and strides towards the camper with a knife firmly clutched in his hand as I move Kelsey in the opposite direction. She’s struggling in my arms to be put down but I ignore her and just keep moving.
“Devin, Dev! Put me down! Stop being an ass …” She chokes off as Linc opens the door and we both hear the distinctive moan the newly risen dead make.
She goes limp in my arms and I feel her start to shake so I set her down long enough to turn her to face me and then pick her back up and cradle her head against my chest so she won’t see what’s about to happen over my shoulder. Kelsey clings to me and when I feel the first hot tears through my shirt, I carry her over and into her camper and up to her room. I turn us
around and sit down on her bed, lifting her legs so they can wrap around me and just hold her. She doesn’t sob or carry on. She just holds me back and lets her tears flow quietly.
I can’t stop my hand from coming up and rubbing circles against her back or my arm that’s wrapped around her hips from tightening to hold her even closer. Her head turns and lifts enough so that she’s tucked in against my neck and I feel her hot breath when she sighs brokenly.
“I’m so tired of people dying, Devin,” she whispers, and I feel the movement of her lips against my skin. I turn my head so my lips rest on her hair and whisper back.
“Me too, Princess, me too.”
We sit like that for a while, just two broken people trying to make it through another day until Gray comes in and gives us the all-clear. I feel her shudder as she takes a deep breath and then she pulls away from me.
“I’ll go get the bleach and cleaning supplies. No one can use that camper until we decontaminate it.” She tries to climb off of my lap but I pull her hips close again.
“No, you don’t,” I tell her in a hard tone.
Grayson steps up behind her and rubs her back before nudging her against me again.
“Just stay here, Kells. You don’t need to handle that. Let us do it. You’ve done enough for today.” He tells her and then shoots me a pointed look that says ‘manage that’, and leaves.
She sits back up, pushing away from my chest but her hands are still on it when she scowls at me.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she says with a hint of pout in her tone.
My lips curl up a bit and I can’t not push her a little. Especially if it will take some of the sadness from her eyes.
“No, but I could be. In the best, most satisfying way you can imagine.” My fingers spread out to cup her ass and I pull her center up against the bulge in my pants as I dart in and nip at her bottom lip. I feel her fingers claw slightly into my chest but then she’s rearing back.
“What the actual fuck, Dev? What are you guys doing? Is there a bet? Did you all make a bet to see who could get me into bed first? Because, well … fuck!”
My grin grows wider. This is how I like Princess best. Flashing eyes and spitting mad with not a crack to be seen.
“No bet. That’s not something we would do to you. Or any woman, for that matter.” I tell her. When she still glares at me, I run my hands up her back and work on the knots I find under her tense muscles. “Is it so hard for you to believe that all four of us are interested in you that way?”
She arches a tiny bit as I find a sore spot and rub. “And just how is that supposed to work? I make out with each one of you and pick the one that does it for me the best? Yeah, that wouldn’t cause drama AT ALL! I don’t do drama, Devin. It’s one of the apocalypse rules we live by. Rule number four – ‘Drama results in distractions. Distractions result in death.’”
My hands keep moving up her body until I find the clip anchoring her bun and I squeeze it, releasing the heavy, damp weight of her hair to spill down over her shoulders and a cloud of vanilla to hit my senses.
I slide my fingers into that mass of lovely and massage her scalp while I tell her, “So don’t pick. Or pick us all. We don’t mind sharing and we don’t do drama either.”
She gasps at that and I grin again while tugging her hair to move her head to the side so I can get at her neck. I need my mouth on her to see if she tastes as good as she smells. My lips hit her skin and my tongue flashes out to lick. Now she arches completely, pressing her breasts against me and I can feel how fast her pulse is racing under my lips as I make my way up to the sensitive spot behind her ear. When she moans my name and rocks her hips against me, searching for friction, my will to take it slow like O suggested evaporates and I’m moving.
I lift us off the bed and spin around so her back hits the mattress and I’m positioned perfectly between her soft thighs to give her the friction she craves. It also lets me run my hand up her smooth soft thighs until I hit the edge of her jean shorts. My mouth crashes down on hers and there’s nothing soft or sweet about the battle we fight with our tongues for dominance. She’s arching against me and kissing me back as hard as I am. This right here is what she wants, what I want, what we need to turn the corner, wash away the trauma and start healing. Oliver and the others can go as slow as they want. This, this is fucking mine!
We’re grinding against each other and she’s making these sexy little mewling noises as we kiss. My hand slides up her side to capture one of her perfect breasts. I find her peak through the thin shirt material and roll it between my fingers. She arches her back and moans my name but then the whole camper shakes as three pairs of feet climb up into it and she goes still under me and starts pushing against me.
I lift my mouth from hers and stare down into her panicked grey eyes and growl, “This isn’t over,” before rolling off of her.
She’s up off the bed in a flash and out of the room.
From the bedroom, I can hear Linc say, “We sanitized the whole camper, Kells.”
“Uh, th-thanks! I’ll see you guys later.”
And then the screen door closes with a thwack and she’s gone. I lay there getting my breathing under control with the hardest cock of my life and I know without a doubt, I’m completely fucked over her.
It’s hours later when Oliver goes to find her and drags her back. Linc and Gray have gone to bed. I lay still on the pull-out couch as he guides her up to her room and says goodnight, closing the door behind her. When he comes back down, he passes the bunkroom door that he’s sharing with Gray and settles in the recliner beside my bed.
“Where was she?” I ask in a low voice so it won’t carry.
“In her kitchen working to can the last of the sauce.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “It’s a coping method. Working nonstop like that. It’s one of the ways she deals with her stress and anxiety but she’s burning down too close to the bone. If we hadn’t shown up here, her body would have eventually shut down on her … or …”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with the or, Oliver. We’re here now and we won’t let either happen.” I tell him in a hard tone.
He nods his agreement and stands. “I know you’ll be awake so if she gets up again tonight, try and get her to go back to sleep … in whatever way works.”
He leaves it at that. My insomnia is well known to our group from even before the dead rose so yes, if she gets up, I’ll know. I lay there for hours staring up at the ceiling, trying to keep the ghosts that haunt me at bay but it’s so hard when there are so many small faces begging me to help, to save them. When the camper sways with her nightmare and I hear her cries, it’s almost a relief because it pulls me out of mine. She comes out of it faster tonight than last night and I hear her get up and creep down the stairs, carefully trying not to wake any of us. I consider leaving her alone. Unlike Oliver, I understand needing to be alone to fight off the demons but after a few minutes, I curse under my breath and roll out of bed.
Her head jerks toward me as I step down from the camper and she tries to hide the smoke between her fingers for a few seconds but then scowls at me and takes a drag, blowing smoke defiantly up into the night. I walk over and pick up her glass and throw back the shot of whiskey and as I lean over to set it down, reach out and snatch the lit cig from her fingers.
“Help yourself,” she mutters, still glaring at me, so I do. I take a deep drag and close my eyes as I hold it and then blow it out.
“Fuck sakes, still as good as the last one I had,” I say wistfully and then stub it out in the ashtray.
“Hey! I was smoking that and drinking that.” She snaps, pointing at her now empty glass.
I walk around the coffee table and reach down and pick her up causing her to gasp and then settle her on my lap as I sit us back down.
“And does it help? You could say I have a master’s degree on night terrors and insomnia and I never found either alcohol or nicotine to actually help but they do make a nice
crutch to lie to yourself about.”
She doesn’t answer, just turns her head away and looks out at the dark gardens so I know she understands what I’m talking about.
“Why does Tara haunt you? I heard you talking to her earlier today.”
She’s wearing one of her sexy sleep outfits with a robe overtop so I tuck the robe underneath her legs and slide us deeper onto the couch, pulling her head down to rest on my chest. She doesn’t fight me but she does stay stiff.
“It’s ok. We don’t have to exchange our ghosts’ details. But take it from the master, there’s only one way to chase away the monsters in the middle of the night. A strong pair of arms holding you tight will keep them at bay. Close your eyes, Princess. Go to sleep. I got you.”
She stays stiff in my arms for longer than I thought she would but eventually her body starts to relax and soon after that her breathing levels out. Then it’s only moments before she is limp and soft against me. I sit with her for another hour to make sure she’s deep in sleep before I lift her and carry her inside and back to bed. I slide in behind her and gather her close. Unconsciously, she turns her body to face mine, slides her knee between my legs, and throws her arm around my waist burying her face against my chest and I find my own muscles unclenching. For the first time in a long time, I slide into sleep with arms around me chasing away my ghosts.
Kelsey
When I wake up my head is groggy. The kind of groggy that comes with oversleeping. I’m in my bed and the last thing I remember is being outside on Devin’s lap so he must have brought me inside at some point. I bury my face in the blankets and get a faint hint of his soap so he must have stayed with me. I usually clock around four hours of sleep a night, maybe five if I’ve had a hard workday. The fact that my bladder is ready to burst and how groggy I am is telling me I’ve been out for eight or nine hours. I stumble out of bed and into the hall, yawning, my eyes squeezed mostly shut, and walk straight into a hard wall.
