Eden's Embers

by Helena Maeve

  “Can’t trust we won’t stab you in the back?”

  “Can’t get over the hypocrisy,” Leona countered. “You spend your lives playing happy families like you’re living in the Old World and you’ve got the gall to call us backwards.” She inched closer, that same horrible smile twisting at the corners of her thin lips. ”You know you’re comely. Stop feigning humility and start trading on your other assets like you do your so-called smarts. Virtue isn’t worth much in these parts.”

  Alana swallowed in a dry throat. She had no retort to give, nothing but the seasick sensation of being laid bare under Leona’s knowing stare.

  The other woman chuckled. She seemed to like having the last word. “Oh, and for what it’s worth? Kitchen boys are thralls too. You can breathe easy knowing they won’t be trying anything. No one’s interested—except maybe Jackson.” She shrugged, waving a hand. “I’ll see you around, little bird.”

  There was no doubt in Alana’s mind that there was a warning wrapped up in Leona’s parting volley. Maybe a bit of truth, too, though that was best measured with a fistful of salt.

  Chapter Six

  At first, Alana thought she heard rain trickling down the window, but she had no windows anymore and it didn’t rain underground. She jolted awake, scrubbing a hand over her eyes.

  She found Jackson standing in the doorway, stiff as a statue, and confusion morphed into the familiar chokehold of panic.

  “What are you doing?” he ground out. The rigid slant of his shoulders drew even harsher, like he was preparing for battle.

  Alana brought up her knees in a vague attempt to cover herself. What was she doing? She would’ve thought it obvious.

  “I— My clothes were wet,” she said, as though that was explanation enough. She had draped her dress over the door of the wardrobe in hopes that it would dry by morning. She still had her underwear and camisole on, the latter still sticky with shower water, but that didn’t make her feel any less indecent.

  And Jackson had yet to move.

  “For God’s sake, I went to the baths,” Alana sighed. “It’s not like I did something untoward…”

  “And this?” Jackson asked, pointing to the bowls at the foot of the bed.

  “Supper. I didn’t know if you’d had anything to eat and Leona said it was all right, so…” She hitched up her shoulders, arms coming around to circle her knees. “Are you just going to stand there and gawk?”

  It wasn’t quite the way she’d hoped to seduce Jackson, but the blank stare and the clenched jaw were probably a sign that she had already lost the war before battle was waged.

  “Forget it.” She sighed, sitting up with her back against the bare brick wall. A shiver ran through her. “I shouldn’t have bothered.”

  Jackson crouched down and picked up both bowls. “You could’ve had your dinner without me. You didn’t need to wait.”

  “I ate a little bread,” Alana said and shrugged. She was still hungry, but trepidation had filled up her belly well enough until now. “There’s tea, as well,” she added, pointing to the cast iron pot by the brazier.

  She had gone back to the kitchens and the two thralls who’d made eyes at her before to ask if they had anything to drink. They gave her two ceramic cups and a bag of dried spearmint. It was more than enough to sate a queasy stomach, but Alana took the bowl of porridge, too, when Jackson offered it.

  He settled on the bed, at her feet, but didn’t touch her. The ends of his black hair were curling, still damp from the shower. She noticed that he had ditched his breastplate and arm guards, though he still wore the same clothes he’d had on for the past days. Alana bit her tongue against suggesting that he take them off.

  She wanted to seem willing without dipping into the salacious. There was a difference.

  “Where did you go?” she asked, more quietly. “Back out there?”

  “No… I’m in no rush to head back topside,” said Jackson. “I went to see Gideon—he’s our chief. Sort of.” He waved a hand. “It’s complicated.”

  Alana lowered her bowl to her knees. The porridge was actually better than she’d anticipated. Served warm, it might have tasted like sweet bean paste with a distinct nutty flavor. Even cold it was still palatable.

  Watching Jackson help himself to the concoction made her felt a bit better about taking the initiative.

  “So uncomplicate it,” she invited him softly. “I, uh, have to understand how your world functions if I’m to live in it.”

  Jackson glanced up from his bowl, mulling over the query. “Is that what you want?”

  Alana didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Her voice didn’t waver. She was proud of that.

  He studied her face for a long time before he dropped his gaze back to his supper. “First thing you should probably know is that this place was never meant to be a city. The idea,” Jackson said, “was to create a mega-bunker where folks could seek refuge when the world went to shit. That way they’d survive even if the coast were lost. From what our elders say, construction wasn’t finished in time so the soldiers and contractors who were working on the build were cut off. They lost communications with their home base, they couldn’t set up an airlift… So they barricaded themselves inside the dome. Operation Final Frontier ended up saving the lives of some seventy-two men and women, most of whom had families somewhere on the outside.”

  “They were desperate?”

  “Something like that,” Jackson echoed. ”About half of them died within the first five years. The rest squeaked by as best they could. Eventually, they managed to fix their radios and they found out that some people on the outside had survived. They made contact—by radio, first, then went out and tried to strike deals with the survivors. They got as far as Sandpoint before they realized no one was going to give them a hand. In five years, they went from digging a hole so wealthy folks could cheat death to being reviled for failing to finish it in time.

  “They burned Sandpoint first then the others. And that’s how my world was born.” Jackson scraped his spoon against the bottom of the bowl, eliciting a wince from them both at the jarring noise.

  “So you’re descended from the soldiers who dug this bunker?”

  Jackson shook his head. “Haven’t you heard? I’m from Idaho…” A tepid smile played across his lips. “My parents were nature-loving types, so they didn’t have any trouble living rough, away from the world just for the hell of it. Turns out that’s not such a great idea when the woods get overrun by five-foot wolves or flying foxes or zombie pigeons… I got here when I was about sixteen, I think. Tried to steal Ophelyn’s crossbow when he was sleeping. I was lucky he didn’t shoot me on sight. He took me to Gideon instead.”

  Alana bit the inside of her cheek to curb a smile. “I can see that.”

  “What?”

  “You have a flair for breaking the rules. I don’t.”

  “That why you sold me abortifacients in a town that’s all about the sanctity of the two-point-five kids and the picket fence?” Jackson pressed, canting his head.

  “I didn’t sell it to you,” Alana recalled, “it was meant as a donation. You’re the one who paid.”

  Jackson smiled, his expression softening in the low amber glow of the lit brazier. “I don’t like being indebted to anyone… Especially strangers who blame me for taking advantage of vulnerable women.”

  Had she done that? So much time seemed to have passed since Jackson had walked into her shop that Alana could barely dredge up the memory. She didn’t try very hard. She had more pressing business to attend to, Leona’s words ringing loudly in her ears as she set her bowl by the bed and sat up. “What about women who aren’t so vulnerable?”

  It took a few deep breaths before she dared drop her arms and reveal herself to Jackson. The thin camisole did nothing to conceal the swell of her breasts, much less the pebbled peaks of her dark nipples. She watched as Jackson cast a slow, appraising glance down at her body. It was nerve-racking to wait while he looked his fill and Alana h
ad never been very good about playing the demure, innocent young flower.

  She lost patience within seconds.

  “Oh, to hell with it!” she growled, and took Jackson’s cheeks in her hands, bringing their lips together into harsh contact.

  It was only the third proper kiss she’d shared with a man and it wasn’t much to write home about. Jackson’s bottom teeth cut into her lip and she scraped her tongue unpleasantly against the stubble at the corner of his mouth. Yet at the same time Jackson had drawn her into his arms and they fell together back onto the bed, his body bearing hers down into the mattress.

  Alana would have had to be far more skilled in lying to herself to pretend she couldn’t feel a warm flush creep up her cheeks as Jackson seized her wrists and pinned them to the bedding. She moaned because it felt good, because she was overwhelmed, and Jackson promptly stiffened above her, his warm breath fanning her collarbones.

  “Why did you stop?” Alana gasped. “Why—? What are you thinking?” She shook her head when he made to answer. “Stop thinking.” Make love to me. She didn’t dare go as far as saying it.

  Love had nothing to do with it, but she did recognize the scorching flush of desire building at her core.

  Jackson wasn’t far behind, either. He hitched up her legs around his thighs, slotting their hips together so she could feel the stiff arch of his erection against her wash-soft underwear. It was a novel sensation, but it did register immediately that what she was feeling was Jackson’s hard cock.

  When it did, Alana gasped, momentarily nervous. Would it hurt? She had used her fingers and the stove-warmed jade phallus she’d bought off a merchant about two years back often enough, with little discomfort, but Jackson was in control. What if he cared more about his pleasure than hers?

  There was only one way to find out.

  “Take off your clothes,” Alana growled, forgetting all about being meek and seductive in her thirst for satisfaction. The need pooling in her belly was reaching out its tendrils like tongues of fire slithering all across her skin, down her thighs and up into the swell of her heaving breasts.

  She nearly keened when Jackson pulled back to divest himself of his shirt. It was a gorgeous sight. He was all muscle and a dark thatch of hair through which Alana simply couldn’t resist running her fingers. His scars were a roadmap that she followed with her hands from shoulders to the peaks of his nipples and further down, over the slats of his abdomen to the thin trail of hair leading her into the open V of his trousers.

  Alana pushed herself up on one elbow as she let her hand dip into his clothes to touch his sex.

  “You’re hard,” she murmured, awed by something so banal it was almost laughable.

  To his credit, Jackson didn’t seize the opportunity to mock her. He let her explore for a long moment before hooking two fingers into his waistband and baring himself to Alana’s gaze in one swift tug. His cock sprang out, flushed and hard, just slightly thinner than her jade toy. She used her fist to smooth the looser folds of skin away from the mushroomed head, fascinated by the bead of moisture that surged to the tip.

  “That’s enough,” Jackson said, suddenly forceful and gruff.

  For a brief, terrible instant Alana worried that he meant to cut their fun short altogether, a protest building in the back of her throat like a scream, but Jackson anticipated her.

  “Your turn,” he said sliding his hands down her bare thighs.

  There was no ripping of underwear, unlike some of the books she’d read, and he didn’t plunge two fingers into her cunt the moment she was bare to his gaze. If anything, Jackson proved surprisingly tentative. He took his time nudging her camisole up and over her head, his palms stroking her skin until they were both equally nude, equally vulnerable.

  Alana felt herself flush and was glad that it wouldn’t show on her dusky skin. Now that she’d come this far, she didn’t want Jackson to stop out of some petty regard for her virginity. She didn’t care to be pure if being dirty meant having his warm, strong body against hers.

  Jackson obliged. He tugged her into his arms and guided her legs around his waist without preamble. His broad palms steadied her until she had her own arms wrapped around his neck. It was a strange sensation, to be relying on someone else’s strength of limb to hold her up, but something told her Jackson wouldn’t fail her.

  It was foolish, of course. This man burned your town, a voice was crying out at the back of her mind. He means to make you his slave. All of which was true, but didn’t change the fact that Alana desired him. She could hate herself for her weakness when it was all over. For now, she wanted to enjoy the brush of his lips against the pale, sensitive skin of her throat, the stroke of his palms over the swell of her ass. At first it seemed like a tease, like he was purposefully delaying to instill a false sense of security, but the minutes slunk sullenly by with Alana rocking ineffectively against his stiff length and Jackson’s fingertips skimming her pussy, and frustration took the upper hand.

  “Just do it,” she pleaded, frustration brimming in her eyes. “Please just…”

  “Do what?” Jackson murmured into the curve of her breast, tracing the dark areola with his tongue.

  Alana dug her nails into his shoulders, panting for breath. “Fuck me. Please, fuck me, you son of a—” The rest of her plea was lost to a gasp as Jackson spilled them onto the mattress and grasped her wrists in his much larger hands.

  There was only a moment, the space of a brief flicker of doubt surging to the forefront of Alana’s thoughts, before she felt him nudge her legs open and press his flushed shaft against her moist cunt. Alana arched her hips, too far gone to wait for Jackson to deign to make love to her, and took him into her body.

  She felt a distant, low-level burn, a touch of discomfort, but both faded quickly as Jackson slid his calloused thumb over the taut nub of flesh at the apex of her cunt. He knew how to touch a woman, that much was obvious, and Alana couldn’t get enough.

  “You like that?” he breathed into the curve of her neck. “Do you like that, beautiful?”

  Alana moaned her acquiescence. Stringing words together was getting harder by the second and she didn’t want to stop and quibble at details. Men had called her beautiful before, but that had been a prelude to getting her into bed. Jackson already had her there. He didn’t need to seduce her.

  He pinched her clit with two fingers and Alana arched into the touch, all attempts at keeping silent coming to a swift and sudden finale.

  “Let me hear you,” Jackson growled. It might have been a request, but to Alana it read more like a command.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged. “Please, it feels so goddamn good.” She could tell she was close, having stroked off in the privacy of her bedroom often enough since she’d turned sixteen.

  The stories she’d heard from married women who came to seek her remedies and her counsel had convinced her that men knew nothing about pleasing their partners. She’d been wrong. Even the hefty pressure of Jackson’s hips bearing down against her pelvis as he moved inside her was pleasurable in a peculiar way.

  He gripped both of her wrists in one hand and hitched her thigh up over his shoulder with the other, brutally opening her up to his vigorous thrusts. The strain on her hip joint was enough for a gasp—momentary surprise meeting momentary discomfort—before that, too, faded to a deep, husky moan. Alana felt overwhelmed. Jackson was everywhere, around and inside her, enveloping Alana in his strong arms and kissing her lips while she struggled for breath. She didn’t mind him swallowing the overloud noises that spilled from her throat as long as he kept up his rhythm. Pleasure built and built at her core, sizzling through her flesh.

  She was so close, teetering on the edge of climax for what felt like an eternity before she finally tipped over.

  If she cried out, Alana couldn’t say and frankly didn’t care. Her body ignited around Jackson’s cock, tendrils of pleasure snaking through her bloodstream and tingling beneath her skin as she rode wave after wave of deli
ght. Jackson kept up the pace as best he could, fucking her through her orgasms with rough, increasingly frantic growls until he could take no more.

  The breath was knocked out of Alana as his arms gave out and his whole body folded over hers like a warm, quaking blanket. She felt the small, fragile stutter of his hips as he came, his breath gusting warm against her shoulder. That just happened. I did that.

  She wrapped her arms around him easily enough once Jackson loosened his grip around her wrists. She tried not to think of the reason. She just needed the contact.

  Sweat slicked their bodies, dripping onto the sheets.

  “We need another bath,” Alana murmured dizzily once she had recovered her voice.

  She felt Jackson laugh against her neck, his lips brushing sensitive, flushed skin. No need for an answer. Jackson was still inside her and he wasn’t going anywhere.

  The thought was only reassuring for a few seconds before she recalled the cynical motives for which she’d set this in motion.

  “Jackson?”

  He offered a mumbling, sleepy note of acquiescence where none might have been. His breaths were already evening out, sleep creeping in as the heightened tension of the past few days eased from his limbs.

  Alana carded her fingers through his thick, black hair in what she hoped would be gentle petting. “Does this—? Is this a claiming?”

  “Mmm, no,” Jackson breathed, slipping his length out of her cunt and rolling over onto his back. He took her with him as he stretched out on the tangled sheets, his arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders. ”There’s a lot more—pomp to a claiming. You’ll see,” he added sleepily.

  “Yeah,” Alana echoed. She would. A kernel of dismay still festered in her belly as she slid into the crook of his arm and slung a leg over his, leeching off his body heat. She felt pleasantly sluggish with release, with sweet, tactile pleasure, and yet the wheels in her mind were already grinding away. A part of her wondered if she hadn’t given something up that she would’ve been better served holding onto for a while longer.