by Pam Godwin
Leaning down, I rolled up the cuffs of the yoga pants to keep them dry. “You always have a plan. Let’s hear it.”
He picked at the frayed hole on the knee of his jeans. “Now that we’re down two men, it’ll be tough to keep Shea safe.”
Hard to swallow, but true nonetheless. Holing up in a barren building was one way to stay safe, but we couldn’t do that and expect to find nymphs. We needed to go to populated areas, large cities where there would be lots of inhabitants…aphids, men, and a panoply of danger. That was where the nymphs would be.
His restless fingers stilled. “We should take her back to the Lakota.”
I liked that idea. Loved it actually. “It’s only a day’s drive back. A week to hike up the mountain.”
We already knew the roads and shouldn’t encounter too many unexpected obstacles. We would see those three friendly Lakota faces, and that alone would do wonders for morale.
I gnawed on the edge of a brittle fingernail. “After we drop her off, would we return to this area and continue on our original path along the gulf?” I waited for his nod. “Then we’d only be delayed by two weeks.”
Two weeks we would’ve spent on the reserve anyway, giving Shea time to heal and train.
“I’ll talk to Roark,” he said, quietly.
“We need to talk to Shea, too. We can heal these women, but it’s up to them what they want to do with their lives. We can’t force them into hiding.”
He nodded again, his lids low, his eyes glazed with exhaustion. Or was that sorrow?
I instinctively turned to face him. “Do you want to talk about Tallis and Georges?”
“No. Do you?”
Had one of my guardians mutated, I would’ve needed the outlet he was offering, a supportive shoulder, an ear to sob to, or more likely, a knife to bury in my heart. I was angry over the loss of our friends and my failure to protect them. But I had no tears. No grief-stricken stomach pangs. I’d never allowed myself to become attached to Tallis and Georges.
It was an awful thing to admit, even to myself, but the price of attachment in this world was too high. People died, abruptly and often. This was our life. Death was our life.
He was waiting for an answer, and I gave him an honest one. “I don’t like to talk about my regrets. I like to shove them into a numb corner and let them inflame and grow revengeful until they make me crazy.”
“You’re already crazy.” The smile in his voice evaporated some of the heaviness in the air.
At the risk of ending an open exchange before it even started, I placed my hand on his forearm. “Then let’s talk about the shed. What you walked in on…”
The muscles beneath my fingers hardened, and his eyes cut to mine. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“There’s a lot to talk about.”
His chest rose, and his lips surrendered a sigh. “Such as?”
“Intimacy. Relationships. Sex.” I drew out the last word and watched him squirm. “You and me. Roark and me.”
He closed his eyes, shutting me out. The distant rumble of thunder marked the passing seconds.
I leaned closer to his ear, deepening my voice to feign total seriousness. “And butt sex. You know, between you and Roark?”
His eyes snapped open. “What?”
Smiling, I traced the tight skin beneath his lashes. “Just trying to get a reaction.”
He dropped his head back to the wall. “What do you want me to say, Evie?”
“I want you to tell me how you feel and what you think about when you see me with another man.” My fingers pressed against his arm, anchoring me. “Because if I saw you with Shea, or with another woman, I’d have a helluva lot to say.”
Motionless and stubborn, he slipped into a stiff quiet place. Maybe it wasn’t so quiet in his head, but the longer he refused to talk, the more deafening his silence became.
Just when I thought he’d pull away and run off into the rain, he surprised me.
“It's unfair.”
I hung on his words, which were made more poignant when he gifted me with his doleful gaze. He was making an effort, using his voice, letting me see him, and I loved him for it.
He didn’t look away as he untangled his thoughts. “Of the hundred million men left in the world, it’s hard to comprehend that I was the one who found you. Me.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Annie’s ghost, or whatever powers are at play, could’ve chosen anyone for this job.”
Chosen? Burdened was the word I would’ve used. There should’ve been resentment in his voice, but I didn’t sense it. On the contrary, his shoulders relaxed and his mouth curled up at the corner.
“I was charged to protect the only surviving woman.” He swiped a hand over his face and met my eyes. “A sexually-charged, embodiment-of-every-man’s-fantasy, gorgeous fucking woman.”
The intensity of his compliment sizzled through my veins and sent my stomach into somersaults.
I didn’t deserve all that. “I’m not—”
“You radiate sex, darlin’. I could watch you gut a rabbit and get an erection.”
I could watch his gorgeous mouth move for hours. My breathing picked up, and I tried to calm the sudden heave of my chest.
“But that’s not what makes you beautiful.” He licked his lips. “It's not about the perfect shape of your body, or the way your little shirts accentuate your tits, or the natural roll of your hips when you walk.”
Unbidden, a grin grabbed hold of my mouth. “I don’t roll my—”
“It's your smile…fuck. I feel like I might die when I see your face soften with happiness. Or when you challenge me with that mischievous gleam in your eye. Or use witty jabs of humor when you’re frustrated. You’re sexy, but that’s a lazy man’s adjective. Your beauty is so much more.”
My skin flushed and heated, aching to erase the inches between us. My need for him came so suddenly, so viciously, I was afraid to move, to speak, to do anything. I wasn’t outside anymore. I was in. He’d let me in with his feelings, his candor, and his vulnerability. One wrong move, and he’d shove me out.
So I chose my words carefully. “How do you define beauty?”
He lifted my hand from his arm and traced the skin between my fingers. “It’s a carefree laugh, the rain, people coming together in survival.” He swallowed. “Falling in love. It’s when you’re enraptured by a distant mountain range and it looks so far away you’ll never reach it. It’s impossible to possess. You are beauty. Strong and independent. Intimidating as fuck. Brave to the point of stupidity—”
“Hey!”
“—and damn if I can’t explain why, but you want me. You want me, and I can't have you.” His eyes blanked on the dark landscape. “It's unfair.”
I felt the apology in his voice as painfully as the inches separating us. “Jesse—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Life isn't fair. But why couldn't you be asexual and bitchy and not so goddamned beautiful?”
“Give me a few more hard years of malnutrition, harmful UV rays, and life on the battlefield. You’ll be stuck with a shriveled old lady covered in scars.”
Without warning, he yanked me into his lap, circled his arms around my hip, and cradled me against the beat of his heart.
His mouth brushed my ear, the protective affection emphasizing his words. “No more scars.”
The richness of his voice wrapped around me. I hugged his neck and softened against the hard ridges of his shoulders. His embrace felt surreal. Safe. Perfect.
I didn’t want to lose it, lose him. “We could look for condoms during our next supply run.”
“Condoms that have been sitting in a hundred degree heat for two years?” He made a noise in his throat. “I trust that about as much as I trust the pull-out method.”
“A generator then.” Seated on his groin, I wanted to wriggle my hips, seeking his arousal, to feel him for the first time. “If we could power the ultrasound, we could check the IUD.”
His palm slid over my t
high and squeezed my leg through the yoga pants. “Maybe.”
That wasn’t a no. My fingers dug into his shoulders, and for a moment, I almost believed if I didn’t let go, he wouldn’t either.
But his hands dropped away, falling to his sides. “You’ve explained how the IUD works, but I need to learn more about it, understand its weaknesses. Seeing it on a sonogram would go a long way in helping me trust it.”
I brought my face to his, watching his dark eyes. They were hypnotic, the way they snagged mine, bold and arresting. And they calmed me, the way they waited, patient and discerning.
The layers between us thinned, replaced with a hopeful kind of electricity. My lips tingled with it. “So it’s an option. We have options. I’m not giving up.”
“We can’t…I can’t ignore this feeling.” He slipped his hand between our chests and rubbed his sternum. “It’s a foreboding feeling, telling me there’s a very real, inescapable finality attached to us. Like the little piece of plastic in your cervix is a trivial precaution against fate. Because fate always wins.” He let his weight sink into the wall, reclining lower to the ground and taking me with him. “This is going to sound nuts…”
Curled against the warm skin of his chest, I played with the hair on his nape. “Tell me anyway.”
“I don’t jerk off.” He laughed, mirthlessly. “Because I’m fucking paranoid the powers-that-be are going to somehow transfer my sperm to you. Like a trace of it will land somewhere, and you’ll inadvertently sit on it or some shit.”
Seriously? I stroked the hair around his ear, watching the strands curl around my fingers. “Come on, Jesse. You know I can’t get pregnant that way.”
“Humans don’t grow fangs and run at the speed of light, either.”
He had me there.
Distant lightning flashed behind a wall of clouds, and the sky pulsed in bursts of electricity. The storm was too far away now to hear thunder, which left the peaceful rhythm of tapping rain.
I adjusted my weight in his lap to better see his face. “Will you tell me about the last time you had sex?”
One sexy eyebrow lifted, shadowed beneath the protection of the eave. “You don’t want to hear about that.”
No, I didn’t. But as long as he was talking, I’d listen to every painful detail. “Please?”
Cradled in Jesse’s arms, I raised my eyes and cleared my expression. This was it. A glimpse into his mysterious past.
“She was a French woman.” He stared off into the rain. “A couple nights before the outbreak, I picked her up in a bar and took her back to my hotel room.” He let out a self-depreciating laugh. “She smelled like mothballs and fruitcake. Big ol’ nasty bush. And her moans…Good God, they were horrendous.”
That was his last sexual experience? The memory he carried with him into the apocalypse? He was so damned attractive he could’ve had his pick of women.
“She fucked like a wildcat.” His timbre rasped, grating across my skin. “I’m pretty sure I lost consciousness.”
“Oh.” My mouth dried, and my stomach twisted. The urge to crawl off his lap and cuddle my jealous heart was jabbing, but I’d asked for it.
He shifted, and his hand rested on my jaw, tilting my head upward. “She wasn't you.”
I closed my eyes. “You don’t have to say that.”
“Love your jealousy, darlin’.” He brushed a kiss over my eyelid, stuttering my breath. “Shows me you care.”
“Of course, I care.”
But could I fuck like a wildcat? I’d never caused a man to lose consciousness. No, that wasn’t true. When Roark lost his virginity, he passed out on top of me.
I squared my shoulders. If Jesse and I crossed that path, I would give him my all and make damned sure our first time wiped that whore’s memory right out of his mind. I would claim him, love him, and erase all other women in his life.
Jesse kissed my other eyelid, and I melted against the touch of his mouth. When he leaned back and removed his hand from my face, I immediately missed his heat.
I peered up at him through my lashes. “What about long-term relationships?”
“The longest I spent with a woman was three nights. I didn’t do relationships. Or names. Or attachments.”
Really? I’d always thought he’d lost a girlfriend during the outbreak. Especially after his uncomfortable reaction to Shea’s girly bedroom.
He read the question in my eyes. “The job didn’t allow it.”
Another topic he’d never allowed me to breach. I devoured the information, greedily. “You were military? Secret service? Some kind of underground international humanitarian? What?”
“Humanitarian?” He huffed. “Not quite. I worked for an American-sponsored terrorist association. We didn’t look at people as human beings. They were just a means to an end.” Remorse thickened his voice.
“I don’t understand. Tallis told stories about you digging through blown-up Afghani sidewalks and having tea with the Dalai Lama.”
Hooking an arm around my back, he rested his other hand against my neck, his fingers floating across my skin.
After a long pause, he looked away. “I was CIA.”
I let that settle over me. His knowledge of weapons and stratagem, his cryptic demeanor and lack of relationships, it made sense. But he grew up on a Lakota reservation and won a football scholarship to some big school in Texas. What happened?
“How did you get involved?”
“I was an attractive, physically fit male, a Texas A&M football star, the shooting champion at the local gun club, and I filled up Facebook news feeds with my support for the country and its interests. I checked a lot of boxes.”
“A young patriot.” I smiled with thoughts of the youthful man he described. “So the CIA recruited you?”
“And brainwashed me.” His eyebrows dug together. “Doesn’t matter. I survived the aphid plague with a lethal set of skills.”
His clipped tone put a full stop on that discussion, which was fine. I was still fixated on the sexual proclivities of the man pressed against me. “Only one-night stands then? Ever?”
“I went through a lot of women, Evie.”
Which blew my mind. He didn’t strike me as a casual-fuck kind of guy. At least, not with me. I mean, he believed he couldn’t have me, so he put a thousand emotional miles between us. He was all or nothing.
Though sitting in his lap, wrapped in his arms, and talking, I felt suspended in limbo. This was the most he’d ever shared. I worried an ill-timed question would break the spell and erect his impenetrable wall.
But the questions piled up. “What are you like in bed?”
“I liked to be adventurous. Liked it rough and raw and spontaneous. No restrictions. No barriers.”
Simple words. Direct and artless. In fact, he spoke so stiffly and with such finality his voice scattered into the rain as if he were shedding his likes like dead skin.
Yet the images they produced sparked a sharp throb between my legs. I wanted more. More talking. More touching. More Jesse.
I brushed my fingers across his stubble. “What's the kinkiest thing you've ever done?”
Silent, tight-lipped breathing was all he gave me. It lasted so long I didn't think he'd answer. When he finally spoke, his quiet voice sounded like an explosion in my ear. “A threesome.”
Two women? Two women touching him in places I’d never even laid my eyes on?
Fuck, I hated that, and I felt that hate in every tensed-up muscle in my body. “Who?”
He rubbed a hand across my tight shoulders. “Just a man and some woman. Does it matter?”
“What?” My eyes must’ve bugged out of my head. “You shared a woman with another man?”
“I shared a whore with a colleague. And before you get all excited, I didn't touch him. I'm not into dudes.”
I pressed my smile against his warm neck. Jesse and another man? What would it have been like to be the woman between them? Not between them, but between Jesse and Roark? Je
sse and Michio? Hell, between, over, and under all three of them?
Jesse’s words came back to me. Rough and raw and spontaneous. My nipples hardened beneath my tank top, and a quiver gripped my inner thighs. What a lucky fucking woman, whore, whoever she was.
His breath fluttered along my neck. “What are you like in bed?”
Oh. Well, I certainly wasn’t having threesomes. “Um…my uh, sexual experience is limited. Joel was my first and only until…”
I was raped. In front of him. The night he died… God, I didn’t want to think about that. I cleared my throat to loosen the sudden lump of emotion.
Jesse didn’t press. He knew the circumstances surrounding Joel’s death.
“And the priest?” He laughed. “What was that like?”
“Sweet.” I smiled through a soft sigh. “A sweet disaster.”
My thoughts drifted to the third man I’d had sex with. Michio’s model-perfect physique. His logical mind. The way he put me before himself, helping me escape Malta, and now, going after the Drone. My chest ached.
“I miss the doctor, too, you know.” Jesse stroked fingers down my arm, making my skin shiver. “I genuinely like the guy. Trust him even, against my better judgment.”
“You trust him?” I wasn’t sure I trusted him.
“I trust he left to protect you from the Drone, and maybe even to protect you from himself.”
I agreed with the first part, but whether or not Michio was a danger to me sat heavy in my stomach. He would never try to hurt me. The amount of control he still had over his actions, however, was another story.
Jesse’s fingers lingered on the inside of my elbow, tracing the crease there. “Tell me your favorite fantasy.”
I glanced up at his strange expression as images tumbled through my mind in vivid detail. How would he react to my unconventional thoughts? I feared his judgment, and that strained look on his face made me hesitate.
“I don’t know, Jesse. You have that I'm-gonna-run-far-and-fast look in your eyes.”
“I promise I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled me closer to his chest. “I answered your questions. You owe me.”
