by Stasia Black
“I don’t know,” Charlie said, “I’d have said the bronze age or opposable thumbs or the Magna Carta.”
“What?” Henry asked.
“The first steps toward civilization, old chap,” Charlie said, adopting a British accent and slapping Henry on the shoulder as he passed by and held out his arm for Shay to join him. “So, we going to look at some junk, or what?”
“I need to change,” Shay said, but before she started toward the stairs, she paused. “One last thing.”
“Yes, lovely?” Henry asked, affecting his most charming smile yet. Dimples. Even as her stomach did a funny swoopy thing, she couldn’t help asking herself how she was ever supposed to trust a man with dimples.
You don’t have to trust him to get what you want out of him. Her eyes traveled slowly down his body. And it was one fine body beneath the perfectly tailored suit.
“I, um.” Shay forced herself to move her eyes off Henry. Only for her gaze to snag on Charlie. She quickly looked away. She knew he wouldn’t like what she had to ask.
“So, um. When will I meet the last one? My last fiancé?”
Henry and Rafe exchanged a glance. Even Jonas had opened his eyes and stood up straighter again.
“Well,” Henry said, drawing out the word, “we were thinking about having dinner tonight all together. Over at the house. The one that will be ours once we are married.”
Shay could feel Charlie’s blood boiling from across the room.
Rafe broke in before he could erupt. “But if that’s too much at once, babe, we can wait. There’s no r—”
Shay just shook her head, though, waving their concerns away. “When does the marriage become official?”
Another significant glance was exchanged.
But Charlie was apparently done holding his opinions to himself. “This is insane. There’s no way we’re letting them force you into any of this—”
“Charlie,” Shay said, loud enough that it stopped his tirade before it really got legs. “I want to hear what they have to say.”
This was going to happen her way or not at all. The sooner she got them all on an equal playing field, the better.
Charlie ground his teeth together, a vein standing out in his neck.
Shay took a deep breath and looked back to Rafe and Henry. “Well?”
Rafe held out a hand for Henry, like this one’s all yours. Henry narrowed his eyes in return, but he spoke up, looking back to Shay. “The wedding usually takes place a few weeks after the lottery. After we’ve all had a chance to get acquainted with each other and feel comfortable enough to share a living space.” Henry held up a hand like he was anticipating resistance. “That doesn’t mean we’re expected to share a bed right away, though.”
“But it is expected eventually,” Charlie growled, turning on Henry.
Henry shrugged reluctantly but Shay spoke over both of them.
“All of that’s ridiculous anyway.”
That got everyone’s attention. They all looked her way. Charlie was smiling, while Henry just looked confused. Shay couldn’t read the expression on Jonas’s coolly appraising face and Rafe simply looked interested.
“Wha—” Henry started to ask but Shay spoke over him, impatient to have this part done with.
“It’s ridiculous to wait that long. We should get married as soon as possible. Tonight even.” The moment the words came out of her mouth, she knew it was exactly what she wanted.
“Shay!” Charlie exploded. “What the hell are you thinking?”
Shay let out a long breath and walked over to him. She took both of his hands and looked up into his worried, green eyes.
“I’m not your sister.” She felt his flinch, but it had to be said. “I don’t need you to protect me. I knew what would be expected of me before we even left Travisville. And I was fine with it. I still am.”
She was more than fine with it. Looking between the four of them, she felt the quiver start deep in her sex. Wrong as it probably was, she looked forward to fucking these four men. And the fifth who was still a stranger.
You’re my whore. Jason’s words rang in her head. My perfect little fucking whore.
Not tonight. She squared her jaw. Jason wouldn’t be anywhere nearby as she took these men into her body. Tonight she’d belong to herself. And she’d take as much as she gave. More, maybe.
But Charlie just kept stubbornly shaking his head back and forth. He leaned down and whispered fervently in her ear. “We don’t have to stay. I’ve seen Audrey. I know she’s alive. I can get you out, get you somewhere safe, then come back for her and—”
Shay let out an exasperated huff. Why wouldn’t he listen to her? Men never listened. They just assumed they knew best and, because there were more of them, they got to run everything. It was crap.
She spun on Charlie. “So everything you said last night in the Commander’s office—about how a woman should be able to choose. Was that just bullshit?”
“What? Of course not. That’s my whole point. This lottery system gives you no ch—”
“This is what I choose,” she spoke over him. “Sex isn’t a big deal to me. If it is to you, fine, you don’t have to join us—but that’s your problem, not mine. I want you there, but if you can’t handle it, let me know now.”
Charlie’s mouth dropped open. “Shay…”
But she just shook her head. “What’s waiting around for three weeks going to get me? It’ll just drive me crazy. I know what I want and I’m ready. So we do it tonight.”
She looked over to Jonas. “You’re a preacher, right?”
“Former preacher.” He watched her with a dark, intense look. She couldn’t tell if it was disapproval or attraction.
She waved a hand. “Whatever. Can you still do wedding ceremonies?”
He nodded solemnly.
“Good. Then after dinner, when the last man gets there, I want you to perform the ceremony. Just something small and intimate. Only the six of us.”
One after the other, she looked each of them in the eye. “But we get married tonight.”
Chapter 7
JONAS
The day showing Shay around town went by too quickly. Which meant Jonas had been enjoying himself.
Which pissed him the fuck off.
He wasn’t supposed to like her this much. He hadn’t put his name in the marriage lottery to get a wife he liked.
Eat, drink, and be merry cause tomorrow we die, right?
Well, maybe in his case, eat, drink, smoke, and be merry… but blah, blah, the idea was the same. He’d figured, since he was all about celebrating the pleasures of the flesh now, why not toss his hat in the ring to get some pussy on the regular?
A man’s hand could only get him so far for so long. So into the marriage lottery his name went. And fuck him, he’d won the damn thing.
But liking the wife?
That had never come into his estimation.
He’d tried the whole wife-thing once before and that was enough to cure him of ever wanting anything to do with the institution again.
So no, he didn’t want to like Shay.
It would help if she weren’t so goddamn beautiful. But okay, a beautiful wife, he could deal with—if that were the only thing.
But it wasn’t the only thing. They’d passed by the medical clinic on their way into town and she decided she wanted to stop in to see it after all.
Dr. Kapoor hadn’t had time to talk or show her around, though, because a few construction crew guys had been in an accident. A heavy beam had broken loose from a pully and fallen on them, smashing them up pretty good. The doc and nurses were all working on them, leaving the rest of the clinic short-staffed.
So Shay went and volunteered to help with rounds. Apparently she’d been in nursing school back before The Fall and had done some field work in Travisville too.
She was competent and kind as she moved from bed to bed. She chatted up patients, changed bedpans without flinching, and listened with com
passion to the complaints of everyone whose illnesses didn’t justify the few sparing meds the clinic did have on hand—which was most of them. Meds were only given out in the most severe, life threatening cases, and too often, Jonas knew they didn’t even have them then.
Jonas donated a fourth of his crop to the clinic every other harvest, sometimes more if something happened and the hospital needed it. But cannabis could only go so far. It couldn’t replace insulin or blood pressure medications.
As Shay sat there patiently holding the hand of a stroke victim, Mr. Randal—a man ancient enough to have known the world before the internet existed—Jonas knew he was fucked.
Shay was just the kind of woman Jonas had been looking for to join him in his ministry back when he’d first been an eager seminary graduate looking for his first church assignment.
The kind of woman he thought Katherine was.
Katherine was pretty and vivacious and Jonas had proposed to her after only knowing her a month. She kept talking about how it was God’s plan for them to meet and how she’d been praying for years to meet a godly man like him.
He took it as a sign that God meant her to be his wife.
Turned out he should have been looking closer. Cause yeah, in reality, he’d missed all the actual signs. It wasn’t like they weren’t there.
Katherine’s nails always had to be perfectly manicured. She followed the Fall fashion trends like a damn slave. Then there was how she loved to be on his arm when he guest-pastored a couple times at a big Dallas mega-church. But when he volunteered at the soup kitchen? She was nowhere to be found.
And after his dad died and he moved them back to Jacob’s Well to take over the parsonage here… It only took a few months of marriage for him to realize Katherine loved the attention and praise that came along with being a pastor’s wife waaaaaaaaaaay more than she loved ministering to the poor and needy… or in the end, even loving him.
Whatever. He’d grown used to their cold marriage. To Katherine’s obsession with appearance and status.
It was all fine.
Fine.
That was the defining term for his ministry.
His marriage.
His whole damn life.
Just fine.
Then he found out Katherine had been cheating on him for almost their whole marriage with the fucking accountant. Who was also a deacon at his church.
Then Xterminate hit.
Katherine died.
Hell on earth was more than just a saying. It was fucking reality.
And God?
He was nowhere to be found.
“So what are we having for dinner?” Rafe asked, cutting into his thoughts as he, Shay, and Charlie came back into the dining room off the open plan kitchen. They’d gone in to wash up for dinner after their day around town.
Jonas had washed up in the bathroom and only just walked back into the dining room. It was their first night in their new clan house. It was furnished but still had a very unlived in feel. Everything was clean and pristine, well, as much as a hundred-year-old house could be. But the crew had done a nice job preparing it for them. Hardwood floors, fresh painted cream colored walls. Even some fresh-picked wildflowers in a small vase on the mantle.
“Henry said he’d bring dinner,” Charlie said.
“Well hopefully he gets here soon,” Rafe said, rubbing his stomach. “I’m a growing boy.”
Jonas rolled his eyes and moved off to the side of the room to lean against the wall. There’d been a period of time in his life where he’d forced himself to be outgoing and chat everyone and their grandson up, but if there was one thing he didn’t miss about the pastor gig, it was that. He’d always hated that shit. This was exactly where he preferred to be. Off in a corner, no one expecting anything from him, not having to perform like some damn show pony.
At Charlie’s words, Jonas looked toward the front door. He was hungry too.
Henry had begged off Audrey’s tour earlier as soon as bodily fluids became involved at the hospital, claiming he had urgent business he’d forgotten about that he had to go attend to. Jonas would have called him out on that bullshit, but by that point, the prospect of having Shay’s attention divided between only him, Charlie, and Rafe without the addition of Henry was too attractive to pass up.
Which again, was a fucking problem.
Jonas’s eyes zeroed back in on Shay. Even after a long day out in the sun, she still looked good enough to eat.
And all the sudden he didn’t care about dinner. He just wanted to drag her upstairs and devour her.
Cause fuck him, this morning when Shay announced she wanted to get married tonight?
His cock had about split his cargo shorts down the middle he’d gone so hard. Hot damn.
He couldn’t help the question that flashed through his head before he shut it down: Did that mean she wanted to…?
No. No way she meant she wanted to consummate the marriage tonight. But she would at some point… right?
And damn, Jonas would be more than happy to explore every inch of that beautiful body. Those legs that went on for-fucking-ever.
She flipped her hair and smiled as she, Charlie, and Rafe chatted about some of the things she’d picked out of the Scrapper Yard today for her art project.
Shit. Jonas went to the bathroom to clean up because he’d needed a moment alone to clear his thoughts. Not that it had worked.
Which pissed him off again. What the fuck? Could he not control himself for ten goddamned seconds?
He used to be the king of discipline.
He used to wake up at five a.m. every morning for an hour and a half of scripture study and prayer and meditation, followed by a five-mile jog.
Even before he converted to Christianity in college, he’d always followed rigorous routines. He’d been a weird kid, he knew. His dad was a county judge and was gone a lot and his mom had died when he was really young. Cancer.
His earliest memories were of sitting with her on her hospital bed, her reading books to him. He thought all mommies were bald. He remembered being confused by the moms on TV who had all their hair and didn’t spend all day in bed.
Then she died and it was just him and dad. Except Dad worked all the time so really it was just him. The neighbor supposedly ‘looked after him’ but she just sat watching soap operas online the whole time and never said two words to him.
So yeah, he’d been a lonely kid. He had to find creative ways to pass the time. And the best way was to cut the hours into twenty-minute chunks.
It was scary looking at the clock and seeing it was five hours to bedtime when you knew you’d be spending all that time completely alone.
But if he just had to think about it twenty minutes at a time, well, that wasn’t so bad. So for twenty minutes, he’d go play in the backyard. And when the little alarm on his watch went off, then he’d come back in and play Legos.
His dad only let him play on his computer an hour a day and of course that was the one thing the neighbor lady did pay attention too. The rest of the time she took away his laptop and put it underneath the couch where she sat to watch her shows. Those three twenty-minute blocks always flew by, so he tried to save them up to spend when he really needed them.
He took twenty-minute showers.
He took twenty-minute bike rides around the neighborhood.
When he was a little older, he’d work out in twenty-minute intervals, sometimes linking together two or three at a time, like he’d go jogging for forty minutes or an hour.
Then he’d come back and take a twenty-minute shower.
Jerk off for twenty minutes.
Take another shower. Jerk off for another twenty-minutes while the water ran down his body.
He couldn’t remember when exactly he’d let go of the twenty-minute thing. Probably in high school when he’d gotten really into track and his coach had forced him to start thinking in terms of pacing and long-distance.
But yeah. Discipline.
&nb
sp; It was all he’d known. Till the world went to shit and he said, fuck it. Fuck God and fuck routine and fuck ordering every little part of his life around what he was supposed to do. It hadn’t gotten him anything but a cheating and eventually, dead, wife.
And apparently eight years of shitting his discipline to the wind meant he couldn’t just pick it right back up again, because no matter how he tried not to, his eyes drifted right back to Shay.
She’d let her long, blonde hair down from the ponytail she’d kept it in all afternoon while she’d picked through the Scrapper Yard and it cascaded over her shoulder in the prettiest way.
Just looking at her now reminded him of the way her face had scrunched adorably every time she came across whatever piece of total junk in the Scrapper Yard caught her fancy. It was the most random shit. Ancient laptop keyboards, broken plastic pieces of all kinds, metallic bits, old kitchen utensils. But she caressed each piece she picked up like it was the finest jewelry from Tiffany’s.
Katherine wouldn’t have come within fifty feet of a junkyard like that. She’d have been too afraid she’d scuff her pumps or break a nail. Not Shay though. Her nails were grimy by the end of the afternoon but she didn’t even seem to notice.
Jonas turned away.
He was not going to like her.
He’d fuck her. If not tonight, then whenever she was ready.
The other guys could do the wooing. He’d just be another body on the bed when the time came. That was all.
Right then, the front door opened and Henry came in.
“Thank Jesus,” Rafe said, all but running him down as he made a beeline for the basket he was carrying. “What have we got tonight?”
Henry tried to yank it back at the last moment but Rafe was too quick. He pulled out a loaf of bread and then had the top off of a container inside the basket by the time he reached the dining room table. He made an ecstatic face as he leaned over and inhaled. “Spinach, and, holy shit, is that brisket? Sweet Jesus, please tell me that’s brisket.”
Henry’s lips went tight in a displeased line but when all eyes focused in on him, he nodded. “It is brisket.”
