After Today (The After Series Book 1)
Page 21
“Do you think they’ll look for us?” Mackenzie asked, lifting her tear-stained face to him.
“Maybe. But they don’t know we were there with a truck. They’ll think you’re on foot and shouldn’t search too far from the hotel.”
“We need to get Maggie somewhere I can look at her. I think she has a concussion,” Jesse said. “Jake, can you direct Jim?”
Jake nodded, and they started off again, slower this time because Jim wasn’t risking using the truck’s headlights to show the way. He was light-headed with relief when the red-roofed farmhouse materialized out of the darkness.
“Think anyone’s home?” Jim asked, cutting the ignition.
“Not sure. We didn’t think so,” Jake answered, searching the front of the house for any sign of habitation.
Jesse appeared again at Jim’s window.
“Wait here and I’ll scout it,” he said, running off on light feet.
Jim turned to look at Zed, who’d made himself small and unobtrusive in the back seat. “Hope this stray is as helpful as that one.”
Jake had a good feeling about Zed, but knew the kid would have to earn their trust. In the meantime, Jim would keep a sharp eye on him.
“It’s clear,” Jesse called, jogging back.
“We’ll be along in a bit,” Jake called, as the others made their way inside.
He sat in the backseat with Mackenzie in silence, watching the glow of a flashlight come from inside the house.
“Jake, I—”
“Wait. I need to apologize. I’ve been stupid. So fucking stupid.” Jake turned Mackenzie until she was straddling him and he could cup her face with his hands, his thumbs running over her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, babe. For everything.”
“It’s not your fault… is it?” Her pained confusion slayed him.
“You were right. You didn’t need my protection, you needed my support. And what’s worse, I trusted Townsend over you,” he admitted.
“You… you told Townsend about the meeting at the distillery?” She stiffened, her hands dropping from his forearms.
“What? No! Of course not! Why would you think that?” Now he was confused. “Jesus, Mac. Why would you think that? I might not have agreed with what they said at the meeting, but I would never have betrayed everyone. Betrayed you.”
“How did he know about it, then?”
“Trent and Gavin. Assholes,” he spat.
“Oh.” She softened again, her thighs molding over his and her face clearing. “So, Sanford. We can’t go back?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“I wish we had Dex.” Her shoulders slumped. “You could probably go back, though,” she whispered. “If you snuck in, Townsend might still trust you.”
“Mac! I’m not going anywhere without you, ever again. And you can’t think I’d support Townsend after this?”
“Before, you were on his side.”
“Before, I was stupid. Now, I’m on your side.”
He brought his lips to hers, so close he didn’t know who was inhaling and who was exhaling.
“You still love me?” she breathed.
“Always.”
“Even though I don’t have deodorant and I smell?”
“Yes, babe.”
“And now that we have no toothpaste?”
“Yes, babe.”
“You know I love you, right?”
“About time you admitted it.” He grinned, slanting smiling lips over hers. She opened for him, their tongues tangling and their souls realigning.
Because, this? Was everything. Nothing else mattered.
Epilogue
“Oh, god!” Mackenzie whimpered.
“Not god. Use my name, Mac,” Jake chastised.
“Jake,” she moaned into his mouth, tightening her legs around his hips as he thrust again, her ass sliding on the laundry table.
His big hands grasped her thighs and pulled her back onto him, his cock driving deep.
“So good, so good,” she chanted, leaning back on her hands and tilting her pelvis forward. She wanted more. She wanted everything.
She and Jake had spent the last three nights since they’d been at the farmhouse muffling their hunger for each other, aware of their proximity to the others. But today, hiding out in the laundry room, Mackenzie couldn’t contain the utter divinity of their bodies moving together.
When Jake leaned over and bit into her neck, sucking hard enough to bruise, she screamed.
His teeth scraped down her skin, mouth latching onto her exposed breast, tongue flicking and lips sucking. His hands rose to cup her, pushing her breasts together and groaning as he lavished attention between them.
The tug and pull on her nipples was an exquisite frustration; she needed that friction lower, and Jake had slowed to a gentle rocking of his hips, which was beyond maddening.
“Jake!” She yanked at his hair, hard. “Enough. You need to fuck me. Now.”
“So bossy.” He smirked, raising his head to nip at her pouting lips.
She growled, and he laughed.
“Okay, babe. Okay.”
He pressed her thighs wider and pushed deeper, holding tight to her hips and fucking deliciously deep. Mackenzie squirmed, wedging her hand between their bodies so she could circle her clit. Fast. Faster.
On the precipice, Mackenzie stilled to watch the pure masculine beauty of Jake’s features. His eyes were closed, his concentration complete as he pounded his devotion into her.
“I’m close, Mac,” he groaned, throwing his head back.
“Let go,” she urged, watching.
“Not until you do.”
His eyes opened, tethering her to this moment. To him. Caught in his gaze, she climaxed with unmitigated intensity.
They rested, forehead to forehead, panting. The power had gone out the day before, and not come back on. Mackenzie shivered, her bare skin breaking out in goosebumps. Without electricity for heating, they’d need firewood. Winter was coming.
“Buddy and Jim are going to chop wood tomorrow,” Jake said, reading her mind. “You still okay with Jesse and I going across to the barn to bury Lee?”
She nodded.
Jake had committed to his promise of backing off on the overbearing protective bullshit, and she appreciated the new transparency to their relationship.
“Maggie’s going to show Zed and I how to set up a greenhouse. We’re going to grow vegetables with seeds we found in the back shed,” she said. “Zed’s got some ideas on how to pump water from the stream, too.”
“He’s a good kid,” Jake acknowledged. “Has he said much about his family?”
“He doesn’t want to talk about it.”
The sadness was pervasive, mourning Grams, losing contact with Chloe, Rachel and Kat, and coming to terms with their ordeal at the Prestige Plaza. She still had flashbacks of shooting Leon and Mickey, which left her shaky. It was hard to wrap her head around the fact she’d killed another human. Two humans. When that happened, Jake wrapped his arms around her and rocked, not saying a word.
It helped that Jake and Jim had been giving them all lessons on using each of the different guns they had, although they were still too wary to fire them, in case the sound gave them away. Occasionally, in the distance, they’d hear motorcycles, but so far, no one had disturbed them.
Knowing their friends and family in Sanford weren’t safe was a burden they had to bear, harder for Caroline than anyone. She was withdrawn and listless, pining for her children. It broke Mackenzie’s heart and was driving Jim to despair.
Maggie, on the other hand, was driven by a burning need to destroy the Prestige Plaza and all its inhabitants, followed swiftly by Townsend. She’d taken the news of Donny’s murder hard and spent her waking hours plotting vengeance. They debated constantly over the best course of action; infiltrate Sanford and overthrow the council, or get their people out and abandon the town, making a new home for themselves.
Because while the knowledge of their immuni
ty to Sy-V was a relief, it didn’t mitigate their current circumstances.
The reality of the world they now inhabited.
And so they planned. And waited. And survived. Together.
THE END
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ABOUT
Jacqueline picked up her first Mills & Boon novel when she was fourteen, and fell head over heels in love with the romance of a happily-ever-after. Sweet Valley High just couldn’t compete after she got hooked on dashing heroes and plucky heroines.
She has a Bachelor Degree in Print Journalism but, having always been tempted to embellish the facts of a story, decided she was more suited to writing works of fiction. She writes in between wrangling two daughters and my very own tall, handsome husband. *wink wink*
For more on Jacqueline, you can find her at:
www.jacquelinehayley.com
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Also by Jacqueline Hayley
The After Series
Prequel (novella)
The Beginning of the End
Book 2 (pre-order)
After Yesterday
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
It's the beginning of the end...
Seventeen-year old Cassie is home alone planning her first ever house party, unaware the deadly Sy-V virus has begun to ravage humanity. But when most of her classmates fail to show for the party, she can't contact her parents, and her best friend becomes sick, in the blink of an eye her entire world changes.
Stephen has lived next door to Cassie forever, only as the virus tears their friends and family apart, the boy-next-door suddenly becomes a hero burning brightly in the devastating dark of their new world. But no way could she fall in love. Not at this moment. With this boy. Right?
This novella is a prequel to The After Series, which begins with After Today.
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