by SP Durnin
Kat still fought for breath, so understandably it took her a minute to reply. “Are you...crazy...? I’m a little better... than just ‘all right’... Oh my God...”
Jake grinned. “No need for worship. I’ll gladly accept carnal favors in lieu of prayer, you know.”
“Give me... a minute here.” Though her hand didn’t rise, Cho managed to hold up one shaky finger for him to see. “We’ll discuss that bit of scripture...as soon as I’m not...in danger of fainting.”
That brought a smile to his face. “Take your time, for I am a generous and patient Overlord. Besides, how could I refuse such a heart-felt request from my favorite priestess?”
“Let me tell you right now…that I damn-well better be…your only priestess,” Cho threatened and ran her hands over his sweat-slick chest. “If not, we’ll find out if a deity can still perform miracles after someone cuts off their dangly bits.”
“See, now you’re talking heresy.” Jake wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “You wouldn’t want to anger a god. I might smite you with a thunderbolt.”
“I think you already hit me with a couple. Or five. Holy shit. My spinal cord feels like it’s vibrating.” Kat stretched and pulled herself up until she could nuzzle at his lightly stubbled chin. “I’ve got to ask: Is it just you, or are all men of Celtic ancestry sexual dynamos?”
O’Connor brushed sweaty, blue hair back over her ear. “Can’t say. It’s against union rules.”
She snorted and gave him a mock glare.
“Seriously,” he insisted. “They’d take away my secret decoder ring if I talked.”
“Couldn’t have that.” Cho laughed and lowered her lips to his, causing Jake to marvel once again at his good fortune. So far he’d survived zombies rising to eat the living, whacked-out sex-cultists, weekend-warrior Nazis, rogue (psychotic) elements of the US military, and ended up the object of a deadly and criminally sexy ninja-girl’s affections? If Lady Luck kept throwing him bones like that he could pick up a pair of dice and roll sevens all day long. Without question, he was going to owe whichever god or devil was in charge of his life a big ‘Thank You,’ once he shed the mortal coil.
But later. Much, much later.
Just then, he was fully occupied with his aforementioned deadly and criminally sexy ninja-girl.
She pulled back and frowned slightly. “Do you think we should leave? Round up the others and bug-out in a few days after all, before RUST shows up?”
“Allan wouldn’t go. Neither would Maggie, for that matter.” Jake shook his head. “They have commitments here; people they’ve come to care for. Besides, we’re not going up against him alone. Pecos has a lot of people ready to fight. Maybe not that many more than Hess does, and not all military, but we might be able to beat him.”
“I’m still nervous.”
O’Connor didn’t want to see worry on Kat’s face just then, so he made a decision and settled back to regard her seriously. “I need to tell you something.”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re about to try saying goodbye to me in advance, or anything equally dumb: I shit you not, I’m going to—”
“I love you.”
Kat stopped talking mid-sentence.
“I should have told you back in Oklahoma.” He admitted. “I know you know how I feel, but it’s not the same. I need you to hear me say it. It’s long overdue, and I’m just so goddamn sick of being afraid... So. I love you. And I’m a coward. Because I’m more terrified of losing you than I am of sounding like a sap.”
Cho’s mouth still hung open.
“You can laugh now, if you want.” Jake showed her a humorless grin. In his experience, saying things like that to a woman either labeled a male as desperate, or a hopeless romantic. Neither option was particularly flattering.
“Oh. You extraordinary fool of a man,” Kat breathed against his lips. “As of this moment, you can’t get away from me. You know that, right? I might act like a bubble-head—okay, sometimes it’s not an act— but I’ve been waiting for you to admit that to yourself for a long time. And now? No matter how fast you run, no matter how much you beg me, I will never...ever...set you free.”
And that was all it took.
The crushing weight Jake had subconsciously carried for so long fell away, ripped from him by something far stronger.
He wondered if this was how superheroes felt all the time.
“Ah well,” he raised his eyebrows. “I’m almost positive servitude has its perks.”
Cho’s soft lips fell on him to work their particular brand of feminine sorcery and quickly rekindled the fire in his gut. Hot tendrils snaked out through Jake’s extremities from his chest, and Kat sighed into his mouth as he slid his hands down along her ribs. Oddly enough, he could almost swear he felt tiny shocks lance into at him anywhere his fingertips touched her bare flesh, as if she inexplicably generated a low electrical charge all her own. The thrilling sensation set something in his under-brain humming, and he growled. Cho’s tongue pressed between his lips and—while still within the rather tight quarters of a sleeping pod—O’Connor rolled them over until he lay above her.
Then he upped the intensity of their kiss. Kat slid one slimly-muscled calf along the outside of his own as she warmed the spot where his neck and shoulder met with her breath. He inhaled sharply when she scraped her short fingernails down the flesh of his back, all the while smiling at him from beneath half-closed eyes filled with a heat rivaling the surface of the sun.
“Well! That was fast.” Cho put her vamping face on. “Are you actually up for another ‘engagement’ so soon?”
“You tell me.” Jake’s shadow-framed eyes boiled.
Kat swiveled her hips and rubbed herself against his sweaty form. “I’m pretty sure you’ll rise to the challenge. One thing though. You do realize neither of us actually stretched before we made with all these nocturnal gymnastics, right? Much more, and we’re both going to be sore as hell come morning.”
“That’s a price I am absolutely willing to pay.” O’Connor’s low reply sent a shiver up her spine.
Kat’s heart rate quickened as Jake bore his weight with one arm and pressed forward against her. She tried to boost her hips upward, chasing the flesh she felt poised oh-so-near to her own, in an attempt to goad him into action. O’Connor was having none of it. They grappled briefly, each trying to impress their will and desire upon the other, but for once he won out. He grabbed both of Cho’s wrists with one hand, and then pushed her arms up over her head until they were fully extended. She squirmed below him as he ran his fingers along the side of her throat and down to trace the curves of her body, but she couldn’t pull loose. When his right leg pressed between her thighs, Cho bit at her bottom lip and attempted to free her hands again with no results. Her breathing sped up and Jake saw her pupils had fully dilated, expanding into black pools ready to swallow the one foolhardy enough to brave those dangerous waters. The sight of her threw gasoline onto the fire in his chest, stoking it into a pyroclastic wave of need, and he shoved forward.
Kat’s eyes widened and she inhaled sharply. While she reeled, Jake set a slow tempo and she began to gasp to the rhythm. She managed to raise her legs up encircling his waist, then locked her heels together behind Jake’s flank. That produced an immediate reaction from the unruly-haired man, and he drove himself on with more authority. His palms moved from her wrists and slid up, allowing his tense fingers to interlace with her own, and she gripped his hands so he could feel her strength. Kat wanted to remind him she was no timid geisha. That she could take anything he was capable of giving her. So O’Connor acknowledged her non-verbal cue, propelling himself faster and harder.
When her body began to overload, Cho realized she’d fallen prey to her own hubris.
Pushed quickly beyond the capacity for rational thought, she was rocketing towards a state of either jubilant agony or torturous rapture. His chest brushed against the tips of her breasts, causing lightning to shoot up behind her eyes. Her ton
gue found the sweat on Jake’s shoulder, which set off a thirst for him no amount of water could slake. The strong fingers she felt twined with hers did nothing to quell her hunger, but only made her even more ravenous for his touch. The sound of his breath sent thrills up from the base of her spine. She began pushing back against his lunges, and a swell of heat started to build in her brain.
Jake experienced a rush of Cro-Magnon bravado when he saw Cho’s back bow upward, causing her breasts to rise towards him, and became determined to drive her just as crazy as he’d felt upon occasion at her hands. While continuing the punishing rhythm, he bent to take one of her nipples into his mouth and she convulsed. Her head whipped from side to side and, when he applied light pressure with his teeth, she lost control. Kat thrashed about, hands shaking loose from his so she could touch the rest of him. Once free, she scored her nails down his shoulder-blades, his ribs, and his flank, leaving stinging welts along his skin as she undulated haphazardly. Her cries increased in both octave and volume, searing into his brain, and O’Connor’s jaw clenched. His will wasn’t at its peak, so he didn’t know how much more he could withstand.
“Watashitoisshoni iku!” Forgetting he was still learning Japanese, she begged him to ‘Let go with me!’ when the surge threatened to swamp her. Though brief, their lessons allowed him to understand her plea as Cho’s eyes skewered shut and she clung to him in desperation.
Jake struggled to retain control, to draw out their mutual pleasure and keep them on the brink a while longer. Her voice against his ear made it almost impossible, however. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, but it did no good. Kat had them nose to nose, her hands locked in his hair so he could see the need on her face, and his resolve began to crumble. Her thighs gripped him with a strength born from years of kicking drills and vaulting exercises, frantically yanking him deeper and causing his lips to pull away from his teeth in a wolfish snarl. Her mouth pressed momentarily with his own, and it felt as if her tongue was drawing hot wire from deep within his chest.
“Jibun o sokubaku shinai!” Now, my love! Don’t hold back! Cho begged.
O’Connor tried. He really did. But his will was starting to fracture.
Kat felt him shudder and the climax hit her like a physical blow, sending her back slamming down against the bunk for an instant before her spine arched painfully. With only her flank and the top of her head still pressed against the sleeping pad, all she could do was whimper as the tsunami threatened to drown her. Her vision went white. There was a deafening roar in her ears. Jake shoved himself as deeply as she could take him and remained there, a pulsing column pinning her to the bunk like a butterfly on a thick and tortuously hot pin. She wailed and crested the wave again. She couldn’t stand it. Cho was sure she would lose her mind, until he pulled suddenly away.
As her world spun, O’Connor punched the sleeping pod door release, sending the hatch upwards on its hinges, then proceeded to maneuver them both out onto the floor. He transferred Kat to the metal hull while deftly supporting her weight, and fought himself to a stand-still while she regained her awareness. She felt his hands pass down the sides of her torso, then over her waist, finally moving beneath her buttocks as he gazed at her with a seething hunger.
“I feel like my brain is on fire,” O’Connor grated haltingly and hoisted her lower body up, spreading her legs wider yet over his thighs.
“Shinkendesu ka?” Cho couldn’t get her mouth and mind to mesh as he pressed her to the floor until she lay splayed below him, then rubbed his length against her. She tried again. “Are you serious? I don’t know how you could possibly still be able to-”
Jake cut her off. “One word. Dynamo.”
Kat’s mouth went suddenly dry.
“I’m yours. I know that. I’ll climb the water tower and yell it to the whole dang world if you want me to.” His shadowed eyes held a predatory heat that set her to trembling. “I. Am. Yours. But you... You’re mine. Mine.”
Jake saying so was at that moment was the single-most provocative thing she’d ever heard. The problem was, Kat honestly didn’t know if she could match his stamina tonight when it came to love-making. Performing with the band had been strenuous, however fun it was, and she was still attempting to compensate for the last sensory overload just seconds prior.
But he was right there.
After months of nothing but cold showers and frustrating carnal dreams, for Cho it was a no-brainer. She reached up behind his neck with one hand, pulled him down, and tried to tear his soul free with her kiss. Happily, once their lips parted she felt a familiar stirring and told her protesting body to shut its trap. She’d apologize to it later with a good stretch, some chocolate they’d looted from a gas station on the way to Pecos, and a long, hot shower at the nearby police station. If it were lucky, she’d have Jake come along to wash her back. He wouldn’t need much convincing. She’d just promise to rub his sore spots. Granted, that would most likely bring about actions which would require more stretching, but wasn’t her body enjoying its current circumstances?
Done! It agreed hastily. Now make him do that thing we like! The one where…
Kat ignored further bodily-based complaints and murmured against his lips using her most super-special, utra-sultry, Jessica Rabbit voice.
“Okay, stud... Let’s see what you’ve got!”
His response was to shove forward again. While she tried, Cho couldn’t keep from drawing a hissing breath at the delicious sensation as he entered. They were a tight fit, but she and Jake did fit. If only barely. Had he been one eyelash-length more, he’d have been too much. Even now, she found it a struggle to take him fully. Then Kat realized she could feel his heartbeat.
Oh my, she marveled, that’s new.
His pulse transferred into her like the muffled throb of a metronome, causing Cho’s flesh to constrict in time and the toned muscles of her thighs to flex rhythmically of their own accord. She reveled in the feeling, running her hands over both their torsos which sped the metronome’s meter, and her breath came faster yet as Jake set himself.
He drove into her like a living steam engine with ferocious enthusiasm, and Kat gloried in it. His hands slid up to knead her breasts, pulling another cry from her as he quickened their pace. She felt like someone had plugged her into a light socket and bucked wildly beneath him. Her legs moved to squeeze him so tightly that Jake felt his ribs creak, but he never slowed. He couldn’t. Not even when her nails sank into his chest and shoulders as he attempted to bury himself within her.
Kat knew she wouldn’t last. The feel of him was too intense, and everything he did upped her arousal level ten-fold. In the grip of such urgent pleasure, she begged for him to stop. To never stop. To continue the ravishment, even if Pecos burned down around their ears.
Jake obliged her. In no time Cho was holding onto sanity by only her fingernails, her entire being pummeled into a state of maddened anticipation of the next powerful lunge. The pressure in her nerve endings built, and she let out heated yelps burst from her lips as his jarring intrusions gained even more force. Her cries grew louder as the two of them slammed together in a frenzy of sweat, thrumming tendons, and muscles pushing beyond their limits. She couldn’t feel the floor against her back. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. Not when her only remaining tether left to physical reality anchored through the wild-eyed man inside her, frightening, bestial, and tender all at once.
Kat screamed as O’Connor stabbed deeper still, causing her pelvis to rise and fall swiftly when he bruised her sensitive flesh. Her lungs fought for air and her hands searched for purchase against the hull, but found nothing to grasp. Her breasts heaved and her jaw clenched as he rammed into her with awful power, sending jolt after furious jolt up to the crown of her skull from the tips of her toes.
A thrust lifted her from the floor and she teetered on the edge as Jake sank himself painfully deep, passing his thumbs over the tips of her breasts when his whole body tightened. A near-roar tore its way fr
om his throat, sending a rush of satisfaction through her as she struggled against her own senses. A moment later, Kat felt a searing burst as he lost control and erupted inside her.
Her world exploded.
The orgasm ripped through her with such intensity, Cho nearly passed out. It buffeted the screaming, blue-haired woman’s already euphoria-scrambled thoughts, almost throwing her headlong into unconsciousness, and dropped her mewling over the cliff. Reason blasted away and she shrieked in triumph, bearing down around him in an attempt to wring the maelstrom of its madness at the instant their bodies became momentarily supercharged.
They froze there, suspended in that endless instant of pleasure and pain about which poets write prose. Irrevocably linked by the most fundamental and intimate of pleasures.
The touch of someone who loves you.
Cho’s awareness gradually returned, and she stroked her hands over Jake’s face while the two of them floated. He bent close, ensconced within the circle of her trembling legs, and lowered his lips to hers. Neither felt the need to hasten their kiss, and took the time to languidly explore one-another’s mouths. There was no frantic ‘tonsil-hockey’ so tragically common in modern-day relationships, no panicked dash towards intimacy; simply the warm, sensuous friction only true devotion could provide.
“Promise me we’ll lock ourselves away in here again, really soon,” she panted, content in the afterglow with him. “I am not kidding. Not even a little. You can do that with me as often as you want, my love.”
Jake was breathing quite hard himself and gulped. “I was hoping you’d feel that way. How often do you have in mind?”
“A lot,” Cho insisted and lightly bit his chin. “Like, majorly a lot.”
“Can you be more specific?” He raised one eyebrow in amusement
Kat found his expression endearingly masculine and she smiled. “Oh, I was thinking daily? Heck, hourly? As long as my legs hold up…But I don’t want to wear you out either, so we’ll have to stop for little things like meals. And sleep, occasionally.”