Forbidden Future [Embrace the Future 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Berengaria Brown

  The orgasm that had been building deep inside her, suddenly flared to life like a fire with new wood thrown on it. Any thought of playing or teasing left her instantly as her mind focused on the intense feelings deep in her belly.

  Tau pressed harder against her from the front, making sure his cock hit against her G-spot as he powered in and out of her. The flames roared through her body, igniting every nerve ending as they did. Her breasts ached, the nipples rock-hard points pressed into Tau’s chest. Then she exploded, her body shaking, her bones melting with joy, held up only by the two men supporting her. As her cunt rippled around them, they both pulled out from her, jetting their seed on the floor and over each other’s bodies.

  Once again, she was filled with appreciation for their love and care of her. Evidently they’d only been holding off until she climaxed before letting go themselves. Truly she was the luckiest person on Earth to have not one, but two such men as these.

  Chapter Six

  All ten of them had learned how to change the truck’s gears in the days before they left. But driving was quite different from sitting in the stationary vehicle practicing. They had a few near misses as they took turns to drive the truck out of the first cave and along the faint track to the old freeway. Evidently the people who had put it there were much better drivers than them. The truck definitely fit through the space, but the driver needed to steer straight and carefully, something not all of them were good at yet.

  Arthur was insistent that everyone become proficient with driving as soon as possible, and definitely long before they reached the city, so each person only drove a couple of miles at walking pace before swapping out for the next one. It made their journey very slow, but Luke knew Arthur’s plan was best. Who knew who would need to be able to jump in and drive in an emergency? Luke was also not surprised to find the two women were actually better drivers than any of the men except Ghedi. The men wanted to rush, so grated gears and overcorrected the steering, whereas the women took it slowly, carefully, methodically, and everyone could see their techniques were better.

  Soon the men slowed down, too, and became much better at driving. After a few hours, Arthur agreed they could move faster than walking pace, and he had the women drive first. This far out from the city, the road had many potholes and weeds growing in it, even a few small trees in places, but although they had to steer from one side of it to the other, they made steady progress.

  Luke kept one eye on his map. He’d spent many hours perfecting a map of the journey to the city then had painstakingly made copies of it, giving one to Arthur and the other to Zuri. He figured those two would likely not be together if there was trouble, so hopefully one of the three maps would survive to guide them back home. Nevertheless, he had a pencil in his pocket to alter and update his copy of the map if needed. He also had a notepad, collected from the crates found in the cave, on which to write down where they found useful things and how to get back to them, plus a spare pencil with his change of clothing.

  Everyone had agreed Luke could stay in the cab, not just because he was their official navigator and recorder of messages, but also because his stiff knee would make sitting on the floor of the truck a burden for him. As well as Luke, sitting in the middle, there was the driver and a watcher. Once they got close to the city, they would all squeeze up and have a second watcher as well.

  Around noon, they started looking out for a stream or river so they could stop and have a drink if not some food, and about half an hour later they passed through a forested area. Arthur thought it was too dangerous to stop among the trees, but agreed that with so many trees there’d be a water source as well. After they emerged from the trees, Udo, who was watcher at the time, saw a smallish lake, and Ghedi, who was driving, pulled carefully off the road and down a faint dirt track toward the water.

  Everyone got out of the truck very warily, but there was no sign of people or wild animals, so they sipped some water from the lake, pronounced it tasted fine, and drank. Even Luke enjoyed standing up and walking around a little, after sitting in the truck cabin all morning. It was Adena who saw there were some fish in the lake, so Luke wrote a note that if they found something they could use as netting, they could catch the fish and take them back to the village on their way home.

  Relaxed and happy, although a little hungry, they climbed back into the truck and, with Collin driving now, made their way back to the freeway.

  There’d been a lot of discussion about whether they should hide the truck to sleep at night or park in the open where they could take turns watching for trouble, with good lines of sight in every direction. Finally Arthur decided hiding themselves was the better option, but with two people always on guard during the night. It was a little earlier than they’d planned to stop when they saw an old house and barn, somewhat dilapidated. It was evident the rain had gotten through the roof and parts of the building had rotted, but they agreed it was a suitable hiding place for the truck.

  Three of the men forced the barn door open, checking the dark space carefully for people or wild animals, and then Adena reversed the truck and backed it inside so they could make a quick getaway if they needed to. She as the only one, apart from Arthur, who’d managed to accurately reverse the vehicle, something Luke knew Arthur intended to have them all practice, but it still made him feel good that the young girl was a natural at driving the big vehicle.

  Collin, Ghedi, and Tau went together into the old house and found no one there and no sign any people had been there for a long time. They came back with an armful of thick, fleecy blankets, and the news that there were some foods in the pantry they thought would be good to eat.

  Udo and Adena stayed to watch the truck, with Luke pointing out if they beeped the horn everyone would come running back to them. Then the others went into the house, searching it more carefully, but finding most of it musty and half-rotted from the weather. However, the roof over the pantry had not been damaged and the foods there looked untouched. They made no attempt to gather any of the cans they guessed would be no good, but picked up a bag of rice, as they could check the grain before cooking it, and a giant tin of tomato soup.

  Zuri grabbed a big cooking pot and a wooden spoon, and the men ripped half-rotted floorboards from one of the rooms so they could build a fire. Luke gazed up at the roof and said, “I wonder if there’s a basement or an attic? Has anyone looked?”

  “Good point,” said Arthur, and he and Ghedi began searching for a door leading to stairs. A couple of the men stayed with Arthur while the rest dragged the wood back to the barn. While Udo and Collin built a fire, Tau took the cooking pot to a tiny lake almost in the farmyard to get water. Adena and Zuri poured some rice out onto a patch of concrete and checked it, but it didn’t seem at all spoiled. Luke volunteered to taste a few grains and pronounced them crunchy but normal in taste, so as soon as the water was brought, they tipped several handfuls of rice into it added the can of soup, which Luke had opened, and put the pot on the fire.

  “Tomato soup rice, an unusual meal, but we’re all hungry, so I expect we’ll enjoy it,” said Luke.

  * * * *

  The next two days followed the same pattern. They were able to drive a little faster, but not very fast, as the road surface was quite degraded, and small plants grew up here and there. They swapped drivers every hour, and everyone could now reverse the truck reasonably well. Each night they found a place to stay, and there was always something to take home with them, but not much. The house they stayed in the second night didn’t have a basement either, but it did have an attic with a trunk of old clothes, from which they’d collected a pile of baby clothes and two new pairs of men’s shoes. There’d also been a long, lacy dress, but regretfully Adena and Zuri could think of no good reason to take it.

  Collin’s sharp eyes had spotted some animals in the distance on the second day, and Luke had noted down exactly where they were for them to try to catch some on their way home. Collin thought they were sheep, but since
Luke was the only person who’d seen a live sheep, and he hadn’t been sure, no one could be certain. But animals were animals, and food was something their village desperately needed.

  The third afternoon, the cabin of the truck was cramped with four people in it, but they were close to the city then, and everyone was hyper-alert. They’d traveled through the area Luke had thought should be farms, but had seen no signs of animals, apart from the ones the previous day, so that was disappointing. They were all tense with worry and hope, and Zuri, who was driving, was terrified she’d do something wrong and endanger everyone.

  They came to a wide road on their left, and Luke directed Zuri to turn there. “This should take us to the warehouse district, where our best hope of finding food is since we didn’t see many farms or animals,” he said, patting her shoulder gently.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, knowing he was encouraging her, and grateful for his kindness. Driving the truck at this critical stage of their journey was a huge honor but also a big responsibility, and she was very aware that her reactions needed to be as sharp as they’d ever been.

  Zuri grasped the steering wheel lightly, her hands at the ten to two position as she’d been taught, her gaze flicking from side to side, alert for any movement that might be seen, as well as watching the road, which was no better and no worse than it had been for most of their journey.

  Luke was watching the odometer to know how many miles they’d come along the road, although since they weren’t traveling straight down the road, having to dodge trees and potholes, Zuri knew their mileage wouldn’t be the same as the maps.

  “The turn off to the right should be soon,” said Luke.

  “There” said Ghedi and Arthur together.

  Zuri saw it ahead and smoothly made the turn into what appeared to once have been a gated area, the high metal fence tumbling down in places, the gates wide open, one having fallen off its hinges.

  “Because the gates are open and one is broken, I’d say people have been here before, but there may still be things we can find,” said Luke.

  “If not, we’ll keep looking,” said Arthur, determinedly.

  Zuri drove slowly toward a huge, concrete building. So that’s a warehouse like everyone has been talking about. Wow, it’s enormous.

  She drove to the end of the area then turned the truck around, facing back out.

  “What do you think, Luke? Try to open a door near the back here, on the grounds that people may have started looking for things at the front?” asked Arthur.

  “I’d go for one of those wide, roller doors. If we can force that open, we can drive the truck right inside.”

  “Oh good idea.”

  Zuri drove very slowly back along the building until they came to the kind of door Luke meant. He pointed to it in case she hadn’t guessed what he was talking about. Again she was touched by his kindness. The old man was a treasure, so thoughtful and understanding.

  Arthur jumped out of the truck, and four men joined him. The rest stayed on watch. “Honk the horn if you see danger,” Arthur said tersely. Zuri nodded.

  The men tested the door, and then Arthur pulled some metal bars from the back of the truck, and the four men began forcing the roller door away from the wall. With four of them, it didn’t take long, although the metal squealed really loudly as it came free, so anyone in the building would have heard it.

  Zuri turned the headlamps of the truck on and pointed the front of the vehicle into the building, but it wasn’t dark. There was plenty of light coming through the clear ceiling of the building, so she turned the headlamps off again.

  Where they’d entered had once been some kind of store selling plants, but many of the pots had fallen over and the plants were just dust and a few twigs now. There were also wheelbarrows—Zuri knew the men would want some of them!—and all sorts of things she couldn’t identify.

  Luke pointed to wheels holding narrow tubes of piping. “Hoses. If we could figure out a way to get the water from the river through those hoses, it would make watering the crops much easier,” he said.

  She nodded, trying to concentrate on the vehicle when all she wanted to do was look around her.

  Arthur had the men pull the roller door down again and jam it shut, and then he divided them into teams to search the warehouse. Each team took a wheelbarrow and was told to make a lot of noise if there was danger so others could come and help them. Zuri and Adena were left with the truck, and once again told to lock the doors and honk the horn if there was trouble.

  “Damn it. I want to explore,” said Adena.

  “Yeah, me, too. We’d notice things the men might miss. But we’ll make sure we get a turn tomorrow.”

  It was surreal sitting in the truck waiting. After a while, Adena climbed out the window and stood on the roof of the truck, looking around the warehouse and calling out what she could see to Zuri. Finally she climbed back inside. “I don’t think anyone has been here for a long time. I don’t think we’ll find food here either, but we’ll get some useful things like those wheelbarrows though.”

  Zuri agreed.

  The group Luke was with came back with bags of fertilizer, which Luke said made crops grow better. They didn’t know whether it would still work after all this time but thought it was worth bringing the twenty large bags anyway as the truck had plenty of space in it.

  Other teams found a few useful things, but apart from the wheelbarrows, nothing exciting, although they loaded in three of the big wheels with hose-piping on them in case they could make a watering system from it.

  At night they all slept together in the back of the truck, with the men taking turns to go on watch, and Zuri tucked up tight between Udo and Tau, wishing they could do a lot more than just hold her tightly.

  * * * *

  The second warehouse they found had been the scene of some kind of trouble as it was burned almost to the ground in places. They only gave it a very perfunctory look inside, knowing anything worthwhile would have been taken or destroyed. Certainly they saw nothing at all usable.

  The road to the third building was very rough and overgrown, leading them to hope it was untouched. Once again the men forced a roller door, experts at doing it without much noise now, and drove inside. The building looked untouched with aisle after aisle of all sorts of things. Teams were allocated, each given a wheelbarrow, and sent off. Zuri and Tau’s sector had bolts of material. Tau stood back and let her decide. The prettiest ones, were, unfortunately, not functional. Zuri fingered delicate laces and chiffons, sexy, slinky silks, and other fabrics she couldn’t name. But she shrugged resignedly and loaded the wheelbarrow with serviceable woolens, polar fleece, and sturdy cottons. She added all the containers of pins and needles off a shelf, and the half dozen pairs of scissors she saw, too. When it came to the reels of thread, she picked up the display rack and sat it on top of the wheelbarrow.

  On the way back to the truck, with both of them pushing the overloaded wheelbarrow, Zuri saw some small plastic boxes. “Oh. They’d be perfect to transport the pins and needles in,” she said, grabbing a box off the shelf and piling the little packets and containers into it.

  “Grab another one for the thread and a couple more for other people,” suggested Tau.

  “But it’s not our sector.”

  “Yes, but other people may not have thought about how to transport little things that’ll get lost in among all the bigger stuff we gather. And it’s a much more convenient way of transporting these reels of thread.”

  “Good point,” Zuri agreed, picking three more containers off the shelf.

  One team had found mattresses, and everyone went to that sector to carry them all back to the truck. They took everything out of the truck, which didn’t take long, covered the floor with two or three layers of mattresses, then loaded their things back in again.

  “Now that’s going to be nice to sleep on,” said Zuri happily.

  In the back storeroom of the warehouse, one of the teams found woode
n packing crates and pallets, which they pulled apart to make their campfire. There was no river or lake nearby, but a couple of the men climbed into the roof and found there was a big water tank there. Molly had told them about such things before they’d left on their journey. They filled the cooking pot and brought it back to the campfire and ate rice again. No one complained. They were all hungry.

  Ghedi jumped up. “Those mesh things we saw. We could use them as fishing nets.” A couple of the other men followed him back into the maze of aisles and came back soon with the mesh. Luke looked at it carefully and said, “I think people used it to keep the sun off their plants. I remember seeing some over a…hmm…fernery, I think it was.”

  People started talking about plants, which inevitably led to the topic of needing to find more food for the community.

  “I wish we knew where we could find some animals we could breed for food,” said Arthur in frustration.

  A quiet voice said, “If you promise not to take anything of ours, we can lead you to some chickens and sheep.”

  Zuri jumped in fear, her heart almost beating its way out of her chest, sweat sliding over her face and down her breasts as if she’d just run a long way. Udo and Tau moved up beside her, flanking her, each one with a hand on her shoulder.

  Arthur stood and turned to face the voice. Everyone’s head followed his actions, and then Zuri could see, in the shadows, a large man, with perhaps another person behind him. Ah yes, he’d said, “ours” not “mine.”

  “We aren’t here to steal anyone’s possessions, but to scavenge that which belongs to no one,” said Arthur, his voice firm, his body still.

  “That’s what we thought. We’ve been watching you for several hours now,” said the man.

  “We” again, noted Zuri.

  “No one here will take anything that belongs to you or your village,” said Arthur, glancing around his people.