by Joss Ware
His laugh, short and bitter, stopped her as his hand closed over hers, halting her fingers. His mouth twisted hard and angry, his eyes squeezed shut. “You don’t fucking know me, Sage,” he said in a dark, grating voice. “I’m none of those things. You’ll be better off—”
“You are to me, Simon,” she said, talking over what was surely going to be yet another reference to damned Theo Waxnicki. Did he have any idea how much that ticked her off? She yanked roughly at his jeans, dislodging his grip, and his hips jerked a bit as the fourth and fifth buttons popped.
“Sage,” he groaned, heartfelt and agonized. From deep in his chest.
She stopped and looked down at him. He’d still not opened his eyes, and now he had the back of his arm resting over them…and, holy cats, was that a trickle of a tear gleaming down the side of his temple? From the corner of an eye? Simon?
Her anger faded. He wasn’t just being an ass. He was frustrated.
His mouth still flat, his body rigid as if he dared not move…God…what did he think?
She paused, putting her hand square on the center of his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath and the rampant beating of his heart. “It’s one damned thing if you don’t want me,” she managed to say, her anger leaking out a bit. Then Sage suddenly became dry-mouthed from fear that he didn’t…that she’d been wrong, read him wrong, pushed herself on him. After all, she really didn’t know anything about men. She hadn’t even known Theo was in love with her. “But if you want me as much as I want you, Simon…please. I want you. I want you to be my first.”
And my last.
But she dared not say that. Not…now.
His arm moved and his eyes opened, and she saw that they did glisten and her heart seized up again. But his gaze held her. “It’s a mistake, Sage.”
“Not for me.”
“If you knew—”
“Simon, the only thing I know is that I want you, now, and if you don’t, then you need to say something right the hell now. I’m not a damned child. I’m a woman. And I know what I want. And it’s you. Not Theo.” She bent forward and pressed a soft, light kiss against his lips. “If you really don’t, then I’ll leave you be,” she breathed against his mouth.
He released his lungs with a whoosh and his hand went around the back of her head, pulling her close as if he wanted to inhale her, to devour her. His tongue, stronger and harder and deeper than before, his hands tight and yet gentle. “Sage, I do…want you,” he whispered over her lips, then something in caló that she didn’t understand. Then, soft and desperate, “More than you…know. I do.”
“Then stop being noble,” she said, which for some reason garnered another laugh from him. Another humorless bark. “And make love to me.” She reached for his jeans and yanked open the last button.
And slid her hands down into the heat there, finding the heavy length of him. He made another guttural sound, and then, as if surrendering, he sat up and pulled her to him for another kiss, holding the side of her face. She smelled the musk of herself on his fingers, there on her jaw, and the scent excited her even more.
In moments, he had his jeans off and they lay again, now completely skin to skin, legs twining, mouths busy, hands busy. She lifted, stroked, explored his heavy erection, noticing the way every movement caused him to react—to tense, to shift and shudder, to sigh and to stroke her more intimately, driving her desire higher and higher, her chest flushing and her body tensing. She sighed and writhed, her breasts tight, her core tighter and pulsing, and he stroked and teased, leaning forward to take her nipple in his mouth, flickering over it with his tongue as his fingers found her spot.
Her breath caught as she climbed, tightening, heat and pleasure rising, his mouth and fingers busy, coaxing, leading…and then she dragged in a last breath and jerked herself away. “No,” she gasped. “I want it all, dammit, Simon. Give me all of you.” She reached blindly and closed her fingers around him, feeling the dull throb of pulsing blood beneath her touch.
“Sage,” he gasped, then dissolved again into that sensual language, breathing deeply, as if fighting himself. But then he opened his eyes.
Looking down, he searched her face again. A lock of his hair had caught in the trail of the tear at the side of his face, and his eyes, though hot and ready, examined her for a last minute change of heart. “I…are you sure?”
“Please, Simon, please,” she said, and opened her legs, shifting beneath him.
Some of the tension eased from his face…at last, at last…as he held himself up over her. His mouth relaxed from that awful, rigid state and became sensual again. His eyes softened and even his jaw seemed to shift. His gaze burned over her, and she saw how much he really did want her. Right there, in his face, he could no longer hide it.
The very expression made her hot and shivery and ready.
He reached between them and guided himself to her. She felt him hesitate once more, and she squeezed the arm he used to hold himself up, and then…he moved. Slowly, carefully…she felt the stretching inside her…but it was a beautiful stretching and she wanted more of it. She shifted, moving up impatiently, wanting it over—and suddenly he filled her. There was a sharp pain and she winced, and he froze, and then she opened her eyes and looked up at his concerned face, his wide eyes and tense mouth and she smiled and said, “Beautiful.”
She moved, because it was apparent that he was still worried for hurting her…and then his lips softened and he began to move himself…faster and longer, slowly at first, and then when her own eyes grew wide and her mouth parted in little, grasping sighs, his rhythm increased and she tried, clumsily, to meet his, and he laughed a little, but then they met it…synchronized…and it was, oh, so perfect…the slide and the deep strokes, his fingers there between them, to help her along, and when she gave that last sound of triumph…blasting over the top…he gave a hard groan and yanked himself away, twisting to the side, and matched her gasp with a deep one of his own.
And they lay there, damp and hot and twined, sprawled on a thin blanket and an old quilt that had a sudden wet spot, in the shadows of a dusty, gritty attic…while a whole city of people searched for them below.
When she came back to herself and realized all of this, however much time had passed later, Sage couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“Something funny?” Simon asked, picking himself up and looking at her. His gaze was wary, as if he expected her to scramble away from him, as if he were a little rodent.
“Yeah,” she said, reaching to touch his shoulder…that beautiful, square, powerful shoulder. He was gorgeous, all that rich, dark hair falling in his face, plastered to his neck and throat, and those sleek muscles everywhere. “After all those nights in the bedroom, sharing a bed, when we could have done this a little more comfortably…we had to pick a dusty attic while we’re on the run for our lives.” She laughed again.
But he didn’t seem to find it funny. “Yeah.”
“Simon,” she said. “It was a joke. An irony.”
“Sage, you deserved better than this to be your first time.” And it should have been someone better than me. He didn’t say the words, but she read it in his eyes.
“Well, I don’t know how it could have been any better. Simon. Don’t most people have a smile on their face afterward, instead of a grimace?” Her heart sank. Maybe he hadn’t enjoyed it. Maybe it had been…what had Theo called it once, when they were watching a movie? A pity-fuck? Oh God.
His expression changed and that heat came back into his eyes. The one she recognized, the one that wasn’t a lie. “It couldn’t have been any better,” he said. And she knew he meant it, and a rush of pleasure flowed back into her belly. “For me. For you…I’m not so sure.” And he smiled, a sort of wavering smile that touched her heart.
What had damaged this man so deeply that he had to hold himself back like this? To be so resistant to happiness?
And why had he pulled away at the last minute? “You pulled out…of me,” she sa
id. “Before you…uh…”
“You’re ovulating,” he said, his voice flat again. “It was the best I could do to keep you from getting pregnant. And it might not work anyway.” He turned away, rubbed his eyes. “I almost forgot. I almost didn’t make it…I almost lost my mind, Sage. I’ve never done that.”
She was ovulating. A sudden little flicker of…something…warm? Filtered over her. She could get pregnant.
“It’s my body and I didn’t even think of it,” she said honestly. “I mean, who doesn’t want a baby? Even people who don’t live in Falling Creek. Babies are…miracles.”
He looked at her, nodded slowly. “I know. But, where I come from, it’s different. It was different. And responsible men from my time never had sex without trying to prevent pregnancy unless they’ve planned otherwise. With their partner.”
“Preventing pregnancy?” Such a foreign idea.
This brought another smile from him. “I know it’s odd…but that’s the way it was.”
She opened her mouth to speak again, but he raised an imperative hand suddenly. And tilted his head to listen, and then fairly leapt to his feet, naked and sleek and, oh my God, if she weren’t so worried about what had prompted him to do so, she’d gawk at the beauty of him.
“Holy Mother of God,” he whispered in such a voice that had her scrambling to her feet. She hurried over to the window. “Is that what I think it is?”
She looked out and saw Hell’s Wall looming dark in the distance. There was a deep, low rumbling sound. An ugly one that sent shivers up her spine. “The wall…it’s dark,” she said. “The crystal lights—”
“Are gone.” With a short, sharp curse in caló, he spun from the window and began to drag on his clothes. “Get dressed. We’ve got to get out of here. The Strangers—no, it’s fucking Florita—are sending a message.”
“What kind of message?” Sage asked, though she had a feeling, through her suddenly nauseated belly, that she might know. “Florita? You mean Tatiana?”
“An unpleasant one,” he said, shoving their electronics into the packs. “For me.”
“For you?”
“She’s telling me to come out of hiding, or the wall’s coming down.”
“But…the whole city will be destroyed.”
He stopped and looked at her. “I know. That’s her message. She wants me…in exchange for the city.”
* * *
May 11
Eleven months after.
I’m stunned. Hurt and angry and so, so, so shocked. I can’t believe he would do this to me!
How long have they been planning this?
Kevin came to me today and told me that he’s going to marry Britney. But he’s already married to me!!! How can he do this? Marry both of us????
He told me that they (I guess he and Robert and Thad) realized that during the whole nine months I’m pregnant—and the other wives too—that the men are unable to do anything else to help rebuild our race. Their hands are tied, and they feel helpless and weak. So they decided that it would make sense if they had more than one wife!!
They could be more efficient in spreading their sperm around, for crying out loud.
Well, how the hell does this make me feel? Like crap, that’s how. This is no way to treat a pregnant lady. No way to treat the woman he says he loves. I mean, I know we’re focused on having babies, but I just thought we’d be trying every month. You know, all the time. And trying to get pregnant as soon as possible after every birth.
I wasn’t planning on getting into some kind of polygamous arrangement.
And he claims to still love me. That Britney is purely for breeding purposes—yes, that’s the word he used. But I’m not so sure. She’s a little younger than me and she has bigger boobs.
Whatever. I hate this. I wish I’d never left Envy.
—from Adventures in Juliedom, the
blog of Julie Davis Beecher Corrigan
* * *
CHAPTER 13
Fuck me fuck me fuck me.
I should have known. I shouldn’t have underestimated the bitch.
Simon drew in a deep breath and gathered control of his blazing fury, his roaring fear. One thing at a time. Think. Plan.
She would give him time to show up, she knew he had to be in the settlement. She wasn’t going to drop the wall immediately, because then she’d lose him too.
It was a warning. A potent one.
And he’d been too distracted by a copper-haired woman, his drive to keep her safe, his engulfing need that made him ignore his honor…too distracted by Sage to think about the repercussions of pissing off Florita.
He shouldn’t have made such a mistake. Hell, the last time he’d shut her down, she’d tried to have him killed.
Apparently, this time, she wanted him badly enough to kill hundreds of innocent people instead.
All of these thoughts trammeled coolly through his mind even as he and Sage dashed through the darkness, making their way more haphazardly, more carelessly than before from tree to alcove to building.
The shadows were shortening, and a light gray burned along the eastern horizon. Dawn was coming, the threat of gangas was fairly nil. Theo should be arriving any time—to the meeting place, which was still miles away.
Grasping Sage’s hand, his body still humming, still damp and loose from being with her, Simon tore toward the massive pile of trash that he hoped…prayed…had the secret tunnel in it.
The massive wall rumbled in the distance like a mini version of Mordor, its crystal lights still dark. Simon glanced at it as it loomed ahead of them—the secret tunnel was on that side of the settlement—which in a way was good, because no one was coming in this direction searching for them if the wall was threatening to come down.
They reached the pile of junk and he darted around, looking for the old Lexus, knowing that after fifty years, it could be in any condition; it could even be gone. Using his flashlight—he didn’t care at this point, he had to get her out of here, had to stop that wall from burying the settlement—he scanned it over the pile, knowing that the entrance to the passageway would be lower rather than higher up.
Then the light caught on a license plate, rusted and old, but it said LEXUS 2. Thank you, God. The plate was attached to a Lexus of indeterminable color, its silvery L-symbol gritty and dull, but still there in its recognizable oval.
Like the cars he and Sage had crawled through to get to the Beretta building back in Envy, this one had a door that opened. But this time, the other side of the car had been removed. And when they crawled in, there was plenty of room to stand once they moved across the split leather seats, long bereft of their stuffing.
He fairly shoved Sage in, acutely aware of how time was ticking by and how the rumblings from the wall were becoming louder and more ominous. Hell hath no fury… The crash of a massive boulder bounding down the side of the cliff had him pushing and scrambling in after her.
Hurry, hurry, hurry… On the other side, the tunnel was tall enough for him to stand easily, and wide enough for three or four people to walk abreast. Simon considered whether there might be any booby traps or other surprises—like den-preferring creatures—or even gangas, and slipped ahead of Sage to clear the way.
Flashing the light ahead of them, he was gratified to see that the tunnel ran straight and empty. It couldn’t be that long, less than a half mile by his estimation, if it were to dump them on the other side of the wall. But though he went quickly, his scanned the path ahead, watching for any sign of movement.
The pack clunked over his shoulder, and Sage’s against her as they rushed along, the rumbling louder now that they were enclosed in a tunnel of metal and who knew what else. It was too dark to tell what was around them, and he didn’t care to stop and examine it. Time was running out.
At last, they came to a wall—or what appeared to be a wall, but was, after a brief examination, determined to be a door. It took him only a moment to figure out how to open it—a little lever—a
nd he peered around.
Light. Scrubby trees and tall grass appearing in various shades of gray. “Stay here,” he said and slipped out, turning himself invisible as he did so.
Sure enough. There they were, outside of Falling Creek, only a short distance from the wall and on the opposite side of the main gate. Out of sight. No guards, no gangas, no glowing eyes of predators. In the distance, to the south, rose the trees from the forest through which he and Sage had come three days ago. Where Theo would, God willing, be waiting.
Simon slipped back inside with one last glance at the wall. Another large boulder tumbled down in raucous punctuation to the general warning, dragging three trees with it. It rolled to a halt only yards from the settlement wall, and he felt his belly tighten. He slipped back inside.
“Sage, get on the computer and try to get a message to Theo to come here. It’s safer than trying to make a run for it to the forest. They’ll be watching for us.”
“But we can be invisible,” she said, her eyes wide.
“Get on the computer,” he said again, tension rising. He wished he’d never had to show her his ability. It had blinded her to reality. Made her think of him as infallible. “We don’t have time. The wall’s going to come down.”
“But if it does, it’ll bury us here,” she said, yet she pulled out her computer and swiftly turned it on, her fingers clattering over the keys.
“No, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to let that happen. But we don’t have time to run to the woods. Theo should be there already…it will only take him twenty minutes to get here and get you.”
“Me?” She froze, her hands on the computer keys. “What about you?”