by BB Easton
I glance at the fireplace on my way through the kitchen, suddenly remembering that we left it burning before bed. But the blaze is long gone, the glass doors shut tight. I smile and shake my head. Wes the survivalist. I should have known he would come back out here in the middle of the night to take care of it.
Evidently, Boy Scout duty wasn’t the only thing Wes was up to last night. I head toward the kitchen on my way to the laundry room but do a double take when I realize that our clothes have been laid out all over the couches and tables and floor in front of the fireplace. I remember the power outage and giggle, picturing a very naked Wes pulling our wet clothes out of the washing machine and cursing up a storm when he figured out that the dryer wouldn’t work.
I pull on the plaid flannel shirt and ripped black jeans I packed for today, pleasantly surprised at how dry they are, and fold the rest of our clothes into a nice little stack—with Wes’s Hawaiian shirt on top, of course.
Hugging the stiff, wrinkled cotton to my chest, I scurry through the house, opening the blinds for light and checking the bathrooms for leftover antibiotics, which I find in practically every drawer and medicine cabinet I check.
“If April 23 doesn’t kill us all, antibiotic resistance will. Now, take those.”
I chuckle as my mom’s smart-ass comment from months ago surfaces in the recesses of my mind. I was recovering from a sinus infection, and she made sure I took every last damn antibiotic I’d been prescribed. She even watched me swallow them like a prison nurse.
Sudden awareness slaps the amused smirk right off my face.
A memory. Shit.
Pushing it away, I toss a fourth unfinished prescription bottle onto my stack of clothes and step into the master bathtub to open the blinds. The sliver of sky I see above the pines is still angry and gray, but it’s stopped raining. I focus on that tiny miracle. On the glimmer of hope that we might find the shelter today.
We have to find it today.
All we have left is today.
When I turn to go check on Wes, a scream bursts out of me. Pill bottles tumble into the bathtub, rattling like handfuls of gravel against the porcelain.
“Fuck,” I gasp, clutching the folded bundle to my chest. “You scared the shit outta me!”
The tall, muscular, tattooed man blocking my exit leans his uninjured shoulder against the doorframe. “You scared me first.”
He’s completely unashamed of his nudity, but I’m too concerned about his pale, clammy face and bluish, heavy eyelids to appreciate the view.
“One of the horsemen took you from me. Pulled you right out of my arms, and …” His voice trails off and he shakes his head, ridding himself of whatever torturous fate I just suffered in his mind. “When I woke up, you were gone.”
“I’m sorry.” I frown, setting the pile of clothes on the edge of the tub.
I walk over and wrap my arms around the sweet, sleepy, naked man. Wes pulls me in and kisses the top of my head, and I’m reminded how warm he is. Too warm.
“I went to find you some antibiotics,” I mutter into his bare chest.
His skin is damp and smells like sweat.
“I let your bullet wound get infected.” I feel the weight of guilt settle over me, pressing me into the floor as I say the words out loud. “I’m so sorry, Wes. I’ll take better care of it, I promise. Look”—I let go of him and head toward the bathtub, eager to get away from the disappointed look that I’m sure he’s giving me right now—“I found you some medicine.”
“Is that why I feel like shit? I thought it was just the vodka.” Wes’s joke lands on me like a slap of shame.
“Yeah, that’s why you feel like shit.”
My guts twist as I gather the bottles in my hands and scan their labels. There are two prescriptions of Keflex that, together, might make close to a whole round. I walk over to the counter and busy myself with combining the pills into one container, reading the dosing instructions—anything to keep from looking at Wes.
Instead, I find myself looking into the open, lifeless eyes of the two guys who shot at him. An image of them lying on the ground flashes before me, as clear and gruesome as a crime scene photo. Their slack facial muscles, the red mess, the glass everywhere. I killed them. I killed two people less than forty-eight hours ago, and I haven’t even thought about them since. I wince and squeeze my eyes shut, gripping the edge of the counter until the vault finally does its job and swallows the memory back down.
I should be relieved, but I’m not. My heart begins to sputter, and my palms begin to sweat. That was two memories in less than ten minutes.
What if more come? What if—
I need to take another pill. I need to take two. I can’t do this …
I vaguely register the sight of Wes’s naked form coming to stand next to me as I stare through the mirror over the sink.
“You okay?”
Righting myself, I pull on a fake grin and glance up at the reflection of his pale face. “Yeah.” I shake a white tablet into my hand and offer it to him. “Just take one of these every six hours until they’re”—Wes pops the medicine into his mouth and swallows before I’ve even finished my sentence—“gone. I, uh, have some antibiotic ointment, too, and bandages, but we need to clean your wound first.”
I feel Wes staring at me as my eyes dart around the bathroom, looking for a diversion. I feel the heat radiating off his body, trying to fight the infection I caused. And I feel the question on his lips before he speaks it.
My armpits start to sweat.
Great. Now, we’re both sweating.
A shower. We need to shower.
I run over to the shower and turn on the faucet.
“I’ll just clean your wound in here,” I call over my shoulder. “It’ll be easier this way and we might as well take advantage of the hot water before the gas gets cut off and the bomb shelter probably doesn’t have running water at all …” I’m rambling. I can hear myself talking a mile a minute, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t even look at him.
He’ll know. He’ll see all my secrets, and he’ll just know. I can’t let that happen. He said it himself; people leave when they figure out how fucked up you are, and I need him to stay. I need him to distract me. I need him to get better …
I undo the top two buttons on my flannel before my hands start to shake, and I just yank the whole thing off over my head. My bra puts up even more of a fight. I can feel Wes watching me as I struggle with the clasp.
“Hey,” he says, his voice as soft and cautious as his footsteps as he crosses the bathroom to help.
Once he reaches me, I drop my hands in defeat and let him unfasten it, concentrating on the way his fingertips feel against my skin.
“Breathe, okay?” he whispers, guiding my opened bra down my arms and onto the floor at my feet. “Just breathe.”
I do as he said, inhaling the steamy air through my nose until my lungs can’t hold anymore. My whole body sags as I exhale.
Wes’s hands grip the muscles on either side of my neck and squeeze, almost to the point of pain, before releasing and moving a few inches down to my shoulders. He squeezes and releases again, moving down to my biceps. By the time his hands are at my wrists, I’m a limp noodle, leaning backward against his hot, clammy chest.
“You’re thinking about what happened at the grocery store, aren’t you?”
I nod even though that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Just a pebble tossed on top of the mountain of shit I’m trying to keep submerged.
“Well, don’t. You saved my life by taking those guys out, and now, you’re doing it all over again with this.” Wes sweeps his hand over to the cluster of orange bottles on the counter behind us.
Dropping his chapped lips to my bare shoulder, he reaches in front of me to unbutton my jeans. Wes slides my pants and panties down my legs as I splay my trembling hands on the steamy shower door and step out of them.
Standing back up, Wes wraps his arms around me from behind. His er
ection nuzzles into the crease of my ass, but his embrace doesn’t feel sexual. It feels like he’s trying to hold me together.
“Why are you doing all this for me?”
My stomach churns out a fresh batch of acid as my heart begins to pound through my back against Wes’s chest.
How do I answer that without sounding even crazier than he already suspects that I am?
Because I think I might be in love with you.
Because, before I met you, I hadn’t smiled in a month.
Because I don’t want to lose you.
Because you’re my only reason for living.
“Look at me.”
I hold my breath as Wes turns my body around to face him. Then, with a swallow, I lift my head and accept my fate. I let him see me in all my naked, bruised, fucked up glory. Even sick, Wes’s beauty takes my breath away. His pale green eyes are rimmed in red—tired and determined, hopeless and hopeful. His dark eyebrows pull together as he chews on the inside of his bottom lip. He’s looking at me like I’m a precious puzzle, and everything else fades away. More than the pills or the memories or the fear of what tomorrow will bring, I realize that I am a slave to that look. I would do anything, give anything, to spend what’s left of my short life watching Wes watching me.
He asks his question again, “Why are you doing this, Rain? Why are you taking care of me?”
“Because … I like taking care of people?” It’s not a lie. “I was gonna start nursing school last fall, but then, you know, everything went to shit. But, seeing as how I can’t even keep my first patient from getting an infection, it’s probably for the best.”
I attempt a smile, but Wes doesn’t return it. His intense, bloodshot eyes dart back and forth between mine while he makes up his mind about me. Then, he nods.
“What?” My cheeks suddenly feel as if I’m the one with the fever.
“Nothing. Come on. Shower’s hot.”
I blink, and Wes is gone, replaced with a plume of steam from the opening and closing of the shower door.
I follow him in and freeze at the sight of his head thrown back under the spray. Rivulets of warm water crisscross over his chest and slide into the valleys between his abs. Wes is no more than a foot away from me, but I feel as though I couldn’t touch him even if I wanted to. He’s shut me out, and I don’t even know why.
I feel like, if things were normal right now, this is the part where Wes would tell me he’d call me on his way out the door, never to be heard from again.
I don’t know what I did, but I messed up. I gave the wrong answer, and now, I’m being shunned for it.
“Wes.” My wavering, raspy voice is almost completely drowned out by the roar of the shower. I clear my throat and continue, a little louder, “Wes.”
He turns to look at me but flinches and curses under his breath as the hard spray lands directly on his gaping wound.
Without thinking, I reach out and cup my hands above the gash, shielding it from the onslaught. “Just stand here for a minute,” I say, angling him so that the water hits his back and runs down his arm, cleaning out the injury without all the blunt force trauma.
Wes jerks his shoulder, pulling his arm out of my hand. “I can take it from here. You’re off the clock, Nurse Williams.” He says it like an insult. I feel it land in my gut like a sucker punch.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Nope.”
I glance up and notice immediately that the hopefulness I saw just a few minutes ago has been replaced with a cement wall, painted green and lined with spiky black lashes like razor wire.
“I just don’t wanna be your little patient, okay? I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
And there it is.
“I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
Nobody has ever taken care of Wes before. Not because they genuinely wanted to. Not because they cared.
“I care.” My eyes go wide as my own words hit my ears. I glance up at Wes in a panic, wondering if he heard me, too. Praying to God that he didn’t.
Wes stills, his bottom lip curled inward slightly as if he’s just about to start chewing on it. Blood pounds in my ears louder than the water drumming on his skin as I wait for him to react, but he doesn’t so much as blink.
Fuck.
A subtle hardness makes its way into the edges and angles of Wes’s face. His eyes narrow, just a bit. His jaw flexes. His nostrils flare. I can’t tell what he’s fighting back, but whatever it is, it scares me.
“Listen to me,” he grinds out from between his clenched teeth. “I’m not your fucking boyfriend, okay? I’m the guy who put a gun to your head two days ago. Remember? You don’t know me, you don’t fucking love me, and you never will. So, stop …” Wes shakes his head and glances around the inside of the shower, hunting for the words he needs in the swirling mist. “Stop … this. Stop pretending like you give a shit.”
His accusation makes me livid.
“Stop pretending like I don’t!” I shout, balling my hands into fists at my sides as the emotion I’ve been trying to hide from him bubbles up and boils to the surface. “Stop pretending like you’re this unlovable monster when you’re the boldest, bravest, most … most beautiful person I’ve ever met!” My fingernails dig into my palms as fury surges through my body. “And stop pretending like I’m only here because you kidnapped me. You didn’t kidnap me, and you know it. You saved me, Wes. And every time you look at me, you do it all over again!”
It happens at once, but the first thing I register is Wes’s lips on my lips. His kiss is needy and desperate and tastes like my tears. I feel his hands clutching the back of my head next. Then, I begin to process the cold, hard tiles against my back. He’s kissing me like he did at the hardware store when he realized that we weren’t going to get shot—up against the shelves, angry and relieved and unable to express it any other way.
But, this time, there are no clothes between us, no hang-ups or reservations, and no storm brewing outside. This time, when I hitch my thigh over the V of his hip, he’s able to slide against me without a barrier. This time, when I angle myself so that he’s lined up perfectly, he fills me until my back drags up the wall, and my toes barely touch the ground. This time, I feel him everywhere. His feverish skin warms me from the outside in. His palms glide over my wet curves like he’s molding them from clay. And his heart—I feel that too—is pounding away just as hard as mine.
This connection is more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s as if he becomes someone else when we touch. No, it’s as if he becomes himself. The real Wesson. The one who is loving and passionate and aching for affection. I cling to that version as he takes me higher, pressing me into the wall and wrapping my other thigh around his waist. His strength is the only thing keeping me from falling, in more ways than one, and when I feel him swell inside of me, so does my heart.
I tighten my legs around his waist and pull him even closer, wanting as much of him as I can get. And he gives it to me, driving forward until his body rocks against my sensitive flesh, triggering an explosion of convulsions between my legs and fireworks behind my eyes. Wes follows me over the edge, groaning against my lips as his pulsing, jerking surge of heat fills me deep and makes me glow.
I don’t remember how long it’s been since my last birth control shot, and honestly, I don’t care. The only thing that matters right now is that, if I die tomorrow—and I very well might—it will be with a smile on my face and Wesson Patrick Parker by my side.
Wes
I suck a breath in through my nose and exhale through my gritted teeth as I sit on the edge of Fuckface’s bed and let Rain play doctor with my bullet wound.
She wrinkles her forehead and gives me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I know it hurts. I’m almost done.”
It’s not the gaping hole in my arm that hurts; it’s the one in my fucking soul that has me looking around for something to bite down on. The one that wants to shove Rain across the room
and scream at her to stop touching me like that. It’s the part of me that’s never had somebody kiss my stupid fucking boo-boos that wants to rip the bandage out of her hand and slap it on myself. This shit is unbearable.
“There you go.” She smiles, sealing the edges of the bandage down with gentle fingers.
I catch her leaning in with her fat pink lips pursed, but I jump to my feet before she can actually kiss it. She might as well stab me in the fucking heart. Every kind thing Rain does for me is just one more reminder of everything I’ve been missing my whole fucking life. And, honestly, I’d rather not know.
I was so much happier when people used me for a paycheck from the government or a fuck boy, and I used them for a roof over my head or a place to stick my dick. I knew where I stood. Things were simple, relationships were temporary, and I knew all the rules. Hell, I’d invented them.
But this shit with Rain is fucking with my head. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t know if she actually cares about me or if she’s just using me as a stand-in for her missing boyfriend. I don’t know if I’m keeping her around because she’s useful or if I’ve gone and done the one thing I swore I would never do to another person as long as I lived.
Gotten attached.
I feel Rain watching me as I pace the floor of her real boyfriend’s bedroom like a caged animal. “We’ve gotta go.” I don’t have to tell her why. Tomorrow’s date is hanging over our heads like the blade of a guillotine.
Rain nods once. She looks younger today without all that makeup on. Her wet hair hangs limp around her face and stops bluntly at her chin. The sleeves of her plaid flannel shirt are too long and bunched in her fists. And her wide blue eyes blink up at me with the trusting innocence of a child.
This isn’t just about me anymore, and that fact makes finding the bomb shelter even more imperative.
I pull my holster on over my wifebeater and cover it with my Hawaiian shirt. I couldn’t sleep last night until I got my gun from the kitchen. I can’t ever sleep unless I know there’s a weapon within arm’s reach. Even as a kid, I used to stash a kitchen knife under my pillow at night.