by Kit Tunstall
She giggled, looking so much like the Mina that had first captivated him that his heart swelled, leaving a phantom ache in his chest. Holding her against him, he was confident for the first time that they would move beyond the obstacles that had kept them apart, that she would recover, and she would be his. He was already hers and had been from that first morning in the chicken coop. Shane hadn’t destroyed her or their chances of happiness, and the bastard would never get another chance to do so.
*****
Shane woke roughly, his alarm clock a kick to the ribs. Swearing, he rolled into a ball instinctively, glaring up at Les. “What the fuck, man?”
“Get up.” He snarled the order.
Mind racing, Shane slowly got to his knees, freezing when Les pointed his gun at his forehead. Striving to sound calm, he asked, “What’s going on, Les?”
“We followed those fuckers for hours, but lost them.”
He struggled to hide his relief, which wasn’t hard to do, since fear was gnawing away at his innards. “You want me to head out and try to find them or something? It’s the middle of the night.”
“I think you can help us find them,” muttered Les. He nodded to someone standing behind Shane.
He twisted to look behind him just as Les thumped him on the side of the head with the butt of his pistol. Stars exploded behind his eyes, and his ears rang. He was vaguely aware of Hardy or Spam binding his hands with zip ties and tried to resist. His attempts were futile, and he ended up sitting in a camp chair near the fire, his hands under his buttocks, and his legs zip-tied to the chair. “What the hell is going on?”
“We spent a lot of time behind that fucking Humvee, West. Enough time for me to realize they had almost the same plates as ours, both from the National Guard. Same paint jobs. Well, fuck, it was a coincidence, I thought. How many Humvees could there have been when The End happened? Even with most disabled, the government must have had at least a few hundred hardened vehicles scattered throughout the country.”
Shane nodded warily, making his head spin again. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the heat of the fire or anxiety.
“But then Spam pointed out something to me, West. You hit two of those fuckers, but not fatally. I’ve seen you shoot. You could hit a fly at a thousand yards, if you wanted.” With sudden viciousness, Les punched him in the face. “That leaves me thinking you were deliberately avoiding fatal shots. So I have to ask myself why you’d do that? You know what I concluded?”
Shane didn’t bother to answer as he turned his head to spit out a mouthful of saliva tinged with blood. His mouth throbbed.
“I figured you must know them.” Les hit him again. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that when that bastard shot Antaya?”
Shane shook his head to clear blood from his left eye, though the action made him woozy. “I don’t know that guy.”
“Hmm. But you did know the others, didn’t you?”
Shane remained silent, even when Les hit him again.
“You think you’re going to be strong?” Les gave a harsh laugh. “Do you really think you’re going to be able to withhold information?”
He was sweating heavily now, but still refused to answer. His bowels felt like jelly when he saw Antaya coming nearer, her knife held in almost a playful pose. He strove to keep his expression blank as the madwoman stood beside her equally crazy lover. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He spat more blood.
Les backhanded him again, making his ear ring harder on that side. “You told us your group fell apart, but who was in your group? Where were they?”
Les looked mad as a hatter, but it was the cold anger in Antaya’s gaze that really worried him. He’d seen what she could do with that damned blade. Shane clenched his fist, determined not to betray anything that would lead them to Ty or Mina. He wanted to remain silent, but his screams soon echoed throughout the clearing where they had set up camp.
*****
Shane must have blacked out, because it was mid-morning when he came to, and only Spam was in sight. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his mouth ached, his bruised ribs made it difficult to draw in a deep breath, the slash marks on his chest burned constantly, and he was pretty sure he’d pissed himself at some point. At least he hadn’t betrayed their location. He wasn’t sure if they’d finally believed he knew nothing, or if they had just gotten tired of taking turns beating him.
Shane opened his mouth to catch Spam’s attention, but his throat wouldn’t work. He tried to create some saliva and got a heavy copper taste coating his tongue. Hacking, he managed to expectorate a mouthful of the red saliva, wincing as the motion made his entire body ache. “Fuck,” he rasped.
Spam drifted over, a bottle of water in his hand. With a shitty grin, he seemed to take great delight in drinking it in front of Shane. “You look like crap, West.”
“Water.” When the other man took a long drink, Shane couldn’t help the compulsion to lunge forward. The ties on his feet kept him pinned to the camp chair, but he abruptly realized the zip tie on his hands had broken. He shifted slightly, trying to hide a wince as the burn of returning circulation filled the hands he’d been sitting on for hours.
With a long, regretful sigh, Spam finally crouched down a bit. “I guess I’d better give you a drink. Les isn’t done with you yet, and Antaya has only begun her knife play, my friend.” He extended the bottle so that the tiniest dribble of water hit Shane’s lips.
It turned his stomach to drink after the other man, but his body demanded water. He played the game of licking up the trickle a few times before asking in a tone that was less croaky, “Where are the nutjobs and their entourage?”
“Hunting.”
Hunting Shane’s people, no doubt. His throat clogged as he recalled they weren’t his people, not any longer. “And they left you all alone to guard me?”
Spam quirked a shaggy black brow. “I’m in no danger from you, West. You couldn’t kill a bunny in your current state.”
When Spam offered the bottle again, Shane made his move. He deliberately threw his body toward him, and they crashed to the ground, landing heavily. His shoulders ached in protest, but Shane blocked out the pain as he brought his unbound hands around to grasp Spam’s throat. He clung and squeezed with all his strength as the other man fought feebly for longer than a minute. His face was purple before he sagged underneath Shane, but he still didn’t let go for another minute.
With ruthless precision, Shane took Spam’s knife and slit his throat to be sure the deed was done. It gave him no pleasure, but it didn’t make his conscience twinge either. Every one of Les’s followers dead was one less he’d have to face on his way back to Mina.
And he was going after her. Ty too, if he got the chance. He wanted to save them both before Les’s group descended en masse and wiped out every last trace of the Marsden family and their associates.
With quick glances, he cut the ties binding his legs and slumped forward onto his knees. Circulation was slower to return, accompanied by that burning agony that made tears prickle behind his eyes. “Fuck,” he rasped as he finally got to his feet. He was weak and shaky, and it was a damned miracle no one else lurked around the camp. Since joining their group and receiving their Les-bestowed nicknames, Worm, Hobbit, Kerm, Jones, and Dag had been lazy fuckers. Apparently, Les had found the proper motivation to get them involved in hunting for that black guy and the farm group.
He was thankful for the small miracle, because Shane was not yet in a state to face more than one. If he hadn’t taken Spam by surprise, he wouldn’t have been able to best him either.
Shane went first to the flat of bottled water, taking one out and gulping it down greedily in seconds despite the burning pain his throat produced with each swallow. The second bottle was only a little slower to go down. He tipped most of a third bottle over his head to make himself more alert, and then used the remains poured on an old T-shirt to daub at some of the dried blood covering his c
hest and leg.
Antaya had spent a fruitless half-hour playing with him, barely asking any questions. Instead, she had focused on introducing her blade to his chest to sketch random designs in his skin before drawing a shallow line parallel to his femoral artery. A half-millimeter closer, and she would have killed him before she could have continued the interrogation. At the time, he would have welcomed that escape, but was now thankful he hadn’t died.
Yet. If they caught up with him, or he had to face them on his way back to the farm, he was a dead man. There were still nine in the group, and that would have been steep odds when he was in top form. Still, he had to try. He couldn’t just let Mina die, and he was certain Les and Antaya were driven enough to keep searching until they found the refuge housing that black guy who had robbed them of something they’d held precious. They wouldn’t let it go and would eventually stumble across the farm or run across the group on another scavenging mission. He couldn’t leave her there.
Shane had always planned to go back for her, but not under these circumstances, and not in this weakened state. Mina herself might be able to kick his ass if they faced off right then. He’d have to extract her in a way that incapacitated her until they were far enough away from the farm that she wouldn’t be able to make it back easily if she managed to escape on foot. If he could secure Ty, that would almost surely buy her compliance, because she wouldn’t be able to walk away from her nephew. Then he could keep them both safe.
Which brought him to the issue of transportation. The farm was a few hours east with a vehicle, but days—maybe weeks in his current state—if he traveled by foot. Of course the Humvee was gone, as were the two motorcycles Dingle had managed to get going again via bypassing their electronic systems before his demise.
There was one left that Dingle had been working on, and he limped over to it. Shane had some knowledge of mechanics, but not Dingle’s level. To his pleasant surprise, Dingle had almost finished the project, and he was able to complete the last few steps. Thirty minutes later, the motorcycle roared to life, though the motion of getting it started made him scream in agony. It idled roughly, but he hoped it would cover the distance. It was his only option.
Shane packed his gear, and anything useful from Spam, in just a few minutes. Though he had maintained a watchful eye during his activities, he saw no one. The sensation of being watched made his skin crawl, and he tried to dismiss it. Les wouldn’t be standing around watching him escape, so the feeling of eyes on him had to have come from his own paranoia.
He climbed onto the motorcycle with a wince and smothered curse. His jaw ached when he strapped on the helmet, and he thought he might pass out from the pain that appeared in the wake of kick-starting the bike again. He sobbed as the vibrations made every inch of him throb. Only will power gave him the impetus to cling to the old bike and ride it forward.
The desperate need to reach Mina kept him going, though he hurt in a way he’d never experienced before. Had Mina been in this kind of pain after he’d beaten her? Twice, he reminded himself with a vicious twist of his lips. He had physically expressed his rage upon the woman he loved twice, like an out-of-control animal. The ride and its accompanying agony suddenly seemed like just penance as he recalled just what he had done to her.
Chapter Twenty
Mina had slept lightly, in tune with Coop’s every movement throughout the night. He’d tossed and turned a bit, along with issuing an occasional grunt of pain, but his sleep had been more restful than she had expected, especially since he had continued to decline Emme’s willow bark tea or any herbs that might help him sleep. So when he pulled her flush against him, she was instantly awake, eyes wide as she looked at him for signs of pain or fever.
He moaned, but it seemed like a sound of delight, not agony. The way he rubbed his hardening erection against the apex of her thighs supported that supposition, as did his morning greeting. “This is the best pain relief ever.”
She grinned, though concern still laced her tone. “And are you in pain?”
“Oh, a little.” He grimaced as he tried to roll his shoulder. “Okay, a moderate amount, but it isn’t going to distract me from the pliant, willing woman beneath me.”
She rolled her eyes. “First, I’m beside you, not beneath you, and what makes you think I’m pliant or willing?”
“This,” he said as he smoothly flipped their position so that she lay under him. Mina gasped when he slipped his hand under the waist of her nightgown and into the side of her panties. His thick finger stroked her gently and was soon coated from her juices. “Very warm and wet. Willing?”
Mina bit her lip. “I am, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’ll risk it.”
His departing finger left her feeling bereft, and she shifted restlessly to fill the ache. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much for you?”
Coop grinned, shaking his head with an incorrigible motion. “Nope. Nothing’s going to stop me once we get started.”
“I really shouldn’t let you do this then. You could hurt yourself…” Mina trailed off with a moan as Coop traced his fingers around the rapidly hardening nipple pressing through the thin cotton of her nightdress.
“You think I should stop?” As he asked, he gently twisted her nipple, plucking the plump contours to coax them to grow harder still.
“God, no, don’t ever stop.” Mina cupped his face and pulled his head down to hers to capture his lips for a long, slow kiss. Their tongues met and mated in a leisurely fashion as they explored each other. She could have spent hours just savoring his sweet kisses.
Coop soon deepened the kiss, and she yielded, wanting to follow the pace he set to avoid hurting him unnecessarily. She tangled her fingers in his hair and parted her lips wider to allow his tongue to plunge deeper inside her. He thrust it in mimicry of how his cock would later penetrate her, leaving Mina writhing and gasping with need.
When he moved carefully, she released her hold on his hair and transferred her hands to his shoulders. With exaggerated care, Coop used his teeth to slide down the straps of her nightgown until the fabric rested below her nipples.
The way he licked his lips, his expression one of aching desire, made her stomach curl with reciprocal longing. Her nipples tightened even before he took one gently between his lips, stroking and flicking his tongue across the sensitive bud. Coop gripped her hips, not letting her arch against him the way she needed, as he alternated his mouth on her breasts. “Please,” she half-sobbed when he finished off a hard suck by biting her sensitized nipple, but denied her any relief by keeping her hips trapped. “You’re killing me, Coop.”
He chuckled and returned to her mouth for another kiss before focusing his attention on undressing her completely, including her panties. Coop wore an expression of concern when he asked, “Is this okay?”
She blinked before nodding. Confusion lifted as she realized he thought she might be afraid after her previous experiences with Shane. To her pleasure and relief, she hadn’t given the other man a second thought. “It’s almost perfect,” she said in a tone thick with desire.
Coop arched a brow. “Almost?”
“You should be naked too.” As Coop leaned back to sit on his calves, Mina sat up, stretching like a cat and enjoying the way his eyes flared with heat as they fastened on her breasts thrusting forward. She leaned toward him to reach for the zipper of his pants. He’d been shirtless due to the injury, but she wanted him even more exposed. She wanted them vulnerable together, to see each other’s perfection and flaws. This was no hurried quickie done behind Shane’s back. This time, she wanted to enjoy every aspect of Coop, to take the time to appreciate his body and his technique.
After helping him with the pants, both because she wanted to and because he actually required assistance with one arm barely functioning, Mina gently pushed him down onto his back and straddled his knees. His eyes were wide with surprise when she lowered her face toward his stomach.
He put a hand on her
forehead. “You don’t have to.”
She turned away from the gentle block to resume her course. “I want to,” she whispered right before taking the head of his cock inside her mouth. They both groaned at the moment, and she sighed with contentment before placing nibbling, teasing kisses around the corona. His hips jerked with each light brush of her teeth against his flesh, and she grasped them to try to hold him still, much as he had done to her.
Mina let his length slide into her mouth, taking as much as she could before she began sucking softly and bobbing her head. She used her tongue to tease the underside of his cock, focusing on the sensitive point with all the nerves. He was soon thrusting against her, ignoring her attempts to hold him still.
She continued sucking, kissing, and licking until the hand she used to cup his testicles detected they were tightening as his cock spasmed. He was on the cusp of coming when she withdrew, giving him an evil grin.
He groaned. “Why are you torturing me?”
Mina laughed. “Oh, that’s easy. Because I can.” She winked. “Besides, I want you to come inside me.” She started to slide upward, but paused when he put up his hand. “Is something wrong?”
He frowned. “You can’t possibly be ready. I haven’t done anything for you.”
Mina took his hand as she scooted up his body. Drawing his fingers into her mouth, she sucked and licked in a similar fashion to the way she’d treated his erection. “Feel what you’ve done to me.” Guiding his hand between her thighs, she slipped two of his fingers inside her, along with one of her own. Moaning, she pressed against his digits. “Do you still doubt I’m ready?”
Coop groaned as she shifted his fingers to her clitoris, directing him to stroke her in just the right way around the outside of the sensitive bud. She arched against his hand, rubbing her opening against his palm as she used his fingers to pleasure herself. She was slick with need and knew it wouldn’t take long for her to climax when Coop was inside her. “I’m so ready. Are you?”