by Gina Kincade
“Come with me, babe,” he growled. “Just let go.”
Wylee closed her eyes and tightened her muscles around him. She shuddered and screamed his name.
He moaned. “Yes, yes, there you go…”
Ecstasy washed through her system. She threw her head back and fought for air. The orgasm rippled from her core to her toes and fingertips, its power stunning her. The warmth of his release spilled into her and brought on her second release right behind the first. Her cries echoed in the shower enclosure and filled her own ears. She sounded like a woman in love.
I am a woman in love.
He withdrew from her. She turned and collapsed in his arms. “That was incredible—you are incredible.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you.” His smile took her breath away, rows of stark white set in the most handsome tanned face she’d ever seen.
She wound her arms around his neck and let the hot water pulsate on her backside. “Well, that’s not entirely true, but I’m glad it was me.” Wylee rose on tiptoe and closed her mouth over his. Wet, warm, salty, and sweet. She slid her tongue around and traced his lips.
He leaned away but kept his hands on her ass cheeks. His expression sobered. He held her gaze and murmured, “There will never be anyone else but you, Wylee. Never.”
She stared at his shoulder, avoiding the love reflected in his eyes and rooted deep in his soul. The outside world intruded again. The doom. Their situation couldn’t get any worse. They could make love and forget for twenty minutes, even thirty, but until the plague was eradicated, there wouldn’t be anyone else for either of them even if they wanted it that way. Hell, she’d rather have the competition of a hundred hot chicks than to be living in this dire situation.
Bring them on. Bring on the fight. She would welcome it with fists up and scathing words at the ready. She would fight for Gabe to the very end.
Only it wouldn’t be that way. As far as they knew, the world as they had experienced it no longer existed.
“Come here.” He shut off the water, took her hand, and led her out of the shower. Fresh towels were stacked on a nearby shelf. He snatched two and tossed one around his neck then he flicked the other one at her ass.
She squealed at the sting and ran barefoot across the plush bedroom carpeting to the bed. “Stop!”
He tossed the towel at her and flipped back the comforter. “Get in.” He patted the sheets. “I want you to relax while I go and grab us something to eat from the kitchen. Then I’m going to give you the best massage you’ve ever had, even better than the couple’s one we got at the spa on Barracuda Island. Next, we’re going to sleep for three days solid. And when we wake up, the world will look much brighter.”
“Nothing can top that massage, and you know it.”
He lifted a shoulder and grinned. “I’ll damn well give it a try, at least.”
She eyed the thick mattress and fluffy pillows. Exhaustion, both mental and physical, had taken its toll. And now that he brought it to her attention, she was starving. Her growling stomach could attest to that. Now that all the grime had been hosed off and she’d been satisfied thoroughly by him, she really could use a meal, some more pampering, and a long nap.
“Go ahead,” Gabe coaxed with a jut of his chin.
Wylee dove in and rolled around like an indulgent kitten. Cool cotton and the soft mattress and pillows cradled her naked body. Flowery fabric softener wafted around her and made her think of sheets flapping on the line on a sunny day. “Oh, all right.” She giggled. “You’ve talked me into it. But only if—”
His gasp tore through the room and interrupted her words. She lay on her side, her legs bent. Her gaze followed his, down along her leg. “What?”
“What is that? How did you get that scratch on your ankle?”
She lifted her leg and located the faint marks. Her mind did a rewind, back to that moment right before Gabe found her, accidentally knocked her out, and brought her here.
The leeches. They’d had her surrounded, and…
She sat upright and studied the abrasions closer. Two definite sets of teeth marks were embedded in her skin, but they were smaller impressions, like from a child. She recalled glancing down to see her boot torn. And kicking at whatever swarmed around her feet…at the snarling little boy of about three—only three!
Shit. She’d helped Gabe operate on children that size.
Her vision blurred and her pulse leaped into her throat, choking her. Jesus, no. Please, no.
“Oh, my God. I forgot all about it. I was fighting them. They had me overpowered right before you found me. And I-I think… Gabe, please tell me I didn’t get bitten.”
Chapter Three
Gabe had never experienced such panic in his life. Not even when the damn rotters were after him.
He didn’t want to admit it, but the imprint on her ankle appeared to be from the teeth marks of a small human. She’d been bitten. It gutted him to imagine her as one of them—gurgling, shuffling along with spittle trailing from her mouth. He thrust a hand through his hair and forced down the need to vomit.
What should he do? He recalled her torn boot when he’d cleaned her and tucked her in bed. Some doctor he was. He hadn’t even noticed it. But he did now, and if he had any balls at all, he’d kill her to prevent further spread of the disease.
But goddamn, just look at her…
Long layers of blond hair framed her heart-shaped face and emphasized her slightly too-wide mouth. Stunning crystal-blue eyes said “make me come” with a single bat of her dark lashes. And those naked curves, that sexy, petite body. He shook his head.
How could he do it?
He loved her and wanted her to become his wife.
But the possibility of her feeding on flesh, killing more people, presented too much of a risk. He was pissed at this crazy epidemic—and pissed at himself for not being able to figure out what the hell was going on here in Twilight Cove.
What he did know from recent experience was that people usually turned within hours of being infected.
He glanced at his wristwatch, pulled in a deep breath, and swallowed against the growing thickness in his throat.
Two hours. It had been approximately two short hours.
Allowing her to become one of them just wasn’t going to happen in his lifetime. It was time for action.
“Get dressed.” He snatched some clothes from the bureau and tossed them at her. He’d been holed up in this stifling funeral home for the last week, and had made his runs outside the gate for supplies. Locating her something to wear among all the carnage had been a real fucking challenge.
Because at the time, he hadn’t even been sure if she was still alive.
She blinked, looking more gorgeous and adorable than ever with her luscious mouth hanging open in stunned confusion. “Black leather pants and jacket? Are you serious?”
“Yes. You know it can get cool at night this time of year. Besides, the leather can provide protection from…” He jammed his legs into fresh jeans and pulled a clean T-shirt over his head. But he couldn’t keep his gaze from sliding back to her while he laced up his boots. Desire stirred in his loins and damn near made him forget the seriousness of their situation, and the kneejerk reaction to dive into bed with her suddenly became the hardest thing he’d ever had to resist in his life.
“From bites?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “Insects, too, of course.”
“Of course.” Her mouth slanted in smart-assed sarcasm.
She slid off the mattress, fumbled for the tank shirt included with the pants and jacket, and yanked it over her head. Son of a bitch, the neon pink looked so hot on her, it brought out the natural color of her lips and the gleam in her round eyes. He dropped his gaze to her breasts and resisted the urge to reach out and graze his thumbs over the pebbled peaks. A groan erupted from his throat. Braless. He’d forgotten to get her a clean bra. It caused the ribbed cotton fabric to hug them. And it caused his unruly dick to twitch a
nd ache like a motherfucker.
“But, Gabe, I wanted to—”
“Wylee.”
“What?” She lifted her chin in defiance and clutched the leather pants to her flat stomach.
He growled and zipped his jeans, more to keep his cock in check than anything. “I said get dressed. Now.”
* * *
“Why are the undead avoiding this place?” Wylee whispered out of the corner of her mouth, sliding through the breach in the enclosure. Gabe had patched the loose fence section days ago before heading out on one of many hunting expeditions to scour the city and locate Wylee. A broken latch on a rear gate had left a gap for crazers to penetrate the funeral-home perimeter. He’d rigged the opening with a six-foot-tall board and bungees intertwined in the stable iron posts.
“Could be because those buried in the graveyard and any corpses left down in the morgue are full of formaldehyde instead of warm blood. Not exactly what they have a hankering to slurp on.”
She walked in front of him, her ass swaying in the tight pants.
Damn, but she looked good enough to slurp on in that leather getup.
Stop it, you asshole. She could be turning into one of them before your very eyes. Get her to the hospital before you ever touch her again.
“Possibly. Or maybe the fence has been closed all this time and they just haven’t had a chance to sample some good ol’ formaldehyde.” She shot him a mocking glance. “So, where are we going, anyway?”
He secured the hooks and lumber and then trailed her, catching her warm, soapy scent. The image of her naked in the shower, leaning into the tile and taking him in…shit, he had to stop and focus. He scanned the quiet street and tried to think of something less dangerous. “Hospital. To the lab. Take a right on Normal Avenue, but keep to the shadows.”
She checked the security of the machete on her hip and tucked the semiautomatic close to her waist, under her arm. “I know the way to the hospital, Gabe. Remember, I used to work there, too? And I also damn well know how to—fuck.”
He would have to agree with that.
But her curse word hadn’t been meant literally. It had been meant to indicate trouble. A group of about six undead lumbered toward them. Their snarls and growls escalated as they neared, and the decaying odor overpowered Gabe and Wylee before the small mob reached them. One female stiff’s head lay cockeyed on her shoulder, as if it had been partially ripped off. But she continued to creep forward, dragging one leg, and make her hunger known by baring her rotten teeth and oozing mucus through them.
His gaze dropped to the rotter’s swollen belly. Son of a bitch, she’d been pregnant before she’d turned. His chest constricted. He tried to imagine what the woman had looked like as a human…what the baby would have been like.
Gabe wanted children something fierce. He wanted them with Wylee.
“Get back!” Wylee slid the machete from its holster at her hip and raised it with precise aim. Moonlight glinted off the steel blade. She swung the weapon and whacked the woman’s head the rest of the way off. It rolled around on the sidewalk and landed at Gabe’s feet, still snarling but weaker. He gazed into the bloodshot, bulging eyes, and he could swear he caught a flicker of life.
“Gabe. What are you waiting for?” Wylee aimed the gun at a second monster and blew its head off. Brain matter splattered on a nearby coffee-shop window. The man’s emaciated, now headless body stumbled and plowed into the window, bony shoulders first. The sound it made on contact resembled the boom of a small bomb. Shattered glass peppered the sidewalk and buried the dying decayer.
There were four left. For now.
Wylee speared an old man and then took him out with a single shot to the eyesocket.
Gabe moved toward the others. He lowered the gun. One particularly smaller shuffler caught his attention.
A boy of about eight limped closer. He wore a tattered blue-and-white baseball uniform. It hung on his skeletal frame. Gabe lifted his weapon and held the child targeted in the notch of the rifle’s sight guide. Their gazes connected. Gabe detected the pain and fear, hunger and need for flesh. The boy’s steps made a clicking noise on the asphalt as he shuffled across the street. Something caused him to falter and stumble.
Gabe chanced a look at the child’s feet.
Cleats.
He still wore his baseball cleats.
Which meant he’d turned fast, possibly attending his game feeling fine, able to function, then the fever had swept him before the seventh-inning stretch and the illness had swooped in to claim him.
God, he’d always wanted a boy to teach baseball to, play pitch and catch with, tutor him on getting his swing down. Maybe see him hit the big leagues some day…
Wylee’s scream invaded Gabe’s thoughts and distracted him. He whirled and found her pinned to the street by an apparently newly infected rotter. His obese body hadn’t had time to wither away to bones, and his suit jacket and dress shirt had no rips and few stains.
Gabe raced over and booted the guy in the jaw. It didn’t faze him. The diseased man blinked as if in slow motion and went back to his catch—Wylee.
She kicked and swung her fists and squirmed beneath the man’s bulk. If not for their dire situation, Gabe would have laughed his ass off. The fiend outweighed her by a good two hundred pounds; still, she put up a damn good fight. Her gun and blade were just out of her reach, but Gabe already had his fingers curled around the handle of his weapon, and lifted it to the screaker’s temple.
“Cover your face, babe.”
She threw her arms up, turned her face away, and squeezed her eyes shut. “Hurry. Please, just hurry.”
Gabe pressed the trigger and pushed the plague-ridden guy off her with his foot. The man tumbled to the side, and Wylee scrambled up, snatching her semiautomatic and machete off the ground.
“Holy shit,” she spit out, gasping for air. “I thought that was—Gabe! Behind you.”
A quick glance to the left had Gabe pausing again. It was the boy. He noted a few more rotters emerging from the alley, inching around the corner of the shop. “We’ve got a few more coming.” He jutted his chin toward the mob. “Get rid of them while I take care of him.”
Wylee popped off several shots and left a pile of bodies strewn from the alleyway to the intact window on the opposite side of the shop’s door.
Gabe strode to the young undead child, knelt in front of him, and gripped his upper arms. The boy wheezed and wriggled, but he was easier to hold in check than the grown ones. “I’ve always wanted a boy. With you, Wylee,” he called over his shoulder while staring into the crazed eyes of the innocent child.
Leather crunched when Wylee tucked away her weapons and knelt next to him. He caught her fresh scent. It drove away the stench of decaying flesh, the metallic odor of blood. A tear escaped one eye and trailed slowly down her smooth cheek. “I’ve always wanted a little girl. With you, Gabe.” She placed her soft palm on the back of Gabe’s hand and squeezed it, giving the boy—and Gabe—a small measure of comfort.
The kid calmed somewhat. His gaze twitched, trekking from Gabe to Wylee and back again.
“Oh, my God. Is he…?” Wylee swallowed and blinked back more tears. Her husky voice exacerbated Gabe’s anguish yet it seemed to soothe the boy. His whining calmed somewhat. She pinched the kid’s chin, careful to keep her fingers away from his mouth, and turned his face back toward her. “Do you think he can tell that just because we’re killing them, we’re not bad people?”
He sighed, and even though he could swear he saw a flicker of something…alive in the boy’s eyes, Gabe said, “No. No, I don’t think he can tell anything. He’s gone.”
Had he been a pitcher? A first baseman or an outfielder? Gabe longed to know, but it was obviously irrelevant. He studied the face beneath the catatonic, crazed mask. Something nagged at him. What was it?
“Wylee…”
Her eyes widened and she paled a few shades. “What?”
“Does…does he look familiar to
you?” Sun-kissed brown hair, eyes the color of milk chocolate, skin that looked as if it had been sunburned recently. Probably during those ballgames.
She dragged her gaze from Gabe’s eyes to the boy. “Uh, no. Well, I mean, it’s kind of hard to tell, with the…well, you know, with his skin decomposing like that.”
Stupid thought. Of course he didn’t know the boy. And he was wasting time. He nodded and replied, “You’re right. Doesn’t matter, anyway. We need to eliminate him.”
Eliminate. Had that ever been a part of his vocabulary before this outbreak?
“I-I don’t want to…I don’t want to kill him. I can’t do it.” Wylee stood and spun on her boot heel. She folded her arms and presented her back to him. “I already slaughtered the one who…who gnawed on my ankle.” Her shoulders shook with her silent sobs. Pale, moon-kissed hair streamed down her back, over the dark leather, and billowed in the late-night breeze.
His chest ached with the need to go to her, enfold her in his arms, kiss her until the tears and despair vanished. God, how he wished they were back on Barracuda Island, vacationing in the sun. But that was impossible. Things were very different now. He had to do what he had to do. It was time.
Gabe drew a dagger from the sheath anchored around his thigh. He swallowed and tore his gaze from the boy’s glassy eyes. Then he embedded the blade in the small skull, jerked it back out, and watched the slight form drop to the street in a heap of blood and bones.