Quake

by K. R. Alexander

  The towel dropped to my hips. A night breeze tingled my skin with his touch, making my nipples stiffen and breasts more sensitive. In a moment he would reach around, cup them, step up so his chest hugged my back. I shut my eyes, breaths deepening, so thankful for him and Trent and all of them, along with this place and our continued survival, my knees felt weak with it.

  He did not move closer, only rubbed up and down my back, loosening shoulders, smoothing muscles like a sculptor. Then another kiss at the back of my neck, a brush of warmth and whiskers, and he retreated.

  “Much better?” Voice amused, yet sensuous and soft.

  “Yes.” I pulled up the towel to rewrap before I faced him. “Yes … better. Thank you.” I was going to say something else. What could I do for him or was there anything to be done for his injuries, but Jackson was already turning away.

  “See you in a minute. Bathing destiny awaits.”

  Chapter 14

  Like me, Trent hadn’t lingered in the bath.

  Shivering without Jackson, I pulled one of the winter coats on over the towel and went to get clothes I’d left in the bathroom while the two guys transitioned. I also wanted a look at Trent, who was just scrubbing the last soap off his face in the weak light and bit of mirror with a washcloth, standing bent over at the counter with a towel around his waist.

  Jackson had the next bath running so it was loud in there. I just grinned at Trent until he looked up, caught my eye, and returned it.

  “How old are you?” I had to raise my voice a bit. “Because you suddenly look alarmingly underage.”

  He laughed. “Thanks, I guess. My sister says I’ll be carded until I’m forty. Good genes. I’m twenty-one and a late-bloomer with school, took a couple years to work.”

  “Same for me. That’s why I’m twenty-three and haven’t finished a three-year program. Did you just get to Seattle U last August? That’s why we hadn’t met yet.”

  “Yeah, that’s when I—” He cleared his throat and stepped around Jackson, who was bringing in another pot.

  We moved out to the hall while Jackson started to strip off.

  “What were you going to say?” Headed for light in the living room, then kitchen where I found a towel for Trent’s hair.

  “Can’t tell you,” he said.

  “Because then you’d have to kill me? What is it?”

  He toweled his head, looking away. It wasn’t easy to see with only the camp lantern on the coffee table, but the house was so tiny it reached into the kitchen by the empty wall to the weeds and trees out back. Trent had his own bruises but not so bad as Jackson, who’d protected us, deliberate or otherwise, as we’d clung on in the water. In hindsight, I don’t know how we did it, the strength now seeming superhuman. Even Jackson wasn’t a bodybuilder, while Trent was lean and rangy, visually filled out by tanned skin tone and sparse, dark body hair.

  “Go on,” I reached playfully to touch Trent’s elbow while he dried. “What was it?”

  “I was just going to say … that was when… You know.” He shrugged and twirled the hand towel, looking around as if to admire the torn up room.

  “What do I know?”

  “That August was when I first noticed you.” Then in a rush, “But some girls might think that’s kind of creepy.”

  “You’ve been spying on me since August? You could have just introduced yourself, Trent.”

  “That wouldn’t have worked. You’d have noticed me. So you wouldn’t have been, you know … unaffected.”

  “Wait…” My smile faded. “You’ve been filming me since August.”

  “Of course not.” Flapping his hands like Jackson. “No, just, maybe since September, and only a couple tiny clips. Tiny. Like, walking across campus in a bigger scene, that’s it. Nothing like … invasive. I don’t follow people around. I just … if you happened to be there, eating with your friends, and I happened to be … sitting under the tree or wherever… Almost never. It was framing and storyboarding and setup, not actual shooting.”

  “You watched me on campus, imagining how you would film me in a movie? Setting up shots with me?”

  Trent looked relieved that I’d caught on. “Totally, yeah. So it was nothing.”

  “For four months and change?”

  “Yeah, see? It wasn’t so long. I would have introduced myself eventually. We all had spring projects coming up. I was going to ask you to be in my short. I’d been meaning to forever but I was afraid you’d be all, ‘Oh, no, I can’t act,’ even though you’d be perfect.”

  “You see the weirdest things in me. But that one, ‘No, I can’t act,’ is spot on.”

  “I would have anyway. I had to, except the film project was canceled. Along with everything else that couldn’t be done alone in front of a laptop.”

  “And suddenly the whole film year is studying porn.”

  Trent laughed. “I watched a lot of anime. Not of an X-rated sort. I’m not even into animation, but the way they use the camera and angles gets so dynamic in animation, I was rocking out some serious anime binges by Easter.”

  “Glad we saved you from that fate.”

  “No, come on, there’s good shit in those old shows and movies. I’ll show you the best anime sometime, all right?”

  “Sure.” I grinned. “You stalker.”

  “Don’t be upset about that. I wasn’t following you around and—”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I’ve just thought so much about how to frame you. I’ve thought … like now…” He reached slowly to touch my cheek, turning my face a little to the right, more profile to him, the light playing across my left cheek and temple. “Wow…” Under his breath. “See? That’s what I mean about every light and every actress and actor, every set and emotion, all having their own perfect frame, all speaking to you.”

  He’d been talking about this sort of thing on the road today. I still didn’t know, but his voice captivated me with his own conviction and a tight-throated passion as he looked at me.

  He used one finger to push my hair behind my ear, then changed his mind and brushed it forward, studying the effect as he drew a fingertip down my jawline.

  “What would you do for this scene?” I asked softly, looking to the darkness of the far wall since he’d turned my head, kids toys, old books and DVDs, tossed everywhere from their shelves, scattered through puzzles and construction paper and hundreds of markers and crayons.

  “I’d go close, see your eyes, your lips, the lines of your face. Because it’s not about the darkness around you. It’s about how you feel within the darkness.”

  I looked at him, couldn’t help it, hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I swallowed, eyes locked on his, very close. “What about you? If you’re near enough to see that in my eyes, we won’t get your face.”

  “I’m not here. I’m just the camera.”

  “Of course you’re here. You have to put yourself in both places for these scenes. DP and cast. How would you show you?”

  “Well … if I were a bit closer I wouldn’t have to reframe too much…” His lips were already softer after hydrating, moist and inviting. I shifted fully to face him so his body pressed into mine. Rigid force rubbed my towel, across my hip, up to my navel. I gasped against his mouth, having had no idea how intensely his own body was already responding when he touched me.

  It wasn’t usually my first move—rather start out above the belt—but he startled me as much as when I’d jumped back that morning on the stairs, and life was precious and time fleeting and human contact one of our greatest gifts. I grabbed his dick through the towel.

  Trent’s reaction was far more violent than I’d anticipated. He shoved me into the kitchen counter, heavier and stronger than he looked, hands going to my face, mouth covering mine, while he thrust against my hand. I yanked down his towel, pinned between our thighs, freeing his erection to spring up between us, rubbing my pelvis, one layer of cotton before skin.

  Struggling to breathe past his mouth, gaspi
ng with his tongue trying to climb down my throat, I gripped him, fairly wrestling with his penis as he kept pushing. I needed lube to stroke him comfortably, thinking at once of tasting him, licking down his shaft while Trent groaned for more, then working him over with mouth and hands, hot and wet. I couldn’t get out from under this kiss, being eaten alive, to go down, attention drawn to new wetness between my legs. Forget hanging onto him—trying to hold a bucking bronco. Why not let him go? He could lift me against the counter edge, my legs twisting around him, and pierce me in seconds, just as he’d sprung free of the towel, filling me in the space of a breath.

  I burned for him, wet heat tickling the insides of my thighs, moving out a leg, opening up. I didn’t give a damn about protection any more than the virus traveling between us, or the whole world blowing up tomorrow. We had right now; gifts that were isolation’s antithesis.

  Before I could wet his skin, I felt pre-cum across my towel, and got my hand over his glans to rub down his shaft. Fondling his balls at the same time, lifting and squeezing apparently harder than he liked, I gave him my slick hand to thrust into, pushing up between us. A minute inside me, less, and he would tip me over, so eager for him I was sweating, already feeling his long dick surge into me.

  The house was wide open, one wall gone, doors missing, but I didn’t think anyone was likely to walk in on us. We had two guys tinkering with a radio in the other place, and two girls improvising a spa day.

  Anyway, I couldn’t think of anything but Trent, needing him, craving his body like craving food and water.

  He broke the fevered kissing to bite my neck, pulling me in, and cried out in a muffled exclamation against my skin. Thick liquid sprayed my hand, up into the towel and his own chest hair as he pinned us together, turning the phantom sensation of him inside me to the vision of this emission pumping through my body, a blazing fire brighter than joined skin heat.

  He wrapped his arms around me, kissing my neck, clinging tight. More, more, please, but I couldn’t be upset with him. I just held on in return, understanding exactly how frantic it could feel to find touch after months apart.

  I twisted my fingers into his hair, pulling his head in, wrapping as tightly around him as if clinging to the edge of a cliff.

  Chapter 15

  Jackson complained about clothes, state of preexisting ones, limited options on others, as he returned to us in the living room. I was way ahead of him, sitting on the quilt in my towel, wishing I had a kingdom to give for clean underwear and another go with Trent, when Jackson strolled in.

  Trent was still catching his breath beside the missing wall, towel around his waist.

  “Aren’t you handsome?” I smiled up at Jackson as he moved into the light and dropped to his knees with a sigh on the quilt. “That mountain man look you were starting to cultivate didn’t suit.”

  Jackson rubbed his chin. “Could get a lot worse before it gets better. Who knows what’s next? You might learn to love a few burly mountain men in your life.”

  “Yes,” I laughed. “I might. Should I take it back right now? I don’t know about you, but I’m bringing a razor, bar of soap, and deodorant when I leave this town, I don’t care where we’re going.”

  “Or staying?” Trent said from the wall. “Where else is there to go?”

  “East,” Jackson said. “Why sit on our hands here? Where the fuck are rescue teams? Where’s the Red Cross?”

  “Portland?” I shrugged. “Let’s not try to figure everything out tonight. That’s for in the morning, light of day, company meeting. Our CEO always has ideas.”

  Jackson snorted. “Don’t forget we were the ones to ride out the wave with you.”

  “What are you talking about? I’ll never forget that.”

  “It would be a shame for you to ignore the little guys and gallop off with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome at a time like this.”

  “I’m doing no such thing.” I shoved Jackson in his unbruised side with my foot, being unable to reach with a hand. “He’s not interested. For all we know he’s married. But that does describe him, so I’m glad you noticed.”

  “Married,” Jackson scoffed. “Between cheating and open relationships, there are more marriages involving a third party today than there are with two.”

  “Nonsense—come on.” Small eye roll. “I don’t know if that’s pessimistic or optimistic in your case.”

  He caught my foot and I started to shift, happy for another massage, give him both feet. Instead, I shrieked and jumped. Jackson was tickling me—and I hadn’t realized until that moment how susceptible I still was, having thought I’d grown out of ticklish feet.

  Jackson laughed and threw a coat at me. “You’re shivering. Put some clothes on, woman.” Taking on a crabby old dude tone.

  I’d been so hot after Trent, still boiling for more, I’d flopped down with a coat below me instead of about my bare shoulders. Now the night’s chill was creeping through the room.

  “My clothes smell like mold and death and sewage,” I said, lifting a coat. “We’ve got to find more to wear. Here, outlet mall, next door, I don’t know… I hate the idea of taking people’s personal things. I don’t think they would mind if we sheltered in their home under the circumstances, but that’s not the same. I’m hanging my hat on the outlet mall.”

  While I spoke and started on coat sleeves, Jackson was suddenly over in my face, up on his knees.

  “Oh, hello—should we check your scratches?” I had to lean back from him.

  “I changed my mind,” he talked over me, yanking the coat out of my hands. With no transition or shift in tone, he pressed his mouth to mine, almost knocking me flat. I grabbed his shoulders to stay up, yet tried to pull away at the same time.

  Oh, shit… No matter my better impulses telling me he was kind of being a jerk, I knew in five seconds that I wasn’t going to pull away.

  Chapter 16

  What did Trent think? I didn’t worry about him right then, but remembered in a moment that Trent wasn’t privy to how Jackson and I had met. It was easy to forget that this might be a little upsetting to Trent. I’m ashamed now to admit I didn’t even think of it at first, or I’d have stopped Jackson and said something, felt like a liar.

  As it was, Jackson swept over me like a heatwave, shoving the coat away, cupping my face, instantly pulling at my towel the same way I’d grabbed for Trent’s groin, like niceties of courtship and physically getting to know another person didn’t matter anymore.

  I might normally have called him on it. I like authority in a guy. I really do. But total obnoxious bozo is not my cup of tea. We hadn’t even really kissed before this, and he’d been sweet and non-pushy about the massage. Now Jackson was climbing on me, with an audience, shoving me onto the floor, yanking away the tucked edge of my towel like it was a wrestling match. The other Jackson, non-therapist, was here with a vengeance.

  I grabbed the towel, pushed back, weight of him crushing, imagining again the sensations Trent had given me, the rush and heat, the way I craved him reaching into me—yet I’d had nothing but the pleasure of his pleasure.

  With a gasp at his touches, I lay back, tipping my chin up while Jackson followed, kissing down my throat, licking my skin like honey, tugging the towel wide open like a notebook lying flat. What would he write into me?

  Again, cool air tingled my skin and made my nipples tense. Jackson’s lips were on them in a moment, pulled deep into the oven of his mouth, sucking, painful, then moving to the next with glistening saliva making them look glazed in the white light from the camp lantern across my right side and his left as he straddled me, his towel also gone.

  I longed to see his body, his arousal, what he was wanting to offer me. I couldn’t with him bent over me like this and pulled at his face instead. Jackson returned for long kisses, touching, tasting, exploring my lips and tongue and face while we both heated up.

  It was only as he slid back down, going again for my breasts, kissing across tender skin, sucking my nipples
with painful force, that I thought of Trent watching us. I lifted my knees against Jackson, thrilled with a physical response at the idea of our audience, or else partner. I’d have welcomed even more, though discounting all of the others in our group. Except…

  But no, he wouldn’t be into this sort of thing. And probably in a relationship, no matter what Jackson said. No matter the intensity he radiated with the commanding voice and black eyes, and how all that might come together to be one powerful… No…

  I focused on Jackson as his beautiful body inched down mine, kissing and tasting. Traveling until I raised and spread my knees, and he kept tasting. He reached with his tongue, pressing forward, making me cry out in a gasped, “Oh,” while I rocked my hips up to meet him.

  I was tingling, burning, eager for him, when Jackson pulled himself back over me. A much larger, much more rigid force pierced into me and again I gasped, suppressing a shout. Jackson surged over me, burying himself to his balls while I moaned, sounds without words driven from me. The shock of him was an explosion of sensation, hint of pain, jolt of power, burst of heat, then he had me tipped into a full orgasm at last—so ready for him, feeling the rush and gripping his arms while Jackson was finding his first thrusts. Not sure if it was the fastest or slowest I’d ever been, depending on counting from Jackson or from Trent in the kitchen.

  I lifted my legs and arms around him, clutching him closer, meeting him with my whole body. Only easing down from the high, eyes open and head thrown back, Jackson biting my neck and thrusting, did I see Trent from the corner of my eye.

  He’d moved to lie on the quilt between us and the coffee table, so we had the light glowing over our sweaty skin, not backlit for him as he was for me. He was naked, his erection in his hand, stroking while he propped up on the other elbow, watching Jackson pumping in and out. I couldn’t see his expression, too dark, with a halo of light around his outline and tousled hair; a black camera in the background.