He was silent, then said, “You ever think about leaving?”
I considered. “Where would I go? The world out there is the same as in here. Just less honest about it.”
He rolled onto his side, propped his head up, and looked at me with that too-still focus. “You’re not afraid?”
“Of what?”
He shrugged. “Of all the things that come for people like us.”
I thought about it—the Russians, the Feds, the committee, the unsleeping eyes of Holloway and everyone like him. “They can try,” I said. “But I’m harder to break than I look.”
He smiled, the scar on his jaw twisting it into a question. “Prove it.”
I reached up, ran my thumb across the ridge of his jaw, the skin oddly soft over the ruined tissue. He let me, eyes half-closed.
“You want to know something?” I asked, voice soft enough that I barely heard it.
He nodded.
“I was scared the first night. With you. More scared than when I got jumped in the parking lot.”
He didn’t answer, but his grip on my shoulder tightened. The sensor light clicked on again, bathing us in false daylight for two seconds, then went dark.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I knew it wouldn’t be the last time.”
He kissed my forehead, gentle, almost fatherly. “I promise to make it a good one.”
We lay there, the night winding down around us, the wind curling through the dead grass and pine. I listened to the sound of the world forgetting itself, the blank space between disasters. It was the first time in years I’d felt truly present, as if nothing else could touch us until we allowed it.
“Tomorrow,” I said, “they’ll send someone to check on me.”
He didn’t ask who. “I’ll be here.”
I nodded, closed my eyes, and let the fatigue creep in. My body hummed, the leftover fire and adrenaline refusing to go quietly. Nitro’s hand stroked the back of my neck, slow, hypnotic, and for a second, I let myself pretend this was normal.
Nitro grabbed a log and tossed it on the firepit. Minutes later, flames were licking the sky. He moved to his knees and turned me over onto my belly before moving me to all fours.
I looked back as he stared at my bare ass. I tensed when he placed his hands on my hips and then entered my pussy from behind. He fucked me the way people dig for bodies—with purpose, like he knew exactly how deep he had to go to get to the truth. My cheek mashed into the blanket, and I tasted earth and resin, the wild green between us, as he pulled me back into each thrust. Sweat broke slick along my spine in the freezing air, and the contrast exalted every nerve, every patch of skin that had gone hungry for years. His hands on my ass were rough, reverent, like he wanted to leave marks for the next poor bastard to find.
I gripped the edge of the blanket, knuckles aching, and tried to keep quiet. The world beyond the pit was a surveillance state—neighbors, coyotes, maybe even the Feds—but right here, right now, there was only the sense-memory of his cock and the blunt certainty that I was alive, at least for tonight. His hand snaked up my back, grabbed a fistful of hair at the root, and hauled my head back until I gasped. The fresh tension sent a shockwave through my thighs, my throat, every length of me that had ever been braced for violence instead of touch.
He didn’t say my name. He said nothing at all, just used my body like a tool or an instrument, like the only way to keep himself from fracture was to pour every molecule of restraint into the shape of me. I loved him for it, and hated the word as soon as it formed, but there it was, vibrating in my chest.
When I came again, it was a full-system failure. My knees gave, my vision whited out, and for a second there was only the pulse of blood and the animal arithmetic of him driving me forward. Instinct took over—I reached back, caught his forearm, tried to anchor myself as he bent over me, his breath hot on the slope of my neck. He kept both hands on my hips, fingers digging in deep enough to bruise. I could taste my own sweat, his sweat, the taste of New Mexico dirt, and when he came, I felt it all the way up to the base of my skull, no wasted motion, no apology. The force of it collapsed us both onto the blanket, his body flattening mine, and we just lay there panting, hearts staggered, a two-person drumline against oblivion.
The air stung my skin, drying the sheen off me instantly, leaving a tracework of cold and pleasure interleaved. He didn’t roll off right away. He braced on one elbow, cradled the side of my head with the other hand, and thumbed a streak of ash off my cheekbone. I couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, but I knew he was looking, parsing every tremor in my breath as if waiting for me to call retreat.
“So you do take what you want,” I said.
He nodded. “And I look like those guys on the book covers.
14
Seraphina
Iwoke to a blade of morning light carving me in half. The world had already gone pale. The fire pit outside was choked with ash, the air flat and bitter, and the blanket that shielded my nakedness was not quite enough to insulate against what was coming. I smelled old pine smoke, and beneath it, the saline undertow of sex and sweat and post-combat adrenaline.
