Hollow Men (3 page)

“Think what?” Evan broke the kiss. His lips traveled from my mouth to my jaw, tingling arcs of electricity seemed to zig and zag along my skin wherever his lips touched me. “That we’re going to get married and have babies because you’re lonely and I’m lonely, and we’re so fucking good together, El?” His fingers pushed back down under my leggings, the warmth of his skin seeming to burn me.

Between my legs, I grew wetter. In my heart, I grew needier.

“It will be okay. We can just…have this connection?” Now I was kissing him. And once I’d started, I couldn’t imagine stopping. His mouth parted, his tongue danced over mine. Big hands gripped me at the small of my back and trapped me to his body. I found his erection through his boxers—he’d ditched his jeans—and squeezed.

He framed my face with his hands, and though I could barely see the shine in his eyes from the monitors high up on the shelf, I could tell he had that intent Evan Blackwood look. The look he got when he was serious as a heart attack. “This can be whatever you need it to be, El. Whatever it is you need.”

“Right,” I said. Then I pushed my hand past the barrier of his boxer briefs and stroked that impossibly hard yet soft skin with a firm grip. His hips arched toward me, and he gasped against the side of my face. I swept my thumb over the tip of him, feeling the silken slide of pre-cum spread over his glans. “Turned on, Evan?” I grinned.

“El, just
thinking
about you can turn me on. It’s always been that way. That never changed.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” I said before I could let that comment sink in. I’d been alone too long to hear those words. They fucked with my thoughts.

He cupped the back of my head, holding me close as the kiss deepened. I felt the tickling in the back of my throat and my chest only Evan had ever inspired in me. It was as if my body could barely contain its joy at being close to him. He was addictive and sexy, kind and funny. Walking away from him and the life he thought we could have together had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. I was only eighteen at the time. I thought that was an exaggeration. At twenty-four, I realized it wasn’t.

I pushed the thought away and shoved his boxers down to get closer to him. He had the same thought because he slid my leggings down over my hips. I helped him, and there was a blind, humorous moment where we were a tangle of clothes and limbs and yet, in the chaos, we kept pausing to kiss. To touch.

He flipped me suddenly, and the urge to react with my own force never came. I expected it to after so many weeks and months of being on red alert. Not this time. This time, I melted beneath him, parted my thighs and let him slip between them. Feeling the drag of his cock along my wet slit had me humming softly.

“What song is that?” I felt him smile against the side of my cheek. He nuzzled my neck, laying a gentle bite along my shoulder in the way that had always turned me on. He remembered my body. The sensation coupled with that thought spiked my nipples with arousal. He ground his body against mine, and I followed suit, arching up to get more friction.

“That’s the this-feels-good song,” I joked. But I had to swallow hard at a sudden rush of emotion in my chest. He was such a good man. How had he ever left my mind?

His fingers sifted through my hair and his lips pressed to mine once more. He licked my lower lip, bit it softly and whispered, “If I don’t slide into you right now, Eleanor, I might lose my mind.”

“That makes two of us.” I found him with my hand and guided him to my slick pussy. But he knocked my hand away and dragged the head of his cock along my entrance. I made a desperate sound, and he shushed me.

“Patience.”

“I’ve never had any.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” He slipped just the tip into me, and my body stretched, my pussy flexed, anticipating more—craving it.

Evan pushed my hands above my head and threaded his fingers through mine. He held me that way, blissfully trapped beneath his grip, beneath his bulk. I could feel the pounding of his heart and mine seemed to be keeping time. The silence was deafening as he started to move. Every wet sound of acceptance from my body for his was surreally audible.

“I’ve missed the feel of you, El,” he said.

I couldn’t answer. My cunt relaxed but gripped him at the same time. It had been ages since I’d had sex. He felt too big; he felt too perfect. Too much and not enough. Conflicting sensations that had one link only—pleasure—coursed through me, and I groaned.

“Don’t,” I said, but my words held no heat.

“I just had to say it once,” he chuckled. But the laughter bled into a slow exhalation as he truly started to move, thrusting deep and rotating his hips to press all the secret places in me that made me try to move my hands. He pressed them down more firmly, held me flat. “I’m running this show,” he said. “You stay where you are.” He drove deeper, harder, and I was fuller, fullest. I came with a sudden cry that he instantly covered with his big hand.

“Shh, baby. No noise. This is stealth sex. It’s not safe tonight.”

It was the truth, and the strength of his words and the way he was plunging into me now, a bit more forceful, a lot more intense, made me come again. A blinding second orgasm, smaller, but no less sweeter, than the first. It was the realization it wasn’t safe tonight, and yet…I was not alone. I was with someone I actually trusted. Someone I once had loved.

The universe had seen fit to smile on me for a change.

“El?” He pinned me down by my hips now, moving briskly, kissing me wherever his lips seemed to land. He found my nipple with his teeth, bit me so I hissed.

“Yeah?”

“It’s been a while…”

The other nipple was located, clamped between sharp teeth, tugged so that a bolt of startling pleasure shot from breast to cunt.

“And?“ I gasped.

“I’m not gonna last for but another…”

I put my legs up around his waist, opening my body to him. Every time he thrust into me, the base of his cock brushed my clit. I craned my neck, licked his ear, bit the lobe, whispered, “I’m glad you’re here, Evan.”

“Now,” he sighed. And his body went rigid under my seeking hands. I gripped my internal muscles tight and moved up to meet him. Coming one more time in-synch with his peak. It was the sweetest of all, soft and fleeting but meaning more than the first two had. We’d come together. Something we’d often managed back when we were a couple.

I didn’t even let myself consider why that meant so much to me. And breaking from my own code of ‘don’t get attached’, I let him curl around me and hold me close, then I broke all the rules. I let myself drift off into a calm, peaceful sleep.

Chapter Three

I rolled over into an empty space. Soft, furtive noises filled my ears. I blinked in the gray light. It was morning for sure. There were only two very small camouflaged windows in the room. Not big enough for a person to crawl through, just big enough for a filter of natural light. Each was about as big as a large tissue box.

I shifted to my back, blinking to clear my eyes. “Evan?”

“Shh,” he said. “Hold on a minute, Eleanor.”

“What’s up?” I lowered my voice to a whisper and sat up. My heart was banging suddenly. Something in his tone told me there was trouble.

“How secure is your upstairs?” he asked. “I wasn’t really paying attention yesterday.”

“Secure,” I said. “The windows that don’t have wrought iron security bars are reinforced by the plywood the way the front porch one is.”

“And that is?”

“That is a fitting. It’s a brace that comes through the inside piece of wood, and then we screw on an anchor. So if you pull from one side the anchor prevents a breach.”

“How much time would it buy if someone were serious?”

I didn’t like this question at all. I moved toward him to the camera monitor. I saw nothing at first. Then a quick flash of a body as it moved around the perimeter of my house.

“It would take a group of people a while, but it could be done. Very few things are infallible.”

“You said wrought iron window coverings?”

“Yeah,” I moved behind him. I put my hands on his shoulders just to feel his energy mix with mine. My stomach was a ball of nerves. “And they’re installed on the inside.”

“Inside?” He looked up at me, blue eyes showing too much concern for my taste.

I smiled. “My dad taught me given enough time and determination anyone would dismantle them from the outside. Once they’re off, they can get at the windows. So we have them on the inside. Those windows, as you can imagine, don’t open easily. I had to find iron fittings I could put my hands through and sort of coax the windows up if we wanted fresh air.” I shrugged. “That was some time ago. Now they mostly stay closed.”

Evan nodded and again, a dark figure—a man, I saw—darted around the side of my house. He disappeared on screen before reappearing in the camera shot from the side porch.

“That door?”

“That door is reinforced. Wrought iron storm door inside the outer door.”

“Hinges?” he asked, his eyes on the screen as the man tested the door.

Seeing him touching my side door, seeing him moving around my home, made my stomach sick. Rage filled me, but I was upset to realize fear was close on its heels. “Hinges are inside. Both the main door and the storm door.”

The man pressed his face to the small bit of glass on the side door. Barely big enough to look through—my father had replaced the original outer doors to our home with doors that had very little glass. Even if the man busted out the peep window as my dad had called it, he’d have to have been a magical type to fit through it. It was about the size of a deck of cards.

“He’s persistent. But it’s not him who worries me…” Even frowned.

“When did he show up and what the fuck does he want?”

Evan pointed to the camera shot angled out to the street fire. “He was a part of them. They all wandered off a while ago, but then a hollow showed up. It’s all I can assume anyway. There’s no sound on this thing. But the guy was grinning, and his head was tilted back. I assume it was the laughter we’ve all heard, or the whimpering. Anyway, mountain guy out here decided to stalk the hollow. I think he killed him, but off screen because he came back with a bloody knife and a satisfied look. But…he was close to your house and up close, it doesn’t look as empty as the others.”

My first thought was my elderly neighbors. Had this joker hurt them? “Humans are worse than infected,” I snarled. Anger was all I could feel. “They come and figure we’re all living in a state of Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. No common fucking decency anymore. If it’s out there and you have it, and I’m stronger I should take it from you—”

Evan grabbed my wrist and tugged me down toward him. I had no choice but to sit or fall. He plopped me on his lap and took my hand. “You’re right, El,” he whispered. “But you need to take a big, deep breath and calm down.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Just be quiet.” He kissed me. I thought about backing up or reminding him we’d just had a little physical connection last night, nothing more, nothing less. But to be honest, his mouth on mine felt too nice. As did his hands settled on my hip and the heat of his body. Someone was poking around my home, and I was not alone. Not. Alone. That was both terrifying and comforting.

“Let’s just see what he does.” I whispered.

We watched him. The man left the side door and moved around to the cellar door. It was the old-fashioned kind that was partially sunk into the ground. The door opened up on an angle to reveal a stairwell. Down the stairwell was a door and an inner door mirroring the upstairs. All secure. I wasn’t really worried about him getting in. I was worried about what he wanted. What he thought he was going to get.

“And that door’s…”

“About fifteen feet outside this room,” I told him.

The guy gave up easily. Maybe he was starting to realize the house was sealed up tight. Even the second story windows were secured. My dad believed in security with a backup of security with a backup plan of more security. And he’d trained me to be the same way.

“Here he goes,” Evan said. I felt his hands tighten on me in suspense as if we were watching a movie. I wiggled in his lap without thinking. I was feeling antsy, so I moved, but he made a noise that told me maybe, just maybe, I should stay still.

We watched the man go out and inspect Evan’s van. It was big and black and had only porthole windows in the back. He tried all the doors and tried to peek inside, but the windows were tinted.

“If he gets your van—”

Evan cut me off. “At least he’s away from the house. If he gets the van, I’ll figure something else out. I can get another to get me up to New England. I’ll be fine.”

One big arm looped around my middle, and I was glad for it. It made me feel more tethered to earth, that arm of his. How quickly his touch recalled sense memory from when we were together. He used to grab me around the middle that way and haul me in. Sometimes playfully, sometimes rough-housing, sometimes as a prelude to phenomenal sex. All of them were good memories. My nipples stiffened despite the current situation. My body was reacting to Evan whether I liked it or not.

The guy stepped back from the van, shielded his eyes from the morning sun. Oddly enough, we saw it happen. That moment when he took note and his eyes, just black dots from our perspective, locked on the camera.

A shiver traveled up my spine, and I had a sinking feeling. But then he turned and walked away. A few more feet and he climbed into a beat-up pickup and off he went.

“Fuck,” I sighed. My body was taut with adrenaline. My heart pounding. When the man had stared right at the camera, it felt as if he’d been looking right at me. As if he could see us.

I stood quickly, though my legs felt as if they were made of wet paper bags. Then I stumbled to the bathroom and pushed my head under a cold running tap. I brushed my teeth and stuck my head under again, my shoulder-length black hair swirling around my face in the sink. I could just take a shower, but I needed immediate relief. The tap water was freezing cold.