Reawakening (17 page)

“You sure?” He’d raised one eyebrow but to his credit he turned back to the mirror once said eyebrow was up there. And he carried on shaving, too, as though he wanted to make sure she knew how casual this all was. No big deal. “‘Cause we can carry on talking about being naked if you’re in the mood for it.”

She wondered if it would be okay to answer
yeah, I’m absolutely in the mood for it. One look at your incredible hard-body from some terrible future war and anyone would be in the mood for it. I’m only surprised
Blake
hasn’t tried to fuck you, when you look the way you do.

“You blushing, June-y? Maybe I should be warning you—I got a dirty mouth on me when the green light’s on.”

It almost made her grin in the middle of all of this messy talk, to know that she’d guessed. She’d gotten it bang on! He had a potty mouth and he wasn’t afraid to use it. He probably said all kinds of crazy things once the action started. He probably talked about things she’d never even heard of, and told people to do stuff they’d never even contemplated, and oh God if she just swooned on the bathroom floor would he take pity and hump her into the middle of next week?

She hoped so. Because dear Lord, was she ever getting close to swooning.

“Uh…I…” she started. The end words were going to be
want to fool around with you
, but they wouldn’t come. Of course they wouldn’t. Words only came when she least needed them, like if the peas needed passing or something like that.

For God’s sake—she could
gesture
for the peas if she required them. Oh, if only a person could gesture for sex. Was there a universal sign she didn’t know about? Did she have to rub her boobs in three circles then poke her finger through a closed fist?

That sounded right. Shame, really, that all she could do was watch him draw clean, gun-metal-underneath lines down his gorgeous face. At which she shook her head, because really.
Really
. Was watching him shave
honestly
turning her on?

Even worse—she suspected that him doing anything would turn her on. If he started flossing, she was a dead woman.

“Go on, baby—what do you wanna say? You need the bathroom?”

She hated him for being so casually sexual one second and so dense the next. It could have been that he was just being cautious and gentlemanly, but she didn’t think so. He just didn’t get how
hungry
she was.

“No.”

“Nothing more to say, then?”

She sagged a little then.

“No.”

“Well all right then. I guess it’s my turn. And I’m gonna go with—what did you go off on your own to get?”

Her face flamed back to red immediately, stupidly. Had he guessed? He was certainly sharp enough to have guessed. And it went so neatly with the naked conversation they’d had, too.

“Oh, I, erm…”

Great start, June!

“Blake guessed something embarrassing, am I right? Something you didn’t want to tell us two big hairy manly fellas about.”

Oh Lord. This wasn’t going anywhere good.

“But we got all kinds of things you might be embarrassed about in the storeroom. I mean—come on. You think I figured on someone needing twelve types of spectacles and didn’t imagine anyone might want some double D batteries, some day?”

She frowned, at first—not quite getting it. Shortly before she got it far too much for comfort.

“Oh no I don’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah sure—girls don’t. And my Momma’s the Pope.”

She burst out laughing then. Covered her face.

“I didn’t mean that, Jesus Jamie! What the fuck would I want a sex toy for? Are you telling me you actually
have
sex toys in the storeroom? Hey look—I think I can live with just my hand and maybe…okay…here’s the thing.”

The word
maybe
made her plunge into the other stuff. He’d made it kind of easy—or maybe he’d just given her no choice—but either way the time was now.
Just say it
, she thought.
Just say it—he didn’t seem to think it a big deal to talk about vibrators, for God’s sake.

“I went to get some…I just thought that we might be…that just in case, I should get some…you know.”

He was looking at her like she’d gone crazy. Of course he was.
This
was the thing that made her crazy. This! The zombie apocalypse—oh no, no, no. That was fine. Talking about sex stuff? Torture.

“I think you
might
be speaking another language. Were there any actual nouns in those half sentences?”

A noise burst out of her. It sounded very fucking frustrated.

“Condoms, okay? If we’re gonna fuck, we need some condoms. That’s the noun. That’s what we need. Condoms, condoms, condoms I
do not
know why that’s so hard to say.”

He didn’t look the way she’d expected him to, when she’d finished ranting. About condoms. He didn’t look appalled, that she’d gone after something so stupid. Or disgusted, that she was so horny.

He just looked amused. Which was kind of worse.

“Wow. I guessed wa-a-ay more embarrassing than a coupla packs of Trojans.”

She kind of hated him for that. At the very least she threw up her arms, and stomped off on him.

“Aw, June—I was just kidding with you. Come on! June-y—that ain’t embarrassing!” He followed her into the bedroom, but that just made her want to cover her eyes. He was even more naked in there than he had been in the bathroom. “I don’t even know why you couldn’t ask for that. And if you had, you coulda saved yourself a whole heap of trouble. We got all kinds of birth control type stuff here—what did you think? That we’re just dying to restart the human race with Blake’s son and my daughter? Hey—maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll only have three heads.”

She rolled her eyes at him. Such a depressing concept seemed to require more, but really, who were they kidding? Even if she’d been able to, she’d never considered “restarting the human race” a viable option. Most of her understood that it was too late for anything like that—and despite the slashing grin on his face, she knew he knew it, too.

“It’s not…that. I can’t have kids anyway—I got one malfunctioning ovary and one that takes a lot of vacations. Or at least, that’s a variation on what I remember the doc saying to me, back when I was busy partying over the idea that I’d never have to worry about a pregnancy scare.”

It sounded pretty bitter coming out, she had to say. In spite of those earlier thoughts about the human race and restarting it and all of those things that weren’t really possible anyway.

But that was all right because Jamie always knew how to gloss over issues the proper way. He changed the subject with the ease of a magician and she didn’t have to think about any of that end-of-humanity stuff ever again.

“Okay, so, lemme get this straight. You can’t have weird mutant apocalypse kids anyway—like in that movie Threads. You seen that? Oh man, I don’t think I’d even want you to pop one out, just in case it had a tentacle coming out of its eyeball or—”

“
Jamie
. God-
dammit
. I’ve just eaten three pounds of powdered egg, Jesus!”

“Sorry, baby, but come on. That movie is fucked up, seriously.”

“Jamie—your point. Where is it?”

“Okay so yeah. You can’t have kids. You ain’t worried about getting knocked up. But you still went to get condoms…why? Because of the killer mutant STDs you think we’re gonna give you?”

“Yeah. I’m worried about herpes. During the
rabid zombie apocalypse.
Are you serious?”

“Well hey. You’re the one out looking for Trojans, honey.”

Why did he have such a knack for pulling her up short?

Maybe because she was a stupid, stupid person. Who hadn’t even considered the actual true purpose of a condom, and what it was needed for. Apparently her brain had just gone
sex equals condom needed
. Without putting a whole lot of thought into why that was actually the case.

“Oh. Oh.”

He slapped his thigh, in response.

“Ha! You almost went and got yourself killed over something you don’t even need! Real smart, June. Bravo.” He hooted up a storm but then seemed to stop mid-laugh. His face went flat, suddenly, and he swallowed audibly before he added a whole bunch of stuff she didn’t want to hear. “You been thinking suicidal thoughts, June-bug?”

Was it bad because he said suicidal? Because he paired it with that cute little nickname? Or because his bright sparking gaze went as hollow as Blake’s sometimes did when the thought occurred to him?

All three, maybe, she felt. All three.

“No, hon No, I’m not. I just didn’t think, that’s all. You don’t have to worry about that—ever since I came here I…”

I have something to live for,
she finished, in her head. But it was okay because he didn’t seem to need her to say it out loud. Why would he need it when she could hear her heart pounding outside her body and he was looking at her like…like he wouldn’t ever be able to get enough. Not ever.

“Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“How come you’re not over here doing stuff to me?”

Chapter Eight

He shrugged with his eyebrows. She named it, officially, the sexiest gesture of all time. It was just so casual and so
yeah, you’ve got a point.
It was just so
him
.

“It’s kinda difficult when you just have to guess everything. You don’t talk. You don’t ask. So we just have to figure everything out, like whether or not you’re gay, or frightened we’re gonna attack you, or desperately in need of condoms that aren’t required.”

“You know—it’s not as though you guys talk a whole lot either. Would have made things easier if you’d both just sat me down and said—hey, how about we make some kind of Mormon enclave, here?”

It was better, with a touch of funny in it. Though he didn’t laugh, not at all. The intensity in his expression had ratcheted up another notch, even though she hadn’t known there was another notch to be had.

He looked crazy—but in a real lowdown good shivery kind of way. Plus he said stuff like—

“I don’t think Mormons all fuck each other in one big bed.”

Just to make the shivering worse. He knew it was making it worse, right?

“Good point. About Mormons.”

“Plus, it’s hard to say. When you’re the guy, it’s hard to say. Might come out like I’m some kinda sex maniac.”

She let her eyes close briefly.

“I think I may well be okay with that.”

Hey—it was the truth. Sex maniac sounded wonderful right around now.

“You sure about that?”

“I’d sign a contract to that effect if you had one. You just…you just tell me what you want.”

Oh, there were so many potential responses to that. She still didn’t know every part of him. He could well answer with
all right, so I’m gonna bring in this zombie dog, and then you…

He could. He could.

“What I really want right now is just to see what a woman’s body looks like again. No—no wait. That’s wrong. I don’t want to just see any woman. I want to see
you
bare, June. Yeah. That’s what I want.”

She tried to go slow. Thought of words like
peel
and
seduce
and
be sexy
. But it was a bust right from the start. Nothing in her wanted to or was able to go slow. She yanked at the jersey she was still unaccountably wearing, and did so in such an urgent manner that she got her elbow and half her head caught in the left hand side of the whole thing.

He had to help her. After an entire minute stuck inside her own jersey, she couldn’t stop herself from making little panicked noises. They were embarrassing, but what the hell. No one wanted to be trapped in clothes when a man had just said
that
to her.

“I can’t—I’m just—” she started, because her right side was trapped in the stupid fucking thing, too, and dear God, she couldn’t even imagine trying to get out of her bra. It was a sports one. The only kind the storeroom had had in her size. It felt like Alcatraz wrapped around her chest.

“Whoa, whoa—take it easy, baby. Take it easy. There’s no rush.”

She’d been wrong, calling him wired and reckless. He absolutely
was
nuts. No rush? Jesus Christ. She felt like the starter’s pistol had just gone off in a race that featured giant monsters, galloping after you to keep your pace up.

Which sucked because currently her hand was caught in the labyrinth that this jersey apparently was.

“Fuck! Why the fuck can’t I undress?” she managed to get out, but he just laughed. He was laughing. It was kind of okay that he was laughing. It made her want to laugh, too.

“I reckon you’ve forgotten how,” he said, and that was probably true. She couldn’t even recall the last time she’d been properly naked. She took showers fully dressed. She slept in body armor.