Road's End: Apocalypse Riders (2 page)

It roared.

She meant to only touch his arm, or take his hand. Instead her fingers found their way around the back of his neck, into the dark curls of his hair. They were soft, and warm.

She gripped tight and pulled his head down, met his mouth with hers. She tasted his lips. Earthy. He'd probably been foraging in the woods outside the city. She grabbed the collar of his jacket, pulled him closer. Her body needed to feel him, to have another human body warm against hers. She needed his arms around her. She wanted to devour him. Why wasn't he responding?

"Wait," he whispered into her mouth, as she pressed her tongue inside his. He tried to say it. "Wait." He couldn't push her away, couldn't
make
himself push her away, couldn't stop her or stop himself. The words themselves didn’t matter; the deep bass of his voice spurred her on. A shudder ran through him, and he grabbed her shoulders and held her just in front of him. "Wait."

His eyes were heavy-lidded. Exhaustion and desperation were written all over them. She realized he was afraid. His jaw was clenched, his breathing ragged. He was losing control.

She wished he would - she needed him to. She found a word. "Please." Her voice sounded strange to her ears. She hadn’t spoken in so long, and raw with need as it was, she barely recognized it. Her grip tightened on his collar. "Please."

He looked down into her face for a moment, confusion and desire at war with each other as his eyebrows furrowed with concern. "Okay, " he said, "whatever you want."

Whatever it was she wanted, she still could not articulate, so she had to show him. She pulled his mouth back down to hers, nibbled and licked his bottom lip. His tongue pushed past her lips, tentative. She sucked it in, caressed it with her own. A soft moan escaped him.

The sound was almost like a physical touch between her legs. Her racing heart sent blood rushing to her nether lips and they throbbed, begging for attention.

She drew him closer, pressed her chest to his, her hips to his. His erection pressed against her through his jeans, against her stomach - big, rock-hard already. Her breathing hitched. She had to see it,
had
to touch it. She dropped to her knees. The asphalt scraped, but she paid it no mind. She wrestled with his belt.

"You don't want to talk about this first?" His voice was lower, ragged. He was a man on the edge. She wanted to push him over - she felt like a runaway train, and he was stuck along for the ride. She offered the only word she had.

"Please."

He wisely stopped speaking and helped her with his pants. Once undone, she yanked them down hard, right to his ankles. His cock sprung free before her eyes, tall and thick, the head swollen and glistening with fluids. She licked it, over the top and across the slit. He grunted. His legs were trembling, but he'd have to keep himself steady. She was starving for this, but couldn't tell him with words.

She pressed the underside of his cock with her tongue, right at the base, and held it still in her hand as she licked and kissed her way to the top, leaving a wet trail. He smoothed her hair with a shaky hand. Her lips closed around the head. It was salty and hot in her mouth, and she groaned at the taste. She hadn't touched a man in so long, hadn't realized how much she missed it.

She undid the zipper of her own jeans as she worked his rod further into her mouth. Her own arousal was driving her to distraction. She couldn’t wait. Swirling her tongue around his shaft, she took him fully into her mouth, nose buried in his hairs before pulling back. His grip on her hair tightened, and she plunged her hand down the front of her pants and pressed against her pussy through her underwear. They were soaked through.

Suddenly the stranger pulled away, out of her mouth. The loss was unbearable; she whined and closed her eyes.

"Get up," he growled. The tone of his voice changed. The shock and fear had been erased. There was nothing but need left. He yanked her to her feet by a wrist.

He took the hand wet with her fluids and pressed the fingers to his lips. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he licked them clean. His gaze was intense. He was through holding back - a little thrill of fear ran through her, and she stepped backwards. He followed, until the backs of her legs touched the hood of a car.

Then he was on her. He yanked her coat from her shoulders. She struggled out of it, getting tangled in her clumsiness. He reached under her shirt and grabbed her breasts, squeezing them hard with a growl. She tried to remove the shirt, but gave up when he planted his lips on her neck, below her ear, to bite and suck his way around to the other side. He stood with his feet to either side of hers and pressed himself against her, his cock hard and wet on her mound.

Her breath came in short gasps. She needed him, badly. She found two more words. "Fuck me." She murmured the words to him while grabbing his hair, trying to pull him up to look at her. "Fuck me." They poured from her like a desperate prayer. "Fuck me. Fuck me."

"Whatever you want." He spun her around by one wrist and slammed her down against the hood of the car, arm twisted behind her back. As she fought to regain her breath, she felt him yank her pants down to her feet. Immediately his tongue pressed into her entrance. He licked her right down to her clit, drew it between his lips, and sucked. She squealed. He assaulted the sensitive bud with his tongue and teeth, and her hips bucked, wild and out of control. He was rough, fast and careless, and it hurt, but she needed it. She pressed back against him, still needing more. Two more words flew through her head -
don't stop -
but they were gone before she could voice them. Her body spoke them well enough.

He stopped anyway. She groaned her frustration, tried to turn, thinking grab him, but he kept her arm pinned painfully to her back. She looked over her shoulder, teeth bared. He didn’t give her a chance to find any more words - he rammed his cock inside her. She cried out, but it the sound was cut off when he grabbed her hair with his free hand and pulled her head back. She looked up and out at the city, her throat exposed like an offering.

He took her hard, with short jabs, deep inside. She could hear him grunting with the effort. Her hips moved with him as if they had a mind and will of their own, lifting and tilting to take him as far into her as she could. “You wanted this,” he gasped. Was it a question? He sounded apologetic. “You
wanted
this.”

Was he looking for reassurance? “Yes.” The word escaped her before her brain remembered its meaning. It hissed through her lips like steam escaping. “Yessss.”

He flipped her over. Her bare ass slammed against the hood of the car, and she backed up, scooting her way up the windshield, spreading her knees for him. Her feet were still tangled in her pants, but she wasn’t about to take the time to extract them now. He tore his own pants off only one leg, the one boot flying off in the process. His eyes were wild, animalistic, as he kicked the boot away and then placed his leather jacket next to her. She planted her palms to either side of her on the glass of the windshield and fervently wished she had something to hold on to.

He scrambled up the hood after her and was inside her again in one swift movement, as if his cock knew exactly where it needed to be and aimed itself. Propped on one elbow above her, he took a moment to catch his breath. His free hand snaked beneath her shirt and pinched a hardened nipple, twisting, relishing the yelping sounds she made. She squirmed and writhed beneath him, her body begging him to move.

He obliged. Slower now, sweat dripping from his forehead, he moved on top of her. His nails dug into her chest. She clawed at his back, beneath his shirt, and he growled into her hair. She had never felt so out of control.   A sense of being trapped crept up on her. Panic made her heart beat faster, but she couldn’t stop herself, nevermind trying to stop him. Her body writhed as if possessed, desperately seeking a release.

She reached between them with a shaky hand, intending to push herself over the edge, but he freed his hand from her shirt and grabbed the wrist. "No," he snarled, and slammed it back against the windshield, propped himself higher and used his weight to trap it there. The pane shook, and she wondered if they should be concerned about it breaking.

His free hand pushed down between them, and he slowed his thrusts as he pinched the sensitive hood of skin around her clit. Her ass lifted from the glass and she shrieked. He released her wrist and pulled her towards him, pressed her against his chest so she was partially sitting up.

"Please," she begged, her hips grinding. Her inner thighs were sticky, her fluids mixing with their sweat. He bit her neck, sucked on the skin, hard. It was sure to leave a mark.

"Now?"

"Yes."

He pushed her back. Her elbows hit the windshield, jarring the breath out of her. He attacked her mouth with lips and teeth, stroked her clit with a thumb, and pounded into her with a fury. Her ass skidded up the glass at his assault, and she came hard. It felt like an explosion. Her inner walls clenched him tight, and with a wordless shout he came with her, shuddering helplessly as jet after jet of his seed spurted inside her.

They didn't move as the aftershocks of their orgasms passed. She realized she was trembling, and concentrated on calming herself. There were no sounds in the dead city but their gasping breaths. His rasped. She wondered if he was in worse shape than he looked.

"I'm so sorry," he said, hovering above her. She looked up at him, but he couldn't meet her eyes.

It was a struggle to speak. The madness she so feared that had been lurking in her mind had weakened, though, and she grasped her language once again. "No," she said, "You said anything I wanted. This was what I wanted. What I needed. I think you did, too."

"I didn't even ask your name. Didn't give you mine."

She pressed a finger to his lips. "Don't. It will be easier when you leave, if I don't know who you are."

He rolled off her, and the mixture of their sweat quickly cooled her overheated skin where it was exposed. She looked down at herself to asses the damage. Red nail marks crossed her chest, though he hadn't broken the skin. Neither of her legs had made it entirely out of her pants, but one boot had been kicked free. Only one arm had escaped her shirt, and it was bunched around her neck. Her coat was on the ground just next to the front tire.

He lay back against the windshield, tight against her side. His clothing was in a similar tangle.

"My name is Adam," he said.

She sighed. "What brought you here, Adam?"

"I should have told you before. I'm being chased. I thought I'd try to hide." He took her hand, entwined their fingers. "Being near me puts you in danger."

She touched his hair, curled it around her fingers. "So, you'll travel on. Lead the danger away."

He shook his head, but didn't respond to her statement. "Tell me your name."

She whispered, "It's Josie."

"Josie," he said, and she squeezed her eyes tight against the tears that rose.

"Don't," she said, "You have to go." She gripped his hand tighter. How could she be alone again? If only he hadn't said her name.

"I'm starving." The words were stated simply. He didn't want to diminish whatever supplies she had, but didn't think he could go on. It stabbed at her heart.

“
All right. I can give you some supplies.” The thought of diminishing her own twisted her stomach. She had more than enough for a good long time, but she lived like a dragon hoarding and guarding its gold. “Come with me.”

CHAPTER 2

I am Josie Varick. I remember that now.
I looked up at Adam. Goddamn was he a beautiful sight. I knew it when I first saw him, but in a very distant sort of way. The detached way I'd been feeling about everything. Now, though, I couldn't stop looking. He had a few days growth of hair on his face, giving him a dark and scruffy look, but it didn't hide the strong jaw beneath, and only enhanced those deep blue eyes.

I felt like I was waking up, walking along with him, holding his elbow like a lifeline. Like a good strong string to tie back my unraveling sanity. Isolation had made me strange. I'd felt like I was just watching myself. Now, I was beginning to feel like
me
again.

His fingers were curled through my belt loops. He was as afraid to let go as I was, but holding hands would have been too weird, too intimate. Even though we'd just fucked, we'd only just met.

Then again, social rules changed when corpses started walking, when people fought them and died in droves in their own streets, when civilization crumbled.

"I haven't seen any of the dead in the city," Adam said.

"No. They sort of migrated out in herds once everybody was gone or dead." The city had been terrifying, then. Everyone left because being packed in so close was a recipe for disaster. Too often you wouldn't see a corpse until you rounded the corner and it was on top of you, and too late. Too often a neighbor would die and eventually take out the whole building. At some point, everyone decided it was safer out in the open.

Everyone but me.

We reached one of my food stores - just some cans buried beneath a pile of rubble in the corner of a hotel lobby. Things like corn and beans and tomatoes and even dog food, though I hadn't needed to resort to that, yet.