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  But even that reassurance doesn’t take away the flutters.

  Those flutters are all about Travis.

  WE STAY ON THE ROAD until we reach the next town, but then we stop and study our map to find the best off-road route to take.

  We have no reason not to believe Maria when she told us to stay off the roads. We’ve been lucky so far not to run into any droves or smaller but still dangerous groups of ruffians.

  Part of that is because we’ve been careful. The worst sort tend to stick close to the cities where there’s a lot more food, fuel, and supplies to salvage. But we’ve also been fortunate, and neither of us sees any reason to press our luck.

  It will take longer if we stay off-road, but if it’s safer, it will be worth it.

  We plan our route for the rest of the afternoon. This region is mountainous, and we’re still in the areas that suffered from serious earthquakes. We decide to stick close to the wooded parts so we won’t be easily visible from a distance.

  I have no idea where we’re going to spend the night.

  There isn’t a town anywhere close to our route.

  We can camp. It won’t be the end of the world.

  But it means we won’t be able to have sex again.

  I’m certain that Travis will never let down his guard enough to have sex if he doesn’t feel like we’re secure.

  I remind myself that sex can’t be our priority. I haven’t lost that much of my perspective.

  We can’t spend the night in a town if it’s dangerous.

  We’ll just have to wait on the sex.

  Once we leave the road, the afternoon is uneventful.

  It’s late and getting darker when Travis says, “Probably have to camp tonight.”

  “That’s okay. Maybe we can find a stream or something to refill our water bottles.”

  “Keep an eye out. We can go a bit farther before dark.”

  He’s been driving on an old dirt road we found since it’s going in the right direction and allows us to stay protected by the woods. I peer through the trees, but the last light of the sun is blocked by the hills and the woods, and I can’t see very far into the distance.

  After about fifteen minutes, I reach out to touch Travis’s arm. “Look. Up there. Is that a driveway? Maybe there’s a cabin or something.”

  It’s impossible to know whether it’s a driveway, but there’s definitely a turnoff from the old road.

  Travis approaches it slowly and then shrugs and turns. “Might as well check it out.”

  The dirt drive leads us up to a cabin, exactly as I hoped. The cabin is tiny and dilapidated, and it’s obviously empty.

  “What do you think?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. We can check it out. Not real secure, but it’ll be better than sleeping outdoors.”

  The cabin is just as worn inside as it is outside. It never had a bathroom or plumbing of any kind. Never even had electricity. But the log walls are thick, and there’s an old trunk that Travis can move over to block the door.

  He only starts to relax when he sees that there are makeshift wood shutters he can close from inside to block and secure the two small windows. “Someone must have been livin’ here for a while after things got bad. Why else would they make these shutters?” He closes up one window and nods approvingly. “This’ll work. Not as good as a second floor, but it’ll do.”

  “Okay, good. Well, don’t lock us up in here until we eat and go to the bathroom.”

  We bring in the most important of our supplies—just in case someone comes by during the night and steals the Jeep—and then we have a quiet meal of canned corn, green beans, and tuna. None of it is warm since Travis doesn’t want to risk a fire, but we mix it all together and season it with salt, pepper, and hot sauce, so it’s not too bad.

  Then we go to the bathroom, brush our teeth, and wash up a bit in a barrel outside that collects rainwater.

  “It’s gonna be pitch-black in here as soon as I shut us in.” Travis is working on the other shutter. “Better light a couple of those candles.”

  I do as he suggests as he barricades us in.

  It feels strange after he shuts the door. Dark. Close. Nothing but walls around us and the flickering of the candles.

  There’s a bare mattress on the double bed, so I’ve spread our sleeping bag out over it. We took an extra blanket from one of the houses a couple of days ago, so we can cover up with that.

  I stand in the middle of the room.

  Travis comes over to stand in front of me. He’s smelling pretty stout since we haven’t been able to bathe since yesterday. His face is shadowed, making the angles of his features sharper, stronger.

  “You okay?” he asks softly.

  I touch his chest over his shirt.

  “Layne.”

  I’m not sure what he means when he says my name like that. Maybe it’s a question. Maybe a warning. Maybe a rasp of relief.

  “Are we safe?” I ask.

  He hesitates only briefly. “Safe enough, I think.”

  “Safe enough to...”

  “You wanna?” His breathing has accelerated. I can hear it very clearly.

  I slide my hand up to his jaw, feeling the rough bristles against my palm. The sensation triggers something deep, raw. “Yes. I want to.”

  I’ve been thinking maybe he’ll take it slow after he discovered that last night was my first time. I thought maybe he’d be a bit cautious.

  He’s not.

  He reaches out and hefts me up, so I have to cling to his neck. My legs wrap around his waist as he carries me over to the old bed.

  The mattress is thin and doesn’t smell very good.

  I couldn’t care less about that.

  He places me on the bed and peels off my jeans, taking my panties and my shoes at the same time. While he does that, I pull off my top and toss it on the floor.

  He shucks his own clothes in no time, and then he’s climbing on top of me, kissing his way from my throat to my breasts. I squirm as he works on one nipple and then the other, and I hook one leg around his middle, digging my heel into his bare ass.

  I’m hot and throbbing and frantic for him even though we’ve barely started.

  I can’t see him very well in the flickering light, but I somehow know he feels the same way. His hands and mouth are greedy, sloppy. His erection keeps pressing into the inside of my leg.

  I’m clawing at his back, his ass, his thighs. Any part of him I can reach.

  He teases my breasts for a minute until he loses patience. Then he adjusts enough to fit two fingers inside me. I’m wet, and my inner muscles clamp down eagerly around the penetration.

  “Oh fuck, Layne.” His voice is muffled by my neck. He’s sucking a hickey into my skin. “You’re the hottest little thing I ever felt.”

  My whole body pulses with pleasure at the compliment. I arch and mew and try to ride his fingers.

  He starts to move them. Fucks me with them. Hard and rough. Then he lowers his face and tugs at my nipple with his teeth.

  I sob with pleasure and then keep sobbing as the pleasure keeps coming.

  He’s murmuring out gruff encouragement as I ride out my orgasm. “That’s right. Real good. Come for me just like that.”

  I’m gasping when I finally start to relax. He pulls his fingers out of my body, and I whimper when I see in the dim light that he’s sliding them into his mouth and sucking them clean.

  He sees me watching and gives me a little smile. “That feel good to you?”

  I giggle. “Surely you could see that it did.”

  “Thought so. Just checkin’. Didn’t think I’d be able to make you come real hard like that.”

  My smile fades slightly. “Why not? Didn’t you think I could be sexy?”

  “Course I did. I meant I didn’t think you’d want me to make you come like that. Just thought you’d want a different sort of man.”

  I’m not sure what to say to that.

  The truth is he’s absolutely
right.

  Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined being attracted to a man like Travis. Much less letting him touch me, fuck me, make me come the way he just did.

  I can see he’s waiting for a response, so I give him one. “Well, I don’t know about all that. All I know is that right now I really want you.”

  “Good enough.” He moves up onto his knees, and I think he’s going to lift my hips and fuck me the way he did yesterday. But then he says, “Why don’tcha turn over on your hands and knees? Try somethin’ new.”

  I shiver and do as he says, naked and vulnerable with my ass exposed this way. I look at him over my shoulder. He’s moving into position.

  He sees me watching and pauses. “Just tell me if you don’t like it.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  His mouth quirks up. “Bet you will like it.”

  “Don’t be smug.”

  He chuckles. Not his normal snort but a real laugh. And he keeps smiling as he pulls my ass cheeks apart and feels his way down to my entrance with his fingers.

  He takes his erection and moves it into place.

  Then he’s pushing inside me, and it’s just as full and tight and hard as yesterday.

  Only more so in this position.

  I make a silly whining sound and grip the sleeping bag beneath us desperately.

  He eases out and then back in a couple of times until he’s fully in place. Both of us pant loudly as we hold the position.

  “How is it?” he rasps at last.

  “G-good. Real good. You feel really...”

  “What?”

  “Big.”

  “Yeah?” Once again, I hear that note of surprised pleasure in his tone.

  I huff with strained amusement. “You like it when I say that, don’t you?”

  “Course I do. How big do you think I am?”

  “Very big.” I wiggle my butt, making both of us moan. “Very, very big.” Then I add in a different tone. “Just like your ego.”

  He bites back a sharp burst of laughter, and the effort evidently makes his hips rock. He grunts as he bumps a few times against my bottom, and I whimper at the resulting sensations.

  That seems to snap his control. He starts moving, pumping his hips and slapping his groin against my ass.

  It feels so good—so different from yesterday—that I can’t control my mouth. I blubber out all kinds of embarrassing sounds as the sensations build and deepen.

  He doesn’t seem to have as much restraint as yesterday. His rhythm is already fast and hard.

  But I like it.

  I like it a lot.

  My elbows buckle, and my upper body falls down, burying my face in the sleeping bag before I turn my head. Travis shifts position, leaning forward, bracing himself above me with one hand, taking my messy braids in his other hand and holding them as he fucks me.

  The bed is squeaking and whining from our vigorous motion. I’m briefly afraid it might break.

  My clit throbs as my climax keeps rising, but there’s no way I can reach it in this position.

  The pleasure is aching, almost torturous. I’m dripping with sweat. My breasts swing and jiggle as Travis thrusts.

  I sob against the sleeping bag until my orgasm finally breaks.

  I come hard and messy, shaking and crying and slobbering in a way that would normally be embarrassing.

  Travis chokes on a loud exclamation as I clamp down around him. He makes a few jerky grinds before he yanks himself out with a groan that sounds like agony. He squeezes and slaps his erection against the small of my back until he comes on my skin.

  I’ve fallen onto my stomach, unable to hold myself up. Travis stays in position on his knees, panting just as helplessly as I am.

  Finally he gets up with a groan and gets a towel to wipe his come from my back. Then he falls down on the bed beside me.

  It’s a long time before either of us can speak.

  “So you liked that?” he asks at last.

  I snort. “Uh, yeah. I guess you could say so.”

  “Sure sounded like you did.”

  “Uh, you were making a lot of noises yourself just now.”

  “I know.” He gives me a half smile in the flickering light. “I liked it a lot too.”

  “Good.”

  It is good. It’s important to me that Travis is getting as much from this partnership as I am. In bed and out of it.

  He’s told me twice now that he wouldn’t have made it this far without me.

  I hope he means it.

  Right now, in the dark of a stuffy cabin, on a smelly mattress, surrounded by his scent and his body heat, I feel like maybe I’m giving as much as I’m getting.

  He feels sated to me. Like he’s close to falling asleep.

  I want him to.

  I want to give him what he needs.

  Not just in sex, but in other things too.

  It matters, taking care of someone else, even at the end of the world.

  I’d almost forgotten I had it in me.

  Seven

  I WAKE UP THE NEXT morning sore and aching.

  In fact, I feel terrible.

  I never realized having sex could take so much out of a person.

  The truth is I don’t want to get out of bed.

  It’s not like the bed is all that comfortable. The mattress is about two inches thick, and the sleeping bag beneath me feels sticky. But it will take such an effort to haul myself onto my feet that I keep lying there even after Travis gets up and moves the trunk away from the door.

  He pulls on his clothes, goes outside for a few minutes, and then comes back in to unshutter the windows and pack up the stuff we used last night.

  I’m still curled up under the blanket on my side.

  He knows I’m awake, although he hasn’t said anything to me yet. He’s looked over at me several times as he’s been going about his business. Finally he stands next to the bed and reaches a hand out to me.

  I take it with a groan, letting him pull me to my feet.

  “You not feelin’ good?” he asks, peering at my face.

  “I’m fine. Just tired and... I don’t know.”

  I’ve slept in a T-shirt and my panties, and his expression changes as his eyes move lower on my body.

  His gaze doesn’t change in a hot way. Rather in an urgent way.

  He reaches down to lift the bottom of my T-shirt, his eyes still focused on my lower body. “Layne?”

  “What?” I have no idea what’s distracted him like this.

  He tears the blanket off the bed and stares down at the rumpled sleeping bag we slept on.

  This time I can see what has him all uptight.

  Blood.

  There’s blood on the sleeping bag. I look down at myself and see blood smeared between my thighs.

  “You were bleedin’!” He grabs me by the shoulders. “Did I make you bleed last night? Did I hurt you?”

  “No! Of course you didn’t hurt me.” I’m finally processing what I’m seeing. And why I feel so bad this morning.

  It’s been months.

  Months and months.

  I’ve almost forgotten.

  “Damn it!” I burst out, closing my eyes as the frustration washes over me. “My period started!”

  Travis doesn’t say anything, but I open my eyes in time to see relief and understanding soften his face.

  “Damn it,” I say again, softer this time.

  “Not a big deal, is it?” He looks genuinely curious. “Or do you have a real rough time of it? Cheryl would hurt somethin’ awful.”

  “I don’t normally have a rough time. Just some cramps on the first day or two. But still. I’ve gone all these months without it, and it decides to come back now? While we’re on this endless road trip? It couldn’t have waited another couple of weeks?”

  He slants me a strange look, but his voice is mild as he says, “At least you got that stuff we found in the drugstore.”

  I perk up a bit as I remembe
r the pack of tampons in my bag, realizing how much worse it could be. “That’s true. And we’ve got plenty of ibuprofen, so that should help the cramps. Good thing we thought ahead. And I guess we know I’m not pregnant.”

  Travis makes a soft huff.

  I glance back at the sleeping bag. “What a mess. Sorry about that. Should have realized what was happening earlier.”

  “You were asleep.” He pulls the sleeping bag off the mattress. “It’ll wash.”

  WE STAY ON THE TRAIL we’ve been following for most of the day. It’s going through the woods, and the mountains are sometimes steep, but it’s better than being in danger on the roads.

  We talk even less than usual. Travis seems to be in a reflective mood, and I’m not feeling good at all. My cramps are worse than I remember, maybe because it’s been so long since I’ve had my period. I’m not very hungry at lunchtime, but Travis bullies me into eating half a protein bar. He eats the rest and some of the jerky.

  In the middle of the afternoon, the trail we’ve been following runs smack into a river.

  It’s a real river. Not a creek or a stream.

  “Gotta be the Kentucky River,” Travis says as he puts the Jeep in park and we both stare at the wide expanse of moving water. “I’m an idiot. Not sure why I didn’t realize it’d still be here and we’d have to get across it.”

  “I didn’t think about it either. We’ve been looking at a road map, so we were focusing on the roads.” I look back and forth along the length of it. “There’s no way we’re going to be able to cross right here.”

  “Nope. Gonna have to find a bridge.”

  “That means a road.”

  “I know.” He looks grim, matching how I’m feeling myself.

  I don’t have any delusions about magically finding a spot we can cross this river. There might be fordable spots, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be anywhere close to where we are.

  Both Travis and I are from mountains a lot like these. We know what it takes for a river to claw a place for itself out of rock over millions of years. There’s no gentle bank to this river. It’s surrounded on both sides by nearly vertical drops. Even if we could get through the water, there’s no way our vehicle is going to scale those slopes.