Hope (4 page)

Penny turned to look at him. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

Her father and brothers had been older. She was the youngest
in her family and the one they’d used as a slave. They’d scared her with horror
stories about other women and their circumstances. At least they hadn’t been
completely wrong. The world they now lived in was no place for a woman to be
alone and independent.

“Do you have a family?” she asked, wanting to know
everything about the man who’d saved her.

“You’re full of questions,” he said.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

He sighed and turned to look at her. The intimacy of the
moment wasn’t lost on her. Even though her mother had been ordered not to teach
her, she’d still taught her in secret. Penny didn’t tell her father because she
loved the books her mother gave her. She’d consumed the few romance books her
mother kept. Intimacy was a mystery to her, and she was interested in both attraction
and intimacy.

“No, I didn’t have a wife or children. My family was my
parents and brothers.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were struck by the flu of 2215. I was doing a job for
Don, and when I got back I found them dead. I buried them after that.”

She knew about the effects of the flu. It had taken her
mother from her. Her father hadn’t been able to do a thing to save her mother.
Penny remembered holding her hand as she took her last breaths.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? Shit happens, and I’m not sad about it. There are
fewer mouths to feed.”

Penny didn’t buy his attitude.

“It still must hurt to be alone in the world.”

He reached over, stroking her cheek. “Don’t forget,
princess, you’re the one who is also alone in the world. You left everything
else behind to live here. You’re just as alone as I am.”

Damon turned away from her cutting off any chance of more
conversation.

Closing her eyes, she turned away from him and faced the
wall. She thought about life before she’d run away. Her family had been intent
on selling her out. She didn’t know what her family would get for her, but
she’d not waited around to see. She knew enough to know she was better off getting
away from them than letting them use her.

Shaking her head, she let her body relax and
sleep claim
her. It had been a long day. She needed her
rest.

Chapter Three

Damon opened one eye and stared at the woman in his arms. He
froze, not wanting to wake her. They’d fallen asleep on opposite sides of the
bed. Through the night they must have moved toward each other. One of his arms
lay under her head while his other was over her waist. She looked so beautiful
and innocent in his arms. The shirt he’d given her last night had ridden up
exposing her waist. He knew it had because his arm was resting on warm naked
flesh.

His cock thickened in his boxers. He was pleased he’d
decided to leave them on. Any other night, he’d have taken them off.

He stared down at the woman in his arms. Her face was
relaxed in slumber. She really was a pretty sight. Her skin was so soft that he
couldn’t help but reach out and touch. He daren’t move in case he woke her.

How was he going to deal with her when she woke up? He
wasn’t going to scare her off with his desires. Damon hadn’t been lying last
night when he said he never forced himself on a woman.

In all of his thirty-five years he’d never given anything to
a woman for sex. Never had and never would. It was a motto he refused to depart
from.

The sun was shining through the ripped curtains. They were
old, and he hadn’t been able to find any to replace them.

Why are you
thinking about the décor? She’s used to a world looking like shit. Just because
she was part of a family doesn’t mean she had a better way of life. She wasn’t
originally from Don’s area, which means her life could have been worse than a
city dweller’s life.

The areas were known for being different. Each leader had a
different way of running things. Don preferred to try to run a peaceful area
while others continued to be vicious.

He ranted inside his own head until he couldn’t stand it any
longer. Damon pulled his arm away from her waist and tugged the one under her
head. He saw her eyes flick open and turn to him.

“You were on me,” he said.

Damon climbed out of his side of the bed, stretched out his
muscles, and walked to the bathroom. The bucket of water he kept didn’t look
pleasing to him. The bucket of water was his idea of a shower. He couldn’t be
bothered to heat the thing up. They had built several wells around the city for
anyone to go and fetch water. Looking at his supply, he’d have to go and
collect some more very soon. He tried to keep them in the buckets he’d found
during several of his rummages.
  
Damon
placed his hand into the cold water. His wash this morning would be awful.

“You have a shower?” Penny asked. She stood in the doorway,
the shirt she wore grazing the top of her knees. She looked so tempting with
the sun shining behind her, outlining her gorgeous body. When she saw the
bucket of water, her smile faded. “Oh.”

His cock hardened at the sight of her, and he turned away
from her captivating presence. “No baths or showers here, just the pleasure of
a bucket of water. The water comes from the well a couple of yards away.” He
lifted his palm out of the water. “Didn’t you have bathing facilities out at
the farms in Grimes’s area?” he asked, trying to distract his thoughts.

“No. We had a big copper tub that we filled with boiled
water.
Nothing like this.”
The look she gave the
bucket made him smile. She really had no idea how different city life and
farming life were.

She took a seat on the toilet, which didn’t work. He had
another bucket for her to do her business in.

“Are you going to sit and watch me wash?”

“Sorry, I’ll go.”

Penny started to leave the room. The sight of her ass made him
call her name. “You can have the water after me.”

She didn’t turn around and nodded her head instead. Once she
left the room, he climbed into the shower and removed his boxer briefs. His
cock sprang free. The vein at the side pulsed thickly with his arousal.
Grinding his teeth together, he took his shaft in hand and worked his length.

He tried to cut Penny from his thoughts, but her tantalising
body and full, heart-shaped lips called to him. His hand fisted his cock as he
thought about sinking into her tight heat. He didn’t know if she was virgin.
Virgins didn’t remain so for long around these parts. He thought of her looking
at him and begging for him to take her.

The thought was so primal and desperate that without
thinking he called out her name. Pressing his palm against the snapped tile, he
sensed her presence.

“Damon?” she asked.

That was all it took for him to explode over the wall and
down the drain, the simple call of his name.

His heart pounded inside his chest, and his head throbbed
from the release of his orgasm.

“Damon?” she asked again.

“Hold on,” he said. Grabbing the water and his make-do wash
cloth, Damon cursed as he wiped his body with the cold water. When he’d taken
as much as he could take, he washed the evidence of his orgasm away.

“The wash is free.”

He grabbed the towel, wrapped it around his hips, and
climbed out. Damon didn’t look at her as he passed. Her scent invaded his
senses, and he didn’t understand why.

Sex and women were easy for him to get where he worked.
Penny was not the type of woman he went for. He liked them experienced and knowing
the score.

Shaking his head, he walked toward his bedroom. He didn’t
know what he was going to do with her.

Get laid, and
you’ll be fine. You need to sink into a nice, willing woman, and everything
will be fine.

He heard her singing in the shower and then a curse as she
felt the cold water against her body. She didn’t let it affect her and kept
singing. Her voice was out of tune, but the sound was nice to hear.

Get a grip,
Wright. Letting your emotions lead you in this shit-hole will not help.

People died, and it was easier to never become attached to
anyone.

The sound of her climbing out of the shower stall alerted
him to her coming presence. In no time at all she stood in a towel in his
bedroom. He zipped his jeans up and brushed past her.

She looked tempting, wet and waiting for him.

He rummaged around in her bag and threw some clothes at her.
Her shirt hit her in the face.

“Get them on.”

“Why?” she asked.

“You could still be going home by the end of the afternoon.
You’ve got to petition your stay here.”

He moved toward his kitchen. The place had no food left, and
he’d need to get something to eat.
 
Don
would have some food waiting for him. The farms transferred food to him, and
then Don distributed it. What they grew was supposed to last the whole area.
From what Damon had learned all four areas spent the time to invest in farming.
Producing natural food was preferable to taking the tablets.

She stood in the doorway to the bedroom.

“Shoo,” he said, giving her a hand gesture to get ready.

Penny stormed into his room. He imagined if he had a door
she would have slammed it. Chuckling, he sat down on his sofa and waited. He
flicked his knife open and closed. It was a knife he’d found going through some
of the rubble left over by buildings.

She came through the doorway seconds later. Her hair was damp,
and it looked like she’d run her fingers through it.

“I don’t own a brush,” he said. She shrugged her shoulders.

“We’d better go.”

He walked to his front door, kept his knife out, and
unlocked all the bolts. Slowly he eased the door open, checking down the
corridor before opening his door wider.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“A chance at a place and something else is too much
temptation. You’re not safe no matter where you are.” He kept her behind him
while he locked the doors. Damon grabbed her hand and walked down the stairs.

 
Pulling her along he
checked the street and then began walking in the direction of the nightclub
where he worked.

Several bodies lay in the street. Damon kept walking.

“Do you think we should wake them up?” she asked, looking at
the bodies.

Damon paused staring at her. Her innocence was going to take
him a while to get used to. He didn’t know what it was like for her living out
at the farms in Grimes’s area. For all he knew, they kept city life away from
the farms.
 

“They’re dead, Penny.”

Her eyes widened as she looked at the bodies. “What?
How?”

“It gets cold at night. Exposure for any length of time is
dangerous.”

He grabbed her hand and moved along. There would be plenty
of men and women out on the streets in no time. They passed several fallen
buildings. He remembered when they’d fallen a few years back. No matter how
many times Don tried to organise a re-build the area was falling apart. Damon
wondered about life back before the M3. The stories gave him hope. If they’d
managed to live in a world without such chaos then he’d never have to take a
knife wherever he went or worry about an illness. An illness used to be fixed
with some rest and medicine. Now, an illness killed anyone it struck. There was
so much death around them. Damon struggled to believe there was once a world
where that was different.

Damon didn’t know if Penny knew any different. He was going
by what he’d been told. Being unable to read he had to go by listening to
others read the books. The world it painted sounded nice. The world before the
M3 had also been the very same world where women could roam free without fear
and when police walked the streets.

There were times he wished for the stories to be real. Every
night he returned back home, he wondered if he’d be returning to an empty
shell.

The sun was full in the sky, glaring at them.

“I can’t believe how different this place is from home. We
weren’t allowed to go to the main city. We had to stay at the farms at all
times,” she said. “It’s all the same city, and yet each area must have made
their own
names for each other.”

They were not far from where the sex club where he worked.
He kept hold of her in case anyone tried to take her away. He was Damon Wright,
but men were fools at times.

When he was in front of the club, he knocked on the door.
Matty
, the doorman, opened the latch and stared at him.

“Damon, you’re early.”

“I’m here on business.” He tugged on Penny’s arm. “I need a
word with Don.”