Paired Pursuit (7 page)

She swallowed, disconcerted. “Oh. You looked for me. I thought…”

“That gaming hall was the last place we thought we'd find you,” Gareth said, having unexpectedly prowled up behind her. “Good thing we went full circle.”

“Hey,
I
followed
you
in there.” She tried to fold her arms, but the men boxed her in, gently but firmly.

“Why did you run?” Finn's sincerity disarmed her.

“I—because…it clearly wasn't going to last between us.” In their intoxicating presence, all clarity of mind seemed to disappear. She felt addicted to their smell, their voices.

“What do you mean?” Gareth asked.

“You're both on male birth control, for heaven's sake,” Mari said. “For all I know, you make it a habit to seduce women aboard trains.”

Finn went slack-jawed, and Gareth made a slight sound. “The facility we come from doesn't permit us to leave without first taking a birth control injection,” Finn said. “Does that put your mind at ease?”

Mari tried to step away, shaking her head, not in denial but in bewilderment. “But…then you were flirting with that train driver. I thought it best to leave without further complicating things.”

“You mean you thought we would dump you? That's the silliest thing I ever heard.” Finn reached to smooth her hair, as if he couldn't help but touch her. “We definitely weren't flirting with that driver, by the way.”

“Well, she was coming on to you pretty strong,” Mari muttered.

“The feeling was decidedly not mutual,” Finn said.

“Oh.” Mari shuffled atop the cracked asphalt of the street, embarrassment flushing her cheeks. “Look, I've…never done this relationship thing before. When I was young, dating was all about going to the movies and riding around on bicycles—or in cars, if you were old enough. Then the world basically ended, and…”

They were still listening, so she soldiered on after a brief pause. “I mean, I've kissed boys, but things have always stopped there. I never knew what to do next, because I wasn't ready for marriage, and where I lived, women were required to have dowries. I couldn't afford that. So I resigned myself to living life on my own. That's all.”

They were standing on either side of her, soaking in every word she uttered. Although the occasional laugh or shout drifted out from the nearby gaming hall, the streets were deserted.

“What I think,” Gareth said quietly, “is that you don't consider yourself worthy of love.”

“I've never met anyone I was—” She cut herself off before saying
attracted to
, because she
had
met somebody. Two somebodies. She was very damn attracted to the Twins. “I wouldn't know what to do in a long-term relationship,” she concluded lamely.

Gareth closed in behind her, and Finn took her back into his arms. She felt as if she were trapped between two hungry tigers, but she clung to Finn, tentatively at first, then more firmly as he bent his head to kiss her.

“We've never been in a long-term relationship either,” Gareth said. He pressed against her back, cupping her breasts as if he owned them. “Maybe we could learn from each other, play it by ear.”

“You should know we never intended to let you go,” Finn said, breaking the kiss. His green eyes were deadly serious. “Had you decided to end things, we would have respected that, but we would have insisted upon escorting you somewhere safe. Where have you been, Marisol?”

She blinked. When had she told him her full name? But his tone brooked no argument, and his words—and the kiss—had left her dazed, so she simply answered, “I took lodging with an elderly woman a few streets that way. She needed the money and offered a better rate than the Wanderer Inn.”

“We're glad you're safe,” Gareth said. “We were beginning to think you'd managed to leave the City somehow.” He brushed a caress across her bare neck.

Finn tensed, his heavily muscled arms tightening as a far-off series of howls pierced the night. “Here they come.”

“I want to go watch them.” Had to, really, because she had to understand why her father had walked those walls night after night. What she truly
wanted
to do was hide under the covers—preferably with the Twins—until morning.

“We'll go with you.”

Most of her trepidation seeped away as the men took her arms, walking on either side of her. Although the lighting along the streets was dim, she felt little fear, knowing that just one of the Twins could take out any threat to her. And she had
two
of them with her.

It still seemed unreal. But she was quickly yanked back to reality by the sounds of the gathering aliens. Scar City's wall was twenty feet high, with strategically placed towers from which guards could observe the aliens and fight back when necessary. There were walkways between each one. That was where her father had paced, night after night, watching the aliens come in their waves and be rebuffed.

“There's one reason human-on-human crime's so bad lately,” Gareth said, nodding at the towers. Each one was fully manned, leaving very few enforcers on the ground to take care of crime there.

They went single-file up the metal steps, but Mari was glad when Finn took her arm again at the top. There was only a narrow catwalk between towers. Parts of the wall had been shored up with rubble and barbed wire. Crude metal spikes jutted from the bottom, although Mari rather doubted any of the Barks were stupid enough to impale themselves so easily.

She took a deep breath of the night air, looking up at the stars. They were clear and bright, constellations distinctly visible in the sky. Stargazing hadn't been something one could easily do within the bounds of a pre-Invasion city, since there had been so much light pollution in those days.

While up here, she could see why Reno had been renamed Scar City—the mothership that had crash-landed atop the eastern half of the city had left blackened lines radiating outward, scars that had burned for months even with no apparent fuel. Years later, they were still visible, encircling the City. Mari shuddered, and Finn and Gareth moved closer as if instinctively offering comfort.

“Did you grow up around here?” Finn asked.

“In Scar City? No. I was born and raised in Portland. When the Invasion happened, we were staying in our cabin in Tillamook. The aliens mostly concentrated on eating people in cities, so we were safe in the forest for a few months. Dad even found one of their smaller ships nearby, but it was abandoned.”

“What made you leave?” Gareth asked.

Mari shrugged. “Humans often seek strength in numbers. My parents eventually wanted the safety of walls, so we went to Seattle City—or what was left of it. From there, we went back to Portland, then came here.”

Each time, the aliens had come in waves, attacking the walls at night. Until they went to Flagstaff City, Mari had believed they attacked everywhere with such fervor. Perhaps they had been caught up in the blood thirst of the first few years, before humans built walls to keep them out. Or perhaps her mother had been right, and the creatures
had
been following them.

“My father thinks the Barks underestimated us,” Mari said. “At least at first. That's how we were able to shoot down so many of their ships. Of course, we underestimated them too.”

“People have a tendency to disregard their enemies if they're vastly different from them,” Gareth said. “I don't think anyone expected the Barks to be so vicious, though.”

Mari flinched as another volley of howls sounded. She could see a group of the aliens in the distance, undulating and pale as they ran among the rubble of what had once been suburbs. “Let's walk,” she suggested.

By the time they'd made it halfway around the wall's perimeter, an attack began in earnest, a concerted attempt by the aliens to demolish part of the wall. Mari hung back as guards shot at the Barks, bullets flying mostly harmlessly through the night, but a few connecting. Craning her neck, she could see that the part of the wall the aliens were targeting was beginning to seriously crumble.

“Screw this,” Gareth muttered. “I can't stand by and watch this. Stay with her.”

Finn drew her into his arms as Gareth strode forward, lights springing from his wrist and hand. They shone into the darkness, driving the aliens back.

“He can't do much from up here,” Finn said. “The UV lights we use as weapons are more effective up close, but he can still drive them back.”

After scattering the creatures, Gareth nodded to the guards and came back to them. “Ready to get down?”

“Yes.” Mari had seen enough for tonight, enough to know she wasn't going to find the answers she needed at the top of the wall. It only stressed her out to see the aliens attacking—she hated to see them up close—and the chilly air was making her shiver.

“Come with us, then.” Finn's voice was pure seduction, and he led her down the nearest set of stairs, Gareth bringing up the rear.

“Where are you staying?” she asked as they made their way through the dimly lit streets.

“A private house,” Gareth answered. “It's not large, but it's comfortable enough. It belongs to the government, so Twins are able to stay in it anytime.”

Mari breathed easier with every step she took away from the wall. Fortunately for her nerves, the house was located centrally, down a quiet side street filled with a mixture of bungalows and FEMA-style temporary housing. Finn stopped in front of one of the latter, motioning for Gareth to do a quick check around the back.

“All clear,” Gareth said. Not that the house looked all that vulnerable to burglary with its metal-shuttered windows and sturdy walls.

Finn unlocked a heavy-duty door, preceding her inside and lighting several candles. Although she was eager to go inside, her body clamoring for theirs, Mari hung back. “I can't stay here tonight.”

Gareth's head came up sharply. “Why not, honey?”

“I—I'm not ready to just…stay with you so soon. I'm sorry. And Patrice will be worried if I don't come back.”

“Patrice is the name of the woman you're renting from?” Finn asked. He came to her—they both did—touching her gently, almost reverently, yet with a certain possessiveness that made her heart thud faster.

Mari nodded. “She's really nice. She says I remind her of her granddaughter.”

She'd had a grandmother who lived in New York, a nice old woman who smelled of lavender and sent cards with money inside for each birthday and Christmas. She had died at the age of eighty-one, having passed peacefully in her sleep a year prior to the Invasion. Mari was glad her grandma had been spared a violent death.

“What if we spend a little time here, then walk you back to where you're staying?” Gareth suggested.

A blush suffused her cheeks as she caught his meaning. She wasn't at all averse to spending time with these men—especially if it involved what she thought it was going to, but she wasn't entirely sure how to express it. Still, she was eager to embrace her new freedom—and if a relationship with Twins was part of that, all the better.

“Is it true what you said about a relationship?” she blurted.

“That we want one? Yes.” Finn gave her a searching look, reminding her abruptly that, military training aside, these men hadn't been socialized in the outside world. Most likely, they'd never been able to date someone properly.

Then again, nobody really dated properly anymore.

“All right. I wouldn't mind a tour of your place,” she said, stepping over the threshold.

Behind her, Finn locked the door against unwanted intruders. Not that Mari figured anyone would dare try to interrupt them—at over six feet, the Twins didn't look like men to mess with.

“So this is government housing?” she asked, glancing around. The place was passable, less homey than Patrice's, more comfortable than her old shipping container. Ledgers lined the shelves, and a freestanding safe sat in the corner.

“Yep. The government still has some aces up its sleeve,” Gareth said. “When Twins travel to Cities, we're welcome to request anything we need to get our mission done—from vehicles to housing and provisions.”

“Whether we get those requests is another matter entirely,” Finn said. He trailed a casual hand down her back, and she shivered in response, half turning toward him.

When she placed her hands on his chest, she felt some of the tension in his body ease. She ran her fingers across the fabric of his shirt, tracing a circle around one hardened nipple. That, it seemed, was enough to galvanize them both into action.

She watched, half-mesmerized, as they simultaneously shed their shirts, revealing broad torsos and heavily muscled shoulders. They had showered somewhat recently, for their hair smelled faintly of sandalwood and they were both freshly shaven—and very appealing.

She reached out to touch Gareth's face, fingers sliding along his scar all the way down to his stubble. She stroked Finn's cheek with her other hand, turning her full attention to him when he pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand. The small gesture was enough to make her tremble with desire.

Mari let Gareth guide her hand downward, hooking her fingers into the waistband of his jeans. His cock tented the denim, but he ignored it, leaning forward to concentrate on the buttons of her blouse. His large fingers were surprisingly nimble. Within a few seconds, she stood in front of both men clad in bra and skirt.

With anyone else, she might have found the situation uncomfortable, but she was beginning to feel safe with the Twins. Even so, she was grateful that she'd chosen to wear reasonably stylish underclothes. Most garments these days were either handmade or patched within an inch of their lives. Mari had been fortunate to find a local seamstress who sewed practical yet sexy bras.

The candles flickered, throwing shadows on the wall as Gareth reached to free her breasts. She let her hand dip, grazing against the bulge in his pants, and tensed as Finn came around behind her. His bare torso pressed against her back, the warm skin-to-skin contact both reassuring and exciting her.