The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (55 page)

After a few moments and after he’s
caught his breath, Cory rolls gently off of her and onto his back.
His
heart rate
begins to slow.
The measure of his actions tries to creep into his thoughts, but he
attempts to suppress them. Her low-throated, guttural laugh draws
his attention.

“What… are you… are you
laughing at me
?” he asks hesitantly, his
manhood beginning to feel threatened.

“No!” Paige blurts and laughs again.

She’s still on her back, arms and legs-one
over his thigh- splayed in carefree abandon, her eyes closed, a
soft sheen of sweat on her body causing it to glow by the
firelight. It’s probably his sweat on her. The room was too hot for
him before he added the extra wood to keep her warm throughout the
night.

“What are you laughing about then?” Cory
asks. He hasn’t been with so many women that he feels confident
enough to say that they don’t sometimes laugh after sex. It seems
unusual to him, but perhaps some of them do this.

“I didn’t know it was supposed to be like
that,” she admits honestly.

Now his interest is piqued, so he rolls onto
his side facing her.

“Like what?” he asks and pushes a lock of her
hair from her forehead.

“Wow!” she exclaims loudly, heedless of him,
their unusual, potentially dangerous surroundings and basically the
whole world.

Cory likes that her hair is
matted
to
her forehead and that
the rest of it is a tangled mess all over the pillows. Her cheeks
are flushed a bright pink. Her mouth is a ruddy red from his
kisses. Her chin is a little red, probably from his beard. This is
a good look
on
her. He allows his
fingertips to trace her soft jaw line and down over one shoulder
before taking a few red strands between his
fingertips
.

“Is that your seal of approval I take
it?” Cory
inquires
with a lot
of
hope
.

There’s the guttural laugh again followed by
a vigorous nod. He tries to hold back his pleased grin.

“Yes, big
seal
,” she says with a blush blooming on her
cheeks, making them even redder. Paige repeats, “Big
seal
.”

Her arms measure something in the air
above her. He’s pretty sure it’s not the same thing he’s thinking.
Even he isn’t that well-endowed. Cory chuckles. She probably just
can’t wrap her mind around their encounter. He’s having some
issues, as well. He’s afraid they just went from casual enemies
turned
one-night
stand to
something far more complicated.

“So I take it this wasn’t how it went with
your college boyfriend?” he asks because he can’t seem to stop
himself.

“Get real. No, I only had sex with him a few
times and that was because he pressured me into it. But it wasn’t
anything like that.”

“No?”

Paige snorts and says, “No way. He wasn’t… I
don’t know. I guess he wasn’t good at it. Not like you. Not like
that. You were… your body is… whoa.”

Cory’s under no false illusions that
he’s a Casanova, so this is
an
intriguing
revelation from her. Apparently her
boyfriend was a selfish dick.

She still rambles on, “That was… that was… oh
my God! Seriously, that was so…”

“Yeah? Having trouble describing it?” Cory
reflects with a smile at her uncharacteristic failure to express
herself.

She rolls toward him and announces, “But we
can’t ever do that again. Oh, God! I can’t believe we did it in the
first place. That has to be a one-time thing, ‘kay?”

Reason and honesty start filtering into his
brain again like unwanted stains. She’s right. They can’t do this.
They sure as hell can’t do this back at the farm. Doc would have a
cow. Simon would kill him right after Kelly did. Reagan would
probably get in line to murder him first. She seems very fond of
Paige. He’s starting to feel a little differently about Paige,
too.

“Right. Of course, you’re right,” he agrees.
“We can’t ever let Simon find out. He’d lose his shit.”

“Exactly,” Paige agrees.

“I shouldn’t have…”

Paige presses herself into his side and
places a finger to his mouth, “Shh, don’t say anything like that,
like what you were going to say. Let’s not do that.”

Cory nods and captures her hand. He places a
kiss to her fingertip and then sucks it into his mouth. Her sharp
intake of breath makes him grin.

“You know something?” she asks.

“What’s that?” Cory returns.

Paige swings a long leg over his hip
and pushes him onto his back again. Then she comes up
onto
him, straddling his groin. Her
hands rest on his chest.

“So basically the damage is already done,”
she leads and circles his nipple with one fingertip.

“More than done, I’d say,” Cory agrees, his
hands moving to her slim hips and then to her narrow waist.

“And we have quite a few hours before we have
to meet… the others,” she says, purposely omitting her brother’s
name.

“About eight or so,” Cory says
with
a nod as he pulls her tighter and
down onto his chest. Her soft breasts press deliciously there as
his fingertips glide down over her back to cup her
thighs.

“It was great
,
right?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Cory asks as his
fingers wade back up and through her red locks. He can’t seem to
stop touching her.

“But that could’ve just been a fluke,” she
says with a grin and kisses his chest.

“Possible. Doubtful, but possible just the
same,” Cory goes along with her teasing, keeping his tone
serious.

Her fingers thread through his chest hair to
touch the little gold bracelet twined around a black leather cord.
Cory snatches her hand away, kisses her palm and places it against
his cheek. He doesn’t really want to explain why he still wears his
dead sister’s bracelet at his neck. She doesn’t push which he
appreciates even if she is curious.

“We should probably make sure it wasn’t. We
wouldn’t want to be left guessing, wondering, right?” she asks
rhetorically as she grinds herself against him.

“Never leave anything to chance, I always
say,” Cory teases further as he pulls both of her hands above them
against the headboard and pins them there.

“Just one last time, ok?” she asks.

“Right, one time. No more. Then we’ll
know, and it won’t ever happen again. Agreed?” he asks, although he
really doesn’t want her to
agree
to it being their last time. Something about that seems too
final for him. He’s not sure two times with her will be enough.
Maybe two hundred. He’s not going to bring that up right now,
though since she’s licking his earlobe.

“Agreed,” she confirms.

Cory flips her onto her back again and begins
the process of performing all of the acts of debauchery and sin
that he’s been thinking about doing to her for weeks. Within a few
short minutes, he has her writhing and squirming beneath him
again.

A long time later, after she has fallen
asleep, Cory reflects on what they’ve done. He had been so
steadfast in
his resolve
not to
have sex with her. He’s not sure exactly what took place in his
brain from the first floor to the second floor of this house.
Downstairs, he’d convinced himself that he could resist her, resist
her little hints, resist himself, and hold his shit together. He
hadn’t wanted this to happen, to complicate their relationship, or
to break faith with Simon. Now they have this gargantuan secret
between them.

She brought it up again, before zonking
out on his chest, that they have to keep it a secret, and that it
can never happen again. As he strokes his fingers up and down her
bare side and into the mass of her
heavy
mane, he’s not so sure he’s going to be able
to live up to that promise.

Chapter Twenty-three

Simon

“Step away from the vehicle!” Simon shouts,
frightening the two young people thinking about getting into their
store of goods in the raised hatch of the Suburban. He is aiming
his pistol at them.

They startle and back up. The man pushes the
woman behind him and holds up a hand in surrender. He has a dagger
on his hip, but Simon doesn’t see a gun.

“Please don’t shoot us, Mister,” the young
Hispanic man yells in a panic, his dark eyes darting around
nervously.

They look desperate, hungry and dirty.
Simon feels a little sorry for them. The woman is rail thin, and
the man’s not in much better shape. He’s carrying a small canvas
sack. Their plan was obviously to steal from them, take whatever
they could from the trunk of the Suburban. Simon wonders if they
just happened along and found the open hatch or if they have been
watching them load the vehicle. He doesn’t like the idea that
someone could’ve been watching them and sneaked over to the
vehicle
while they went for more
supplies inside the building.

“What were you doing? Robbing us?” Simon asks
with disbelief.

“No, sir,” the woman says, her eyes fearful
and nervous.

“That’s not what it looked like,” Simon
accuses.

The man fidgets, and his hand stupidly
goes to the hilt of his short dagger. Simon
surely
hopes that it is a defense mechanism and
that he isn’t about to charge him. The man and his partner don’t
seem much older than him. If Simon
were
to guess, he’d say they are in their early
twenties.

Sam comes out from behind one of the
massive pillars of the Parthenon holding the shotgun. Now the young
couple
looks
scared out of their
minds. If they thought they could take him on by himself, they are
definitely out of sorts with a second gun-wielding person coming at
them. The young woman tugs at the man’s shirt, and they take off
running. He holsters the pistol as Sam hands him his rifle she has
slung over her shoulder. Simon watches them through the scope of
his rifle as they run across the overgrown grounds of the park and
down a hill. He watches until they are gone from view. He doesn’t
think they’ve stolen anything. Sam brushes past him and goes to the
trunk of the SUV.

“They didn’t get anything,” she says with a
soft frown.

“Good,” Simon returns, still holding his
rifle at his shoulder and scanning the area for possible other
people who could’ve been with the young couple. “They’re gone.”

Sam chuckles and says, “Ya’ think, Simon? We
were holding guns on them. I would’ve run too!”

They’ve been packing away their
supplies in the trunk of the SUV for the past twenty minutes.
Everything is in there, but Simon had gone back to the gallery for
the paintings Sam wants to preserve. He’s going to strap them to
the roof of the Suburban on top of the luggage rack to get them
back to the farm because they
simply
won’t fit in the hatch. He wishes they had more time. He’d
pack the whole damn gallery onto the roof for her if he had the
time. But, alas, they are due in ten minutes to meet his sister and
Cory. He doesn’t want to keep them waiting in case they run into
trouble.

“I doubt it,” he remarks to her. “I don’t
think you’re a runner, Sam.”

She laughs and retorts, “I don’t know about
that! I’m just not a very fast runner. Not like Paige. She’s really
fast. I went for a jog the other day with her and Cory, but those
two freaks turned it into a competition and left me in the
dust.”

“Let’s go,” he says when he shuts the hatch.
“Yeah? They left you? That’s not cool.”

Out of habit, Simon follows her to the
passenger side and opens the front door for her. It’s just how he
was raised, to open doors for women. His father made sure he was
raised with good, old-fashioned manners and courtesy toward the
softer sex. She just smiles coyly up at him and gets in. Then he
goes around the front of the SUV, scans the area one more time,
hands his rifle in across the seat to Sam, and starts the
Suburban.

“Yep, they ditched me,” she continues.
“But I got them back. I just ran to the horse pasture and grabbed
Reagan’s horse. Then I caught up
to
them and beat them on the high
pasture
.”

“With no saddle again? Sam, we’ve talked
about that. It’s safer to ride with a saddle. You could…”

She laughs haughtily and answers, “Simon,
please! I’ve been riding since I was like five years old or
something. Get real. Cory thought it was funny.”

“Well, I don’t,” he replies in a disapproving
voice. Why does she take risks like that? Isn’t the world dangerous
enough for her? The thought of Sam falling from her horse and being
injured or killed makes him instantly angry, especially at Cory. He
makes a mental note to discuss her dangerous bareback riding
escapade with Cory. His friend should’ve already reprimanded her
for this, not encouraged her. Eager to change the subject, Simon
asks, “So, do you think you know where this Dick’s Sporting Goods
is located?”

“It’s on the other side of the university.
We’ll find it,” she assures him and rolls her window down just a
crack.

The weather has improved slightly, the
sun is back out, and it’s warm enough for jackets. Luckily, none of
the snow from last night has stuck to the ground. He’s not worried
about himself, but he certainly doesn’t want Sam to get sick. She
was so cold and wet last night, he was sure she’d wake up with a
fever this morning. Unfortunately, she woke him this morning
because she stirred against his side. At some point in the
night,
she must’ve ditched her own
sleeping bag and crawled into his, pulling her
bag
over them. He wasn’t too keen on her doing
that. He hadn’t lectured her, though, because he figured it wasn’t
such a bad idea, that it probably kept her warmer. Luckily he was
dead asleep or he could’ve mauled her again. Waking with her
snuggled tightly against him had disturbed his senses,
however.