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When her body shakes and she bites her lip to keep quiet, I cover her mouth with mine and swallow her moan. I plant my other hand against the tree above her head while I continue to move my fingers inside her, my thumb circling in rhythm with her rolling hips. My balls swell, and my fingers dig painfully into the tree bark. I roll my hips to press my aching cock against her. I’m going to come purely from focusing on her.

“Fuck it.” I pull my fingers out, remove her shorts andunderwear in one quick motion without setting her feet down, and line up at her entrance. I hesitate. “Autumn…”

She rolls her hips and I thrust inside.

“Caspian,” she breathes. Her head falls back, and she bites her lower lip so hard it bleeds.

I place my mouth over hers again, to give her mouth something to do. If she’s going to draw blood, it’s going to be from me.

Her release comes with a shudder that travels through both our bodies. Her inner walls pulse around my dick, and her legs tighten around my waist. Her hands claw at my shoulders, pulling me closer and closer, and I have to restrain from fully crushing her against the tree.

An orgasm crashes over me while I’m milking her through her own. My mouth slacks, and I drop my head so my mouth is near her ear. “Fuck. Even watching you come undone like that is enough to do me in.”

Her legs are jelly by the time she comes down from her high, and I realize we’ve already sunk to the forest floor. I’m holding her tightly in my lap with splinters in my fingers, but the only thing I can think of is her.

For the first time in years, I don’t feel haunted anymore.

Just whole.

Hers.

I slide out from inside her. Autumn’s eyes drop to my hand. “You have splinters,” she says, taking my hand in hers. She examines my fingers where small slivers of wood have embedded themselves from where I braced against the tree.

“Worth it,” I say, but then my voice dies off when she brings my index finger to her lips and takes it into her mouth. The warm, wet heat of her tongue as she works the splinter out sends a different kind of shiver through me. Her eyes meet mine as she sucks gently, and I have to remind myself to breathe.

She releases my finger with a soft pop, then spits the splinter out and into the dirt. “Better?”

I can only nod as she moves to the next finger, repeating the process with such tender focus that my chest aches with something I can’t name. By the time she’s removed the last splinter, I’m overwhelmed by the simple intimacy of it. This care that comes after passion.

“About the…I don’t have condoms on me. Didn’t think I would need them, to be honest,” I say.

She places her hands on either side of my face and kisses my lips. “That’s something we can worry about later if need be. I don’t have any regrets.”

My head falls and I bury my face in her hair. I breathe in her scent that’s sweat, earth, and something uniquely Autumn. In this moment, I’m content to stay like this for the rest of my days, with her sitting in my lap and her warmth pressing against my chest.

For once, the darkness holds no terror. Only peace.

The only thing I can think of it her.

28

AUTUMN

The fire crackles low, but it’s enough to keep any nearby rotters at bay. The sun’s crept higher, but it barely touches the clearing. Smoke curls lazily into the morning sky, and I keep tracing patterns in the dirt with a stick.

Lucy never showed. We waited through the night after making it through the tunnel of hell. We kept watch until the stars faded, but nothing. Maybe we’re too late. Maybe she was never coming in the first place, and maybe we risked everything for nothing.

The reality of another dead end crushes my chest. Another false lead. Another failure. Another day Summer spends missing while I fumble in the dark, desperate and grasping for clues that might not even be there.

“Dammit!” I snap, digging the stick deeper into the dirt.

My hand trembles with rage at Lucy, at myself, at this entire fucked up and broken world. The stick splinters in my grip, driving a sliver into my palm.

I hurl the broken pieces against a nearby tree trunk. They bounce off, harmless, which only makes my anger grow. I grab a rock from the ground and throw it next, harder thistime, watching it crack against the bark with a satisfying sound that does nothing to ease the storm inside me.

“Autumn?” Mars approaches with caution.

“Don’t,” I warn, picking up another rock. This one I smash against the ground, again and again until it splits in two. “I can’t do this. Doing nothing, but sitting here waiting for someone who might never come. I can’t.” My voice breaks. “I can’t keep hitting walls while Summer’s out there somewhere. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have been able to find her by now.”