Page 36

chapter thirty-five

Tuck

I hadn’t known lust like this. I tried to tell myself the arousal coiled around my muscles and pumping through my veins was only natural considering how long I’d been celibate, but I knew very well that was a lie. Sure, that was part of it. But mostly, it was her. No one got me going like Emily. No one brought out my emotions like her. No one else both pressed my buttons and turned me on. No one stirred my soul like the woman beneath me. I wanted her desperately. But I also needed to keep her safe. “Before this goes too far… I need to check for condoms.”

“I have an IUD,” she murmured. And then she pressed against my aching erection, now standing at attention even though I’d climaxed not five minutes before.

I swallowed back a moan. And the knowledge that I didn’t have to worry about coming inside her sent a bolt of excitement through my body. But I took a breath. I didn’t want this to end too soon. Somewhere beyond the lust was this vague fear that we were on borrowed time. Like a shooting star speeding through the galaxy—hot and dazzling—but destined to burn out. Something told me I needed to relish every blazing moment. I barely wanted to blink. I breathed her in as I kissed down her throat, the moment slowing, her muscles softening beneath me.

“It was always leading here with us, wasn’t it?” she asked breathily, her words slurred with passion.

I nuzzled her neck, rubbing my lips over her skin as I brought my hand under her T-shirt and cupped her breast. She moaned softly when I began rubbing my thumb over her nipple. It was always leading here. And I knew she didn’t mean to this ranch house at the end of the world, but here, us , limbs wrapped, mouths melded, moving together.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “Always.”

I pulled her T-shirt over her head, and then stared down at her naked breasts, shimmering in the candlelight. When I met her eyes, they were tender, her lips curved as she watched me, obviously pleased by what she saw on my face. It was always leading here. Yes. The phrase repeated, pounding through my blood. I felt the truth of it to my soul. And you couldn’t fight fate. We’d tried, hadn’t we? And yet here we were. Always meant always.

Emily was still looking at me, and I wondered if she too was having a hard time closing her eyes, needing instead to witness every second of this long-awaited moment. Keep your eyes open , my heart whispered. You’ve missed far too much already. “God you’re stunning, Em.” I wanted her to know that, to feel it. To understand that to me, there was no one more beautiful than her. There never had been. That truth had haunted me, even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself. But now it brought nothing but joy.

Her smile melted into a sigh as I lowered my face and licked at her nipple. I worshipped her breasts for long minutes as her pants grew louder and her hips came up off the bed, her core seeking mine. She ran her hands through my hair, her short nails scoring along my scalp.

“And you light me on fire,” I grated. Sometimes my instinct was to draw away from the burn, but fuck I craved it too. I was hot and throbbing again, desperate to feel her clasped around me, to make her mine. Finally.

That fate again, pulling, driving my need.

This—us—could only be destiny. It felt so damn right. A certainty, but also a return of some sort, a rewind that I’d never imagined was possible. How many times had I wished I could go back to those bright, beautiful days with her when life made perfect sense? It felt like I’d somehow miraculously managed to do that, even if this was the future, not the past, an astonishing paradox of time.

Our eyes met and held, expressions becoming serious as if we both suddenly sensed the intense gravity of this moment. I knew I did. And though the paradox was miraculous, it was also startling. And scary too because it demanded a surrender, and lowering my guard had never been a strong suit of mine. I felt a strange tumbling, a reeling inside as though I’d both snapped back into place and found myself in a distant land. I let out a breath and gripped her, her eyes softening as she gripped me back. The next kiss was slow and long, our mouths and tongues exploring leisurely even as my blood pumped swiftly and my heart quickened. I needed it, the pause, the anchor that was her mouth and her hands and the soft press of her skin. Needed to come to terms with this dreamlike reality after weeks of fear and hardship where hypervigilance was a necessity. Relearning how to sink into a moment and get lost in this newfound pleasure.

She met my eyes again, searching them before she smiled and flipped me over. I laughed with shocked surprise before she leaned up, a wicked smile tilting her lips. She took my hands and held them over my head. “Say uncle,” she said.

I laughed again. She’d known. She’d seen me overthinking, even here, even now, and she’d quickly put an end to that. “Never.”

She reached down and moved her underwear aside and then lifted, hovering over me so that my tip was just grazing her entrance. All thoughts fled and like the few intense moments on the chair, her mouth working magic on my body, I reveled in utter mindlessness. I could feel her wet heat and it nearly drove me wild. She did a small twist, pressing down very slightly so that I barely parted her folds.

“Uncle, Emily. Christ.” My words slurred.

She laughed, taking me slowly into her body, inch by inch until she was fully seated. I looked at the place we were connected, the sight making me impossibly harder, my head falling back on a moan, completely at her mercy. She leaned forward, and again, she took my hands where they still rested over my head and whispered in my ear, “I win.”

I let out a tortured groan and she started moving. “I love it when you win,” I said. “Please win some more.” Her laughter ended in a small, pleasured gasp, her hips rotating faster.

I hooked my leg under hers and rolled us over and she laughed again as her back hit the mattress. But when I pulled out of her, she made a sound somewhere between loss and outrage and I couldn’t help the chuckle even though I was desperate to get back inside her. I removed her underwear as quickly as possible and tossed them aside. “These were in the way.” Then I moved over her and surged back inside, our moans of pleasure mingling. I pulled out slowly and then pushed back in, pressing gently until she gasped and purred my name.

I watched her face as I thrust slowly. Lips parted, gaze heavy, golden waves splayed over the pillow and candlelight flickering over her flushed skin. I felt drunk with pleasure but also entranced by her beauty, once more shocked and overwhelmed by the fact that this was Emily beneath me, legs hooked around my hips, hands moving over my biceps as I held myself above her. “You were my first kiss. Did you know that?”

She caught my gaze, warmth glowing in her eyes. “And you were mine,” she said, the whispered words dissolving into a sigh as she bit her lip and tipped her head back when I pressed my weight lightly in the spot that had elicited the same reaction before. “Oh, Tuck, God, don’t stop.”

I didn’t ever want to stop. I wanted this to go on and on and on. But my body had other ideas, blood pumping furiously, muscles tightening. Emily’s sweet little gasps of pleasure were only driving me higher, her head moving back and forth on the pillow. “I…oh—” The pads of her fingers ran up my ass and then she bucked once, letting out a small scream as she came. Her display of pleasure sent me over the edge, and I groaned out my orgasm, gasping her name, the bliss sparkling through me and leaving me feeling loose-limbed and woozy.

The surroundings materialized slowly, the unfamiliar room wavering in the candlelight. Outside the wind blew and somewhere far away an owl hooted. The past was gone, the future was burning, but we had this, the here and the now, nestled in a desert hideaway.

“I can’t feel my feet,” I muttered after a moment into the side of her neck.

She laughed, and it caused me to slip out of her on a small flood of moisture. “That’s okay. As long as other parts of you are in working order. We can do without your feet for now.”

I chuckled and rolled to the side so I wasn’t crushing her. She pushed me slightly and I turned onto my back, and then she snuggled into my side, propping her chin on my chest.

She was quiet for a few minutes as she nuzzled my skin. “I’ve been thinking about my IUD. Who will remove it for me when the time comes?”

“Hmm. I don’t know that whole process, but there will be doctors who’ll start seeing patients as soon as possible. I’m sure some already are.” Their treatment options would be limited, and surgery would be out of the question once all remaining fuel sources had dried up. But I had no doubt that medical professionals who were at all able would help those who needed it.

She’d watched me as those fleeting thoughts moved through my mind, and she reached up and used her thumb to smooth what must be a crease between my brows. “It will work out. Let’s leave all that behind for now,” she said. “I know it will have to be dealt with…that and a lot more. But for now, Tuck, I just want this.” She tipped her face toward my skin and kissed the spot below my shoulder, feathering her lips there for a moment. “You and me.”

I wanted the same thing. I wanted that so much. Just her and me, escaping from the chaos of the world. For as long as we could. “Me too,” I said, kissing the side of her forehead and remembering what I’d found before I’d come upstairs. “I have something I’d like to show you. Or…well, give me a few minutes and then meet me downstairs?”

She gave me a confused smile and rolled to the side so I could get up. I pulled on my jeans and shirt and headed to the living room.

It only took me a minute to light the room’s array of candles that had been arranged on every surface. From the brief walk-through of the house that I’d done, I’d seen that the family who lived here—the Garcias—had set a candle or two in every room. But this was obviously the one they’d spent the most time in before leaving. This was where the majority of the candles were, and also where I’d found the item I wanted Emily to see. Or…experience.

I heard her soft footsteps descending the stairs and pushed a button. The soft strains of Edwin McCain began playing just as Emily rounded the corner, her eyes lighting up. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “You found a CD player.”

I glanced at the small battery-operated piece of equipment. “They must have dug it out of storage,” I said. “There’s dust in the crevices. And the most recent CD is from 2003.”

She smiled as she approached, candlelight flickering over her expression as the singer sang about who he’d be for the woman he loved. “I haven’t heard this one in a while,” she said.

“It’s from a collection of love songs from the nineties. Not exactly our decade but I thought maybe we could have that dance.”

Her eyes met mine. “ The dance,” she whispered. “The one that will make everything right.”

“Maybe even temporarily,” I said. “Even that.” The dance that should have been but never was.

She took a step toward me, and I offered her my hand, both of us watching as our fingers laced together slowly. I pulled her close and she tipped her head back to look at me. “Even that,” she agreed.

I brought her body flush with mine, so much more familiar even in the last hour, though I’d known her all my life. We swayed in the candlelight, and the dance felt beautiful and somehow sad too, both a reclaiming and a reminder that time was so fleeting and that all too soon, this moment would be a memory. But I was determined to gather as many as possible, fleeting though they might be, because deep in my heart I had this feeling that I’d need to cling to them later.

Emily lay her cheek against my shoulder, and I turned my face so I could breathe in the scent of her skin. The song came to an end, and we danced to the next one, and then the next, collecting as many moments as we could. And when the music began to slow, the batteries dying, we both stopped moving, staring into each other’s eyes as the last drawn-out note faded into silence. Emily lifted her chin and looked up at me, her eyes sad, though her lips were tipped. “I imagined we would have rented a room in the hotel and gone up there after the prom.”

“What would we have done there?”

She kissed my neck, her lips lingering. “How about I show you?” she whispered against my skin.

We got back in bed, sharing our memories and laughing about pranks we’d pulled and fights we’d had. Then we made love again, exploring each other leisurely until the candle burned out.

We stayed at the ranch in the middle of nowhere for three days, a brief respite from the uncertain world, a celebration of survival, and a sharing of hearts. We ate food from the pantry, but took as little as possible, mindful that this family might return. Hoping that they would. We tended to their horses and replenished what we could from the stable. We made coffee over their firepit and watched the sun rise behind the hills. And we danced in candlelight. Those hours were sweet, and dreamlike, and I knew no matter what came next, those three days would forever be seared into my soul.

My Emily. My wildflower. The thorn in my side. A silken-voiced troublemaker. Little Showboat. She was kind and unpredictable and slightly wild, even if she’d let herself be tamed for a while. But for that stretch of time, she was completely and utterly free. We both were.

We cleaned up their house, and then Emily wrote a note, leaving it on their kitchen counter next to the school trip itinerary. I stopped and read it as Emily did a final check of the rooms upstairs.

Dear Garcia Family,

Our names are Emily and Tuck and we stayed here for three days. We cared for the horses and ensured that they’re all healthy and injury-free. We also added one more to your herd, a palomino that we found walking alone on the road that we named Providence. She was quickly accepted by the others and they’re all doing well.

We hope you reunited with your son and that the three of you are home and reading this together. We pray that you are.

We are taking the car in your garage, and if there is any way to return it, we promise to do that. And if there’s any way to pay you for the rental and the mileage, we vow to do that too.

(I also took a few feminine items, and hope with all my might that the world is such that I might replace those someday soon.)

We want to thank you for the three days of peace your home brought us as we’d been traveling since the solar flare hit. Our journey was filled with challenges and setbacks, and we saw the worst of humanity on display. But we also saw the best, and I hope you saw it too. It’s what we have to hold on to now in this new, chaotic world. And if this journey has made anything clear, it’s that that is how we’ll all survive. With the kindness of strangers, and the help of our friends.

And though you didn’t grant permission ahead of time, I hope you’ll extend forgiveness, and accept our deepest gratitude.

All our best,

E & T