Page 4

It’s heavy. I’m thinner than I’d like to be because of days spent mourning and wandering with no chance to eat, but I’m tough. I can do this.

I stagger to the pallet and set the crate on top of the first one. It’s crooked, and as I grab the edges to straighten it, a splinter jabs into my flesh.

“Shit,” I hiss.

“Splinter?” He sets down his box and grabs my wrist, peering at the sliver of wood. “Hold still.”

I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I’m galvanized to the spot, rendered motionless by the curl of those thick, warm fingers around my wrist, the press of roughened fingertips against my sensitive skin.

He lifts my palm to his mouth, clamps white teeth around the splinter, and tugs.

With a pinch of pain, the splinter pulls free, and he spits it aside. “There.”

A bead of blood wells up on my skin. We both stare at it…and then, as if by agreement, we look at each other.

My skin is on fire, my nerves shriveling and screaming in the blaze. My heart pounds faster, faster, terrifyingly fast.

He’s still holding my wrist. Large, dirt-stained fingers wrapped around it, fingertips pressing the thin skin where my pulse flutters.

His eyes are dark brown, almost black, deep as a nighttime forest and rimmed with thick lashes—the kind any girl would be jealous of. He has a strong nose, not quite straight. Jaw like an anvil, sharp-edged, rock-hard.

My muscles tighten against my bones, and my nerves quiver. The person I’m supposed to mourn isn’t dead, not yet, but it’s going to happen soon, and I’ll be damned if I endure this misery until then. I need, I need —

I leap for him, clasping my hands at the back of his neck, hauling his mouth down to mine. He tastes like hot sun and salted almonds and beer.

His hands immediately slide across the small of my back, urging my hips against him.

He’s hard because of course he is. I’m Cathy fucking Earnshaw.

I’m a walking wet dream in a miniskirt and a cutoff tank top that hugs my tits.

Long legs, full lips, big eyes, a cascade of curly dark brown hair, a huge smile.

The quintessential Southern “hot girl.” This is the persona I cultivate as carefully as the displays in Aunt Nellie’s store.

It’s my Dr. Jekyll. No one ever gets to see Mr. Hyde.

With a low snarl in his throat, the delivery guy kisses me harder, moves a hand down to squeeze my ass. He’s turning us around, backing me up against a stack of boxes—canned goods—and I pray they’re heavy enough to withstand what’s about to happen.

The kiss breaks, and in the frenzied haze between us, I reach under my short skirt, pull off my panties, and stuff them onto a nearby shelf.

His zipper rips open. This is happening, for real—I’m going to let him fuck me bare, right here in the shadows of the storage room.

I’m protected against pregnancy but not STDs, and this guy looks like he’s been around.

“You good?” I whisper.

“I ain’t got any diseases, if that’s what you mean.”

“Thank god.” I hitch myself back onto the edge of a box and open my legs. Whether I believe him or not, I’m going for it.

He moves in between my thighs, and I get a glimpse of a big dick—attractive as dicks go, a shade darker than his skin and longer than average—right before he pushes inside me.

“Shit,” he barks, surprise in the hoarse exclamation. “You’re so wet.”

“Shut up and fuck me.” I claw him closer, my fingers digging into his muscled shoulders. He feels good. Solid, strong. Strong enough to hold me together while I come apart.

My breath is shredded with panic and frantic craving, jerking from my lungs as he starts to move, to pound my pussy. The thick heat inside me feels so good, I want to cry.

“Harder,” I whisper.

He wraps a forearm behind me, gripping the back of my skull with one broad hand as he fucks me.

He’s keeping my head from hitting anything, but my spine is still being jammed hard against the boxes over and over.

I don’t care—I welcome the impact, the brutal force of his body dominating mine.

It’s what I need—to lose control on my terms, to not be so entirely at the mercy of the thing that lives in my head.

“Yes,” I gasp brokenly, my legs locked around his waist and my nails driving into his broad shoulders. “Yes, yes…”

He grabs my face with his other hand, takes my mouth roughly.

There’s a honeyed heat in his kiss—I didn’t notice it before.

He’s tongue-fucking me while his cock plunges between my legs.

Then his hand drops, finds the place right above where we’re joined.

He locates my swollen clit and starts circling it with his thumb while he fucks me.

I’m writhing, lust-seared and desperate, straining for the climax.

When I’m mere hours away from an episode, every sensation is already heightened, and it doesn’t take much to push me over the edge.

But there’s a grating mutter at the back of my mind, a self-condemnation, a dark chant of slut, slut, slut even as I try to claim this bit of relief.

No. I will not slut-shame myself. I refuse to feel guilty about what I do to survive my life.

If I can orgasm, the endorphins will ease my torment for a while. I’ll be able to function a little better, at least until the episode finally hits.

But that stupid judgmental voice in my head keeps pushing me back from the edge.

“Please,” I breathe hoarsely. “Please, please…”

“I’m not coming until you do.” His whisper explodes against my lips, a desperate promise, and my body tightens suddenly, as if his oath were a command.

Oh thank god… I’m coming, sharp and hard, a knife to my clit, a blade of pure light shearing through my belly.

I release choked little sounds as my pussy convulses around his dick.

“Shit,” he groans, his arms going rigid and his hips ramming tight against my body. I feel his dick pulsing, deep and hard. He’s coming inside me, this guy I just met. Didn’t even meet him, really. I don’t know his name.

We’re heaving, still locked together—sweaty, filthy, shuddering. He surges into me one last time. Groans. Pulls his cock out of me, shining wet, and backs away. He stuffs it back into his underwear and zips up his jeans.

Instead of hard-muscled arms and a warm chest, I’m alone in the empty air again.

The afterglow is good; it has temporarily muted the creeping unrest beneath my skin.

I grab my panties and pull them over my shaking legs.

When I stand up, I feel his cum sliding from between my pussy lips, soaking the panties.

He’s staring, breathing hard, devouring me with his eyes like he’s taking a photograph of the way I look in this moment.

The flare of interest in his gaze, the visceral intensity of it, makes my heart race faster again.

He seems about to ask me something, but then it’s like a curtain drops over his eyes, concealing the raw emotion and replacing it with a casual grin.

“That’s one load taken care of.” He winks at me. “I’ll finish up with the crates. You’ll need to sign for them.”

“Of course.” I tug an elastic from my wrist and bundle my curly, brown hair into a messy knot, so it’s up off my sweaty neck.

He watches me, and while my hands are still occupied with the knot, he reaches out and sinks his hand into my hair, sliding his fingers through it slowly, indulgently, almost tenderly. Like he has a right to enjoy the sensation.

A fresh surge of arousal rolls over me, along with a wave of panic.

This isn’t happening. It’s always one and done for me—I never want more .

My hand flies before my brain catches up, and I slap the side of his face.

“We’re done,” I say, breathless. “We got what we needed. I’m revoking consent.”

“Are you now?” Hurt twinges in his eyes for a split second before a slow smirk curves his lips. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Still smirking, he gives the crotch of his jeans a tug before stalking out of the storage room.

He comes back with a clipboard, and I sign for the delivery.

When he finishes stacking the last crate, he takes the clipboard and inspects my signature. Reads it aloud in his deep, drawling voice. “Cathy Earnshaw.”

“That’s right.”

And then he shocks me by putting out his right hand. “Heathcliff Lockwood.”

Oh shit. Did I just fuck a Lockwood? Dad’s head would explode… “No way. You don’t look like a Lockwood.”

He hooks an eyebrow. “How would you know? Our families don’t exactly run in the same circles.”

“Well, I…I’ve heard you’re all redheads. The freckled type. You look…um…”

“Like I came from a different gene pool?” His eyes narrow, and his voice grows more velvety, more dangerous. “You’re not about to ask me where I’m from, are you, Earnshaw?”

“Of course not.” I bristle at the idea.

He chuckles, letting me off the hook. “It’s fine.

I’m mostly Italian. Maybe a little Spanish, Romani—who the fuck knows?

Never had the money to burn on one of those DNA ancestry tests.

” He slams the back of the pickup. “You take care, Earnshaw. It’s been fun.

I look forward to the next delivery in, say, three months, depending on how fast you sell out of our lager. ”

“We’re not doing that again,” I say tersely.

“Right. Because you revoked your consent.” He takes a step toward me, and I shiver, not because of the chilly breeze raising goose bumps on my arms but because I can feel the heat of his body and I desperately want him to grab me, crush me, pound me until all conscious thought leaves my brain and I’m a melted mess in his hands.

He leans in slightly, not touching me but in my space, magnetizing the air, commanding it.

He flips up one page of the clipboard, rips off the sheet beneath it, and hands the second page to me.

There’s a number scrawled along the bottom of the receipt.

“Anytime you want to reinstate your consent, let me know. Happy to drop off another…load.”

“You’re an animal.”

“Says the girl who jumped my bones like a bitch in heat.” He backs away, hops into the truck, and grinds out of the back drive in a roar of exhaust and a cloud of gravel dust.

I watch him go, still feeling his fingers in my hair like the caress of a wishful ghost.