Page 2 of The Forever (When the World Fell #3)

Cruz

I awoke to the sensation of a warm body shifting against mine, and soft lips touching my neck. A low current of desire moved through me, and I considered keeping my eyes shut for a while longer, just in case it was a dream.

Those same lips kissed their way over to the beating pulse in my throat, then the underside of my jaw.

With a hum of pleasure, I opened my eyes and lifted my trapped forearm to check my wrist. We’d been out for almost five hours, and going by the silence in the rest of the house, we were the first ones to wake.

My gaze flicked to the window, where I found a bright, cloudless sky and an empty street. Quiet out there, too. For the first time in a while, we had a chunk of time ahead of us with nothing to do other than scavenge while Jonah adjusted to life without Dawn.

My attention returned to my favourite view, and I murmured, “Morning, carino. ”

Liv stretched against me in a slow, sensual way that brought me fully awake. “Hmm. I don’t think it’s morning anymore.”

Amused, I wrapped my hand loosely around her neck and tilted her chin upwards with my thumb. “Why did you wake me? Do you need something?”

Her eyes were deep pools of blue, her hair tousled and sexy. She was always beautiful, but something about the way she looked straight after she woke got to me.

My teasing tone registered, and her mouth lifted on one side. “Maybe.” She slipped her arm around my waist and worked her hand under the edge of my shirt. “Depends on what you’re offering.”

When her fingers came into contact with my skin, my pulse jumped, and my humour faltered. As we stared at each other, I tossed around what kind of fun we could get away with in a house full of people. I wanted her, and I didn’t know how long it would be until we’d have this chance again.

The waiting made her restless, and when she made an urgent sound in her throat, I pressed my mouth to hers, kissing her slowly, taking my time and immersing myself in every second I got to be alone with her. I explored her upper lip, then her lower, touching her tongue with sweeping caresses of mine.We made out for long minutes, tasting and taunting, pulling away, and diving straight back for more.

The contact warmed my body, my heart, and my need for her only deepened.

As our lips moved together, I combed my fingers through her hair, touching her anywhere and everywhere. When I grabbed a handful of her hair and kissed her deeper, Liv shivered and smiled against my mouth.

The two of us could still have these moments, I realised, even when everything was falling apart.

She was my peace in the middle of a shitstorm.

My strength, my comfort.

While I kept her mouth busy, my fingers worked the belt buckle on her jeans, then the button underneath. As I eased the zipper down, her breathing hitched, and she broke the kiss to stare up at me.

“What are you doing there?” she whispered.

I wondered how well my restraint would hold up after being celibate for so long.

“Exactly what you think I’m doing.”

With a glance out the window, I listened for movement down the hallway again. When only silence greeted me, my body went taut with desire.

We still had time. How much of it, I didn’t know.

With a deep breath, I slipped my hand inside her jeans and ran my palm over her panties. The softness of the material against her overheated skin had me groaning.

She lifted her hips and sighed. “Cruz.”

I clasped her between her legs, cupping her warmth as my lips found hers.

Pushing down the urgency rising inside me, I took my time kissing her until she was making desperate noises and tilting her hips toward me.

With a harsh breath, my mouth left hers, and I trailed my lips over her jaw, then the side of her neck, wanting to know every inch of her.

When her body turned needy, I dipped my fingers into the waistband of her panties, travelling lower, then lower still. Her silkiness made me groan again, and I watched her face as I massaged her.

“Let me touch you,” she said, her voice hoarse and gorgeous. “I want to feel you.”

Heat slammed into me. I craved the touch of her hands, but it was too risky with the others close by. As her hips moved to meet the glide of my fingers, I dug deep and suppressed my desire to focus on her.

“Not now.” I kissed her temple, her cheek, letting my gaze wander over her as my fingers went deeper.

Her chest rose and fell with her shallow breaths, her eyes on mine as if she couldn’t look away.

I kissed her again, moving my thumb higher and rubbing her with slow circles. She was wet, warm, and so ready for me it killed me not to be inside her.

I wanted to push her until she couldn’t hold back any longer, watch her lose it right here in my arms.

The pressure of my fingers increased, picking up the tempo.Her eyes remained trained on me as time slowed.

The connection between us turned so real, so deep, that my heart stuttered. I swallowed the emotion creeping up my throat and marvelled at the fire in her eyes, the way her mouth parted.

My pulse pounded in my ears, and I was so fucking hard I could have exploded.

Liv dragged in a single, shaky breath as it took hold of her, her expression urgent.

“Kiss me,” she pleaded.

A rush of desperation hit, and my mouth claimed hers as her lower body rocked to match the pace of my fingers. With a strangled cry, she shuddered and trembled, her hips writhing to extract every bit of pleasure.

My breaths were coming just as fast as hers, and I didn’t know how I was still keeping it together.

Aching to be inside her, I rubbed her until her lower body twisted, and she gripped my wrist to stop me.

While she was coming down from the high, an aggressive affection I’d never felt before overwhelmed me. I gripped her face and kissed her hard, releasing a sharp breath against her cheek. For someone who hadn’t reached this point with a woman, it should have scared me.

It didn’t.

I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to go deeper with her.

When I pulled back to calm myself, Liv studied my features, looking me over as if seeing me for the first time. She gave me the ghost of a smile, then ran her fingertips along the scruff on my jaw, stopping when her thumb came to rest on my lower lip.

Movement from down the hall killed any chance of doing more with her, but her expression told me everything.

We were both feeling this—and she cared just as much as I did.

We were on the road again by early afternoon, travelling down a highway strewn with branches and surface damage from the rain. A soft breeze rustled the grass, and sunlight broke through breaks in the cloud cover, turning the asphalt into a kaleidoscope of colours.

The twins were sticking close to us in the rearview, and Jonah had jumped in with Liv and me again, more lively now after he’d had some sleep.

“The car sounds like shit,” he said, leaning between the front seats. “You think we’ll make it?”

We’d needed a jumpstart before leaving our temporary base in Harriet, and the noise coming from the engine mimicked a death rattle now. The plan was to stop in the next regional city, Darby Downs, to find a more reliable vehicle since we were still driving the car Liv and I had stolen from Jackson.

“We’ll be all right for a bit,” I said, pretty sure we’d make it through the next hour. Whatever happened beyond that was anyone’s guess.

“Are you doing okay?” Liv asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

“I keep going over how she died...” he said, his voice trailing off. “I think she was asleep when it happened, so she didn’t know what was going on. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.”

Liv reached back and squeezed his arm. “It was over too fast for her to feel fear or pain. I promise you, she didn’t know.”

If it was true or not, it didn’t matter. Jonah just needed to believe his mother hadn’t struggled in her last moments.

He didn’t respond, but when I checked on him in the mirror, his posture was more relaxed, and his expression seemed less troubled.

The farther we got from Harriet, the more the ground dried up. Before long, the sun took over, flooding paddocks and occasional farmhouses and brightening the mood inside the car.

Corpses shuffled through the long grass by the roadside, and a few wandered down the highway in groups small enough to avoid. We passed lost belongings and abandoned vehicles here and there that looked to be in good condition, but I wouldn’t stop out in the open to see if any were salvageable.

Our best chances lay on the streets bordering Darby Downs.

When the sign for the town appeared almost an hour later, Liv sent me a surprised look. “We’re here already.”

A low level of anticipation buzzed inside the car, but we needed to stay focused. “Keep your eyes open.”

I eased off the accelerator to avoid a dozen or so corpses in the middle of the road, and as they turned in slow motion to follow the car, I continued down the off ramp with Remy and Gabe following.

If we were lucky, we’d stay off human and corpse radars and be back on the road in less an hour.

I took the first left and travelled down a long stretch of road with new houses packed in on both sides; another development completed not long before Ultimus hit.If it hadn’t been for the overgrown gardens, the otherwise tidy street could have passed for pre-pandemic times.

Liv shifted in her seat to get a better view, her attention switching from one spot to the next. “It’s so quiet here. Not many infected. No visible humans.”

“Quiet feels creepy,” Jonah said, distracted by our new surroundings.

I checked each house as we passed, hoping to find a car parked in a driveway, so we could avoid searching garages. Each home looked abandoned, but none of us would fall for the trap of assuming silence meant safety.

A glimpse of silver caught my eye a second too late, and Remy flashed his lights to let me know he’d seen the car, too.

I pulled over and cut the engine, eager to get the task over with so we could keep moving. “This could be an easy swap.”

“You better knock on wood or something,” Liv said, her expression alert despite her lighthearted tone.

As we exited the car, I clocked several corpses milling around in the distance, and a lone magpie tracked our movements from its perch on a TV antenna.

Remy and Jonah volunteered to stay out the front and keep watch while Liv and I headed up the driveway with Gabe.

The three of us drew our weapons as we approached the silver Honda.

I dipped my head and peered through the side window, finding a spotless interior devoid of personal items. With a sigh, I straightened. “Nothing inside.” Which meant the car didn’t belong to a home-owner who had plans on leaving, and it wasn’t a traveller who’d stopped for a break.

My initial guess was that we’d find people inside the house—most likely long dead.

The car was locked, and the property didn’t have a gate leading around to the back. We retraced our steps to the front entrance, and I made sure Jonah and Remy were still doing active surveillance, ready to let us know if the corpses got too close.

Gabe checked the handle, then cracked the panel and reached inside to open the door.

Readying myself for whatever lay across the threshold, I rested my hand on Liv’s shoulder and went in behind her. We filed into the small foyer, and the stench of death hit me like a smack in the face. My stomach lurched, and I shared a disgusted look with the others before checking the row of hooks beside the door.

No keys.

No sign of corpses either, so I sidestepped Liv and passed through to the lounge room on the left.

A pool of blood on the floor was smeared along the far edge, and drag marks led to the opposite side of the room, where they stopped. Whenever I’d seen those streaks in recent times, it meant a dead human had attacked a living one, and the victim had tried clawing their way to safety. With the blood old and dry now, whatever had gone down in here happened a while back.

Going by the eye-watering smell, I’d bet anything the bodies were still mobile.

“Watch out for corpses,” I said, no longer caring about keeping quiet.We wouldn’t find any of the living in here. “I’ll clear the kitchen.”

“I’ll do a sweep of the hallway,” Gabe said. “See if the keys are in the pocket of a dead one.”

“Yell out if you need a hand.”

“You, too.” He slipped around the corner and left my sight.

Liv and I moved into the kitchen. She rifled in a drawer while I sifted through the contents of a homemade clay bowl on the bench, finding paperclips, tape, and other miscellaneous junk.

A couple of heavy thuds came from the hallway, but Gabe was experienced enough to handle more than one body, so I stayed focused on the task. The quicker we got out of here, the sooner we’d be on our way to the last stop, where we’d find out if the house we’d poured all our hope in to still existed.

“I’m not having any luck,” Liv said, yanking open another drawer.

“Me either.”

I shoved the bowl away and looked around the kitchen for more hiding spots when Gabe called out, “A little help in here!”

My heart skipped a beat.

Liv slammed the drawer shut, and we ran for the hallway.

Gabe had been bailed up by three smaller corpses who couldn’t have been more than mid teens when the virus took them. Cornered against a closed door, he was quick enough to grab the nearest one and keep it between him and the others.

To add to the danger, a large-framed male emerged from a bedroom further along, his mouth gaping as he made a beeline for the action.

other bodies lay on the floor, fresh kills Gabe had taken care of before he was outnumbered.

If I’d had any clue this many corpses were in the house, I never would have left him to deal with them on his own.

“I’ll help Gabe,” Liv said. “You take the big one.”

She headed straight for him with her knife at the ready, taking down the first corpse with ease and moving immediately to the second.

“Hey!” The adult male followed the sound of my voice, extending both arms in my direction, one of them missing its index and middle fingers.

I slipped behind Liv and moved closer to my target, just as the corpse tripped over its own feet and ploughed straight into my chest.

The hit took me by surprise, and I had no time to steady myself.

Liv cried out as the momentum threw me backward.

A split second later, my hatchet clattered on the floor, and I landed hard beside my weapon, just shy of winding myself.

When I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the corpse followed me down.

“Cruz!” Liv sent me a panicked look as she yanked the final corpse away from Gabe.

“I’m all right.” Rancid breath hovered over me, and I used my forearm to stop its teeth from sinking into my skin. Pieces of flesh hung off its face, and seeing those dead, milky eyes up close was like staring straight into a nightmare. My muscles went tight with the realisation that this was how it happened—this was exactly how people lost their lives.

I’d had enough close calls now that one of them would be my last.

“Jesus, don’t let it get you.” Gabe tried to lift the full-grown corpse off of me as Liv wrangled the teen one, but he couldn’t get a secure grip while it was in attack mode.

The weight grew heavier; the corpse becoming more aggressive by the second.

“Kill it first,” I said through gritted teeth, using all my strength to keep a safe distance between us.

“I can’t, unless you want all the shit that comes off it to hit you in the face.”

Fair point. I lifted my knee and wedged it against the corpse’s lower abdomen. When I tried rolling to the side to throw it off me, I couldn’t get the leverage.

Fucking fuck .

When she was done, Liv ran over to help Gabe, the two of them hauling the weight off me while the corpse snapped the air mere centimetres from my face.

As soon as they’d pulled it clear, she shoved her knife under its jaw to end the struggle, giving me room to roll away and dodge the fluids that spilled onto the floor.

Close call.

Shit. Too close.

With a harsh breath, I sat with my legs bent and my elbows resting on my knees.

My heart hadn’t pounded this hard in a while, but I should be thankful it was beating at all.

Liv crouched beside me and touched my face, my neck, and chest, methodically searching for puncture wounds, her calmness a complete one-eighty from the near miss I’d had when it was just the two of us in Melbourne. “Tell me it didn’t get you.”

“It didn’t.” I curved my hand around her knee. “I’m okay, mi amor .”

Gabe huffed out a relieved laugh. “That was intense. Are you all right?”

“I’m good.”

Liv straightened, and they both extended a hand to pull me to my feet. When I was upright again, I took in the bodies scattered down the hallway and blocked out the image of mine lying among them. “Let’s find those car keys and get the hell out of here.”

“All sorted, mi amor.” At Jonah’s taunting tone, I turned to find him at the other end of the hallway, dangling a keyring from his finger. “Found these on top of the front tyre.”

“Nice work.” I smiled for the first time since the shit had hit the fan, thankful for the quick-thinking actions of the people around me.

The more time I spent with this crew, the more connected I felt to them. We were a team. We had one another’s backs—and although I’d always put her first, it wasn’t just about Liv anymore.