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“Not much here,” Kimmy called from the kitchen area of a partially collapsed house we were searching .

“This lovely set of broken dishes,” I volunteered, holding up a large shard of pottery that’d been on the floor. “Perfect for entertaining.”

Kimmy giggled. “The only use left for that is to stab someone’s eye out.”

“I’m not going to ask how you came up with that,” I replied, raising an eyebrow.

She laughed again. “Good, because I’m not gonna tell you.”

There was a dull thump as John landed on the worn wooden floor.

The staircase had collapsed, so he’d climbed up to the third floor and rappelled back down using a long length of cord he’d brought from the camp.

He’d attached a grappling hook that he’d fashioned himself, and when I’d asked what we could use it for, he’d chuckled.

“Looks like someone’s never had to climb,” he said.

“I’m not sure—given the twenty-foot walls around the place—that climbing was a valued skill at home,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Fair enough,” he said with a nod. “I’ll show you.”

We’d spent an hour using it to climb various trees, until I admitted that it would’ve been much harder to climb without it, especially the ones without low branches.

“Anything useful?” I asked as I watched John approach through a gaping hole in the wall, rolling up the cord as he went.

The fading rays of sun illuminated his tall figure, and I stopped for a moment just to admire him.

His lean, strong body radiated heat that kept me warm on the colder autumn nights, and the more I stared, the more I wished we were alone…

and I wouldn’t complain if we were naked, either.

“Nah,” he replied with a shrug, but the upturned corner of his mouth told me that he knew I’d been checking him out.

While John and Kimmy had found supplies for the trip before today, I still needed a winter coat, which would be a major problem the further north we went.

John and Kimmy had winter clothes, but all I had was a rain jacket.

Thankfully, I’d knitted half a dozen pairs of socks, a pair of mittens, and a hat when we lived at the camp, but the lack of a good coat was a problem.

We’d found some decent winter boots for me, which were a little large, but wearing thick socks made them wearable.

“Just keep your eyes peeled for a coat,” John had said to me. “We’ll do the rest. ”

We’d hunted for ammunition and for useful materials and tools—anything from sewing needles to salt for food preservation. We’d had decent luck, but the winter coat still eluded us. Thankfully, for now, the weather hadn’t turned cold enough during the day that I needed one immediately.

The sun was setting, though. It was about to get much colder, and I wanted to make camp for the night.

“Time to call it,” John said with a sigh. “We head back out in the morning.”

“Good, I’m starving,” Kimmy grumbled, and she strode back through the hole in the wall to the outside.

John moved to follow, but I caught his elbow and backed against the wall, pulling him with me so that he trapped me against it.

He made a noise of confusion but was quickly muted by my lips smothering his.

I gripped the front of his jacket and pulled him in deeper, slipping my tongue past his lips to taste him, and he groaned, soft and low in his throat.

It was the sexiest sound, and I wanted to hear more.

“Claire,” he mumbled against my lips, attempting to pull back. “Not here.”

“Yes, here,” I said, my grip on his jacket tightening as I pressed my knee between his thighs and rubbed against his growing erection.

“Fuck,” he grunted, and I sensed victory.

He surrendered and grabbed my face in his hands, crushing his mouth against mine and flattening me against the crumbling wall. His tongue plunged into my mouth, giving me what I craved, and a helpless moan escaped me. We came up for air a moment later, both panting.

“Not here,” he repeated, and moved back with effort. “It’s not safe.”

“I want you,” I said, kissing down his jawline as he shuddered. “I miss you.”

John’s expression softened. “I miss you too. It’s not that I don’t want you…Christ, I do. But it’s not the right time or place.”

I sighed, defeated. “I know.”

“Hey, if you two are done ignoring our surroundings, can we make camp?” Kimmy called, evidently impatient. “And it’s gonna be dark soon.”

I flushed, and John grinned before planting a kiss on my forehead and leading me back outside.

We camped out in an abandoned strip mall on the edge of a derelict suburb.

It was far enough from the city core that it was less likely to attract gangs, but close enough that supply trips were manageable.

The buildings were crumbling, but they held their shape enough that we could camp inside, mostly sheltered from the elements.

We set up our tent and got dinner started.

Kimmy built the fire and started roasting some of the meat we had from a hunt two days earlier. Meanwhile, John and I foraged for edible plants. I had my homemade logbook open, and we referenced it as we wandered through a small, wooded area beside the strip mall.

As luck would have it, John spotted a bunch of blackberry bushes.

Birds had gotten to some of the berries, but there were enough there to make up a sizable harvest. We loaded them into my bag and headed back.

There was a grassy patch some distance away from the campfire, and we both sat cross-legged to wash the berries.

I’d been scheming the whole way back, and as I watched John methodically washing blackberries across from me, I decided to put it into action.

I let out a low, quiet sort of sigh, staring intently at the berries in my hands.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw John glance up at me, but when I didn’t say anything, he returned to his work.

I sighed again a moment later, more dramatically this time, and he looked up again.

“You okay over there?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered, then chewed my lip. “I just wish we were alone.”

“I know, sweetheart,” he said sympathetically, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb. “Just be patient. I’ll find a moment for us to slip away once we’re finally out of the city. A couple more days, maybe.”

A couple more days? I scoffed.

I glanced over at Kimmy, judging that she was far enough that if I kept my voice low, she wouldn’t hear.

“Well, whenever it happens again,” I said, making my tone huskier, “I have some plans. ”

John raised an eyebrow and studied me. His soft brown eyes had a hint of yellow in them that I’d only noticed after hours of gazing at them, and they shone like dark amber in the fading light.

I could tell he was considering whether to ask me what exactly I had in mind.

To help him decide, I lifted one of the berries to my mouth and bit into it, slowly and deliberately, not taking my eyes off him.

He cleared his throat and looked away, and I knew I’d had the desired effect.

“Don’t you want to hear my plans?” I asked innocently.

John seemed to fight with himself for a moment. “I know what you’re up to. It won't work.”

“What won’t work?” I asked with a tiny shrug. “I wanted to tell you so that you’ll be prepared, but if you don’t want to know…I guess I’ll just have to think about it by myself while you’re on watch.”

He scowled. “Now you’re not playing fair.”

“Am I not?” I said, toying with a couple of the berries between my fingers. “Maybe I’ll think about our last time in the woods when you gave me a spank over your knee to make me come. All the while, you’ll be outside, unaware that just ten feet away, I’m coming to the thought of you.”

“Christ,” John said, palpable longing in his voice. “You liked that, huh? You been thinking about it a lot?”

I exhaled sharply. “How could I not?”

He was leaning slightly forward now, and his expression was a little tortured, which made me grin.

“I want you every minute,” I breathed. “I think about cornering you someplace private and kissing and touching you until you beg to take me. I think about crawling into the tent during Kimmy’s watch and riding you, knowing you can’t make a sound, until you can’t stand it anymore.

I think about teasing you with my mouth, sucking you off slowly, tormenting you. ”

I leaned in and pecked his lips.

“I want to push you to your limits, Wastelander,” I whispered against his mouth. “I want to bring you to your knees.”

I slowly backed away, watching John’s reaction. His pupils slightly dilated, and his hard gaze bore a hole through me. His mouth tightened, and he clenched his jaw. For a brief moment, I worried he was somehow angry; his whole body seemed coiled tight like a spring. Then he called out .

“Kim! Keep an eye on things. Claire and I are going for a walk.”

Before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled me to my feet, holding my hand in a death grip.

“What?” Kimmy called back, sounding confused.

John stopped only briefly. “I’m doing some teaching. We’ll be back soon.”

Without waiting for another reply, he pulled me along with him as he strode toward the edge of strip mall’s former parking lot.