Page 50 of Zomromcom

Edie couldn’t decide which of Max’s hands she appreciated more: the one idly playing with her clit or the one clamped over her mouth, stifling her moans as he fucked her slowly from behind.

On the one hand—ha-ha—this predawn rendezvous only remained private because of their absolute silence.

They’d crept out of the living room and down the hall without waking a single Girl Explorer or restless troll.

They’d shut and locked the bathroom door behind them without even a single incriminating click or creak.

He’d bent her over the vanity and slid inside her, and she’d bit her lip against the gorgeous stretch without so much as a whimper.

At a certain point in the proceedings, though, her own efforts hadn’t been sufficient, and he’d offered to help muffle the desperate sounds vibrating in her throat.

In short, his left hand was doing good, necessary work.

On the literal other hand, dude was also fingering her clit. With a great deal of know-how, manual dexterity, and commitment.

Yeah. She couldn’t even lie to herself. Clit hand won, hands down.

Like, down between her thighs. Where he was currently working her toward a second orgasm, because apparently the drop from six climaxes to one during a single sexual encounter would bring shame upon him and the entire Boucher lineage.

At least, that was what she thought he’d muttered.

She’d been too busy coming around his cock and keening into his palm with incredulous pleasure to listen all that closely.

The vanity mirror reflected the fierce lust in his gaze as he watched himself sink into her each time, watched his fingers stroking and teasing and circling, watched her clutch desperately at the sink’s countertop as her legs shook and threatened to collapse beneath her.

He paused, waiting until her eyes met his in the steam-edged reflection.

Then he sank his fangs into the side of her neck, the penetration as leisurely as his endless, deliberate pushes inside her.

The heat between her legs flared and bloomed everywhere.

His bite was a firm pinch of her nipples, the heel of his hand against her clit, a flick of his tongue against her earlobe, the glide of fingertips up her inner thighs, and a wet mouth dragged down her throat.

And she was done. Done.

His rhythm didn’t falter when she came. As she clamped down on his dick and spasmed against his knowing hand, he kept his palm sealed over her open, gasping mouth and the guttural moans she couldn’t bite back, and he held on to his control.

Once she’d gone limp beneath him, though, he yanked the hand towel free of its hook.

“Bite on this,” he told her, the order sharp but quiet, as blood dripped from the punctures in her neck.

Once she obeyed, he ducked his head to lick the carmine trail clean, gripped both her hips, and held her in place as he bit down once more and fucked her to oblivion. Again.

The tight leash over his control had slipped, and only his mouth against her throat muffled his grunts as he pumped inside her.

Her final orgasm followed his by a split second, spurred on by how perfectly he ground into her, the way each swallow of her blood might have been a slow, sweet suck of her clit.

When they’d both begun to recover and he’d taken care of the condom, he tongued the small wounds he’d made and studied her flushed face and pleasure-hazed eyes in the mirror.

His own expression relaxed and happy, he smiled at her as he lifted his head. His faded-denim eyes were soft and bright, the curve of his lips fond. He looked young in that moment. Carefree, for all the horror that awaited them later in the day. More Chad than Max.

“You know,” she rasped in a thread of sound. “Ridiculous as Chad was, he was still uber-hot. I didn’t want to, but…sometimes I thought about him when I touched myself.”

“Is that so?” His murmured response against her ear, full of salacious interest, touched off another small, electric aftershock.

She nodded.

“Show me.”

And somehow, she ended up with the hand towel back in her mouth, her fingers swirling around her swollen, sensitive clit while his own fingers rubbed insistently inside her.

So that was orgasm number four, otherwise known as the orgasm that would make Max unbearably smug as soon as she stopped coming. Which would be infuriating, but not nearly as infuriating as it would have been prior to four orgasms.

Afterward, she had to wash her hands, then run water into her cupped palms and drink several times before her parched throat could produce more words.

Silently, he gestured toward the stack of disposable cups beside the sink.

Silently, she encouraged him to mind his own beeswax via an upraised middle finger.

He grinned and drew an invisible check mark in the air.

Then he pointed to her, held up four fingers, indicated himself, and lifted a single pointer finger.

In retaliation, she flicked her wet hands to spray his face with water, then counted out six of her own fingers and spread her hands in confused dismay, doing her best to radiate sexual disappointment.

His nostrils flared in a silent snort.

Spoiled , he mouthed.

Well, she couldn’t argue with that. Instead of trying, she simply shuffled over to the shower on jellylike legs and got the water running. As soon as it was lukewarm, she stepped into the stall and began soaping away the sticky evidence of their early-morning activities.

He stripped down and joined her shortly thereafter. A lot of people—beings?—were going to need hot water soon, so when his hands began to wander again, she smacked them away. Despite his aggrieved groan, he kept things speedy and non-lascivious after that.

When they finished up and stepped out, the obvious occurred to her: There wouldn’t be enough full-size towels for everyone, so…

okay. The saliva-spotted hand towel would suffice for her water-removal efforts.

After all, it wasn’t as if she could simply hang it back on its hook and figure no one would notice freaking teeth marks .

“I need you to be honest with me, ma puce.” He plucked the undersized cloth from her loose grasp and knelt to blot her legs. “Do you truly wish to keep living in the Zone after everything that’s happened this week? Or would you prefer to move?”

It was a fair question. Too bad she didn’t know what to tell him.

When she didn’t answer right away, he clarified, “Money isn’t an issue, darling. Don’t let financial considerations sway your decision.”

“That’s not the problem.” And since the two of them might not live through the day, any argument over whether she’d let him support her monetarily could happen at a later date. “It’s just…”

She wasn’t certain she’d ever tried to put her feelings about her home into words before. Even to herself. And to make things still more confusing, those feelings were changing. Rapidly. Because of Max, the vampire kneeling at her feet and scanning her expression with a frown of concern.

“I’ve stayed so long because…” Hesitantly, she explained as best she could.

“My house on Cloverleaf Drive is almost all I have left of my parents. Most of our furniture and possessions got broken or”—she swallowed hard—“stained. I had to get rid of them. But I still owned the house itself, and it’s where I had my last truly happy memories with them.

My last truly happy memories in general, I suppose. ”

The hand towel paused on her thigh, and he pressed a light kiss to her knee.

Her mouth twisted as she fought for composure. “Besides, no one was going to buy an old brick split-level from the 1960s in Zone A. If I left, the house would simply stay empty and rot. Like all the other places on our block.”

If she left her parents’ house behind, what she abandoned would shortly cease to exist.

Exactly as they had when she’d left them behind.

But even that reasoning—which was faulty; she knew it was, but knowing hadn’t changed how she felt—didn’t fully explain why she hadn’t left her childhood home. Why she hadn’t gone away to college. Why she hadn’t moved to be near friends and neighbors once more.

“I wanted to pay forward what they did for me too. I thought…if I stayed in the area, I could call for help as soon as another breach occurred and get the alarm going immediately. I’d be in a good position to help others.

And if I managed to save a neighbor, I could…

” When he stood to dry her back, she braced herself on the vanity and watched him in the mirror.

“I don’t know. Give my parents’ deaths more meaning, I guess. ”

So many people had died that day. Her parents had simply been two more names on a long, tragic list. Two more bodies for the funeral pyre, since local mortuaries lacked sufficient capacity to process the victims one by one.

His eyes met hers in the reflection.

“They saved you, my Edie. Their beautiful sunbeam of a child.” His voice was very, very soft. “There is nothing in this world that could give their sacrifice more meaning. Nothing .”

She turned to face him, and her fingers trembled as she nudged a wet swath of hair off his forehead. “I know they’d agree with you. Much as it pains me to admit that.”

“Darling.” The towel dropped to the mat as his arms wrapped around her. “You don’t have to move. You never have to move. You can stay in that house forever if you want.”

He rocked her back and forth a little, his hold gentle but secure.

She buried her face in his neck. Because she wouldn’t let her tears fall, they were dripping down her throat instead, and swallowing hurt.

When she said so in a whispered complaint, he got her a cup of water from the sink.

She gulped it down gratefully and handed the cup back, and he refilled it without a word.