Chapter 13 Seraphina #2
We waited. The embers ticked down, each one a timer, a bomb, a star in the slow process of dying.
He stood, crossed to my side of the fire pit, and crouched in front of me. The night turned him into a cutout, all planes and shadow. I watched the muscles in his jaw work, the old scar flashing like a warning light.
He took the edge of the blanket, peeled it back just enough to see my face. “You want me to go?”
I shook my head, the smallest possible arc.
He hesitated, like he was waiting for some outside confirmation, then said, “Can I touch you?”
The words hit harder than a gunshot. I nodded, not trusting my voice. “I thought bikers just took what they wanted.”
“Yeah, and we all look like the guys they put on book covers.” He chuckled, and it made me smile.
His hand hovered, knuckles cracked and ugly, but the touch was soft. He ran his thumb down the side of my cheek, flicked a smear of ash from my jawline. He smelled like sweat, leather, and the last fumes of the road.
His lips were dry, hesitant, the first brush more test than kiss. I met him halfway, teeth clinking, then reset. The second try was better—deeper, hungrier. My pulse hammered in my ears.
He wrapped one arm behind my head, fingers sinking into my hair. The other cupped my face, holding me steady as if afraid I might disappear if he let go.
I let the blanket slide from my shoulders, let the night air bite at my skin. I reached for his jacket, yanked him closer, feeling the tension in his body, the hard lines of scar and old injury.
We kissed like survivors—desperate, uncertain, greedy for whatever time we could steal. His hands found my back, tracing the shape of my spine through the thin wool. Mine fumbled for his belt, then stalled, caught in the fabric of his shirt.
He pulled back, breathing hard. “You sure?” he asked, voice gone to gravel.
I nodded, dragging him down onto the blanket with me. The fire pit lit our faces in alternating bursts of red and shadow.
His weight pressed me into the dirt. I didn’t care. I clawed at his shirt, nails catching on the old burns, the seams of his scars. He flinched, but didn’t stop me.
His mouth was everywhere—my lips, my jaw, the hollow behind my ear. I tasted salt and tobacco, the ghost of whiskey from a hundred nights ago.
I dug my hands under his shirt, palms mapping the territory of his back. The muscles flexed, then relaxed, a tide of tension yielding to the want beneath. He ground his hips into mine, the friction electric, my nerves stripped to wire.
I arched, rolled him over, pinned him with my knees. His eyes were wide, pupils blown, a beast surprised to find itself caged. I kissed him again, harder, biting his lower lip until he gasped.
He laughed, grabbed my waist, and flipped us back, the motion so fluid it felt choreographed. The blanket bunched under us, rough against my thighs, but I barely noticed. I wanted more—needed it.
He slid his hands up my sweater, fingers grazing skin. My breath stuttered, then came back faster. I reached for the buckle on his belt, managed to undo it despite the tremor in my hands.
He paused, one hand on my ribcage, eyes searching my face. “Tell me to stop,” he said.
“Don’t,” I said, voice barely a whisper.
He kissed me again, slow at first, then faster, losing control with each pass. I felt the blanket slip, exposing my back to the night. I pressed into him, every inch of my body lit up, alive.
Clothes tangled around our knees, our ankles. He worked them off me with surprising care, as if peeling away bandages. When I was bare, he stared, eyes hungry but reverent.
He ran his hands down my sides, tracing the lines of my body as if memorizing them for later. He dipped his head, kissed the curve of my hip, then moved lower.
His mouth was hot, the contrast with the cold air making every nerve ending stand up and scream. I clutched at the blanket, at his shoulders, at anything that could keep me tethered to the world.
He teased, tasted, and drew it out until I wanted to scream. I moaned instead, low and rough, the sound unfamiliar in my own mouth.
He came back up, kissed me, then slid inside. The shock of it was instant—a perfect, blinding fit. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulled him as close as possible.
We moved together, slow at first, then faster. The blanket scraped my back, the firelight casting red halos on our skin. Sweat and ash mixed on my shoulders. My hair tangled in his fingers.
I lost track of time, of space. All that mattered was the point of contact, the grinding build to an impossible release.
When it broke, I shattered—body, mind, every cell gone to static. He followed, burying his face in my neck, the vibration of his groan echoing in my skull.
We lay there, side by side, staring at the stars through the haze of dying fire. My body shook, not from cold, but from the overload.
He wrapped the blanket around us, pulled me into his chest. I let him, too tired to care about pride or boundaries.
“I’m glad I stayed,” he said, voice muffled by my hair.
I shook my head, buried my face in his shoulder.
We listened to the fire tick down, the last of the embers fading to black.
For a moment, the world made sense.
Then the motion light flicked back on, and we both laughed, low and spent, as if we’d outsmarted the dark for just one night.
After that, we didn’t speak for a long time.
There wasn’t much to say. My head rested against his chest, the rough wool of the blanket bristling between us, our legs a tangled mess of sweat, old ash, and upended biology.
The fire had gone dark, but the heat radiated up through the pit, a last stand against the pre-dawn chill.
Nitro lay on his back, one arm under his head, the other wrapped around my shoulder.
I listened to his heart, the arrhythmic kick of it.
Even at rest, it never settled, always ready to bolt.
I counted the scars on his hand where it rested on my collarbone, the white ridges a road map of everything he’d survived.
The wind rustled through the pines, and the sensor light at the garage clicked on, then off, then on again, as if it couldn’t make up its mind about whether we were a threat.
He spoke first. “You ever regret it?”
“Which part?” I traced the letters on his knuckles, memorizing the feel of them.
He exhaled, smoke memory, not real. “All of it. The work. The running. Getting so far from where you started, you can’t even see it anymore.”
I watched the sky, the edge of it bruised, hinting at sunrise. “I used to. Now I think the only way is forward, even if you have to burn the road behind you.”
He grunted, shifted, pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “You’re smarter than you look.”
I smiled, eyes closed. “I’m not. I just learned to make peace with my own wiring.”
He was quiet, the words settling. I wondered if he was sleeping, but the twitch in his fingers told me otherwise.
I waited, then said, “You want to know something stupid?”
He snorted. “Always.”
“When I was a kid, I used to walk to the edge of the mesa after dark and look at the lights down in White Rock. I thought if I stared hard enough, I’d be able to see every family, every secret in every house. Like, if you watched long enough, you could solve people.”
He laughed, low, the vibration rumbling through my chest. “You try that with the club?”
I nodded, my cheek pressed to his ribs. “Didn’t take long to realize nobody wants to be solved. Not really.”
He was silent, then said, “You ever think about leaving?”
I considered. “Where would I go? The world out there is the same as in here. Just less honest about it.”
He rolled onto his side, propped his head up, and looked at me with that too-still focus. “You’re not afraid?”
“Of what?”
He shrugged. “Of all the things that come for people like us.”
I thought about it—the Russians, the Feds, the committee, the unsleeping eyes of Holloway and everyone like him. “They can try,” I said. “But I’m harder to break than I look.”
He smiled, the scar on his jaw twisting it into a question. “Prove it.”
I reached up, ran my thumb across the ridge of his jaw, the skin oddly soft over the ruined tissue. He let me, eyes half-closed.
“You want to know something?” I asked, voice soft enough that I barely heard it.
He nodded.
“I was scared the first night. With you. More scared than when I got jumped in the parking lot.”
He didn’t answer, but his grip on my shoulder tightened. The sensor light clicked on again, bathing us in false daylight for two seconds, then went dark.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I knew it wouldn’t be the last time.”
He kissed my forehead, gentle, almost fatherly. “I promise to make it a good one.”
We lay there, the night winding down around us, the wind curling through the dead grass and pine. I listened to the sound of the world forgetting itself, the blank space between disasters. It was the first time in years I’d felt truly present, as if nothing else could touch us until we allowed it.
“Tomorrow,” I said, “they’ll send someone to check on me.”
He didn’t ask who. “I’ll be here.”
I nodded, closed my eyes, and let the fatigue creep in. My body hummed, the leftover fire and adrenaline refusing to go quietly. Nitro’s hand stroked the back of my neck, slow, hypnotic, and for a second, I let myself pretend this was normal.
Nitro grabbed a log and tossed it on the firepit. Minutes later, flames were licking the sky. He moved to his knees and turned me over onto my belly before moving me to all fours.
I looked back as he stared at my bare ass.
I tensed when he placed his hands on my hips and then entered my pussy from behind.
He fucked me the way people dig for bodies—with purpose, like he knew exactly how deep he had to go to get to the truth.
My cheek mashed into the blanket, and I tasted earth and resin, the wild green between us, as he pulled me back into each thrust. Sweat broke slick along my spine in the freezing air, and the contrast exalted every nerve, every patch of skin that had gone hungry for years.
His hands on my ass were rough, reverent, like he wanted to leave marks for the next poor bastard to find.
I gripped the edge of the blanket, knuckles aching, and tried to keep quiet.
The world beyond the pit was a surveillance state—neighbors, coyotes, maybe even the Feds—but right here, right now, there was only the sense-memory of his cock and the blunt certainty that I was alive, at least for tonight.
His hand snaked up my back, grabbed a fistful of hair at the root, and hauled my head back until I gasped.
The fresh tension sent a shockwave through my thighs, my throat, every length of me that had ever been braced for violence instead of touch.
He didn’t say my name. He said nothing at all, just used my body like a tool or an instrument, like the only way to keep himself from fracture was to pour every molecule of restraint into the shape of me.
I loved him for it, and hated the word as soon as it formed, but there it was, vibrating in my chest.
When I came again, it was a full-system failure.
My knees gave, my vision whited out, and for a second there was only the pulse of blood and the animal arithmetic of him driving me forward.
Instinct took over—I reached back, caught his forearm, tried to anchor myself as he bent over me, his breath hot on the slope of my neck.
He kept both hands on my hips, fingers digging in deep enough to bruise.
I could taste my own sweat, his sweat, the taste of New Mexico dirt, and when he came, I felt it all the way up to the base of my skull, no wasted motion, no apology.
The force of it collapsed us both onto the blanket, his body flattening mine, and we just lay there panting, hearts staggered, a two-person drumline against oblivion.
The air stung my skin, drying the sheen off me instantly, leaving a tracework of cold and pleasure interleaved.
He didn’t roll off right away. He braced on one elbow, cradled the side of my head with the other hand, and thumbed a streak of ash off my cheekbone.
I couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, but I knew he was looking, parsing every tremor in my breath as if waiting for me to call retreat.
“So you do take what you want,” I said.
He nodded. “And I look like those guys on the book covers.