5. Chapter 5 - Legion
The whole ride here my heart's been beatin' like somethin' trapped behind my ribs, somethin' that wants out, somethin' that doesn't know the difference between runnin' toward and runnin' away.
Not panic.
Panic I know. Panic is cold, and it shuts you down, and it tastes like metal at the back of your throat.
This was the other thing. The manic thing.
The thing that doesn't have a name I'm comfortable usin'.
My hands were steady on the ape hangers but my chest wasn't, and the wind comin' off the flats didn't cool it none, and the whole way I kept tellin' myself to slow down, keep it at speed, don't do somethin' stupid on a straight road in the dark.
But now Savannah's in my arms.
Now I can taste her.
And I'm calm.
Not tired-calm. Not that. This is somethin' else. This is the kind of still that don't happen to men like me. The kind that costs somethin'. The kind that don't come free.
Life is fine.
It's perfect.
Thirty-six people didn't die last week. No lines were crossed, no sins committed, no forgiveness needed.
Nothin' happened that I gotta carry.
Nothin' happened at all.
The world is just this—her weight against my chest, her breath on my throat, the smell of her hair which is nothing like dirt, and nothing like cold, and nothing like anything I got words for in my particular fuckin' vocabulary.
Just this.
Just her.
Just calm.
Savannah's hand finds me before I'm ready for it, which is funny, ya know, 'cause I'm always ready for her. But there's ready and there's ready, and she slides her palm down my stomach and grabs me through my jeans and I just—
Stop.
Just stop everything.
Stop thinkin' about the compound, and the clay, and the way Havoc's boots looked when we wrapped him. Stop thinkin' about the FBI comin' and the silence that's worse than a siege. Stop countin' the dead.
Stop.
She's got me in her hand and she's not in a hurry. That's the thing. She squeezes slow and deliberate, like she's testin' the weight of me, like she's got all night and knows it, and I don't move, don't push into her, just let her do it. Let her have it. Let her take her time.
My forehead drops to hers.
She strokes me through the denim, slow rolls of her palm, and I just breathe. In and out. Feel my pulse everywhere at once.
My hand finds the hem of her hoodie and slides under it, up her ribs, and there's nothing there, no bra, just her skin under my rough palm and she makes that sound, that small quiet sound she thinks I don't catalog every time, and I cup her breast in my hand and just hold it.
Not grabbin' or demandin'. Just holdin', feelin' her heartbeat come through her chest into my palm like it's askin' to be found.
She keeps strokin' me.
I keep holdin' her.
We're kissing again, slow, unhurried, the kind of kissin' that's got nowhere to be, the kind that doesn't need anything else to justify it. Not the ragged tearing urgent kind from last week. Not the desperate prove-it-now kind from the silo after the vote. Just—this.
Mouths movin' together easy, her hand on my cock like a question she already knows the answer to, my thumb dragging over her nipple and feelin' her breath catch against my lips when I do it.
She arches into me just slightly. Not askin'. Just respondin'. Like she's tuned to my hands the way I'm tuned to every sound she makes.
This feels different.
I know it and I don't say it and I don't look at it straight-on because if I do it's gonna have a name and I don't want it named.
I want it just like this—her palm warm on the outside of my jeans, her breast in my hand, her mouth on my mouth, the fairy lights breathin' somewhere above us, both of us pretendin' like this is the thousandth time and not—
Don't.
Keep kissin' her, Demon.
Just keep kissin' her.
But I can't help it. The words form in my mind. Badlands got away with what we did, but it's not real. It's temporary. And this… this could be the last time I ever get her to myself.
In three days I could be dead. Or worse, in jail.
And Savannah won't wait. She won't.
I wouldn't even let her.
But tonight, I let her. I'll let her do anything she wants with me.
Her fingers move to the button of my jeans. It pops. The zipper drops, her hand presses inside, and I grow in her palm. Her other hand pushes my jeans down just enough to get them over my hips and free my cock.
She is kneeling in front of me before I can even process it. Both hands now, firm and easy. Her eyes are meetin' mine, even in the midnight dark.
Her mouth opens around me slow.
No rush. No performance. Just her takin' her time like she's got somethin' to prove and all night to prove it, and my hand finds the back of her head before I even think about it. My fingers spread through her hair, my palm curving to the shape of her skull.
She sinks down.
Fuck.
I exhale through my nose and tip my head back and just—let her.
That's the thing she's figured out about me, ya know. That I'm capable of lettin' her. That I don't always have to be the one takin'. Took her a long time to teach me that and I'll never tell her she taught me anything.
She works me slow, tongue dragging the underside, her lips tight and warm and her pace—her pace is gonna kill me. She's not tryin' to get me there. She's just—bein' there.
With me.
On me.
One hand wrapped around the base and the other flat on my thigh and she's not movin' either one with any urgency, just holdin' on, steady, like she's got an anchor in each palm and I'm the thing she's keepin' from driftin'.
I look down at her.
That's always a mistake.
She's got her eyes up. Meetin' mine. Patient as anything in the barely-there gold light of the outside fairy strings, like she's got nowhere else she'd rather be in this world or the next and she wants me to know it.
Wants me to see it.
Won't let me look away.
I don't look away.
My fingers curl slightly in her hair. Not directing. Just holdin'. Just—here. Present. Both of us present, which is rare for me and she knows it.
She slides down further and I feel the back of her throat and every muscle in my body tightens against the want to move and I hold it, hold it, hold it, grip the silo wall behind me with my free hand 'cause I need something to push against that isn't her.
She pulls back slow.
Does it again.
Same pace. Unhurried. Deliberate.
Torture, ya know. The kind you choose. The kind you'd choose again.
She lets me go slow, lips dragging, and there's a thin wet string between her mouth and me when she pulls back and she's lookin' up and she's smilin' and I don't—I can't—
I smile back.
Can't help it. I just don't have a defense for that smile. Never did.
God, I love her.
I love her and it's the most dangerous thing I carry.
Her tongue drags slow across the tip of me and my whole spine locks up.
Just—locks.
She does it again. One long, lazy circle. Tastin' me. Testin' me. Like she's figurin' out something she already knows the answer to but wants to go slow gettin' there.
Take her hair. Guide her down. Show her exactly how fast you need it.
I don't.
My hand stays loose in her hair. Palm curved. Not directing.
Savannah licks me again. Just the tip. Just that soft wet drag across the head, and my cock jumps in her hands and she smiles against me, feels that, knows exactly what she's doing.
She knows.
She's always known. Since the first time she put her mouth on me in this exact building she figured out what it does to me when she takes her time, what it costs me to let her, how hard I gotta fight myself to stay still.
And she uses it. Not cruel—not close to cruel.
Just precise. Like a woman who studied the blueprint and knows every load-bearing wall.
She swipes her tongue under the ridge, slow, and I exhale through my teeth.
What I want—what I actually want—is to pull her up by the hair and bend her over the old grain shelf on the east wall and fuck her from behind until she can't remember what slow even means.
I want to hear her say my name the way she said it last week, ragged and broken and like it's the only word she's got left.
Want her nails on my back. Want her to beg.
I don't move.
Her lips seal over me again, just the head, and she sucks, barely, soft, just enough pressure to make my vision go narrow, and my hand tightens in her hair without my permission—just slightly, just a fist of her hair and no pull behind it, just my body doin' what my mind keeps tellin' it not to.
She takes the pressure as what it is. Not a command. Just proof.
She hums against me. Satisfied.
Demon.
Stay the fuck still.
I flatten my palm against the wall again, both hands off her now, arms at my sides, givin' her everything, and she rewards me by takin' me a little deeper before pullin' back to the tip, and the combination of that and the fairy light fallin' across her upturned face and her eyes still holdin' mine—
It's too much and not enough.
Both at the same time.
Always both at the same time with her.
Savannah pulls back slow.
Stands up.
Kisses me.
Soft. Just her mouth on mine, one hand flat on my chest, and then she tips her chin up and says it quiet against my lips—
"Are ya dyin' yet?"
Something snaps.
Not breaks. Snaps. Clean. Like a line pulled too tight finally lettin' go, and I don't think, I don't weigh it, I just move—
Both hands. Her shoulders. I turn her around until her back hits the silo wall making her gasp. And her hands grab my cut and I'm already at her jeans.
Button. Gone.
Zipper. Down.
I drag the denim off her hips and down her thighs in one pull, crouching with it, both hands shovin' the jeans past her knees, her calves, off her feet entirely, and I'm back up before she can even get a full breath.
I slip my fingers between her legs, find her soaked. She moans as I stroke her. Writhing now. It's her turn to squirm. I play with her clit until she squealing and her fingernails are diggin' into my shoulders.
She leans into my neck. The whisper is a command. "Fuck me, Legion."