Chapter Eighteen #3
Everett’s smile eases into something more thoughtful, and he extends his hand, leaving it palm-up between us.
An invitation to his warmth and comfort I can accept or refuse, as I wish.
It never stops feeling foreign, this language of caring he speaks to me.
The small touches to warn me or get my attention, to inspect my bruises, or my new favorite, when he wakes me up after a long night spent next to each other.
The concern for my feelings and the way he pauses to consider, always consider, how I’m experiencing the same moment he is.
That soft, gauzy smile that slips around me like a curtain and shields us from view, making the moment uniquely ours no matter what else is going on.
And it strikes me, sudden and swift, that this professor is exactly who I want by my side now that doomsday has arrived.
I take his hand, and our fingers weave together like I’ve always known how to do this.
“What scares you about it?” Everett’s eyes fix on mine, and the intensity of his attention creates tides of warmth that wash over me, lifting me up.
“I’ve been waiting for this for so long, it feels like a finish line I half expect to disappear before I can cross it.
” I pause, really chewing on the thoughts before vocalizing them.
“It’s become this big, I don’t know, marker of sorts.
If I manage to have sex with another person, that means I’m finally normal. ”
“How’d sex become your litmus test for normal?”
I shrug. “Because I thought it’d never happen. When you live alone with your mother on the outskirts of society, it’s not easy to picture a future where you reproduce with a man to continue the species, which is all I thought sex really was, for a long time.”
Everett’s eyebrows rise. “Fair.”
“Having sex for fun, the way everyone on TV and the internet and in the real world seemed to be doing, became this certification that I’m not some broken fringe conspiracy theorist that could never belong to the real world.
Only now, the real world is gone, so it can’t mean that anymore.
” The words spill out of me before I can box them up and keep them safe.
But something in me has unlocked, and I find I don’t want to keep Everett out.
I want to invite him into my mind, make him understand exactly how I feel.
“But it still feels like it means something. Maybe something even bigger now, and I don’t know what.
And that feels…scary to me. Not knowing what will happen if I do this.
If we do this.” I try to smile back, but it’s a shattered thing, the lines unable to match up quite the way they should. “Maybe it won’t mean anything at all.”
Everett’s fingers curl around mine, tighter.
“It means something to me.” The rhythmic sweep of the soft lantern light travels over his face, illuminating the strong line of his cheekbone before ebbing into purple shadow. I wish I could see all of him, all at once.
“But what?” I lean toward him, feeling hopeful that maybe he has all the answers I don’t. “What does it mean to you?”
He bites his lips in, his chin lifting as though to make room for him to swallow. “That I can feel things again.” He runs his knuckles down my cheek, and a sweet, aching desire blooms in my belly. “That I can want things again.”
He wants me. And god, I want him, too.
“I didn’t know if I would ever care about another person again. I didn’t know if I really could.” His hand shifts so that the pads of his cool, soft fingertips trail gently over my lips, parting them, pausing there. “But I care about you, Maisie. You’ve brought me back to life.”
My eyes flutter closed as I lean my head into his palm, feeling as unguarded as I ever have. What a relief it is to trust someone like this. With your wants and needs, but all your messy thoughts, too. Your confusion and doubt spread thin in the sharing.
A sharp thwack hits the glass, and my eyes peel open.
“What was that?” My heart’s beating catastrophically hard as I rush to my feet, scrambling for the Taser at my side.
It’s not there. Of course—it’s down below with our bedding and the rest of our things.
Everett’s on his feet, too, his large hands braced on my arms as his head swivels toward the windows.
We freeze, instinctively, and stare out into the black night from our tower, seeing nothing, hearing only the constant shrill susurration of winds beating the glass from every direction.
The lantern’s beam swoops resolutely through the darkness. One full rotation. Then another. Illuminating nothing but its own reach. Nothing. Nothing. Then—something, just inches from the glass, flying full speed toward us like a phantom, a gleaming streak of white.
The eyes—the eyes are—
Thwack! The seagull’s body hits the glass in front of us so hard, it shakes the pane in its metal casings.
“Jesus!” Everett pulls me to him, both of us watching as the bird’s broken body slumps down the glass onto the ledge below.
I peer down, squinting in the dark until the light swoops over it again, but it’s just a normal dead bird, with normal dead eyes.
Everett’s gaze follows mine, one of his hands cradling the back of my neck, thumb rubbing me comfortingly.
“Freaking suicidal seagulls, that’s all. Are you okay?”
I laugh, a short, frayed sound, but my pulse is already slowing. There’s something chemical about the way he touches me, and how my body responds. A slow unraveling through my chest, a thick calm spreading through me like honey.
“Yeah,” I murmur into his chest. “For a second I thought—did you see its eyes?”
“I just saw blurry white before it crashed.” Everett tucks his chin as he regards me closely, the concern for how I’m feeling all over his face. “Why?”
The glare of the lantern’s beam on its white feathers, that’s probably all it was. I’m seeing zombies where there aren’t any. “Nothing.” I smile quickly. “Let’s go back down.”
We wind down the stairs to the bottom half of the room, blissfully free of any windows and significantly quieter with its stalwart stone walls putting up a mighty defense against the howling winds.
I reach the switch first, and with a deep breath in, turn off the lantern’s revolving beam.
I’d liked the idea that someone out there might see it.
Someone whose brain still worked, who might be searching for hope in the darkness, too.
But between nostalgia for the human race and a quiet night without renegade seagulls dive-bombing our tower, it’s an easy choice.
The lantern hums down, a small bit of me mourning the loss, but then Everett’s hands find my arms again, trailing up my sleeves, lighting up my whole body with crackling sensation in the dim glow remaining.
I close my eyes, I breathe. A small sigh full of wanting tumbles from my lips.
I lift my arms wordlessly, and for a brief, terrifying instant, I’m scared Everett will make me verbalize what I want, will force me to say it aloud.
But I should’ve known better. Those cool fingertips find the hem of my shirt and tug upward, the fabric trawling against the ticklish skin of my ribs, glazing the tops of my breasts until it’s off completely and tossed to the floor.
His breath is warm against the crown of my head, cooled by the time it reaches my neck.
“Maisie,” he says dreamily from behind me.
He drags one hand down my spine, then dips his fingers inside the back of my pants, sliding easily down until he cups the curve of my ass.
His other hand traces the line of my collarbone, his palm flattening to skim down the smooth space between my breasts.
He unhooks my bra, and there’s a sharp intake of air as his thumb glides over the top of one nipple, springing beneath his touch.
“You destroy me, Maisie,” he breathes into my ear. “Burn me right down to the ground.”
“Everett, please.” My voice is shaky as desire tugs between my legs. “I—I need this to be a lesson.”
He spins me around roughly, his hazel eyes dark and lust-blown.
A teasing smile lifts his parted lips. “Does that mean I can’t tell you how much I want you?
” His hands, so fond of my hips, find them and drag me against him, eliciting a keening noise from the back of my throat.
“Feel free to ask me questions about it. About what I’m going to do to you.
How I’ll make you come as I fill you with my cock, like I’ve been dreaming of ever since we met. ”
“You have?” I blink, the sting of his earlier rejections—when he ran from my apartment, when he listened to me beg him for sex lessons and said he’d need to “think about it”—still within reach. He can read my thoughts as easily as if the words were typed across my face.
“It was never about not wanting you, Maisie.” Everett anchors me to him by the small of my back, then runs his big hand behind my thigh, hoisting it up to his side.
With my legs spread apart like this, our bodies meet where it’s warmest, softest, hardest, wettest. Even through our clothes, the contact makes him groan as his cock notches perfectly between me.
“I’ll want you until this world ends and the next one begins. ”
“Just my body? Just—for sex?”
Everett freezes beneath my arms, my words puncturing a massive, gaping hole in this perfect moment. Stupid Maisie! Why did you ask that?! He’s going to run away, he’s going to—
He lifts me in one seamless motion, guiding me with his hands until I wrap my legs around his hips. His hazel eyes burn everything I’ve ever thought about myself to ashes as he lowers me gently to our makeshift bed.
“No, Ms. Shenandoah.”