20. The Quiet Part #2
He lowers himself onto the bench, onto me, and the first press of his body against mine makes me gasp. His cock presses against me through two thin layers of fabric. I rock up against it instinctively.
His mouth finds my neck. His lips and teeth and tongue working a path from my jaw to my collarbone. One hand slides up my ribcage, fingers spread wide, covering as much skin as possible. The other slides down, over my hip, gripping hard enough that I'll probably have fingerprint bruises tomorrow.
He finds the clasp of my bra. The angle is awkward but he manages it one-handed.
I have a brief hysterical thought about how many bras Joel has removed in his life that he's this competent at the mechanics.
"Impressive," I breathe.
"I fix things. Clasps are simple machines."
"Did you just compare my bra to a machine?"
"Lever and fulcrum system. Very basic."
I'm laughing and then I'm not laughing because he's pulling the fabric away. Then his lips close around my nipple and every thought I've ever had exits my skull through my ears.
"Oh," I say. Eloquent. Devastating. "Oh, that's... yes. That."
He works me with his mouth, alternating between soft and not-soft.
His hand finds my other breast, thumb brushing circles until I'm arching up off the bench, pressing into his touch.
The wet heat of his mouth. The slightly rough texture of his palm.
The way his hips rock against mine in a rhythm that's probably unconscious and definitely driving me insane.
"Joel." I'm tugging at his hair. "Joel, I need..."
"What do you need?"
"More. I need more."
His hand leaves my breast. Slides down my stomach. Over my navel. Along the edge of my underwear. And then under, fingers slipping beneath the elastic.
"God," he says. "Grace."
"I know. I'm aware. It's been a situation for a while now, and if you could address the situation that would be…"
He presses two fingers inside me and my sentence dies mid-word.
My thighs clamp around his hand. I moan, loud. His fingers curl in a way that suggests he knows exactly what he's looking for and he's going to find it.
"Like this?" he asks, and his voice is calm while my entire nervous system lights up like a switchboard.
"Yes. Yes, like that. Just like that, don't stop, don't you dare stop."
He adds a third finger, stretching me, filling me, and his thumb finds my clit and starts a slow circle. I grip his shoulders hard enough to leave marks. I'm close, already, embarrassingly fast.
"Joel, I'm going to come."
"Not yet."
His hand slows. His thumb eases off. I make a sound of pure frustration and he swallows it with a kiss, his mouth hot and insistent against mine.
"I want to be inside you when you come," he says against my lips. "I want to feel it."
"Then stop teasing and get inside me."
"Bossy."
"You're surprised?"
He laughs again, and then he's hooking his fingers in my underwear and pulling it down my legs.
I do the same to him, shoving his boxer briefs down his hips, and then there's nothing between us. Just skin and heat.
He fishes a condom from the pocket of his discarded pants.
I raise a brow.
"First-aid station had condoms."
"Of course you inventoried the condoms."
"I inventoried everything."
He tears the wrapper with his teeth, rolls it on, and leans down to kiss me, gentle this time. He lines himself up. The blunt head of his cock nudges against me, sliding through wetness, and then he pushes in slow, letting me adjust to each inch.
My head tips back and I moan as he sinks deeper, deeper, until his hips are flush against mine and I'm so full I can barely breathe.
The first thrust steals my breath. The second makes me dig my nails into his back. By the third I'm lost, rhythm and heat and the slick slide of him inside me. When I gasp, he does it again. When I moan, he replicates the conditions.
Every time he pulls back I chase him with my hips. His hand slides under my thigh, hikes my leg higher, changes the angle, and suddenly he's hitting something inside me that makes me cry out.
"There," I gasp. "Right there, don't stop."
"I'm not stopping," he promises. "Not until you come for me."
He keeps hitting the spot. For minutes or hours or years, I can't tell, time's stopped working properly.
"You feel so fucking good, Grace. So tight. So wet. Been thinking about this every time I looked at you today. Every time I wanted to fill you up with my cock."
I make a noise that's half laugh, half moan. "You're, ah, you're filthy when you're inside me."
He fucks me deeper, faster, the bench protesting beneath us.
"Joel." His name is a plea. A demand.
"I know." His voice is strained now, ragged, the control finally cracking. "I know, I'm close too, just stay with me. Look at me."
I open my eyes. I didn't know I'd closed them again. He's above me, beautiful and wrecked, his eyes burning into mine.
"Come on my cock, Grace. Let me feel it."
My whole body locks up, back arching, mouth open on a silent scream that turns into a broken sob-laugh as pleasure crashes over me in relentless pulses. Joel fucks me through it, drawing it out until I'm shaking and gasping and completely undone.
Only then does he let go.
He buries his face in my neck, hips stuttering, and comes with a low groan. I feel every throb, every involuntary pulse, and it tips me into another smaller aftershock that makes me clench around him.
We hang there for a long moment, suspended, trembling against each other while the pleasure rolls through us. A school of silver fish passes overhead, completely indifferent to what just happened on the bench beneath them.
Joel lifts his head. His eyes are soft in a way I've never seen. He brushes damp hair off my forehead with the same hands that just wrecked me.
"You okay?" he asks quietly.
I laugh, breathless and happier than I've been since the world ended. "I think you broke my brain. In the best way. Ten out of ten. Would get railed in a fish tube again."
He stays inside me while we catch our breath, slow lazy rocks like he can't bear to leave yet. When he finally pulls out, he ties off the condom and wraps it in the discarded foil before putting it in the maintenance bag with the rest of our trash, because even post-sex Joel is still Joel.
He helps me sit up, hands gentle.
"I think we owe this bench an apology," I say.
"It held up better than I expected."
"Joel. We just had sex on a piece of furniture designed for three-minute fish viewing. It deserves hazard pay."
He looks down. "The bench is fine."
"It feels broken."
"That might be your legs."
My legs do feel broken. In the best way. "Yeah. That tracks."
He laughs. Quiet. Against my hair.
I watch the fish and think about how strange this is. I reach up, touch his face, trace the line of his jaw with my thumb.
He's quiet for a long moment. Then he turns his head and kisses my palm. "We should probably get dressed," he says. "Beck's going to say something."
"Beck's going to say so many things. He's going to be insufferable for days."
"Worth it."
I grin. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
We get dressed. It takes longer than it should because my legs really don't work and my pants are inside out and Joel has to help me with my hoodie because my arms have forgotten their primary function.
But eventually we're clothed and standing.
The bench is behind us, a silent witness to what just happened, and I'll never look at a fish tube bench the same way again.
We walk back toward the entrance. Joel's hand finds mine somewhere around the midpoint of the tunnel. His fingers lace with mine.
The door opens. Beck is right there, leaning against the wall, grinning like he's been rehearsing the grin for the entire time we were gone. "So," he says. "How was the perimeter?"
"Secure," Joel says flatly.
I choke on nothing. Joel squeezes my hand. Beck's grin widens.
"Good to know," Beck says. "Grace's hair is doing a thing, by the way. Just so you know. It's doing a whole thing."
My free hand flies to my head. My hair is doing several things. A symphony of things. I try to smooth it down and make it worse.
"Fish tube humidity," I say. "Very aggressive. Nothing to do with anything else. Just moisture from the fish."
"From the fish."
"Yes."
"The fish made your hair like that."
"The fish are very humid, Beck."
Grant appears from around the corner. He takes in the scene, and his face does the small warm thing that means he's figured out exactly what's happening and is choosing not to comment directly.
"Good perimeter check?" he asks.
"Very thorough," Beck says before either of us can answer. "They checked everything. Joel's shirt is also buttoned wrong, but I'm sure that's unrelated."
Joel looks down. One button off all the way down. I'm going to die of embarrassment in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, which is a stupid way to go after surviving this long.
"I was helping Grace with the fish humidity," Joel says.
"The fish humidity," Grant repeats.
"Yes."
"In the tunnel."
"Where else would the fish humidity be, Grant?"
Grant nods slowly. "Fair point."
Beck loses it. Full laughter, doubled over, hands on his knees. Grant's small warm smile gets a little warmer. Joel squeezes my hand and doesn't let go.
I look at the three of them, and I think: this is the thing I didn't know I was looking for. This is the reason I jumped the hip gate.