Day 103
Adam
Afew days after the abruptly halted kiss, and I think it’s safe to say we’re… taking our time with things.
If I’m being completely honest, no, I don’t want to. I want to pin her against every surface we come across, and fuck her until she can’t walk and I have to carry her around, preferably still on my cock, as my cum drips down her thighs, but I also agree with those words she let out.
We can’t keep using each other as a stress reliever without figuring this—us—out first.
So as much as I want her, I’ll wait. She’s all I’ve got. I won’t risk it.
It doesn’t mean it’s easy; for either one of us, it seems. I try to follow in her footsteps and distract myself by helping her research.
She’s throwing herself into planning our forever-home like it’s a complex military operation, which, I guess, is not that far from the truth.
We’re in Delaware at the moment, and after very brief hunt, she steered us to the biggest library in the area and claimed it as our current home base.
“The lack of physical maps is starting to piss me off,” she growls as she tests out yet another projector that doesn’t seem to work.
“I’ll go look in one of the backrooms.” Her face is scrunched with annoyance and it’s so cute, I have to physically distance myself from her. “Anything else?”
“A whiteboard if you can find one,” she calls after me. “Oh, and stationery!”
I stifle a chuckle. Other girls would obsess over hair, makeup, clothes. Jewelry. Maybe even books or animals. My Eve is going crazy over stationery.
Well, with a bit of luck and enough time in those storage rooms, I might be able to fulfill her wildest fantasies.
“Wrong phrase,” I grunt to myself, fighting images of what those might look like. It’s already hard not to think about fucking her every waking moment—and some sleeping ones—but considering what she might like is just another level of torture.
Whiteboard. Stationery. I remind myself. Not replaying the sounds of her getting off in the shower in my head. Not considering if she’d let me tie her wrists together with her own panties and fuck her from behind until she begs me to—
“Found it,” I force out the words when I come back, presenting her with my loot.
“Ugh, I’m so attracted to you right now,” she groans, setting up the whiteboard in front of her.
“Eve,” I grit out. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” She takes a few markers from the pile. “You got so many different colors. Swoon.”
I don’t know if I’m more aroused or amused. “Okay, Crazy Girl.” I shake my head. “What do you even need those for?”
“I’m so glad you asked.” Her satisfied grin is the only warning I get before she dives deep into the explanation of what she’ll use each color for as she sketches a rough map of the states on the whiteboard in front of her.
“I’m assuming that you did well in college, right?” I ask sarcastically when she’s done talking my ear off. Not that I mind. I like hearing her voice.
“I liked studying.” She shrugs. “So yeah, I was good at it. I like to keep my mind busy.”
“Don’t you ever want to just… turn it off?” I observe her adding markings in a different color. “Feel it quiet down for a while?”
“I do.” She clears her throat and doesn’t turn to me when she adds, “That’s what my toys are for.”
I fight the urge to bang my head against the table. I swear she’s doing this on purpose.
“So, anyways, as you can see,” she says a little louder, as if to override her previous words. “Here are the states.” She points to the sketch with her marker. “All the coasts are a no-go because of flood, tsunami and storm risks.”
She marks them all with red lines.
“That leaves us with the inland states, but we also need to take into account climate, so the southwest is also mostly out.” She marks them off too. “Do you vibe more with nuclear plants or with agriculture?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
She smiles. “I don’t think the info on power plants will just be out in the wild, but you can try starting with the civilian ones.
Try to find where they’re located, at least. The bigger ones are bound to be mentioned somewhere.
I’ll check out crops and climates, so eventually between the two of us, we should be able to narrow it down. ”
I study her for a moment; her messy bun, the flush on her cheeks from the stale, stuffy air, but also the determination in her eyes that outshines everything else.
Her mind’s already working at about a hundred miles per hour to crack this, but all I want is to quiet it for her. And not even with the help of orgasms.
“What if we don’t start the search right away?”
“Huh?”
“What if we…” I debate how to phrase it. “Take some time off, before?”
She observes me. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” she admits eventually.
“Once we find a place, we’ll have our work cut out for us. Even now you’re going into full crisis-management mode,” I point out. “And I bet that the moment the farm is established, we won’t be able to just leave it, right?”
“Right,” she says slowly, taking the seat next to mine, as if she’s coming to terms with it as I say it. “No, we’ll have to stick around. Especially if we get livestock.”
“And that smart list of restrictions of yours”—I motion between her journal and the whiteboard—“it means we won’t be able to just choose any place, so maybe we should… enjoy other areas?”
“Areas that we won’t be able to travel to later,” she realizes, her eyes clearing of confusion when she straightens them at me.
“Think about it.” I place my arm on the back of her chair, and I can feel her body reacting to the proximity even if I don’t touch her. “The ocean. The Grand Canyon. Vegas,” I add jokingly.
“I’ve never been to the West Coast,” she muses, staring right through me, and I know she’s picturing it in her head.
“And once we’ve settled down, you might not get a chance to,” I finish for her.
Eve’s eyes are hazy again, and I know she’s weighing her—weighing our options. She’s the smart one, but I’ve come to learn that this brain of hers comes with a burden.
She has to be the one to decide, and if her choice brings us any kind of harm, I know she’ll blame herself, even if she knows she shouldn’t. Just like I did when that snake got her, or when she fell apart in my arms on the lawn of her childhood home.
Somewhere along the way, our partnership started to mean protecting one another. I don’t want to imagine a situation where we fail to do it.
“Well, summer is already over,” she speaks at last, her voice equally contemplative and cautious. “From an agricultural standpoint, the prime time for both planting and harvesting has mostly passed.”
I never thought I’d enjoy listening to such complexly constructed sentences.
“We’ll need to find a place before winter,” she warns. “We can’t afford to be out and about. And we have to be really smart about planning the route, in case something sets us back, but…” A careful excitement starts creeping up in her voice. “I think we can spare about a month or so of… fun.”
Her small smile is soon met with a grin of my own, because this, this is what I want to see in her.
We’ll have what I hope will be a lifetime of responsibilities, and I don’t mind it, because I know I’ll be sharing it with her.
But before worry permanently creases her brows and that cute little mouth tightens to an anxious pout, I want to see her happy. Free.
“Good,” I nudge her journal toward her. “Open it up. We need to start a new list.”
She does as I say and her eyes are bright with barely concealed excitement. “Like a bucket list?”
“Exactly.” My fingers twirl a strand of her silky black hair, and I can’t hide my glee. “We’ve been in this world for months now, but we’ve been looking at it all wrong.”
“How should we look at it, then?” Her pen is open and ready, waiting to be put to paper.
“Like it’s an empty playground.” I can’t stop myself from trailing my nose on her shoulder. “And it’s just waiting for us to enjoy it.” I smile into her skin as she shudders. “Come on. Start writing.”