The Phoenix Survivors

Prologue

I’ve never understood why anyone equates sex and love. I don’t have to love a guy to fuck him, thought I guess the “o” is probably better when you do.

At least, that’s what Hallie tells me, but who’d guess that pretty boy chase knight could make anyone come?

— Alexandra Holden

A YEAR BEFORE THE TURNING

Sometimes I wish that I could be more like my twin. Wild and uninhibited and not giving two shits what people think about her.

But because I’m Hallie Holden, not Alexandra, I’m currently sprawled out on the backseat of my boyfriend’s Honda Civic, my jeans crumpled on the floor, my panties shoved to the side as Chase pants how much he loves me in between thrusts.

One ankle is hooked beneath his ass cheek. His pants are yanked down low enough that he could release his cock and feed it into me while his polo shirt is tugged up high enough that I can caress his ab muscles as he fucks me.

There isn’t enough room for either of us to move properly.

My poor head keeps banging against the inside of the door, and the windows are fogging up badly enough that anyone who walks past our parked car would know what was happening even without the rocking motion and the sounds of pleasure muffled behind the glass.

We’re both panting now, the heat of our breath working against the cool evening air, but that doesn’t stop me from reaching up and grabbing Chase by the chin and dragging his mouth down to mine.

Because he’s Chase—because sex makes him giddy, and having me under him while he grinds on top of me is his favorite place to be—he laughs into the kiss.

I nip his bottom lip. “That tickles.”

“Yeah?” He braces his hands on my shoulders, pinning me down with care as he bottoms out inside of me. “What about that?”

Letting go of him, I arch my back, accommodating the way he’s stretching out every part of me as he stills, keeping me stuffed full of him. “If you don’t do that again, I’m going to kick your ass.”

Considering my position, I can totally boot him in a cheek with my heel and he knows it.

His laugh becomes a throaty chuckle as he does what he’s told, eliciting a whispered yes out of me. “I fucking love you, Hallie. Have I told you that lately?”

I can’t keep my hands off of him for long. Clutching his side, digging my nails into his flesh as I squeeze, I smile up at him as his expression becomes one of wonder and bliss.

And then I giggle. “I think that was seven times since I agreed to climb into the backseat with you.”

Chase bows his head, taking my bottom lip between his teeth, tugging it gently before kissing me as he drops down so that he can change his angle and fuck me even harder.

We only just pulled over for a quickie behind the shopping center off of Grove Avenue, the main throughway in Madison that exists between Chase’s family home and mine.

It’s after dark, the movie we just watched made us frisky, and with both of our houses full of people, we decided to take whatever privacy we could find, banging like a couple of reckless teenagers in the backseat of his car.

Only we’re not teenagers. Both of us are twenty-four, and smart enough to at least grab a condom from the stockpile we keep in the center console before Chase climbed on top of me.

And while I understand that we have a plan—Chase finishes grad school first, I crawl toward getting a second degree of my own, we buy a house, we finally get hitched—there are times like these when I can’t wait until we have our own place if only because I can fuck my boyfriend in peace without worrying we’ll be walked-in on or overheard.

If I was Xandra, I wouldn’t care. Sex is to be expected when you’ve been with someone as long as I’ve been with Chase.

I was doodling Hallie Knight in my notebooks in elementary school, and I don’t even remember how we became Hallie and Chase in the first place.

It’s like we always were, and since I’ve also been a part of Hallie and Xandra, the Holden twins, since birth, I love the certainty that Chase is just mine.

Even if I have to hold him tight while we’re cramped back here, our legs twisted, our bodies racing toward completion before some nosy lookie-loo shines their flashlight into the car.

I come first. Knowing that this was meant to be a quickie, Chase spared a hand, reaching between us so that he could rub my clit as he increased the already frenetic pace of his thrusts.

He knows my body almost as well as I do, and with his mouth moving to my ear, biting down on my earlobe, the jolt of pain enough to set off the waves of pleasure inside of me, I gasp and squeeze and whimper as he releases my flesh so he can grunt against my cheek.

Chase’s tight body shudders, finding his own release as he buries himself deep.

I wrap my arm around his neck, rising up enough that I can suck gently on the side of his throat as he thrusts through the last of his climax.

Only when he’s shot his entire load into the condom does he press his sweat-slicked forehead against mine, his breath hot and heavy against my skin.

He’s heavy on top of me, but it’s a reassuring kind of weight. I adore it as I adore him, trailing my fingernails along the defined muscles covering his ribs.

He doesn’t pull out. Not yet, at least. We’re already risking getting caught out here, and he still needs to get rid of the condom before we both get dressed and Chase brings me home. For now, though, I just enjoy this moment of peace with the only boy I’ve ever wanted.

I kiss his temple. “Love you, baby.”

“Love you, too, Hallie.”

Eight.

One day I will share a house with Chase Knight. That’s not today. For now, I live about five minutes away from him and his family—ten when the high school traffic on Grove Avenue causes a bit of a jam—in the same childhood home I grew up in with my twin sister and our older brother.

We’re all still living there; even Rory, though he spends most of his time at the firehouse where he works with Dad or at his girlfriend Nina’s place.

As Chase kissed me goodbye, then proceeded to wait for me to step out into the night and hurry up the path that leads to the side entrance of our house, I noticed that there’s only one car in the driveway.

The red coupe with the busted bumper belongs to my sister, and she refuses to park on the street or in the garage.

That means Xandra is definitely home, and odds are that Rory and my dad are out.

As for Mom, she keeps her Jeep in the garage most of the time, alongside my car (that gets the second garage slot because it’s not worth arguing with my twin and I’m usually riding with Chase anyway).

I let myself in through the garage. My beat-up silver car is where I left it, but no sign of Mom’s Jeep.

I should’ve guessed. Today’s Tuesday, when Mom usually goes to Aunt Bridget’s house for their “book club” that has infinitely less reading and a ton more wine-drinking and gossiping.

It looks like Xandra’s the only one home, though I’m a little hesitant when I go to open the door that attaches the garage to our kitchen and discover it’s not completely closed.

I push it open, letting out a small sigh of relief when I hear my sister’s voice call out.

“Hal? Hallie? That you? Because if it’s you, Bobby, I’m gonna put my boot up your ass. I told you, one nut. I’ll call you later if I need more dick.”

So maybe I’m a bit of a hypocrite. My legs are still a little shaky after what I did with Chase in the backseat of his car, plus I’m in dire need of a shower, but hearing Xandra speak so openly about her own sexual conquests has me rolling my eyes.

At least now I know why the door wasn’t latched closed. Once Xandra finished her rendezvous with her latest boy toy, she must’ve told him to leave through the side door instead of the front.

See? That’s my twin. She couldn’t care less if Rory caught her getting plowed by someone she isn’t even dating, but after my brother walked in on me and Chase when we were barely twenty, I decided that I would never risk sleeping with my boyfriend anywhere there was a chance we’d have company.

Her one concession is booting her lovers out the side door, but if he’d gone through the front and bumped into Dad or Rory, Xandra would’ve just smiled and shrugged because that’s what she does.

Crossing the kitchen, I poke my head around the doorway that leads into the living room. “It’s just me.”

Xandra is stretched out on the couch. I’m somewhat surprised to see she’s fully dressed, wearing a pair of black jeans and a tight white tee while her long blonde hair hangs over the side of the couch.

The same boots she just threatened Bobby Wagner with are crossed at the ankles, her arms folded over her chest, face turned to watch some reality show on the television.

Her hair is slightly damp, a sign she took a shower of her own before settling down to enjoy some TV after her most recent booty call.

The boots say she’s planning on going out soon.

If Mom was home, she’d flip to see Xandra with her boots on the furniture.

Not like my sister would care about that, either.

I’m still living at home to save up money to get that house with Chase.

Xandra? She’s just biding her time until she knows what she wants to do, and part of that is mooching off of our parents in between whatever retail job she’s currently working.

Since I’m not ready to be separated from my twin just yet, I’m glad that she hasn’t moved out, even if I have to wonder if she entertained Bobby Wagner on our couch…

Not that it matters what Xandra does; not to me, at least. She’s my identical twin and my best friend, and I don’t know what I’ll do when Alexandra Holden isn’t the most important person in my life.