As the two of them wandered down the aisle chuckling over various self-help titles, Lennox’s faint voice called out to them in the darkness. “Over here. Beck, bring the duffel.”
They found him in the world history section. Beckett unzipped the large canvas bag while Lennox began pulling out books and tossing them over.
Nearly thirty tomes had made it into the bag before Beckett looked at Jamie and asked, “Is he always this intense? I didn’t realize he had such a hard-on for textbooks.”
An indulgent smile lifted her mouth. Of all the kids in their childhood camp, Lennox was the one who’d been the most captivated by the history lessons. Far more interested than she’d been, though she’d attended each lesson just to be near him.
“Learning gives him a boner,” she said frankly.
Lennox overheard that and chuckled, but didn’t slow down his quest. They hit the geography aisle next, where he relieved the shelves of several heavy atlases while Jamie ducked into the neighboring aisle and perused the medicine books there. She knew Hudson had worked as a nurse in the city, so she grabbed a few titles she thought might interest the woman. Then she stumbled on an even luckier find—a book full of home remedies, and one about the healing attributes of plants that grew in the Colorado area.
She promptly threw them in the bag, which was getting heavier by the minute.
Jamie tracked Lennox down to the language section. “I think you have enough.”
“A few more,” he said absently.
Her flashlight illuminated the hard cut of his jaw, which was covered in dark beard growth because he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. His stubble had scratched her thighs this morning when he woke her up by burying his face between her legs. The naughty memory made her body ache.
Before she could stop herself, she wrapped both arms around him from behind, then slid her hands down to his groin. The book he’d been inspecting was all but forgotten. Groaning softly, Lennox eased his hips forward, and she could feel him hardening beneath her palms.
God, she couldn’t think straight with his tight ass pressed against her and his lemony scent infusing her senses. When she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed his neck, he groaned again and thrust his growing erection into her hands.
“Guys, listen to this.”
They broke apart when Beckett appeared with a paperback novel in his hand. He had his flashlight pointed to one of the pages and he sounded gleeful as he began to read. “‘You want more of this big cock, you dirty little slut?’” Beckett raised his voice to a higher pitch. “Gina moaned in delight. ‘Yes. God yes. Please, Drake, give it to me. I’ve been such a bad girl.’”
Jamie snorted, while Lennox let out a soft whistle. “Damn,” he remarked. “No wonder the council monitors everything that’s being published these days. That’s some raunchy shit.”
“What’s it called?” Jamie asked curiously.
“On Her Knees.” Beckett barked out a laugh, then flipped some more pages and stopped on another passage. “‘That’s it, you dirty little slut, swallow every last drop.’” He glanced pensively at Jamie. “Again with the ‘dirty little slut.’ Should I be calling women that when I’m in bed with them?”
“Only if you want your balls chopped off.”
“What’s the matter, love?” Lennox pulled her toward him. “It doesn’t turn you on?”
“Nope.”
“Really? But what if we want you to be our dirty little slut?”
Beckett moved up behind her, and suddenly she was sandwiched between the two men. “Or how about we’ll be the dirty sluts?” he suggested, his breath hot on her ear. Then he drew the lobe in his mouth and sucked.
Heat sizzled down to her core. With Lennox’s erection pressing in her stomach and Beckett’s rubbing against her ass, she was trapped between two walls of pure masculinity, and loving every second of it.
“Does that mean I get to be in charge?” she asked.
Lennox chuckled. “You’re always in charge. We both know that.”
Beckett kneaded her ass cheeks. Lennox undid the button of her jeans. Both men clicked off their flashlights, and then hers was yanked out of her hand and turned off too. Darkness surrounded them. No windows on this side of the library, which meant no moonlight, just pitch-black. But there was something insanely erotic about not being able to see them.
“What do you say, Beck? Should we show her how dirty we can be?” Lennox’s deep voice echoed in the aisle.
Beckett was already working her jeans and panties down her hips. “Shoes,” he murmured.
She kicked off her sneakers. A second later she was naked from the waist down and Beckett was on his knees behind her, nuzzling her ass with his cheek.
She heard a rustle of movement. The heat of Lennox’s body disappeared. He was sinking to his knees too.
“Spread,” he whispered.
Jamie parted her thighs and jerked when a hot, rough tongue rasped over her clit. Beckett’s teeth sank into her ass at the same time, and the prick of pain combined with the jolt of pleasure triggered a helpless moan.
Holy hell.
No, not hell. Heaven. With Beckett nibbling on her tender flesh and Lennox flicking his tongue on her clit, moving it around in teasing circles, she was in absolute heaven. One long finger slid down her crease toward her pussy, and pleasure shot through her when Beckett pushed that finger inside her. There was nothing more exhilarating than having two men completely dedicated to her pleasure.
“You taste so sweet,” Lennox muttered. “I could eat you for days, baby.”
He wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked. Beckett added another finger and thrust deep.
Jamie’s mind grew foggy, her entire being focused on the pulsing between her legs. She whimpered, rocking her hips against Lennox’s face while at the same time trying to push back against Beckett’s probing fingers.
“Good, love?” Lennox mumbled.
“So good,” she mumbled in response.
He peppered kisses on her thighs, her stomach, her hips, before licking his way back to her core. She couldn’t see a damn thing. All she could do was feel. Each stroke of Lennox’s tongue. Each thrust of Beckett’s fingers.
When she suddenly felt a warm tongue between her ass cheeks, she jerked hard against Lennox’s mouth.
He lifted his head with a laugh. “Whatcha doing back there, Beck?”
Beckett gave an answering chuckle. “Just having some fun.”
Jamie’s pulse careened when he resumed tormenting her ass, his tongue touching that puckered ring of muscle. Holy shit. She was going to self-combust. The nerve endings were so sensitive there. Her body was on sensation overload.
As Lennox continued to tend to her clit, Beckett’s fingers slid back into her pussy while his tongue penetrated another erotic zone, spearing her hard.
The orgasm started in her fingers and toes. Tingling wildly, dancing along her skin, then igniting in a shock of pleasure between her legs before shooting outward again. She moaned as the waves cascaded through her. It was so damn intense, and the two men rode it out with her, the hungry noises they were making intensifying the rush, prolonging the climax until she was a droopy, whimpering mess.
By the time she recovered, they were both laughing, husky sounds laced with pure male satisfaction.
She heard another rustling, a click, and then light hit her eyes, nearly blinding her.
“I think she enjoyed that,” Lennox told Beckett.
The other man brought his wet fingers to his mouth and sucked them dry.
Jamie was still shaking as she bent over to retrieve her flashlight. She switched it on and swept the light over their groins. They were both visibly hard.
“My turn to return the favor?” she teased.
To her surprise, Lennox shook his head. “That’ll have to wait until we ge
t back to camp. We’ve already been here too long—we need to get going.”
She knew her disappointment showed in her eyes, but Lennox remained firm. He picked up her discarded pants and handed them over. “Get dressed, love.”
She obeyed, because arguing with him always got her nowhere.
They were just walking into the lobby when Beckett’s flashlight caught something in the hallway behind the main desk. Something that brought excitement to both men’s voices.
A fully stocked vending machine.
“Holy shit!”
“Fuck yeah!”
Her sexual tormenters had turned into little boys, racing over to the machine and pointing their flashlights at the glass to peer happily at the candy behind it.
“How has this thing not been cleaned out already?” Jamie wondered aloud.
“I guess nobody cared enough about reading good books to come to the library,” Lennox replied with a snort. “Beck, you got something we can use to break this glass?”
“Just my gun.”
“No. I don’t want it firing by accident. Track something else down.”
As Beck disappeared down the hallway, Jamie heaved the duffel bag over one shoulder. “I’ll take this down to the car and dump the books so we can fill it with your loot.”
“Thanks.” Lennox was staring longingly at the chocolate bars in the machine.
Laughing to herself, Jamie hurried out to the Jeep. She emptied the bag and left the books in the backseat, then popped back into the library, where she discovered Beckett wielding a huge ax with a bright red handle. He must have found it in one of those break-in-case-of-emergency glass cabinets, because there was also a fire extinguisher sitting at his feet. She instantly picked it up—the extinguisher could be useful for Graham’s kitchen.
“I’m taking this to the car,” she said as the men prepared to break the glass. “I’ll wait out there for you.”
That got Lennox’s attention. His head turned sharply in her direction. “Stay in the Jeep, love. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I mean it. Stay put, stay alert, and keep your gun out.”
She nodded, then went outside again and leaned against the passenger door of the Jeep.
Aside from the overgrown foliage, the area seemed to be untouched by the war. Jamie had been to towns where entire buildings were nothing but skeletons, where the bombs had turned sidewalks and roads into gaping, charred craters. The coastal cities were even scarier. Most were underwater, but she and Lennox had visited ones that had somehow managed to remain standing. Barely, anyway—half the time they’d had to drive in the opposite direction because the roads were now rivers, some as deep as ten feet.
But towns like these, which showed so few signs of the war . . . she could imagine actual civilization here. People driving their cars or walking to work. Mothers pushing baby strollers down the sidewalk. Friends chatting over coffee at an outdoor café.
Her gaze shifted to the row of white town houses across the street. Water damage had marred the exteriors and rusted the small second-floor balconies, but it was easy to imagine how the houses had looked all those decades ago. And with the neighborhood so quiet and untouched, it was easy to believe that some treasures might have been left behind in those houses.
Gun in hand, she moved away from the Jeep and crossed the street. She figured she had a few minutes to investigate at least one house, so she popped into the first one in the row. The front door was unlocked, and the interior smelled musty when she stepped inside.
Damn, the house was cute. The front hallway was small but it led to a spacious living area with a dining nook in the corner and a kitchen with dusty appliances. A brisk examination of the white cabinets revealed that someone had already raided the place for food.
The upstairs had been spared, she discovered a minute later. The medicine cabinets were empty, but the walk-in closet in the master bedroom was full of men’s suits and pretty dresses. One in particular caught Jamie’s eye, a short white dress with a gaping neckline and silky fabric that felt lovely between her fingers.
She tugged it off the hanger and tucked it into her shoulder bag, then wandered over to an oak dresser to rummage through the black velvet jewelry box atop it. She found a gorgeous pearl necklace and a diamond bracelet that sparkled under her flashlight. Both promptly went into her bag.
The raid took all of five minutes, and Jamie left the house through the patio door in the kitchen rather than the front entrance. It wouldn’t hurt to check if there were cans of gasoline or other useful supplies in the backyard.
But she realized her error the second she stepped outside. The yards behind the houses weren’t fenced off—it was one long stretch of overgrown grass.
She heard their voices before she saw them. Smelled the smoke before she registered the campfire.
The seven men gathered around the crackling orange flames swiveled their head in shock.
Almost immediately, the shock turned to suspicion. And then interest. Heated, undisguised interest.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
She’d stumbled onto a camp of bandits.
14
“Well, lookee here,” one of the bandits drawled. “Aren’t you a pretty little thing?”
Jamie’s gun snapped up, her pulse racing as the men rose to their feet.
Despite their various heights and builds, they all had one thing in common: they were garbage people, with tattered clothing, unkempt hair and beards, and greedy eyes. Instead of forming communities and trying to keep the peace, bandits operated on a take mentality. They stole from other outlaws. They raped their women. They killed without remorse.
Their existence had always made Jamie furious. There had to be some sort of rules in this world, some semblance of civility, some shred of humanity. But men like these were savages. They only cared about themselves. Their next meal, their survival, their cocks . . .
“Aw, put that gun down, sweetheart,” a man with a bushy red beard coaxed. He looked delighted to see her standing there. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
“No,” another one agreed. When he flashed a smile, she noticed that three of his front teeth were missing. “We just want to be friends.”
“Don’t come any closer,” she hissed when two of them stepped toward her.
They didn’t listen. They kept approaching.
She clicked off the safety and cocked her gun. The pair of them froze, but they were still smiling.
“Do you even know how to shoot that thing, honey?” Red Beard asked with a chuckle.
“Damn right I do. And I’ll shoot your goddamn balls off if you come near me.”
She lowered her aim to his groin, carefully edging backward. Her heart was pounding even louder now, because there was no fear thickening the air. Not on their parts, anyway. They seemed entertained by the fact that she was pointing a gun at them. And the hunger in their expressions was unmistakable.
“Aaron,” she heard one of them murmur.
And then a bandit with a shaved head lunged forward.
Jamie didn’t hesitate. She whipped her gun toward him and fired a shot. The bullet hit him in the chest, and the stocky man hit the grass with an agonized shout.
All hell broke loose before the crack of the gunshot even faded away. Without glancing at their fallen comrade, the other men attacked like a swarm of angry hornets. Jamie fired again, but she couldn’t hit six men at once, damn it. She shot one in the shoulder and another one in the leg before the gun was wrenched out of her hand and she was falling to the ground.
A heavy body landed on top of her, two meaty hands going for her throat. She batted at her attacker with one fist while her other hand slid down to her waistband. “Get the hell off me!” she roared as she fumbled to unsheathe her knife. Fuck. Her fingers were sli
ppery from fear and sweat.
Still pounding her fist against the man’s jaw, she managed to clasp the handle and pull the knife out. One upward slice and the blade was lodged in the side of the bandit’s neck. A wave of blood gushed out, soaking her face.
Spitting out the coppery drops, she rolled out from under the dead man, but the others were faster than her. In a heartbeat she was flat on her back again. Her knife was kicked away, and suddenly two men were pinning down her arms while a third straddled her thighs. It was Red Beard, wearing a feral expression, his spittle splashing her face as he growled at her. “You little bitch!”
Jamie spat right back at him. He reared in indignation, then crashed his fist into her jaw. She was momentarily stunned, black dots swimming in her vision and a woozy sensation fogging her brain. She fought to stay conscious. Fought the tight lock on her arms. But the men were too strong. And God, they reeked. Of booze, of sweat, of desperation.
“I get her next,” one of them muttered.
Red Beard reached for her waistband. She felt his hardness digging into her belly, and nausea bubbled in her throat when he rubbed his erection against her.
The lifeless body of the first man she’d shot was sprawled not even five feet away from them, but Red Beard and his pals didn’t seem to care. Which was a disgusting testament to the way these men lived. They didn’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. The lump on the grass might as well have been a tree or a bush, instead of their traveling companion.
Jamie battled a wave of panic when Red Beard unsnapped her jeans. His buddies were holding her down and no amount of struggling could release her from their iron grips.
Lennox.
She clung to the certainty that Lennox and Beckett would be walking out of the library at any second. Jamie opened her mouth and started screaming. Loud, ear-piercing shrieks that would alert Lennox to her presence, but which quickly got her another sharp blow to the face.
“Shut the fuck up,” Red Beard snapped.
A hand clamped over her mouth—his friend’s dirty hand. The odor of grime and soot filled her nostrils, nearly causing her to vomit.