He even chuckled. “Good girl.” Once she’d cleaned his cock, he patted her on the head. “See? You can behave properly when you try. Clean up and get ready for when the night nurse comes to give you your dinner.”
He didn’t bother fastening his slacks. He collected his belt and shut her bedroom door behind him before heading to his own room. He didn’t sleep with her. He didn’t want to.
Didn’t need to. He had her there to use whenever he wanted her.
He’d made sure to train that little fact of life into her early on, too.
Tonight he wanted to settle his mind by going through the Church of the Rising Sunset Youth Corps files. He was slowly narrowing his selections in each region. Once all the strongholds were completed, and before too much strife had ripped the country apart, he wanted to make sure he had a new wife ensconced in each one.
Having eighteen- and nineteen-year-old girls as wives meant he could train them up right. Discipline them the way he wanted. Instill the proper mindset in them, of their proper place, submissive to their husband.
They wouldn’t be legally binding marriages, of course. There were still bigamy laws. But it wouldn’t take much to brainwash the right girls into thinking his word was not only law in their lives, it was as good as God’s word, the final word, on how they should live their lives.
Not to mention he was finally ready to start spreading his seed. Mary wasn’t worthy of giving him children, one of the reasons he’d had her tubes tide long ago. That, and all the medications she took would likely create a deformed baby.
And he didn’t want that. Having a “fragile” barren wife was enough of a sympathy hook for his parishioners.
At least doing this had taken his mind off his irritation over the lack of progress in obtaining anyone from The List.
Maybe the people Jerald had succeeded in rounding up for the Los Angeles project would bear fruit. It was possible. The pharmacy companies were working on a Kite vaccine, but they hadn’t undertaken their research until just a couple of months earlier, when it became obvious that if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a population left to profit from. The governments trying to develop a vaccine were usually underfunded and hamstrung by committees and regulations, or were embroiled in administrative territorial pissing contests with other departments instead of cooperating.
No, he couldn’t do what North Korea did and hold a gun to scientists’ heads to get a vaccine, but he could hold metaphorical guns to his contacts’ heads and have them try to put any scientists from The List into his reach.
By the time the night nurse arrived to make dinner, he’d showered and changed and calmed his mind. When he returned to his study after dinner, he felt markedly better. He was far from being out of options. And right now, he and his operation were safe. The Church of the Rising Sunset was more profitable than ever.
Apocalypses tended to loosen peoples’ grip on their money. Hard not to contemplate the hereafter when it was staring them right in the face on their TV every night.
Even when he moved his headquarters to St. Louis, he would make sure their operation would continue, uninterrupted.
Then again, maybe I should leave Mary in Albuquerque. A smile filled his face. She is rather fragile. Perhaps it would be better for her to remain here while I travel and check on the progress at my other strongholds.
His smile slowly split his face, nearly painful.
Wouldn’t be my fault if she contracted Kite while I was out of town.
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, India felt absolutely wrecked.
Well, at least they’re men of their word.
Not that she was complaining. Hell, there was no farking way she’d ever complain about how she’d spent the night.
She actually awoke before the two men, used to getting up well before dawn to start her day before the clinic filled with patients. It was the only time she had to herself, other than evenings. And by then she was usually too exhausted to do anything but eat, take a shower, and fall into bed to start it all over again the next morning.
She made her way to the little closet in her room that housed her private toilet before gathering her stuff and walking out to the open-air shower room. Both “bedrooms” opened up on it, since it wasn’t accessible from the outside unless someone cl the concrete wall. The rare chilly morning they had didn’t bother her, because there was always more than enough hot water in their large roof-mounted solar tank to counteract the temps.
This morning, however, was warm, already in the mid-seventies and easily climbing to the mid-nineties by lunchtime if the past few days were any indication.
India stood under the water, enjoying the feel of her various aches and pains that weren’t the kind she was used to.
It felt good to feel like this.
Enjoy it while it lasts. They won’t be hanging around long, you know.
She knew it couldn’t last long term, and wasn’t stupid enough to think one night would amount to anything more than that, unless the men hung around long enough to sneak in another session. Still, she’d enjoy the memories.
And the pleasant aches, while they lasted.
She started when she heard the door leading from her bedroom open. Peeking around the edge of the shower curtain, she saw it was Oscar…no, Yankee. He smiled and stepped inside the shower with her.
Trying to get out of your morning fucking?” he teased. His cock stood hard and ready.
She smiled. “Sorry. Didn’t want to wake you guys up.”
He took the bar of soap from her hand and put it back on the holder, then backed her against the shower wall with a kiss she thought would suck the air right from her lungs. It scorched her soul, the passion and need.
His fingers slipped between her legs, which seemed to magically part for him. “I think someone needs a good fucking this morning,” he rumbled against the base of her throat.
He pressed one, then two fingers inside her cunt. The pleasant aches turned into sheer pleasure as he leaned in and took one of her nipples into his mouth, the other between the fingers of his free hand, and started finger-fucking her. His hand nailed her clit with every stroke, quickly sinking her into sweet pleasure.
She had to wrap her arms around him to keep from losing her balance. Closing her eyes, she rested her head back against the wall and let him drive her body where he wanted it to go, her still-sensitive clit immediately responding to every stroke of his hand.
When she came, her pussy clamped down on his fingers, her hips rocking in time with his strokes. She was riding her release when he suddenly stood up and fisted his cock, easily sliding it into her cunt.
He reached around and grabbed her ass, fingers digging into her flesh. “Now me,” he said, clamping his lips onto hers.
Nothing gentle about it, just hard, fast, really good fucking, the kind she could easily spend the rest of her life doing if he and his brother were hanging around long enough to do it.
And at that angle, his body and cock were stroking her clit perfectly, sending her—
Yes! She would have let out a yell of pleasure if he wasn’t already sucking the sound from her lungs. She was enjoying the waves of pleasure rushing through her core when she heard the door open again.
Oscar’s head appeared around the shower curtain. “There you two are. Dammit, why are you starting without me?”
There was barely room in the shower for the three of them, but Yankee didn’t stop fucking her, not until he was done and finished with a groan she felt through her whole body, his cock emptying his balls deep inside her cunt.
“Jesus, you’re so fucking good,” Yankee whispered when he finally lifted his lips from hers.
He turned, holding her against him as he withdrew his cock from her pussy. Almost immediately, from behind her Oscar swiped the head of his cock through her juices before sliding his rigid shaft deep inside her well-fucked cunt.
“Oh, baby.” He put a hand in the middle of her shoulders
and gently pressed forward so she was holding on to Yankee for support. Then he kicked it into overdrive, his fingers digging into her hips as he found his rhythm and started fucking her, hard and fast.
“Sorry, baby, but I woke up with a raging hard-on,” he said. “Worse than normal. I knew I couldn’t get a damn thing done today until I did this…first…”
And with that, he added his load of cum to the one his brother had already deposited inside her pussy. After a moment, he pulled her up against his chest, holding her. “Good morning, baby,” he murmured against her neck, nibbling his way across her shoulder.
She giggled. “That was a hell of a wake-up.”
“Well, if you hadn’t gone sneaking out of bed without us,” Oscar lightly scolded, “we would have done it there. You could have had another spit roast if you’d wanted it.”
“You do realize I have patients to see today, right? I can’t spend all day being your fuck toy. Not that that doesn’t sound like a perfectly wonderful way to spend a day. If I had someone else here who could run the clinic for me, I’d be more than happy to take a day off and do it.”
Yankee smiled and reached up, stroking her chin. “I love that we don’t have to hold back with you.”
“Buddy, I’ve been on such a farking dry spell, I think you two would be calling uncle long before I ever got close to it.” They both laughed, but she suspected it wasn’t exactly because of what she’d said. “What’s so funny?”
Oscar chuckled and kissed the side of her neck again. “One of our guys, his nickname is Uncle. He’s the oldest. So you might want a different safeword than that.”
“Yeah,” Yankee said. “Him and Zed have been on a longer dry spell than us. They might just take you up on it before you clarify you didn’t mean you wanted them.”
She reached behind her and hooked an arm around Oscar’s neck. “I’m perfectly happy with you two, for as long as you guys can hang around.” She suspected what their sudden silence meant. “Guys, it’s okay,” she gently said. “I know this isn’t forever.”
“I’m sorry,” Oscar said. “We’re on a mission. It’s nothing personal.”
“I know. Hey, believe me, I get it. Just promise me that when you guys get done kicking ass, taking names, and curing Kite, you’ll come back here to Colima and look me up for another wrecking session.”
Yankee grinned and kissed her. “Baby, you can count on it.” He captured her other hand and brought it up to his lips, kissing it. “Absolutely.”
Chapter Eighteen
The men eventually let her finish her shower, although with their “help.”
Which included Oscar getting her off one more time by hand.
In the light filtering into the shower, the noticed the men’s tattoos. “What are those?”
Yankee had one on his left shoulder blade, Oscar on his right. They looked like stylized tribal monkeys, the black tattoos about five inches across.
“Tattoos,” Yankee said with a grin. “Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
She lightly swatted him. “Duh. What do they signify?”
“That’s our unit,” Oscar said. “The Drunk Monkeys. We all have one.”
Yankee kissed her. “That’s the other way you can tell us apart,” he said.
“Yeah, but only if you have your shirts off.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Did I say that? Just might not always be practical to rip your shirts off you.”
Finally, they made it back inside her room. She pulled clean clothes on and went to the main storeroom where their kitchenette was to start the coffee brewing. After accomplishing that, she returned to her room. “You want breakfast?”
“You cook here all the time?” Oscar asked.
“Not all the time. It’s not fancy, but as you saw last night, it’s enough to keep me from starving when I don’t go out.”
“Sure,” Yankee said.
She heated up a couple of slabs of ham and scrambled them some eggs. As they all stood in the storeroom and ate, Yankee asked her a question.
“What if there was someone here as your replacement?”
“What?”
“Just out of curiosity. If they put someone else here, and if we said hey, come with, would you?”
She smiled. “You’re joking, right?”
“Just hypothetically.”
She thought about it, shrugging. “I don’t know. Maybe. I guess I could. But is your head guy really going to let that happen? I mean, yeah, Pandora, from what you all said, she didn’t have a choice except to stay with you guys. She likely would have been captured or killed if she went back to the States after what happened. But nobody knows about me.”
She choked back an unexpected flood of emotions. “The only people who give a shit about me in the States are my parents, and that’s mostly because they want me to come back and slave to support their stupid asses. No thanks.”
“So what are you going to do?” Oscar asked. “When your time is up?”
“I don’t know. Might stay here. If they send a doctor and not another nurse, I’ll probably have to stay here. If a doctor leaves in four months, the town’s farked. I can’t do that to them.” She thought about that for a moment. “Does that make me a horrible daughter? That I’d stay here for a bunch of people I’m not related to, and not go home to my own parents?”
Oscar pulled her into his arms. “No, babe. That makes you a good person for picking where you’d do the most good.”
* * * *
Papa stopped by early that morning before the clinic opened to check on them. He had Mac with him. He also had some of the men’s gear with them so they could at least change clothes.
India didn’t know if getting laid had helped her calm down a little, but she was willing to be magnanimous, especially if it meant the men would hang around a little longer. “Look, I’ve got a commercial washer and dryer in the back,” she said. “If you guys need it, help yourselves.”
Papa nodded. “Thanks. We’ll take you up on that tonight.” Hooking a thumb at Mac, he asked, “You think you can not kill him today?”
“Yeah,” she grumbled. “Greater good, yadda yadda.”
“What do you two think?” he asked Oscar and Yankee.
The men shrugged. “We believe her,” Yankee said.
“Okay, then. Gentlemen, I’ll be back at lunchtime.”
“Hey, you don’t need him with that other guy today?” she asked.
“Nope. They spent a chunk of the night comparing notes. And I have some things to do this morning. We can spare him. Like you said, I don’t want there to be a sudden, unexplained gap in coverage.”
She turned on Mac. “Anything else you need to confess? I’d rather be pissed off at you all at once and get it over with.”
He shook his head. “Like most of the others, I was fooled into going to North Korea. Once I was there, I was told that if I didn’t help, I’d be killed. I didn’t have a choice. I’m not proud of what we did, but I can’t change it.”
Then Mama arrived and further discussion, despite her poor English skills, wasn’t practical.
But India did have a couple of minutes to check her e-mail, which stunned her.
CMI had responded to her.
We do have a replacement doctor and nurse en route to the clinic, ETA less than two weeks, perhaps sooner…
She skimmed through the rest of the message, her heart racing.
Disappointment, excitement, joy and a little bit of grief all fought a steel-cage match inside her.
Yankee was the one who found her. “What’s wrong,” he softly asked.
She showed him the e-mail.
He frowned. “So this is good, right? What you’ve been waiting for?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Don’t really want to leave here now, huh?”
“Not that, I just…” She shrugged again.
There didn’t seem to be a better response than that. Not one she
could think of at that time, at least.
“Hey, look at it this way. It means you have a chance to decide your next step, instead of it being decided for you.”
She looked up at him and it hit her that sleeping with them might have been a mistake. With their little suggestion planted in her brain, no matter how unrealistic and improbable, now it was all she could think of.
“Yeah, I guess.”
* * * *
After Mama left for lunch and siesta, Papa returned with Pandora to use the sat-link to communicate with their intelligence contact. India didn’t want to know all the details. She figured that what she didn’t know, she couldn’t accidentally reveal.
Before Papa left, he extended an invitation. “I’d like you to come back to our place tonight to talk,” he said. “They’ll drive you and bring you back here after. We’ve left them a vehicle in back.”
A little flurry of unexpected anxiety hit her again. “Will they spend the night again tonight?”
When he smiled, she realized the commander wasn’t an idiot. “I think that would be a good idea, yes. As long as you don’t object to it. Or I can assign two others—”
“Nope,” she said. “I’m good with them.”
Later, after seeing their last patient, India opted to grab a quick shower before heading off with the three men in a beat-up diesel SUV she thought she’d seen for sale a week ago in front of one of the stores at the north end of town.
They headed south and west, away from the town and toward the coast. She didn’t come out this way very often. But she did recognize the farm when they turned off the main road and headed back into denser country.
“This is the Hernandez place,” she said.
“I don’t know,” Yankee shrugged. “Papa arranged it.”
“I mean, I know them. They have a place in town. They sell groceries and run a small restaurant. I eat there all the time.”
“Oh, so you know them?”
“Duh, that’s what I just said.”
“Make sure we tell Papa that,” Oscar said. “Might make logistics easier for a while.”