Breaking Danger

  He wasn’t using his strength, oh no. Every movement was careful. He didn’t talk to her—how could he, he was kissing her senseless. But his body did. His hands were gentle, cupping her sides, thumbs stroking her nipples. Each touch of his thumbs sent blinding pleasure to her groin and her vagina contracted.

  Oh God! An orgasm! She huffed out a breath and shuddered. It was like she’d lit a fuse under him. The movements that had been so controlled before, so slow and tender, speeded up. His hands became harder, everything became harder, including his penis. She could feel it moving against her mound, lengthening even more as he slid up and down along the lips of her sex. She moved under him and her sex opened up. She arched against him, as if she could somehow be even closer to him.

  In a world gone mad and dark and cold, he was life and heat. Such strength, transferring from him to her. She felt strong, her whole body working to envelop him. Arms tightly linked around his neck, torso pressing upward, legs opening to twine around his.

  A strange ripping sound that she only deciphered later as the Velcro of his flight suit opening, a shrug and it was off.

  Sophie desperately wanted him naked, wanted to touch that hard warm flesh she’d only felt beneath his clothes. He lifted slightly, holding his arms out, and she pulled a light cotton tee over his head, long, dark blond hair lifting around that perfect face and—Oh God! He looked like Thor, like a Nordic god, larger than life, shoulders so broad they shut out the world, encasing her in a world that had contracted to only her and Jon.

  He eased her back down with a hand to the back of her head and caught her mouth again. Now. Now she could touch him, touch his naked flesh. She hooked her hands around his back, all that golden skin like steel, only warm.

  She dug her nails into his back and it was like she’d kicked him into another gear. His thighs opened hers, he positioned himself at the opening of her sex and she hesitated. He was enormous and it had been a long time for her.

  It was like he could read her, read her body. Instead of entering, he shifted so one hand could drift down her chest, over her belly, down to cup her mound. He was kissing her hard, tongue deep in her mouth, stroking.

  Her sex contracted again. He felt that. He must have felt it against his hand, against his loins as her hips moved. He could feel how wet she was, how ready.

  He didn’t have to ask because her body was talking to him. He knew.

  When he slid into her, hot and hard and deep, they both moaned.

  She lifted her thighs, opened herself up to him even more, and he began moving. Long, deep, slow thrusts. She was holding him so tightly she felt all his muscles in motion as he moved in her. Lean, incredibly strong muscles, with no give.

  She’d taken an anatomy class once and could identify each muscle in his back by touch. Trapezii, deltoids, lats. She moved her hands down lower. Glutei. Mmm. All those muscles shifting and bunching and moving like a well-oiled machine, only warm. And alive.

  God, he was alive, down to his fingertips, and he infused her with life. He was strong enough for the two of them, such incredible power under her hands. He surrounded her completely, on her, in her. So close she could see only him, smell only him, feel only him.

  Nothing bad could happen to her while he was making love to her. The world outside—that terrible world of death and destruction—receded with every stroke. Nothing else existed, only this powerful man moving in her. He was incredibly heavy, but she liked that. Proof of how powerful he was.

  He pressed into her deeply, holding her head between his two large hands, kissing her as if someone was about to come and separate them. No, nothing could separate them. She wouldn’t let it. Her hands moved slowly up his back, up over those strong, slick muscles until she curled her arms around his neck, holding tightly.

  Never let me go, she thought. The very notion of him leaving her body, of not feeling that heavy weight on her acting as a wall between her and the rest of the world, made her panicky. She tightened her arms around him.

  He pulled out of her slowly, so slowly she thought she could feel the emptiness in her womb that he left behind. He held himself at her opening, the big head of his penis stretching her; but if he pulled back even a touch more, he’d leave her body.

  No!

  She instinctively rebelled at the thought.

  She freed her mouth, placed her lips against his ear. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered and felt him jolt, as if in shock.

  “God, no,” he muttered, lifting his head. His eyes were slitted, only a shard of ice blue showing. They were both trembling, panting. He moved back into her, just a little. God, he’d somehow become even larger. “Does that feel like I can leave you?”

  She stared into his eyes, aware of him over every inch of her body. Cheeks flushed, face grim, he looked as if he were almost in pain. She felt the same way. They were barely making love and it was the most intense experience of her life. He pressed forward just a little and her vagina clenched hard.

  She shook, on the very edge of orgasm.

  “Jesus.” Jon closed his eyes, then opened them again, staring into hers. His jaw clenched so hard she could hear his teeth grinding. “I need to move fast now,” he panted. “Is that okay?”

  Those words, and the image they evoked, set her off. She clenched around him, arching her neck back, breath leaving her lungs in a burst.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, moving hard and fast inside her.

  Chapter 3

  Eyes closed, Sophie drifted. She was wiped out, completely depleted. Every cell lax, ripe with pleasure, a pleasure she thought had left the world. Apparently not. Apparently there were small pockets of mind-blowing pleasure still around.

  And the source of one was lying on top of her, heavy as an elephant.

  A tap on her cheek. Her eyes fluttered, but she couldn’t open them. Too much effort . . . she drifted again.

  Another tap. Annoying. “Sophie,” a deep voice commanded. “Open those beautiful eyes.”

  “Mmm.” She tried to breathe in but he was so heavy he was bending her ribs. But still, it was a wonderful sensation. A heavy male body, brimming with heat and life. Her arms tightened around him, then slid away as he lifted himself up off her, resting on his forearms.

  “Sophie!” It was a barked command, in a voice used to command.

  Her eyes popped open.

  “God.” His own eyes closed for a second, then opened again, narrow and intense. Was he—was he angry? “Don’t do that to me.”

  “What? Do what?” Her senses were muddled. How could she think when that intense icy gaze was locked on her? When she was held in a cage between incredibly brawny arms? She had good peripheral vision and those arms alone were worthy of contemplation. Not huge hunks of meat like body builders’ or wrestlers’ but rather long lean supertoned and tanned muscle. Big raised veins that you had to build to carry oxygen to all that brawn. The ceiling light picked out the blond hairs on his forearms, thick and wiry. She could feel the strength of the hands holding her head. He wasn’t using his strength in any way against her, no. She felt safe and protected. But the power in those hands somehow seeped through skin and bone, perceived as an elemental force with just the lightest of touches.

  “Disappear.”

  She blinked. “I disappeared?”

  She most certainly had not. If anything, she was pinned, like a butterfly, to her hardwood floor. His weight on her from the waist down, long strong legs next to hers, taut abdominals right on top of hers. His torso was held away, but those large hands curling around her head ensured she couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe without him knowing about it.

  And, of course, he was still inside her. Talk about being pinned.

  Sophie squirmed a little, just enough to make the point that she couldn’t go anywhere, not with him on top of her, in her.

  “I can’t go anywhere. You can feel that I can’t go anywhere.”

  That grim expression hadn’t changed. “You were dri
fting. With your thoughts.”

  Without her willing it, her hand lifted from the floor and caressed his cheek. It was warm, slightly bristly. His beard was blond, heavy. “No,” she said softly, looking into his eyes. “I was savoring. I thought . . . I thought I would never touch another human being again.”

  He let out a long sigh, touched his forehead to hers. “Yeah. That’s why I wanted you with me, not drifting away.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference anymore, given that society has collapsed, but . . . I just want you to know that I’m not in the habit of making love to the first guy who falls on top of me. Just for the record.”

  He lifted his head at that and stared into her eyes. “Oh yeah. I got that. You’re very tight.”

  Yes, she was tight. Her last lover had been—what?—two years ago? She gave an inward sigh. They were all going to die, and soon. Why, oh why, hadn’t she had more sex? Why had she been so picky? All her girlfriends had complained about it. Everyone except Elle, of course, who had an even more pathetic love life than she did. There was some guy in her past she was still in love with even though he’d dumped her, brutally, ten years ago.

  Sophie didn’t have that. Didn’t have anything like that in her past. No star-crossed loves, no yearning for someone. All she’d had was safe, mild-mannered men who cared for her more than she cared for them, and wasn’t that sad?

  Right now she wished fiercely she’d spent her college years sleeping around and having a good time like her roommate Sharon. Sharon had majored in men and Sophie had majored in biology, and they’d both been A students.

  She should have had more sex, oh yeah. Except . . . it would have to have been like what she’d just had, right now. With the guy who was staring at her intensely. With the guy who was still erect inside her even after having had a climax. With the guy who’d made love to her so fiercely she thought her heart would stop.

  There hadn’t been any sex like that, ever. And that was why she hadn’t had too much of it.

  Jon shook himself. “You’re on the floor and I weigh a ton. You must be uncomfortable. Sorry about that.”

  He slowly pulled out of her, his still erect penis sliding against supersensitized tissues. Oh God. Heat blossomed in her groin, a sensation so intense it was almost pain.

  A burst of breath came from her. She could finally breathe properly, but having him withdraw was—sad. The breath came out as a sigh and she was instantly embarrassed. Who knew what he thought of her, and now she was sighing because their lovemaking was over.

  Men liked that. They liked the idea that sex with them was overwhelming. It rarely was, but Sophie had learned the fine art of faking it. But that sigh had been real and it probably fed right into his ego.

  A peek up at that suntanned Nordic god, though, didn’t show a smirking male face. Not even a smiling one. He looked grim and tough and dangerous. Of course he had to be tough and dangerous to make it through even a couple of feet of infected, let alone hundreds of miles.

  He stretched out a big sinewy hand and she took it. She didn’t need help getting up, but refusing a hand would be churlish. He lifted her with astonishing ease, one-handed. And, surprisingly, she did need help. Her legs were wobbly, unused muscles stretched. His semen was wetting her thighs, the feeling so strange she staggered.

  A big arm went around her waist immediately, his hold so strong she could have let all her muscles go lax and he would have held her upright.

  “You okay?” Those laser-bright blue eyes bored into hers, face pulled tight. You’d think he’d spent the past half hour beating her up instead of giving her the best sex of her life.

  “Yes, of course.” Sophie tested her legs. They could hold her up. She hoped. How strange to be so embarrassed with him, now that he only had an arm around her. When he’d been in her, making love to her, she hadn’t been embarrassed at all. There’d been no room for anything but heat and the wildest sort of pleasure. “I’m sorry. I just—”

  She couldn’t even finish the sentence. His gaze was so mesmerizing, words fled from her head.

  She was a scholar, a scientist. Words were to be used precisely, to describe natural phenomena. She’d always used words like a scalpel, and here she couldn’t think of a one. He was still holding on to her, so tall he was bent over her a little, face close to hers.

  He wasn’t smiling at her utter inability to form a sentence, as any other man would be. Striking a woman dumb was probably every man’s dream. That strong arm tightened around her waist as he lifted his head slightly to examine her closely. Not a lover’s look. A doctor’s look, making sure she was all right.

  Okay, now she was embarrassed. Granted, the sex had been off the charts, but she had to come back from ecstasy, which wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Her thighs were coated, slick with his semen, the lips of her sex felt swollen, incredibly tender. His big body curved over hers was so close she had to dig her fingernails into her palm to keep from touching him. She twisted slightly and came against his still-erect penis and heat flashed through her, unstoppable. A great, rolling wave of it, and her sex clenched.

  Oh God.

  “You just—” he said. With his chest so close to hers, that deep voice seemed to sink right into her diaphragm and vibrate upward instead of entering her head normally through her ears. “You just what?”

  Sophie shook her head sharply. She placed her hands against that massive chest, palms flat against his pectorals. Oh God. She wanted to push him away slightly, gain a little breathing room, get away from this magnetic field he exerted, but her body betrayed her.

  She had always been disciplined, focused. Right now she dug deep into her depths to find just a little of that discipline and pull away.

  “I just need to use the bathroom,” she said, finally pulling her dressing gown tightly around herself. With every ounce of her being she wanted her voice to be cool and matter-of-fact, but she was breathless. She didn’t even know if she’d said the words or if she’d just mouthed them.

  His arms opened immediately and she almost staggered at the sudden lack of support. A big hand shot out to her elbow, then he withdrew his hand when it was clear she was steady.

  Or at least she looked steady. He watched as she walked across the room, tightening her silk robe again, as if he hadn’t already seen, already touched, her naked flesh. In the bathroom Sophie leaned her hands on the rim of the sandstone sink, blew out her breath, and looked at herself in the mirror.

  What she saw astonished her. She was expecting to see her usual pale face overrun with embarrassment. What she saw was a rosy version of herself, rested and relaxed, the exact opposite of the person she’d been seeing in the mirror these past few weeks.

  Things had been very wrong at Arka Pharmaceuticals. Much as she’d tried to ignore it, concentrate on her work, which was both fascinating and incredibly challenging, warning bells had been clanging for some time before she allowed herself to notice anything. Orders from administration made no sense. The protocol timelines were increased—doubled, at times trebled. They’d be taken off one line of testing and put on an entirely new one and pressed for results. That’s not the way science worked. Science worked by reason and slow deliberation, neither of which were present in Arka’s leadership.

  She and Elle had been deeply worried even before people started disappearing. It had been like doing science in a whirlwind. And then the disappearances started.

  She had started losing weight, when she had no weight to lose. Hollows were appearing under her cheekbones because she found it almost impossible to eat, given that her stomach was usually in knots. She’d stopped sleeping and the purple bruises under her eyes were starting to look permanent.

  Now she was looking at a woman with wild bedhead spiraling around her pink, flushed face. It looked like she’d put three or four pounds back on, all of them from eating fabulous food.

  Here it was, the end of the world, and all it took was the best sex of her life to make her feel better. Shaking
her head at her own folly, she stepped under the shower for a quick wash. Not much in the world worked, but her building still had hot water.

  Who knew how long that would last?

  It might be her last one in this lifetime so, though she was fast, she was thorough. The hot water revived her, except when she swiped between her legs with the washcloth. Everything down there was supersensitized, slightly swollen. It was as if the tissues themselves bore a cellular memory of Jon’s presence inside her body. Her legs trembled when she washed herself and she had to stand for a full minute, arms braced against the tile wall, under the hot torrent until the trembling passed.

  Sophie kept some yoga outfits in the bathroom so when she walked back out, in a thin T-shirt and yoga pants, she felt more in control of herself than when she’d walked in.

  Jon was exactly where she’d left him, by the window, looking down at the destruction below with a drawn face.

  “Jon?” she asked softly, putting a hand on a massive shoulder.

  Oh God. Touching him made all her senses flare. It was the lightest touch, her palm lightly pressed against his shoulder blade. Under her palm was warm hard muscle and a sense of vibrancy, of unusual power and strength, like the engine of a racing car temporarily idling.

  “Would you like to shower at some point?”

  He pulled in a sharp breath and turned, his ice blue gaze so very sharp and intense. “Do I dare? What if we run out of water?”

  Sophie didn’t have many answers to what was going on, but she did have an answer to that. “The building has a huge reservoir on top and I don’t think too many people are left”—her voice wobbled as she thought of all her neighbors—“are left alive. The building has a mini heliostat, so the electricity will keep pumping the water until it’s finished. I have a second bathroom with a hip bath and that is filled with water. I have filled every large pot and pan and bucket with water. The water will last at least a week. The water will outlast—”