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You’re not sure when it started.
Sometimes, when the four of you camp in the same place for a few nights in a row, you have a better purchase on the progression of things, but most days time is just a ticking mantra of survival that rarely changes.
Bird song, sunrise, food, supplies, shelter, fire, maybe more food, beddown, quiet, fuck yourself to sleep.
Besides the ever-jarring occupation of felling corpses, it all rolls together after a while, making it hard to estimate precisely when Eugene started watching you do the last.
If you had to guess, it began when the summer nights had thickened to the point of madness, making you writhe in sweat and frustration until you discovered the only release from it all was in the space between your thighs. Blanket kicked away, body bowed up and slick, you’d touched yourself without thinking about who might see.
It would have been an easy thing for him to do, you realized only later, to roll over and look across the dwindling campfire and watch instead of ignore. It was a possibility that felt more like a memory the longer you wove the threads of recollection between your hopeful, unarticulated thoughts.
In the weeks that followed, before you even acknowledged your wanton actions for what they truly were, you were performing whenever chance presented itself. You waited for the sure rhythms of the others falling asleep and then offered up your own hushed gasps to the deepest hours of the night, wondering if the unearthly quiet coming from his bedroll was just the measure of a heavy sleeper or if it meant he was actually awake too.
Now, in the fading daylight, you feel his eyes on you again and an inexplicable throb beats low in your core. Your newly-scavenged jeans are tight against your clit, making sitting around camp a dangerous occupation. You put the shirt you’ve been mending aside, stretching your legs out to lessen the pressure.
Oblivious to the perverse heat gathering beside the very real flames, Rosita pours more river water into the boil pot while Abraham cracks a dead limb over his knee. Ash flares up in the fire as he tips the branches in, drifting like burning snowflakes.
Behind their combined activity, acutely aware of everything as always, you catch Eugene watching you watch them. Your eyes meet before his dart back down to the book he holds, and you think again, Maybe tonight.
“Gonna check that barn out before the sun’s down.” Abraham says, nodding at the sagging building across the field.
Rosita pulls her knife blade from where it’s been buried in the coals, dousing the sanitized metal with the little drinking water left from today.
“We should wait until morning.”
“I want us moving first thing. And our direction of travel is an immediate about-face to it.”
“Just leave it.” She urges, wiping the knife dry. “There can’t be anything worthwhile in there.”
“I’m going. All our supplies are running low and we won’t snub an opportunity for better gear.”
Rosita finally glances over at that, seeming to read some tonal meaning you still can’t pick up on. Abraham is curt to the point of asshole most days but Rosita’s often arguing that there’s more to him than that, bolstering your group’s leader to you when he’s not around to hear it himself.
“Okay,” Rosita sighs. “I’ll go with you then. Eugene, watch the water.”
Abraham, looks between you both. “The alarm lines are set. Holler if you need help.”
Nods are exchanged and then they leave in a relative hurry, the treeline shadows seeming to chase them across the expanse of tawny wheat. You force your attention to stay on them, tracing the lump of a sleeping bag slung over Abraham’s shoulder. It’s been over a week since their last sneak-away tryst. Maybe that’s why they forgot the pretense of a supply bag this time.
Eventually, you hear Eugene move closer to the fire. Tonight, you decide, watching Rosita disappear behind the structure. Abraham follows and then it seems as if they never existed at all; as if the world has narrowed to only you and the man you want so acutely the feeling nearly has a taste.
“Do you think subtly really matters anymore?” You ask before you can overthink it, “Or should everything just be straightforward and honest now?”
You wait for the well-articulated opinion which will surely follow, imagining you can actually hear the shift of his attention – the thick slide of his speculative gaze moving over you as he considers.
“Within the parameters of maintaining a sheer surviving and thriving mentality, yes, I do believe blunt works best, as exemplified by the more battle-inclined members of our unit.”
Eugene’s voice is a deep, constant thing, never wavering as it progresses.
“And outside those parameters?”
Seconds draw around you both, or perhaps it’s just the bugs. Buzzing without rhythm, they are irregular, oppressive timekeepers.
Finally, he ventures, “Within that quandary is indeed the bigger mare’s nest to address: will the shit show that we find ourselves in come to an end in the to-be-determined future? If so, then maybe yes, an examination of the inevitable degradation of previously accepted social conventions may be worth a ponder or two, as we’ll all be riding the subsequent U-turn of humanity’s attention shift from the hordes-of-the-undead to the greater-road-ahead.”
Before you can process the evasion of it, he adds, “Although, of course, I will not pretend to be involved in any discourse relating to this potential eventuality, as I’ve largely misunderstood social conventions my entire life.”
You peer up through your lashes at him, wanting to ease the frown that’s formed between his brows.
“I think you’re more perceptive than you give yourself credit for and that your intelligence was probably lost on most people, both here and then... And that’s hardly your fault.”
He’s too close to the fire to tell if the pink in his cheeks is heat-derived or something else. It gives you courage and makes you yearn. You want so badly to set alight feelings other than the fear which drives you to the point of numbness most days.
“I also think,” you breathe out, “That there is value in just saying what we’re thinking now. It’s less complicated than ever before… More freeing in that we can avoid indecision and just reach for the things we truly want.”
He starts to hastily maneuver the pot away from the growing flames, sloshing some of the water in the process and sending up a plume of steam. You stand quickly, coming to his side.
“Here,” you offer, helping him nudge the boiling liquid into the cooler embers, forearm bumping against his in the process. There’s a frisson of heat there, despite the chill of dusk.
“Thank you,” he mumbles, scooting back to lean against the nearest tree trunk.
The distance between you is little more than an arm’s length but his retreat makes it feel further. You pretend to stoke the fire for a moment, vision blurring on the flames as you gather enough nerve to scoot back as well.
Sitting next to someone shouldn’t feel this intimate but with little except stolen glances and unproven fantasies between you, your proximity to him is too affecting. From your peripherals you see his fingers flex in his lap.
“Although I am not the most adept conversationalist,” he says slowly, “I do believe I would be remiss in my occupation as a fireside companion if I did not inquire which unfiltered thoughts you’d be most eager to suss out post-apocalypse.”
And here it is, you think, all your old doubts surging to the surface despite your determination to press on.
He doesn’t watch. He never has. You’ve just imagined his consuming, inquisitive attention on you so you might be seen and felt and desired again; so you might be more than the bystander this world has made you into.
“Now that I come to it…” you laugh, hoping it sounds somewhat casual. This moment will likely need strength, to go the way you intend.
“You have a receptive audience.” He persists, somehow both deadpan serious and also a bit fidgety. “Judgement withheld and commentary on mute, if so required.”
Crossing your legs, feeling the betraying pressure of the crotch seam digging into your slit, you hesitate. Your pulse rages with the dizzying, shattering repercussions of speaking the truth; of potentially being so very, very wrong about a shaky impression.
No, it’s there , you assure yourself again, pulling memories of furtive conversations and his shy gaze to mind - how you’ve caught him eyeing your chest, your face, and your bare legs as you go about your days.
No, he wants you too.
You suck in a lungful of fall air and glance at the barn beyond. Closing your eyes to the vanishing, water-colored daylight, you dig your fingers into the grass beside you and speak the first part.
“Rosita and Abraham… whatever compulsion is making them pretend that the two of us don’t know they’re in that barn right now, fucking each other’s brains out, well, I’ve never really understood or wanted that kind of secrecy. I still don’t… And it feels all the more pointless now, in a world full of constant life or death urgency. It’s like they’re kicking humanity while she’s down, by denying the little bit of outward pleasure they still have left to enjoy... Just acknowledge it and be an unashamed couple, for Christ’s sake, or don’t and stop being so embarrassed about sneaking off to do what we all want to do. Either way, own whatever situation you’re in, in every precious way you can. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.”
The bonfire crackles. A dark, silhouetted flock of starlings dance across the field, sharp against the rosy sunset. Eugene’s gone completely still beside you, considering or withdrawing from your words, you cannot tell.
After half a minute, with a quieter voice than you’ve ever heard him use before, he says, “I concur.”
You wait for more but it doesn’t come. For someone so verbose, it doesn’t seem like enough. But then again, you haven’t said your full piece yet. Maybe he needs the entire picture laid out as much as you do.
“Thank you,” you sigh, barreling on before the tension can break you. “Even though I know I’d handle my own relationship in this world differently, I do sometimes wonder if I’m unfairly judging a situation that’s not even mine to worry about in the first place.”
You finally glance at him, noticing the sharpened peaks of his knuckles and the slight parting of his pouting lips; the frozen, wound-up preparation of a prey animal right before flight.
If you don’t act now, you realize, this might end before it even starts.
Slowly and gently, like a butterfly alighting on a delicate stamen, you reach over and rest your hand on his upper thigh.
The twitch of his leg is expected but you maintain your careful hold anyway, near-whispering into the pale darkness, “This though… the things I’ve been feeling for you… it’s all something I’m fairly sure of.”
You pivot where you sit, coming up to your knees and tossing a leg across his lap before you can overthink the move. Your jeans tighten as you settle over him, ass resting on the thickest thighs you’ve ever rode. Your hands anchor on his shoulders as you take in the gobsmacked look on his face.
“I’m going to practice what I preach now, if you’ll let me.”
An inarticulate noise comes out of his throat, too broken and reedy for a man on the verge of denial. It’s all the confirmation you need and is almost better than hearing him affirm your impressions with a clever turn of phrase. But you want that too; even moreso, you want to swallow every little begging, lewd sound he can offer.
“What… why are you…” he splutters, hands ineffectively hovering at your sides.
“I’ll tell you everything I’m thinking, without any hesitation, if you’ll answer just one question.”
The frown’s there again, along with a heavy dose of confusion, and you want to kiss it all away. It’s a struggle to keep still and let him control the next.
“Though I am literally and figuratively pinned down… for lack of a more original euphemism to describe said situation,” he babbles, “I will admit… that I do find myself ready and willing to oblige…”
That low Texas drawl, even as shaky as it is in his throat, sends little tendrils of pleasure down your lower vertebra. Vulnerability, intelligence, and southern charm aren’t supposed to exist in one man, but here he is: under you and shaking with need.
Focusing solely on the soft, inviting indentation above his upper lip, you ask, “Have you been watching me at night?”
As he struggles to answer, you examine the scrunched, pale plains of his face, mesmerized by the rapid, animalistic fracturing that’s occured in his eyes at the question. Being on top has never felt this empowering.
Unable to quell the impulse, you slowly rock your hips forward to encourage him, seared by the too-good friction. Your directional rightness levels, as his lower lip quivers and you see his downcast eyes go hooded.
He moans softly, “Whether this situation has been crafted with the intent to shame or reprimand… I am still inclined to honestly confirm that, yes, I occasionally suffer from bouts of insomnia…”
Fingering the top, undone button of his shirt with one hand while guiding his chin to look at with the other, you persist, “Have you been watching me touch myself at night, Eugene?”
The bob at his throat undoes you further, and you’re already breathing him in, grinding your cunt against the soft underside of his belly. His lashes flutter together, denim-blue gaze disappearing as you plant a hand against the tree trunk behind him.
“I have indeed observed your immediate activities... within the vicinity of the campfire, from evening to evening… yes.”
The last is a strangled cry, pulled out of him by your gyrations. The indecency of using him like this is almost hotter than what you ultimately intend to do, and you wonder yet again, as his head tilts back against the tree, if you’ve read the greater situation correctly. If by fucking him, you’ll also make him irrevocably yours: if he’ll be the eager lover you’ve craved in your fantasies.
“Then don’t stop watching me now. I want you to see me, right here, in the firelight...”
Briefly conscious of the still-empty, darkening field beside you both, you take a handful of his hair and guide his mouth to yours. It’s not slow and sexy – is more demanding and desperate – but the violence of it doesn’t seem to shock him. If anything, when your lips come together - your tongue quick to taste and lick and tease the seam of his plush mouth open - he responds with equal, if also endearingly clumsy, force.
His hands land at your sides and quickly skim around your ribs. He strokes the length of your back with delicate, fleeting touches as if he can’t decide where to start; his tongue exploring your mouth just as rapidly. It is all quivering and inexperienced and unsure. The thought of teaching him this makes you rise on your knees; breasts pressing close to his face as you reach between his legs.
Finding him isn’t difficult - he’s already gunmetal hard and pulsing - but adjusting his length inside his cargos shorts is. He tenses and puffs out a whimper as you cup and nudge him through the fabric, shifting his cock until it’s perfectly positioned between you and his stomach. And then you’re grinding against him without reserve, recapturing his eager mouth on a new moan and feeling the thick layers between you both grow damp and hot.
The denying frustration of being separated by canvas and denim is bliss, like a reflection of urgent, teenage want. Although, for him you’re almost certain, this might actually be new. Confirming the impression is the tentative, creeping progress of his hands towards your chest, coming close as he brushes your upper back but never quite touching. His fingertips bridge the outer swell of a breast and then fall away, too hesitant to take what you haven’t offered.
“Please,” you urge against his lips, guiding his palms up and underneath your shirt, letting him feel and discover on his own. At the searching sweep of his thumb over a hard, bra-covered nipple, you feel the pulses in your clit begin to weave into one constant thrum.
So soon, so fast, you think, near-blinded by the narrowing tunnel of pleasure.
Even fully-clothed, there’s little stopping you now. The soft, constant force of his plush mouth devouring your own is white-hot madness. He’s a persistent kisser, chasing you when you retreat and tempting little, unconscious mewls out of you.
You hope it isn’t too much for him – that he can hold off and wait to have you fully – because your release rushes up on you before you ever imagined it could. It flares for long seconds, bursting high and wickedly uncatchable, like the sun’s corona mid-total eclipse.
You gasp as it crests, freezing your hips against his own, only vaguely conscious of his continuing, hungry ministrations against your mouth; the repetitive, intent kneading of a breast.
When you catch your breath at last, you ease the kiss and whisper against his cheek, “Ready for your turn?”
He answers between pecks at your lower lip, enjoying you as fully as you hoped he would.
“If you are still as turned on by all of this as I am, then that is a definite affirmative…”
You smile against his stumbled cheek, glancing back at the field. “And if they come back and catch us?”
“That possibility didn’t seem important three minutes ago,” he reminds you quickly, his deft fingers wandering lower to graze the belt of your high-waisted jeans. “And with your balls-to-the-walls apocalyptic mentality in mind, I do believe it is time for the remaining human populace to be made fully aware of how seriously hot I find you... Might as well start with the jarheads.”
“Alright,” you agree, drawing long and hard on the taste of him before pulling back from his bruised lips.
His admission undoes you a bit, sending flutters straight through your chest. There’s more danger here than you ever imagined; more potential for getting lost and weakened in his warmth and innocence.
“I want you like this again, okay?” You murmur.
Without hesitation he urges, “This is rodeo I am fully intent on participating in. Whether as bull or rider, I leave the roles fully up to you.”
“You’ll be the rider next time,” you promise, extricating yourself from his explorations to stand over his outstretched legs, your core inches in front of his face. “I’m going to have you every way we can think of, but first…”
You take the hand he’s left at your hip and guide it to your zipper, urging him to the task of undressing you. There’s a rapt, unwavering attention in his eyes now, almost studious in their sense of wonder. He fumbles your belt lose and pauses at tugging down your jeans. His gaze flicks up to your own for permission – so breathtakingly hungry you feel a new lick of pleasure – and you nod with your bottom lip between your teeth.
Cool air prickles your thighs and then your knees as he inches the material down, the fire behind you lapping occasional bursts of warmth over the chill. You toe out of your sneakers when he reaches your ankles, his fingers gently stroking the backs of your calves. Kicking the constricting fabric away, you say, “These too.”
The uptilt of his face can’t hide the thick swallow which works in his throat, nor the tensing at his jaw. His fingers – so soft and tapered against skin that hasn’t been touched in long months – graze above your hip bones, curling underneath your panties and slowly pulling down.
It’s the only embarrassment you’ll allow yourself to feel because, with civilized conveniences hard to come by or to even justify now, you’re not as groomed down there as you’d like to be. Your eyes flutter closed as your wet curls are revealed, hoping he’s not disappointed. Some men are.
“May I?” his voice trembles, far too enraptured for disgust.
You look down and find him only an inch from your sex, hovering there with both palms braced against your upper thighs; fingertips curling against you in restraint.
“Fuck yes…” you exhale, weaving a hand into his hair.
At the light, nuzzling pressure of his nose against your slit, your knees weaken. He puffs hot air over you, smelling, you realize with a shot of pure, carnal want. The first firm lap of his tongue between your folds is enough to make you tremble, pelvis tilting forward before you can stop yourself.
He can’t quite decide where to focus, which is somehow another turn-on, rather than a frustration. “Right here,” you encourage him softly, rubbing your middle finger over your clit.
In the next second he’s latched against you hungrily, teasing and tickling the sensitive crest with differing strokes and swirls; attacking you more fiercely whenever you groan your approval.
Getting eaten out shouldn’t be this good with a virgin, but perhaps that’s the reason it is. He’s entirely yours to shape and please and enjoy. Making him come undone, in this animal-like, crude exploration of you, is driving you towards another peak.
“Do you know how good you are at this?” you groan, massaging his scalp; imagining all the ways you can pay him back for this pleasure.
He murmurs something in response, voice hot and garbled against your clit, and for once you’re not disappointed to miss his pedantic drawl. But if this continues like this, you’ll be lost again. And all before you’ve had what you really want.
You gently pull away from him. Firelight highlights the wet shine on his lower lip and the glassiness in his half-lidded eyes – a sight you swear to remember – and it’s only now that you realize night has truly fallen.
Glancing back towards the barn again, the faint glow of a lantern within gives you the final push you need: if they aren’t done, then neither are we.
Sinking to your knees overtop of him, you feel dead leaves and tickling grass against your legs. More than these distractions, however, is him. Impossibly hard, and impossibly needy now, Eugene paws and kisses at you anew, encouraged by your return. His pelvis grinds up to meet your own, his cock nudging you to hurry.
Fumbling the buttons loose on your shirt, feeling his own larger hands coming to the task as well, a spasm of shivers overtake you. It’s not the cold, but the monumental hurdle before you: the rapid shift into a sweeter reality than you ever fantasized about alone. He wants you so badly, and you can’t think of anything more intoxicating than being this desired by a normally reserved, whip-smart man.
When your shirt opens you pinch the front catches of your bra free, feeling cool air prickle and electrify your skin. It’s already a natural, unthought thing – to quickly card a hand through his hair and guide his mouth to a nipple. All thoughts of watching him are forgotten for a long moment, as your mind blurs on the sweet ache.
“I’ve been thinking of this at night,” you say softly over the top of his head, neck tilting back at the straight-shot, liquifying jolt to your core. His tongue is slow and attentive against your skin, even as his breath grows labored.
“I can assure you,” he groans between sucks, “that this is all I’ll be thinking of as well… both in the here and now, and the long-term…”
Reaching blindly, you pat the ground beside you until you come up with your discarded jeans. He doesn’t pause to question, focused solely on gathering the weight of a breast in one hand while teasing the puckered flush of your nipple with his flicking tongue.
You stutter out a gasp, as you pull a condom free from your back pocket. If you consider how long its been there, you’ll also admit how long you’ve been waiting to do this to him. Too long, you think. Only the crinkle of the wrapper finally slows his minstrations.
“Are you sure you want this?” You ask weakly, taking in the new strain in his face; the slight hesitation that crosses when he realizes exactly what you’re holding. If he stops short now you’ll understand, but damn if it won’t be torture. Maybe you’ve pushed him too far, too fast.
He puffs out a few shaky breaths. “I believe the only ass-kicking gumption I may ever possess resides in this very moment. However, admittedly, I am also worried about disappointing you… Scant experience has me at a severe disadvantage here.”
You’ve never wanted to reassure someone so much. The embarrassment on his face is heartbreaking.
“Does this feel like disappointment?” You murmur, guiding his fingers between your wet folds.
His eyes somehow darken further in the dim light, going completely unfocused. It’s mesmerizing to watch the effect you can have on him, as you curl his long index finger underneath your own, urging him to delve up, up, up inside your pulsing cunt. You moan out one long, inarticulate sound as he fills you. His mouth drops open too and the soft invitation is too hard to resist.
You wrestle your tongue with his while reaching for his fly, feeling him delve deeper into the silken heat of you. Pulling his cock completely free takes more maneuvering than you’re used too, because heaven on earth, if he isn’t larger than any other man you’ve ever been with. The thick, bobbing weight of him is impossibly hot and smooth in your too-small hand, like sun-baked granite. You want to kiss it, but that can wait.
“God I want you,” you whisper against him, letting go if only to peel the condom open. If not for the horrible, fucked up world you both live in now, you’d already be sinking onto him without protection.
He jerks at the cool unrolling of the latex, blushing as you pump your fingers up and down his length to smooth it into place. His hands are at your sides again, as if steeling himself for the next, monumental transition.
“Ready?” You ask, after kissing him long and hard.
He nods slowly, jaw half-open and completely loose. His embarrassment is completely gone now – maybe because you’ve indulged in another fantasy by not stripping his own clothes away – and there’s more madness in his face than calculation; more softness and supplication than hard restraint.
Watching him watch you like enraptured prey, all of your wanting, midnight imaginings come full circle at last.
You slowly run the tip of his cock up your drenched folds, only pausing at the top to rub him around your insistent clit. He whimpers with you, palms smoothing down your back to dig into the supple flesh of your ass. The throbbing intensity of finally having him against you gathers with storm-like power, urging you towards more.
The mantra fills your head, becoming a primal chant you can’t delay: fill me, fill me, fill me...
You guide him home, lost to everything else except his guttering eyes and how fucking good he feels.
The first promising, pulsing inch of him slides into you like butter into a hot pan, followed by more and more and more … and then you’re both groaning and trembling and sweating in the chill of the forgotten world. Because this is where you want to be. Forever and ever and ever. Just this. No more fear or pain or regrets.
You make yourself refocus on his expression for a moment because it’s almost better than the nudging, begging jut of his hips. He’s gone to everything but sensation – eyes squinted closed, wide mouth working around colorful expletives, sweat beading at his temples. You can’t believe he’s coming undone for you, in a world which should’ve consumed you both already.
That last desperate thought sends you to ride, because yes, time shouldn’t be wasted.
You slide up the entire length of him before easing back down. There are charges going off in your spine, electricity crackling where he grips your ass and urges you onto him. Bottoming out brings waves of begging sensation. There’s the primal urgency of offering yourself up to him fully; of opening your deepest, wettest part to him without the slightest reservation. You need to please him, and you think his slackened gaze must be a mirror of your own.
The aching, glorious rhythm begins in earnest and all others sounds fade except the crude slap of skin against skin and his deep, fractured voice. You rise and fall together, racing towards a feeling which shouldn’t be this pure and intoxicating. He palms a hand over your left breast, head dipping low to taste you again. Sucking and leaving cooling streaks across your skin, he near-devours your chest. Your legs start quivering at the onslaught, and you reach behind him to brace against the tree, focused solely on spreading your legs wider.
“I’m close…” he groans into your cleavage, almost as if in pain.
Those words on his tongue are enough. Later you’ll wonder if – denied his already nimble hands and beautiful cock – he could simply talk you into an orgasm. You’ll beg him to try.
Two, then three more crashes of your swollen cunt around him, and then you cry-whisper, “I’m there!”
Comprehension leaves you for long seconds. There is only the sweet, tightening detonation in your core, and the thick, upward thrust of him still inside you. Colors burst and fade behind your vision, warm and coppery and uncatchable.
Vaguely, you become aware of the new craze in his movements; the way he’s gripping your drowsy lower half and working you into movement above him. It’s unexpected, carnal, and hot as fuck to be used like this. You open your heavy eyes, nudging kisses against his panting mouth, his jawline, then his ear.
“Come apart for me,” you whisper there.
It’s one of those emptying, freeing moments, where a lived-in situation feels completely unreal. There’s too much meaning for any immediate comprehension. Like floodwaters carving a new river bend, you know this is a unique path he’ll never travel the same way again. Maybe it’s the last for you as well, with the dangers you face everyday.
You swallow each of his low, broken moans as he comes, tasting as much as smelling the thick musk of sex between you. His cock pulses on and on, his hands holding you in place throughout. When his grip finally loosens, you gently rock against him and clamp down with your inner walls, massaging him until all of the tension leaves his face and limbs.
His breathing slows against your neck and you inhale him, beginning to wonder what tomorrow may actually look like. Of course you want more of this – more of him in every way you can have him – but continuing isn’t a one person decision. Without much explanation on your part, you’ve probably caught him completely off guard. He was willing before, obviously, but was still thrown into a situation without any real warning beforehand. Maybe he’ll rethink his choices later.
Don’t think about that now, you scold your wild, insecure thoughts, curling further into the embrace he doesn’t seem ready to break. Even his length hasn’t left you, but maybe that’s only because you have him pinned down.
You sweep your fingertips up the back of his neck, mesmerized by the almost-downy softness of the mullet he insists on keeping; suddenly too nervous to pull your face away from his shirt collar. Attitudes can radically shift after sex, even though you don’t think he’s the type.
“So… are we still in agreement about the importance of brevity?” you ask.
He hums in thought close to your ear, the sound like a pur turned molten. Impossibly, another wave of shivers skate down your spine.
“I’m always gungho on keeping the unnecessary chatter low, but in regards to this, and to you…” he says, brushing a wide hand between your shoulder blades.
He’s gone all monosyllabic Eugene again, except at the end, when his voice dips low with suggestion. It’s so adorably unlike him – the confirmation making you a bit too giddy – that you smile against his stubbled cheek.
You chuckle softly, “I’ve got no limits on the amount of this we can have.”
To prove your point, you clench your inner walls around his shrinking cock again, and then you’re openly laughing at how quickly he grips your upper back.
Tension rises in every place you hold him as he exhales, “That right there, ma’am, is exhibit A for words being wasteful...”
You feel the reciprocating twitch of him in your cunt, that first stirring promise of more. Sloppy, wasted condom be damned - you wish it wouldn’t be so risky to restart this again, just as you are now. If you imagine hard enough, you could truly stay like this forever.
Something else, however, stops all thought entirely.
“Oh shit,” you whisper, pulling your head back to properly assess the field,
The light’s gone out in the barn and there’s no real telling when that happened. The field is matte black, with only a few wisps of lighter shadow where moonlight is filtering through the cloudbank. Your fingers fly to rebutton your shirt.
Eugene looks too, and his eyes must be better than yours because he murmurs, “No sweat, they’ve just left. Let me help you.”
Somehow the simple act of him hurrying to dress you – of tucking your still-scorched skin away with an amount of gentleness that manages to surprise you – works another knot loose in your chest.
Before you can rationalize the time-wasting act of it, you sear a long kiss against his lips while slipping off of him. You blindly tuck his cock away with equal tenderness. Rising to your feet, you can hear Abraham and Rosita talking now. You shuck into your jeans as if walkers were in camp, shoving your feet into your shoes.
You can only hope Eugene doesn’t misinterpret your quickness for shame, because there’s no time to reassure him now. There’s only what you’ll say next, and the hope that you won’t embarrass him to pieces by putting it out there so bluntly.
The alarm line rattles by the field, and Abraham calls out.
“All good here?”
“Yes!” you answer, turning where you stand to find your machete. You hear Eugene scooting closer to the fire as you snatch it up.
“You sure?” Rosita says a moment later, stepping fully into the light. Her incredulous eyes look between your face, the weapon in your hand and the dark perimeter surrounding the campfire. How she can still be this tightly wound after fucking, you’ll never understand.
“Sorry, yes. We’re all good.” You assure her, clipping the machete handle to your belt loop. “I saw you heading back and was just getting ready to check the barn out.”
Silence is somehow more oppressive around a campfire. It hums there, rising with the dancing flames; louder than the thud in your ears.
Abraham asks, “Why? We already tossed it.”
He holds up the rusted, oil lantern they must have lit inside. You decide to ignore the bluff of them finding some sort of priceless, survivalist tool, because you all know it’ll be purposefully forgotten in the morning – just like most of the other junk they’ve brought back before.
Instead, you suck in a short breath and snatch up your own sleeping bag. “Is it secure inside? Once the door’s shut?”
You chance a quick glance at Eugene and find him looking between the three of you, almost like he’s stumbled into the wrong movie.
Just hold on for the finale, darlin’, you think, swallowing hard.
“Sure, it could be. But we’re good here tonight.” Abraham says, missing your meaning entirely. He tosses his own sleeping bag and takes a knee by the fire. “I scouted this position thoroughly and laid the trap lines myself. We’re safe.”
Most days, the ordering SOB can have your blind loyalty because the soldiering act tends to keep you all safe, but not right now. If it weren’t so difficult to fully put your reworked, minimalist social ideas to practice, you’d tell him that he and Rosita aren’t the only ones who need to fuck off most nights.
“That’s not what I’m insinuating.” You say evenly, tempering your voice with deliberate nonchalonce. “To speak the absolute truth, I plan on going out there to spend a few hours alone with Eugene. So is it safe?”
It’s almost funny, to watch them slowly work it out. Abraham actually tilts his head, as he glances between the arm you’ve pointed at Eugene and the man himself. Rosita has the audacity to scrunch up her face in something close to disgust.
If she says something cruel… you think, remembering every little diminishing jab she’s ever thrown his way.
Your hand slides to the handle of your machete before you can think through the action; the everyday violence of the horrible world pushing you into some sort of angry muscle memory. In the next second your hand drops away, frustration welling up like blood from an open wound. Most of it is self-directed, but there’s also plenty to go around.
Nobody misses the gesture, and it seems enough to sober the questioning pair. A hint of mirth still lingers in Abraham’s crinkled gaze, but it’s more curious than teasing now.
“Well, fuck me sideways ... How long have you both been at it?”
Eugene answers before you can, his voice harder than it’s been all evening. “That’s some beeswax that should be thoroughly minded, if you intend to retain my knowledge-dropping expertise.”
“Shit…” Abraham crows, slapping a hand on his knee and looking up at Rosita. “Did you know?”
She shakes her head, arms crossing as she looks at you like a new, suspicious member of the group. It’s a bit petty, but it pleases you to watch the shrewd, always-capable woman realize she didn’t read you quite right after all.
“If it was safe enough for them to spend approximately thirty five minutes inside,” Eugene directs at you, rising to his feet, “then I believe said accommodations will prove more than satisfactory for our own, identical needs.”
You watch him come to your side and slide his fingers around your own, squeezing gently – claiming and comforting you, you realize with a sharp pang of emotion. The fact that such a small gesture can undo you like this is all the proof you need that the apocalypse has truly ripped at the seams of your own humanity, tugging and tearing until you had started to feel like a hollowed out stranger.
But there is still some hope it seems, in fragile moments like these – with people like Eugene – and it gives you a bit more courage.
“We’ll be back in a bit,” you say with finality, briefly assessing the almost-uncomfortable pair.
The two of them don’t say anything else, at least not until you’re both out of earshot, and that feels like a little victory in of itself.
You both pick your way through the thick wheat field, still holding hands despite how much it slows you down. When your almost at the barn you murmur, “Things aren’t going to be the same now… Sorry in advance, if it gets weird around camp.”
He slows to a stop, tugging you to pause as well. Standing close like this, he’s several inches taller than you and his face tilts down at just the angle you imagined it might. You wish you could see his expression in the dim light, but his voice will always be enough.
“Please understand me here: there’s little I could care for less than the opinions of the uninformed and the unimportant.” Skimming his wide hands up your forearms he says more softly, “I do, however, care about you, and even if your own intentions do not precisely match the crosshairs of my own, I’m not ashamed to confess that the idea of courting you is a slippery slope I’ve been sliding down for sometime now.”
Instinct takes over, and there’s nothing for it except hungry, immediate reciprocation. You rise on your tiptoes, neck tilting back, mouth desperately searching to find his own in the dark. He’s just as eager, if also a bit surprised; his harsh inhale lost against your tongue. You try to meld your body to his, loving how he cradles your head as if he means to consume you.
Words are sometimes wasteful, you remember vaguely, even as you know you’ll treasure every word he’s just said.
When you part at last, his forehead pressed against your own and his grip close and comfortable around your lower back, you breathlessly say, “I concur.”
Moonlight slides across the barn, the hushed sounds of the night seeming more promising and welcoming than ever before, and together you walk hand-in-hand towards a shared beginning.