Page 17 of One-Track Pride

She tugs at my shirt, and I help her, yanking it over my head and throwing it toward the firelight. Her palms skim down my chest, over the old scars, then lower to my belt. She works the buckle open, pops the button, drags the zipper down. My cock is already hard, pressing against the fabric. She reaches inside and wraps her palm around me. The contact makes my hips jerk, and I shove my pants and boxers down in one motion and kick them away. Naked now, I pull her against me so she feels every inch of my cock against her stomach.

I drop to my knees on the rough ground, my hands go to her waistband. I tug her pants and underwear down together, helping her step out of them. She's bare, pussy already glistening in the orange light. I lean in and drag my tongue up, tasting her. She grips my hair and holds me there. I push her thighs wider and lick deeper, circling her clit with the tip of my tongue before sucking it between my lips, and I slide two fingers inside her, curling up. She's tight and wet, clenching around them as I work her. I keep the pressure steady, tongue and fingers moving together until her legs start to shake. She comes hard, thighs locking around my head, a broken sound tearing out of her throat. I don't stop until the last tremor fades.

I stand and she reaches for my cock again, stroking the length of me, thumb smearing the wetness at the tip. I catch her wrist and turn her so her back faces the rock wall, and my mouth finds the side of her neck. I nibble at the nape, then lick the spot with my tongue. One hand cups her breast, squeezing, while the other slides between her legs again.

I lift her, and she wraps her legs around my waist. The head of my cock presses against her entrance. I hold there for a second, feeling her heat, then push in slow. She takes me inch by inch, tight walls stretching and squeezing around me. When I'm buried deep I stay still, forehead against hers, breathing hard. Her nails dig into my back, and I start to move, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in. The pace builds, each thrust is harder than the last. The wet sound of her pussy taking me fills the small space between the crack of the fire and the storm outside.

I shift my grip, hands under her ass, and fuck her deeper. She meets every stroke, hips rolling against mine. Sweat slides down my spine, and I feel the animal in me rising, the need to claim, but I keep it on a short leash. I’m rough enough that she gasps, gentle enough that I still feel every flutter of her body around my cock. I change the angle, grinding against her clit on every inward thrust. Her breathing turns ragged, and I feel her start to tighten. I don't slow down, I drive into her harder, cock slamming deep, until she breaks again, crying out against my shoulder as her pussy clamps down and pulses around me.

I keep going through it, chasing my own release now. The heat in my gut coils tighter, and my thrusts turn short and brutal. She holds on, legs locked around me, taking everything I give her. I come with a low growl that vibrates through my chest, and my cock pulses hard inside her. I stay buried deep, hips jerking through the last of it, until the tension finally drains out of me.

I ease her down carefully. We sink to the ground together, still joined for a moment before I slip free. The air feels colder without her wrapped around me. I pull both our jackets over us, arranging them into a rough nest against the stone. My shoulder aches where the earlier injury sits, but the pain is distant now.

We lie tangled in both jackets and the fire's low orange light, her head on my shoulder, her fingers tracing idle patterns over the bruise that's already fading beneath them.

"Don't," she says.

"I didn't say anything."

"You're about to, I can feel you winding up to call this a mistake. Disaster brain, two people who almost died reaching for the nearest warm body." She lifts her head. "So don't, because it wasn't that, and we both know it wasn't."

"I wasn't going to call it a mistake." I mean it. "I was going to say I don't regret it, and then I was going to ruin it by worrying out loud about what happens when the storm ends and you go back to your life that isn’t here."

Her expression shifts, softer and sadder at once. "Yeah, that one I don't have an answer for yet."

"I'm not asking for it." I press my lips to her hair. "I just wanted to say it before I lost my nerve. That's new for me, saying things instead of carrying them."

"Keep practicing," she says. "You're getting better at it."

The wind doesn't ease. If anything, it gets worse. By midnight we've stopped pretending we're reaching the station tonight. We eat what little we've carried with us, feed the stove, and sleep in short stretches with the storm hammering at the walls. The radio will still need fixing when daylight comes. Right now neither of us has enough left to fight the mountain for another mile.

13

CAMILLE

By first light, the storm has weakened a little, giving us chance to move again. The station sits where the pass narrows, a squat concrete bunker built into the mountainside by people who assumed the weather would eventually try to murder anyone inside it. The door is half-drifted over, and we have to dig before Evander can force it open. Inside, it's colder than out, the air dead and stale, everything coated in a fine gray dust that hasn't been disturbed in years.

I find the radio bank against the far wall and my heart lifts, then sinks in the same breath.

"Power's gone," I say, running my flashlight over the housing. "Look at the corrosion on the primary supply. Water got in through that seam, sat there and then froze and thawed a dozen times. It ate the whole board." I crouch and pry the panel loose. "The radio might be fine, the thing that feeds it is a fossil."

"Can you work around it?"

"Maybe, there has to be a backup cell somewhere in this room, code requires it, and if it's not as dead as the main…" I'm already moving, following conduit with my light. "Go find me anything useful. Batteries, a working lantern, tools that aren't rusted to paste. And food, if these idiots stocked it. I haven't eaten since a train tried to kill me."

He huffs something close to a laugh and disappears into the back, and I get to work.

I'm elbow-deep in the guts of the supply cabinet when the door bangs again and a gust of snow announces someone who is very much not Evander. I come up with a wrench in my fist before I clock the sandy hair and the grin.

"Relax, I’m Tobias." He stamps his boots, dumps a duffel by the door, and takes in the room with a low whistle. "Followed your trail from the wreck, figured you two could use a lineman, seeing as the last time this station worked, I was in high school." He tosses me a coil of copper wire. "Brought that, and proper crimpers, since I'm guessing you've been improvising."

I catch the crimpers gratefully. "Please tell me you know this power architecture."

"Better than anyone alive. Utility work." He drops down beside me and peers into the cabinet, and his grin widens. "Oh, she's ugly. Whoever decommissioned this thing did it drunk." He glances toward where Evander's flashlight is sweeping, then lowers his voice. "So, you and my cousin."

"We are not doing this."

"We are absolutely doing this. I have never once seen him act like this about a woman." He strips a wire with his thumbnail, easy and quick. "Whatever you did, keep doing it."