Sitting on his lap, the prod of the hard-on beneath her butt could not be mistaken.
“Since you’re in such an agreeable mood we could have sex to celebrate. That would be nice. A real bonding experience,” he mumbled against the top of her head, voice all low and rumbly. Highly sexed and self-assured, the arrogant ass. “What do you say, babe?”
She could hear the grin in his words, the amusement at her reaction. Her elbow caught his unprotected ribs.
He laughed outright at her then. “Ouch. Beat me, I don’t care, this is worth it. Tel me I’m right again. Slowly this time. Real y draw out the words, play it up for me. Feel free to pant in between if it feels natural.”
“You’re being an idiot. Let me go.”
“I might be, but you’re smiling and laughing. Why the hell would I care? I didn’t get a response back on the sex issue either …”
“Dan. Let go.”
He stilled, his big arms wrapped around her. “You know, that’s the first time you’ve said my name.”
“Real y?”
“Mm.”
She shrugged it off, but deep down, it did feel kind of good. Warming, almost. Maybe she wasn’t alone. “Let me go”
He sighed and the octopus grip on her eased. “Right. Sex later maybe.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Un-fucking-believable. They were arguing again.
Finn lay flat atop a cargo truck and watched through the scope of his rifle, rapt, as half a kilometer ahead the pair had it out in the middle of a four-lane highway.
These people defied logic.
They were an hour out of the city, with nothing but deserted cars scattered about and bushland on either side. No movement as far as the eye could see, and Finn was making sure he could see far and well. Those two made quite the target, hashing out their issues beneath the glaringly white, hot summer sky.
The woman had a shotgun nursed in her arms and the big guy had a pistol at his side. Neither kept watch. How they had survived this long, he did not know. The whole scene made the back of his neck itch.
He’d heard gunshots yesterday around noon, but arrived too late to find anything but a mass of infected loitering around a suburban street. Otherwise, everything still. No tel ing whether the shooter had gone to ground or been kil ed, though he hoped not the latter.
Enough had died in the past two months.
He had climbed up onto the roof of a two-story place nearby, reluctant to give up on the possibility of real, live, uninfected company.
He was numb to hope, but what else could he do? The only other people he had sighted had been criminal, trouble.
But maybe this time, maybe these people.
Watching and waiting was his lot these days. He had watched innocent civilians gunned down outside of hospitals, watched the bombing of Sydney. Al those necessary measures decided and taken and the orders passed down. It all kept turning over inside his head. The eventual death toll was a figure that kept changing, never static.
He had been unable to help so many. Maybe he could save her. His scope wandered over the woman. She was more girl next door than beautiful, curvy with a few years on his twenty-six. Her loose-fingered grip on the shotgun told him all he needed to know.
Finn had been willing to give the big guy the benefit of the doubt, but test time was over. This scene more than convinced him the man wasn’t taking care of her. He wasn’t protecting her.
Not like Finn could.
It hadn’t been easy, following them. He had hung back far enough that the purr of his motorbike remained undetected, close enough not to lose them. A time or two he had been forced to stop and wait, listening, tracking.
Thank fuck he hadn’t lost them.
The psychotically loud trail bike they had been using sat nearby while they quarreled. Probably needed refueling, a straightforward process with all the abandoned vehicles about. Some had been run dry, but not all. Resources weren’t an issue if you knew where to look.
And exactly what were they arguing about all this time? He neither knew, nor cared. The shadows were growing. The sun had begun its gradual slide into the west. There would be a couple more hours of light at best.
Time was slipping.
Eventually the big guy fled the fight, started siphoning fuel out of a nearby sedan.
Thank fuck he hadn’t lost them.
Nothing was harming her, not on his watch.
They finished up, got back on the bike. So noisy.
Finn crawled to the edge of the truck, shrugged the rifle onto his back and dropped back to the asphalt. He moved out a minute after they did, rolling with the whole stalker situation for now.
What else was he going to do? Where the hel else could he go? Nowhere, that’s where. He followed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
His girl was going to do herself damage if she didn’t calm down.