I felt her pussy walls clenching my dick and moved my hips faster. But I never moved my eyes from hers and she didn’t move hers from me. My breathing stuttered when I saw a flash of redness travel down her neck and over her chest. Her hips rocked against mine, and fuck, it felt incredible. She wound her fingers in my hair, then slipped them down to gently cup my cheeks. Her lips parted. I felt her pussy clamp down as she came with a long, soft moan. The feel of her coming, the sight of her face, and those fucking hands on my cheeks saw me following behind. My hands balled into fists as I came, thrusting into her. I stilled, groaning, but never moving my eyes from hers. She stroked my cheeks as I relaxed my arms and caught my breath.
I kissed her then, tasting the salt from her tears in my mouth, on my tongue. I kissed her and kissed her until I had no choice but to break away and take a breath. I pressed my forehead to Phebe’s and closed my eyes. I had no idea what we to call what we had just done, but it wasn’t just fucking.
As if reading my mind, Phebe whispered, “Making love.” I reared back so my face was hovering just an inch from hers. Her eyes were wide and searching. “That was it, was it not? That was . . . making love?” I swallowed, not knowing what the fuck to say to that. Love . . .? “I had heard talk of it before, but never believed it could be true.” She smiled, her bottom lip trembling. I wanted nothing more than to fucking hold the bitch and tell her everything would be okay. “It has never been like that before, not for me. This was different. I, with you, am different. I . . .” She thought for a moment. “I am at peace.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Does that make sense? That you bring me peace?”
“Yeah,” I said and, as I watched her face, I realized she did the fucking same to me. “You give me peace too.” By her huge smile, you’d think I’d just told her I was the answer to all her prayers. Fuck, I was starting to wonder if she would become the answer to mine.
Phebe traced the lines of my tattoos, then fucking blew me apart when she said, “What if this is simply the dark before the sun?”
“What?”
“What if we are being held in midnight, AK? Both of us locked in the dark of our pasts. Together. And maybe we must endure the darkness for a while.”
I swallowed, eyes fixed on hers.
“But then, one day will come the sunrise. The darkness will end, and the sunlight will pour in. Sunrise, AK. Just imagine.” She smiled and nearly broke my fucking heart. “We can chase the sunrise together. We can be the sunrise . . . together.”
“Yeah,” I said, unable to get the word ‘sunrise’ from my head. I wanted that. I wanted the fucking sunrise. I wanted the sunrise with Red.
“AK?” She pushed my hair behind my ear. “Can we stay here longer?”
“Yeah,” I said, knowing we had another week we could kill.
“Good.”
So I made love to her again before we fell asleep.
And not a single nightmare came calling.
*****
I woke, alone, blinking in the dark of the evening. Still feeling raw from last night, from actually sharing my fucked-up past with someone, I walked out of the bedroom. The cupboard had been packed away and closed—but without the lock. The spilled food had been cleaned up. But it was the center wall that had me losing my fucking breath.
Two pictures.
Two pictures hung on the wall, held up by small nails.
Zane and Devin in one, and Tina, Dev, Zane and me in the other. I didn’t hear her step beside me, but her hand came around my waist from behind, and she pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder blade. “They deserve to be shown,” she said softly, then moved to the counter. She took something in her hands and brought it to me. I tried to see what it was, but she was on her tiptoes and threading something over my head before I could. It smelled clean, whatever it was. And when I felt the familiar feel of metal against my skin, I knew.
Devin’s dog tags.
My heart beat too fast, and I didn’t dare look down. “They boasted your brother’s name. They fell out of the cupboard when I was putting everything back.” She paused. “I do not think that happened by chance. I think it meant that you were meant to have them, wear them, proudly.” I couldn’t speak, but almost fell apart when she said, “You were not to blame for what happened. You must begin to forgive yourself, or how else will you move on?”
“And you?”
She smiled weakly. “I will endeavor to accept this too. I replay the memories of each time I saw her in my mind. There are not enough. I should have more, but I am beginning to understand that that was robbed from me. And . . .” She took a deep breath. “And not my doing.”
“I’m fucking proud of you.”
Her eyes fell. “Thank you.” Looking up through her long lashes, she said, “I am proud of you too.” And fuck, I didn’t expect the blow that compliment dealt.
Phebe walked over to the picture of Zane and Devin. “He looks like you and your brother.” She smiled. “More like you.”
“Yeah,” I said roughly, still unused to talking about them all like this. “That’s what Dev and Tina used to say. A mini-me.”
“I wonder what he looks like now,” she mused, then moved back to the kitchen.
I walked outside and started a fire in the fire pit. I sat down in the reclining chair and tipped my head to the sky. Looking at the stars with Devin’s dog tags around my neck, I wondered what Zane’s life had been like. I wondered if he loved Claire and Tom like parents. I wondered if he remembered much of his mom and dad . . . I wondered if he remembered me. I wondered if he liked bikes, like me and his dad always did. My stomach sank . . . I wondered if he hated Dev for what he did. I wondered if hated me.
“AK?” Phebe came outside, carrying something in her arms. Her face was bright and excited as she laid it on the ground. “What is this?”
I leaned forward to see Dev’s old vinyl player. “It plays music,” I said, remembering how Styx and Ky had said the cult bitches didn’t know shit about technology.
“It does?” she said, and her face lit up like Christmas. I couldn’t help but smirk. Her hand ran over the record player and she sighed. “When we used to go out and recruit, when we fished the men, we always had one purpose. To seduce them. But I had a secret.”
My eyebrow rose in question.
“I loved to dance.” She shrugged. “The brothers that took us eventually let me do it, as they said it made the men want me more. But I did not do it for them. When the music played, I lost all my worries. I lost . . . myself . . .” She laughed and shook her head. “I am a silly woman.”
I got up from my seat and went back into the lodge. I found an extension cord and brought it to the player. Phebe watched me curiously as I switched it on and it crackled to life. I moved the pin and couldn’t help but huff out a laugh when a familiar song burst through the speakers.
Phebe gasped when the music filled the air around us. “What is it?”
I made my way back to my seat, rubbing the back of my neck. “Bowie. ‘Heroes.’” I paused. “Dev’s favorite song. He used to play this song on repeat.” So I had put it on repeat too.
Phebe closed her eyes and swayed to the beat. Her white off-the-shoulder dress swung around her legs. Her long red hair hung in loose waves, brushing against her freckled skin as she moved.