The McClane Apocalypse Book Five (54 page)

With little choice left, Cory drags his
feet, climbing the
wide
staircase, passing the first landing where a tall portrait of
some queen of England or another still hangs and then on to the
second floor. He leans against the wall for a moment before
entering, hoping beyond all hope that he’ll find her asleep.
He
enters
, shuts the door
quietly, locks it and replaces the chair under the knob again. When
he turns toward the room, she doesn’t sit up in the bed or say
anything. Good. She’s out. This will make things so much easier
just like when he arrives at the cabin in the middle of the night.
He only has to pass her sleeping form back at the farm to make his
way to his own bed. Sometimes, unfortunately, she’s kicked off her
covers in her sleep, and Cory is forced to look at her in short
shorts and tiny t-shirts. One night when she obviously didn’t have
clean laundry, she was wearing one of his t-shirts and just
panties. They were black. And
lacy
. And he’d seen them and her long tan legs when
he’d passed her mattress on the floor next to her brother’s bed.
Luckily Simon had been gone from the cabin that night on watch
duty. He’d lain awake in his bed watching her sleep for a long
time, considering peeling her panties off with his teeth before
succumbing to a fitful slumber.

He walks as quietly as he can to his
pad on the floor and places his rifle there. Then he checks the
other entry door’s lock again. Next, he pulls off his boots and
sets them by his
rifle
. His hands
go to the waistband of his jeans, but he decides he’d better leave
them on. Instead, he places the last two logs on the fire and
returns to his makeshift bed. Right before he kneels, though, her
voice interrupts him.

“You were on the right track,”
Paige
says softly
.

Cory’s eyes slant in her general
direction, but he refrains from looking at Paige. Avoidance is key.
She’s removed her thermal shirt and is only wearing a t-shirt and
very obviously no bra and is sitting upright
on
the bed, the covers pooled around her
waist.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

His eyes dart around looking for her
undergarments. They lock on a pale blue satin bra lying discarded
on the floor beside her. He has a hard time tearing his gaze away
from it.

When he realizes that she hasn’t answered,
Cory forces himself to look at her. Paige does the unthinkable and
allows her gray eyes to fall down over his chest to his pants. What
the hell? Does she mean he should’ve taken off his pants? Does she
want him to join her? It sure as hell seems like it. Her right
eyebrow lifts jauntily, and she bites her lower lip.

He chuffs uncomfortably and points at her,
“Go to sleep.”

She grins lasciviously and lies back
again.

“Your loss,” she boldly states in the
dark.

Cory lies on his padding of blankets on
the hardwood floor, trying not to notice the lumps and bumps
against
his back or the uncomfortable
ache in his pants. She sighs heavily, distracting Cory from his
misery. Why the hell did she have to say something like that? Her
thick hair was hanging seductively over one shoulder, her eyes
playful and inviting, her mouth
slig
htly parted. It was a definite invitation to
join her, and Cory’s pretty sure she doesn’t just mean for sleep.
She couldn’t give a rat’s ass about his comfort. She’s wanting in
his pants. He’s not a young pup anymore. He knows the tell-tale
signs of desire in a woman. He’s seen it in her eyes for the last
few weeks. It matches his own. For most of the time being an
annoying, pain in his ass bitch, Paige also has a sexy as hell
streak in her. And one she wants to show him a little further
tonight.

He tosses and turns, checks his watch again,
knows that sleep is a damn long way off. Cory can’t recall a desire
for a woman ever pulling this hard at him. He’s slept with them but
never felt an all-consuming need for one of them. His past
encounters have been casual at best.

At a few minutes after midnight, Cory runs a
hand through his hair and flops onto his back again, for the third
time.

“Fuck it,” he announces to himself and the
room and her if she heard him.

He deftly rolls to his side and climbs onto
the end of her bed. Then he yanks away her covers to the floor,
startling the hell out of her. Paige rolls to her back, her
breathing elevated probably from being stunned. Cory crawls up the
bed on all fours, coming over her slowly, giving her a chance to
back out. When he is eye to eye and inches from her face, his body
not exactly touching down on hers yet, he waits for her to say
something, to tell him to get lost or punch him or threaten
him.

“Wh… what…” she stutters, although he can see
it in her eyes that she knows why he’s on top of her.

Her gray eyes peer closely at him,
scrutinizing his actions. Cory lowers his mouth slowly toward hers.
She doesn’t respond. Not exactly what he was hoping for. Maybe he
was misconstruing her invitation. He frowns down at her and starts
to pull back.

“No,” Paige cries out and wraps her long legs
around his thighs. “No, don’t go, Cory.”

Her words are more of a weak plea. It’s all
the reassurance he requires tonight. He yanks her into his arms and
plants a searing kiss to her full mouth, heedless of the stubble on
his chin. Her fingers tangle in his hair and tug hard, pulling him
impossibly tight against her. His hands start moving over her
figure, that figure he’s been forced to share a cabin with for way
too long. He’s seen more of her in the last six weeks than anyone
else on the farm, and no one else on the farm has wanted to seduce
her like he has. It’s been torturous. His fingers dig into her slim
hips and pull her up off the mattress against his throbbing
erection. He holds her there with one hand rather easily because
she’s so slight. Cory groans into her mouth.

He’s probably moving way too fast for
her, but he also can’t seem to slow down either. He yanks her top
over her head and tosses it somewhere. For all he knows it went
straight
into
the fireplace. Who
gives a shit? He’ll find her another one tomorrow in the city. He
fills his palm with the fullness of her left breast which earns him
a soft moan from the back of her long throat. It’s almost the best
thing his ears have ever heard in his entire life. She complains a
lot about women with big breasts and blonde hair, but her breasts
seem fine to him. More than fine. He jams his hand into her hair
and pulls her head back so that he can kiss her neck and then her
breast. This makes her cry out, which is even better than the soft
moan a moment ago. Cory knows he’s moving quicker than he normally
would, which could be scaring her.

Her hands are fiddling with the waistband of
his pants, trying to get the button unhooked. Apparently his
frantic pace is suitable for her. She tugs hard, groans with
frustration that she can’t get the button free. Cory removes the
condom in the front pocket and sets it on the mattress.

“Assuming much?” Paige jokes.

“Not at all. You just never know when you
might need one. You know, for survival purposes,” Cory teases. He
really hadn’t given any thought to the condom, certainly hadn’t
thought about using it with Paige. He’s just learned to carry them
in his pocket. He’s down to his last few at the farm and doesn’t
have the desire to sprinkle the county full of little Corys. The
box he found earlier is now stowed away in his pack, which is where
this one originated.

Paige laughs and reaches for his button
again. He quickly undoes it himself and pulls them down. They get
tossed to the same place as her shirt. He hadn’t bothered with
underwear when he’d dressed a while ago. A second later he’s on top
of her again. In the back of his mind, in the deep dark recesses of
his moral conscience, Cory’s little voice of integrity is telling
him to stop. He’s defiling his best friend’s sister. He pauses in
kissing her, opens his eyes, looks down at the scene before him.
She’s the most alluring, on fire woman he’s ever beheld. Her eyes
are dazed, her body moving sensually against his, her curves soft
and warm.

“Don’t. Don’t stop, Cory,” she orders and
pulls at him, her fingernails in his shoulders, her hips rising to
meet his. “Don’t even think about stopping.”

Good enough for him. He’s done listening to
that inconvenient bastard of honor in his head. His mouth plunders
her tender lips, taking and giving. He moves lower, kissing as he
goes. His fingers work the snap and zipper on her black pants. With
a quick tug, he has them whisked away. Cory leans back, kneeling
between her spread thighs. He pulls down her pale purple panties
one slow, painful inch at a time. He likes that it causes her to
shiver. These he doesn’t throw to the floor but sets on the edge of
the mattress. She doesn’t cower or try to cover herself. As a
matter of fact, she reaches up with one hand to pull at him, but
Cory snatches her wrist. Then he spreads out her long, thin fingers
and flattens her palm against his stomach. His hair falls over his
forehead, obscuring his view of her, so he pushes it back again.
Not seeing her in all her lovely glory is not an option tonight. He
slides his hand under her muscular thigh and pulls her down the bed
even closer to him, against him. His fingers explore the long legs
he’s been ogling for so many weeks. For a redhead, she’s very tan,
which is probably why she has so many sprinklings of freckles on
her shoulders, the top of her chest and the bridge of her small,
feminine nose.

Cory catches her gaze and holds it. The
gray-blue of her eye color seems
silvery
in the dim light. Her red hair is like a
halo of fire around her on the white bedding. The feeling he has of
needing to possess her on every level is nearly overwhelming. He
opens the wrapper for the condom, his eyes never leaving hers.
She’s panting lightly and her lower lip trembles, which is exactly
the response he wants from her.

Her other hand also floats to his
stomach. When she tries to reach lower, Cory snatches both of her
wrists in his hands and hauls her up onto his thighs. She’s
straddling him sensually. Paige buries her face in his neck, then
presses her lips there lightly. Her fingers are digging into his
back and shoulders as he pulls her head backward again. He lifts
her higher, her breasts to his mouth. With one hand, he runs his
fingertips down the center of her chest, around her back, and cups
her ass. She starts grinding her hips into his, which causes her to
rub against him most intimately. She is more than ready for him,
the heat of her pressing against his shaft. He reaches down
between
them, touching her.
This time,
her head lolls back without
his help. He has to place a hand against her back so that she
doesn’t fall to the mattress behind her. She shivers as he guides
himself into her body, her thighs trembling against his.

A sharp crack of thunder explodes outside,
followed by a bright streak of lightning that illuminates the room
in a phosphorescent glow for a split second. The snow must be
metamorphosing back to just rain. He’s not even sure that Paige
noticed it. She’s too busy clawing at his back and pulling his
hair.

“Look at me,” Cory commands softly.

Her eyes pop open but have trouble focusing.
Cory pushes upward, higher until he is fully embedded within her
tight passage. His eyes hold hers for a few moments as he begins
moving. There is no love in this act. It is carnal and necessary,
fast and heated. They are both consenting adults, feeding a flame
that needed to be dealt with before they ended up making a big
mistake back at the farm. They are rarely ever alone together on
the farm, and most of the time she gives him looks like she’d
prefer to run him over with one of the tractors. He’s usually too
busy staring at her ass as she retreats in a fit of anger.

He lifts Paige higher against his chest
so that he can lie her down on the mattress again. She’s fairly
easy to toss around at whim, which makes this infinitely more
enjoyable. She’s all long, lean limbs and a flat stomach. And she
doesn’t seem to mind him picking her up and pulling her around,
either. As a matter of fact, she groans deeply as he presses her
down and starts moving within her again. He creates a rhythm of
pleasure that spreads throughout and between their bodies. His skin
tingles wherever she
presses
her
mouth or where her fingers tenderly land.

Her back arches, which Cory appreciates
because it puts her breasts closer to his mouth. Again with the
little whimpers and cries. She’s more passionate than he ever
would’ve thought. Her fingers tangle in the dark hair on his chest
before she leans up and kisses him there. He’s holding back,
wanting to make sure she climaxes before him. But if she continues
to do things like that, it’ll be over soon. It’s becoming difficult
to control himself. He reaches down
between
them, manipulating and controlling her
until she cries out and shivers. Cory runs a hand down her long
thigh muscle, delighting in the tiny goosebumps there.
Finally,
he doesn’t have to hold back
anymore. He’s careful not to be rough with her. She told him it’s
been since before the fall of the country that she’s had sex. He
likes that he’s the first man she’s chosen to be
with in
nearly four years. As beautiful and sexy as
she is, men had to be after her, apocalypse or no. The thought that
he is the man to be with her this way does something to him. A few
more strokes and he joins her in passionate oblivion.