Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(70)
Biting down on my lip, I buried my face in his shoulder, allowing my body to relax as best I could. He repeated those same movements, stoking the already raging fire inside me to a roaring intensity, bringing me to that edge I was craving, time and time again until I finally reached it and fell weightlessly over the cliff. I floated on air, my body throbbing, humming, as I fell into oblivion.
As I sagged against him, he loosened his grip on me, and for a moment neither of us spoke, both of us breathing heavily as the sound of my own heartbeat echoed loudly in my ears.
“What about you?” I eventually managed to whisper. He was still hard beneath me, his body still pulsing, trembling ever so slightly.
Choking out a quiet laugh, he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “It’s been three years,” he said, his tone full of humor. “I can wait another day.”
I pulled back from him and sat up straight, meeting his dark gaze. His eyes dropped down, taking in all of me, my heaving chest and my quivering legs, before returning to my face.
“Three years?” I whispered, shocked. “You haven’t been with anyone… No one in Fredericksville?”
Alex said nothing, easily falling back into his typical silence. But words weren’t needed in that moment; his eyes spoke volumes. His feelings for me, I could only guess, went far deeper than I’d ever realized, or could have ever imagined they would.
Not knowing how to respond, I dropped my head, pressing my cheek against his chest as I closed my eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Evelyn
I was hungry.
I was always hungry, but this was a need of a different type, an angry hunger that I could feel straight through to my bones. Part of me was afraid of having to fight, yet a sick part of me was eager to beat on someone—to hit, kick, scratch, do whatever the f*ck I needed to rid myself of my anger.
The pain I wrestled with on a daily basis made me more than angry, pissed off with myself and everyone else. My rollercoaster emotions, and my frustration with this whole damn crazy-assed world were spilling forth, trying to breach the surface. It was all too much, like a pan of boiling water precariously bubbling over, that any moment was going to spatter, making a mess too hot to clean up.
I had heard Leisel and Alex last night, heard their heated whispers, listened to their heavy, lust-filled panting. I hadn’t meant to, but once I woke up I was unable to fall back to sleep. And so I had lain there, my lashes damp from silent tears, my thoughts dark and angry, feeling cold and alone until morning had finally come.
Quietly, I crept from the mattress, and after slipping my feet into my boots, I turned to look back at them. They were curled up together in the chair, Leisel looking small in Alex’s arms. They were perfect for each other, complementary, the yin to the other’s yang, and I was happy for them. Happy that they had found each other in such a shit-filled, horrible world. He would be good to her in the way that she deserved, in the way that Thomas would have been.
My chin trembling, I quickly left the room, clicking the door silently closed behind me. I leaned back against it, the realization that I no longer needed to stand tall for Leisel was a foreign thing for me. Knowing that now I only needed to be strong for myself, that I could finally take a breath, take a hundred breaths if I needed to, was an incredibly hard adjustment. I imagined that it was something like what a parent experienced the moment they realized their child was growing up, wasn’t as dependent on them as they once had been. It was an empty sort of feeling, and inexplicably lonely as well.
I rushed down the hallway to the stairs, suddenly desperate for fresh air. But when I pushed outside the heavy doors, I was greeted with the smoky scent of fire pits and the bitter tang of body sweat, the oaky smell of alcohol brewing, and the unmistakable scent of sex, all hanging thickly in the air.
I continued on, feeling the stares of eyes everywhere, watching me, appraising me from head to toe as if I were prime beef at a cattle market. Unnerved, I kept walking, refusing to look down, to look anywhere but directly in front of me. They could look all they wanted, look down at me as if I were little more than an object or something to trade, but I knew differently. I was a woman, a survivor, just like everyone else here. Even if they refused to treat me with the respect I deserved, I was determined not to fall victim to it.
As I explored the area, weaving around buildings, going farther than we’d ventured last night, I was surprised to discover that Purgatory was even larger than we’d first thought. There were pathways everywhere, leading between buildings, and something was happening at every turn, on every corner.
It was overwhelming at first, especially after being on our own with only endless miles of nothingness surrounding us. Even back in Fredericksville, it hadn’t been like this. Things were quiet and organized there, everything and everyone in their rightful place. This was far different, an organized sort of chaos. It was noisy and smelly and crazy, filled with so many people from different walks of life, all simply trying to survive.
Suddenly, I found myself no longer angry with them, not even at the men staring at me as I passed them. Instead, I shared a sense of common ground. None of us had anything left, and we were all doing what we could to make this life somewhat worth it—worth living through the horror, even if that meant using the only thing we had left to barter with. Men had their fists; women had their bodies. We used, we abused, just like in the old world, but at least here, this seemed to be accomplished with some element of control. At least here it was an honest and up-front way of life. They didn’t hide what they were or what they wanted, not like in Fredericksville where everything was done behind closed doors. Here there was no upper class, no middle class, and no lower class, we were all on equal footing, and there was a surprisingly strange comfort in that fact.