Page 57 of Night in a Waste Land

He didn’t make her wait. His other hand found her hip, and he pulled back, and thrust forward again. Again. Slow, but deep, steady, grinding that last scant fraction each time he bottomed out; so deep she felt each motion in her gut, in the base of her throat. She dropped her forehead to the mattress and moved with him, chasing the slow, relentless mounting of pleasure as he rode her.

It was delicious: hard, thorough thrusts that drove her steadily toward orgasm, the friction and heat and the slap of his hips against her ass perfection all on their own, with the promise of even better to follow. So much better than the mad, frantic tangle of earlier.

“I’m close,” she managed, when she was.

“Me, too,” he gritted out. Then he pitched forward, one hand braced beside her, and reached around to touch her clit while his hips continued to thrust, hard and short kicks now.

The pleasure spiked – peaked – orgasm rolled through her like thunder, all electric flashes and deep pulses. She slumped down to the bed; was dimly aware of Lance pulling out, and of his harsh breaths, and of the hot spray on her back as he came all over her.

He stretched out beside her with a groan, hand landing in the middle of the mess he’d left on her spine. “Damn. I’ll get a washcloth.”

“In a second,” she said, turning her face toward him, seeking–

He kissed her, just as she’d wanted, heated, and lazy, and with too much tongue. Rested their foreheads together, after.

Sleep claimed her for the second time that night, and the mess was tomorrow’s problem.

NINE

The Present

Rose heard the door squeal open behind her, and then the sound of footfalls – a heavy, booted tread. Everyone here wore boots, but she knew this particular gait. Knew it well.

She sighed to herself.

“Where’d he go?” Lance asked, drawing up beside her.

“Into the city.” She nodded toward the lights – toward the stretch of gray, cloudy sky she’d been watching for at least ten minutes: the last place she’d seen Beck as he winged away from her, his silhouette like a condor, black against the charcoal and dust of the cloud cover.

“He what?” Lance asked, sharply. “Shit, did he – did hefly?” He sounded disbelieving, like he hadn’t seen the wings for himself.

“Yeah. I told him they were going to prep a helo for us, and he said there was no need.”

Lance huffed a shocked, angry breath. “The nerve of…did he even have a weapon? A radio? He’s not wearing body armor.”

She turned her head to regard her lover –oneof her lovers, she supposed with an unpleasant twist in her gut. Lance stared out across the wasteland between the airport and the blurred lights of the city, brows drawn sharply together, jaw clenched. He had a smudge on his cheek, some bit of soot off a glove, or his own sleeve, maybe from the plane.

He was so unhappy. So worried. And holding all of it in – or, most of it.

She reached out to brush the smudge away with her thumb.

His head snapped toward her. “What are you doing?”

Her fingertips hovered just above his skin; she’d captured part of the smudge with her thumb, but a shadow of it remained. “You’ve got something.” She gestured to her own face with her free hand. “But if you don’t want me to touch you…?” She let the question hang, vaguely sick to have even asked it. She knew that this had been hard on Lance, she truly did, and she’d meant to pull him aside, speak to him privately, and make sure that he was alright, but things had been moving at a breakneck pace ever since Bedlam gave them the all-clear to depart for Wales. She felt like she hadn’t taken a proper breath in days.

His gaze lingered on her face a moment, poorly-disguised hurt shining in his dark eyes, before he turned away with a snort. “More like you don’t want to touch me.”

“I never said anything like that.” She had so much patience with him now, when she never had before. Beck was the thing that kept her kind and courteous, she thought. Her conscience – an assertion that would have left Beck laughing, eyes and canines flashing.

His mouth pulled sideways in a poor attempt at a smile, one edged starkly with bitterness. “What would you need to touch me for? Now that you’ve got him back.”

“Lance–”

“I’m surprised you’re still here, honestly. That you convinced him to come work with us. I thought you two would just go running off into the wilderness of Wales, never to be seen again.”

“Lance,” she said again, as gently as she could. “If you really thought that, why did you help me bring him back?”

His eyes cut toward her – unwillingly, she thought – and when he swallowed, it looked painful. “Because I want you to be happy.”

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