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  Cold food from cans and no fire in case there were any roaming packs of Resurrected—or worse, the Army or even other survivors with a more aggressive attitude. There wasn’t enough room in the van for everyone to sleep, but Lira would’ve slipped out of it anyway to stare up at the night sky and keep watch. Anthony slept in an empty pickup truck that had gone off the side of the road. She knew he was waiting for her to join him. But first . . . Mac.

  “Hey.” She kicked at a stone and sent it rolling.

  Mac, leaning against the front of the van, glanced at her. “Hey.”

  Silence.

  “He’s waiting for you,” Mac said after a few minutes in a voice low enough not to carry.

  “I know.”

  He turned to her, his expression hard to read in the shadows. She didn’t need to see his face to know what he was going to say. “About that night . . .”

  “I know, Mac.” Lira stretched and smiled up at the stars, uncertain why she should feel such a sense of peace here and now, with the world falling apart all around them. “It’s okay.”

  “Saying ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ is total fuckery,” Mac said. “All things considered.”

  She turned to him. She took his hand and held it tight. “It happened because we both needed it to happen, and I’m not sorry. I don’t want you to be sorry. This whole world has become total fuckery.”

  He nodded. She squeezed his hand. Let it go. She looked up at the stars again. Then, before he could stop her, she moved close and kissed him.

  It wasn’t without passion, not without heat. His hands came up as though she’d startled him, but his mouth parted under hers. He settled his fingertips on her hips as though afraid to hold her more closely than that, and it was fine. The kiss didn’t linger, but it was sweet for all that. When she stepped back, she could see into his eyes.

  Lira smiled. “No regrets.”

  Mac shook his head, then gave her a small smile. “You could make a man rethink them even if he had them.”

  She laughed at that and cupped his face for a moment. “Good night, Mac.”

  In the back of the pickup, Anthony waited. Lira crawled in on top of him. She straddled him without saying a word.

  Anthony said her name, just that. She stopped him with the brush of her lips on his. She tangled her fingers in his hair and held his mouth to hers, then moved her lips along his jaw to nip at the sensitive spot below his ear. She could feel him getting hard through his jeans, and she rocked herself against him.

  He said her name again when she nibbled at his throat, but when she pushed his shirt up to get at his belly, all he could manage was a sharp sigh. She knew his body so well already, yet each time seemed new when she explored his skin with her mouth and hands. His nipples pebbled under her tongue when she licked them, and gooseflesh rose on his skin. When she pulled open his button and zipper to slide her hand inside, to take his erection in her hand, Anthony stopped her.

  “What about him?”

  “I’m not with him. I’m with you.”

  Anthony said nothing.

  “We can talk about that if you want,” she said, stroking his length. “If you think it matters, Anthony. But, I can tell you, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.”

  Again, he put his hand over hers, though this time he let her keep moving it up and down. “Does it matter to him?”

  She paused to look seriously into his eyes. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “It would to me.”

  She smiled a little. “I know. I’m not asking for forgiveness. Just understanding.”

  There it was, right out there, and she wasn’t sure what he’d say. But Anthony nodded after a second, his hand still on hers as it stroked him. He grimaced a little, though not with pain.

  “I understand. Hell, I wish I didn’t. But I guess I do.”

  She kissed him again and tugged his bottom lip between her teeth. Anthony laughed, low. His hips pushed upward, her hand trapped in the front of his jeans and capable only of the smallest range of motion. She needed him naked, and fast.

  Together, they worked to get themselves free of their clothes. Kissing, hands moving, his fingers found her heat and slipped inside while his mouth kept her gasp from being too loud. Anthony slid his mouth from hers to take her nipples, sucking one at a time. First gently. Then harder, flicking each with his tongue until she writhed beneath him. Her hips rocked. She ached for him. His thumb pressed her clit as he fucked his fingers inside her. Then, his cock.

  So good. Always so good. He moved inside her, and not even the hard metal bed of the pickup could detract from that pleasure. Lira hooked her heels around his calves to urge him deeper. Faster. Harder.

  But Anthony didn’t give her what she wanted, not at first. No, damn him, he insisted on easing his cock in and out of her. Teasing her with the tip before sliding in all the way. Adding a twist of his pelvis against her clit that had her hips bucking upward, trying to maximize the sensation.

  “You’re making me crazy,” she whispered.

  Anthony laughed. “I know.”

  So she gave herself up to it and let him do what he wanted. Slow, slow, and sweet. It went on forever, and above her, the stars seemed to move across the sky. She closed her eyes, ignoring the stars to focus instead on the tension curling and twisting inside her.

  When at last he started moving faster, she came in a series of shuddering ripples, over and over, one orgasm leading directly into the next until she couldn’t keep track. Everything had become sensation.

  Everything had become love.

  He kissed her hard when he came. His final thrust sent another shock wave of climax through her, and his kiss swallowed her gasp. Forehead to forehead, her fingers threaded through the sweat-damp hair at the back of his neck, he slowed and stopped. Still inside her, Anthony opened his eyes.

  “Only this,” Lira said hoarsely. “And nothing else matters.”

  Chapter Five

  IN FRONT OF them, a mountain rose. Set into it was a set of garage doors. Inside them, cool air, carved stone walls, long corridors, and closed doors, and a welcoming party consisting of . . . a little girl on roller skates?

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Maddy. Have you come to play?”

  Lira and Mac exchanged a look. He stepped forward. “We’re looking for a safe place to stay.”

  “My dad says this place is the safest.” Maddy did a swirling circle on her skates and tossed them a grin over her shoulder. “Come on, I’ll take you to where the grown-ups are.”

  As easy as that. It helped that Mac’s buddy vouched for him, so that even though some of the survivalists grumbled at opening their doors to a bunch of newcomers, the others, who were eager for news of the world outside, outvoted the naysayers. Most of the group also agreed they didn’t feel right turning away Heather, whose baby was still refusing to be born. Besides, as Mac pointed out, if a little girl on skates could make the rest of the place her personal playground, wasn’t the safety of their entire group undermined?

  Maybe it hadn’t been so easy after all, Lira thought as she closed the door behind a suspicious-faced woman who’d shown them to the private room with a completely fitted-out shower just down the hall. Group dynamics got more difficult, not easier, with more people. And more supplies didn’t necessarily make people more generous. Still, for now they were safe and secure, well fed and bathed and comfortable.

  None of them seemed sick, at least not yet.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Anthony said from the bed. He wore clean clothes, provided by the survivalists, and he’d availed himself of the shower too. He propped himself up on an elbow. “Too easy.”

  “Mac knows the guy,” Lira said. “That helped.”

  Anthony shook his head. “Still . . . all these people supposedly paid a lot of money to get a share in this place. You think they’d just let us in?”

  “Have you seen the size of it? There’s plenty of room.” Lira settled next to him. She ran a hand over h