LovewithaChanceofZombies (4 page)

Her hands stilled. “But it did break the skin. You know what
that means, Lucas.”

“Of
course
I know what that means. And I’ll be a good
boy. Take myself out when the time is right. Hell, I’ll even leave all my lab
notes in good working order and leave a will and everything. But it fucking
sucks
that I have to. Because I want to scream and punch things. I want to go out,
find the fucking inhuman
slime
that did this to me and rip that monster
to shreds, one small piece at a time. I wasn’t ready to go, I still had things
to do, dammit! It isn’t
fair
.”

Lena slipped her arms around him, pulling him close until
his face was resting against her belly. Stroking his hair, she tried to think
of anything to say that might help. But nothing came to mind, because
everything Lucas had said was the truth.

Finally, unable to offer anything else, she gave him the
only thing she could—herself.

“You know what? You’re right, Lucas. I do need protection
from the night terrors. I think I’ll spend the night with you after all.”

Chapter Five

Lena did the right thing—because in her way, she felt as
bound by that hero’s code as Lucas Nye did—and told Watson of the slight change
in plan. She wasn’t surprised when he gave his blessing.

She arrived back at Nye’s room with a duffel bag, dismissing
the guard as she tapped on the door. Nye answered, grinning when he saw the
luggage.

“I’ve never had a roommate before. Good thing this place is
bigger than my room in the single guys’ dorm.”

Lena snorted. “I’m not exactly moving in. I just thought
it’d be more convenient to have a toothbrush and a change of clothes.” She
didn’t own much more than that, anyway.

She moved into the room, looking around for the first time.
She’d seen it from the door, of course, on the previous nights when she’d
locked Nye in. This was the first time she’d actually entered it, however.

“Damn. I bet you wish you’d known about this before. Nobody
had claimed it?”

Nye chuckled. “It didn’t look like this. Watson and my team,
the people who know about this, they fixed it up for me. I think it used to be
the on-call room, but we just used it for storage and the occasional shower.”

The space was a vast improvement on a dorm room, despite the
lack of any windows. It was at least twenty feet square and had been fitted
with furniture that Watson and the medics must have pilfered from a furniture
store or one of the college offices. There was a table with a few chairs near
the sink, a somewhat-tatty leather couch and a glass coffee table in the middle
of the room, even a television with a DVD player below it on a shelf. Along the
far wall, a hospital screen had been set up. Lena assumed the bed was behind
that.

“The shower and everything are through there,” Nye pointed
out. He had clearly already availed himself of the shower, as his hair was
still wet, and he’d changed into a pair of loose plaid flannel drawstring
pants. Lena had to remind herself not to stare at the tempting patch of taut
skin below his bellybutton, the dark trail of hair arrowing down into the
waistband, the lean crevices in front of each hip. He was in good shape. Most
people were these days. Nobody wanted to be the slowest person in the bunch.
The slowest person was the most likely to get eaten.

She brushed her teeth and showered quickly, throwing on a
tank top and boxer shorts to rejoin Nye in what she automatically thought of as
the living room. He was on the couch, feet resting on the table, one hand
cocked behind his head while the other held a remote control.

“They thought of everything,” Lena said softly, and Nye
craned his neck to watch as she approached the couch and sat down, not too
close to him. Giving him space if he wanted it.

“It’s pretty sweet,” he agreed. He pitched the remote onto
the table in a gentle lob and it clattered a little as it landed. “I should’ve
been more of a diva, I could have been living the high life down here in the
basement all along, I guess. Do you want to know what I realized while you were
in the shower?”

Lena nodded, then giggled nervously as Nye turned her by the
hand, tugging until she was sitting in his lap.

“I realized,” he said, reaching up to run his fingers
through her hair and pivoting her head to face him, “that I was spending way
too much time looking at a bunch of slides I’ve seen eight million times
before, looking for a cure I’m never going to find, when I could be focusing on
at least leaving some kind of mark on the world. Maybe the only kind I
can
make now. So for the time I have left, I think we should spend less time
messing around in the lab and more time messing around in here. How do you feel
about that?”

Lena’s heart thumped so hard she thought it must be audible
to Nye. “Are you talking about a baby?”

Nye tightened his grip on her hair, so Lena couldn’t look
away if she’d wanted to. His eyes looked almost emerald, an unearthly green,
and she felt as if he were seeing straight through her skin to her bones.

“I’m saying,” he explained, “that I want to get you
pregnant. I don’t have a lot of time to do it, but I think it’s worth a try.
It’s a hell of a lot more likely than my finding a cure in the next three
weeks.”

“It could be as many as five,” she said automatically. Not
that five more weeks was enough. Lena was beginning to suspect that no amount
of time would be enough with Nye. But she would take as much time as she could
get.

“It could be as few as two. We have no way to know that. It
could be another ten years, and we both know I still wouldn’t find anything.
But I’d like to know that at least a little part of me will live on in the
genetic code of the human race.”

“That’s…not all that romantic,” Lena hinted. She was already
here, willing to sleep with him in the name of pleasure. If he wanted to go
this route instead, demand this emotional involvement, he was going to have to
do at least a little bit of work.

“I jerked off into a cup for the team already,” Nye told
her. “I know in theory they have my sperm and will attempt to impregnate as
many volunteers as possible with it.
That
wasn’t very romantic, I’ll be
the first to admit.”

He let go of her hair. Lena missed the contact but was
appeased when he shifted her to straddle his lap instead, then brought both his
hands up to frame her face and direct her gaze toward his again. Lena felt him
growing hard and couldn’t resist working her hips closer to press against him.
Nye’s control was admirable; he didn’t bat an eye, though his cock twitched and
swelled even more at the stimulation.

“This is different though,” he continued. “This is making
love to a specific person. To
you
. With the specific intention of trying
to make a baby with you. I’d like to die knowing that a remarkable woman was
possibly carrying my baby. I’d also like to do everything I can think of one
last time, with the hottest girl I’ve ever met. There, is that better?”

Lena opened her mouth to say something snappy, but only a
pleading little whimper came out. Nye looked smug and pulled her down for a
kiss, claiming her mouth in no uncertain terms. He let her go after a minute,
only to stand her up between his knees and pull her clothes off in a few quick,
efficient moves.

Accustomed to fast, often furtive encounters, Lena was
self-conscious about standing nude in a well-lit room, being scrutinized from
head to toe by an eager hunk with a piercing gaze. Apprehension quickly turned
to anticipation, however, as Lucas made it clear with his words and his hands
how much he liked everything he saw.

“Turn around,” he told her, guiding her hips until she faced
away from him. “Oh yeah. Your ass looks so good, even in those army pants. But
naked? It’s goddamned intoxicating; there should be some sort of regulation.”
He squeezed both sides appreciatively, pressing kisses across the fleshy mounds
and licking along the seam between cheek and thigh. Lena gasped as his fingers
parted her, slipping along her pussy in a grazing tease.

“Already wet. I like that,” Nye murmured, coaxing her back
around to face him and giving her a sexy smile when she met his eyes. “Put your
foot up here so I can see all of you.” He patted the cushion next to his thigh,
and Lena obediently propped her foot up, though she blushed all over again at
the lewd exposure.

Lucas made it worth her while. He started with fingertips,
tracing long, faint lines from inside her knees up to the tops of her inner
thighs. When he stopped just short of her sex, Lena groaned. Nye chuckled in an
evil, self-satisfied way, tickling his way around the most interesting spots.

“You want my mouth, don’t you?”

Lena grabbed his hair with one hand, trying not to let him
take control of the situation again. She knew it was too late already though.
It had been too late when he’d kissed her that first time, and a hidden part of
her soul craved the guidance. There were recent rumors of a colony where the
women were kept as sex slaves to the men, and despite her stated revulsion at
the idea, Lena had succumbed to more than one erotic dream about such an
arrangement. It was a blessed relief, being told what to do, not bearing the
responsibility. At least for a little while.

“You know I’m going to make you ask for it, Lena,” Nye told
her. He pressed his thumbs in the hollows at the tops of her thighs, pulling
there to stimulate her pussy without touching it. “I might even make you beg.”

She shivered as his breath whispered over her skin, adding
to her torture. “Please, Lucas.”

“I’m not convinced you really want this.”

“Why do I have to say it when you already know what I want?
You’re just being mean.”

His grin was as wicked as it was delightful. “I love hearing
you say it though. Knowing you don’t want to is the best part. Getting you to
the point where you’ll ask me anyway, because you want it…that…much.” He
punctuated his speech with featherlight brushes of his lips over the crisp
curls in front of him, and Lena whimpered with growing need.

She knew he was right, that she would give in, and she
couldn’t think why it was such a turn-on. She didn’t want to think, anyway,
just feel.

Time to give in.

“I want your mouth on me,” she breathed. He pressed a
useless kiss on the inside of her thigh, and her fingers tightened in his thick
hair. “On my clit,” she amended, and gasped as he finally obliged.

Lena would have liked a bit more self-control, but Nye
seemed to have pulled it right out of her with one greedy pass of his tongue.

“You taste fucking amazing,” he mumbled.

Lena replied, “Oh my god, use your hand too!”

She didn’t last very long at all.

Lucas, ever sensitive to her needs, held her up as she shook
through her climax, then provided a convenient landing spot for her limp body
by freeing his erection from his soft drawstring pants. Lena sank onto him,
clutching his shoulders and whispering his name as he filled her, delicious and
slow, and she savored each inch until they were pressed together as tightly as
two people could be. She let her head fall to Lucas’ shoulder. It felt like
coming home.

She would have moved then, but he held her there so long she
grew concerned.

“Lucas?” She lifted her head and looked at his face. His
eyes were closed, the dark fringe of his lashes still against his pale cheeks.
He wasn’t smiling exactly, but he somehow looked ecstatic nonetheless.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, “and just
feel
for a
minute.”

Grumpy at being thrown off her stride, not expecting this
shift in mood, Lena sighed softly before she complied.

“What am I feeling?” she asked, feeling silly. She didn’t
know him well enough to know if this was just something he did. Every guy she’d
ever been with had tricks, routines. Maybe the sensitive-guy
feeling
thing was just Lucas’ second-fuck routine.

She knew she shouldn’t think about how many women he’d done
this with. It should be enough that she would be the last. Maybe if she’d
earned the position fair and square, she’d be easier in her mind about it.

“Everything. That’s what I’m feeling. I just want to
remember everything about this exact moment. The way I can still smell you and
taste you on my lips. The way it feels to be inside you, so hot and good. How
your stomach feels, moving against mine every time you take a breath. I can
hear you breathing too.” He bent her back a little, lowered his head and tilted
it, pressing his ear to her chest. “And I can hear your heart. It’s probably
beating a little slower now than it was a few seconds ago, and you’re sitting
there thinking, ‘What the hell is wrong with this guy?’ If I opened my eyes I’d
probably see you looking at me like I’m nuts.”

He didn’t sound too worried about that. Lena thought if he
opened his eyes right now, he would see her looking at him like a lovesick
fool. That wasn’t a role she felt comfortable accepting just yet, so she pushed
the notion down.

“All the senses, huh? Sight’s a sense too, you know. Don’t
you want to engrave the picture in your memory? Or is it just that with your
eyes closed you can imagine all the ones who got away?” She chuckled and
squeezed her inner muscles on him, feeling smug at the hiss her move elicited.

“No,” he clarified. “My eyes are closed because when I open
them I see you, and I’m torn. I want it to last forever, but you’re so amazing
I know I won’t last five minutes.”

He opened his eyes anyway and looked at her, putting his
hands on her cheeks. Lena lifted hers too, automatically, because she could
feel herself blushing and her first instinct was to hide that. She didn’t want
to give that much away.

Her fingers met his thumbs brushing over her cheekbones. Too
late. He’d gotten there first, and she was revealed.

Lucas stared at her as if she actually was amazing. To her
surprise, she
felt
amazing.

“I see you, Lena,” he whispered. “This is the picture I’m
engraving in my memory.”

She nodded as if he’d asked consent. After a hushed moment,
he wrapped his arms around her again, clinging tightly, and they finally moved
together in ancient instinct. When he came, a hoarse cry marking his orgasm,
Lena felt his release like a heartbeat inside her body, hot and sweet and deep.