Shades of Ménage : A Dystopian Romance Ménage & Post Catastrophic Romance Ménage Boxed Set Series - Ultimate Four-Book Collection (12 page)

Her hungry gaze followed the thatch of hair that arrowed down in a straight line over his belly and dipped downward to swaddle his cock and balls. For two days, she’d resisted the urge to touch his cock the way she’d touched him all those years ago when they’d been in love.

Now that his fever had diminished and she knew he’d be all right, she couldn’t resist the urge to re-explore his gorgeous body while he slept. Consider it a little something to get her by during the lonely nights ahead after she disappeared on Luke once more.

As she visually examined his enormous penis lying limp between those two swollen testicles, her empty vagina ached to be filled. His cock was much bigger than she remembered and a little sliver of jealously rippled through her when she recalled learning about how sexual release with conscripted or volunteer women was mandatory during the Terrorist Wars.

How many women had made love to Luke while he’d been in the army? Had they been beautiful and gorgeous? Or plain everyday types like herself?

Holding her breath, she reached out and ran a finger along one of the blue veins that ran down each side of his thick shaft. Her eyes widened in surprise as his cock thickened and elongated right before her very eyes. The engorged head popped out from its sheath and a trickle of pre-come slid out from the slit.

Oh, my goodness!

She cast a quick glance at Luke.

Was he feigning sleep?

His eyes were closed. His chest heaved slowly up and down. Could he actually respond to her in his sleep?

She had limited sexual experience with men. Some heavy necking with guys in high school but when Luke had come along she’d only been with him. Aside from orally pleasing each other in a hurried, desperate way to gain sexual release, he’d never penetrated her vaginally. She noticed the edges of his lips curl upward slightly in a smile.

Maybe he was dreaming? About her?

A silly schoolgirl type giggle erupted from her and she shook her head at her silliness.

He wouldn’t be dreaming about her.

While she’d been rotting away in the labs he’d been out there exploring life to the fullest.

Now maybe it was her turn to explore?

She cupped her fingers around his hot cock. It thickened further in her palms.

Callie’s excitement grew.

Despite wanting to continue touching him she knew if he awoke and caught her touching him it would only encourage him and give him false hope that they would pick up their engagement where they’d left off.

Obviously, that’s what he’d had in mind by forcing the preacher to marry them. But Luke needed to know about what had really happened all those years ago. And what they’d done to her in the experimental labs.

She knew she wasn’t brave enough to tell him the truth. If he found out, he would hate her forever.

Callie bit back a sob.

Reluctantly she let go of Luke’s hard cock and lay her head on his muscular chest. The strong steady thump of his heartbeat eased away some of her pain.

He would get better and then she would leave him.

It had to be that way.

* * * * *

Luke had the sense that someone was nearby. He couldn’t hear anyone but he just had the sensation someone was with him. From somewhere far off came the bone-chilling howl of a lonely coyote and nearby the crackle of a fire.

They’d had trouble out in the west pasture with some of the cows being butchered. His brothers and he had spotted numerous tracks.

Not coyote tracks but human.

Women, not men.

It was bound to happen. Women who’d defied the new Claiming Law. Women who hid like animals in the woods evading capture from the numerous groups of men who were desperate for female company.

He himself was desperate. But forcing a woman to submit wasn’t his way, nor was it the way of his brothers.

But still, the idea of going out there and finding a woman to ease the ache and erase the memory of Callie…

The thought of Callie made his heart pick up a mad pace. He’d had dreams about her while he’d been in the Wars and since he’d been back home.

Lots of dreams.

But these recent ones had been different.

So real.

He’d had nightmares of getting shot by the Barlows. Stumbling to the church. The preacher finding him…

Then he’d seen Callie.

Of course she’d just been a dream, but she’d reassured him she wasn’t.

Suddenly her sweet feminine scent swarmed around him like a teasing lover and along with it came a bitch of an ache in his shoulder.

What the hell had happened to him?

Visions swooped over him. Naked bodies, the slurps of mouths on a woman. Screams. Overwhelming pain.

Luke opened his eyes and he blinked at the familiar ceiling filled with pine rafters.

It was the tiny log home he’d built for Callie. After boarding it up years ago he’d purposely stayed away from here because it reminded him too much of her.

Yet here he was.

Why? How did he get here?

He tried to move his head but a dull throbbing erupted between his eyes making him stop.

He licked his lips. So dry. Man, he was thirsty.

He heard the rustle of someone moving and then he smelled her again.

A delicious combination of flowers and her own unique feminine scent. A scent he’d never been able to forget even when he’d been surrounded by the stench of dead soldiers. Was he hallucinating about her now?

Conflicting emotions spiraled through him, threatening to sink him back into oblivion. He fought it and recalled more things.

Holding a gun on her, making sure she wouldn’t disappear again. Ordering her to stand in front of the candlelight, so he could admire the outline of her long legs, the seductive silhouette of her shapely hips.

Where was she? She had to be somewhere nearby. Her scent was everywhere making him heady with desire. Making him scared, that maybe he’d somehow gone nuts.

“
Callie?”

At least that’s what he thought he’d said. The only thing that escaped was a groan. Disbelief sifted inside him and yet there was a wonderful hope simmering too.

She was here. She had to be.

Clothing rustled and she appeared, a concerned smile on those luscious lips he’d been dying to kiss since she’d disappeared all those years ago.

“
Welcome back,” she said softly. “How do you feel?”

He tried to talk but nothing came out.

“
Would you like some water?”

He nodded.

Momentary panic shot through him as she dropped out of his view but then came the tinkling of water and a moment later, she was back, pressing the cool cup to his parched lips.

He drank eagerly, relishing the liquid as it washed away the dryness and when she pulled the cup away, he groaned in protest.

“
Not too much. I don’t want you getting sick.”

He nodded again.

Man, did she ever look good.

Her mid-back length auburn curls were gone in favor of a very short, basic cut that gave her a tomboy look.

A very sexy tomboy.

He couldn’t help from grinning or stopping himself from exploring every inch of her flawless face. Her high forehead was barely concealed by wisps of short bangs that sat just above perfectly arched dark eyebrows. A dainty spattering of light frecked her rosy cheeks and a perfect nose.

His eyes fluttered sleepily.

No! He couldn’t go back to sleep. She wouldn’t be here when he woke up.

She must have sensed his fear for her fingers intertwined with his and she held his hand to the generous swell of her left breast.

The hard pounding of her heart relaxed him. Reassured him that his fiancée was very much alive.

Before he drifted off, he imagined his wedding ring glittering on her ring finger.

But that wasn’t possible.

They’d never gotten married.

* * * * *

The next time Luke awoke, Callie was sliding a pleasant scented ointment over the sensitive flesh surrounding the tattered exit wound in the front of his shoulder.

Immediately he remembered the ring he’d thought he’d seen earlier. He looked down at her finger.

The ring wasn’t there.

A dream.

Just a delirious dream. Like all the others must have been.

He hadn’t held Callie at gunpoint. He hadn’t savored her curvy silhouette as he’d made her stand in front of the candle glow with the preacher watching in the background.

But it had seemed so real.

Too real.

He lowered his lashes slightly so she wouldn’t notice he was awake and let his hungry gaze ravish her pretty features.

She was sleepy, he could tell by the way her eyelids fluttered as she softly massaged the ointment into his flesh.

Her eyes were just as he remembered them. Long black lashes that framed the prettiest pale blue eyes just like the color of the June sky at high noon.

He’d always loved looking into them.

Loved the way they’d flashed with laughter when he’d joked with her. It had always brought a gentle warmth coursing through him. And the way they darkened when he’d teased her had always made his breath back up into his lungs.

Most of all he’d loved the way they’d sparkled when he’d orally taken her clit into his mouth and later sucked her sweet feminine cream from her vagina.

Those familiar sparks in her eyes were gone now, replaced by a look of wariness.

A look of the hunted.

He frowned.

There were other things he hadn’t noticed.

Like the dark circles beneath her eyes and the faint worry wrinkles lightly etched into her forehead.

He didn’t know what horrors she’d gone through over the past five years but whatever they were he’d help her through her pain. They’d get through it together.

He lowered his gaze to where her breasts pressed tightly against the cotton material of the dark green blouse she wore. Every detail of her silky globes were etched in his memory forever, from the hot pink of her firm plump nipples, the darker pink of her areolas, to the darker blush on her face as she caught him watching her.

“
Good morning,” she said cheerfully, too joyfully.

Immediately he knew something was amiss.

“
What’s wrong?” he whispered.

She shook her head and to his surprise, she laughed. It was a real laugh and it filled him with that wild happiness he’d always experienced when she was joyful.

“
You always did know when something was wrong.”

“
So? What…is it?”

“
I think something happened to the preacher.”

Luke’s blood ran cold.

The preacher.

Yes, he had been here.

Something flickered in the back of his mind.

Pain. Confusion. The nervous preacher. An angry Callie. The preacher reading wedding vows?

Luke blinked the silly thoughts away.

“
It’s been two days since I sent him for your brother,” she explained. “Neither of them showed up.”

Damn! She was right. Something had happened. If Colter knew he was in trouble, he would have come.

“
Can we trust the preacher not to give you away in case he’s been stopped by the authorities?”

She seemed shocked at his question. “He’s a man of the cloth. He won’t betray me if that’s what you mean.”