Love and Decay, Boy Meets Girl Read online

  Shit.

  “These are bad,” I mentioned as a way to distract my wayward thoughts.

  “I know,” she groaned.

  I wanted to smile reassuringly at her, but instead said, “Bruce Lee.”

  “What?” She had no idea what I was talking about.

  “You looked like Bruce Lee with your foot flying through the door.”

  She laughed like she was surprised she was laughing. And then accused me with, “You could have warned me you were going to open the door.”

  “I didn’t know if you were a friend or an enemy,” I told her. I knew that was true, but it also didn’t feel true. I might have been playing it safe, but I always knew she wasn’t my enemy. I took my eyes off her palm and met her dark gaze. She held my stare with a cool confidence I admired.

  She blushed while we stared at each other, her creamy skin heating with a sweet redness. “Fair enough,” she breathed.

  I didn’t know what else to say after that so I went back to work on her wounds. For the first time that I could remember, she threw me way off my game. And I didn’t know if it was because I was out of practice or if it was her.

  Since I’d never worried about this before now, I had to assume it was her. Something in the way she held herself, emanating courage and resiliency; the way she watched me with an intuition that was unnerving, the way she kept glancing at her friend just to make sure she was alright. She wasn’t from the world I lived in. She was ethereal… incorporeal… she was the meaning in a life that had none.

  Was that too deep too soon?

  Hell, yes. There was something so wrong with me.

  She broke the silence first, “This is quite the set up you have here.”

  Still feeling unnerved I came back brilliantly with, “Yep.

  “Have you been here since the beginning?”

  “Nope.” Well, that was better….

  “So how long then? You have a serious utopia up here; I’m surprised there aren’t more of you.”

  “We don’t trust outsiders,” I explained shortly. Although, I wondered if that was still true. She was here.

  “Oh, like me?” She rolled her eyes at me. “That works out great since I don’t trust you either.”

  “You shouldn’t,” I warned her.

  “Wow, you sure know how to make a girl feel welcome.” She was growing increasingly uncomfortable next to me, but I was almost glad. I couldn’t let this girl in, and I really couldn’t continue to have these insane thoughts. She needed to be reminded as strongly as I did. We weren’t friends. I couldn’t take on another person to watch out for and she wouldn’t want to be a part of our group anyway.

  Although, all those arguments felt so weak compared to the tornado of convictions she’d been stirring up since her arrival.

  I was in so much trouble.

  I needed to get my head and my body back under my control.

  “It doesn’t matter; you’ll be gone in a few hours anyway.” I stared at her wounds, paying extra attention to everything I did. That warning was true, but it was more for my benefit than hers, if I were honest with myself.

  “Like, you’re going to kill us?”

  “What?” I growled at her. How did she get to that conclusion? “We’re not going to kill you. We’re going to send you on your way. We don’t want you here. I already told you, we don’t trust outsiders.”

  Now she looked offended. Confusing woman.

  “But I’m a woman,” she said.

  Like I needed to be reminded of that.

  “Yep.”

  “Aren’t you going to rape me?” And she actually sounded disappointed.

  “What?” I practically choked on her question. “Do you want me to rape you?”

  “Obviously not, it’s just….” she trailed off and I said a silent prayer of thanks. What in the world? And then she asked, “So how did you guys meet?”

  I was already annoyed that she had expected me to rape her and surprised that she didn’t catch on to the fact that we were brothers. I mean, we all looked alike. To be a jackass, I answered, “Online dating.”

  To my horror, she nodded her head like she completely understood. “Oh, like before?” she asked. “That makes sense then. It’s actually kind of sweet you still have each other through all this craziness.”

  “I was kidding.” Holy hell, King and Harrison were like thirteen and fifteen when this thing started. What was wrong with her worldview? Not that men couldn’t be gay in middle school, but hopefully they hadn’t jumped into online dating before they finished puberty.

  “I’m not judging you,” she answered sincerely. “I think it’s great. Seriously!”

  As if she had to convince me of this.

  “We’re not gay,” I bit out defensively. “We’re brothers.”

  She snorted a surprised laugh and then continued on until she had to drop her head and tears pooled in her eyes, making them glossy and bright.

  “Don’t ever try to be a comedian,” she panted in between gasps of laughter. “In fact, maybe don’t ever attempt a joke again.”

  I just looked at her. I didn’t know what to say, or how to take this conversation back into territory where she didn’t assume I was gay and I made her nervous. I’d been living in the Zombie Apocalypse for two years and this was by far the most horrifying moment so far.

  Well, maybe not. But it definitely made top ten.

  I finished the dressing on her left hand and then we tackled her shirt.

  “I’m wearing a tank top underneath; I can just take this off.” She gestured at her long sleeved shirt and I forgot how to swallow. “Uh, do you have a knife? You could just cut it off,” she prompted.

  Some brain activity returned to my head but the only thing that came out was an irritated question. “You trust a stranger with a knife?” Because it irritated me that she did trust me. What if had wanted to rape her? Or hurt her? I hated that she would put herself in danger like this willingly. She needed someone to protect her; she needed someone to fight these unseen battles for her.

  “You’ve had plenty of opportunity to do what you want to me,” she reasoned knowingly. “I trust a stranger that knows how to take care of open wounds.”

  She had a point so I went to work. I pulled a knife from my pocket and set about cutting off her shirt. I was careful not to come too close to her skin, or near the tight tank top underneath.

  My blood seemed to heat hotter and hotter with every slice of the knife and inch of skin I exposed. The whole experience was starting to feel strangely erotic and I didn’t exactly know how to handle this.

  That’s right, twenty-three years old and a girl in her tank top was more than enough to make me embarrass myself. I shifted on my barstool and worked to focus on the clinical, medical aspect of my task.

  But, my god, her skin- perfect, milky and a little pale. Her arms were well-defined, her collarbones so elegantly arched across her chest. Her neck stretched in a long, slender line. Her tank top was tight to her perfect body and low cut over a swelling of perfect breasts.

  And it had been a very, very long time since I’d seen a girl this beautiful so undressed.

  My entire body felt on fire from her nearness. And it wasn’t just my male instincts stuttering to life. It was her- everything about her that called to some buried, hidden part of me.

  Until an hour ago, I hadn’t realized what a state of undead I’d fallen into. Sure, I fought daily to kill real Zombies; but somewhere along the way I’d become one myself.

  Reagan had awoken that decaying part of me and brought me back to life. I’d been a corpse rotting away in the crypt of my life and she breathed life into me, raised me from the dead, reminded me that I was not just a person trying to protect his family, but that I was a man trying to live in a world that wanted me to die.

  Somehow able to think all of this through and muddle through the task of cleaning her numerous wounds, I reached for a clean towel and poured some bottled water on it. I
pressed the wet cloth to her forearm, intending to scrub away the dried blood when she shivered. I looked up and caught her gaze- as deep and intense as anything I’d ever been a part of- and waited. She nodded her permission and I let my itching fingers go to work.

  I treated her with the utmost respect, forcing my increasingly hungry body into submission. She was precious, fragile… feminine. And I wanted to treat her like that. My mission in life was to protect and I would give her that, too. Even if I had to protect her from myself.

  Once I was finished, I looked her over and let my gaze fall to her jeans. Self-control. I was a master at self-control.

  “Uh, maybe we should cut those off too?” I suggested because I couldn’t see another option to get at her still-bleeding knees.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” she agreed. “They were going in the trash anyway.”

  “Do you have other clothes?” I asked out of true concern. I didn’t want to cut apart her only clothes. Although I was sure we could find her something around here if she was desperate.

  “Sure thing.” She grinned devilishly at me. “From our shopping spree.”

  I was too nervous about the cutting her jeans apart portion of the evening to respond to her snide comment, although I did find her amusing. I liked that- a sense of humor.

  “Alright, I’m going to cut around your thigh, and then I’ll deal with your knees. Do they feel as bad as your palms?”

  She shook her head, “No, actually. I think my jeans protected them to some extent.”

  I toyed with the knife in my hand for a minute before working up the courage to attack her pants. I worked methodically and efficiently, but I couldn’t ignore the feel of her warm thigh beneath my fingertips. Finally, after agonizing moments the majority of her jeans were gone and her wounded knees were ready for my ministrations.

  I looked up to take in her face and decide if she could tell what she was doing to me; but instead of horror and rage, she blushed bright red, staring at her legs in an undiluted terror. I glanced down, too, and bit back a smile at the admirable length of hair growing from ankle to where her thighs disappeared in the part of her jeans not discarded.

  She had no idea how fascinating she was just then. She stared at her legs with embarrassment, that same peculiar vanity jumping to light. But all I could think was that the unshaven mess only made her more attractive.

  Because now she was real.

  Only moments ago she was an otherworldly creature that descended upon Earth to torture me, to haunt my dreams from this day forward and occupy my lonely thoughts. No real girl was this beautiful. No real girl this laid back… this witty…. this sexy.

  But she was real. Maybe the last of her kind.

  And she was sitting right in front of me.

  Her head dropped to her hands so she didn’t have to face me, and I resisted against one of the strongest urges I’d ever had in my life- to slowly peel her hands away from that lovely face and kiss her senseless.

  “It’s not that bad,” I promised her in a voice that practically cracked from all my surging desire and confusion

  “It’s really bad,” she groaned. She peeked out from behind a wall of fingers and I couldn’t help but smile while I examined the remaining shards of glass in her knees.

  “It could be worse,” I shrugged a casual shoulder, hoping to make her feel at ease. “It could be a mustache.”

  “Was that a joke?” she looked up at me, distracted suddenly.

  “So what?”

  She laughed a light-hearted, happy sound that made my chest swell and ego inflate. I did that. I made her laugh like that.

  “So,” she said still laughing. “It was almost funny.”

  My head snapped up and I met her gaze again. She was teasing me, but all I could think about was how much she was making me fall for her. And I had known her an hour. I felt out of my mind with this thing.

  I felt dumbstruck.

  I felt like a child seeing the infinity of the stars for the first time.

  But I wasn’t a child. I was a man. And I’d seen the stars lots of times. I should be able to hold my shit together.

  And then she winked at me and I knew I was seconds from doing something I regretted. Like, kissing her after all. So I just went back to work on her knees, focusing on what was causing her pain and taking great strides to make the experience as painless and comfortable as I could.

  As soon as the last bandage was on, she jumped up and moved away from me. I did the same thing. I had to. I needed to think straight again. I needed to get my head right.

  That didn’t stop me from watching her walk away though. She still hobbled a little, but seemed much better than when she tried to walk up the stairs.

  Once she reached her friend, I walked over to Vaughan. We needed to talk. And he stood with all my other brothers who probably had a say in all this too.

  “Hey, we need to talk,” I echoed my thoughts as soon as he was in mumbling range.

  He looked up at me with curious eyes and nodded. “Yes, we do. I thought we had a strict no outsider’s policy, Hendrix. What the hell?”

  “Come on,” I grunted. “I couldn’t leave them down there.”

  Vaughan thought that over, but he knew I was right. “Fine, but now what? What if they want something?”

  “Well?” I gestured over at the girls perched on a register counter, laughing and talking freely. “They might want something. But they should. Look at them, they need a whole lot of somethings.”

  “You want to let them have access to our supplies?”

  “And I’m thinking we let them stay the night here.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Nelson commented dryly.

  “No, I think he’s found his heart,” Vaughan joked but then grew serious. “You’re serious about this?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t send them back out there. I would never forgive myself.” For more reasons than one.

  “Fine, then they can stay, yeah?” Vaughan stated but left it in a question- as was his way. Sure, he was our supreme leader, but he always gave us a chance to speak up. “For just tonight.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” I agreed. “They look like they haven’t slept in a while. At least not straight through the night.”

  “Sure, it’s fine with me,” Nelson nodded. “Anyone have anything against that?”

  Nobody said anything.

  “Alright, go tell them,” Vaughan ordered me with an amused raise of his eyebrows.

  “That’s probably not a good idea,” I tried to remain casual. “She’s a little weirded out by me.”

  “She?” Nelson picked up immediately on my slip. “Not they?”

  “They,” I growled back. “They’re a little weirded out by me.”

  “Why is that?” Harrison asked suspiciously.

  “They have this fear of being raped,” I admitted dryly.

  “By you?” King barked out a laugh and Harrison joined him.

  “What so funny about that?” I demanded. Not that I wanted to be considered a rapist or anything, but I didn’t think the concept was funny.

  “Because you’re like…. you’re like…. asexual. You wouldn’t rape them! You wouldn’t know how!” King explained.

  What the hell? Bastards. All of them.

  “You don’t even know what that word means,” I growled causing them to howl with more laughter. I wasn’t asexual. At least not anymore.

  “I can tell them,” Vaughan cut in. He turned around but not before throwing out, “Since they obviously make Hendrix nervous.”

  I let out a frustrated sigh but followed my idiot brothers over to talk to them.

  Vaughan led with a question, “When’s the last time you’ve had a good night’s sleep?”

  Reagan bit her lip and looked at her friend. “Define good night,” she challenged.

  “When was the last time you slept the entire night through?” he clarified.

  Neither of them responded. They looked at each
other and then back at us with blank, lost expressions. And that’s when I knew they hadn’t had a good night sleep since this whole thing began.

  Vaughan drew the same conclusion. “That’s what I thought. You can’t stay with us permanently.” That part was for me, I thought. “But you can spend the night. We will give you a full night’s rest before you move on in the morning.”

  They just kept staring at us and I wondered if their fear of strangers went deeper than they appeared.

  “Explain the raping thing, Vaughan.” I told him.

  A knowing smile stretched across Vaughan’s face and I bristled with irritation. He was going to lord this over my head until the end of time. I knew it. And it was because I was really pushing for the girls to stay. Ever since we embarked on this survival journey, I’d let Vaughan take the lead- for the most part- kept my opinions to myself and gone with the flow as much as I could. Standing up for something, especially something involving outsiders and girls for that matter, was completely out of character for me.

  Even I had to wonder what was going on in my head.

  “Oh, and my little brother would like to assure you that you will not be raped.” And I could have punched him in the face right then. Little brother? Really? Asshole. Vaughan continued, “This happens to be a rape-free zone.”

  Reagan’s friend whispered something in her ear and they both looked down, trying to hide their smiles. Were they making fun of us? Or just happy to have some place safe for the night?

  A nervous laugh bubbled up in Reagan and escaped before she could compose herself. They were definitely making fun of us and now I couldn’t help but feel this obnoxious need to know what was said.

  “We’ll take it,” Reagan said easily. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning, but we will take your offer.”

  “Definitely,” the friend agreed. And then she made proper introductions. “Oh and I’m Haley and this is Reagan.”

  We nodded in return, trying to play it cool. I watched Nelson stiffen though, his whole body went rigid and alert. I followed his gaze to Haley. Maybe I wasn’t the only one feeling the presence of females for the first time in way too long.

  “Nelson,” Vaughan noticed too and did not seem pleased. “Get Page. She’ll be safe from these ones.” Then he turned back to the girls. “I’m Vaughan, you’ve met Hendrix and Nelson. My other two brothers are Harrison and King. Nelson went to get our sister, Page. Best you stay away from her. If anything happens to my little sister, all responsible parties will suffer before they die excruciating deaths, got that?” Vaughan’s warning was a little over the top, but necessary. And I was glad he gave it because somehow I’d forgotten. Page was the only good thing left in our lives and we would protect her until death. Our entire lives revolved around defending that little girl and there were a lot of people in this world, even apart from Feeders, that would try to hurt her. And no matter how pretty Reagan’s smile was or how dark and mysterious her eyes could be, she did not get to hurt my sister. Ever.