Page 60 of Ember Rising

“Hey, guys,” she says to the two nearby guards. “My husband can’t sleep unless he jerks off before bed. You don’t mind, do you? He gets kind of loud.”

My lips part with surprise. There’s that wicked sense of humor. She thinks I hate it, but I don’t.

“Uh ... no?” one of the guards says.

“Get your jerk sock out of your bag, pookie,” she says, smiling sweetly at me.

She didn’t fucking just say that. I don’t know whether I’m more amused or pissed.

“I’m good.”

She shakes her head. “You know you always have that dream about fucking sheep when you don’t get your tug on before bed.”

“I’ll manage, pookie.” I fight a smile, holding in a comment.

The guards just moved as far away from us as they could get—understandably.

I get into the bed, staying on the far edge of my side. It’s a full-size bed, though, and I’m not exactly small, so when Amira gets in beside me, her thigh brushes against mine.

Dammit. It was nothing, but after two-plus weeks with this quirky, brilliant woman, there are no nothings anymore.

I keep my arms at my sides, sleep threatening to pull me under. I don’t want to flop onto her in my sleep, though.

She snuggles into my side, my entire body tensing with awareness. I feel the brush of her soft lips against my ear.

“Sleep. I’ll wake you up if you have a nightmare.”

My eyes are wide in the darkness, blood flowing to parts of me it shouldn’t be.

Jesus. What the hell is happening? I have more self-control than this. I was a SEAL for seven years before the virus, and not once did I even look at a woman I worked with.

I occasionally went out with women when I was on leave, but I never got attached to one of them. I sure as fuck never snuggled with any of those women.

I’m rigid—in more than one way. I don’t move a muscle, and Amira moves away, turning her back to me.

Nothing can happen between us. I’ve let my guard down here, and I need to get my shit together. I’m on an operation. This is life or death. The futures of a lot of people depend on me doing my job well.

I turn onto my side, putting my back to her. I’m not the least bit tired now, but I’ll pretend to sleep. If I have a nightmare tonight, it might be about obliviously looking into Amira’s golden-brown eyes while the entire world burns.

19

“The Deadmen are my family. I’ll never betray my family.” – excerpt from the oath taken by the Deadmen

Amira

Evander won’t even look at me. I guess he’s more pissed off about the jerk sock joke than I thought.

He was feeling something, too. I know it. And then he shut down and the joke flew out of my mouth. He’s back in robot mode now.

Don and his people sent us with three horses—one for each of us to ride and another with saddlebags carrying food and water. My small, golden-brown mare is named Raisin. Evander’s horse, Thunder, is huge and dark gray. The small black mare carrying our supplies was recently acquired by the community, so she didn’t have a name yet. I’m calling her Jane, for Jane Eyre, one of my favorite book heroines.

It was so much more than a fair trade for what we did, but they insisted.

Not everyone is evil and self-serving. It’s easy to forget that when you’ve been hurt. I’m more confident than I was before, when I could shoot a bow and arrow but couldn’t even throw a punch. Briar trained me. I can’t take on men twice my size, but I’m better at escaping them now, and at using a knife as a weapon.

I still feel like we’re being watched. It’s bringing back memories I’d rather not think about, of my time with the Deadmen. They’d watch targets for days before closing in.

We pass a two-story building covered completely in kudzu. A pang of sadness hits me for whatever it used to be. Whoever used to go there.