Beneath Charlotte’s roaming hands, John’s muscles flexed and hardened, and she responded in kind. She gripped his erection through his dress pants, and he hissed at her breast then nipped her none too softly.
“Do you know how many times you’ve accidentally brushed over my cock when we’ve been making out and I’ve wanted to tear away your clothes and have my way with you?”
“I’m yours now, love. Let’s make up for all those times—”
He kissed her to silence. Many a night she’d lain in bed imagining her lover’s hands on her. It was real now. And nothing was more real than the two of them, skin against skin, urgently seeking satisfaction when around them the world was being consumed.
“End-of-the-world sex?” she asked as he lifted her against the door and she wrapped her legs around his hips.
“Wish it didn’t have to be this way.” Gliding his burning hands between her thighs, his fingers found her folds and he danced them into her wetness, igniting an erotic flash of fire that surged through her core and responded to his deft manipulation. “You’re so hot, Charlotte.”
“Not as hot as you.” His skin did seem unusually warm. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”
“Not exactly,” he muttered.
Somewhere, not far off, the clang of steel against wood furniture alerted them both.
Breaths panting, Charlotte gripped John’s head and kissed him, sharing her desperation. “I want to feel you inside me,” she whispered urgently. “Your big, hard strength. Please, John. Take me.”
They heard the bedroom doors crash inward, and John shoved down his pants. His erection sprang out, heavy against her folds. Charlotte wriggled, directing his entrance. And when the groans of the living dead echoed in the next room, she cried out at the intense pleasure of her husband’s possession of her body. Finding a frantic rhythm, they became one.
John’s gasps stirred next to Charlotte’s ear. He clung to her, his fingers digging into her skin, his body like molten steel, their joining a culmination of strained patience and desperation.
Everything slipped away. The threat of death, the terror of the living dead, the agony of watching others they had known fall. Lost in one another, they surrendered to the brilliance of desire and trust. Together they could defeat any horror.
“I love you, Charlotte,” John cried out and his body shuddered against hers.
Her core tight and twisty with imminent orgasm, Charlotte sighed, and released. Something banged on the closet door. She screamed—not out of fear, but instead with utter bliss, as orgasm captured them both.
Chapter Four
Blissfully sated, Charlotte wanted to hold this man forever. Her husband. Her giddy smile was undefeatable. “That was amazing. I wish we could do it again.”
Clinging to John’s panting body, Charlotte winced as the door behind her moved a bit with every growling pound from the other side.
“Bad timing, sweetie. Sorry about this. Oh, man, you taste so good.” He laved his tongue along her cheek, and Charlotte’s skin prickled with delicious heat.
Another vicious thumping vibrated the door against her bare skin.
They’d had their moment.
“What do we do now?” she whispered. “Did your research determine how to escape a pack of zombies?”
He nuzzled his nose into her neck and kissed her, then gave a quick little bite. She smiled. Still his humor remained, even with the flesh-eating zombies beating on the other side of the door.
But he was serious when he raised his head and looked into her eyes. “We fight,” he said.
Her man had become…well, a man tonight. Or maybe she was finally seeing the real John Masterson, a man who rose to the challenge no matter the danger. Stuffy research coordinator? More like an adventurous hero.
Her hero.
Setting her down, he tugged up her dress and pulled up his pants. His shirt was somewhere on the floor. He wandered into the depths of the closet.
“If we can get through this,” he called, “I’m going to make love to you all day, every day, in every place but the closet. Here.” He slapped a few high-heeled shoes into her hands.
“John, I know you think it’s sexy when I wear heels, but is now really the time?”
“Weapons,” he said. “It’s all I could find.”
“Clever.” She fit the toes of the shoes into her hands, heels pointed out and ready to stab.
A thick shard of wood splintered and sailed over their heads.
“You ready for this?” he asked as they turned to face the growling horde.
“With you at my side, I can handle anything.”
They smiled at one another. And then the hordes tumbled through, decaying appendages clawing and gaping jaws moaning.
John caught the first one in the eye with a heel, and shoved the creature off. Charlotte lobbed a Jimmy Choo at a growling matron in purple taffeta, which managed to take off her ear smartly. Shoes were tossed, thrown and lobbed into zombie skulls, faces and guts. They went down easily, which Charlotte was thankful for as she twisted to grab more ammunition from the shoe rack beside her.
“This isn’t exactly my idea of wedded bliss!” she shouted as hands groped at her skirt.
“I’ll make it up to you. I will get you to safety if it’s the last thing I do.”
She hated hearing him put it that way. It would not be his last thing. They’d live to see tomorrow.
“Follow me,” John directed, and she fit herself against his side, beating at the clawing hands and teeth with a metal-spiked black leather number she remembered helping Tina pick out at Macy’s. “Stay close.”
“I am close! Oh dear, I really hate to destroy this one. It’s Manolo!”
Charlotte felt something tug at her ankle. She shook her foot, and brought the shoe down, beating the zombie who was attempting to chew on her. She screamed and John swung about, taking out her attacker with a thigh-high boot.
“Come on, they’ve thinned out, we can make a dash for it!”
She grabbed his hand as he tugged her through a slew of lurching zombies. Limping from the attack, Charlotte managed to keep up and they soon landed in the hallway. Alone, they huffed and clutched at one another.
“Down the hall,” John said. “I think there’s another bedroom.”
She suspected that was the master bedroom, which Tina had said was where her parents spent most of their time because it was private and cut off from the noise of servants and kids. But if Charlotte and John went in there, they would be trapped, with no means of escape. It could become their grave.
“John, I’m not sure.”
He stopped at the bedroom door. His broad shoulders heaved. His determined gaze reached out and grabbed her firmly, reassuringly. “Trust me?”
Charlotte nodded, giving him permission and promising him her trust. He gripped her head and kissed her long and deep. Hungrily. She knew he loved her, and would stand before her when their final moments arrived.
Opening the door, they slipped inside the bedroom, done in soft violets and pink damask. The low glow of a night lamp illuminated their tattered attire and bloodied arms and faces. They looked as if they’d been battling zombies.
Charlotte started to laugh.
John joined her, and they both fell into each other’s embrace as their laughter segued into tears.
Chapter Five
“I knew you were the only girl for me,” John said as he stroked the hair and tears from her face, “the moment you sat on my lap in the coffee shop.”