We walked for a couple of hours through scrub brush and wasteland. Neither of us said a word, although Fiona stopped crying, so that was something.

As the phone was starting to die – the picture of the battery in the top right of the screen had turned red, and was almost gone – I saw the highway at the bottom of the hills. It stretched across miles of sand, from one end of the horizon to the other. Everything else was a jumble of different shades of darkness; the road was the only thing that was both pitch black and a straight line.

There weren’t any cars or street lights. We were at the ass end of nowhere out here.

“Should we call Kade now?” Fiona asked.

“I don’t have his number memorized. All I do is just punch the button on my phone.”

“I have his number. He texted me.”

“…he did?”

“The day we… the day he gave me back my car.”

I knew what day she was talking about, and I knew why she hadn’t finished her first sentence. I didn’t say anything, I just handed the phone to her.

She brought up her text messages, tapped the screen, and handed the cell back to me.

The phone rang several times. I thought maybe she was mistaken, but then the call went to Kade’s voicemail.

“Leave a message.”

Talkative guy.

“We made it,” I said. “I’m calling you from Fiona’s cell – mine’s toast. We’re almost to the highway. Call me back at this number.”

After I hung up, I turned to Fiona. “Keep the phone alive, or use the light as long as we can?”

She looked out at the darkness. “Keep it alive for as long as you can.”

I shut the light off and we picked our way through the scrub brush as best we could. It took us another half hour, but we finally got to the highway. In all that time, we never saw a pair of headlights go by, and we never got a call.

When we got within a hundred feet of the road, I pulled the phone out of my pocket.

Dead – and no amount of pushing on the side button could bring it back to life.

“Goddamn it,” I swore.

“It’s okay,” Fiona said.

“But he doesn’t know where to find us.”

“He will.”

I didn’t say what I was really thinking: I hope nothing happened to him.

I didn’t need to. Fiona picked up on it right away.

“He’s alright,” she said quietly. “If we made it out, he’ll be fine.”

I hugged her to my side. “You’re right.”

I hope.

We sat down on the ground, both to keep out of sight of any possible unfriendlies and to rest. After a three-hour hike through the hills, my legs were aching.

Fiona nestled up against me, and I put my arm around her. We sat like that for a couple of long minutes before she finally whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“For what? You saved my life back there,” I said, and immediately winced. I’d been doing good keeping up the story that she hadn’t hit Eyeball – until now. “I mean, distracting him like that with the phone call.”

She was quiet for a second, then she said, “I know I killed him.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No, I know I did… and it’s okay. I mean… I’ll be okay.”

I could tell from her voice that she’d accepted it. That there was no point in lying anymore.

“The first time, it’s… it’s hard,” I said, trying to comfort her.

She looked at me in the moonlight. “You’ve killed someone before?”

Fuck.

This was going from bad to worse.

“…yeah,” I admitted. “A couple of times. Other gang members. I told you that I’d seen a lot of bad shit that made me want to change the club. Well, I’ve done a lot of bad shit, too. Things I don’t like living with. That’s why I…”

I stopped talking. Talking about the club might be a sore spot for her, seeing how angry I’d been about it the last couple of days.

Funny, all that was gone now. Now I was just sad. I’d saved the single most valuable thing in my life from the gunfight and the fire…

But she wasn’t mine anymore.

“Never mind,” I said.

She was silent for a moment. Then she murmured, “You can talk about it.”

“I’ve already done enough to fuck up your impression of me forever,” I said, trying to keep my tone light – even though my heart felt like a lead weight was crushing it. “I’d rather you not think I’m a total shit of a human being.”

“I don’t,” she whispered. “In fact… that why I said I was sorry.”

I looked at her in surprise. “For what?”

She looked up at me, and I could see the starlight reflected in her eyes. “I was horrible to you about the police thing.”

The lead weight went away. In its place, I felt something else… something like hope. But my guts still churned with guilt.

“You were right, though,” I said. “It was shitty and fucked up that I didn’t tell you. It was shitty and fucked up that I even did it in the first place.”

“But that’s not you. That’s not the real you. We all do shitty, fucked-up things… like not tell somebody we love the truth when they’re risking everything for us.” I could see her eyes welling up. A single tear beaded at the corner of her eye and rolled down her face as she whispered, “But that’s not really who we are.”

“I know,” I said, and cradled her head to my chest. “I know. Shh.”

She pushed against me and forced me to look at her. More silent tears were spilling down her cheeks. “I need you to know how sorry I am for what I did to you.”

“I know. I do. And I’m sorry too, Fiona. I’m so sorry.”

I leaned down spontaneously and kissed her. Softly… gently. I could taste the salt of her tears on my lips.

She put her hands on my face and kissed me back, harder.

I forgot everything that had happened up to that moment – all the violence, all the danger, all the heartache. All I knew is that the woman I loved – the woman I’d thought I’d lost – was back in my arms.

Without breaking our kiss, I put my hands under her jacket and around her waist, savoring the touch of her body.

With our lips still together, she shifted one leg over mine, raised herself up, and straddled me.

We kissed harder… deeper… our hands roaming over each other’s bodies.

From there we sort of lost control.

Our kissing became frenzied. No matter what else we did, no matter where we put our hands, we wouldn’t stop kissing for more than a second. I pulled up her shirt, aching to cup her bare breasts. She tugged at my jacket until it was off, then pulled off my wifebeater as fast as she could.

We finally broke off our kiss so I could spread out our jackets on the ground while she pulled off her boots and jeans. Then I lowered her down onto our makeshift bed as she fumbled with my belt.

I positioned myself over her in the moonlight. She was so beautiful – her dark hair spilling out around her head like a wild halo, the mounds of her breasts jiggling as she struggled with my belt.

I felt her hands free my already hard cock and guide me between her legs.

I felt the tip of my head touch her pussy. She was already soaked.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

As I slowly entered her, her eyes rolled back in her head as she whispered repeatedly, “Yes… yes… yes…”

God, she was so wet, and hot, and soft.

FUCK she feels incredible

As I eased deeper inside her, she kept whispering and murmuring, “Yes… yes… oh God yes…” with her eyelids half-closed and fluttering.

I slowly moved in and out of her. Braced my upper body on my elbows so I could use my hands to touch her hair, to stroke her face.

I couldn’t believe I’d had something this good, this amazing, and almost lost her forever.

Her eyes opened, and she focused on me long enough to reach up and kiss me. She put her hands around my neck and cried out as I began to thrust harder. She met me with her hips, pushing back against me, rhythmic, sensual, driving me deeper and deeper inside her.

“…yes… yes… yes…” she whimpered into my mouth as I fucked her.

As I made love to her.

Her yes-es became guttural moans as I sped up, slowed down… circled my cock inside her by rotating my hips… went shallow, then deep. Her fingernails dug into my back and she was biting my lower lip, then let go of it to wail “unh – unh – unh” in a high-pitched voice. Suddenly her eyes popped open and she was staring at me as she came – screaming my name, “Jack – oh fuck, JACK – JACK – ”

Her pussy tightened around me, sliding up and down my cock so wet and soft, and I couldn’t hold back anymore.

“FIONA – ”

I shouted and felt my entire cock explode as I drove into her even harder, over and over. She grabbed onto me like a drowning woman as she screamed in my ear… and then, with me still deep inside her, we held each other tight in the cool night air.