Chapter 89: Taran

"Taran, baby, time to wake up."
Diogo's voice pulls me from the dead sleep I was enjoying. I hadn't been able to snatch more than a few hours here and there in the days that I've been away from Sanctuary. Now that I'm back with Diogo I feel safe enough to allow myself to relax into slumber. I stretch my arms over my head and yawn widely. "I hope I didn't snore or drool."
"A little," Diogo murmurs with a laugh. "It was cute. Stryker said the noises you were making were enough to scare off a horde attack."
I hadn't actually meant to say that out loud. I send Diogo a dirty look and sit up, shoving hair out of my face and smothering a wide yawn. "How long was I out this time?"
Diogo decided to drive as far as he could without stopping, switching out the driver's seat with Stryker when he got tired. I was seated between them, resting against Diogo.
"A few hours," Diogo grunts, hefting his bag from the back.
"Why did we stop?"
"Both me and Stryker need some rest and we need to fuel up. The tank is almost empty and the reserve canisters are out." He takes my elbow and starts leading me toward a building. "We're out in the open, baby. You'll need to stay as quiet as possible."
I want to tell him that I know what to do, that Primitives aren't new to me, but I know he's only thinking of my safety. That he hates having us out here where we can be attacked. He wouldn't have stopped unless it was important.
"Where are the rest of your men?" I would've thought they'd be right here with us, but Diogo's is the only vehicle in the deserted street.
"Two on the edge of town, keeping an eye for horde attacks. The rest of my men are heading out ahead of us to stake out our path home. They'll set up checkpoints and fall in behind us as we travel. It's safer this way, they can clear a path for us all the way home. We'll be fine, this place was abandoned a long time ago. Primitives have no reason to be here."
I look around, a shiver passing down my spine. The remains of a small-town main street is crumbling all around us. Diogo leads me up the steps of an old abandoned church, the dying sun lighting up the cross decorating the top. I hesitate, leaning back into my husband.
"Do we have to stay here?" I whisper, feeling the power of the building.
"Yes," he says shortly, pulling me up the stairs with him. "It's the sturdiest looking building here and the front doors close and lock. Stryker already scouted it out."
Still, I hesitate. I've never had any real kind of relationship with religion. There simply wasn't time or opportunity. I've been on the run my entire life. First, when I was searching for Sanctuary, and then as a rebel. But my grandmother had been a devoutly religious woman, had tried her best to tell us what Christianity was and how to follow. I always wanted to believe in a higher power, wanted something that would make the strife in our world make sense. Faith has always been a beautiful and elusive emotion to me, but I've never felt like a good enough practitioner to enter into the sacred places or clumsily pray to a God I didn't know or understand. To beg favours of a deity that I've given nothing to. The idea that we might shelter in such a sacred place feels somehow right and irreligious at the same time.
I don't have a choice though, as Diogo pulls me through the front door and turns to close and lock it. I wander toward another set of double doors, walking through, staring around in awe. It's a massive room, lit by the last of the sunset as it pours through glass windows rendered in a stunning array of different colours.
"What are they?" I murmur.
"What?" Diogo asks, coming up behind me.
I point, my hand shaking in reaction. Maybe hunger too, since my last meal was eaten many hours ago in my sister's Sanctuary.
In the glass a woman is depicted kneeling, her hands pressed together, the blues, reds and yellows around her glowing like they're somehow on fire. I've never seen anything so beautiful, and I doubt I will again.
"It's called stained glass," Stryker supplies, following the point of my finger. "This is the second time I've seen it. Glass seems to be one of the worst hit casualties of the Great Fall."
"You take first shift," Diogo says shortly, dragging me forward into the church. He looks pointedly at Stryker and jerks his head toward the entrance. "Outside."
"Fuck, man." Stryker tosses the blanket aside that he was arranging in a pew and stalks toward the entrance muttering something about desecration. "If I get eaten by a fucking Primitive, it's on you."
I giggle at Stryker's grumbling. It's impossible to imagine the big, gruff man as anything but capable. If a Primitive stumbles upon him in the dark, it's the zombie I would fear for. The doors close behind Stryker and I turn back to Diogo. The look he gives me is so intense, so filled with emotion that I take a step back, forgetting for a moment that I'm married to this man, that I love him.
He stalks me around the pew, his long legs eating up the space between us. "I want to know every detail, from the moment you were attacked in Sanctuary to the moment you were released." He catches me by the back of my head, his fingers sifting through the tangled strands of my hair. He lowers his head until his lips just barely brush mine. "You will not leave out a single detail. Understand?"
My heart pounds in both anticipation and fear. Anticipation because I can feel the sheer sexual expectation that pours from his very being. He's holding himself back because he wants to be one hundred percent certain I haven't been injured, either mentally or physically. My fear stems from his reaction to my story, because I will tell him the truth, in detail. There's been so much standing in the way of our happiness, my ex-husband, the rebellion, my zombie bite, everything. I just want to start establishing a foundation of trust, so we can move forward in our marriage. No more lies or manipulations. As difficult as the truths sometimes are, they are always better than a lie given to make the truth more palpable.
I sit down and gather my thoughts. As I speak, the words pouring out of me, I find a kind of catharsis in talking over traumatic events with someone I care about and trust. Diogo leans back against the pew behind him, his arms crossed over his chest, listening, rapt with attention, a permanent scowl marring his face.
I'd only been gone from Sanctuary for five days, but it feels like a lifetime. So much has happened. I was attacked, my bodyguard was attacked, and the greenhouse manager killed. I was forced to go on the road with a man who had no conscience, but was still relatable, perhaps even likeable in some ways. I'd explored a farm, seen a zombie graveyard and then been attacked in Talon's family home. He'd saved me as though it was nothing, an afterthought, something to do until breakfast was ready. I'd completely blind-sided my sister with my existence, a sister I thought long dead. Then given less than a day to get to know her.
This last part chokes me up and I slow down, my words coming out sluggish. "I'm sorry," I finish. "But even if I'd imagined Skye had lived through the Las Vegas massacre, I would never have even hoped to see her again. It was like a dream come true, and then"
"Ripped away," Diogo finishes for me. He settles onto the bench seat beside me and takes my face in his broad palms. "You don't ever need to apologize for loving your sister, baby. It was a gut-wrenching decision to leave her."
"I love you, Diogo," I say, the strain of the past few days cracking my voice. "I couldn't live anywhere that you aren't. It's as simple as that."
He kisses my lips, the same way he'd kissed me outside of Santa Fe Sanctuary. Soft, slow, but still urgent. As though savouring everything about me, about us, in a single kiss. He breaths deep as his lips love mine, passionately, but without insisting on entrance. He breaks away, barely an inch and says, "Had you decided to stay, I would have dismantled that city, stone by stone until I found you."
I laugh, unable to help myself. I know that he's serious, but his fervent, over the top declaration is exactly what I expected in my husband. A rush of affection and relief pass through me. This man will protect me until his dying breath. That is an awesome power to hold in the palm of my hand, something that I will have to be careful with.
I touch his cheek with my fingertips and continue to smile. "You don't have to prove your love by dominating major cities anymore, I believe you."
His face splits into a smile, though a tight one. He won't soon release the stress of the past week from his shoulders. Time spent hunting a wife that he couldn't say with certainty was even alive.
"I knew," he murmurs, kissing me again, before running his lips up my cheek to my ear, exploring, savouring, loving.
"How do you always know what I'm thinking?" My voice sounds breathless. I grip his shoulders and hold him against me, enjoying his touch, even if his fingers are a little too hard, a little too desperate as they run down my back, wrap around my waist and hold me like he's never letting go.
"Your every expression gives you away." He kisses my neck and along my collarbone, moving the neckline of my dress as far as he can to get at the flesh beneath. It's an unyielding dress so he doesn't get far. "You also speak out loud a lot without realizing, especially when you're thinking hard about something."
"What?" I gasp, laughing and trying to pull back to look at him, but he holds me tight. "I do not! You can't be serious."
"How do you think I knew all of your favourite foods within the first week of our being together. You kept chattering out loud about how you wished for this and that. It's how I knew what to plant in our garden. How has no one told you that do this?"
He catches my hips in his hands and drags me down the bench until I fall, catching myself on an elbow. His eyes are on me as he slides his hands up my legs, from my ankles, to my calves, to my thighs. "I suppose no one's been brave enough to tell me."
"No," he says, hooking his fingers in the waistband of my borrowed panties. "No one told you because they didn't want you to stop. It's a beautiful and rare thing, finding someone who gives everything away. You are on the surface as you are underneath, beautiful and perfect."
Tears sting my eyes at his description. I'd never thought about the way I might look in another person's eyes. My constant drive to succeed and the little insecurities that make up most human beings has blinded me. But Diogo's adoration and unassailable love is hard to argue with. Looking at myself through his eyes makes me want to be the person he sees.
As he drags my panties down my thighs, I reach for him, hooking my arm around his neck and dragging him forward into my body. I kiss him with every ounce of passion and gratitude I feel. We are from two different words, two different childhoods and two different philosophies, yet I can't imagine loving anyone more than I love Diogo. His constant and persistent love is irresistible. I cling to him, pouring all of these feelings and thoughts into a single kiss. His hands tighten on me, holding me against him until we're practically fused. No end to him, no end to me, just the two of us together on an island, in an abandoned church, in an abandoned town.
"I need you, baby," he says against my lips, reaching between us, shoving my skirt up as he reaches for his own zipper. "More than I need to breathe."
I hold myself against him, kissing him, breathing in the scent of his skin, warm, male, sweaty and familiar. "Me too," I whisper in his ear before burying my face in his neck.
I forget where we are, what's happened to us, everything. I cling to his broad shoulders trusting him to take me to heaven. A place I'll only visit if my husband is by my side, guiding me every step of the way.
He parts my legs and surges between them, burying himself to the hilt in one thrust. I bite off a scream as I'm overwhelmed by the intense pressure of him forging a path into my tight body. His big body feels so completely right as it covers mine. We're connected physically, but our bond goes so much deeper. With each thrust our bodies strain, slide and cling. Our hearts beat in unison. My fingers dig into his arms while his are wrapped around me, holding me tight.
This meeting of our bodies goes beyond physical want. We are reaffirming ourselves and our marriage. He's claiming me and I'm giving myself up to him. The feel of his steely muscles under silken skin draws my hands down his flesh, eliciting a groan of ecstasy from him as he enjoys my gentle exploration. The juxtaposition between my soft touches and his near-brutal thrusts send us higher.
Our eyes connect in a moment of perfect understanding. This fleeting moment will end, the pleasure will end, but we won't. We're forever. Until death do us part.
"Taran!" he shouts my name as he buries his head into my shoulder and slams his cock deep inside me, his release quick and powerful.
I cradle him to me and whisper, "Diogo."