The Risks

March: Chapter 50

A/N: I know I've noted several times before when NSFW content was coming up, but this chapter takes the cake as the spiciest one yet! Hope you enjoy.

Charlotte insisted on meeting with the newcomers as soon as we arrived. As we all huddled in her office, it felt very much like a school once again. Tense, like someone was in trouble. If not for the questions she asked them, I might have convinced myself we really were being reprimanded by the school principal.

The conversation started with Parker and I recounting exactly how we'd met the strangers, and by the end, Charlotte seemed to know enough about them to quell her suspicions.

They'd been a part of a rag tag group of survivors, coming together over the course of the last year. But the colder months had been hard on them without proper shelter. They'd lost some to the cold, and just a month ago, their camp was attacked by Ferals during the night, leaving only four who had managed to just barely escape.

She welcomed them all, talked to baby Will for a moment, then led them out of her office to show them to where they'd be staying.

I asked Parker quietly if we should wait for her to come back to show her what we'd found on our trip, but he said we may as well wait until this evening, so she'd have time to show the new members around. We'd put it off this long, what would another few hours hurt?

Back in our room, the first thing I did was brush my teeth, then we gathered our things and each had a shower. And when we returned to our room, I went through my bag, put away all the photos I'd brought from home, threw the few dirty clothes into the hamper, and returned the uneaten snacks back in the kitchenette area –sans one granola bar in which I unwrapped and began munching on.

I turned to see Parker kneeling on the ground by the wall, looking at something in his hands and pulling some cord from his bag.

"What do you have there?" I asked, taking a step his way.

"My phone," he answered, after glancing over his shoulder at me.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I've got George's number. Why don't you give him a call and see where he's at?"

He grinned at my lame joke. "It's got all my music on it. I left it at home because I thought I'd never have any use for it, but here we are. I thought it would be nice to have."

The screen lit up and he immediately started pushing buttons, scrolling through song titles before he tapped his thumb and sat his phone on the windowsill. Then he stood, a soft smile on his lips and his hands out to me in an invitation as the song began to play over the phone's speaker.

I couldn't help but smile in response, my heart swelling inside my chest at the tenderness in his eyes. I took his hands, allowing him to pull me against him, and he brought my forearms to rest on his collarbones before placing his hands against my lower back.

We stayed like that together, swaying softly to the rhythm of the music. I rested my head against his chest, listening to his breath, his heartbeat, his voice as he began to sing quietly near my ear.

"Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do."

It was amazing, really, because I'd kissed him a thousand times, but even now -as I leaned back just slightly so that my gaze was level with his mouth- it still managed to feel like the first time. My heart skipped a full beat, then took off at a steady pace as my stomach flipped with that same nervous excitement. When his hand touched my face, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw, my skin still tingled with that same current of electricity. And when he dipped his head, he lifted my chin slightly so he could put his sweet lips on mine.