But it was a natural urge, nothing to worry about. It had been a while, and a stressful situation and curiosity being what they were, blah, blah, blah. All the old clichés.

Curiosity. What a lame ass excuse. She could do better.

Thank god he wasn’t watching her now. Her cheek rested on one sun-burnished pec and God help her if she had drooled on him in her sleep or something. How special would that be?

Someone so hard-bodied shouldn’t have made such a comfortable mattress. She needed to get the hell off him.

Ali averted her gaze, pulled her mind out of his pants, then extricated her hand from his boxers one cautious millimeter at a time.

“You awake?” he murmured.

She whipped her hand from his underwear like her fingers were singed.

He chuckled, chest shuddering beneath her cheek. “I’l take that as a yes.”

“I’ll have my breast back now.”

“Mmm.” His fingers uncurled ever so slowly, but his other hand, the one resting on her lower back, moved not at all. “Heard a motorbike close-by earlier.”

“What?” She scrambled up into a sitting position, startled wide awake, as if he had doused her in coffee. Her heart pounded, and every hair on her body stood erect. “When?”

“Hour or so back. Nothing since.” He stretched both hands up, tucked them behind his head. How the hell could he be so relaxed?

“Be calm,” he said.

She shook her head in wonder. “Be calm? I haven’t seen any uninfected around here in over a month. Bit of a coincidence them turning up the day after I fire the shotgun. They were searching for us.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Might be you’re just feeling a bit paranoid, babe. Which, I would add before you rip my head off, is fair enough. Either way, unless you’ve put out a welcome mat they’re not going to find us. Have you?” he asked, mouth twitching. “Is there some sign out there that you’re in residence? No spray-painted announcement on the door? Another pair of these cute cotton panties left hanging from the mailbox, perhaps?”

Her face heated. The ass**le. “No. Of course not.”

He yawned and scratched at the short spiky dark hair pointing every which way. He was al over the morning appeal. In comparison, she probably looked like she had been tumble-dried. But he had a whole charmingly disheveled thing going on with his bed hair. If she hadn’t been balancing scared shitless and embarrassed there might have been time to stop and appreciate it.

“Then, be calm,” he said. “We’re okay.”

Ali bit at the inside of her cheeks, gave the smal bedroom a detailed once over. The old chest of drawers still barricaded the door.

The windows were still boarded and the shades still drawn. Everything was where it should be. The filtered light gave no clue as to the time of day or how long she had slept with him beside her. Beneath her. Bloody hell.

Things were heating up. Her skin was sticky, no matter the water wasted last night. Sticky and sweaty and she had been spread al over Daniel like honey on toast. Her fingers knotted themselves up in the top sheet. Over and over.

Alex had hated her clinging. Clinging being his term for any touching taking place outside of sexual congress. Oh, no, Alex had preferred to be adored from afar. Made it much simpler for her sister to slip on in and have him.

What a beautiful moment their wedding was. It had truly brought new lows to family awkwardness.

Ouch, a year on and still she felt the sting.

And why that old wound had chosen to pop up and nip her on the ass here and now she couldn’t say. It fit with her flurried, messy state of mind. Hell, she didn’t even know if any of her family were alive. Being betrayed dwindled in importance in the face of cold, hard death. Her insides felt strangely empty, as they always did when she thought of her family. She’d well and truly been left alone. Alone, except for the giant in her bed.

Daniel yawned again, cracked his neck and watched her. The other people out there wanting who knew what didn’t seem to concern him. That made her want to thump him. Hard.

Right on his big, fat, pretty, patient head.

“Talk to me, babe,” he said gently. When she didn’t reply, he raised an arm, pointed a lazy finger toward the chest of drawers. “Your gun’s up there. I didn’t want you accidentally blowing my head off during the night. Because that would be sad, right?”

She smiled and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Right. Sad.”

“I get the need to be cautious, Ali. I do. But you’re assuming everyone’s out to do harm before you have proof. Shoot first and ask questions later.”

Tension drew her tight, across her shoulders, down her spine. She was a puppet at its mercy. “You’ve been on the road for six weeks and you think otherwise?”

“Yes. Though frankly, on the roads I used, I didn’t see anyone,” he said with the same cool, calm expression.

“We have a decision to make. We can stay here, holed up for a while, or we can sneak out. Avoid whoever the hell is out there and the infected, hopeful y.” Daniel rolled onto his side and put his head in his hand. The bed wasn’t big enough for him, his feet dangled off the edge. “You know what I want, this decision is yours. I’m not going to push you into anything.”

Which was a nice change from his high-handed pushy bullshit of yesterday. She kept her mouth shut, but her whole body leant forward, toward him. It was more than the dip in the mattress. Something about him drew her in, slowly but surely. A weakness in her armor needing remedy. Caring for someone else, given the state of the world, was crazy. She might as well just press the self-destruct button now and be done with it.