Page 41 of Sick(ness)

Addy surfaced from the dark, heady sleep of exhaustion, the weight of her dreams evaporating like fog at first light. She became aware of a hand, calloused and careful, curled loosely around her waist. Her mind, slow to surface from the afterimages of nightmare — classrooms full of silent children, the hush of empty hallways, the impossible colors of blood on linoleum—clung to the sensation with an almost desperate gratitude. For the first time in months, she wasn’t alone in the moment between terror and waking.

She lay still, letting her senses reach out past the dull ache in her body. Sawyer’s breathing was deep and even, the kind of sleep you only got after weeks of sleeping with one eye open. His hand, heavy and warm, rested against the small of her back, thumb twitching in tiny involuntary arcs against the hem of her threadbare shirt. She could smell him: the salt and sun-dried sweat, the breath of wood smoke caught in the tangled sheets.

Addy barely dared to move. Her pulse fluttered at her throat, irrationally afraid that if she shifted even an inch, the spell would break, and she’d return to the familiar cold of her side of the mattress, her side of the world. She sensed the steady rise and fall of his chest against the length of her spine, every rib and muscle mapped by the thinness of the blanket, and she realized in a slow, creeping way that she wanted to stay like this, not just for a moment, but for as long as the world allowed.

She could have lain there for hours, letting herself drift in that safe, hazy space between waking and wanting. But as she did, a thought began to needle at the edge of her consciousness: this comfort was stolen, a luxury she neither deserved nor knew how to hold. She tried to reason herself back behind her own walls, to reassemble the armor that had kept her upright through every day since the world failed. But the wall wouldn’t rise. It seemed paper-thin, crumpled by the force of what she felt.

Addy let her head turn, careful not to break the spell of Sawyer’s sleep. She watched his face, so unguarded in repose, the lines around his eyes relaxed, his mouth soft and parted in a way that made her ache somewhere deep in her chest. She watched for a full minute, then another, cataloging every detail: the faint scar that bisected his left eyebrow, the stubble running wild along his jaw, the way his hair stuck up at odd angles from the sweaty pillow. These were small, animal things, the marks of survival and stubbornness, and Addy wanted to trace each one with her fingers, to memorize them in the event she woke up tomorrow and Sawyer was gone.

The urge inside her was so sudden, so feral, she didn’t recognize herself in it. It wasn’t loneliness. It wasn’t even about comfort. It was the electric, impossible certainty that if she didn’t touch him now, if she didn’t claim something for herself before the world completely ended, she’d regret it forever.

Almost without her own consent, Addy’s hand rose, trembling. She touched his cheek, feather-light, the way you might check if a flower pestle was real. Her thumb brushed the hollow just below his eye, tracing the heat and roughness of his skin. She expected him to flinch or pull away, to roll over and reassert the boundaries that had kept them both safe. Instead, his eyes flickered open, not startled but aware, as if he’d been waiting for the touch all along.

For one suspended instant, neither of them breathed. Addy tried to jerk her hand back, suddenly mortified, but Sawyer caught her wrist and held it in place. His grip was gentle but unyielding. She saw the question in his eyes, the same question she’d been asking herself since the first time she watched him pick glass out of his own arm by the light of a dying sun: Dare we?

“Don’t stop,” he said, his voice ragged with sleep and something older, deeper. It wasn’t a demand. It was closer to a plea.

Addy’s resolve crumbled. She leaned in, her forehead pressing to his, breathing him in, their noses bumping like awkward teenagers. She could feel his pulse thumping against her wrist, could feel her own answering it—a drumbeat, a challenge. She hesitated, her lips a fraction of an inch from his, her breath trembling on the threshold.

Sawyer didn’t hesitate. He closed the gap, his mouth crushing hers in a way that was both shocking and inevitable. His lips were cracked and rough, his tongue hot and clever, and she let him take control, let herself be guided. It was nothing like the gentle, hesitant kisses of her old life. This was urgent, greedy, the kind of kiss you gave when you didn’t know if there would be another. His hand slid to her back, pulling her closer until their bodies were pressed together from chest to knee, and she responded in kind, her fingers tangling in the back of his hair.

It was a revelation, the hunger. She’d grown so used to her own body as a liability, a thing to be hidden and denied, pressed into service but never celebrated. Now, every inch of her skin seemed to light up at his touch, nerves firing in wild, unpredictable patterns. She gasped when his hand slipped beneath her shirt, tracing the ridges of her ribs, and for a dizzy second she worried she might actually faint. Sawyer’s touch was careful, almost reverent, but she could feel the shake in his hand, the tremor of his restraint. It excited her, made her want to push him, to see what would happen if he lost control.

She let her leg hook over his hip, drawing their bodies closer, and the heat that sparked between them was enough to override any ghost of embarrassment. His hand splayed against her spine, anchoring her, and she arched into the contact, letting herself feel everything. She tasted blood on his lip, salt and ash and longing, and she bit down, just hard enough to make him groan. He responded by rolling her onto her back, the blanket twisting around them, a tangle of limbs and want.

Addy’s mind was white noise, the usual stream of anxious over-analysis drowned out by the urgent, impossible now of Sawyer’s body on top of hers. She didn’t flinch when he pinned her wrists above her head, didn’t protest when his thigh parted hers; she only marveled at how completely she’d lost herself in the sensation of being desired. For a woman who prided herself on caution, it was a kind of religious surrender: every nerve ending singing, every boundary burning down.

When he finally pulled away, both of them breathless, Addy stared up at him, eyes wide, mouth open, his essence still upon her. She searched his face for regret or apology, but saw none, only the raw, bare honesty of a man who had spent too many nights alone with his ghosts.

Sawyer brushed his knuckles along her cheek, slow and deliberate. “You’re sure?” he whispered, and she nodded, the wordless assent catching in her throat.

He didn’t rush. Maybe it was the residue of whatever decency survived inside him, or he knew what it was to want something so much you could barely stand it. He touched her as if he were learning her, mapping the scars and hollows, never once breaking eye contact. Addy felt her body respond, the tight ache in her chest giving way to something looser, freer, a need that seemed less like desperation and more like possibility.

She drew him down to her, not caring if the world ended outside these walls. In that moment, she was more alive than she’d ever been.

She gasped a bit, shocked by how turned on she was. Sex was not something that was ever thrilling to her.

She’d never been the kind of person who lost herself in the moment, not even in better times, when the world was predictable and the stakes were only as high as tomorrow’s lesson plan or a parent’s terse email. But here, with Sawyer’s breath hot against her neck and his hands mapping the fragile geography of her breasts and hips, Addy found herself surrendering to the blunt, animal logic of need.

When his fingers slipped beneath the hem of her shirt, her oldest, softest tee, worn thin and nearly translucent from too many washes, she didn’t hesitate or pull away. Instead, she arched up to meet him, her own hands tangled in the fabric of his undershirt, tugging him closer. She was acutely aware of his body: the iron tension in his arms, the staccato pulse leaping beneath his skin, the way he seemed to fight himself at every junction, as if afraid that letting go would mean never coming back. But she wanted him to come undone. She wanted to watch the careful machinery of his self-restraint grind to a halt, just for her.

Sawyer’s hands were rough, calloused, blunt-nailed, every knuckle a catalog of violence and survival, but when he slid them up her sides, he was almost reverent. He paused at the valley of her waist, then, with a hesitance that nearly broke her heart, he pushed her shirt up, exposing the chill-pink skin of her belly. For an instant, Addy braced herself for the old, familiar shame—the self-consciousness that had stalked her since adolescence, the reflex to cover, to hide, to turn off the part of herself that wanted. But his eyes, when they raked over her, held no judgment, only hunger and something like awe.

He cupped her breasts with a shaky exhale, thumbs grazing nipples already peaked tight from cold and anticipation. The sensation ripped a noise from her throat, raw, hungry, utterly unlike the poised Ms. Mitchell she’d been before. She pressed into his palms, greedy for friction, for any proof that her body still worked the way it was supposed to. Sawyer obliged, his grip firm but careful, his mouth following where his hands had led. When he kissed her there, open-mouthed and lacking self consciousness, she almost wept at the flood of sensation.

Addy wanted more.

She fumbled at the waistband of his jeans, half-blind with need and awkwardness, her fingers slipping over the ancient metal of the button. She could feel the hard heat of him pressing against the rough denim, urgent and insistent, and it made her reckless, bold. She unfastened him, her hands clumsy but determined, and tugged the fabric down over his hips. It was almost laughable, the juxtaposition of the world ending outside and the everyday struggle of wriggling out of tight pants, but she didn’t stop to laugh. She wanted to see all of him, to feel him against her, skin to skin.

When his arousal sprang free, she stared, momentarily awestruck by the sheer reality of it, the color, the pulse, the contradiction of softness and hardness. She wrapped her fingers around it, cautious at first, then firmer, learning the rhythm that made him bite his lip to keep from groaning aloud. Addy had never felt so powerful, so elemental, as she did in that moment: holding the evidence of his want, guiding it, shaping it with the pressure of her hand. It was intoxicating.

She looked up at Sawyer as she stroked him, her own breath coming fast and shallow, and saw in his eyes a wild, desperate gratitude that threatened to undo her completely. There was no trace of the man who’d survived by building walls and locking doors—only hunger, only need, only the bright, searing need.

She shifted, pushing his jeans all the way down and then off with her feet, never breaking contact. She was in control now, and she liked it, the way it made her feel not just wanted but necessary. She guided him back onto the mattress, rolling so that she was above him, straddling his hips. She reached for her own undergarments, slipping it off with a practiced twist, feeling the cool air on her skin, the pulse between her legs.

She lined him up, paused for just a second, and then, with a gasp that was half shock, half triumph, she slid onto him, taking him in inch by impossible inch. It hurt, at first, but the pain was a promise, a reminder that she was still alive, still capable of feeling.

It was her turn to take charge, to set the pace, and she rode him slow and deep, her hands braced on his chest, watching the way his face twisted with pleasure. Every thrust was a reclamation, a declaration that she was more than what the world had left her.