Breathing Room

The courtyard is empty of loose points.

Grant stands there anyway, five miles sitting behind his eyes, and lets the count settle. Five hundred thirty-one.

Mary does not let him stare too long at the map.

“Inside. Food. Then you sit. You said not tonight. That includes standing here waiting for a man you can’t read to do something.”

“I’m not waiting. I’m just looking.”

“Is that so?” She crosses her arms and taps her foot.

“Ok, ok.” He reluctantly concedes and they go inside.

The building smells like sweat and dust and too many people who were someone else’s an hour ago. Noor has started a new list and already hates it. Ashlyn has given up on the broom. Eve is on the roof because somebody has to be, and because Grant showing up next to her out of nowhere still has her jumpy.

Leanne takes the second-floor lounge like it is another store.

“Mast…I mean Grant. Can my team please stay together? We don’t want to sleep in a hallway. And if another army comes, I want a door that is ours, not just a penthouse we have to climb stairs to get to.”

“Two is yours,” Grant says. “You pick the units. You don’t go back to 12th tonight.”

“I wasn’t planning to. I’d rather the food rot than us be there and become a liability. I can’t put you in danger like that again.”

Jose asks if he can move the bus off the street. Grant tells him “in the morning.”Garret stays quiet in the Explorer. Noah’s door stays shut.

Grant showers in the penthouse because the shirt he has on is covered in Holt’s blood and his own. Instant heal does not clean fabric. The water runs red and then clear. He looks at his stomach in the mirror. Skin. Nothing else. He checks his upper arm and can’t find the small scar left by a scared cat two years ago when jumping off his shoulder. His skin is now flawless. That’s new. He wonders if he missed anything else that changed after hitting 500.

That can wait.

“Focus Grant. Don’t go east. Plan your next move. Eat. Check in on each of the floors.” He thinks out loud.

Priya is in the hallway when he comes out with a towel on his hips.

She does not jump. She has been in this building longer than Holt’s people. She looks at his toned stomach, then at his face.

“Mary said you should not be alone with the map.”

“Mary sent you?”

“Mary said if I found you I should make you stop standing in doorways. I found you so…”

Her voice is even. Her black hair is still damp from her own shower. She is in one of the spare shirts from the second unit, too big, hanging to mid-thigh, and from the way it moves he can tell there is nothing under it.

Grant almost tells her that he is fine.

He does not.

“Come in.”

She does and then shuts the door behind her. The penthouse bedroom is the one room that still looks like a room. A king bed. Huge window. Luxurious decor.

Priya pulls the shirt off without being asked.

She is brown-skinned, smooth, small-waisted. Her C-cup breasts are full for her slender frame, heavy enough to sit with a slight weight when she drops her arms, her dark nipples already hard. The hair between her legs is a neat black triangle, a rare attention to detail in this chaotic new world. When she turns to set her shirt on the chair he sees the curve of her gorgeous bare ass. Flawless. Her pretty feet pivot on the floor.

Grant’s towel is rendered uncomfortable by his erection. He drops it to the floor.

She looks at him the way she did the first time, except she is not a virgin anymore and she does not hide it. She crosses the room, puts her palm on the place the knife was on his abs, and then her mouth moves to his cock, kissing the tip tenderly.

He can’t hold back any longer. Grant picks her up and she eagerly wraps her legs around him. He can feel the wet heat of her pussy against his stomach, the slickness of it leaving a mark on his skin. He puts her on the bed on her back and spreads her knees.

Her pussy is dark-lipped, shaved close at the edges of the triangle, the inner lips a little longer, already shiny. He puts his tongue on her because he wants to taste the body made just for him.

She gasps and grabs his hair. He licks through the slit, slowly, then finds her clit and sucks. She is loud in a way she only gets with her master. Her thighs tighten on his ears. He slides two fingers into her, tight, hot, the grip of it pulling at his knuckles, and curls them until her hips lift off the bed.

“Grant— please don’t stop—”

He doesn’t. He fucks her with his fingers and works her clit with his tongue until she comes with her fist in her mouth, shaking, soaking his chin with her juices.

He climbs up her body and rubs the head of his cock through that wetness. She reaches down and puts him at her entrance.

“Inside me. Please.”

He pushes into her in one long thrust. She is tight enough that he has to work the last inch. Her mouth opens and her nails find his back. When he is all the way to the base, her perfect breasts press into his chest, nipples dragging along his skin, and she makes a sound that is almost a laugh.

“You are so big.”

“How would you know?” He teases.

“Just because you are my first doesn’t mean I’m clueless.” She sticks her tongue out playfully.

He fucks her slow at first because he is still learning the new strength and he doesn’t want to hurt her. She does not want slow. She hooks her heels in his ass and pulls.

“I am not going to break. Faster please.”

He moves faster. Too fast.

The bed hits the wall. Her tits bounce. He gets a hand under her ass and lifts her into the thrusts so he can go deeper. The wet sound of it fills the room. Her pussy clenches every time he bottoms out. He puts a nipple in his mouth and sucks hard and she orgasms again, her thighs gripping him tighter, milking him, her forehead against his.

He pulls out before he finishes, turns her onto her stomach, and puts her knees under her. The view of her from behind is obscene. Brown ass, the dark wet seam of her pussy, his pre-cum already starting even though he hasn’t finished yet. He slides back in and holds her hips and fucks her like he is trying to forget all the stress in his life.

Priya fists the sheet and pushes back. He reaches around and rubs her clit. She comes a third time with her face in the pillow.

He can’t last much longer. He buries his cock deep inside her womb and comes in hard pulses, filling her, his hand pressing down on the small of her back. He stays there until it is done. When he pulls out, a thick line of it follows, down her pussy, onto her thigh.

She stays on her knees a second, breathing, then collapses onto her side. He lies down with her. Her fingers find the smooth skin of his stomach again, like she is checking it again.

“Mary will ask if you slept.”

“Tell her I slept like a baby.”

Priya almost smiles.

“I will lie if you order me to, but I would prefer to tell her that you were busy.”

He almost forgot the power he holds over his women. “I didn’t mean to command you. I was just teasing. Please just say what you are comfortable saying to her.” He lets out a long breath.

“As you wish, Grant. Thank you.” She kisses him and then trails off as she falls asleep.

He does not.

The five miles is still there. Nine small men with claimed. Five bigger ones. Two at a hundred. Then the unknown man. He is still alone. Just sitting. Unreadable.

Grant gets up before he can talk himself into a step he should not take.

He shrinks the map to the tower. The second floor is louder than the penthouse.

Leanne has claimed a corner unit facing the street. The door is open. Olivia and Jaz are in the hall arguing about a mattress. Paige is asleep sitting up. Leanne looks up from a pile of clothes that are not hers and sees Grant in the doorway.

“If you are here to tell me how to stack people, please tell me what you prefer.”

“I’m not.”

She looks at his face for a long second.

“Then please come in.”

He shuts the door behind him.

Leanne pulls her shirt off like she is punching out of a shift. No ceremony. She is even leaner than Priya, longer in the waist, breasts smaller, pale, pink nipples already tight from the way she is looking at him. A faint bruise on her ribs from the lobby that is already going yellow with the new healing. Between her legs she is bare, a slit he can see when she hooks her thumbs in her shorts and pushes them down. Her pussy lips are neat, lighter than Priya’s, the clit a visible little peak when she sits on the edge of the bed and spreads her legs on purpose.

“You picked us up in a bus and brought an army home,” she says. “Then you stood in a courtyard and turned into something else. I watched Mary’s arm fix itself. I knew where Jaz was without looking. So if you came down here to apologize, don’t. If you came down here to fuck me like you own me, because you do, please take your pants off.”

Grant almost laughs. He does not. He takes his pants off. He could get used to this.

Leanne does not wait long. She gets on her knees on the floor, wraps her hand around his cock, and takes him into her mouth. She is not shy about it. Wet. Deep. She looks up while she does it, eyes focused, and when she pulls off she strokes him with the spit still shining.

“You taste like sex.”

“Priya.”

“Good. Means you are taking what’s yours. Taking what you deserve.”

She stands, pushes him onto the bed on his back, and climbs on. She reaches down, spreads her pussy with two fingers so he can see how wet she already is, and sinks onto him in one drop. Tight. Hot. She takes all of him and stays there, breathing through her nose, palms on his chest.

“Don’t be gentle.”

“Wasn’t going to be.”

She rides him. Hard. Her small tits barely move. Her clit rubs his stomach when she grinds. He holds her ass and lets her set the pace. She grabs his wrist and puts his thumb where she wants it, same as Mary does, except Leanne swears when he finds the spot.

“There. Please don’t fuckin’ stop.”

He rubs. She clenches and comes on him with her head thrown back, quiet, like she will not give the hall the satisfaction. Her pussy flutters around him in little pulses.

She lifts off, turns around, and sits back on him reverse, so he can watch his cock split her from behind. The view is amazing. Her ass, the stretch of her pussy around him, the wetness running down his shaft. He sits up, wraps an arm around her waist, and fucks up into her. She reaches down and plays with her own clit. Her other hand finds his balls.

“In me,” she says. “I’m not asking you to be polite about it.”

He lasts until she comes again, shaking, and then he holds her down on him and comes hard, pumping into her, his mouth on the back of her shoulder. She keeps him there with her thighs until he is done.

When she lifts off, his cum leaks out of her onto his stomach. She looks at it, then at him, and scoops it with two fingers into her mouth.

“Yum,” she says seductively.

“Damn. You are a dirty girl.” Grant laughs.

“Only for you, master,” she smiles.

Grant lies there and lets the five miles come back.

Nine. Five. Two.

The unknown man, east-northeast, still sitting. No one around him. Something is definitely off.

Leanne stays naked and cuddles up to his chest.

“You going out there tonight?” She looks up at him curiously.

“No.” He closes the map and looks back at her.

“Good. Because if you go and get hurt again, then you can explain it to Mary.”

“I’m not going yet.”

She snorts.

“You have said that before. Please just rest for a change. I don’t want to worry about you.”

He sits up. The map sits behind his eyes, waiting for him to open it.

“Tomorrow I look from here,” he says. “Then we decide if looking is enough.”

The door slowly opens. The hall noise comes back. Olivia glances in, sees too much, and looks at Grant anyway, biting her lip.

“Hey Liv,” he smiles. Then he throws his clothes back on in a flash and goes back to the stairs.

He could step to Priya. He could step to the roof. He could step to a girl on another floor and skip the climb.

He climbs anyway. He needs to feel normal for a change. Plus, he doesn’t want to waste his power. It might have a limit, so better to save it for when he really needs it.

The building holds five hundred thirty-one points.

Grant shuts the bedroom door and this time he does close his eyes.

Not tonight means not tonight.

The unknown man does not move. Grant can finally sleep.