The Pulse Read Online Free PDF Page A

through to her core whenever he looked in her direction.
    What if he knows about the radio?
    Impossible. He definitely wasn’t from Grand Central, she believed him on that. But the men at the camp were going to be looking for her, if they weren’t already. She had to get out of the city.
    She wished she could go alone, but she knew both her limits and the reality of her situation. Traveling alone was asking for trouble, and she’d had about all the trouble she could handle lately.
    If Mason went with her, she’d be protected. She’d have a better chance of making it out of Manhattan with him. So she needed to keep him by her side, no matter what. The thought of a man’s touch after the past months living on the Tracks scared her, but it was the only way.
    Sitting next to him, watching the glow in the wastebasket fire he had set to cook their rat meat, she felt a twinge of excitement lining her fear. She could do worse, that was for sure. But why had he been in prison?
    What if he was a rapist, or a murderer?
    Stop thinking about that , she chided herself. She watched as he licked his fingers clean, polishing off the last of the rat. It had actually tasted quite good. Like barbeque.
    Seeing his tongue flick out of his mouth made her imagine him doing other things with his tongue. Her pussy got wet at the thought, and she remembered the chaste kiss he’d given her earlier that day.
    They were sitting on a hospital blanket laid out on the cold tile floor, like a strange nighttime picnic. Emily touched Mason’s arm tentatively.
    He turned to her, the fire reflecting in his eyes. “Hi,” he said softly.
    “Hi.”
    He pulled her to him them, kissing her, his lips pressing against hers with a tenderness that melted her fears. “You don’t have to do this,” he whispered.
    Which made her want him all the more. Not being forced, being able to choose… It felt nice. “I know. I want to.”
    He held her tightly in his strong arms. She could feel his heart beating, steady and slow beneath her palm. He reached up and tentatively caressed her breast, rubbing his palm over her skin, cupping her, as if he were testing the weight of her breasts in his hands.
    She arched toward him, needing to feel more contact. His thumb grazed her nipple and she bit back a moan of delight, pressing her breasts into his hands, imploring him with her eyes to continue.
    Mason kissed her neck, his breath hot on her cool skin, and she gasped as his mouth trailed lower, placing soft kisses over her shoulders and down to her breasts. When his tongue gently lapped at her nipple, she couldn’t hold back her desire any longer.
    “Yes, Mason,” she whispered.
    He complied with her unspoken wish and pulled her nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, flicking her nipple with his tongue until it became a tight bud that peaked. As he suckled her he reached up and gently pinched her other nipple, tweaking it in time with his mouth on the other side.
    She breathed in and let her head loll back, luxuriating in the sensation after having been untouched by gentle hands in so long.
    Mason reached down to her fly and unbuttoned it. She let him, feeling the undeniable inevitability of it all. She was his, and that was good.
    “Take off your jeans,” he said. “But… only if you want to.”
    She obeyed quickly. It had been a long time since she had made love—too long. The experiences she had since their world had turned upside down didn’t even come close to counting.
    But this, this was something she wanted. Needed.
    Naked before him, Emily pressed herself against his long, hard body, still clad in his cargo pants. A thick brush of curls covered her pussy where she used to regularly wax it bare, and she hadn’t shaved her legs in almost a year. Would he be turned off?
    Then the look of unadulterated desire she felt when she looked at Mason blew any self-consciousness right out of her mind.
    He reached between her legs and ran one long finger along her slick