Chapter 171: Galloway Time With Cindy [2] [R-18 Contents!]

“So…” I started carefully, acknowledging the awkwardness of what I needed to ask. “Do you want to do it here?”

“Euh?” Cindy raised her gaze to me with genuine confusion, her blue eyes widening slightly as she processed what I was suggesting.

“Currently we’re alone and have actual privacy,” I explained. “Once we go back to the others, we’ll be constantly surrounded by the others—fifty people packed into close quarters with minimal privacy. And that situation will continue until we reach Atlantic City and find a safe place to properly settle down. It could be days before we’d have another opportunity like this where we can be alone without worrying about being interrupted or observed.”

I paused, watching her face as understanding dawned. “So realistically, it will be extremely difficult to find appropriate time and place to handle your stabilization needs if we don’t take advantage of our current circumstances.”

“T???That’s…” Cindy looked away, her cheeks coloring slightly with a blush that spread down her neck. She glanced around the small game room as if seeing it for the first time, assessing its suitability for what I was proposing. Then her gaze fixed on the door where the infected dog was still intermittently knocking and growling. “Here…? With that thing right outside?”

The hesitation in her voice made it clear the infected dog’s presence was significantly impacting her comfort level with this situation, which was completely understandable. Hard to relax into intimacy when a creature was actively trying to break down the door to kill you.

“I can take care of the dog permanently if you’re genuinely uneasy about it,” I offered. “It’ll only take a moment.”

“I…I’m not scared of that dog…” Cindy stuttered unconvincingly, her hand reaching instinctively toward the sapphire necklace I’d given her. The gesture was automatic—whenever she was nervous or anxious, she’d developed the habit of fidgeting with the blue gemstone, her fingers tracing its faceted surface or adjusting the chain.

I didn’t call attention to the contradiction between her words and her obvious anxiety. Instead, I simply activated the Time Freeze without further discussion.

The world stuttered and froze mid-breath, color draining away as temporal suspension took hold. I moved quickly to the door and opened it, revealing the infected dog caught mid-motion—one paw raised for another assault on the barrier, jaws open in a growl that would never complete.

I raised my hand axe with efficient precision and delivered a clean decapitating cut that separated the dog’s head from its body with surgical accuracy. The blade passed through corrupted flesh and bone without resistance in the frozen moment. Then I kicked the headless body away from the doorway so it wouldn’t obstruct the entrance when time resumed, and closed the door firmly behind me.

I should probably have done this much sooner rather than letting the creature continue its assault for so long, but I had this deeply ingrained paranoid habit of constantly preserving my Time Freeze ability—never using it unless I absolutely needed to, always holding it in reserve for genuine emergencies where the ten-second duration might mean the difference between survival and death.

Well, maybe this particular situation hadn’t truly qualified as a serious emergency requiring temporal manipulation. But the dog would have resumed its activity in about ten minutes anyway once the countdown completed, and we were perfectly safe inside this locked room regardless. So using Time Freeze now to eliminate an ongoing distraction seemed reasonable.

When time resumed its normal flow ten seconds later, Cindy blinked her eyes with momentary disorientation. It seemed she’d felt the temporal distortion—probably sensed through her own Dullahan virus enhancement that something fundamental about reality had briefly shifted.

She turned her gaze immediately toward the closed door, her head tilting slightly as she registered the sudden absence of growling and thumping sounds that had been constant background noise for the past several minutes. Then she looked at me with dawning understanding.

“Y..You stopped time?” She asked, seeking confirmation of what she’d already deduced. “Just now?”

I nodded simply, not bothering to verbally confirm what was obvious.

Cindy lowered her gaze, her fingers still fidgeting with the sapphire necklace. Her teeth caught her lower lip briefly before she spoke again.

“B-But I didn’t have the occasion to wash myself properly…” She said quietly. “Not in three days. I feel disgusting.”

Ah, so it was about personal hygiene and feeling presentable. That made perfect sense, actually.

She was a woman, after all, and women tended to have higher standards and sensitivity about cleanliness than men did—or at least, higher anxiety about being perceived as unclean during intimate situations. Socialization and cultural conditioning created different comfort thresholds.

I personally didn’t care much about minor hygiene issues in apocalyptic contexts. I mean, I’d certainly preferred washing myself regularly when that was feasible—back in Jackson Township I’d made a point of bathing daily, especially since I went out scavenging every day and came back covered in infected blood and general filth. But I supposed I wasn’t quite as sensitive as women typically were about the social implications of being less than perfectly clean.

“Neither did I…” I said somewhat awkwardly, acknowledging that I was equally unwashed and probably didn’t smell particularly pleasant though I did feel like that since I had awakened Dullahan, I was nearly not sweating at all unless I overused my Dullahan Abilities. Basically I felt cleaner than before without even trying it as if the Virus was keeping my body in perfect health and state.

Regardless we genuinely hadn’t had occasion to wash ourselves properly anywhere during these last three days of difficult travel. There’d been brief opportunities to use wet sponges and bottled water for minimal cleaning, but that didn’t constitute actual bathing by any reasonable standard. The results wouldn’t last long and left you feeling only marginally cleaner than before.

“But the rain did quite a bit of washing earlier,” I added, scratching at my still-damp hair where Cindy had tied it back with her pink hair band. The observation sounded pathetically inadequate even to my own ears—rain wasn’t exactly a substitute for soap and hot water.

I didn’t know what else to say to address her concern. We were in the middle of an apocalypse, trapped in a game room at an abandoned elderly care facility, with limited resources and no access to proper bathing facilities. The hygiene situation was simply what it was.

“Okay then…” Cindy said finally after a long moment of internal deliberation. She’d apparently decided that the necessity outweighed her discomfort about feeling unclean.

Then, with sudden determination that suggested she needed to act before losing her nerve, she started removing her top—pulling the damp fabric over her head to reveal her yellow bra and the slender, soft expanse of her stomach. Her skin was pale and smooth. The valley of her cleavage was visible above the bra’s edge, rising and falling with her slightly elevated breathing.

As always, I found myself staring somewhat dumbly despite being the one who’d practically asked her to undress. There was something about Cindy’s combination of vulnerability and quiet confidence that always captured my attention completely, making coherent thought temporarily difficult.

“Well, won’t you also?” Cindy asked, tucking her damp blonde hair behind her ear in bit nervous gesture.

“Yeah, right…” I responded somewhat belatedly, my brain finally catching up with the situation. I began removing my own jacket.

As the damp leather came off, I felt my heart beginning to hammer harder in my chest—not from anxiety exactly, but from anticipation and the simple biological reality of impending intimacy with someone I genuinely cared about. Heat was already rising inside me at the prospect of having sex with Cindy, with someone I truly loved rather than just engaging in mechanical stabilization.

Because that was the fundamental truth beneath all the medical necessity and concerns: I did love her. Loved her in ways that went far beyond the physical connection or the virus stabilization requirements. She was important to me, valued not just for what she could do or provide but for who she fundamentally was as a person.

As always, that realization created a wonderful, almost overwhelming feeling—warmth that had nothing to do with physical arousal and everything to do with emotional connection.

I reached my hand out to her. Cindy’s smaller hand slid into mine—warm, slightly trembling and I drew her upward until her chest brushed mine. Her palms came to rest flat against my shirt, right over my heart, and she looked up at me through those impossibly blue eyes that always seemed to shimmer when she was flustered.

“Ryan…” She breathed.

I leaned down and captured her lips.

“Mmm—” Her mouth parted in a startled hum, soft and sweet and utterly disarming.

Her lips tasted faintly of tea, of her breath, and of her. When I pressed deeper, she tilted her chin instinctively, letting me take more, her hands curling in the fabric over my ribs. My other hand found her waist, cool fingertips meeting the heat of her bare skin. She shivered hard, a ripple running through her body, and then let out a muffled whimper right against my mouth.

“Haaa—mmn…”

The sounds came soft and wet as our mouths moved together, a rhythm neither of us had learned but both of us knew. My thumb stroked the line of her hipbone, feeling her skin contract under the touch as if her body wanted to lean into it. She tilted, back arching slightly, breath hitching as I deepened the kiss.

I felt her lips open and didn’t hesitate. My tongue brushed the seam of her mouth before sliding in, tasting her.

Cindy gasped against me, a sound halfway between surprise and surrender, her blue eyes fluttering open as my tongue met hers. The first brush of it sent a pulse of heat right through me—electric, dizzying and I caught her moan with my own mouth. She tasted like warmth, like something alive and delicate. I licked along the edge of her tongue, slow, and she answered clumsily but earnestly, our tongues tangling, retreating, chasing each other again.

“Ha—ahh—mm…” Her knees trembled. I felt the weight of her body lean closer, her nails digging into my chest through my shirt.

The world narrowed to breath and taste. Her hair brushed my cheek, her scent a mix of sweat, and something faintly wild. Every time she exhaled, I felt her heat bloom against my skin. I had kissed before, but never like this—never with this messy hunger that felt like it might swallow us both whole.

We stayed locked there, mouths working, breathing each other in, until the edges of our lips grew slick with shared saliva. Then I drew back just enough to breathe, our foreheads touching, our breaths ragged and heavy in the narrow space between.

“Haa… haa… ha…”

Her cheeks were flushed, lashes wet, lips glossy and slightly parted. A thin line of saliva glistened at the corner of her mouth, trailing down her chin, and I had to bite down a groan at the sight. She was trembling, chest rising and falling quickly against mine.

I wrapped one arm firmly around her back and pulled her closer. Her breasts pressed into me through yellow bra, and she let out a tiny sound—not quite a moan, not quite a sigh when my mouth found her neck.

“Haan!” Her voice pitched higher when I kissed the soft skin just below her ear.

Her scent there was stronger carrying the warmth of skin after a long day. I let my tongue trace a slow line down the curve of her throat, tasting salt and heat.

She gasped again and gripped my hair tightly, holding me there, her fingers tangling in the strands. My lips wandered lower, finding the hollow at the base of her neck, lingering there before I nipped gently.

She hadn’t washed herself properly? It hardly mattered before and now I could confirm it after tasting her skin. That faint saltiness, her natural odour, the damp human smell of her skin, was intoxicating. It was real. It was her.

Her body was tense and soft all at once, pressed against me as if she couldn’t decide whether to pull away or melt further in. My hands roamed from her back to the curve of her waist again, feeling her pulse flutter beneath her skin. She leaned her head to the side, granting me more of her throat, her breathing turning uneven, whispering something that dissolved into another soft moan as I sucked lightly on her skin.

“Haah—mmn… Ry—Ryan…”

Her voice trembled, her breath catching at every kiss. I felt her heart hammering through her chest, matching mine beat for beat, until the space between us disappeared again.

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