“Then there’s the next level it’s the mental level. It’s where the barriers between us come down. I can feel you in my mind, hear your voice. I rejoice to know that we will always be together even when we’re apart. I’ve never bonded with a female like that because I’ve never had a mate before.
“The last level is spiritual and to be honest, I have no idea what happens on that level. None of my brothers know. Once we understood there would never be a true mating for us, we never explored that possibility. I think your body wants to touch me on those levels, and you’re reaching for me and coming up empty. But here’s the thing, I’m reaching for you too.”
She moved her body until she was lying on him. Lifting her torso, she looked down at him.
“What do we do about it?”
“We try to merge.”
She smiled at him and lowered her head. She wanted to merge but not the way he was suggesting. She started kissing the side of his neck.
“Mick, whatever you can give me will have to be enough. I want you.”
He wanted her too and flipped her over before taking her shirt and bra off. A moan came from her as he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked hard.
He was never going to be a soft, easy lover. His need was too desperate. Jaz could see his eyes glow as he switched to the other nipple and a small laugh came from her because she liked him needy.
“One day I’ll slow down. But I need you too much right now.”
“I like you just like this.”
He stood and stripped and then helped her out of her clothes. When she lay back down, he opened her legs and placed himself between them.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” His head disappeared between her legs his tongue came out and licked her making her body Jump.
“Mick…should you…maybe we shouldn’t.”
He licked her again, this time, getting a better taste of her. Her upper body fell back into the chair as a moan left her.
‘You’re so beautiful down here.”
“I…am?’
“Uh huh.” His finger caressed her folds until she writhed in pleasure then he used those same fingers to open her up so he could see her.
“I love this red hair, it’s like you’re on fire.” He lowered his head and sucked her clit into his mouth.
Her body jerked upward and she gave a high keening sound. Her hands came down to clutch at his hair, and he gave a chuckle before he sucked on her again. His tongue came out licking at her seam before he stiffened it and pushed it deep into her.
Her hips moved jerking upward trying to get closer to his tongue and his amazing mouth.
“Mick,” her voice came out raspy.
He sucked and licked before his fingers came out to play.
She could feel her body opening up to him. A part of her she was unaware she possessed was stretching towards him. The pleasure was filling her, it was so heady she could barely think straight, but she wanted, needed more.
His mouth sucked on her clit again as his fingers played with her, going deep inside giving her such intense pleasure that her body began to shudder. Her hands clench his hair and then his shoulders as her breath came out in rapid pants. His name was torn from her body when she fell apart. She lost touch with reality as she floated in bliss until she fell, hard.
Hitting the floor was not what she had in mind while she was floating. Was this even a floor? She picked herself up, happy to see that she was dressed. She was in a room; it reminded her more of a box. It was gray and square, and she couldn’t find a door. She drifted over to the walls reluctantly, her feet taking her somewhere while her head was screaming to stay away.
Raising a hand, she touched the wall, but the texture was foreign to her. It couldn’t be what she thought it was. She had seen this in the museum of old technology. It was called concrete. The humans around her had laughed when they got to that section wondering what had possessed the older, less sophisticated version of themselves to use something so primitive. The guide had told them how it was used in the past and that when it came about it was a marvelous accomplishment, but the people around her just laughed.
She had been amazed at people who could do so much with so little. Now this same material was holding her captive in a room she didn’t want to be in. Slipping her hand into the pocket of the jeans she was wearing, her fingers touched a sweet ball of candy. Taking it out, she popped it into her mouth and looked around again.
Her mind searched for an explanation. How could Mick be making love to her, making her body shatter with such pleasure, and then without warning she ended up her, alone?
The jeans she was wearing were so tight she could barely breathe in them. The shirt was a crop top. Brook had explained what they were when she cut the bottom of an expensive shirt off and wore it around the house. Jaz laughed to herself. Well, she tried to wear it. Ash was determined to get it off of her. They disappeared, and it was hours later before she saw them again.
She sucked on the candy and pretended it was giving her the courage she needed not to fall apart. Her heart was racing, and the desire to pound on the walls was closing in on her. She leaned against them instead telling herself if she calmed down enough Mick would come for her.
“The humans had many prisons over the centuries that they claimed no one could break out of.”
She jumped and turned around. Dante was sitting next to where she was standing as if he had always been there.
“Can you get me out of here?”
“No, only you can do that.” His silver eyes turned to gold for a minute before they became amethyst.
“Where am I?”
He looked around. “It looks like a jail cell to me.”
She wanted to yell at him, but some sense of self-preservation told her to keep it together.
“Why am I here? I was with Mick we were…umm, we were talking and then I was here.”
Dante laughed. “I highly doubt you were talking.”
Her cheeks flushed. She knew what they were doing was right but years of being told it was wrong, illegal, still lingered in her mind. She didn’t want Mick to get hurt because of what they shared together.
“Mick’s cursed, but you already knew that. His curse means things don’t get to be nice and easy for him. He doesn’t get to be mated and have all the pieces fall into place. Each level of intimacy the two of achieve will be hard won. If he were to share a mental intimacy with you, it would make it harder for the Darkness to control him.”
Dante stood and walked around the room allowing his finger to trail over the concrete. “It’s been centuries since I’ve seen this particular substance.”
He turned to look at her, his eyes once again gold. “Those humans I told you about. The ones in the prisons that no man could escape from.”
She nodded at him remembering the prisons; a picture had popped into her head as he talked and she could see how well fortified they were.
“Some of them escaped. Those who were determined to find a way out did. Those prisons were just like this one. They had a way out, but you had to look for it.”
He was gone, and she wasn’t even surprised at this point. She was beginning to understand him just a little. He never took free will away but always seemed to let her know there was another path if she was brave enough to find it.
There was a way out of here but did she dare take it. Was she ready to face whatever was trying to keep her and Mick apart? Did she even believe that they were meant to be together? Standing she went over every section of the wall trying to find a secret door or a lever, there was nothing, with a sigh she sat down with her back against the wall.
Frustration made her hands tremble. The overwhelming sense of needing to get out and find Mick took up residence in her heart. She jumped up and went over every inch of the walls again thinking she missed something. She made herself slow down and double and tripled checked, but there was nothing, no way out; she grew even more concerned.
Dante said there was a way out, and she believed him. Where was it?
Maybe she had imagined Dante; there was a possibility she hit her head and this was a dream. There was always the chance that she had another virus that was unfolding, driving her crazy. She shuddered trying to ground herself.
Closing her eyes, she thought about Mick. The memory of him pulling up the floor boards at Ash’s house to find their escape route made her eyes fly open. She went on her hands and knees and began covering the floor inch by inch looking for something, anything that seemed out of place.
She found it in the middle of the room. It was a patch of concrete that was darker than the rest of the floor, but that was the only thing that gave it away.
She poked and prodded at it for at least an hour until she was so tired she laid her hand over the spot with her palm covering it entirely. Part of the floor slid back. She might have jumped, but by then she was so tired she simply smiled because she found it.
The ladder leading down was in bad shape, but she clung to it as she descended. She looked around finding a maze. The walls touched the ceiling above them, and the paths were narrow. Not knowing what else to do, she started walking hoping she would find the path that would lead her to Mick.
Jaz was not squeamish, her work in cryogenics allowed her to come in contact with people in need of healing in all phases of their diseases, but she never experienced the pure horror of helplessness on the faces before her. Every turn of the maze brought her into contact with a different being; most of them weren’t humanoid, and they were dying. Not just dying but being torn apart in front of her eyes and there was nothing she could do but walk on.
Walking past them went against every instinct she possessed, but she knew on a level that made no sense that only one person could help them, and she wasn’t that person. Everyone here was locked in their private hell, which made her wonder where Mick was and what he was suffering.
“Turn around,” a dark, seductive voice whispered in her head. “Go back or you will lose your freedom.”
Freedom, the word chanted in her head, taunting her with everything she ever desired. No one watching her, keeping tabs on her. She had the ability to do whatever she wanted. Was that freedom? She shook her head hard; there was no time for internal debates, she needed to find Mick.
“Why? He would keep you away from your freedom.”
He would keep her away. Mick would want things just like she wanted things. He wouldn’t understand if she wanted to go to the beach alone for a month. He would want to come, to hold her hand. How could he ever understand her desire only to see her footprints in the sand? He would hold her back. Why was she even looking for him?
Turn around; the voice whispered again sounding much closer now. It was so insidious as it whispered into her ear and penetrated her heart.
“You don’t have to listen to him. You are free. No one tells you what to do.”
Her feet fumbled as she tried to move. Forward or backward? She pondered where she would go. Her feet started walking again even as she tried to slow herself down. She broke into a run, fear on her heels chasing her. The desire to scream was close so she ran even faster, passing beings that made her soul cry out in pain. She ran until she fell.
In front of her, in a cell so small she would have missed it if she were standing, was Mick. There was a clear front panel on the box that held him. His knees were almost pressed against his neck that was how small the box was. How would he ever break out of it? The box was so tight he couldn’t move.
She waved her hand in front of the cell to get his attention, but he acted like he couldn’t see her. She knocked and still nothing. She could see in, but he couldn’t see out. He was trapped; he’d never get out of there, at least not alone. She banged against the glass trying to break it. His head lowered like he was reacting with pain to her hitting the glass and the box contracted getting smaller. Every time she touched the box the heat in her hands increased. Was the box feeding off of her?
Her stomach twisted, the French toast she ate earlier threatening to come up. She almost choked on the bile in her throat as fear held her immobilized. She hurt him and her heart felt like it was bleeding. With slow, measured footsteps, she backed away as she cast her eyes around looking for a way of escape.
“I told you to run.” That voice said again. This time, she could feel the evil in it like it was slithering through her mind. “Leave him; he was never yours.”
She looked at the box again it appeared to be shrinking in front of her eyes. Mick was so curled up at this point she doubted his ability to breathe in there for much longer.
He was going to die; she needed to accept it. The acid in her stomach began to burn her. She fell back to her hands and knees as she dry heaved trying to take in enough deep breaths to calm herself. She refused to be calmed down. She stood not knowing what to do. In a fit of rage or was it fear she kicked the cement box expecting her foot to break. Instead, the box broke; the boot she was wearing went through it like a hot knife through melted butter. It crumpled around Mick and allowed his body to expand; he took in deep, desperate gulps of air until he was finally able to stand and approach her.
Her body stilled, she was afraid to move, afraid that she hurt him with her raw fury.
He pulled her into his arms. “You saved me, set me free.”
His mind slid into hers touching her on a level she never experienced before.
“Come with me?”
She nodded, still scared to use her voice. His hand clasped hers, and he led them out of the maze, like he always knew the way, he just simply needed to be set free.
“I’m taking you to my planet.”
“I can hear you in my head.”
“And you always will from now on. We’ve moved to the next level of bonding.”
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think Brook went through all of this.”
“I’m a guardian, Jaz mine; the rules are different for me.”
His hand was warm on her, and she concentrated on it as they walked through the dark corridors. She couldn’t see anything, but Mick seemed to know exactly where he was going.