Virtually Hers (19 page)

His quiet chuckle made her laugh out loud. It was, she knew, a sort of hysterical reaction to this new sensation, of being and not-quite being. When she’d gone through “solid” things before—doors, walls, even steel—she hadn’t stopped in the middle of the “thought”. Those acts were done without the thought of ever being “stuck” inside because it’d been instilled in her during training that she, her physical body, wasn’t in the ether. It was her projection of what she was “seeing”, a way her brain was trying to understand the experience. She’d accepted the explanation. But now, she wondered whether there was actually more to the “phantom body” being her brain’s projection. Because she could actually feel her crateness, the flatness of the surface, the dimension. She could—

“Hades? I sense the writing on my…the crate’s sides.”
She concentrated on reading the strange letters, taking a few seconds before realizing that it was Cyrillic. It was awkward, as if she were reading something written on a tee shirt she was wearing, that was how real it felt to being part of that crate. She said each letter out loud, trying to make sense from her angle.

“Serbian and Croatian. Food Aid
,
”
Hades translated for her.
“This is what Hawk’s looking for. One down. You ready to leave?”

Best words she’d heard all trip.
“Yeah. We have to hurry. Whoever is out there has found something to pry the crate open. If I tumbled out, that’s the end of our little trip.”

“Checkered flag, Elena. Go back to the race car and continue to the next weapon those CIA agents were after.”

Helen saw the checkered flag the moment he mentioned it. It served as her guide post, the mental trigger a monitor assigned to his remote viewer to get her back to her physical self. Without it, a novice remote viewer could easily get confused or lost in the ether. She moved toward it and there was a sucking sound, like she was a suction cup stuck to a surface. She felt slightly giddy, her mind still reeling at the realization of what she’d just done, as she felt herself departing the location. She stumbled in the direction of her waiting car, still feeling the pull of the crammed space behind her.

A soft, thready moan. A creak.
“Cam…Cameron?”

Helen froze at the whisper, her hand on the car door. There was so much fear in that voice. That kind of total darkness could drive a person mad.

“Get in and go, Elena. Checkered flag.”
His order was quiet but firm.

“Did you hear that? There’s someone in that crate,”
Helen breathed.
“A woman.”

“And someone’s trying to open it. He’ll help her. Get inside the car, Elena. You can’t do anything. Checkered flag
.
”

Helen reluctantly obeyed. Who was in there? How did she get in a CIA-dropped crate? She gave a sigh as she started the car up and put it into gear. She hated leaving unsolved mysteries just when they got interesting.

Chapter Fourteen

Time to bring her back. Jed readjusted the controls. It’d taken longer than he’d thought. Those CIA bastards were really pushing their remote viewer, giving him such a broad universal agreement. Following it had taken Helen and him, as the passenger, on the trail of more weapons than he’d anticipated. He had better get more vigilant in his care of his remote viewer, or she might suffer whatever was hurting that other one at Stratter’s.

He opened his eyes, making a quick check on her vitals. Although she hadn’t mentioned it, she was getting tired. The mind could only take in so much and Elena’s had been absorbing a lot. He did a mental countdown of all the extraordinary experiences. Some form of psychic attack. “Borrowing” some other universal agreement and basically getting a free ride. That strange experience in the crate, whatever that was. He had no words for it right now and hadn’t had the time to mull over it. Elena needed his fullest attention as she wasn’t done with her joyride yet. Then the unexpected mother lode of them all—the discovery of some of the other missing weapons on the list.

The CIA moles were definitely trying to recuperate their losses from the last few months. They must be desperate. Usually, when the top-ranked moles were exposed and the fallout was still happening, many of them would lay low, waiting for the next lull in carelessness. There must be something very important, some projected plan that must be done at a certain timetable, for them to risk their being found out. Desperation often led to desperate acts.

Excitement and triumph pushed at his concentration, the need to dissect and analyze contesting the need to focus on the job at hand. Closing his eyes, Jed willed himself to “listen” in on Elena’s feelings and impressions. Their connection was still strong, but exhaustion could play a part in breaking that. He could feel the mental stress like a buzzing distress signal between them. One mistake, loss of concentration, and they’d no longer be in sync and she’d be out there alone. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

His job was to keep her alert, to reassure her, and to engage her sexual interest so they didn’t lose their mental connection. Sharing pleasure with a woman like Elena was easy. She was responsive and seductive at the same time, and their minds opened to each other in recognition of their natural attraction.

Therein lay the danger. Because of what happened earlier—in that dark space, when she’d thought she was running out of air—she’d shared her fear with him and he’d almost forgotten his role. He’d wanted to reach out to protect her instead of calm her down with words. In the darkness, so merged with her mind and her fear, he’d momentarily fallen into the trap that he was there with her and could physically help her. That couldn’t happen again, he told himself. He must remember that he had to take her out of any danger with words, not with action, when it came to remote viewing.

He turned up the volume of the brain entrainment machine, the biofeedback sounding loud and echoey. With her gone into altered state for so long, he wanted to be very sure that he brought her out of it slowly. The mental image from Stratter’s, of that man curled up and obviously in pain, bothered him more than he cared to admit. He didn’t ever want to see Elena like that.

“Checkered flag, Elena,”
he said, fascinated, as always, at how her whole body reacted to the mental trigger. Over here, in his arms, he could feel her physically tensing; in his mind, he felt the swirl of jumbled thoughts, some of which he caught, most of which scattered like so much dust. There was a part of her that fought his order, a reflex, he suspected, that was uniquely her. Relatively speaking, from experience, this type of mental trigger was very mild in comparison with others he’d witnessed. That was why he’d resisted being her trainer at first. He knew he’d have to do more. There was an independent streak in her, as well as her having been trained in NOPAIN, that would take more than a mental trigger to manage.

He smiled ruefully. Not that he’d resisted being her trainer that hard. He hadn’t figured out exactly why or what yet, but something about Elena Rostov made it more than the usual challenge for him. Her resistance was to be expected. It was his own response that surprised him.

“Hades, can you see them?”

He blinked away his thoughts.
“See what?”

“The colors. They’re so beautiful. Can’t you see them? I don’t even have names for some of the shades.”

He frowned. He couldn’t see any colors. She’d mentioned something similar before. Moving from bilocation back to the self felt like a rapid descent from a great height to him, nothing more. There were streaks of light here and there and if he concentrated too hard, it made him slightly dizzy because of the loss of sense of direction.

“No, I can’t see anything.”

“They call out to me, Hades. They make me want to stay and explore.”

A dreamy sensation invaded Jed’s senses. Not his. He didn’t like it at all.

“Elena, checkered flag,”
he said, firmly. He caught her reluctance, a pulling away from him. She should be seeing the checkered flag in her vehicle and following it back to him. But what if she wasn’t looking? What if she was too busy looking at those damn colors?

“Elena? What are you feeling?”

“Like a sunset. The colors are just gorgeous and I’m in the middle of the magic!”

He didn’t feel good about this at all. She was definitely pulling away. He could feel it. Quickly, he opened his eyes and deliberately changed the virtual reality scenario. Something shocking to her system. Something to outrage her. Something to get her connected back to him. He was glad now that he had other ways to achieve this besides a stupid and inefficient mental trigger.

Sunset, she said. He’d better hope that their sexual attraction for each other would rival a magical sunset.

He pressed the controls, readjusting temperature and scenery. Unlike her one program of him as the blond and naked Hades, he’d a lot more freedom on his side. His virtual Elena could wear many different costumes. Or go naked, just as she’d made him. He’d created the programs mostly for himself since the idea of the virtual Hades was to give Elena a measure of control, but he’d discovered that snatching back that control when she least expected it—like when he showed her his fantasy of her wearing that gaudy piece with the tassels during the beginning phase of their session—caused the kind of outrage that got her attention solely back on him. And her response always made him push her a little further, which also completed the circle, requiring him to give his full attention in pleasuring her.

Virtual space changed into an exotic stage effect. She was naked, gloriously so, the way he saw her when she stripped down to nothing before swimming, the way he’d like to keep her for the next few days, if he ever had a few days to himself. Heat mingled with desire. He took her in his arms and kissed her.

It was strange how it felt so real. The times when he’d tried with others in virtual reality, he had been clinically disengaged, part of him always gauging his mental and physical reaction. With Elena, he could recall her taste and scent so intimately that the real woman appeared to be in his arms.

She was so beautiful. He buried his nose in her neck, inhaling her sweetness, breathing the words in her ear that they’d agreed would catch her sexual attention. As if in answer, her body gave a little tremor. If he really had her for a few days to himself, he would do this. And this. And this.

“…I want. Did you hear me? That’s our secret password. Now turn away from that sunset and come back to me.”

But the colors… Helen didn’t even know how long she’d been staring at the floating colors. She didn’t want to turn back.

She shuddered at the teasing arousal calling at her. She’d heard his order, her attention brought back by a need to obey—she could never catch those important trigger words but they had the ability to make everything else unimportant. It was as if a switch had been turned on and she could feel all that male attention focused on her and her needs, bringing her secret desires to life. What woman could resist that?

“Elena, if you can hear me, put your hand between your legs and show me. That’s right. Like that. Are you wet? Close your eyes and feel how wet you are for me.”

But the colors…
If she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t be able to see them. She hiccupped. Could one’s phantom body hiccup?

“Show me how you pleasure yourself, darling. Close your eyes and touch yourself. Open your legs a bit more. Can you feel the vibration? That’s right, wider. Think of this and the checkered flag, sweetheart. You have to come back to me.”

Helen moaned, feeling a deep vibration penetrating her. What was he doing to her? She couldn’t quite see…got to concentrate… Fingers. Pressure. Floating. Every sensation was jumbled. Her phantom body fell, spread-eagled, spinning, so close to orgasm.

“So wet. Everyone in the audience can see how wet you are.”

Audience? What the—her eyes snapped open and met chocolate brown ones. Part of her struggled because she understood that she was back in the Portal. She wanted to go back to the colors. But she was back in Hades’ arms. And coming.

“No…”
she whispered, weakly. Not in front of an audience.

“Yes. It’ll go back to soft vibrate for a minute before starting again. You’ll come for them till you’re back here. And I’ve reset that vibrator till you obey me when I tell you to come back. Till you call me master.”

Outrage poured out of her and she struggled to beat him off her. Call him what? How dare he? How dare he bring an audience in to humiliate her? She would not…

“Your minute is up again. Can you feel it?”

She gasped. It felt so good against her clitoris. She screamed, unable to stop her orgasm. Her whole body convulsed as waves of pleasure took over. Panted. Horrified. People watching. Hate him, hate him
.

“Say it. Master, I’m back here with you.”
His voice was mockingly soft, his hands like steel bands around her.
“Ooops, your minute’s up again. Feel it moving against you, exactly where you want it. Look, everyone is gathering close. I love to show them how you come for me, Elena.”

She shook as the vibrator kicked up again, stimulating her already sensitive flesh. She couldn’t think, couldn’t fight, as all her muscles tensed in excruciating pleasure-pain at coming so hard a third time. She could feel the eyes on her. No, she couldn’t take them coming closer…

“Master, I’m back…with you,”
she gritted out, acknowledging his power over her, opening her eyes to glare at him.

Immediately, the feeling of being watched disappeared. There was no one. No vibrator. She looked down and saw her own hand between her legs. Oh God. She had been the one doing herself. She jerked her eyes up to meet Hades’. There was a tender curve to his lips and his hand stroked the hair away from her face. He had put the whole thing in her head. He knew she would be pissed off at having to call him master. And in front of an audience, as the final outrage. He’d manipulated her to come back.

“I hate the power you have over my mind,”
she told him, in between small pants.
“In fact, I hate you right now.”

“Hate, love, lust. I need all your strong emotions tied to me,”
he replied grimly.
“I won’t lose you out there in the ether. You’ll obey me in this. Once we’re back in reality, you can punch me again, if you like. In here, you’re mine. The more you accept this, the less dangerous it’ll be for you when we’re pushing the unknown in immersive remote viewing. Get it?”

She was too damn tired to argue right now. She closed her eyes.
“Well, get me out there right now so I can fucking punch the daylights out of you, then.”
Her threat was as weak and useless as her mind and body. She wasn’t feeling very energetic right now.

Her eyes were half-closed. She felt his kiss, soft and promising.
“Unfortunately, supersoldier-spy, you’re going to have to sleep off a lot of your RV jetlag first.”
She stuck out a tongue and her eyes closed fully on their own. She thought she heard him add,
“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, but you’ll still do it again,”
she mumbled.

His reply sounded from far away.
“Affirmative. Especially if I can get you to perform like that for me in real life. Disengage from VR mode, Dr. Kirkland.”

Helen yawned.