Virtually His (27 page)

He frowned. She’d called him in
his
dream? He reached out, turning the knobs by the monitor. The microeye in Helen’s quarters was equipped with night-vision sensors; he activated it so he could zoom in on her sleeping figure.

She was tossing around, still asleep, moaning softly. She was pulling at her shirt, as if she was trying to take it off, except that she wasn’t sitting up.

He glanced at the wavelength reading of her state of sleep showing on top of the screen. REM. She was dreaming. They had both been dreaming. He frowned. He reached up and touched the tabs attached to his forehead. Was she dreaming his dream? And he’d somehow woken up and she hadn’t. Impossible.

Was she really having an erotic dream, too? Or, did she somehow invade his own dream? His other hand was still around his hard-on. His gaze went back to the monitor. The image was shadowy but he could see her hand moving over her breasts. What if he—He slowly pulled on his erection, easily building his need back up stroke by stroke. This time he was more calculating, envisioning Elena’s wet breasts in his mouth again, and her long, long legs wrapped around his waist as he took her, playing with his own pleasure until dots of light obscured his sight of the monitor. And still he wouldn’t let himself come as he continued watching Helen in her sleep.

She was moving even more agitatedly now, kicking away the sheet covering her legs. Was she dreaming that she was in that swimming pool, with him inside her? The hungry heat between his own legs was demanding release. He squeezed the head again, giving in to the torturous feeling of elusive pleasure, fighting the urgency to finish off. His whole body seized up with sensation, his thigh muscles tightening. Need and desire roared through him and he let it, not moving his hand.

A high-pitched whine came from the monitor. It was Elena. “No…!” she murmured, her voice a little desperate, as if it was she who wasn’t allowed to reach the peak, too.

He’d known about her sensitive condition as the serum’s hold on her body slowly dissipated, had wanted to test her tomorrow during a RV session. It had made sense—her body chemistry was overcompensating.

And still he didn’t want to believe it was possible. He waited a moment, taking control of his breathing. He looked at the monitor again. Brain wave scan verging between REM and theta. Theta was the state desired for remote viewing. A glance at Elena’s shadowy form showed her lying on her back, very still, her hand still grasping her T-shirt.

He noticed, for the first time, that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. His whole attention zoomed in on to that part of her as he slowly masturbated. Deliberately, slowly, like the way he liked sex. No underwear. His hand tightened. He’d seen her naked before but he’d never had the leisure of her lying still for his examination. She was always moving around and he had been more captivated by her saucy sexuality.

Her hand started that impatient pulling again, as his own pleasure grew and he edged closer to orgasm. Testing his theory was going to kill him. He hadn’t played with himself like this since he was in training.

His gaze fixed on Helen’s moving legs. Part them. With his own legs. Put this inside her. His back arched as he stopped himself from coming. On the screen, Helen’s soft screech reverberated in his head, testing his usual control. The sound was sexual, emitted by a woman in the throes of desire. His orgasm hovered over him like a demanding sergeant and his whole body sagged from the need to obey the order to continue. But his will was stronger.

He peeled off the tabs connected to the machine that was meant to regulate their sleep patterns. He wasn’t sure how it’d happened, but somehow, he and Helen had connected on an even deeper level than intended.

He waited, but she wasn’t getting out of REM and her discomfort was obvious. At this rate, she wouldn’t be able to remote view tomorrow, and he needed her to find Cummings for him before the latter reached Russia. If Cummings got to Russia, he’d disappear.

Never refuse what the gods offered. He wanted her. Now. And he was tired of jerking off when it came to Elena Rostova.

He sat up in bed, leaned over, made some adjustments to Helen’s brain entrainment readings, and shut off the controls to the monitor with a password. There was no other microeye in her quarters but the one he’d put there himself. He could go there now. No one would disturb them once he’d keyed in his access code. They knew better.

Helen heard herself moaning before she came awake. The sound wave from the brain entrainment machine seemed louder. An intense need filled her as she battered through sleep and sensation. Her back arched up as another frisson of pleasure rocketed through her, making her gasp.

Frustration ate at her as she realized that she was cheated out of finishing her dream. She had been with a man but she couldn’t remember his face, just that he was naked in water, and he had been making love to her. She remembered his mouth on her breast—his teeth—and she shivered from the memory.

The pleasure was unbelievably intimate. She had never had a wet dream before, and this one had left a raging need in her loins. She moved restlessly, half asleep and trying to chase after the lost dream.

At first she thought she’d fallen back to sleep. A hand gently grasped her by the jaw, firmly squeezing her mouth open. Something dropped in. Bitter. Familiar.

Suddenly fully awake, Helen’s eyes flew wide open, her hands automatically flying up to grab the one holding her face. Big mistake. Her attacker put his weight on top of her upper body, trapping her hands. His hand clamped over her mouth and nose as she struggled.

She knew what the taste meant. She’d taken the pill several times before. She tried to kick and gasped out when pain shot up her right leg. She jerked her face violently, trying to free one of her hands.

A hand reached down between her legs. She hadn’t bothered with underwear tonight. Not that it would have stopped him. It wouldn’t take him long to find out that she was already in a state of arousal. Her struggles froze as her sensitivity betrayed her, and pleasure started to build. She whimpered deep in her throat, caught between anger and desire.

Her attacker leaned even more on top of her, playing with her with that one hand and deliberately forcing her breath out with his weight, he used his other hand to block her nostrils at the same time. She swallowed air, along with the melting pill. Damn, damn, damn, damn…her curses were muffled. He mocked her by biting her on the neck, silently telling her that he was in charge. She raged at herself before she went out like a light.

When she opened her eyes again, it was still very dark, and he was no longer on top of her. He was sitting by her, all shadow. He was massaging her bad leg, slowly kneading the area that was injured. It was a good kind of pain, mingled with that edgy pleasure that her sensitivity had given her for hours. She inhaled sharply as the back of his hand touched her intimately as he continued massaging.
That
was no accident. She was sure of it.

Not that she could do anything. She couldn’t move. And she knew who it was sitting beside her. The back of his hand caressed her again, leisurely.

“Hades, you bastard,” she breathed out. She didn’t need to ask him why he was here in her room. She fought back a shudder as she felt another intimate touch. All the while, he kept working on the tight muscles of her thigh, as if he really was there to massage her sore leg.

“At your service,” he acknowledged. His voice came over the sound waves projected through her earplugs, just like Dr. Kirkland sometimes communicated with her when she was getting ready for bed, except it had been altered electronically. “I heard you calling my name.”

That was in her dream.
Wasn’t it? “Turn the light on,” she ordered, straining desperately to see through the darkness.

“You can’t have it all your way now, can you?” he mocked knowingly. “What if I don’t have brown eyes and a big cock?”

She wanted to hear his real voice, not this soft electronically-modulated tone that was mixing with the sound waves. Of course that was why he’d given her the pill. He hadn’t wanted her to know how he looked or sounded.
But he was here in person.
Her heart thudded loudly as she stared up at him hungrily.

“I’ll be able to move again soon enough to do it myself,” she told him.

“No,” he told her. His voice was soft. “Not tonight. Not with the dose I gave you.”

Helen shivered at the implication. He ran his thumbs up and down the side of her thighs with firm pressure. Oh, Lord, that felt so good. She had known that she needed it but knew she wouldn’t be able to handle some stranger touching her in her condition.

And he isn’t a stranger?
Her mind mocked her even as she succumbed to the magic of his care. It was different. It was Hades. Her argument had the big holes of a slice of Swiss cheese, but she didn’t care. She knew those hands.

“Why are you here?” she finally had to ask, wondering whether she could actually still be dreaming, caught as she was between the pleasure still riding her and the pain in her leg.

“You woke me up with your dream.”

Helen’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” she asked slowly. Was he saying that he was dreaming about—

“I was inside you and enjoying myself when you woke me up,” he told her, confirming her suspicions, leaning so close now that she caught a whiff of his male scent and a hint of cologne. “You called my name, so here I am. I always finish what I start, especially when it comes to pleasuring a woman.”

He stopped, and one hand moved up and cupped her intimately. Helen tried to stop the small gasp of pleasure from escaping her lips but to no avail. Her skin was still so sensitive that being touched right now was akin to torture.

His hand felt like a brand, his fingers marking her.

“Don’t—” she managed to groan out, even as her body eagerly responded to the feel of his fingers. “I…it’s too much.”

She vaguely wondered whether he knew how she was right now. If he was Heath—she tried to focus on the shadow, tried to remember what Heath looked like.

Hades’ other hand gently pulled her right leg outwards, giving him more access, ignoring her growl of outrage. “You enjoyed this during our VR session. We’re even doing this in our dreams now. Don’t you enjoy the real thing?”

Too much. The knowledge that she was lying there with her legs parted and not wearing underwear filled her with hot anticipation. What was he doing? All thoughts fled as he skillfully brought the smoldering embers of frustration to a fiery burn. All thoughts, all logic, everything went out the window. She sighed as fingers parted her, just like in her dream.

But this is real, Helen. This is real.
It was too late. His finger stroked her where she wanted and her need for release felt so swollen that she thought she would burst. Her eyes closed from the sheer sensual pleasure swirling through her being.

“You do like it,” he whispered and after a few more strokes, he paused.

“No, don’t stop,” Helen breathed out quickly, so close again that she didn’t care she sounded desperate.

“It has to be my way,” he said. “Right now, I’m just giving you a taste while I work on your injury. A deep massage will help you walk without crutches tomorrow. You need to lie very still while I do it.”

As if she could move if she’d wanted! He’d given her no choice in that matter. But there wasn’t any time to argue with him. To demonstrate his promise, he started pleasuring her again, using her slick wetness to make his point. And slowing down at the wrong moment.

“Bastard,” Helen panted out. “I’m going to kick your ass for this.”

“Not tonight,” he said. “Tonight, you’re in a highly-aroused state with an injured leg. Advantage, mine.”

The way he said
mine
should have pissed her off. Instead it excited her. He excited her, this shadow who knew her body so well.

She could fight him, too, if only she could think straight. The sound of a cap coming off distracted her thoughts. She heard the squish. Liquid. Lotion? He lathered her with it from thigh to calf and gave her leg a vigorous rubdown. Whatever the lotion was, it heated up and penetrated like those stinky sports gels, except without the smell, and she could feel her muscles relaxing even more.

His palm stroked up her thigh. Her heart raced as she suddenly realized his intention.

“No!”

He didn’t pay any attention, rubbing her between the legs with the remaining lotion in his hand. She felt his fingers parting her, touching her already sensitive clitoris, and all around it.

“Oh…” she moaned, losing focus on the heat in her leg as another part of her started to tingle. Heat. Oh, my God, the heat. It rivaled the glow raging in her lower belly. She felt tormented inside and outside.

He stopped touching her there and went back to concentrating on just her leg. A nice, slow, deep massage, while in another part of her, the heat turned into a pulsing yearning. Helen wanted to scream. She wanted his hands higher, back where it was deliciously on fire. But he ignored her for what seemed like hours.

She heard herself panting. The tingle had grown into a roaring fire of need. He ignored her, totally absorbed in ministering to her leg.

Please. Higher, please.
She wasn’t going to beg. She wasn’t going to let him know she was unbearably excited by being in his control.

She gritted her teeth as the heat teased her like an invisible hand. The yearning was unbearably erotic, driving her crazy, making her weak with desire. Her whole body grew tired of fighting the strange and wonderful sensations that had been attacking her all night. She desperately wanted to give in to them.

And still he ignored her. He was an excellent masseur. An arrogant, manipulating bastard, but an excellent masseur nonetheless. She couldn’t stand it any longer.

“You could try…” lost in sensation, she was unable to form a coherent sentence “…asking. Apparently you don’t know how to do that.”

He paused from his massage of her leg. “Yes.”

“Hades!”