Fast forward, p.2
Fast Forward, page 2
part #3 of Time Captive Series
Another prayer wouldn’t hurt. His faith in Valda had sustained him all these years.
He could handle another day.
“Hologram,” he called.
“Good morning, Mr. Kenton,” the hologram greeted him as it flickered to life. “Are you ready to resume your review of the Bashan project?”
“Yes,” he said, forcing his gaze away from the woman he loved. “What’s next?”
Chapter 2
“Everyone deserves a chance to clean up their mistakes.” - Anonymous
VALDA
What happens in life writes a story in the flesh…unless what happens in life includes time spent in a nutrient chamber repairing fragmented genome while flooding the system with artificial stem cells. A pulse traveled through the electrode sending stimulus into the muscles of my legs. My calves flexed. Then my quads. My feet twitched. Next came my arms. My hands. Even my back, and finally my jaw.
The pulses came at irregular intervals designed to keep the patient from predicting their next one. Three days out of the tank, and I’d done little more than sleep, test my reflexes and cognitive functions, and worry. Well, not worry as much as Andreas was. He’d been a damn gift in the first hours as my body temperature equalized, even though I shivered like mad. From cleaning me up to washing my hair, to putting me in fresh, clean clothes, he’d handled everything.
Now, he stood over me, arms folded and his stern demeanor fierce. Dirk’s security forces had checked in with us. They believed they had a lead on where Dirk and Hatch had been taken, but those were the only details Andreas shared with me.
The stimulation therapy worked in conjunction with the treatment I’d received in the tank, designed to help with the muscle atrophy years of being trapped in the memoriam had done to my body. The ravages were not pretty. But we didn’t have time for my vanity.
Andreas glanced at the monitor as it signaled a completion to the cycle, and I sat forward to begin removing the electrodes. “Querida,” he murmured, closing his hand over mine to slow my movements and then take them over. “You’re doing it again.”
I focused on his dark eyes and the myriad of questions housed there. He’d finally showered and shaved this morning after I pointed out that he had no business looking after me if he wouldn’t take care of himself. The criticism wasn’t totally fair, he had been taking fantastic care of me and he’d done it all in isolation with no support.
I worried about him.
Catching his fingers with mine, I let out a breath. Not only had my grip improved, so had my dexterity. “You’re doing so much for me, again.”
“And I do it gladly,” he scolded me almost gently, though the bite in his tone was sharp. “You are still sleeping and restoring, yes? That’s why we’re doing all these tests? Working your muscles? Focusing on the exercises?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But I’m not an invalid, and the fastest way to get me on my feet is for me to get on my feet.”
Patience reflected in his dark-eyed gaze as he stared at me steadily. Finished with removing the electrodes, he took a step back and folded his arms. “Very well. Then get on your feet.”
Placid. Relaxed. Almost temperate.
He didn’t fool me, but I appreciated the effort. The one thing we hadn’t discussed since I’d emerged was the challenges ahead. One of those challenges was this right here. Proving I could handle being up and on my own two feet in a world I’d failed to be a part of for years. A world that had changed and stolen two men that I’d loved while a third had chosen to leave.
I couldn’t blame Oz.
I wouldn’t blame him.
“Querida?”
I couldn’t let myself fall down that hole, though. If I did—no, I rejected the thought. Oz did what he did. He had every right to take his own life back after I took so much from him. Now, I needed to focus on getting off my ass and on my feet. With that in mind, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and dragged myself into sitting up properly with no support.
Every muscle I possessed protested.
The mind over the body.
The mind was a powerful thing. It could compartmentalize pain. It could separate the tangled threads of grief, anger, and despair. It could force focus, even when everything in the body wanted to just collapse.
If Dirk and Hatch were with us, maybe I could afford to be weak.
Maybe.
Even as that thought crested, denial drowned it out. No, my selfish choice ended with us in this situation. Hands flat against the rough cotton, I gripped the edge for support. As much as I hated to admit it, I checked to make sure the floor was there as I settled my feet against it. The chill of the metal beneath my toes sent a ripple of goosebumps all over my skin.
The sterile environment of the lab did not lend itself to warmth. Stomach bottoming out, I pushed away from the bed in an effort to trust my trembling muscles with my weight—weight that had diminished considerably from before. Even the light cotton shift I wore hung off me like I was a skeleton.
Pushing aside the vanity, I concentrated on straightening under Andreas’ watchful eyes. Despite the distance and the way he folded his arms, the tautness in his posture and the subtle shift of his weight betrayed his concern.
He refused to coddle me, despite the fact that he wanted to do nothing but protect me. I loved him for it. He pushed at me. Challenged me. Gave me something to fight against. I needed it.
I needed to rise above what others thought I couldn’t do. Every step I took sent my muscles trembling more. The icy sensation of a thousand pins and needles assaulted my legs as I made it five steps.
Five. Whole. Steps.
Then my knees wobbled, and one began to buckle. Sweat trickled down my spine as I fought the feeling of it collapsing. I’d practiced my yoga almost religiously, every day for the last five years, and it didn’t matter a damn. My mind and body could not find an agreement with what it knew and what happened.
Even the life—no, lives I’d lived left me with the worst case of cognitive dissonance. Three more steps, and Andreas caught me before I could collapse.
A total of eight steps.
One arm around me, he gave me a look filled with such heartbreak and sorrow that I sighed. “I will get better,” I promised him as he pulled me in tight to his side.
“I know you will,” he whispered. “But you are so stubborn.”
I lifted my chin. “I have to be.”
He traced a finger down my damp cheek, and then with care, swiped away the tear I hadn’t even realized I’d shed. “I know, querida. But you are not alone.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “How many more steps do you want to take?”
I blew out a breath, relief and love filling my chest despite the worry threatening to smother me.
“Walk to the shower? Then perhaps you can help me clean up?”
His eyes flashed. “When you’re ready.”
We didn’t have time for me to wait until I was ready, I needed to be ready now. As it was, I let him balance me, but he moved at my slow shuffling pace as we made our way to the bathroom. Curling my fingers against his side, I sagged against him when we made it, and when he raised his brows, I nodded. With care, he lifted me and carried me the last two steps forward and set me on the counter to help me strip out of the shift.
I didn’t glance down at the bones jutting out of my shoulders or hips. I didn’t look anywhere but at his solemn countenance as he shook his head. “You will get stronger, Valda.”
“I believe you.” I pressed a hand to his cheek and he leaned into the touch. “Until then, I will lean on you when I can.”
“What happened to leaning on me?” Andreas waited for me at the head of the trail as I approached. My two bodyguards trailed behind me, neither had even broken a sweat, and I’d soaked right through the ribbed top and shorts I wore.
Campbell shot me a smile from where he stood a couple of feet behind Andreas. Like me, Andreas didn’t go anywhere—even on the tiny island I had grown up on—without one or two of Dirk’s men trailing us. They’d set up a camp of sorts deeper into the interior and built a structure they used not far from where my mother’s lab remained hidden.
It had taken me a couple of days to get my legs under me. A couple more past that before I could walk longer than ten feet without the need to collapse. I’d taken my first walk on the beach three days ago. We’d made it to the water and then back. Today, I’d managed a light jog for half a mile. Then I’d walked back. The strain pulled at every muscle in my back and along my legs.
But I found myself craving it.
I was stronger.
I grew stronger every single day.
Not strong enough. Not yet.
But soon.
“You were sleeping,” I answered him. “And you don’t do near enough of it.”
His inelegant snort accompanied his sharp shake of his head. “How long have you been waiting to give me hell about that?”
Reaching the trailhead and only moderately breathless, I pressed a hand over Andreas’ heart. The steady thump of it seemed to vibrate through me. “Oh, only since I woke up and saw how little you’d been taking care of you.”
Campbell smirked, but he wasn’t watching us. His gaze, like those of my bodyguards, remained on a constant swivel. I doubted anything moved, not even the birds, that he didn’t know about.
Then, because I had been working on not being rude, I focused on Campbell. “Good morning.”
“Ma’am,” he said with a dip of his chin. “You look better.”
“You’re very polite,” I complimented him. “I look like a dishrag. But I’m getting there. Do you have a report?”
“I do, but it can wait until you have showered and eaten.”
Normally, I’d have bristled over the fact that he’d made the decision for me, but Campbell wouldn’t withhold news about Dirk and Hatch. They were looking for them with every resource not spent on securing us here. Another reason I pushed to regain my strength and mobility.
We needed to get off this island if we were to find them. I wouldn’t be the weak link.
Not anymore.
“Have you eaten?” I asked him as they fell into step with me and my pair split up, one ahead and one behind. They moved with an almost preternatural silence. If not for so many years with Dirk, it would probably unnerve me. But in some ways, I’d known most of his men just as long.
Even if I was only just now beginning to retain their names.
Another change I needed to make.
So many.
I didn’t sigh, though. Like all implementations, it would take time, observation, and repetition to guarantee that I didn’t backslide into previous behaviors.
They needed me present.
I needed me present.
“Not yet, ma’am. It’s Billy’s turn to cook, and he makes a mean stack of pancakes.”
Mean stack.
I chuckled. “Would you mind making a little extra for Andreas and I, Billy?” I framed the question to my bodyguard ahead. “If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition? Then we could join you for the briefing and food.”
Two birds, one meal, as it were.
“Not at all, ma’am,” Billy said without glancing back. “Do you have a preference for meat?”
Not particularly.
Although…
We were almost to the secure door, and Andreas moved ahead to press his palm to the scanner. I’d added him to all of the biometrics. If we should ever have to return here, I’d add them all. I’d even given Campbell authority to get inside, though I’d asked him to refrain beyond an emergency.
He’d agreed easily enough.
“It was sausages you were cooking yesterday?” I’d smelled the spicier meat on my way up from my morning walk.
“That was Durham, ma’am,” Billy said over his shoulder, but the flash of teeth and the quick smile softened the correction. “We have more, and I can fix them for you.”
“Only if you’re making them for everyone.”
Andreas hid a soft laugh as the air pressure released on the sealed door and it glided open.
Campbell nodded to us, the three of them forming a human barrier as Andreas and I slipped inside. They wouldn’t leave that position until we were secured. Then at least one, if not more, were always on watch nearby as well as scattered over the island as they moved in a patrol pattern.
The skill and dedication honed into all of his men only made me miss Dirk more. Pain fisted around my heart. It had been more than a month. Endless weeks with no news. There had been contact, then…nothing.
Or at least, nothing they had told me.
That would change today, though.
I understood the need to protect me while I recovered. But I needed to know what we faced. I needed to know what they faced.
Because I was getting them back.
Andreas leaned against the counter as I stepped into the shower. The rake of his gaze over my skin left prickles in its wake, but I concentrated on the hot water sluicing over my skin and rinsing away the sweat before I turned to duck my hair under the water. I’d cut it the day before. Andreas hadn’t been happy when he found me holding scissors to the heavy braid I’d made of my hair and hacking the length.
During the years I’d spent trapped in the memoriam, it had grown longer than I’d allowed my hair since I was a child. The cut had offered me a relief that was as much emotional as it was physical. The weight of lost years could not be so easily shorn, though.
“Come here,” I beckoned, curling my fingers, and he raised his brows, already closing the distance.
“Are you all right?”
Impatience crept through me. “I’m fine, but I want you to shower with me.”
Blunt? Perhaps. Still, I wanted him in the shower with me. I wanted to touch him. With the sole exception of the night before I’d entered the stasis tube here, he’d kept his hands off of me for anything more than to help me.
Andreas stripped and then stepped into the shower, his dark eyes searching my face. When I looped my arms around his neck, he stepped into the spray with me. The brush of my nipples to his chest had me sighing, even as he tucked his finger under my chin, and then his mouth closed over mine.
A huff of laughter interrupted our kiss, and I jerked my head back to glare at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Querida, you look at me like you want to devour me, and you’re kissing me like you could pull my soul into yours.”
“I do want you,” I informed him, irritation adding an archness to my tone. I skated a hand down his arm, then to his side, and finally to his hip. The weight of his erection already pressed against my belly. “The only question I have is are you going to keep holding back from me?”
With calloused hands, he cupped my face and then pressed his lips to mine. The warmth of the water raining against our cheeks added to the kiss. At the first press of his tongue, I opened to suck against his mouth, and then I wrapped my fingers around the stiff length of his cock.
I teased my fingers along the length of him as he all but pulsed in my hand. His groan against my mouth made me smile, and then I bit his lower lip gently until he lifted his head. Running my tongue over my lower lip, I savored the taste of him.
“I want you,” I continued. “Will you let me have what I want?”
His eyes heated, and his hands drifted to rest against my hips. The tension in his fingers seemed to vibrate against me, but he didn’t dig them in. No, he still treated me like spun glass. We would get past this, too.
“Anything,” he promised, but when he would have pulled me forward, I shook my head and squeezed his cock.
“Then lean against the tile,” I whispered, stroking my free hand down his chest as I lowered to my knees. His eyes widened, but I didn’t release my grip on him.
“Querida…”
“Shh,” I ordered, the ferocious need inside of me a damn demand. He was so careful with me. I adored him for it. But I wanted something far more than just careful caresses. I wanted to break through his reserve and show him just how much I loved him.
How much I needed him.
“This is what I want,” I whispered against the crown of his cock as I stroked it along my lips. Lifting my gaze, I locked eyes with him as he sucked in a deep breath. The crack in his expression let the lust out though, and I smiled.
Yes, that was a good start.
It had been too long since Andreas let me touch him. Even in the memoriam, he’d held himself aloof. “I missed you,” I said before swallowing around his cock and taking him as deep as I dared. My jaw ached almost immediately, but I ignored it as I braced one hand on his hip and kept the other wrapped around his base.
The taste of him on my tongue was achingly familiar and yet new. The fact that he loved me was not in question, nor was my love for him. But the need to be more than just the person he had to save, to be his partner again, to feel him unravel under my touch, even as I longed to have his hands on me?
The desire invaded every part of me. Too many lost moments. We were still not whole.
We wouldn’t be until we had them back, but we could have this.
His resistance crumbled before my eyes, and it was a beautiful thing as he fisted my hair and then began to help guide me as I sucked against his dick like it was my favorite treat. To be honest, right now, it absolutely was.
I took the discomfort and even the faint gagging as I swallowed around him while his muscles began to tremble. Tightening my thighs together, I stroked my tongue along the underside of his cock and fisted him just a bit tighter as we moved together. He gave my hair a tug as he groaned, and I savored the sound.
His release hit him so swiftly, it left him shaking as he came down my throat. My neck hurt and my jaw was sore, and even my scalp protested the fact that he’d pulled so tightly, but I craved the pain.
Craved it like I craved him.
Andreas dragged me up, and then his mouth closed over mine and I clung to him. I needed his help to keep my own wobbling legs beneath me. When he stroked his hands all over and pressed me to sit against the lip and began to kiss his way down my chest, I let out a little laugh.
