Virtually His Read online

  By logic, a falling body from atop a high-rise tumbled down. She wasn’t tumbling; she was floating. Panic should make her claw the air. Scream. Kick out. She was enveloped in warmth and there was no fear.

  The spinning stopped. Helen opened her eyes. And saw nothing because she was buried in somebody’s chest. She heard the pounding of his heart. He was warm; he even had a scent. She turned her head. The scenery around them had returned to the white nothingness.

  “Don’t move,” Hades instructed softly.

  She had a feeling that if she disobeyed this time, she would regret it. “Don’t make a habit of ordering me around,” she said, and was a bit annoyed at the huskiness of her voice. Dammit, did his arms around her have to feel so real?

  He didn’t answer. There was a short silence as they sort of floated. Helen didn’t mind. Now that her body had caught up with her head, she felt a bit weak-kneed and breathless. Her arms, she discovered, were between their bodies and if she moved her right hand just a bit lower…

  “That was a good test of me, but wrong time,” he told her, his voice vibrating in her ear.

  “Why?” She forced the former suggestion from her mind.

  “Because you alarmed poor Derek and Dr. Kirkland. The spike in your stats was unexpected and I didn’t tell them we were doing anything too dangerous today.”

  Today. Something else to mull over later. Hades must have some kind of communicating device with Dr. Kirkland and Derek. “So am I suffering cardiac arrest in real life?” She felt pretty calm about that. Besides, she was busy trying to stop her right hand from checking out something more interesting.

  “No. You didn’t go splat. I turned that reality off. That’s the easy part. Stopping your mind from thinking that you’re falling to your death, however, is an entirely different thing.”

  She slowly slid her head up to look into his face. His skin was smooth against hers and she ignored the urge to lick it to see whether he had a taste, too. He looked incredible up close, chiseled cheekbones and perfect lips. His eyes were half-open, sensual. And all those lovely blond locks cried out for her hands to run through them. This was a great way to have a heart attack.

  There were more horrible ways to die, she supposed. Perhaps having a logical and calm conversation about simulated reality would settle her mind.

  “What kind of incredible tech machine is the Portal, anyway? You can’t push a button and create a new reality? A net to scoop us up? A shorter jump?”

  “You wanted to test me,” he pointed out, one golden brow lifted in mockery. “No more thoughts. Just reflex…you wanted to see what I would do in a situation where you put yourself at risk.”

  “So you just let us fall?” she countered, imitating his mockery by lifting her own brow. She was going to ignore the little dig about putting herself at risk.

  “No, Elena,” he replied softly. “Think of how you felt right after the falling sensation.”

  She stared thoughtfully at him. “The adrenaline was there. My body believed I was falling. But my mind told me I was floating.” She frowned. “No, you told me I was floating. My head was spinning like crazy. You told me to close my eyes. I didn’t react like someone falling off a high-rise and I should have. I don’t have that much control over my body. Somehow, you made me feel…safe.”

  He was silent again as she continued staring at him, absorbing her own analysis. The realization that she had been undergoing training all along was…a bit galling.

  “And now,” he said, and she swore she felt something in his mind, like a switch, “we fall—”

  Helen gasped as the sudden speed of falling came back. There was no more floating sensation, just a chaotic jumble of emotions as she tumbled. All she could do was grab hold of Hades tightly, focusing on him. The fall felt like forever and she rebelled at the thought that he was forcing the trust issue on her. She held on tighter anyway.

  She let out an “ooooommmff” as she landed unceremoniously on something soft. And Hades was all hard and masculine on top of her.

  “—onto a bed of feathers,” he finished and for the first time, smiled.

  If she hadn’t felt so pissed off at having been tested and tricked again, Helen would have taken the time to admire that glorious mouth. “You could have done that the first time,” she accused, trying to gather her scattered breath and wits together.

  “What would that do?”

  She didn’t have an answer. Well, she did, but it had nothing to do with feeling safe.

  “Would your mind have accepted the sudden change?” Hades continued. “You aren’t that used to VR games yet, my sweet Elena.”

  The endearment rolled off his tongue like hot honey. Helen was suddenly very aware of the softness of the bed below her. And the hardness of the body on hers. He was telling her that he was the expert in virtual reality and this game was under his control.

  She met his dark gaze defiantly. “Okay, I got the lesson. I’m to depend on you to keep me safe. Now let’s change scenery.”

  Oh, man. She was beginning to think creating her dream man was really a bad idea. Well, not bad, not with that slow smile he was giving her. But definitely not to her advantage. It suddenly dawned on her that he was quite comfortable using her creation to manipulate her.

  “Who said the lesson is over?” he asked in a low voice.

  A naked man. Correction, a very hot-looking naked man. In bed with her. This was one lesson Helen didn’t need to understand. “Look, Hades,” she began, batting her eyes innocently at him as she pushed at his chest, “I really think you’re really sexy but it’s too soon in our relationship to really do anything about it. You have to give me time to get to know you better.”

  His amusement crinkled the corner of his eyes. “Which brings us back to the beginning. What’s your RV trigger, Elena?”

  Her eyes rounded. “Oho, seduction now, Hades? Surely your knowledge of all things NOPAIN tells you about that, too? It didn’t work the first time.”

  “That wasn’t seduction. We’re done with the nonpersuasive portion; we’re now into the innovative negotiation part.” He shifted, putting more weight on her. “Didn’t Hades do that with Persephone?”

  He was trying NOPAIN on her? Hell narrowed her eyes. “I’m not negotiating anything with you. For one thing, I’m not your captive.”

  “But think of the rest of the myth, Elena. It fits, doesn’t it?”

  Helen was familiar with the story. In Greek mythology, Hades kidnapped Persephone and took her to the Underworld as his bride. While her mother, Demeter, the earth goddess, looked for her daughter, she ignored her duties and everything started to die. Hades made a bargain with Zeus. He would allow his bride to visit her mother every six months but she must return to the Underworld to stay with him for the remaining six. And that was how the world had its seasons. When Persephone came home, Mother Earth was happy and everything flourished; when she was in the Underworld, everything went into hibernation or died.

  “In other words, if I don’t negotiate with you, the real world is going to dry out and die without me? Haha, Hades, you’re putting too much importance in my role. And umm, do you mind getting up? It’s very hard to have a conversation with a naked man lying on top of you.”

  Now why did she have to pun about the hard part? He mocked her with that smile again and still didn’t move. She was going to lose her temper soon. Great, next she would be fighting and wrestling with a hard naked man. This wasn’t quite how she thought she would experience VR. Well, not right now, anyway.

  “We don’t have much time, Elena. The coming test depends solely on your success, and your success is my interest, my job. Without the trigger, I can’t help you if you should have any problems.” His head dropped lower. His breath warmed her cheek. “Without the trigger, I can’t talk to you when you’re remote viewing.”

  Helen refused to move her head those few inches to the left. He didn’t seem to even realize that he was lying naked on a woman. That was becaus
e he wasn’t really some Greek god hottie, you idiot. He wasn’t real, and so her state of turned-on-ness wasn’t either. “You’re in my head talking to me now so why not when I’m remote viewing?”

  His hand cupped her jaw, tilting her face toward his. “The theory is that you would be in an alternate state of mind. The function of this virtual reality training is to get your mind used to having me in it while thinking and knowing everything is virtual. But even with that, my participation isn’t guaranteed because I don’t have your talent. When you’re remote viewing, it’s basically a personal VR experience. You’re alone, seeing and accessing information with your senses. But with TIVRRV, we’re going beyond that in this experiment. We’ve prepared every way we could—brain wave synchronization, mental prep, physical compatibility. I’ll be there with you, seeing what you see, and with your remote trigger, I can…” he leaned even closer, his lips inches from hers “…communicate with you, be your second pair of eyes, and pull you out if there are any problems.”

  Helen looked into those dark eyes and instantly regretted it. The man was pure temptation. She had been craving chocolate for days and those sinful chocolate eyes were going to be her downfall. She grasped for a lifeline. “Theory,” she said, and there was that stupid husky frog in her throat again. “That doesn’t sound promising.”

  Her senses vibrated with need as his lips came even closer. She struggled to pay attention to his words, not to the heat rising between her legs.

  “Every theory has a promise,” he whispered. “Theoretically, I’m not real, you thought so yourself, but…”

  She swallowed the rest of his words as he kissed her. Gently, as if he wasn’t sure whether she was real himself. Tenderly, as if she was really Persephone being seduced. Her lips parted involuntarily and she felt his tongue delve in, slow and deliberate in its search for hers. Oh. My. God. The man could kiss. Or it could. Her virtual-made man. Whatever.

  Stop thinking. Close your eyes.

  She closed her eyes. That was him ordering you to close your eyes, Helen.

  His tongue tangled sensuously with hers. She responded hungrily. This was something dark and forbidden, something that had been missing in her life for two years. Temptation to give in to feelings beckoned like some siren.

  Open your legs wider.

  Her limbs slid open without a second thought. Helen Roston! You’re not going to f— Every protest melted instantaneously as his heat dug heavily against hers. It didn’t help that she had enhanced that part of him a bit bigger than normal.

  She had read all about teledildonics, a program used by people addicted to virtual-reality sex. She hadn’t thought much about that use of the technology. Her focus was on the self and how she was going to get used to a simulated environment. She’d never thought about sharing it with someone else. In her head. In a sexual manner. It hadn’t occurred to her that a program could be so seductive and sexy, that she would enjoy a kiss with something that wasn’t real.

  “I can feel your wetness. Is that real enough?” Hades lifted his lips from hers, gently giving her swollen ones one last kiss. “You see? Everything, in theory, has lots of promises.”

  Helen ran her tongue over her upper lip. Two could play at this game. She reached down and did what she had been thinking of doing the last ten minutes. He was hot and…very aroused. “Can you feel that with your sensors?” She gave him a squeeze. “How does it feel to have something done to you and it’s not really happening?”

  “But it is happening. I can feel your hand, just as you felt my kiss.” His eyelids lowered. “With your trigger, it’ll be similar when you remote view.”

  The man was unbelievable. Theoretically, he was having the experience of being pleasured by a woman’s hand, yet she wouldn’t have known that if she weren’t the one doing the pleasuring. Maybe it had been so long, she was losing her touch? She reached down with the other hand.

  He grew larger in her grasp. She stared smugly into his eyes and even though they remained unreadable, she sensed steely determination in him. They were testing each other, and neither he nor she was going to give in. She had the upper hand. How far would he go?

  As far as I want to take it. She was beginning to recognize that mocking tone.

  You’re so damn good at reading my mind, find out the trigger code yourself!

  Instead, he moved suggestively, pressing his thighs intimately against her, flexing himself in a way that didn’t require any mind reading on her part. “I could try, but I prefer your free will, Elena. Makes things easier. Your willingness to stay here. To work with me. Depends on your free. Will.”

  He kept his sentences in time with short thrusts of his hips. Helen sniffed, wanting to laugh. He wasn’t as controlled as he looked. Giving you my secret means free will? Come on, Hades. It gives you control. I might only have been through Phase Two of RV training but even they had given me warning about mental manipulators.

  You’re betraying yourself, sweetheart. That’s Three.

  Helen smiled. He’d betrayed himself, too. He knew more about remote viewing than he had let on, and he didn’t deny that he was a mental manipulator. Keep filing, Helen, keep filing. “Ooops,” she said aloud.

  Hades smiled back, unperturbed by her testing him. “Give and take,” he reminded her. “So now I know you’re a little more advanced than they’ve trained you. Good.”

  “Why, good?”

  “Never let everyone know you have something extra up your sleeve, Elena.”

  “And everyone includes you, right? But you plan to know everything.” Whereas she knew nothing about him. It irritated her.

  “Not everything.” His voice now had that lazy edge of a man enjoying himself, and why not, he was grinding against her hand and body even as he was having this conversation, punctuating each short sentence in the most sexual way. “Boring. I like to string it out. Next session. If you pass the test. Tonight.”

  Oh, she would. She wasn’t going to come so far and not go that final…She stopped herself just in time. She peered up at him suspiciously. She’d almost given herself away.

  I saw something.

  Shit! She released him, disgusted with herself. She hadn’t bargained for this kind of access into her mind. She would complain to T….

  “No one knows how far we can go with this. They want their supersoldier-spy. They didn’t ask how or what COMCEN’s going to do to achieve this.”

  So T. didn’t know either. Like she’d said earlier, she was a lab rat around here. “Is this why we’re doing everything virtual? So you can see what you can do? You think you can remote view through me?”

  “Theoretically. I already told you I don’t have your talent.”

  She had many questions, but chose not to form them. Not yet. Something very important was being revealed to her and she meant to get him to talk. “Scientists have theories, Hades. And theories are a bunch of formulae and words. We are neither.”

  “We are the drivers behind these theories right now. Why did they stop at Phase Two with you? They didn’t want to waste time and money, just in case you fail.”

  “Become a mental case, you mean.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Sure, sure. A virtual dream man was going to take care of her. The irony was totally befitting the situation. “Why not?” she challenged. “Are you going to change into a white knight and come to my rescue?”

  His gaze was enigmatic and she pushed against him. “Why not?” she repeated.

  “Give me the trigger and I’ll tell you.”

  She could lie, but he would know. Why would they go to all this trouble to put their new toy in jeopardy? She couldn’t read the man but she could trust her instinct. It had always been a sixth sense for her. Right now it told her that there was more to this experiment than everyone was letting on, that there were layers of mysteries to this man. But her intuition was also telling her that he hadn’t planned any harm against her.

  He didn’t ev
en seem to be breathing as he waited for her decision. But he was still hard and hot as he lay on top of her.

  Helen closed her eyes and passed him a mental picture. She didn’t give him everything. If he were so damn good, let him figure it out when he watched her later.

  His lips came down on her mouth again, and without thought, eyes still closed, she opened hers. He rewarded her with a drugging kiss, the kind that promised hot sweaty sex, with a big satisfying orgasm. But she was a GEM operative and no amount of innovative persuasion was going to divert her attention.

  Why not? She persisted. Why am I so important?

  Come back and I’ll tell you.

  Her eyes flashed open even as everything became a bright white light. Dammit. He tricked her after all. You coward! Her yell reverberated in her head like an echo.

  “Miss Roston?” Derek’s voice came on in her left ear. “Your trainer has signaled that the session is over. He said you might need a few minutes to wind down.”

  Wind down? She wasn’t the one walking around with a big stiffy! Arrgghhh. She was going to kill that man.

  “Let me take some of the electrodes and thingies off myself. Guide my hands.” Helen was determined to find out as much about the Portal as she could now that she knew it could do more than virtual reality.

  She felt Derek undoing a few straps. He moved her right hand slowly so she could feel each different node in the band. “Press here for release,” he instructed. “Just feel the back of your neck. I’ll show you how to unhook it after it’s off.”

  “Okay.”

  Helen blinked when the goggles were removed, then cracked her neck. “How long was I in there?” The chair was very comfortable but the body wasn’t made to be still for long periods of time. A thought struck her. She hoped she had been still! “Ummm…did I move a lot?”

  “Not much. Your body was responding to the wavelengths very well. Your stats showed lots of mental activity going on, though. Want to look at the charts when they are printed out?”