Jaci's Experiment Page 3

  “You’re on the road, Jaci. Mike and I can help you, but you need to walk part of the way to meet us. Do you think you’re up to it?”

  She didn’t understand what he meant, but she felt this…hope…bubble and swell within her. She felt like these men cared for her—even if they had no real reason to—and that they would help her.

  “Did you heal me just now?” She couldn’t be quite sure.

  He shook his head. “I’ll touch you, if you consent, but from what you said, your emotions seem to be manifesting gradually. You’re going to have to deal with them as they come to you. Since it’s a natural process there’s not much I can do except ease your confusion. You have to integrate the emotions into your being, but I have no doubt you can. Just come to me if you start to feel overwhelmed, okay, Jaci? I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  She nodded, moving back from him as he positioned his hands on either side of her face. He held her gaze as he let his gift delve deep, stroking and easing her suffering as best he could. Really, it was mostly reassurance he sent her that made her feel better. She was feeling overwhelmed and panicky, but he realized his and his cousin’s presence and understanding helped calm her.

  Maybe she would be theirs after all. God knows he’d fantasized about her often enough, jerking off at night when the pressure got too great. He leaned forward, unable to stop himself from depositing a soft kiss on her warm lips.

  She gasped and pulled back.

  “Feel better, sweetheart?” He knew she was calmer after receiving his healing energy, but he wanted her to acknowledge it.

  She smiled faintly and his hands fell back to his sides.

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  He shrugged, a roguish smile on his lips. “I couldn’t help myself. I’ve dreamed about you, you know.”

  “Don’t rush her, idiot!” Mike’s scowling voice sounded through his brain. “We can’t afford to scare her off.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  She tilted her head and smiled up at him, slightly embarrassed at his admission.

  “I’m glad, though I don’t deserve your attention. I’ve been so callous to you both. I don’t understand how you can be so kind to me now.”

  “Join in anytime here, Mike. She needs to see us as a pair. If we’re going to get her help getting out of here, she has to realize from the start that we travel as a set.”

  Mike came over to stand beside his cousin, facing her.

  “You were always as fair with us as you could be given your lack of understanding of our emotions. We like you, Jaci.” Mike dared to stroke her cheek and move in closer.

  “Kiss her, Mike.”

  Mike needed no further urging from his manipulative cousin. He pulled her into his arms and bent slightly to take her lips more fully than Dave had, sending his tongue to stroke her hot lips and slide intimately within. She squirmed closer, her temperature rising appreciably as he delved deep into her mouth.

  “That’s enough. We don’t want to scare her off, I believe you just said?” Dave’s voice was disapproving as he watched them with narrowed eyes. Mike winked at him over her shoulder as he lifted away from her all too tempting lips.

  “You kiss like a dream, Jaci.” He liked the look of her flushed face, the sparkle in her eyes. “I’ll dream of you tonight.” He kissed her eyes, eliciting a soft moan from deep in her throat.

  Dave came up behind her, sandwiching her warm body between the two cousins, surrounding her in their heat. They both could feel her increased heart rate as Dave leaned in to nip at the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck.

  “My people don’t dream much, but since the accident, I’ve been waking in the night with strange images in my head.”

  “Did your ancestors dream before they started tinkering with your genetic code?” Dave kept his tone gentle.

  She nodded, leaning back against him. “There are stories of dreams so violent that warriors would wake with their weapons in their hands and kill the first person they saw. My ancestors were even more violent than your human predecessors.”

  “Well, I want you to dream only of us, Jaci. Happy dreams. Dreams of pleasure and understanding.” Mike breathed in her ear as Dave laid his healing hands on her once more, reinforcing the thought.

  “Dream of us tonight, sweetheart, and know that you are not alone.” Dave whispered into her other ear as his energy zinged through her once more, calming and reassuring.

  “Someone’s coming to check on Jaci.”

  The message came unbidden into their minds, a forceful voice neither of them had heard before. They drew away from her with a final caress and pushed her toward the monitor in the corner.

  “Someone’s coming. Can you say there was trouble with the equipment?” Mike walked with her to the place where he knew the monitor resided then moved past her to sit nonchalantly on the cot against the far wall.

  She shook herself as if to gather her cool. “Telepathy, right? That’s how you know someone’s coming.”

  “I always knew you were smart.” Mike smiled at her.

  She grinned back at him, her smile full of pleasure. He felt as if he’d just praised his puppy and received a full-body tail wag in reward. She was just that cute and so freshly innocent on her journey of emotional discovery.

  “Get to work, sweetheart,” Dave reminded her in a low voice from the other side of the room, “and wipe that killer smile off your face. It’s most un-Alvian looking.”

  His conspiratorial wink softened the chastising words as he pretended interest in the viewer the cousins had earned for good behavior. They were slowly learning the Alvian language and were permitted to read certain histories and other entertainment texts to keep their minds occupied. That had been a new development instituted by the Maras. Apparently they’d learned from their studies that captive Breeds fared better when there was sufficient activity for their rather advanced brains.

  Jaci schooled her thoughts and her expression in preparation for the arrival of one of her people. She realized in that moment, she truly did feel better. Ruth had been right. David and Michael both had helped her acclimate some of the overwhelming emotion into her being. She felt better than she had since the accident and she knew she would come back to this cell to be with these men as often as she could in the coming days. She needed them if she was to survive this transformation and more than that, she liked them and wanted to get to know them on a more personal level than just as jailor and inmate.

  “Jaci 192, is everything all right? I was sent to check on your progress.”

  Jaci sighed with relief as she recognized the new voice at the energized arch that was the only opening into the cell. She turned to her subordinate with a calm expression on her face.

  “I am well, Lita 498. I am also pleased to see that your injury is healed. How does it feel?” She made small talk as she moved toward the arch, indicating with a small nod they would discuss the matter of the monitor outside the range of the Breeds, as was only prudent.

  She left the monitors off as she lowered the energy field and left the room with the other girl. She reenergized the arch, but had left the monitors off inside the cell. To switch them on so quickly after Lita’s arrival would only raise suspicion. She turned to Lita 498, explaining the supposed monitor malfunction to the other woman. The lower-graded tech took Jaci’s explanation at face value. After all, the monitors were not entirely infallible and failures were more common than the Maras wanted to admit. Lita left to report back to their superiors and Jaci calculated in her mind a reasonable time for fixing the malfunction she’d claimed.

  It gave her just a few minutes with the cousins to explain before she’d have to turn the monitor back on. It would have to be enough. She reentered the room calmly, then broke into a grin as she reenergized the arch behind her.

  “I only have a few minutes.” She moved to the area by the monitor so she’d be ready when the time came to turn it back on. “I turn this off every day whe
n I come in for routine maintenance. Once each week, I also run a self-diagnostic program that takes approximately ten minutes. It is offline during the diagnostic, so we can talk freely. Every once in a while, perhaps once a month or sometimes twice, the device will jam. That’s what I told them happened today. Such problems can be cleared up usually in about twenty minutes.” Her orderly mind wanted to give them all the facts.

  “So you’re saying you won’t be able to spend this much time with us very often.” Mike nodded. “We’ll work with that, now that we know what to expect.”

  She sighed with relief. “Thank you.” Her eyes sought each of them. “Thank you both. I honestly don’t think I could face this without your support. I was so frightened.”

  Dave moved forward and hugged her close, bending to place a fierce kiss on her lips. He was making up for the kiss Mike had given her, wanting his share and cementing his claim. The message was clear. The cousins wanted her. Both of them. Equally.

  “Dream of us.”

  He sent one last tingling jolt of his healing power through her in reassurance, then drew back. She knew the time had come to switch on the monitor and go back to her emotionless existence. Emotionless on the outside at least. Inside she was dealing with amazing changes she was only just beginning to understand.

  Jaci slept well for the first time since accidentally exposing herself, and dreamed of four strong arms holding her close within a tight circle of security. She dreamed of the kisses she’d shared with the two cousins and more that she could only imagine.

  She’d had sex with several different partners as part of her duties, but she’d never made love. That last encounter with Grady Prime was perhaps as close as she’d ever come. In the rare free moments since her exposure, she’d begun to review the databases of human writings and even some from her culture’s long-distant past. She knew intellectually there was supposed to be a difference between having sex and making love, but she’d never experienced it. Maybe with the cousins, she could find the exchange of emotion that would elevate the sexual act to that sublime level of which the poets in both their cultures wrote.

  In her dream, Michael and David were in her room with her. They were in her bed and all three of them were naked. While Michael was the brawnier of the two, her desire flared at seeing that David was just as fit and had the same wide, strong shoulders. His deep blue eyes glittered down at her as his cousin’s warm brown gaze flowed over her body like a caress. She was in the middle of the suddenly expanded bed with Michael leaning on his elbow on one side and David on the other. Both cousins were about the same height but Michael’s bulk always made him seem somehow bigger, but not now. Now, with their clothes off, both men were equally devastating, equally masculine, and equally desirable. Jaci felt her temperature spike with the undeniable heat of passion.

  “Well, is it like you expected?” Mike wanted to know.

  “Is what like I expected?”

  “Having us both in bed with you.” David’s voice was accompanied by a sweep of his big hand down her arm. She was under a thin sheet but both of them were gloriously nude above it where she could look her fill.

  “I hadn’t given it much thought until just recently.”

  “We have.” Michael reached over and kissed her sweetly, one hand cupping her cheek. “Almost from the first moment we saw you, we dreamed of you in our arms, and in our beds. We’ve wanted to be with you for a very long time, Jaci.”

  “Really?”

  David captured her attention by pulling the sheet down and placing his warm palm over one of her breasts, cupping her and toying with the hardening peak. She hadn’t known her sensitive skin could enjoy such stimulation, but then she was learning a lot from these two men that she’d never even contemplated before.

  “Really,” David said, just before his lips latched onto her breast, sucking with gentle but exciting pressure. Michael moved down and swirled his tongue around her other nipple before sucking it into his mouth, tugging with the same rhythm as his cousin.

  She noted the expressions on their handsome faces, so tender they nearly stole her breath. She held them to her with trembling hands, sinking her fingers deep into their hair—Michael’s short and fuzzy, tickling her palm and David’s longer waves that teased her senses with luxurious silkiness. She’d never known such pleasure just from having a manno, make that two menlick her skin.

  Michael ripped the sheet away from her body, his fingers roaming downward to the juncture of her thighs. David pulled at her leg, urging her to make room for their hands as both men laved at her sensitive breasts. She spread her legs and they moaned in near unison as they zeroed in on her most sensitive areas.

  David lifted her leg over his hip, attacking from underneath, using his long fingers to push deep into her channel, taking the wetness gathering there and moving it down just a bit to the pucker of her ass. Michael’s skilled fingers played along her folds while his other hand shaped her breast, kneading as he began to nip at the peak in a way that excited her beyond all reason.

  “Do you like that?” David raised his head to watch her reaction. “Do you like him biting you, nipping at your tasty skin?” Mutely she nodded, unable to speak beyond her incredible excitement. “Good.” His murmur of approval was followed by a satisfied smile as he moved down her body, lifting her leg over his shoulder as he left her field of vision. She didn’t know what to expect but when his wet tongue dove into her channel, she nearly screamed.

  Michael lifted his head and looked down her long body to where his cousin was feasting on her, a smile of envy and mischievous delight on his beloved face. He rose up and kissed her hard and deep, both hands shaping her breasts as David paid homage to her lower regions.

  “Dave eats pussy really well.” Michael let her up for a breath of air between kisses. “Don’t you think?” He tugged hard on her nipple when she didn’t respond. “Don’t you?”

  Jaci clutched his broad shoulders as David nipped her clit, bringing her closer and closer to a perilous edge. “He’s a master.”

  Michael laughed and looked down her long body at his cousin. “You hear that, Dave? She called you Master.”

  “About time.” David’s words rumbled against her excited skin as he growled in male satisfaction.

  “I’ll tell you a secret.” Michael leaned down to blanket her upper body with his. “David likes eating pussy almost as much as he likes a woman’s ass. Do you think you can handle that? Do you think you can handle both of us inside you at the same time? Because that’s what’s coming.”

  She gasped as David moved his talented tongue down to circle her anus. “I’ve never done that before.”

  David growled, driving her higher. “I think he likes that.” Michael chuckled. “Come to think of it, I like the idea too. I like that we’ll be the first men to have your ass and your pussy at the same time. The only men. After us, you’ll never have another.”

  His arms grew tight around her as David redoubled his efforts. She was so close!

  “I don’t want other men. Only you. You and David!” She practically screamed then as she came. The cousins held her, never letting up as she spasmed in their strong arms. They held her tight as she came down from the highest precipice she’d ever climbed. She remembered their soft kisses on her body as she fell into a deep sleep and didn’t dream again until morning.

  Jaci hurried through her morning duties and made her way to the cells, intent on completing the list of tasks that would bring her to the cousins’ cell once more. Ruth, too, was someone she wanted to speak with.

  Before long, she was facing the other woman in her cell, having just shut down the monitor.

  “You were right and I want to thank you for helping me yesterday. I had a long talk with David and Michael and they were wonderful to me. Thank you, Ruth.”

  Ruth moved forward, cradling her baby in her arms as she smiled softly. “I’m glad.” She nodded with her chin toward the monitor. “I hope you don’t mind, but they to
ld me about the monitor last night.”

  “You’re telepathic too, aren’t you?” It was something the woman had never admitted to, but Jaci suspected it strongly now that she was getting to know and understand these people better.

  Ruth blushed and dropped her eyes. “A little. I need to be in close proximity for it to work. A few yards are about my limit, but I can communicate with a few people in the cells around me who also have the gift.”

  “Amazing,” Jaci shook her head, experiencing true wonder at the Breeds’ abilities. “I’m glad you’ve been able to talk to someone besides your baby. I never liked the idea of these cells, but the Maras are in charge and they designed this place.”

  Ruth reached out to touch her arm gently. “I never blamed you for this prison. Don’t fret. I know you don’t have much power among your people.”

  “I’m a Jaci and only ranked 192nd. You’re right. I have no real power. My purpose until now has been to serve. Jacis are bred to work in the labs. We have orderly, scientific minds, but we rarely rise to the level of skill and innovation necessary to be top scientists. We are mostly lab techs, though a few of my relations have the crystal gift.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Each child is tested at age thirteen for the crystal gift. If they prove any level of the skill they are moved into the engineering program. As you may have realized, our technology is all based on crystals, but it’s the power of the crystallographer’s mind that tunes the crystal and allows us to harness its energy.” She went about her tasks in the cell so she’d be ready to move on when she switched the monitor back on. “The Maras would not want you to know, but the crystal gift is leaving our people. Each generation breeds fewer and fewer crystallographers. Our greatest at present is a throwback and under normal circumstances, he would not be permitted to breed, but he’s found a mate. It was a huge scandal, but he claimed a resonance mate from among your people. She has proven to have an amazing level of crystal skill herself. Together, they are unstoppable, and I personally think their success is what has made the High Council consent to this experiment to bring back some of my people’s emotion.”