Page 41 of Forbidden Desires

Amelia laughed. How long had she gone without feeling joy? What seemed like a reprieve now looked like a prison sentence. This place kept her from striving, reaching, or overcoming.

The voice disappeared. Amelia would describe it if asked as the absence of joy. She was back in a place where nothing mattered, but this time thoughts of Zylar kept her from sinking back to where she was. She should have asked the voice about Stacey, but Stacey’s journey was her own. Amelia had to deal with her own journey.

She started swimming in the undulating motion she cultivated here. There were times she slept, her body refusing to go any further. She would wake and find inertia had taken her a little closer to the door, where light seeped out around the edges like a beacon calling her name. It felt like years, eons before she finally reached the door. Knowing the real question to the story had arrived. Did she have what it took to look her life in the eyes and take the bull by the horns? Or did she want to shy away from it forever as she’d shied away from all the problems in her life?

Her hand hesitated at the door. Oh, look at that! She could use her hands and her arms without pain. When had that happened? Or was that always the case in this place?

Zylar was never in this place and would never be. That was the kicker. She wanted a life with him and would trade all the peace in the world to be held in his strong, muscular arms.

She reached for the door and threw it wide open. The light bombarded her, shoving the darkness away as she tumbled from one plane of existence to another. The door behind her slammed shut, but she barely heard it because Zylar was waiting for her.

She rushed into his arms, needing to know he was real and all hers. He held her tight to the point that she struggled to breathe. Yet she didn’t try to get him to let up. She needed this as much as he did.

“They told me to move on,” he whispered in her ear. That you might be ahead of me or that you’d catch up later. I didn’t know where you were, but I knew you wouldn’t leave me. I waited for you.”

Every emotion she couldn’t experience in the black void came over her and she cried. The tears were for herself, Zylar, and even Stacey, who got taken in by a snake oil salesman.

“Don’t cry, no tears allowed.” She smiled through her tears.

“I didn’t know how much I missed you until I knew.”

“There’s a paradox for the ages.” Amelia laughed; he was right. Maybe they’d keep that one to themselves.

“Where are we?” Amelia wanted to look around, but she was held tightly against Zylar’s chest.

Zylar moved back a fraction of an inch. Just enough room for him to lean down and take her mouth in a smoldering kiss. Amelia’s arms went around his neck as she moaned, returning his kiss with fire.

Trembles of need went through her, waking her up. The deadness and bleakness that plagued her in the other place were gone. Her nipples were hard, and her pussy was dripping with desire.

Zylar nibbled at her lips before diving again and eating her up. His tongue dominated her, making her shiver with need. How had she stayed away from him for so long? When he moved back, she held on for several minutes, not wanting to lose him or the closeness they were re-establishing.

“I’m not going anywhere, my little dove.” Amelia’s heart soared as his latest nickname for her came out. “We have decisions to make.”

They were dead. She wanted to whine. Couldn’t they stow all their decisions for a couple hundred years? Instead, she nodded her head and waited.

“It feels like a game of Russian Roulette. We must pick one door. Our fate will be revealed when we open the door.”

Who the hell taught him about Russian Roulette? The thought of someone putting a gun with one bullet in it to his head and pulling the trigger made her want to kill in earnest.

How she felt about him was becoming more obvious as each day went on. Did it matter now that they were dead?

“You should pick the door.” When she first walked into the light, it was so bright that she thought the only thing here was Zylar. Now she could see three doors, and each of them calledout to her. She didn’t want to pick the wrong one and land them in hell. That would suck after all she’d gone through.

Amelia caught the faint sound of high-pitched feminine laughter. Shaking her head, she joined in. Privacy was an illusion down here.

“Sorry, turtle dove, you have to pick the door.”

“Why?” Amelia was whining and if the pitch of her voice meant anything, she wasn’t happy. She looked around again slowly, staring at each door. They throbbed in tune to some unknown bass line.

Each door resonated at a separate frequency. Because they were so close together and were in sync with each other, she couldn’t hear the separate doors. They assaulted her ears as one.

Amelia took an unintentional step back, reaching for and finding Zylar’s hand. She needed to be grounded, and no one did it like her mate.

“I almost lost you, didn’t I?” It was becoming more apparent as she stood in the overwhelming light with him. She had been in a black abyss and it felt like a place of serenity, but it wasn’t. It was a place of separation. If the voice belonged to the goddess, because what else could she have been? Was she the Diza goddess or the Mary mother of Jesus she always heard about? It didn’t matter who she represented; this goddess had Amelia on her mind. Without her, the love affair that was burning brightly between her and Zylar could have died a forever death.

“Wrong. For that to happen, I would have had to walk away. If it took staying here for all eternity for you to emerge, I would have been here. I’d be the first person you saw when you came out. I will always be here waiting for you.”

She believed him. The truth in his voice rang loud and clear. No matter what, he would walk the path with her. If they stayed here, what could hurt them? What could hurt Zylar? If they went back, there were too many unknowns to calculate. But theshowdown was coming, and any smart female would avoid that at all costs. Was she smart enough to stay away from it? What would happen on Earth if she neglected to do her duty? Was the earth more important to her than Zylar’s health and welfare? If asked several days or weeks ago the answer would have been no. Now it was yes. To her Zylar was the Earth. If he wasn’t with her then the dirt would no longer produce the food needed to keep them alive. The sun would stop shining and her life wouldn’t be worth the summary of her parts.

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