Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  “And whose idea was it to breakout experiments?” I chuckled. Josh pointed at Mark and Mark pointed at Josh, then they both started laughing.

  “It was…all of us,” Josh said. “My friends, we all thought about breaking experiments out for a long time.”

  “What stopped you before?” Clark asked.

  “We needed people like you.”

  It was a short drive to the marina. Josh and Mark walked in front of us and led us down the aisle of the parking lot to the far corner, where a Commission van was parked. I was nervous as we approached, particularly when four people got out of the van, three men and a woman, all dressed like Mark and Josh, with glasses covering their eyes.

  “This is some of the Eight Group,” Josh said.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” the woman said with almost no accent, reaching forward to shake my hand. Still surprised at the way I was being greeted by the experiments I had always known to be silent, I stumbled forward to take her hand hastily. The three other men also greeted me and Clark, all with different strengths of accents.

  “When we do the plan,” Josh said, motioning to the other four, “this is who will help.”

  They nodded in affirmation.

  We stood in a group awkwardly for a few moments before Mark heaved sigh and nodded to them. Josh turned to me and took my hand.

  “Lily, it was nice to see you,” he said with a bright smile. “We have to go on our patrol, now. We will see you later.”

  “Okay,” I said stupidly.

  We said goodbye to the others as they got into the van and Mark ushered Clark and me back to the car where we sat for twenty minutes, covering our tracks in case anyone was watching the activity of their tracers.

  My brain was buzzing.

  It could actually work. I did not think of what we would do after that or how we would get the people of America to pay attention to the experiments and get people to go against the Commission of the People. All I could turn over in my head was how we could actually get the experiments and other prisoners out of the Commission.

  Mark drove me home and I said goodnight to Clark, looking forward to getting some real sleep and waking up early to finish the homework that I should have done a long time ago and prepare for the test I had Monday.

  But all thoughts of being productive vanished when I walked into the house and was greeted by Mykail, who seemed to be in a wonderful mood.

  “How did it go?” he smiled, taking me into his arms as I set my bag down on the kitchen island.

  “Amazing,” I smiled. I carefully told him the plan. The only part Mykail seemed skeptical about was that we would only need four people on the inside to break people out. However, with his knowledge of the inside of the Commission, I could see the way his mind processed the plan and when I finished and his eyes lit up, I nodded.

  “I know,” I grinned.

  “That man is a genius,” Mykail whispered.

  “Probably,” I admitted with a chuckle. “Then again, he’s been planning this for eight years. I guess he’s had the time to really think about it.”

  “That means that you need to get your tracers out, though,” he said. I groaned and rolled my eyes.

  “I know, I know…”

  Mykail smiled and took both my hands.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s just do it now and get it over with.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not giving you time to think. Let’s just get the tracers out now and be done with it.”

  “No!” I breathlessly protested.

  “Lily, it has to be done.”

  “I’m a little concerned with how much you seem to want to cut into me.” I raised my eyebrows at him.

  “I did the same thing when we had to take my tracers out,” he reminded me. “Now, I’ll get the stuff ready and I’ll be sure that, this time, you don’t drink the whiskey until you’ve got some food in you.”

  “Ha-ha, very funny,” I groaned. He still smiled and squeezed my hands.

  “Look at it this way. Who would you rather have remove them? Me or Mark?” He looked at me tenderly with a comforting smile.

  I thought about that carefully.

  “Would you be offended if I chose Mark?”

  He opened his mouth to say something but hesitated before he laughed brokenly.

  “Yes!” he chuckled. I smiled and lowered my head in defeat.

  “Alright…”

  “Good, come on.”

  Trying not to think too much about what I had agreed to, I grudgingly followed him around the kitchen and took the things he handed me. Then, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, Mykail led me upstairs to my bathroom, where I sat on the counter, feeling my stomach twist sickly.

  “I have to say, I hate that the first thing I do when I come home involves some kind of improvised surgery,” I groaned as he moved around the bathroom, setting down the bottle of whiskey and the gauze.

  “It’s only the second time.”

  “That’s still two times too many.”

  “Hopefully, this will also be the last time,” he nodded. When his hands were free, he touched my face, causing my skin to tingle as he looked at me lovingly. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “It will be alright.”

  And then his lips were on mine, warm and gentle like they had been last night. I kissed him back, trying to distract him from removing the tracers, though I was more successful at distracting myself as I felt my entire body heat up from the kiss.

  With a gasp, Mykail separated our mouths and retreated a step.

  “Nice try,” he chuckled.

  I blinked a few times, trying to find something to focus on.

  “What?”

  “You’re trying to distract me.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows and took a deep breath.

  “I think that was the original plan…” I admitted, though I realized it worked on me more so than him. He chuckled and stepped forward again, pecking a kiss on my lips before grabbing the bottle of whiskey, holding it in front of me.

  “What?”

  “Take one sip,” he instructed. “Don’t do what you did last time.”

  “Are you ever going to let me live that down?” I groaned, taking the bottle and pulling the cap off irritably.

  “No.”

  I took a small sip before passing the bottle to him. He also sipped at the strong liquid and then set the bottle aside.

  I watched him wash and sterilize the knife before turning to me and nodding to my ankle.

  “We’ll do that one first.”

  I kicked off my shoes and brought my left leg onto the counter, pulling my sock off and rolling up my jeans. He went to his knees and carefully placed his hand on the top of my foot, leaning forward and kissing my ankle tenderly.

  He looked around the area of my ankle, his fingers carefully passing over my skin to find the scar that marked where the tracer sat.

  When he found it, he looked up at me and smiled.

  “Just breathe,” he whispered, his breath passing over my foot and making me shiver again. He turned his attention to my ankle as my hands found the edge of the counter, gripping the marble desperately, trying to keep calm.

  “Deep breath,” his voice traveled toward me. I didn’t remember closing my eyes.

  There was pressure against my skin and then the sharp bite of the metal slicing my skin and the warm trickle of blood as it dripped from the small wound and down to my heel against the counter.

  Carefully pinching the skin, I felt his fingers pluck the tracer from my ankle and then cover the wound with the gauze he had ready.

  “One down.”

  I let out the breath I was holding and my eyes fluttered open. I watched Mykail tenderly clean the blood off my skin before placing new gauze over the wound, wrapping it gently and finally pressing a delicate kiss to the skin above the bandage. He smiled, standing straight and pecking another kiss on my lips.

  “There.”

  “Two more,”
I mumbled.

  He gently took my right hand, where the scar was still slightly visible, and ran his thumb over the rougher skin. He kissed the scar before sterilizing the knife once more.

  The entire time he was removing the tracer in my hand I was staring at his face. He was handsome and beautiful at the same time. His eyes were focused on my hand and his jaw was clenched in concentration, causing the tendons to stand out under his pale skin. I could have stared at him forever.

  After kissing my now-bandaged hand, he moved back to my mouth and kissed me once.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Okay…” I whispered. I was doing far better than I expected. Despite my fear of sharp objects and blood, I was happy. It was very intimate, and very trusting. I was trusting Mykail not to hurt me, to respect that I had a phobia, and he was being tender, gentle, and considerate. It made my heart race in an entirely different way.

  I grabbed the back of his neck with my other hand and pulled him closer, kissing him, trying to convey the complex emotions.

  Once again, the kiss became heated and he pulled away, though he did not leap away like last time, hesitant in parting.

  “Lily…” he breathed against my mouth. “Don’t get me worked up…we still have one more…”

  “I know…” I whispered, grabbing him again and kissing him deeply once more as I reached down and grabbed his hands, guiding them to the buttons on my blouse and placing them against my chest, breaking the kiss with every ounce of strength I had.

  He stared at me for a moment before slowly unbuttoning the top button, his hands shaking just barely. He had seen me in my underwear before and he had undressed me on a few occasions, but with the intimacy of the moment, it seemed far more significant that he was the one unbuttoning my blouse.

  My breath quickened and I felt my body heat up as his eyes moved to each piece of skin that was revealed.

  When the blouse was open, he carefully pushed it from my shoulders, his palms flat on my skin as he moved the fabric, causing my eyes to shut and my heart to bang against my ribs. He pressed a kiss to my shoulder as he took the shirt away and dropped it to the tile. My head fell back, my neck weak, and my hand went to his hair.

  His hands took my shoulders and he slowly pulled away from me, nodding once to tell me to turn around. I shakily picked my legs up and folded them under me, turning to face the mirror, embarrassed to be facing my flushed face. I took a moment to look at the two of us in the mirror. I couldn’t help but think we looked good together.

  He pressed his fingers to my shoulder blade and then ran his fingertips up my skin, tracing the side of my bra strap before pushing it off my shoulder and down my arm agonizingly slow. He pressed his lips to my shoulder, his eyes closed.

  The words out of my mouth could not have been stopped even if I wanted to stop them.

  “Take it off…”

  His eyes opened and he looked at me through the mirror, surprised.

  “What?”

  “Take it off,” I repeated, a little stronger this time.

  He glanced down at my back as I watched him intently. My heart was racing, almost loud enough for him to hear as my breath shuddered out of me. Mykail swallowed hard and then moved his fingers down my back, grabbing the back of my bra and releasing the two hooks.

  He hesitated, holding the fabric before moving his hands to push the straps down my arms. I tried not to feel embarrassed or self-conscious as the fabric slipped away from my breasts and left me exposed to the mirror and Mykail. He looked at me in the mirror and his hands went to my shoulders, shaking more than before.

  “You’re beautiful…”

  I shivered at the sound of his voice, at how much I felt in that moment, at the closeness that we had emotionally, at how I was bare before him and how he said I was beautiful…

  He leaned down and kissed my shoulder again, his fingers tracing the scar where the tracer rested. When his lips moved away from my skin, I closed my eyes so I would not be faced with the image of myself in the mirror, panting and flushed. It was embarrassing and an incredible turn on mixed into a confusing ball in the pit of my stomach.

  Mykail sterilized the knife while I kept my eyes closed, though I could both hear and feel the breath shuddering out of him. He was just as worked up as I was.

  I felt his fingers against my skin far too acutely, so when the knife cut into my skin, I did not feel it at all, focused entirely on his flat hand against my back, holding the skin taught as he cut. Then, I felt his fingers work the chip out before disappearing and returning with gentle care to clean the wound.

  He washed his hands and bound the wound while I tried to control myself from turning around and kissing him until we both couldn’t breathe.

  He pushed the tape of the band aid down and then leaned forward, kissing my skin once more, as he had done with the other wounds. I lost all self-control.

  I spun around on the marble counter top and grabbed his face, kissing him hungrily, as if my life depended on it. He met me with equal enthusiasm, grabbing my hips and pulling our bodies together, my breasts meeting his warm chest and causing me to release a near animal-like sound into his mouth.

  He returned with his own groan as our tongues tangled together and our bodies lit up like dry timber. He grabbed me from the counter and I wrapped my legs around his waist, allowing him to carry me to my bedroom and put me down on the bed, laying over me like a blanket, his wings supporting him as he covered me. I moaned into his mouth and our tongues pushed against one another, trying to decide who would control the kiss.

  My brain shut off. Everything was about touch. He shifted his weight to one forearm as his other hand ran up my side to cup my breast, which caused me to arch my back violently.

  His leg came to rest between mine and this time, instead of a whimper, Mykail swallowed a loud moan that I could not contain.

  I broke the kiss to breathe, though no matter how much oxygen entered my lungs I could not catch my breath. Mykail did not allow me any time to recover, dipping his head to my neck and kissing me with open mouth kisses, trying not to leave any marks. My eyes shut, my body too focused on everything else to keep them open.

  When Mykail moved to my chest and kissed my breast before taking one of my nipples between his lips, any semblance of conscious thought I might have had was completely obliterated. My body was strung tighter than I had ever known. It was a delicious feeling, and yet I still craved more. One of my hands managed to find his hair and my fingers tangled in the soft tendrils, holding his head to me. His moan hummed through my skin to my spine, causing sparks of electricity to shoot through me at lightning speeds.

  His hand that had been palming my other breast skimmed down my torso to the waistband of my jeans and carefully pulled the button open. I gasped and my eyes shot open, excitement spreading through me like wildfire.

  After working the zipper of my jeans down, his hand slipped over my panties and cupped me intimately. A choked noise that I barely recognized as my own voice left my lips, the touch so overpowering I was sure I would faint.

  His fingers began working against the fabric of my panties. Each press and push against my skin caused my sensitivity to rise higher and more cries to leave my throat.

  Mykail’s mouth released my nipple and kissed a path back to my mouth, swallowing the sounds I was making as his hand continued to work magic.

  Suddenly, it was too much. There was too much sensation. My muscles tensed and my legs began to shake. I felt myself cringe against the feeling, and my mouth opened again, a small plea for him to stop managing to make its way into the air. I could see the cliff I was heading toward and I was frightened to go over the edge.

  “It’s alright,” Mykail whispered against the shell of my ear. “Let go…”

  And that was it. I was flung over the side of the cliff into all-consuming bliss. My back arched and a choked version of a moan bubbled out of my throat as my body, tightly strung, suddenly snapped and shuddered with a
delicious sensation I had never known before. I felt myself weightless and soaring for a few seconds before I came crashing down to earth, boneless and dazed.

  The first thing I saw was Mykail’s smiling face above me as he watched me recover.

  He kissed me gently, bringing me back to reality with the touch.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, his eyes looking into mine.

  “I’m better…than alright,” I managed to breathe, a smile coming across my lips. “That was…” I shook my head, unable to find the words. He chuckled quietly and kissed me once more. I swallowed hard and tried to catch my breath. “But…what about…”

  “What?”

  I quickly pursed my lips, knowing if I brought up sex in conversation now, he would back away and tell me it was too dangerous and that we needed to be careful and all the other excuses he had been using.

  “Kiss me…” I whispered, taking his face in my hands.

  He obliged, lowering himself to kiss me as I tried to find control of my body to reciprocate what he had done for me.

  Just as I felt him starting to loosen up and respond more heatedly to the kiss, there was a piercing ring that startled both of us. I listened carefully, not sure what I had heard, or why it was suddenly quiet.

  Then it sounded again, and my brain registered the sound of the phone ringing.

  Mykail rolled off me and I groaned in frustration, getting up and looking at the caller ID of the house phone, though it appeared as unavailable. Glancing apologetically at Mykail, I answered the phone, unexplainably nervous.

  “Hello?”

  “Lily? Hi, honey, it’s Dad!”

  “Dad!” I blinked. I heard Mykail chuckle at the timing for me to receive a call from my father in Europe. It was an effective way to kill the mood.

  * *** *

  I apologized a million times to Mykail after the hour-long conversation with my father was over, but he assured me that everything was alright and it had probably been for the best that we had stopped. I didn’t agree, but Mykail refused to continue where we had left off.

  It had been the first time I had had an orgasm. I had always been curious about sex and intimacy, but I had been too embarrassed to touch myself or seek answers from my more experienced friends. Now, I was worried I was going to be addicted to the feeling. I wanted more, and when I tried to close my eyes that night to sleep, an uncomfortable heat would pool between my legs as I thought about the intimacy earlier that evening.