Away From the Dark (The Light #2)(42)
“What about Thomas?”
“I told you, he’s no longer a threat.”
“But won’t The Light question his disappearance?”
“Minimally, that’s not our concern. It’s his. Like I said, no one enters The Light and leaves. Theoretically he shouldn’t have been in the community. Once Xavier is informed of what Thomas did—entering the community on more than one occasion—even Xavier won’t question Thomas’s sudden disappearance. Benjamin knows what Thomas did to you, so he won’t question his disappearance. Once Father Gabriel learns Thomas entered the community, he won’t question it either. He’ll assume there was a problem, and it was handled.”
I shrugged. “Maybe there are advantages to not questioning.”
Jacob reached for my hand, and with a grin said, “It’s taken you long enough to figure that out.”
My cheeks flushed as I glanced toward our intertwined hands.
“This hangar doesn’t have cameras or surveillance inside,” Jacob explained. “That’s why I didn’t park outside. I’m going to help you onto the plane, and then I have some last-minute things that need to be done. Remember, do not talk.”
As he helped me from the truck, I replied, “Yes, Jacob.”
His lips curled upward as his gaze devoured me. “Life would be so much easier if you could remember that is always the correct response.”
I was exhausted, had a battered cheek, had been gone nearly a day from a place no one leaves, and had my hand in the hand of a man whom twenty-four hours ago I’d never wanted to see again. I was out of fight.
With a shy smile, I lowered my chin, looked up through my lashes, and repeated what my husband wanted to hear. “Yes, Jacob.”
Just before entering the plane, he stilled our steps. With his free hand he surrounded my waist and pulled me close. “I pray that one day I’m able to call you by another name, but in the meantime, you’re my wife, my Sara Adams, and while I do and will respect the boundary you placed on sex, right now I want to kiss my wife, and I plan on doing it. Do you want to stop me?”
Before I could answer, he pulled my hips tighter against his, causing our chests to collide. Needing to see his face, I lifted my chin and looked into his dark gaze. As leather and musk enveloped us, he rephrased, “More importantly, do you think you can stop me?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to stop you. After all, you’re my husband.”
He smiled, an exhausted smile, just before our lips reunited. For a few moments, in the drafty hangar, our world was right. After all we’d said and done, the danger I’d put us in and how he’d tried to push me away . . . after all of it . . . our bodies knew their rightful place. Drawn like magnets with an irresistible pull, they carnally remembered what my mind believed it wanted to forget. As his kiss deepened, heat radiated from my head to my toes, melting everything in its wake. Simultaneously his touch made me liquid, molding me against his solid warmth.
I didn’t fight as fingers twined in my hair and tugged my head backward. When Jacob’s tongue slid across the seam of my lips, I willingly granted him entrance, accepting the invasion that gave our tongues license to dance. He swallowed my moans as the friction from his broad chest pebbled my nipples, and my arms wrapped around his firm torso. When our lips finally parted, I settled my cheek against his chest and held tight, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
We both knew that there was a possibility we’d never make it out of The Light, and still, when he lifted my chin and stared deeply into my eyes, I couldn’t say the words my heart longed to say; instead I did the next best thing. With a soft kiss to his cheek, I whispered, “Sara loves Jacob.”
He kissed my forehead. “And Jacob loves Sara. Please never forget that.”
I shook my head. “Neither Sara nor Stella will.”
“I never thought of myself as a bigamist,” he said with a grin.
When Jacob opened the Northern Light’s smaller plane, I quietly climbed aboard.
Though the fuselage was filled with boxes, Jacob pointed to one of the jump seats, and I sat. Next he strapped me in. Its seat belt was much more elaborate than the one in Thomas’s plane. Briefly I wondered whether this was how the unconscious women were transported—how I’d been transported. Instead of allowing myself to dwell on that thought, I surveyed the boxes, assuming they were filled with supplies; however, as in my first few days in The Light, I couldn’t ask. My speech was once again restricted.
The difference was that this time I understood why. I knew that Jacob’s rules weren’t to dominate me, but to save me. As we flew away from the dark and back into The Light, the weight of our mission settled over me. It was up to us. If we failed there were others who would never be saved.
CHAPTER 16
Sara
My heart was ready to beat out of my chest as the full impact of Jacob’s words, “The next eighteen hours are the most crucial,” settled over me and he left our apartment for Assembly. All it took was one person who saw the truth or knew what had really happened.
I should have been tired, but I was mostly scared—scared to be separated from Jacob, and of what could happen at Assembly. More than once I’d prayed that Brother Benjamin had kept our secret. After all, Jacob said that Brother Benjamin and Raquel were believers, and that what they were doing by helping us was against Father Gabriel’s teachings. Just as all of my thoughts and behaviors belonged to Jacob, all of our husbands’ thoughts belonged to the Commission and Father Gabriel.