Okay, so here it is! Cullen and Aislinn are back… Not that they ever really left. And thanks to all the support of you wonderful people.
And now without further ado:
*************************
Natalie hated the smell of hospitals; the distinct odor of antiseptic strong enough to overpower urine. At least that was how she saw it. Nightmares and horror movies came out of hospitals like this one. Natalie never really believed that places like this existed. How could she? She was a sane functioning individual. Or at least she thought she was, until six months ago.
Natalie huddled against the soft wall and closed her eyes to the never-ending blinding white light. At first it had been nearly impossible to sleep, with the continual white light in the solid white room. Add to that, the straight jacket, and having to sleep on a padded floor instead of a bed, and you had a potent formula for driving a person insane, if she wasn’t already there.
When she was originally committed she adamantly believed that if she only kept telling people what she heard someone would eventually believe her. She persevered through the testing, the shocks, the isolation, and then the hearing that placed her in this hell.
The whirlwind of the past six month finally calmed. No one spoke to her any longer. She was safely out of public view and hearing, hidden away in this nice government run facility, and “protected” from herself. Only now did Natalie start to wonder if she was wrong.
Maybe I was hearing things. I must have been hearing things. I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them I was only hearing things. They’ll let me go home. They’ll have to let me go home. If I was hearing things then I’m not really insane. Maybe I bumped my head. That’s it. I bumped my head and it wasn’t real. I didn’t see anything.
Blaring alarms sounded somewhere down the hall. Natalie lay still. She heard them before. She never found out what the commotion was before. Even the sound of slamming and her door crashing open wasn’t enough to convince her to open her eyes.
“Is that her” a voice too near to be real asked.
“It has to be. Grab her and let’s go. Time’s nearly up.”
Hands took hold of Natalie and she finally opened her eyes to see what was going on. An incredibly large man ripped through the bindings on her straight jacket as if they were tissue paper. Then without a word, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. He was at least six feet tall, if not bigger. His hair and eyes were nearly the same shade of black brown. His smaller friend was dark skinned with amazing but strange blue eyes. It all added to the unreal impression that Natalie was getting from the very solid experience.
This has to be a dream, she thought. I’m seeing things again. What is this? A jail break? Who would want to rescue me? And what kind of rescuers wear jogging pants and t-shirts, no shoes, and carry no weapons? At least that described the big guy who was carrying her. The smaller man was in all black and may have had weapons, but they were currently out of sight.
Natalie was jostled down one hall and then another. Although grateful for the removal of the straight jacket, this guy’s shoulder was not comfortable jabbing into her stomach. The trio streaked up a set of stairs and then another.
Finally they slammed through a last door. Natalie couldn’t help opening her eyes. Frigid wind blasting from helicopter blades blew her hospital gown wildly. The large man carrying her put her down lightly on the roof with a small group of other people wearing hospital gowns and staring wide eyed at the scene. “Wait here,” he shouted at her and streaked over to a few people waiting by one of two large helicopters.
Natalie never saw anything like it before. The helicopters looked like something out of one of the armed forces commercials she saw on television. One of them was huge and had two spinning sets of blades on top. It barely fit on the area of roof where it waited. The other hovered above the building. Search lights flashed over the roof, lingering on the various groups of people rushing about. That one also had several sets of dangerous looking weaponry protruding from the sides.
In moments another large man came running across the room and began herding the group of ex-patients into the large helicopter. It was a tight fit. Natalie counted about ten patients squeezed into the back of the helicopter. The smaller man with blue eyes appeared in front of them and appeared to be in charge of crowd control. Not that anyone was putting up a fight. They were all too stunned.
Suddenly there was shouting and rushing and more alarms sounding. The last of the people on the roof piled into the helicopter and only barely managed to pull the door shut as it took off. Gunfire blasted piercingly over the whirring of the helicopter.
The last man in turned around and Natalie could see blood oozing from a series of bullet wounds across his chest. He was wincing in pain, but didn’t appear to be nearly as hurt as a man who had just been shot should be.
Above all the bedlam was this woman all the men differed to. She was obviously in charge. At first glance she appeared to be in her early twenties, maybe. But the long silver-white braid down her back, led Natalie to think she had to be much older. She was wearing black, like the smaller man. An air of quiet kind confidence almost emanated from her. Natalie was inclined to think that everything was going to be alright as she stared into the strange woman’s brown eyes.
Still, this was all too strange to be real. Natalie as more inclined to think she was dreaming than to believe she was actually in the middle of being rescued from the government run insane asylum she had been committed to. Hell, even that seems hard to believe. Maybe the entire last six months have all been some kind of wicked nightmare, she thought. Closing her eyes Natalie leaned against the humming wall of the helicopter and decided to wait for herself to wake up.
“Mira,” Natalie heard someone call over the chaos. “We’re clear.”
* * * *
Cullen’s arm wrapped lovingly around Aislinn. His hand rested gently on her pregnant belly. Although she was fast asleep, the babies were very active. Cullen smiled and snuggled closer to her, pressing his face into her hair and inhaling deeply. Even in her sleep Aislinn purred when he tightened his embrace.
Cullen’s wolf began growling in the back of his mind. It had been a while since the last time they made love. Being late in the pregnancy Aislinn was getting fairly big and increasingly uncomfortable, and as a result less and less inclined to let him get overly friendly. There were nights she actually kicked him out of bed because she wanted more room. Keith laughed incessantly when Cullen complained. Afterall, he recently went through the same thing. He considered it his duty to inflict upon Cullen as much torment as he received during Jaylyn’s pregnancy.
Aislinn woke to the sound of needy growling in her ear. Cullen nuzzled the back of her neck, taking in her scent. She could feel his stiff length prodding at her from behind.
“Cullen,” she breathed exhausted and annoyed. He wouldn’t back off lately. She swatted at him trying to get him to back off.
This time he wasn’t going to be dissuaded. “Piseagan, it’s been weeks,” he growled.
“And it’s gonna be a couple more,” Aislinn growled right back. She pulled the pillow she had taken to sleeping with, tight against her chest and rolled away from him.
Cullen got up and paced around the bed. He was torn between respecting her wishes and wanting to be close to her. “Maybe I’m trying to persuade you the wrong way.”
“You’re not persuading at all, you’re demanding. Go back to sleep.”
Aislinn shifted in the bed, trying to find a more comfortable position to sleep in. As she moved onto her back, she felt Cullen’s hands on her ankles. Before she could grumble at him again, he leaned in and kissed her ankle.
Cullen knew Aislinn’s cat too well. He kissed his way along her calf and up her inner thigh. Aislinn mewled a half-hearted protest. Still her legs fell apart willingly as Cullen worked his way toward her center.
Frustration and desire warred in her head. Cullen’s lips peppered gentle kisses along the dip between her sex and her leg. When his fingers parted her lips and he dragged his tongue slowly between, the purring began and Aislinn crumbled.
Closing her eyes, Aislinn lifted her hips, pressing against his mouth as he sucked rhythmically on her clit. One finger tickled along her lips and dipped inside. Aislinn squirmed, as Cullen stroked inside her, finding the soft smooth spot on her inner walls that always brought her pleasure faster. He wanted his turn now that she was giving in.
Aislinn gasped and whimpered as she came. During her momentary lapse of cognoscente thought process, Cullen guided her onto her hands and knees. It was all he could do to keep his wolf in check as he entered her. It had been too long. Hell, a couple days is too long, he growled to himself.