by Lani Aames
"Not this one. There's not a sign anyone has been in here since the beginning."
The beginning of what? Did she even want to know? Sometimes, she felt Mac knew more than he was telling her. It was fitting she had her own little secret. If this path did lead nowhere, then they could always turn around and do it her way.
Assuming they survived.
"We have no idea what we're walking into," she continued. "We're crazy for even being here. A team of experts needs to see this. It needs to be recorded and protected."
Mac stopped in his tracks and shone his beam directly into her eyes. The sudden brilliance hurt and she blinked, shielding her eyes from it.
"What the fuck am I? Don't you think I know what I'm doing?"
"Get that light out my eyes!" she snapped and gasped in relief, rubbing her eyes when he moved the light away. "You know what I mean, Mac. Of course I think you know what you're doing or I wouldn't be here with you."
"Then why are you going over ground you've covered a dozen times before? We're here now. We're about to make the discovery of the millennium, this one and the last, and all you can do is question me." Mac started down the corridor again. "Just shut the hell up and enjoy it. It's the adventure of a lifetime."
He was right, of course. How many sales reps got the chance to search for a lost civilization that most reputable archaeologists didn't even believe had existed? She should be grateful Mac let her tag along. Maybe, after he'd made his name in the field with this discovery, she could go back to college, get her degree, and join him in his work. He had always resented that he couldn't change her mind about her studies. Then maybe she could change his mind about sleeping with her.
They consulted the map frequently although Mac seemed to have the path memorized. Corridor followed corridor going deeper and deeper. A couple of hours later, they stopped to rest.
Lia watched Mac drink from his canteen, his head tilted back. His long coal-black hair hung limply down his shoulders, tangled with sweat. She had been half in love with him from the beginning of their friendship, but she knew she could never be completely in love with him. There was a streak of cruelty in him that kept her from giving her heart to him.
She didn't quite understand why he wouldn't sleep with her. He said it would ruin their friendship and she knew he was right. But she was so physically drawn to him that she often grew hot and wet just watching him do something as simple as taking a drink. Under normal circumstances, when her clit throbbed and she ached all over after spending time with Mac, she would lie in her bed and take care of her needs, pretending it was a black-haired, green-eyed man who touched her.
To add to her confusion, sometimes it wasn't Mac. Lately, most of the time it wasn't Mac. His face wouldn't quite come into focus and all she was aware of was long waves of black hair and emerald green eyes. Occasionally, she dreamed of him. In her dreams, it was never Mac, but this other fantasy man.
She couldn't imagine who this other man was. She had never met anyone else with Mac's black hair, green eyes, and dark complexion. Of course, he didn't really exist, but once in a while she found herself searching crowds for him. She soon came to realize the color combo of black hair and green eyes was rare. She further realized that she had invented this man because Mac rejected her.
Even if Mac agreed to sleep with her, could she actually do it? She had dated a number of men. She was reasonably attractive and kept physically fit because of Mac's explorations. Some man was always asking her out. There had been a few who were warm and funny and she could almost imagine a life with one of them.
There had been several she had been tempted to sleep with. But when it came down to the nitty gritty, even so far as getting undressed and into bed, she couldn't do it. She froze, her muscles seizing up as stiff and unresponsive as the statue Mac searched for. She always apologized profusely, but it embarrassed her completely. Why was she so different from her circle of acquaintances who talked about sleeping with men as easily as they talked about trying on a new dress?
Most of the men ranted and raved, called her a bitch and a cock-tease as they jerked on their clothes and stormed away. Only two had reacted like gentlemen. With them, she had discovered other ways of pleasure, with lips and tongues and fingertips. One had lasted only that night. He was apologetic, but he didn't have the patience or desire to teach a virgin about sex, to help her get over whatever baggage she was carrying.
The affair with the other had lasted a few months, but every time she tried to make love with him, she would freeze. He never grew frustrated or angry with her. She would more than make up for it by giving him long sessions of blowjobs that left him gasping and shuddering. He would reciprocate, although her body would not allow penetration of her vagina even with his fingers or tongue. They drifted apart, as she knew they would. No man, no matter that he was receiving the best head in his life, could go long without traditional sex.
What was wrong with her? There had been no sexual abuse or molestation in her childhood. She'd had wonderful parents, both gone now, who had been devoted to each other and her. As an only child, she had been spoiled, of course, by their undivided attention, but they had been neither too strict nor too lenient. Her parents had never pushed her to excel although they expected her to do as well as she could. Their unexpected and untimely deaths in a car accident a year after she had graduated from college left her with a little money to invest that would ensure her a comfortable retirement.
Her parents' unconditional love might be the problem, but she had never equated her parents' love with that of a man. She had always considered herself well adjusted with no self-esteem problems. She was boringly average in every way. Except she could not have sex.
She shouldn't have let her thoughts stray to her unsatisfactory love life because when Mac suggested they should move on, she could barely stand. She was horny and there was no relief in sight. Fine time for her body to stir and long for a man. She wondered what Mac would do if she jumped him right then, tore the khaki clothes from his body, and rode him like the sex-starved woman that she was. Would he push her away?
More than likely, she thought as she fell into step beside him. He had always been adamant their relationship not pass the boundary of best friends. Lovers, he said, always cum and go, but friends, and enemies, lasted for-fucking-ever. Well, that was Mac. Crude but truthful.
Lia let Mac lead the way because if given the opportunity, she would turn around and go back. She didn't trust herself to follow the map. Yet, she didn't trust her instincts. It had been hours since she'd had a vision and she had begun to think they had been her imagination working overtime, carried away with the ambiance of this place.
They had made a few more turns and traveled a few more corridors when Lia, now lagging a few yards behind Mac, nearly lost her footing in the sand. She reached out to the wall to steady herself and…
As she nears the chamber, her sandal scuffs against stone, and she stumbles, the lamp falling from her grasp. The oil spills and the light is snuffed out in the layer of loose sand covering the floor. In the sudden darkness, she becomes disoriented and reaches out to steady herself, but she is caught by strong arms and brought up short against a massive chest.
For a moment, she cannot breathe. What if he is not her lover? What if others have discovered their trysts, and now one of them holds her captive? It would mean her death! But more, it would mean the death of her lover.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Mac asked.
Lia blinked. She found herself in Mac's arms, her hands pressed to a chest that bulged to fill his khaki shirt quite nicely. His chest couldn't be called massive, but he had always been muscular and fit.
"I-I'm fine," she assured him and dragged her hands away from him. She was close to tearing the shirt open and pressing her lips to his bare skin. Sexual heat thrummed through every nerve. God, she had never been this aroused! She longed to grab Mac's hand, jam it down her khaki shorts, beneath her panties, and get rid of that awfu
l, sweet ache. As close as she was to the edge of orgasm, it wouldn't take more than a few soft strokes around her clit.
Lia shuddered with the thought and was glad Mac had turned away. She had taken a few steps backward when she realized what she was doing and forced herself to follow Mac.
"Only a few more turns and we're there. These fucking passages are longer than they look on paper."
Lia could only grunt in agreement. She didn't trust her voice. If she tried to speak, she might scream. Every step vibrated through her body. The shorts rubbed between her legs and her panties were damp with her juices. She tugged at them to move them away from her overly sensitive flesh, but after a few steps, they rode up again, tormenting her.
She wanted to strip them off and wallow in the sand until Mac saw her and fucked her as she had longed for him to do ever since she'd met him. She imagined his green eyes dark with passion. No, not Mac's…but whose?
Mac had stopped. He shone his light through an opening, but it barely penetrated the darkness.
"This is it," he whispered.
Lia didn't remember making those last few turns. All she was aware of was her body and the ripples of arousal flowing through her limbs. Her breasts felt swollen and her erect nipples rubbed almost painfully against her shirt, the thin, taut material of her stretch bra only heightening the sensation. She wanted to place her hands on them and massage the ache away, but Mac would think she had lost her mind. Maybe she had.
Shaking her head, trying to clear it enough to concentrate on Mac and his find, she stepped closer to him.
"After you," she breathed.
"No, we do this together," Mac said with a strange smile that she saw in the glow of their flashlights. It didn't look like a smile of triumph but was more of a cat-that-ate-the-canary kind of smile.
Lia shrugged and moved to his side. They stepped inside. Shining their lights around, Lia was shocked to see they were in a natural cavern, not man-made. It was huge, the slope of the ceiling rising away from them into pitch black. Stalagmites and stalactites dotted the ceiling and uneven floor. Rocks, boulders, and mounds of pebbles were strewn everywhere.
There was no sign that any ritual had ever been held here. No statue of the god Zamar.
They stepped away from the opening and the walls groaned around them. She heard shrieking, grinding mechanisms then walls slamming against walls from near and far. Her eyes grew wide and she started to step back through the opening, but Mac grabbed her arm and pulled her away.
"Look!" He pointed.
The sides of the opening moved together swiftly. She could have been caught between them.
There was a moment of deafening silence when all Lia could do was stare at their only means of leaving this place.
"Oh, Mac, what if we're trapped?" her voice echoed hollowly in the large chamber.
Before Mac could respond, the sounds came again. Some from a far distance and others closer. And one sounded as if it was in the chamber with them. They shone their lights around until the beams caught another exit opening up a dozen yards to the left.
All fell silent again.
Mac laughed. "The corridors changed, and the map is now useless."
"How the hell are we going to get out of here?" Lia asked, her voice surprisingly calm when she wanted to scream in frustration at being trapped. Her body craving a sexual release that was so totally inappropriate it was ludicrous wasn't helping either.
"Through there," Mac said and flashed his beam toward the new opening. "But first we look around."
"There's nothing here!" Lia shouted and her echoes bounced off the walls again and again. "It was a trap. We'll never find our way out if there even is a way out."
"You don't know that, Lia." Mac's voice was calm, reassuring. Too calm. Mac was always sensible in the face of danger, but there should have been some sign of panic as he fought to control it.
She saw nothing but complacency and that frightened her more than the thought of never finding a way out.
"You go that way and I'll go over here," Mac suggested, using the beam to indicate she should go left.
"What are we looking for?" Lia shivered with sexual tension and fear and her voice reflected it, but Mac didn't seem to notice.
"Anything that looks odd. Some sign the Zamarians used this chamber for their ritual. This might well be it, Lia. They made the tunnels that led to this cave to perform their ritual in a natural setting."
It made as much sense as any of this did, she supposed, and did as he told her. She climbed boulders and squeezed between stalagmites, hoping to find some indication that anyone had ever used this cavern for anything. All she saw were rocks and more rocks, as she flashed her light around and the fingers of her free hand pinched at one nipple. When she realized what she was doing, she dropped her hand.
Mac was somewhere on the other side of the cavern. If she had a few minutes she could ease this tortuous ache quickly. She felt her face grow warm in embarrassment. How could that be the foremost thought in her mind when they might die here?
"Find anything?" she shouted.
"Not a thing," he called back and she was disappointed that he sounded too near. It sounded as if he was coming back toward her.
Her only defense was that if she could get rid of her need, she would be able to think more clearly.
She waited a few minutes, but didn't hear his footsteps.
"Mac?" Her voice reverberated softly around her. She waited a few more minutes. "Mac, did you find something?"
There was still no answer. Panicking, she hurried back toward the place where they'd separated.
"Mac!" she screamed. "Can you hear me?"
The floor in this cavern was covered in mottled sand, a mix of black and gray, not the neutral beige color of the desert and layered sand in the passageways. She saw his footsteps trail to a line of boulders he had climbed, but there was no return track. She ran to the boulders and shone her light beyond them. She could see clearly that he wasn't here. He hadn't fallen and struck his head. He wasn't hiding out to tease her.
"Mac, where are you?"
Her echo was the only answer she received.
She made her way to the new exit, but the sand around the opening lay undisturbed. He hadn't gone out without her, but where had he gone?
"MAC! MAC! MAC!" she screamed as long and as loud as she could, until her throat felt raw and her breath was almost gone.
Gasping for air, Lia made her way back to the line of boulders. He might have fallen in a way that she couldn't see. Or dropped into a pit. Or a poisonous snake might have bitten him, paralyzing him, after he stumbled into a far corner. Any number of gruesome things might have happened and she imagined them all as she climbed over the rocks and landed in the sand beyond.
She flashed her light around, but there was no sign of distress. In fact, there were no footprints at all. Mac had never made it this far. She climbed back upon the boulders and looked at them all. They were wedged tightly together, no crevice for him to have fallen through.
Where had he gone?
From where she stood, facing the way they had come in, there was only the cavern wall to her left and a thick column of rock that seemed to be holding up the ceiling to her right. She had been exploring on the other side of the column. He couldn't have gone behind the column or she would have seen him.
She dropped to the ground. She was still shaking, more with fear now, but her breasts and clit still burned where her clothes rubbed them. She had to fight the urge to strip the offending material from her body.
She shook her head to clear it. What should she do? Stay here where she'd last seen Mac in the hopes that he would be able to return from wherever he'd disappeared to? Or go through the new exit and try to find the way out and call for help?
Call! She struggled with her backpack and nearly ripped it open in her anxiety. The radio! It wouldn't reach outside, but maybe she could reach Mac.
She pressed the button. "Mac! Mac, can you h
ear me?"
She strained to hear beyond the static in case he had somehow gotten far away from her. She called him again and again, but received no answer. At last, she gave up, deciding to save the batteries. If he was unconscious now, he might wake up later and try to contact her.
Deciding to wait here for now, she sat in the dark sand and leaned back against a boulder. She pulled out her canteen, only allowing herself one deep swallow. She hadn't seen any sign of water at all even in this cavern.
All Lia could do now was wait. She rested her head on the boulder and closed her eyes…
"My One," a caressing voice whispers in the dark, and she relaxes against him, pressing her palms flat over the expanse of skin between the open folds of his robe. A fingertip on each hand brushes a nipple and they harden beneath her touch. She is pleased by his sharp intake of breath, and the growing proof of his desire pushing toward her.
"I have missed you, Beloved," she murmurs. She is glad there is darkness for it hides the tears she sheds in sadness. "Please, let us leave now. Tonight. I do not know how much longer I can bear to be separated from you."
His lips brush hers, caress her cheeks, and kiss away her tears. She smiles. She should have known that he would be aware of her tears.
"Soon," he says, his voice filled with promise. She clings to it with all her heart. "We cannot abandon our people and leave them at the mercy of the Dark Priest."
She knows he is right, but she senses that if they do not leave soon, they might never leave at all.
"They will not listen. He is the one they follow, that our people have always followed. How can you turn them all against him?"
They dare not say names, that of the Dark Priest or their own, in case someone suspects and listens to them in the dark. Yet, who else would they be speaking of? There is only one priest who wields such power.
"I am not the only one who sees his corruption. Others have joined me in the fight against him. As soon as there are enough, we will defeat him. When that is done, you and I will be free to leave all of this behind."
