Every noise my mind misinterpreted as him appearing was met with both happiness and terror.
What if his body had returned to me but his soul hadn’t?
What if the lake had achieved what it failed to do last time and drown him?
Returning to me nothing but his empty shell?
I meant what I said earlier in the pick-up cab, when I wanted him to take me.
I’d waited too long already.
I wanted to feel his weight pressing down on me, his thick cock probing deep inside me.
I wanted to ride him, work up a sweat, and encourage him to use me any way he wanted.
He was mine and I was his.
I trusted him and knew he would never hurt me.
I came to a stop and slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand.
Funny how we revert to caricatures of emotions when they hit us hardest.
There was a way for me to know if Clint was alive and well.
I only had to tap into the bond that connected us.
It was easy to forget a new skill you had available to you if you were used to not having it.
I reached for that throbbing light pulsing in my chest… and hesitated.
Did I really want to know if he was alive and well?
What if the answer was no?
What if he got trapped down there and couldn’t make his way up to the surface?
What if—
I shook my head.
Either way, I would want to know the truth.
Better to know than to be a worried mess for the next few hours.
I tapped into it, my stomach already churning deep in my gut.
I found him immediately, somewhere inside that fallen ship.
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and maintained my grip on it.
I stared at the water’s surface, trailing him as he moved around down there.
I wondered what he was up to.
He must have found an air pocket or drained the water from one section of the ship for him to still be alive and well the way he was.
Now I had something else to focus on, I no longer paced back and forth.
I didn’t need to.
I still had to wait, but at least now I knew the wait would result in good news.
I glanced over my shoulder at the other bond, the one I could have happily lived without, as Liam drew closer and closer.
I was shocked he had managed to cover so much ground.
I still found it hard to distinguish with any degree of accuracy just how far away he was, but I could feel him drawing nearer.
I wished he would leave me alone.
How could he not see we were never going to work?
We weren’t going to work back when we were teenagers and we weren’t going to work now.
I had denied him twice and he still pursued me.
Another girl might have been flattered.
Not me.
I wanted no part of him or his sadistic plans.
My skin writhed at the thought of him doing what I was so desperate for Clint to do.
I felt physically sick.
Pop.
My attention snapped to the water’s surface.
It was perfectly still.
Had I imagined it?
Or was it another made-up noise from the flapping birds in the trees?
No, I thought. It definitely came from the lake.
I was sure of it.
But Clint’s location was still deep beneath the surface.
He’d moved slightly to one side but I had no idea what it meant.
Pop.
A bubble!
Yes! I knew I wasn’t imagining things!
It was definitely there.
Pop. Pop.
And there!
More of them!
Something was happening…
Something beneath the surface…
Pop.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
They came not from one location now but several, spread out at regular intervals, seemingly at random.
But they weren’t at random.
They only appeared that way because I couldn’t see where they erupted from.
The bubbles grew larger, swelling to a yard wide.
I focused on that pulsing light, at Clint, and watched as it began to rise.
I clapped my hands.
He was bringing the ship up!
Somehow he was bringing it to the surface!
Look! There!
One of the wingtips, and there, it’s twin!
They lifted from the lake inch by slow inch, rising higher and higher.
Water ran from the sharp lines and down the hard metal hull.
Then the water glowed with light as its headlamps emerged.
I blinked and covered my eyes with my hands to block the worst of it.
The ship’s engines roared, relatively quiet for a ship of its size.
It drifted to one side and landed in the middle of the road.
A good thing it was a road rarely traveled, I thought. But that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t come down it eventually.
The ship hissed as it came to a stop.
The blinding lights dimmed and purple marks were left in my vision.
Clint was inside the ship, somewhere up near the top, where the cockpit would be.
I didn’t know much about planes but I knew that much at least.
The ship was much larger than I thought.
It could have crushed me like a bug.
How could I have not noticed its sheer size?
As the purple blemishes in my vision dimmed, I noticed the plane’s shape.
It wasn’t built like it was made for international travel—though I was sure it was capable of it.
No, the only time I had ever seen a ship like this was on the sci-fi channel.
What I was staring at, what Clint had brought up from the surface, what he’d been traveling in when he crashed into the lake…
Was a spaceship.
When the ramp descended and Clint walked down it, I could have thought I’d been cast in a 1950’s sci-fi movie.
The aliens always looked human.
I guess it saved on costs.
But Clint didn’t have green skin or an elongated index finger.
He looked normal.
Then maybe Cliff’s idea about this being some kind of secret government project wasn’t so crazy after all.
But I had a bad feeling in my stomach and I wasn’t sure Clint could alleviate it.
He drew up to me and for the first time since realizing I wanted to be with him, I didn’t throw myself into his arms.
He was drenched head to foot with water but that wasn’t what concerned me.
It was
