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.
What if Brother Benjamin confessed to the Commission?
I bit my lip and continued to pace.
We’d gotten into the community without anyone’s seeing that I was in Jacob’s truck. Riding in his truck wasn’t forbidden. I did it from time to time. It was leaving the community that was forbidden. No one could know I’d been out to the pole barn, much less into the dark.
To corroborate our story, as soon as we entered the community, I stayed hidden inside the truck while Jacob drove as close as he could to our apartment, went in, and returned to the truck. As we drove to the parking area, I came out of my hiding place in the backseat. Then together we walked to the coffee shop.
Since the story was that I was upset with him about leaving the reminder on my cheek, taking me into public was his punishment for my missing work yesterday. The thing that I continued to mull over was that he hadn’t explained any of this to me—any of the reasoning. Nevertheless, I understood it.
No matter how I fought it, I was conditioned. Sitting at a table at the coffee shop with my eyes down, I obediently waited for him to return with our drinks. Of course he didn’t ask what I wanted, and I wouldn’t have refused whatever he’d ordered; however, when I peered into the cup and found tea instead of coffee, I smiled. Though he briefly returned the smile and whispered, “It’s decaffeinated,” his gaze immediately narrowed, reminding me that I was supposed to be upset with him.
Jacob was right about my blackened eye. No one seemed to notice it. If I allowed myself to think like Stella, the unspoken acceptance of my husband’s correction was more evidence of the perverse nature of The Light. I hoped that the unique position of having both perspectives would be an advantage as we continued the best performances of our fucking lives.