Chapter 9: Chapter 9

When Anna turned around, she found Jerome standing right below her. She turned so that her back was against the wall. She did a quick sweep of the area and was shocked to discover that it was roughly the size of a bedroom. Jerome displayed his open palms to the crowd. "Jump," he commanded, drawing her focus to himself in the process.

"I'll catch you."

Anna was confident that even if she tried, she could come up with a million different excuses not to jump. On the other hand, she decided not to attempt it. She was angry with herself because of her nervousness, her blisters, and the fact that she had allowed herself to show a vulnerability to a complete stranger. She leaped, and the movement nearly brought her heart to a complete halt.A split second later, Jerome's hands found their comfortable resting place on her hips, with the fingers of one hand splayed out across her rear end, appearing to hold her without any effort.

The quick drumroll that had been interrupted by a pause in the beating of the heart had now been restored.

Jerome took a delectable amount of time to ease her body down his rock-solid flawless one, and as he did so, their hips melted together. They remained like way for some reason, her feet still hovering over the ground.

As soon as her sight landed on the fire in his eyes, her body began to react, causing her nipples to contract and her thighs to ache with the want that was building up.

He most certainly was aware of how to divert her attention away from the confined location.

"Glad I could assist," he muttered, the hard line of his seductive mouth lifting ever-so-slightly as he carefully eased her to her weary feet. "Glad I could help," he murmured. "Glad

She could not believe that she had actually spoken what she had just said. "Tell me I didn't say that out loud," she pleaded.

That was not how she conducted her business.

His eyes sparkled with deceitful merriment.

"It's a pleasure to be of assistance.

Let me close up the entrance first so that nobody can find us, and then I'll start to work on it.

His attitude changed to one of seriousness, and he began to stroke her arms with his powerful hands. This caused her to get goose bumps and made her realize how chilly the tunnel was, despite the heat of Texas.

"Would you mind if I checked on you in a moment?"

No.

Don't just walk away from me down here.

Please don't suffocate us in this teeny space.

Suddenly, the cave had the atmosphere of a crowded phone booth rather than a cozy little bedroom.

She forced herself to swallow as she fought the temptation to scream for help and demand to be brought back up.

"Yes," she lied, attempting to grin but ultimately failing to do so.

"Everything is good now.

I'm okay."

He didn't appear to be convinced, and he moved away from her in an awkward manner.

She repeated, in response to the lingering uncertainty in his gaze, "I'm OK," and she detested the fact that he evidently believed she required reassurance

.

Her voice got severe.

"And please, stop staring at me like I'm a helpless little kid.

What became of the jerk with the cold shoulder who sent me to this location?

Bring him back to us.

He seemed to be examining her with his look, as if he was picking in on much too much information, she was sure.

"He will come back when you are able to keep up with him and when your condition has improved."

She rebuked him with a muttered, "I'm alright!" because making noise in a place that was supposed to be a secret hideout wasn't exactly the best plan.

"I can keep up quite fine."

Jerome sidestepped Anna with a dexterity that was uncommon among people his age and sprang into the air, where he grabbed a steel spike with one of his hands.

He paused for a time, turning his body so that he was facing her.

He winked.

"Soon, we will determine whether or not you are indeed able to."

Her entire being purred in agreement with his interpretation as a response.

As he ascended the wall, he faced her with his back, thereby cutting off any opportunity for her to respond to the brazen assertion.

Under his damp T-shirt, he could be seen flexing his muscles, and his denim jacket hugged his lovely, tight ass.

She chewed the inside of her lower lip.

He was such a source of frustration,

But it could be well worth it in the end. And it wasn't as if he was acting in an inappropriate manner.

Her innocuous remark had inadvertently extended an open invitation to him to come and coax her into composure, which was the exact opposite of what she had intended. Not really, and not in any case. Or it could have been. Her subconcious was hard at work trying to get her what it was that she really wanted, which was Jerome. She'd wanted that man ever since she'd met him in the bar, despite the fact that she knew he didn't fit her perfectly painted world of vanilla sex and strict rules — make that no sex and strict rules; she'd been practicing that more and more recently.

Despite this, the way she lived her life now allowed her to put her wilder days firmly in the past. And she felt that her work helped her make amends, or at the very least, try to make amends, for what she'd done back then, for getting that damned killer off and watching him take another life. She felt that her work helped her make amends. She continued to have nightmares about the other person.

After taking a trip down memory lane in her head, she found herself square in the middle of the present. Within the narrow cave. due to the fact that she is currently experiencing agony. At the very least, an easier discomfort than what the past has in store. As she watched Jerome escape through the same aperture that she had just crawled through, she instinctively put her palm to her throat. She was left all by herself. In the crater. A very minor one. Okay. Perhaps going back to the past would have been preferable to today.

Anna took a deep breath for no other reason than the fact that she wanted to make sure there was sufficient air. Then, after an incredible amount of effort, she pushed herself to stop staring at the door leading out of the room.

When she examined her surroundings, it appeared as though she was hiding in a well-planned shelter rather than in a cave that Jerome had explored when he was a child. There was even a few novels along with the essentials such as a small mattress, a battery-operated fan, and a battery-operated refrigerator. As she strolled around the room, her focus shifted to each wall because she had the uneasy feeling that they might soon close in on her. Her thoughts began to race, and she became aware that she was about to start hyperventilating. It was something she didn't want to do with Jerome in the vicinity. It was time for her to put her strategies for relaxing to practice.

She hurriedly sat down with her legs splayed out in front of her on the rocky ground, trying to avoid falling over. She was unable to move since she was drenched, and she did not want to ruin the mattress. She propped her head up on the wall behind her and looked up at the ceiling while she did so. Could it possibly give way? Should it, like the apartment floor had done so many years earlier, fall on top of her? No. This was not an effective method for calming down.

Anna clenched her eyes tight and concentrated on a thought that she hoped would be calming. Birds. Flowers. Sunrises. Instead, a picture of Jerome's lovely ass in those dark jeans sprang into her head while she was thinking about him. Then there was the manner in which he had grabbed her as she had jumped, as well as that seductive slide down her tough body. She let her thoughts run wild as she imagined about taking off his damp shirt and inspecting those well-defined biceps and strong abs that she'd felt through his clothes. Her fantasy went wild. In the bedroom, he could be crazy, demanding, and fantastic. She was aware of this and could feel it permeating her entire being.

She admitted that she yearned for wild and fantastic sex. But if she opened the door to a potentially harmful sort of sexual pleasure, would she also open the door to the previous version of herself that she'd been? Who is it that would prioritize power, wealth, and even pleasure above everything else? In her more troubled moments, when the events of the past had her in a tangled mess, she had blamed her former partner for influencing her behavior, which was a joke. In those moments, she was tortured. Her decisions were entirely her own. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hide the fact that she possessed a dark and wild persona, which was something she had been working hard to push into the background. Consequently, it was a risky venture for her to surround herself with people who, like Jerome, had the potential to loosen her inhibitions.

Dangerous. Yes. It was Jerome who said that. Tempting in a perilous way. Extremely high temperatures.

Anna's attention was drawn to the entryway by indistinct noises that seemed to indicate Jerome was moving around there. The second that he jumped down to the cavern floor once more, her lashes lifted up. He then hurled the rope in the opposite direction, removing any visible traces of their previous presence. He was standing at his complete height. She consoled herself with the realization that this area wasn't quite as constrained as she had initially believed it to be.

Jerome brought his palms together and rubbed them together. "All secure."

She pondered the possibility of that. "Don't you believe that the fact that you grew up on this land made it quite simple for them to locate you?"

He went over to the refrigerator and got down on his knees before opening the door. "That can't be right; the title is too deeply concealed." He got up from the table and brought her a bottle of water to drink. My great-grandmother gave the land title in her maiden name when it was registered, and since then it appears to have been owned by more than one person at a time. It is currently registered with a false name. So, no. The land is not in the condition in which they discovered us.

She took a drink, and was taken aback by how chilly it was. "How were you able to handle the electricity?"

He felt about on the top of the refrigerator. "This is a special order." battery-operated machinery used in industry It wasn't cheap, but it was well worth the money.

Anna had no choice but to assent. She unscrewed the bottle and chugged half of the contents as Jerome, who was kneeling nearby, did the same thing with his own water bottle.

She threw the bottle on the ground and uttered the words, "I had best stop. I have to go the restroom. Please excuse me.