I’d managed to increase the range of the electromagnetic fields that the extractor generated, and now it created a deep sucking/pulsing function that allowed me to latch onto memories, then drag and tug on them. This allowed me to gently untangle much of what Jay had confused asreal vs. fake,and we’d made a great deal of progress since I’d implemented this new advancement.
“There, got it!” I cheered, as I was able to finally dislodge a violent memory of Jay nearly getting blown up by enemy soldiers on a beach from a memory of him celebrating his tenth birthday with his dad and Sebastian.
Jay smiled up at me from where he was lying in the surgical chair, and he reached up to cup my face, tugging me forward into a deep kiss.
“Mmm, thank you, baby. That feels much better.”
“Of course. Now, just let me extract it now that it’s untangled, and we can take a break.”
Jay nodded and closed his eyes as I carefully deleted the traumatic beach memory, and I felt a lightness flood my chest as the horrible, violent scene blinked off the projector.
“There, all done.”
Jay sat up and swung his feet to the floor, giving me an impressed smile.
“You really outdid yourself with this,” he murmured, holding his hand out in a silent request to examine the device.
I handed it to him before busying myself with shutting down the projector and tidying up my workspace a little bit.
“Yeah, hopefully now I can get most of that army stuff out of your head without damaging your core memories.”
“Maybe let’s not delete all of them. I have a feeling that the combat training will come in handy. I like that I know how to keep you safe now,” he said, though he wasn’t looking at me. He was fiddling with the extractor’s settings, bumping up the new gripping feature I’d installed until it was maxed out.
“Sure… I can leave that, but you have to promise me you’re not going to use it to kill innocent people anymore,” I said sternly, thinking of all the people he shot when he was trying to get us out of Neurovance.
Jay glanced at me, his expression blank and dry. “No one who hurts you is innocent.”
He said it so seriously that I shivered beneath the intensity of his gaze.
“Did you… Did you really kill Dylan?” I whispered. I’d been wanting to ask him about that for a while now, but there just hadn’t been a good time.
Jay didn’t flinch; he just stared at me with that emotionless look on his face, and I knew the answer before he gave it to me.
“Of course. He was the first person I killed once I was strong enough to come back for you. I had a list.”
My mouth parted in surprise.
“You had alist?”
Jay nodded, though he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He had a pensive look on his face as he used the magnetic fields to toy with the flesh on his arm, and I frowned. He seemed mesmerized by the way the extractor gently sucked and pulled at his skin as he moved the tip up and down the length of his arm.
Without another word, he stood up from the surgical chair and turned to face me. He had a positivelysinisterlook on his face, and I found myself shivering again, but this time, for a different reason.
Placing the extractor carefully on the surgical table, he smirked at me.
“Strip, please. Then get in the chair,” he ordered abruptly, and my mouth dropped open.
“S-strip?”
“Are you going to make me repeat myself, Milo? Every time you question me, you’re going to owe me another orgasm.”
Remembering how painful it had been to replenish after he’d completely drained me dry, I shook my head. I had no interest in provoking him into round two of “Make Milo come until his balls shriveled up.”
“O-okay, okay!” I blurted, kicking off my shoes and fumbling with the buttons of my shirt. He watched me undress with hungry eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
My heartsoaredat the sight of that tiny smile, and suddenly, all thoughts of Dylan were gone from my mind.
All that mattered was keeping that smile on my man’s face.
