Touched by an Alien (16 page)

The two agents who had Mom’s luggage went first, one at a time. Martini wanted Mom flanked, just in case, so Reader went next, then Gower, then Mom. She didn’t seem flustered at all. In fact, she seemed interested and excited. She did exactly what Martini said, and I watched her step into the stall and disappear. It was unsettling.

Christopher was going next. “Don’t let the princess hold things up,” he said to Martini.

“Oh, I think I can manage her. Better than you, at least,” Martini said casually, keeping a very firm hold on my hand.

“Yeah, enjoy that,” Christopher muttered as he gave me one last glare, stepped into the stall and, happily, disappeared from view.

Martini looked at the four agents left. “You all get back to the cars and get them back to East Base.”

The four of them looked uncomfortable. “Christopher told us to wait until the two of you were through the gate,” one finally admitted.

“And Christopher’s in charge of image control. Who, do you happen to remember, is in charge of active situations?” Martini’s voice was clipped and filled with authority. I found it interesting to see which of them got huffy when.

The agent who’d spoken up dropped his eyes. “You are, Jeff. But Christopher thought it was important for us to watch your back.”

“Right. I know exactly what he wanted watched. You and the rest of our crack image control team get out of here, now. Get back to East Base and, as an idea, try to monitor if we have Mephistopheles or one of his cronies heading out of their respective states. You know, if you think you can handle it.”

Admittedly I’d only known them less than a day, but in all that time I hadn’t seen Martini be anything but genial. Even when he was all business, he wasn’t rude or nasty. This was sort of a shock, and an unpleasant one.

The other agents seemed confused as well, but they left, albeit reluctantly. Martini watched them leave. Then he turned back to me. “Ready to go?”

“Sort of. You want to share why you were just Jerk of the Year to those guys?”

“No.”

“What’s going on between you and Christopher?”

I’d hit the target. Martini’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing.”

“You know, none of you can actually lie, not even Paul.”

“Time to go through the gate.” He shoved me, gently, toward the bathroom stall.

I refused to budge. “No. I want some answers. Christopher being a jerk seems like his natural state of being, but you’re not acting like what I’d call normal. For you, I mean.”

“Look, I don’t want to talk about this here. We just spent a lot of time and energy so we could get you and your mother out of here safely. Let’s not have all that go to waste, okay?”

“No. The last time I asked you a question you didn’t want to answer, we ended up in New York. I want the answer to this question before we end up God knows where. Now, what’s going on that’s making you act like this?”

He wasn’t lying, I could tell—but the answer was a bit of a surprise. “You. Now, let’s get moving.”

“You’re mad at me?” I didn’t know what I’d done differently that would have caused him to be this upset.

Martini gave a growl of exasperation. “No, I’m not mad at you! I’m crazy about you! Yes, I know, less than a day. Empath, remember? Gives you certain insights into people. Now, can we please go?”

I let him move me to the stall while I digested this. “So Christopher doesn’t want you with me, does he?”

Martini snorted. “That’s for sure.”

“Well, who cares what he wants? But that’s no reason to be nasty to those other agents.”

“Fine. I’ll send them all a fruit basket once we’re out of here. Now, step through, please. So I can step through, and we can get to safety.”

He seemed so stressed out and upset, and he was leaning over me, trying to get me fully into the stall and through the gate. I didn’t think about it, I just leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Okay, I’ll be good.”

Martini gave me a slow smile. “Nah, I like you just like you are.” Then he bent down and kissed me back, but not on my cheek. And I forgot about where we were, evil things trying to kill me, or anything else.

THE ONLY SEMI-COHERENT THOUGHT
I could muster was, if his kiss was any indication, Martini wasn’t lying when he said he was great in bed. Because I was ready to find out, right then and there.

His mouth covered mine—soft pillowy lips you could fall into and a tongue that knew just how to twine with mine to make my knees go weak. His arms went around me, pulling me away from the stall and turning me so my body was fully against his. My arms went around his neck, and I kissed him back as deeply as he was kissing me. He had one hand behind my head and the other at the small of my back; we were pressed so tightly together I almost couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t want to pull away. I was perfectly willing to stay like this for the next several hours.

Finally, he ended our kiss—gradually and sensuously. As we drew apart, I slowly opened my eyes to see his smoldering back at me. “I’d be happy to continue this conversation somewhere else, when I know nothing’s going to show up to try to kill us,” he said with a small smile.

I managed to stop myself from suggesting we not worry about anything but getting out of our clothes as quickly as possible. I may have just had the most mind-blowing kiss of my life, but it hadn’t turned off my brain completely.

I didn’t say anything, just nodded. He gently turned me around and moved me back to the stall.

“Jeff, what do I do?”

“Wow, one kiss and you’re finally calling me Jeff? I’ve still got it.” He bent down and nuzzled my ear. I had to stop my eyes from rolling back—maybe I really had fainted the first time because his lips were so close to mine. “You just walk through. I’ll be right behind you, so don’t dawdle.” He kissed the side of my head, and I stifled a moan of pleasure.

He stroked my arms and let go. On my own. Forced to walk into a men’s toilet stall all by myself. I took a deep breath and stepped in. Just before I hit the toilet, a totally unappealing idea based on its cleanliness level, the bathroom disappeared and the horrible whooshing feeling started right up.

For me, nothing wipes out the happy glow of intimacy faster than feeling nauseated. I was still moving, I could tell I was, but I felt as if I were standing still and the world was moving past me. My foot seemed to be moving in slow motion. When it finally hit the ground and the destination jolt hit me, it was just in time. I didn’t want to exit the gate barfing, and it had been a close call.

I finished stepping through, and Martini came out seconds after me. Clearly, the journey didn’t take as long as it had felt like.

“You okay?” He put his hand on my lower back.

“Sort of.” I figured he was picking up the nausea.

I looked around to see Christopher glaring at me, his arms crossed over his chest. “Took you long enough.”

“I had to send your boys off,” Martini said before I could think up a suitable reply.

“They were supposed to wait.” Christopher sounded furious.

“I didn’t want them to,” Martini said with a shrug, while he moved us away from the gate.

“I’ll bet you didn’t,” Christopher snarled. “You aren’t authorized to give them direction.”

Martini stopped and walked over to his cousin, until he was right in Christopher’s face. “I know what this is about,” he said in a low growl. “You want to play games, fine. This isn’t a game to me.”

“They’re all games to you.” Christopher was matching Martini’s tone and facial expression. The anger was rolling off both of them, I didn’t have to be an empath to feel it, and I wondered whether they were going to start a cage fight without the cage.

I heard a woman clear her throat. “Kitty, could you come help me with something for a minute?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Mom standing there. She had that funny look on her face again, and I decided it might be wise not to be nearby if Martini and Christopher started to really go at each other.

Mom grabbed my arm and dragged me off. I looked back to see both men watching us. Christopher still looked angry, but Martini looked upset.

We got out of sight of them, and I noticed we were in what seemed like a huge cavern, loaded with more computers, desks, and screens than I’d seen at Home Base, or ever, really. “Did we land in the Bat Cave?”

Mom made her exasperated mother sound. “No. This is the Dulce Science Center for Extraterrestrial Studies.”

“Or, next stop on the UFO Tour, whichever you can say three times faster.”

Mom shook her head. “You’re really a joy to work with.” She stopped dragging me along. “Look, you need to stop baiting Christopher.”

“I beg your pardon? What are you talking about? There’s nothing I’m doing on purpose to piss him off. He’s just a jerk, to me and about me.”

Mom rubbed her forehead. “God, are you dense.”

I was about to demand an explanation for this insult when I heard someone call my name. “Kitty, over here!”

I looked around and saw Reader waving at me from across the room. He was gesturing, and it was clear he wanted me over there. I sighed. “Mom, duty calls. You can explain my density later.”

“Trust me,” I heard Mom mutter as I headed for Reader.

Unlike Home Base, this place was loaded with women. I was glad I’d changed now—I felt dowdy enough next to most of them in the relatively clean clothes I had on. In my bedraggled suit I might not have been able to make it to Reader without self-destructing from embarrassment.

I could tell they weren’t human, though. Not that they had antlers or something growing out of their heads, but they all seemed genuinely nice. I was stopped by many of them as I walked across the large room, and every one asked if I was okay, told me my mother was the greatest, said I was a really brave young woman, or gave me some other atta-girl sentiment. It was as if I’d fallen onto the Planet of the Honestly Nice Cheerleaders. I didn’t fit in, but, boy, was I glad they didn’t seem to notice.

When I finally made it to Reader, I wondered why Martini would even know I was alive, let alone be interested in kissing me. He had more gorgeous women around him in this room alone than there were in the entire American Southwest.

Reader gave me a commiserating grin. “Now you know how I felt when I first joined up.”

“But you were a top male model—
the
top for a long time.”

He shrugged. “You’ve taken a look. It’s one thing to be attractive when other people around you are ordinary. When everyone’s gorgeous, you have to figure you’re not that great.”

The idea that Reader would have had any kind of self-consciousness or felt unworthy lookswise with this group had never occurred to me. “Paul doesn’t seem to mind,” was all I could come up with that wasn’t going to make me sound both stupid and unobservant.

“Yeah.” He gave me a big smile. “And he had a lot of gorgeous to compare me to.”

“Oh, my feelings of total inadequacy in the looks department were showing?”

“Just a little. Trust me, they’re both really into you for yourself. Including how you look. Which is great, take it from the gay man.”

“Both?” I was going to ask him who he was talking about when White came over.

“Finally. Miss Katt, I’d like to have you debrief us on your experiences with both the superbeing you eliminated and Mephistopheles.”

“Nice to see you again, too. I’m fine thanks, how are you?” He didn’t crack a smile. Oh, well. No sense of humor in the son, why was I expecting one in the father? “What’s to debrief? Your agents were around for both, and I’ve already told you pretty much all that happened.”

“Yes,” White said with a show of forced patience. “But I’d like you to debrief our lead scientific team.” He gestured behind him at several women who would have made Raquel Welch green with envy. The only saving grace was some of them looked about Raquel’s age, so I could tell myself Mom should be the one feeling inferior, not me. Of course, I knew my mother and doubted she’d feel inadequate against anyone.

“Are you Angela’s girl?” one of them asked me.

Angela? She’d been here no more than five minutes longer than me and she was already on a first name basis with the beauty queens?

“Yep, that’s me.” I remembered Reader had said all the female A-Cs were scientists. Great, so they were better looking
and
smarter than me. For this I’d gotten up this morning?

“Your mother is just the most amazing woman,” another one offered. “We’re totally in awe of her.”

“Me, too.” I mean, I’d spent most of this day in total awe, over just about everything, including my mother.

“Now, now,” I heard Mom’s voice behind me. She was chuckling in that way people do when they’re being complimented and want to pretend they don’t actually want to hear it. “This is really Kitty’s time.”

Oh, great. This was my initiation into the Kick-Ass Females Club, wasn’t it? I mean, every one of the A-C women looked as though they could easily run as far and as fast, if not faster, than any of the men. There were some I could say looked downright Amazonian. All of them were stunning, and they ran the gamut to ensure that no man would ever be short of his “type.”