I pulled a face. “Dammit.”
“Yeah. You can say that again.”
I left the men to head downstairs. I hadn’t seen much of Aleandro recently. I knew he was busy with so many new people on site, but I missed him.
I trotted down the stairs to the ground floor and pushed out of the doors and collided with a solid mass of body. “Oh!”
Hands grabbed my forearms, as though to hold me off, and I found myself staring up into Dean’s gorgeous face.
“You okay?” he asked me. “You almost broke your nose on my chest.”
That he was big enough, and hard enough, and tall enough for me to break my nose on his pectoral muscle did crazy things to my insides. No, I’d just had sex with one man, I couldn’t be thinking like this about another. What the hell was wrong with me? The possible end of the world had turned me into a nymphomaniac.
I shook my head. “Sorry, I was in a world of my own.”
He still had hold of my wrists, our bodies barely inches apart. “That’s understandable, considering everything that’s going on.”
“I guess you’re right.”
His skin burned hot against mine, and I was conscious of every little pressure point of the pads of his fingers on my skin. Did he ever plan on letting go of me? His gaze dropped down my body, and his nostrils flared. Could he smell sex on me? The thought caused my cheeks to burn hot. Did he know? Had there been cameras? Had he hidden around the corner and watched? My heart raced at the thought, my breath growing shallow.
But even as the crazy thoughts raced through my head, he released his grip on me and stepped away.
I was letting Mike’s warning about Dean get to me. Dean had never been anything other than courteous toward me.
“As long as you’re all right,” he said.
I forced a smile. “Yes, I’m fine, I promise.”
“Looks like we’re going to be deployed tomorrow,” he said. “I hope it won’t be the last I get to see of you.”
My stomach dropped. “Tomorrow?” It seemed too soon.
“Yes, we’re needed out there, understandably. There’s a lot of damage done that’s going to need rebuilding.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
I shouldn’t feel disappointed. He was just a guy. He didn’t mean anything to me. Besides, I’d just had sex with Mike. I couldn’t start pining over someone else.
“If you want to grab something to eat later,” he continued, “I’d love some company.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Down in the canteen? Won’t people start to gossip?”
He chuckled. “I’m afraid our restaurant options are limited now, but I’ll see what I can do.”
I glanced away, suddenly shy. “Okay, sure, I’d like that.”
Now that both Molly and Tara seemed to have hooked up with a couple of hotties themselves, I felt a little less responsible for them. This was going to be our lives for the foreseeable future, or at least until things changed, and we had to make the most of it. If spending some time with gorgeous men took our minds off what was happening out there, then what was the harm? Tara’s guy in particular was beautiful to look at, it the same way Dean was. We felt like a strange hodgepodge of people, but we all had the same goal in mind—to figure out who or what had done this to our planet, to be prepared for whatever might come next, and to start to rebuild.
“I’ll see you later then,” he said and sauntered off.
I watched him go, his easy stride, lolloping from side to side, as though he owned everyone and everything in the room.
I shook my head and then went to find Aleandro. As I’d expected, he was sitting at the security desk at the front of the building. He must have sensed me coming as he looked up with a wide smile, flashing those perfect white teeth as I approached.
“Hello, stranger,” I said, coming to a halt. I folded my arms over the top of his desk. “How have you been?”
“Better for seeing you,” he replied. “You—”
Something on one of the security screens must have caught his eye as he trailed off, a frown marking his brow.
“Holy shit.”
My pulse quickened. “What is it?”
I leaned across to see what Aleandro had seen on the security cameras. A huge, flatbed truck drove into the parking lot, but it wasn’t the truck that caused his reaction, but what was on it.
“Is that what I think it is?”
A large chunk of gray rock—about the size of a big SUV—sat on the back of the flatbed. In the sunlight, fragments of metal embedded within the rock caught the light and reflected it back at us. Small holes, like miniature craters, pocked the otherwise smooth surface of the rock.
I looked to Aleandro. “We need to get Casey and Mike down here.”
He nodded and removed his radio from his belt to call them down.
“A part of one of the asteroids has been recovered,” he said into the radio. “You guys are going to need to get down here.”
He hooked the radio back onto his belt. “They’re on their way.”
“Good.”
The men who’d brought us the chunk of asteroid appeared to be military, and Sergeant Byrd was among their number. Huge straps held the object down, and soldiers got to work, untying them. I didn’t know what they were planning on doing with the asteroid. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to get the thing through the doors, though I didn’t know how safe it would be to study the asteroid outside.
A jolt of terror ran through me at the thought of going outside again. I’d felt protected while inside the Observatory, and now I was going to have to be out in the open. Though there had been no signs of any further strikes, the idea of being outside made me lightheaded and my breathing shallow with fear.
Feet pounded down the corridor behind us, and I turned to see both Mike and Casey running toward us.
“Is that what I think it is?” Casey said, out of breath.
Mike stared through the glass doors. “We need to study this thing and find out exactly where it might have come from.”
I nodded my agreement.
Mike frowned at me. “Are you okay? You’ve gone pale.”
I shook my head at myself. “Yes, I’m fine. I just haven’t been outside since it all started. I’m not used to feeling so exposed.”
Casey took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “We have to do this, Camille.”
I nodded. “I know.”
I appreciated that none of them tried to bullshit me with any promises of keeping me safe. We all knew there was nothing any of us could do if a second strike happened.
“Let’s do this, then.” Mike led the way.
I followed, and Casey stayed by my side, Aleandro bringing up the rear. Aleandro didn’t have any kind of scientific background, but he could be our backup if the army guys decided to be difficult. I didn’t know why they would be—we were all on the same side—but sometimes different faculties got protective of their findings and didn’t like to share.
As I stepped through the doors, hot desert air blasted my face, and I squinted in the bright sunlight.
“Where did you find it?” Mike called out to one of the army guys.
The man straightened from where he was untying the straps. “Recovered it from The Strip.”
“What’s it like out there?” I asked the soldier.
“It’s like a war zone, only we don’t know who we’re supposed to be fighting.”
His words sent a shiver through me. “Well, maybe this will help to give us some answers.”
“Knock yourselves out.”
He signaled to his men to give us some space to do our work. We climbed up onto the back of the truck to get a closer look, Mike reaching down to grab my hand and haul me up.
Heat rushed through me where our fingers met, and I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
We released our hold on each other to inspect the asteroid. On the outside, it appeared exactly as I’d expected, but I caught sight of the inside—where the rock
had broken apart upon impact, I assumed—and my blood ran cold.
“This isn’t an asteroid,” I said to the guys.
The expressions on both of their faces was exactly how I assumed mine would be—grim.
“No, it’s not,” Casey agreed. “But I haven’t got a clue what it is.”
The outside of the structure was like a regular asteroid, but the inside was something else entirely. The rock ended, and it became a different kind of material, smooth and more like a kind of metal, like mercury, but in solid form.
Mike shook his head. “What the hell are these things?”
I bit at the dried skin on my lower lip. “They appeared to be some kind of pod.”
He frowned at me. “A pod? A pod for what?”
“Traveling in.”
Casey looked at me, his fair eyebrows lifted behind his glasses. “You think the asteroids might have held someone inside them? You think when they broke open, whoever, or whatever, was inside got out?”
I shrugged. “You got any better ideas?”
Casey took a couple of steps around the item. “No, I think you’re on the right track. I mean, these clearly aren’t naturally constructed. I’d expect an asteroid to contain metal like nickel and iron, but nothing like that. It definitely looks like it’s been constructed to house something.”
Worry coiled tight inside me. “Which then escaped when the asteroids hit Earth.”
Mike nodded in agreement. “They must have been protected in some way. The places where the asteroids struck were disaster zones.”
“A shield of some kind?” Casey suggested. “If they could hide the asteroids, then they must have the technology to do something like that.”
I stared at him.
“What?” he said, pushing his glasses higher up his nose.
“You said ‘they’. So does that mean we’re thinking along the lines of an alien race using these asteroids—or whatever the hell they really are—to invade Earth? And if so, where the hell are they? What would be the point in invading our planet on such a huge scale and then just vanishing?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
I chewed my lower lip again, not even caring that I tasted blood. “Unless it’s a way of distracting us, putting us on the wrong foot so we don’t notice what else is happening.”
Mike’s blue eyes narrowed at me. “How do you mean?”
I rubbed my hand over my mouth. “I’m not really sure yet. But right now all the focus is on the damage that’s been caused and the lives lost, and helping the injured and trying to keep our infrastructure going. It means we’re not looking at the bigger picture.”
“We are,” he pointed out. “That’s the whole reason we’re here.”
“Okay, yes, we are, but I have no idea what it is yet.”
Mike looked to Casey. “Is there any way of finding out what solar system the asteroid is from? Maybe if we can start to narrow things down, we’ll get a better idea.”
Casey nodded. “We can try to carbon date the material, but it won’t be easy, and I’m not sure how much of a lead it’s going to give us.”
“It’ll still be a lead,” Mike said, “and that’s something.”
I exhaled a sigh and jammed my hands on my hips. “Okay. Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Thirteen
With the help of the soldiers, we managed to get the fragment of asteroid into the Observatory.
The rest of the day was spent busy studying the object, taking samples, and photographs, and documenting everything we learned, which wasn’t much. We weren’t able to identify the silver metal—it certainly wasn’t a substance found on Earth—and the rest of the asteroid looked just like any other asteroid I’d ever worked on.
I meant to ask Sergeant Byrd if they’d learned anything more about the women going missing, but every time I thought of it, something else came up and it slipped from my mind.
Everyone came by to gawp at the asteroid, and I didn’t blame them. This was the thing responsible for all the destruction we’d witnessed, and everyone wanted answers.
We had storage units down in the basement where all the samples would be kept cool and under lock and key until they could be transported to an Observatory that was higher in the chain of command.
I’d just delivered the latest set of samples to storage and was on my way back upstairs. I reached ground floor level and took the corridor that would take me out into the main foyer.
“Hey, Camille.”
I turned at the sound of the deep voice to find a perfect male specimen standing behind me. My stomach flipped at the sight of those cheekbones and sculpted lips. The man looked like heartbreak on legs.
“Dean, hi. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just wondered if you’d found out anything more about the asteroid that’s been brought in?”
I shook my head. “Nothing yet, and even if we had, I’m not sure how much I’d be able to tell you.”
He put up both hands as though in defense. “Oh, sure. Of course. I didn’t mean to pry or put you in a difficult situation.”
I offered him a smile. “You didn’t, honestly.”
“Everyone is just curious. We want to know what that thing is.”
“We still have a lot of questions that we don’t have answers to. I wish I could help you more, but my hands are tied.”
“That’s okay. Hopefully we’ll hear something from higher up the chain of command.”
I knew what he meant—the president would be the one to announce when we had news.
“Forgive me for prying again,” he said, regarding me with those deep brown eyes. The way he looked, I could have forgiven him just about anything. “But what’s the deal with the guys you work with?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, are you dating one of them? Or more than one of them?” He shook his head. “I know it’s none of my business, but when we were in the cafeteria the other day, it was like the guy with the tattoos was shooting daggers through my back with his stares.”
Shit. I hadn’t realized he’d noticed.
“No, it’s nothing like that. We’re work colleagues, that’s all.”
His dark eyebrows lifted. “Are you sure they know that?”
My face burned. Did they know that? After all, I’d messed around with both Aleandro and Casey, and I’d had sex with Mike. But we worked together. People who worked side by side for numerous hours per day, especially in a job as intense as ours, were always going to get close.
I lifted a finger and waggled it in his face. “Oh, you’re trouble. I don’t even know you that well, but I can already tell you’re going to cause me problems.”
He pursed his full lips, and I wondered what it would be like to kiss him, too.
“You say that as though it’s a bad thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we need to find out.”
He was grinning at me now—a knowing, cheeky grin that made my stomach flutter, and the flutters headed downward, between my thighs.
“I guess what I’m asking is if I’m going to step on anyone’s toes if I were to kiss you.”
“Kiss me?” Well, that had come out of nowhere.
“Yeah. I normally like to take a girl on a date first, buy her some flowers, and treat her to wine and dinner, but these aren’t normal circumstances.”
I swallowed, hard. “No, they’re not.”
The memory of how Tara had said it was now all about sex and death went through my head. and I held back a giggle. It certainly seemed as though things were going that way.
Sex and death.
I hoped the sex would come first.
He smoldered down at me. “And I’d really just like to kiss you now.”
I parted my lips, my breath hitching. “I think that would be okay.”
For once, there was no one else around.
He caught my hand and pulled me into a nearby supply closet.
“This isn’t the most romantic of spots, and I’m sorry for that, but I couldn’t keep my hands off you for another second.”
He kissed me hard, his tongue pushing into my mouth. His hands ran down my body, tracing the curves of the sides of my breasts and my hips as though I were an hourglass.
This was all happening way too fast, but I felt powerless to do anything to stop it. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to stop it. I just kept thinking about how short life was, and how we could all meet our ends at any moment, and I should take any opportunity and run with it. And Dean was gorgeous and sexy, and there was no denying I was attracted to him. I was probably more attracted to him than anyone else I’d ever met, which was a crazy thought.
His hands went to the buttons of my shirt, and he undid them one by one, baring my breasts. My nipples tightened beneath the lacy material of my bra, and he ducked his head. His mouth covered one of my nipples through the lace of my bra, and he sucked the whole thing into his mouth, material and all. I whimpered and arched my back, wanting more.
His erection pressed to my hip, and he rubbed himself against me as he sucked on my tits before straightening back up.
“I want that pretty little mouth around my cock.”
My heart raced at his words, and a breath shuddered out of me.
Dean slipped his hand around the back of my head and took hold of my hair, pulling it into a ponytail and then wrapping it around his fist. The strands tugged at my scalp, a strange mixture of pleasure and pain, and he used his grip on my hair to bring me to my knees.
My face was directly in line with his cock. The ridge was clear beneath his army fatigues. A heady sense of lust filled me, and I worked hurriedly at his zipper, eager to free him. I slipped my hand inside his pants, and the smooth, hot skin of his cock met with my palm. Above me, he groaned, but he didn’t release my hair.
I gazed up at him, admiring him for his beauty as I pulled his cock out into the fresh air. He looked down, his eyes dark and mysterious, his full lower lip slack with lust.
Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to the tip of his cock and then let my tongue dart out, licking away the salty pre-cum.
He jerked above me. “Fuck.” And his hand tightened in my locks.
Their Invasion- Planet Athion Page 9