by Suzi Goode
Harley scooted down and carefully lifted her foot, as if it were delicate crystal.
Odessa immediately blinked her eyes open.
"Relax. Sometimes it feels that much better when someone else is rubbing your feet."
"Um,” she said again, luxuriating in his deft touch. The movement of his hands caused the stifling air to move around her, creating a wispy but humid breeze. “It wouldn't be hard to convince me to relax right now,” she whispered, taking in the scent of his aftershave and his raw maleness. His big hands easily took in a larger portion of her foot than she could manage. An overwhelming heat in the pit of her belly began to make her wish for more of his hands roaming higher up her ankle, up her thigh and to her feminine core.
Harley began to talk to her, amazed he could tell her his past, something he had never done before, except to Abby. “My brother was a pretty neat guy."
"Was?"
"He died in a hang-gliding accident when I was eighteen. His wife told me I was old enough to get out on my own. I'd been working odd jobs since I was sixteen to help him out. That didn't count with her though."
"Maybe she was afraid of something. Like another man in the house.” He hit a sensitive spot under her big toe.
"Yeah. I suppose you're right, although, I wouldn't have called it that. I was just a kid trying to get along in the world."
"Where did you go after your sister kicked you out?” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oops. I didn't mean to sound so callous."
He grimaced. “I didn't take it that way. I joined the police force in Texas. I had always wanted to be a Texas Ranger, but I thought there was plenty of time to work my way around."
"But you went somewhere else?” she prompted, watching his hands on her foot with an expression of longing.
"Yeah. I wanted more adventure than what I was getting patrolling the streets day after day."
"You'd think there would be plenty of adventure in a job like that."
Her bare foot was so small and delicate. He didn't want to talk, but to make love, to pleasure her, to give her a sense of protection. How could he do that if he didn't feel safe himself? He resisted the urge to circle his hands around the circumference of her ankle. Her eyes had gone dreamy and a misty blue. Her lips fell apart slightly. He had to get his mind off raw sex and back to finding a way to get them off the station to safety.
"It was predictable adventure of sorts,” he continued with difficulty. He felt as if a fur ball had lodged deep in his throat. “I'd go out in the morning and chase the bad guys who ultimately surrendered. End of story."
"And then you turned to drug dealing?” she asked.
He swallowed hard, unable to get angry with her. She had planted her index finger in her mouth and was lightly sucking on it. The motion was sexy, the action of a child in a woman's body, or a woman unconsciously luring a man? His body tightened, and his pants felt tight as he concluded her action was meant to drive him past the brink of insanity. He allowed for her comment. She didn't know better, that he was Pardua's man for only one reason.
"I don't deal drugs,” he said calmly, his voice much too hoarse for his liking.
She shrugged. “If you say so. If you don't, then why do you work for Pardua?"
She inclined her head, and noticed his eyes narrow into pinpoints of anger. She slipped her finger from her mouth, wondering how on earth the digit had gotten there. She yearned for more of his touch, yearned for his big hands stroking her bare, sensitized flesh, teasing and kissing her in places she hadn't dreamed existed.
"I only appear to work for him."
Her head shot up in query. “You said you were going to turn me in to him. Why didn't you?"
"It's not in my best interests."
Her back stiffened. “That's good. Are you a double agent then?” She frowned, uncomfortable with the idea that this man could be an agent for both Pardua and perhaps the government of Earth.
"I'm not a double agent in the way you perceive it,” he muttered. “I came to exact justice, to catch Pardua in the act of exchanging Gr'iis with people who came from earth. Nobody knew how vast his operation was. It was only after I got here and insinuated myself into his organization that I saw he had to be shut down, had to be prevented from killing more people of all races."
She sighed. Her eyes blurred with tears. “Is that drug similar to what killed Eyani's people?"
"It's the same thing, but more potent now. Once the drug is introduced into the general population, it creates a dependency that goes deeper than the person taking the drug. Unborn children are born with this drug dependency, and so far, it's impossible to treat the addiction, both for those who take it and those who are born addicted to it. And in some cases, there are those populations who can't handle the drug in their system at all. Like the Ashtarians."
Revolted, she said, “That's mass extermination."
Harley nodded, placing his hand on his upper leg. Odessa gazed upon his strong-boned hand and his muscular thigh and wet her lips. With an effort, she looked away. The area between her legs pulsed. The man was scandalously sexy. It should be a crime to have such a man with a woman who craved his body so badly.
"That's exactly it. Mass populations can be wiped out in a matter of years. It's all part of Pardua's plan to rule the known galaxy. If he exterminates part of the peoples, then there won't be much opposition when he marches his armies in to take control of what's left."
"Not to mention, the people who are on this drug won't be able to fight back because first, they won't have the strength, and second, because they will want more of the drug and all their time will be consumed with getting it."
Harley was surprised by her perception. “That's right."
"I don't understand one thing though. If the peoples Pardua rules are all addicted to this drug and they're dying off, who will he rule over?"
Harley took a deep breath. “That's something we don't know just yet. We figure he's delving into genetic manipulation."
"What's that?” Despite her uncle's protests, she had dropped out of high school, finding the curriculum uninspiring. She knew she had a gift with children, and that was enough for her since she didn't want to be a rocket scientist.
"It's when one particular gene is altered, making it stronger than it previously was. It's much like the cancer gene was twenty years ago. Cancer rages through the body, but with genetic manipulation and testing before birth, the gene can be eradicated. Thus, no cancer later in life."
"I see.” Odessa's eyes wandered back to the hand straddling his thigh. She took a deep breath and let the air out slowly, unable to concentrate on genetic manipulation, or whatever Pardua was trying to accomplish, even though her life might depend on the knowledge.
She leaned forward, her face mere inches from Harley's rugged jaw. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
His eyes widened before they narrowed into dream-hazed slits. She felt his smoky lips touch hers tentatively, as if he wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. His lips trembled against hers before his tongue delved in between her welcoming lips. She surrendered completely at the sureness with which he captivated her. He rolled her t-shirt up to bunch above her waist as she leaned her back flat against the wall. She gloried in the fact that he wanted to make love to her. His shaft pressed hard against her belly.
"I've wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you,” he said, his voice barely above a choked whisper and near her ear. He slipped the t-shirt over her head and cupped her small breasts in each hand as he weighed them. “They're just as I imagined they would be."
She murmured something unintelligible and wantonly pressed her breasts against his hands. The nipples strained against the thin fabric of her black lace bra. He lowered his head to her throat and kissed the saltiness against her skin, licking and teasing and driving her to the far side of torment.
"Please,” she murmured brazenly. “I want more of you."
He chuckled. “All in time."
&n
bsp; "You're an aggravating man,” she said, straining against him, stroking the fine hairs at the nape of his neck with the sensitive pads of her fingers. Every nerve ending was on fire.
"You're not telling me anything I don't already know,” he said, pausing in the pleasurable torment and gazing into her eyes with rapt fascination.
"I've never seen you smile before."
His grin faded away, but the twinkle in his whiskey eyes remained. Energetically, he returned to his ministrations using his teeth to pull her bra from the tip of her breasts and running his palm over the smooth globes.
She moaned as he took one nipple in between his moist lips and kneaded the other with his thumb. The pleasure was excruciating, but she allowed him to pull back and shimmy out of his jacket and pull his sweatshirt over his head. His nipples were erect. She smoothed her hands over the fuzzy hairs on his chest before he nestled his head against her breasts. His fingers played lower at the waistband of her pants. She tugged her pants off, and left herself wearing only a pair of black lace panties and a bra pulled down almost to her waist.
He trailed light, enterprising kisses down her tender throat while he probed between her skin and the elastic of her panties to the curls nestled on her mound. He went further to the wet spot between her legs.
"I want more,” she breathed recklessly. She drank in the sensation of being near naked in front of him. His fingers played her honeyed cleft, teasing and circling, until she began to ride a crest she knew it was far too late to free herself from, even if she had wanted to.
"You'll have more soon enough,” he responded.
He pressed his finger harder against her feminine core. She gritted her teeth before the world exploded in a dazzling display of plummeting, dazzling stars. Her breathing came ragged, and her chest rose and fell. How could a man make a woman feel as if she had been born only to please him?
"Would you like more of that?” he teased with a self-satisfied smile.
She nodded, shaken by her rapture. “I want you more than before,” she managed. In a daze, she watched as he peeled away his pants and his underwear, leaving him gloriously naked and hard and throbbing.
"That's the whole idea."
"Oh my,” she whispered, as he lowered himself onto her. She parted her legs to feel his weight across her thighs. He touched her petal of awareness, causing her to cry out.
He laughed, the sound low but genuinely cheerful. “It's a good thing no one can hear us."
What she said was incomprehensible as he slid his long length between her legs and into her willing sheath. He filled her as if he belonged nestled deep within, and she rocked with him as he drove in and out, slowly at first, then with more urgency. Her world turned into a whirling storm of waves, cresting and crashing repeatedly. When she fell over the precipice, Harley came along with her, his breathing ragged, his face lined with a sheen of sweat.
He scooped her into his arms and held her against his rapidly beating heart. Odessa began to cry. She had never expected a man to love her quite the way Harley had with tender ferocity.
"Oh God, did I hurt you?” He drew away to gaze into her face. His lips were pressed together in a grimace, and once again, his eyes were made of brown ice.
"No, no.” She backhanded at her tears in a fruitless effort to wipe her cheeks free of the trickling wetness. “I never expected anything quite like that."
Harley growled. “Was it good or bad?"
She found herself wearing a silly grin. “Good. Only good. I don't think it could be any other way with you."
A low rumble was his only reply. She tried to pull him closer, but he refused to bend his head down to resume his former position against her cheek.
"Get some sleep. I have to figure out how to get out before Pardua finds out where we are."
As he hastily pulled his pants on, Odessa wondered what she had done to make him withdraw into that place where she couldn't reach him. She thought she had made some progress in getting him to unwind a little, but all was gone—in only a matter of seconds and a few unintentionally misplaced words.
Chapter 16
"That didn't work out all that good,” Jason muttered under his breath. “Hey, unc, when are you making apple pie again? I'm starving."
"When someone cleans up the kitchen,” Uncle Peter's tart reply came. “I thought I saw a roach in there this morning sitting on my coffee cup and winking at me."
Brody shook his head in disgust. “That's impossible. There ain't a cockroach in sight from here to Los Angeles."
"You'll have to watch for them there then, son. Heard stories they can make a man choke in his sleep."
That was news to Brody. He decided silence was the better part of valor and shut his mouth. Last night, after the unsuccessful call to the Department of Foreign Affairs and being connected to every automated answering service in the known section of the universe, he had tried to clean up the kitchen in a halfhearted attempt. It was too nice a summer's evening to spend inside, so he had sat outside with the old man in companionable silence, listening to the crickets chirp and studying the full moon blaze a trail through the heavens.
Now he stared at the crooked stack of dishes on the counter near the sink, another stack on top of the stove, and yet another pile on the microwave. He bet if he turned around, he would find more dishes on the dining table, waiting to be washed. He strolled out of the kitchen, down the narrow hallway, and into Odessa's bedroom.
She had opted for frilly pink pillows, a bedspread, and curtains of the same eye-catching material. Teddy bears and a doll, whose cotton pinafore and long silk skirt had been washed threadbare, decorated the windowsill. The room was stuffy, so he threw the bears and the doll on the bed and raised the window sash. Immediately, the room was filled with the scent of apples and good old mountain air. He took a deep breath and let the feeling of peace wash over him.
The feeling didn't last long, but it did recharge his wound-down internal batteries. Somehow, he had to find Odessa. Apparently, it was up to him. Uncle Peter had regressed into his second set of teenager years, and Jason had been gone by morning light, probably went out into the orchards to see the apples weren't being invaded by insects of one kind or another.
The doorbell rang.
"Will you get that, son?” Uncle Peter called up the stairs. “I don't feel like company this morning."
"Bet if Joanna Petrocheeni showed up unannounced, you'd be shaved and showered in less than two minutes,” Brody muttered with a brooding smile. He ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Maybe, just maybe, it was Odessa returned from her adventures. But why did she have to ring the doorbell?
No such luck. A bulky man stood on the stoop and was about to ring the bell again. “Patience, my man,” Brody said, making his presence visible beyond the dark screen.
"I'm Jake Bellingham,” the man said. “I was wondering if I could interest you in some new computer games for the discerning player."
Brody instantly disliked the man. His hair was far too long, and his gray eyes didn't look straight at Brody, but shifted from one spot to another. “We don't play too many games of any kind around here.” No one did house call sales any more. That was a thing of the distant past.
"Do any of those include Joanna Petrocheeni?” Uncle Peter asked from over his shoulder.
The salesman's eyes lit up. Why did it appear every man on the planet was head over in heels in love with Joanna? Except for Brody. He didn't care much for her high cheekbones. Or her toothy smile that reminded him of a horse's. She was too tall for him too. No, she wasn't his type at all. Maybe he was the only man on the entire planet who wasn't in love with the woman, but that was okay by him.
"That's the great thing about this helmet,” the salesman said. “You can go anywhere you want, whenever you want."
"That's a bunch of balarky,” Brody said flatly. “It's a known fact you can't be in two places at the same time."
"It's not a pie-in-the-sky promise. Why don't
you try it and find out for yourself?"
Uncle Peter's eyes lit up. “You sure Joanna will be in there if I put that thing on?"
"Sure. And she'll even smooze with you, if you want. It's the virtual reality technology taken to a whole new dimension."
"Virtual reality?” Brody asked skeptically.
"Sure. You can make your dreams come true. Every single one of them. Just try it out. It won't cost you anything."
Uncle Peter's face expressed the same doubt as Brody's. “Sounds like a genie in a bottle to me."
"Why don't you try it out? It doesn't cost anything,” Jake said.
"Naw,” Brody said, thinking the guy would sell his mother if he got the chance.
"Heck, if I can get me a good gander at Joanna's legs, I'm all for it. And you said it doesn't cost anything, right son?"
"Right,” the man replied, looking the old man straight in the eyes.
"Uncle, before you try this,” Brody began to caution him.
"Hush, son. I've raised you the last twenty-something years. You should know better than to interfere with this old man."
Brody shrugged. “Okay. But don't say I didn't warn you."
"Just wait here a moment, son,” Uncle Peter directed Jake. The old man took Brody aside, and out of the other man's hearing. “I don't want to see Joanna's legs. Not really. Well, sometimes, but this is not one of those times. What we need is a communications device, you understand. Something to contact Odessa with. It's free for a few minutes, isn't it?"
"That's impossible.” His uncle was crazier than he had figured. “That salesman is just playing tricks on us. There isn't any such thing that can contact a planet or a station far away, or where you can actually get Joanna to smooze with you."
"I got this idea, son, but you have to bear with me. Remember that ad on TV with the bride who takes the phone from her garter belt and she makes contact with her alien lover?"
Brody didn't exactly remember, but he nodded.
"How do you think she did it?"
Brody vaguely recollected seeing the commercial. The bride had used some kind of virtual reality video phone to contact her lover. “Uncle, this is the weirdest idea you've ever had."