by Jody Wallace
“Dammit, Adelita.” He dropped her to the ground and raised his palms. “I’m not playing games. I’ve told you what it makes me think when you touch me. If you don’t want to have sex with me, keep your hands to yourself.”
She stepped back. He tried not to stare at her shirt, where her nipples poked the thin fabric. Her lusts were awake even if the rest of her didn’t follow. “You don’t play hard to get, Gregori, that’s for sure. Is this what you say to all the women you rescue?”
“I haven’t been with a Terran woman. Celibacy is holy,” he said with a hard smile.
Her face flushed a deeper shade of pink. “Why should I believe that?”
“Does it matter? When it comes right down to it, we don’t have time to screw around.” He’d make time if she were willing, but he wasn’t going to beg. “I need food and sleep, and so do you. Then we need to relocate before more daemons show up.”
“Good point.” She nibbled her lips—the soft, red lips he hadn’t kissed. “Besides, we haven’t known each other very long.”
“That’s true.” He slipped into his patchy tunic, sealing the closures.
Adelita’s gaze flickered down his body. “We might die soon.”
“That’s also true.”
She watched him for a long moment, eyes big and dark. “I can still think about it, right?”
Gregori sighed. He’d been as clear as he knew how to be. “As long as you don’t expect me to pander to you while you’re deciding. There’s too much to do.” Many Ship women in his generation had come to expect pandering. Flattery, sweet talk, and demonstrations. Gifts and grand gestures. They were highly selective about partners, since they didn’t get much choice about being parents. It was only fair.
Her brows drew together. “Who said anything about pandering? If you’re going to be an ass, I definitely don’t want to have sex with you. The experience would be a waste of my time.”
“Likely.” His teammates who’d slept with Terrans hadn’t expressed any disappointment. From the sound of it, most of their lovers had taken to their knees at the great honor of angelic attentions. But who knew if his teammates had pleased their Terrans?
Who knew what it would take to please a Terran—to please Adelita?
He had no idea. He had no fragging idea what he was going to do about her, or his tech, or the daemons, or this planet, but he did know one thing. This will-she-won’t-she crap was not productive.
His Terran stared at him in disbelief. “You just agreed you’d be bad in bed.”
“I didn’t say that.” He wasn’t an expert in hetero bed play, but what Shipborn male in his generation was? Didn’t mean he couldn’t rise to the occasion. “I agreed it was a waste of our time. Our limited time. I did mention daemons will show up eventually?”
“Yessss,” she said, drawing it out.
“The trackers I mentioned could find me, too. I’ve avoided confronting them, but I can’t outrun them when I’m carrying you.”
“You think I’m a burden to you. You think I’m going to cramp your style.” She picked up the sack she’d dropped before this incident had begun. “You poor man.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I never said you were a burden.” He had, though. And she was. A burden he didn’t want to set aside. She needed his protection. He’d feel the same toward anyone, since Terrans deserved to live as much as anyone from Ship.
“You’re wrong anyway.” She didn’t seem upset—she seemed amused. “You need me.”
He wanted her. Wanted to save her and fuck her and a couple other things, but want wasn’t need. “I need several hours of sound sleep.”
“You’re not like any man I know.”
“No shit.” He kind of laughed. “I’m not from around here, remember? And you know what? You’re not like anyone I know, either.”
“No shit,” she echoed. She shook the bag toward him. “You want a Ding Dong or chips?”
“Surprise me,” he said, knowing she would regardless. This way at least she’d be doing what he told her to do.
Chapter Nine
“You shouldn’t be here,” Gregori told her again. Instead of arguing, Adelita unzipped her new binoculars from the sports and outdoors store and propped them on a rock. Not the best solution, but Gregori had refused to pack a tripod.
Beyond their vantage point was an innocent-looking ridge Gregori claimed was Ship’s Terran base of operations. Since he’d partially repaired his force field, it had only taken a couple hours to travel here from Arizona. She thought they might be in Yellowstone National Park. They’d passed a mountain range that looked like the Grand Tetons. If Gregori’s fellow aliens had had the good sense to set up shop near Old Faithful, she could have marked off bucket list item number twenty-seven.
Adelita adjusted the binoculars’ focus until she could count the ticks on the hide of the lone buffalo grazing in the field near the ridge. She and Gregori lay behind a tumble of rocks on a higher ridge across the small valley. It wasn’t a comfortable perch, but at least it wasn’t as hot as it had been near the Grand Canyon.
Random birdsong was the only thing that broke the silence. What had she expected? The horrified screams of women kidnapped for breeding purposes? No matter how Gregori denied it, it was clear that was what was going on. Clichés existed for a reason. Mars needed women.
She finished her initial inspection and turned to him. “I don’t see anything alien. Do they have a cloaking device?”
“That technology doesn’t exist on this scale. They’re just well hidden.”
“Want to look?” She offered him the binoculars, careful to stay out of his personal space. His wings were tight against his back, out of his way.
“No need.” He blinked several times before glancing at her. “My vision is enhanced.”
He had pitched his voice soft, so she followed suit. The aliens might have noise detectors. “You sound like the Terminator.”
“I know who your Terminator is. I told you already. I’m not a robot.”
“I didn’t say you were, just that you sounded like one.” She deepened her voice. “My vision is enhanced. The T-1000 is terminated. Hasta la vista, baby.”
He shot her the same puzzled glance he had the other times. Why did she keep making Earth jokes around him? Maybe jokes weren’t allowed by his code.
“Watch the base,” he said. “I need to check something.”
She smirked. Jokes were definitely allowed by her code. “No problemo.”
Gregori sat up halfway and slipped the halo out of the hidden pocket in his torso armor. Last night he’d done something to it with a soldering iron that involved a lot of muttering and cursing.
She returned her attention to the base. Toward the top, the ridge was wooded. She saw no caves, no metal glints, no crop circles, no half-dressed women trying to escape. No signs of anything out of the ordinary, which, she supposed, was a good thing if you wanted your secret alien base to remain secret.
“Dammit,” Gregori said softly.
“What’s wrong?”
“The weld didn’t hold.”
“I told you to try the duct tape.”
He squinted at his halo. “Tape wouldn’t foster an uninterrupted current.”
The tiny machine looked like a wad of translucent yarn. How he knew which wire was this broken stem he kept bitching about and which ones squiggled into his body, she had no idea. Wires infiltrating the brain sounded like an invitation for an evil sentient computer to control people. For an advanced civilization, Ship folk were certainly naive.
Which made her wonder how far Gregori’s naïveté extended. If it extended to sex, she could teach him a thing or two about what to do with his…
Bad girl. He was off-limits, by his own request. He hadn’t tried to hold her hand again, either.
Heaving a sigh, Adelita fine-tuned the binoculars to scan the top of the ridge. A raven landed in a half-denuded pine tree with a flap of black wings. A few bighorn sheep pronged alo
ng the crest. Seems like, if aliens were coming and going on these so-called retrieval missions, animals would avoid the area.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” she whispered.
“I’m sure.”
“Do you hide here every time?” He said he’d been keeping an eye on the base in hopes of swiping a weapon to use on la boca del infierno.
“I vary my location. Cuts down on the odds of getting caught.”
Normally that would make sense. But Gregori said his halo functioned like radar crossed with a supercomputer. It told his brain everything from who people were to what his Ship said to whether or not aliens were about to jump him.
Varying his location might not be enough.
“Do you know what I think?” she asked.
He shoved the wires back into his armor and gave her a level look before responding. “I never know what you think.”
She wasn’t sure if he was referencing a prior conversation or stating a fact. Could be both. He knew nothing about women. Each morning he expected her to be ready to fly as soon as they rolled out of bed. Often on four hours’ sleep, without caffeine. Dios, did he want her to be a human or a zombie? She was no good before coffee, and if it took them a while to save the world, he’d have to learn to respect that.
After winning the caffeine argument, convincing him she needed to brush her teeth and take a daily bath had been child’s play.
“You’ve only known me a few days. You’ll get used to me,” she assured him. And if she were well-groomed and sweet-smelling during their time together, it was to his advantage. He had to carry her around.
He stared at her in that assessing way that gave her shivers. “Tell me what you think, Adelita.”
Well, if he really wanted to know… “You come here again and again and they never catch you, right?”
“Right.”
“I think,” she said, drawing it out, “your associates could find you anytime they wanted. They’re the ones with working radar in their heads.”
That earned her a brow furrow. “They’d have to be actively scanning for my bio sig, and I doubt they’ve dedicated any resources to that.”
“What about the trackers?”
“The trackers wouldn’t be looking for me here.”
“Maybe they know you’re here and don’t consider you a threat.” That would be good. They could use that. She’d found it helpful to encourage opponents to underestimate her. Then she could strike them like a snake.
“Maybe,” he muttered, and stretched out on his stomach. His shift in position brought his shoulder against hers.
The temperature at this elevation wasn’t icy, but it wasn’t hot. Yet Adelita was suddenly several degrees warmer. With their shoulders together, their bodies were inches apart, like the past three nights in the beds they’d shared. It was nearly impossible to relax. Even with the safety precautions he took. Even as exhausted as she was. Even though he’d covered his wonderful body in a T-shirt, torso armor, and khaki shorts.
Every night she huddled beside him, curled as tightly as a cat, and thought about his muscles.
This was absurd. He carried her for hours whenever they relocated. Why was his shoulder against hers making her tense?
He didn’t seem to notice. She should ignore it, too. Adelita continued their conversation. “Let’s make a plan for what to do if they spot us.”
“They won’t.” He blinked rapidly as he peered at the base. He’d told her the blinking had to do with vision adjustments and didn’t mean he was about to cry, so please stop asking.
“There’s no guarantee of that.” Stubby grass prickled her midriff where her shirt had ridden up. “Do they have guards outside the base?”
“Occasionally.” His eyebrows drew together. “I can’t tell without my array.”
“Good thing I’m here to watch your back.” She checked the other ridges. If they were being watched, the alien guards could hide like chameleons. “I mean, should I watch our backs instead of the base?”
“You’re fine.” In a slightly peevish tone, he said, “I need to fix this damned array. I feel like I’ve lost half my brain.”
She knew it was hypocritical to bring it up while using expensive binoculars, but she didn’t want to lose an opportunity to point out how technology—like, say, sentient computers—wasn’t always beneficial.
“That’s a danger in relying on a machine. You forget how to function without it.”
“I’m aware of that,” he snapped.
Adelita had the urge to pat him sympathetically, but that fell under the category of non-incidental contact. As he’d made oh so clear, they had a world to save and her prick-teasing was a complication they didn’t need.
If it was teasing. Seducing him was either a rotten idea or an excellent one, and until she decided which, she had to keep her hands to herself.
Mostly.
He hadn’t complained about their shoulder-to-shoulder arrangement, had he? A little bodily contact was reassuring. And he’d started it. It didn’t have to veer toward sexual.
“Back to what we should do if they notice us,” she said, satisfied she wasn’t crossing his line in the sand. “I vote we take them down. Keep them from reporting back.”
His jaw tightened. “I’m not fighting my own people. We run.”
“This is war. You need a halo and batteries and I need a laser gun, and we need bombs to blow up la boca. What better way to get them?”
“You don’t need a gun. And they won’t be carrying munitions.”
She did need a gun, but his people probably thought women couldn’t shoot or something. “Then we find some other way to get bombs.”
He grunted. Not even Gregori the burro could argue with that.
Adelita let her boot nudge his calf before tilting it the other way. “Here’s an idea. Let’s get their attention. When they come, we take them hostage and trade them for bombs.”
“Not gonna happen. I told you, I’m not fighting my own people.”
Like a lightbulb snicking on in a dark room, Adelita realized pacifism might not be Gregori’s motivation. “You’re afraid you’d lose. You don’t have batteries in your gun and—”
“I wouldn’t lose,” he growled.
Sensitive, was he? She dug her toes into the ground and wriggled away from the annoying grass at her waist. Now the sides of their hips were touching, too. Khaki shorts to khaki shorts. “What if they shoot us with lasers? I would call that losing.”
“They won’t shoot us.”
“What will they do, and how can we counter it?” Planning was crucial. Aside from lotto winners, successful people didn’t dumb-luck into victory. “We need to prepare ourselves.”
He sighed. “This is a stakeout, not an attack. Once I figure out where they are in the retrieval process, we’ll go. I’ve done a lot to slow the horde, and they haven’t been using crisis protocol.”
“I don’t want them capturing me to make their babies. I’m not anyone’s handmaid.” She enjoyed the young people in her extended family in limited quantities. Children of her own were not on her bucket list.
Nor was being an alien broodmare.
“It’s not like that on Ship, Adelita. No one would force you to have child after child.”
They’d discussed this. Since he hadn’t come around to her point of view, it required further discussion. “You told me you hardly ever lose a planet to the horde, so how do you know what will happen to the new women?”
“The code.”
“Uh-huh. I wonder what those poor women think of the white light now.” He claimed the women and children were being cleansed of germs before being transported to Ship. They had her complete sympathy, even if they were the only earthlings safe from the apocalypse. “Do you tell them they’re in heaven?”
“What they’re told varies.”
“You’d better not be lying to them. They’re giving up everything for you.”
Gregori dropped his pretense o
f watching the base to glare at her. “Do you think they’d rather be eaten by shades?”
“Like we will be?” She held his gaze steadily, daring him to deny it.
Aaaand he denied it. “We won’t be.”
“Because our planet isn’t going to die.” Otherwise, why were they here when they could be living their last days to the fullest? Starting with Old Faithful and ending in a bed—only this time, no sleeping.
The things she could teach him.
“We’re going to think of something,” he stated firmly.
Business before pleasure. “On that we’re agreed, but I have to ask. After we save the world, will Ship put the women back?”
Gregori’s eyebrows arched. “Of course.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“You think a lot of crazy things.”
“Don’t call me crazy. It’s logic.” Adelita rolled onto her side so she could read him better. “This whole thing is a plot to get women.”
“Give me a break.” He switched to his side as well, his voice low but hard. “You think we devote our lives to saving planets from the horde because it’s a great time? Because we want to get laid? That’s insane.”
“I told you not to call me crazy,” she warned. Having her good sense questioned never failed to get a rise out of her. “Call me crazy one more time and see what happens. I dare you. Try it and see.”
“You drive me crazy, then. Can I say that?” His response was louder, too, and he hadn’t budged an inch. Not in his argument, not with his body. They were toe to toe and chest to chest. Adelita wasn’t about to be silenced by a raised voice.
“You can, but…” She poked him in the arm between bands, since poking him in the chest with his six-packed armor would hurt her finger. When his eyes narrowed, she poked him again. And again. There wasn’t much give in his muscles. “You. Drive. Me. Crazier.”
He grabbed her hand. “Cut it out.”
“Don’t bully me.” She jerked her arm, but he tightened his fingers. Undaunted, she booted him in the shin. Not hard, but enough that he’d know she wouldn’t put up with this macho crap. “There’s something in this whole savior shtick for your people or you wouldn’t be doing it. You’re after the women.”