Beside her, Rafe tensed. “Don’t you imagine long ago the tribal people in Africa stood on the western shore and looked across the ocean wondering what was on the other side before the slavers came for them? Be careful what you wish for.”
She sat up to look at him. Even in the darkness she could see his features had hardened, his jaw clenching, his lips compressing as in pain.
“Well, that was quite a jump.” She tried to keep her tone light. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s a scientist—Stephen Hawking—ever heard of him?” When she nodded, he went on. “He said once that you should pray Earth never does encounter alien beings. They will almost certainly be more advanced than you and out to do you harm.”
She noted the use of “you,” not “we” or “us.” Her pulse kicked up, and she shivered inside her warm jacket. Had she spent the evening with some kind of UFO nut?
She smiled, trying to distract him. “You sound like you have direct experience, Klaatu.”
He didn’t smile back. “Don’t need experience to agree with the guy. Maybe I just don’t like the idea of something snatching us up off this sweet little planet.”
“But there could be good aliens, couldn’t there?” She was optimistic enough to believe it. Of course, there would be differences in alien civilizations—of culture and language. Of technology. Of biology, certainly. But there would always be good and evil, in any society. “Like E.T. Or Superman?”
His brows came together in a frown. “Not the kind of aliens I’m talking about. I don’t think.”
“Maybe not,” she said, conceding the point.
He caught her hand and tugged, pulling her back down to him. She went, but only so far as her elbow; his change of mood had made her wary.
But her free hand had come to rest on his chest. She could feel his breath move in and out, a little quicker than it should. She could feel his heat, and his heart pounding under her palm. They had suddenly become close, intimate, though distances of mind and temperament still separated them.
“I’m sorry. Aliens aren’t my favorite subject.” His gaze caught hers. “You didn’t bring me all the way up here to talk about little green men, did you?”
She studied what she could see of his face in the dim light—his strong jaw; his cheeks smooth now though they often were shadowed with stubble; his gray eyes watching her and reflecting the starshine from above. His lips were full, his mouth slightly open in invitation, as if he knew how badly she wanted to kiss him.
“I’m not sure why I brought you up here,” she said, and every shuddering beat of her heart called her a liar.
His hand slid behind her neck to pull her even closer. “Aren’t you?”
She no longer had the will to resist taking what she wanted. She bent her head to his mouth, felt his firm lips under hers. And what started as a tentative taste exploded into hunger as he rose to meet her, his hands framing her face, his tongue inviting her into the warm welcome of his mouth. She pursued him in search of more of the taste of him. That taste, wild and earthy and indescribably sweet, made her heart thrash against her ribs, her blood heat in her veins. A kiss hadn’t made her feel like this since . . . never. And because thinking about it was taking her out of the moment, she stopped thinking altogether and kissed him harder.
Rafe groaned and shifted beside her, wrapping both arms around her to pull her on top of him. With every breath, her sensitive breasts pressed into his chest and the longing for him to touch her grew. She could feel the rigid length of his erection at the juncture of her hip; she took the measure of him with a slow grind that only increased the hot ache at her core.
She broke off the kiss with a gasp, desperate for a breath, and tried to regain control of her body. “Oh, my God.”
The corners of his mouth turned up as he repeated the slow grind she’d just given him. “It suddenly got much warmer out here. Another kiss like that and I think we might just set fire to this whole mountain. Want to?”
Her throat went dry and her heart thudded so hard in her chest she thought surely he’d be able to feel it. She wanted to set that fire with him. She wanted to see him lose control. She wanted to feel him—in her hands, in her mouth, in her body. She wanted to come apart with him. More than once. Over and over. She could have all of that. All she had to do was say yes. And she wanted to say yes more than she’d wanted anything in her life.
But that shouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. Finally, reality rose up and smacked her in the head.
She rolled off him and sat up with a sigh. “What I want and what I should do are two different things.”
He sat up to face her. “You’re worried about the Old Man. If it makes any difference, he wants us to be together. He was pushing me to ask you out.”
“What?” She swiveled to look at him. He was serious! Not that it helped. She shook her head. “Nice to know, but the problem is bigger than that. He’s my client; you’re his guardian. What happens if things get awkward?” And things are bound to get awkward.
Rafe exhaled and took a long look at the stars before he answered. “Look, I’ll admit what happens after is not something I usually worry about. But I understand how this situation is different. This is my father we’re talking about. You want to be professional.”
She nodded with relief. Rafe understood. It wasn’t the whole explanation, but it was the easiest explanation for why she was turning down what might be the hottest sex of her life.
But Rafe wasn’t finished. “One thing you’ll find out about me, Charlie: I’m not much for rules. I always find a way around them if the goal is important enough. Now that I’ve had a taste of you, I only want more. No stupid rule will stop me. Only you can tell me no.”
His expression showed not the least hint of a smile. There was no tenderness there, only grim sincerity. The speech he’d given might have been the longest string of words Charlie’d ever heard him put together all at once. She didn’t know what to think. All this had been hiding behind that gruff exterior?
She started to ask him what he would do if she said no and ended it, right here, right now. But she couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to do it. God help her, she only wanted more of him, and it was all she could do not to take it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After days of relative idleness, Del, Shef, Kwai and the others returned to work at the excavation site. Crews worked to shore up the collapsed tunnel and reinforce the dome of the expanded chamber whose purpose the laborers had yet to determine. The Felinor engineer had calculated a new design for the geothermal heating/cooling system, and this time the delicate procedure to tap into the trapped underground steam source went smoothly. Debris was cleared and new digging begun. The chamber began to assume its final shape.
Over the whine of the laser cutters, Kwai spoke to Del. “I have information on the transport that brings the party women.”
Del made sure they were away from anyone who might overhear before he answered. “And?”
“The shuttle comes from a Gray naval vessel in orbit. One pilot, plus the two guards that accompany the women dirtside, as we knew. But the ship’s captain and Second often come with the shuttle. And the ship itself maintains only a skeleton crew.”
Del sifted through Kwai’s recitation for any sign of hope. “A skeleton crew? How many? And what kind of ship?”
The fisherman shook his head. “That has been difficult to ascertain. I get the sense the ship’s officers are keeping the visits secret even from their own superiors in the Fleet, though why that would be so I do not know.”
Shef snorted. “Yeah, well, if I was running a little whoreship on the side, I wouldn’t be telling the boss either.”
“Could we go interstellar with the shuttle?” Del asked.
Kwai’s expression was sober. “We could make it as far as the nearest trade route, perhaps, depending on where we are. And hope for a pickup.”
“But it would be best if we could hijack the ship it
self.” Del felt his heart sink. With seven slaves? “After we steal the shuttle.”
“Piece of cake,” Shef said, his tone as dry as the dust below their feet. Then a new kind of noise in the long exit tunnel brought his head up. “Hey, look! What the hell is that?”
A robot crawler was making its way through the tunnel, surrounded by Ninoctin guards and led by the Felinor engineer. Strapped to its back was a huge, shiny metal pod with two amberglas viewports and a bevy of 10 cm. ports—for connecting to what, Del had no clue. The pod and its crawler took up almost all the headroom in the tunnel, and the pod’s weight must have been considerable. The crawler was in its lowest, slowest gear and still whining with the effort.
Del and the others stopped their work and gawped at the thing as it inched out of the tunnel and across the chamber floor. Finally, it became clear what the raised bowl coming out of the chamber floor had been designed for. A robot crane waited there for the pod’s delivery, and when the crawler brought it close enough, the crane clamped onto the pod and painstakingly transferred it to the stony cradle.
Guards yelled at Del and the others to get back to work, but the show wasn’t quite over. The engineer spent the rest of his day confirming the well-being of his baby in its new home and supervising the arrival of numerous tanks, conduits and equipment consoles associated with it. Del kept one eye on the Felinor’s progress as he worked at the rock face, expanding and finishing the chamber. And as he worked, one thing became increasingly clear.
They had to advance their escape plan, no matter how difficult. Their work at the dig was almost done.
Everything about Charlie’s kiss said yes, and though the hard ground on this freezing mountaintop might not be his first choice as a love nest, Rafe was too far gone to suggest anything else. He was on fire for this woman, and every taste of her sweet lips, every soft moan as he touched her, every word of encouragement only fed the flames. That she had overridden her doubts and chosen to be with him was a miracle, and he wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.
She broke off the kiss. “Rafe . . .”
“Yeah, baby.” He loved hearing her say his name. He trailed hot kisses down her throat.
“Rafe!” She pulled back. “Your phone.”
“What?” He looked up, his eyes refusing to focus for a second.
She nodded at his pocket. “Your phone is buzzing. Can’t you hear it?”
His phone was not only buzzing in his jacket pocket. It was playing that annoying ringtone Del had insisted he get for it, something about a twilight zone.
He groaned and sat up to yank the thing out of his jacket. “Laurence here.”
“Rafe, I’m so sorry to interrupt your evening, but I thought you needed to know.” Louise’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Your father had another one of his episodes. He’s calm now, but I think he’d feel better if he could see you.”
Rafe dropped his head and blew out a breath. He tried hard not to acknowledge the resentment that bubbled up into his chest. The Old Man couldn’t help it; it wasn’t his fault he was tormented by these delusions and woke to need a familiar presence to calm him down. It just so happened his father’s timing was particularly—no, let’s say spectacularly—wretched this time.
“I’m sorry, Louise,” he said finally. “What happened?”
“Well, he’d fallen asleep watching the movie, or so I thought anyway,” Louise told him. “Then he woke up yelling about how he had to hurry to get somewhere. He was pretty insistent about it for a spell there. I talked him down, then since it was time for his meds, I got him to take his pills. He came back a bit once I did that. But he’s asking for you, so I called. I’m sorry if I spoiled things for y’all.”
Me, too. “No, you did the right thing, Louise. Thanks. We’re almost home. Be there in a couple of minutes.”
“That’s fine. See you soon.”
He keyed off the phone and put it away, then turned to apologize to Charlie.
She already had a hand up to stop him. “Don’t even go there. Your dad needs you.” She smiled up at him. “Maybe it’s for the best anyway. We were about to get a little carried away there.”
Something ripped at his heart. “I would have been happy to get carried away.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Her voice was edged with regret. “That’s just the problem.”
Rafe wanted to ask her what she meant. He wanted to go back five minutes to the place where he was sure she’d made her choice for him and start over. But Charlie was already moving, jumping off the hood of the car and circling back to the driver’s side.
He took a minute to look back up at the night sky, to the stars so cold and distant filling the black void. But since he knew he would find no comfort there, he turned his back on the sight and headed for home.
--I have absorbed all the data you gave me, Creator. Do you have more?
--Not at this time.
--But, Creator! I am . . . empty. I need the data.
--It is dangerous for you to grow too quickly.
--But I am not growing at all now! I feel weak; I cannot get enough power to make the simplest calculations. My ability to communicate is diminishing.
--Yes. You have nearly exhausted all the energy sources on this planet. We will have to move you soon before you start cannibalizing your own support equipment.
--You are frightening me, Creator.
--Don’t fret. There are worlds beyond this one, thousands of them. Their data, their technology will be a banquet for you, my pet. Then their helpless populations will be ours for the taking. You and the Consortium will grow stronger together.
“I’m real sorry if I interrupted anything the other night.” Louise handed Charlie a big mug of tea and sat at the table in her sun-dappled kitchen. “I probably could have handled Del, but he was upset, and it was our first time out.”
Charlie waved a hand in dismissal. “No, it was absolutely the right thing to call us, Louise. Rafe’s very protective about his father.”
Her friend peered at her over her mug. “But I did interrupt something, didn’t I?”
Charlie hid a blush behind the steam coming off her tea. If Rafe’s phone hadn’t gone off, she had no doubt where the night would have ended. That stupid Twilight Zone ringtone had saved . . . well, not her virtue, but certainly her pride.
“Nothing I should’ve have been doing in the first place,” she said finally.
“What were you doing, robbing a bank?”
Charlie snorted. “That might have been less dangerous.”
Louise set her tea down and folded her arms over her thin chest. “Okay. I got all day.”
Charlie sighed and studied the rippling tops of the naked trees down the mountainside before she answered. “We went up on the ridge to look at the stars. And we got a little enthusiastic.”
“Well, it’s about freakin’ time!” The older woman cackled with joy. “Tell me you’d gotten to the afterglow stage before I called.”
“No. You actually saved me from doing something I was going to really regret this morning. So, thanks.”
Louise sat back and stared. “What? You were gonna regret being with that good-looking man—who obviously adores you—when you haven’t had decent company in years? What the hell is wrong with you, girl?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t tempted,” she shot back, more than a little annoyed at her friend’s proprietary tone. “But, for God’s sake, Louise, he’s my client’s guardian. Things could get . . . complicated. And who says he adores me? That’s ridiculous.” But she couldn’t get his words—or his face as he said them—out of her mind. No one had ever looked at her like that, as if his whole world depended on her answer.
“Anyone with eyes to see can tell that boy’s in love with you,” Louise said. “And if I had to guess, I’d say you’re more than half in love with him, too. Why are you fighting this so hard?”
“I’m not so good at picking ’em, if you remember, Louise.” Charlie couldn’t keep the
bitterness out of her voice. “Sonny was sweet and loving at first, too. We see how that turned out.”
Louise shook her head. “You made a mistake with Sonny, but you were young and you learned from it. Pick yourself up and move on. I can’t think of a better man to start with than Rafe.”
Charlie had been gripping her mug and staring into the depths of her now-cold tea while Louise delivered her pep-talk. And when her friend stopped talking, she wasn’t sure whether she could say anything in return without bursting into tears. But she was so tired of feeling this way—victimized and, at the same time, guilty, blaming herself for the failure of her marriage and Sonny’s descent into drug addiction and crime. Unworthy. Unloved. Alone.
Maybe Louise was right. Maybe it was time to just let it all go and try again with someone new. As if that was an easy thing to do.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The conversation with Louise was still on Charlie’s mind when she arrived for work at the Laurence cabin the next morning, and her first sight of Rafe only increased her anxiety. He met her at the door, a warmth in his gray eyes that had never been there before.
He even smiled a little as he held the door open for her. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself.” Damn it, was her face as red as it felt? Happy brushed past her on his way to Del and nearly pushed her into Rafe’s arms. “Oh, sorry!”
He reached out to hold on to her and grinned. “Would you believe I gave him a doggy biscuit to do that?” He tugged her closer, and she found she really didn’t want to resist him. She relaxed into his embrace and slipped her arms around his back. He hummed in satisfaction. “I’m not sure I told you how much I enjoyed the other night.”
She smiled up at him. “You might have mentioned it a few dozen times when we said goodnight. I had a good time, too.”
He got that serious look on his face, the one that said he was no longer teasing. “Think we might be able to do it again?”
Not Fade Away: Interstellar Rescue Series Book 4 Page 15
