Alien Romance: Celestial Angels Complete Set: A Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, BBW, Alien Invasion Romance)

by Rosette Lex

  “Who are you…” she whispered, stunned and hooked as his hands slid up to cup and knead her breasts through the sequined halter. “Oh God...never mind, just please don’t stop….”

  He set his teeth against her neck, wanting to mark her, but then relented when she stiffened. Her tremors intensified; she tucked up her legs and turned in his grip, then wrapped them around him.

  He stared at her, feeling her breath warm against his lips, the urge to take her pounding away inside of him like a primal command. Mine, he thought feverishly, as she swooned in his arms.

  A hard knock on the door brought him back to himself; he looked up, eyes narrowing. They must have noticed the camera feeds going dead. She blinked up at him, confusion hazing her features. “What…?” she mumbled softly.

  “Shhhhh,” he purred in her ear, petting a hand down her nearly bare back. She whimpered and wrapped her arms around his neck--and then stiffened as he applied the knockout patch to the hollow of her throat.

  The trans-dermal drugs worked quickly; she gasped once, and then collapsed in his arms, completely limp. Alan looked down at her, pain creasing his face as he resisted the primal call of his instincts again.

  “Sorry, my dear,” he murmured as she passed out. “But duty calls.”

  He heard a crash as a heavy body shouldered against the door from outside. Time to get moving. By the time that the guard got his way through the door, the two of them were gone, the ventilation grate screwed back into place behind them.

  2: Emily

  For a few moments there, her decision to substitute for her neighbor at this party had actually felt worth it.

  Emily drowsed, vaguely aware of a bed under her, a quilt pulled over her and a warm, quiet room. What time had she gotten in last night? That party had been really uncomfortable.

  Marina hadn’t said anything about the place being full of drugs or big gangster-looking guys. Marina also hadn’t said anything about having to give lap dances. Maybe that was why she had asked for a substitute.

  She had claimed to have a cold, but she hadn’t looked or sounded sick. But when she had asked Emily, who looked so much like her that they could have been sisters, to sub for her at Marina’s boyfriend’s party, she had thought only about the thousand dollars cash advance that Marina had straight-up handed her. Hers to keep if she went. One night, one thousand dollars. And suddenly she wouldn’t owe any more back rent on her Sunset District apartment.

  But then she had gotten there, and danced in her cage, and hurt her feet and her back with those damn platform shoes, which basically killed all her skill at dancing as easily as bricks tied to her feet.

  Emily had taken exotic dancing lessons specifically to try and get over some of her shyness, and had met Marina--who lived in the apartment building’s penthouse--in her classes.

  Marina was a little eccentric, always hanging out with those big Serbian guys, and flashing clothes and jewelry that her work at a high end perfume counter shouldn’t have paid for. But apparently her boyfriend was loaded, because she always had some new bauble on when Emily saw her.

  The substitution had happened at the eleventh hour, and had seemed like a sweet relief even with the shoes and the cage, until the moment she was told she had to give a lap dance like an actual stripper in one of the side rooms.

  Emily had blushed so hard her head had felt like it was going to pop. But the moment she had protested, the bouncer had grabbed her wrist in a grip of iron, pulled her out of the cage and walked her forcibly to the room.

  “Keep the man happy. Half an hour,” he had growled tersely in his thick accent. Then he had pushed her through the door and locked it behind her.

  But the man in the room...Oh God. Dark hair, pale skin, eyes like silver coins, that body...and all wrapped in a classic example of suitporn. She had never felt that strong an attraction to anyone in her life, up to and including every idiot high school crush on every football player who had ever glanced her way.

  Emily liked them big, she liked them beefy and solid, and this guy looked like she’d need mountain climbing gear to scale him. Perfect. She had forgotten almost everything, and certainly most of her discomfort, the moment she had been alone with him.

  She had done as instructed, but she had done it for his reactions. Because best of all of it, that magnificent male had felt it too. She had heard the shudder in his breath, and felt it going through his body; had felt his heartbeat pick up under her palms; had ground herself against his swollen groin through the smooth fabric of his trousers.

  She knew the rules. He wasn’t supposed to touch her. But the whole time she had craved his touch, had hoped he would get so turned on that he would break the damn rules and take hold of her right there.

  And he had. He had held her and caressed her and pulled her against him, and she had felt his lips on her skin. And he had been about to kiss her. But then…?

  She only vaguely remembered him saying something apologetic, and something cold against her throat. And then her whole body had gone numb and limp, and the room had faded away.

  Had she fainted? Was it Rohypnol? She sucked air and squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. No, that makes no sense, we were about to get it on anyway. But her hands slid down over her body anyway, checking for missing clothes and soreness. Nothing, just the sleepy sense that she had missed something, and it probably hadn’t involved sex.

  She opened her eyes and looked up at an unfamiliar ceiling. It was white, with a plain, circular light fixture and a single window covered by Venetian blinds. That was not a good sign, not at all. She sat up--and a wave of dizziness hit her, forcing her to lean on the bed’s carved wooden headboard for a moment before she could look around further.

  No, not her bedroom. Not any bedroom she had ever seen before, either. Outside the window, she could see the top floor of an anonymous apartment building in broad daylight; she must have slept for many hours.

  As for the rest of the room: plain, just the bed, a dresser, and single chair. One door, painted white like the rest of the room except for the blond wood floor. Where the Hell am I?

  The door opened suddenly, admitting the man from last night. He was in his shirtsleeves, which were rolled up to expose his wrists, his suit coat missing and his tie loose. Despite his dressed-down look, his expression was very serious, eyes piercing and his mouth a line.

  “Good morning,” he said cordially, his voice quiet but with an edge to it that was all business.

  Oh shit. What is this now?

  “Where am I? Damn it, if we slept together and I missed it I’m going to be really pissed off.”

  His eyebrows went up, and a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his generous mouth.

  “...No, I assure you, nothing like that happened while you were unconscious. I don’t always like my job, but it doesn’t include anything about molesting young women in their sleep.”

  “Your...job?” Emily was now thoroughly confused and a little scared. She tried to climb out of the bed, but she still felt woozy, and it took a while just to swing her legs over the side.

  He watched her, arms folded, his expression doing strange things. It would soften as he gazed at her, and for a moment she would be reminded of the rush of confidence she had felt at hearing his breath shiver in his throat. But then he would seem to catch himself, and his expression would close, becoming all business once again.

  He sighed and came close, and pulled a wallet out of his pocket--no wait, it was an ID holder. She stared down at it, confused, because for a moment the document and badge it held seemed to blur and shift. Then she recognized it and looked up at him.

  “You’re Homeland Security? What do you want with me? I haven’t ever even had a parking ticket!” Her heart was pounding now, and she felt dizzier than ever. Why in the world was she in the custody of a Homeland Security agent, if that was what this man--Alan something, the ID had said--actually was?

  “This isn’t about you. It’s about your lover, Alexei
Bogdanovic.” He settled on the corner of the bed, the gesture almost intimate except for the cold look on his face.

  “Alexei B--” Oh my God. Oh no. Marina, you unbelievable bitch! Alexei was Marina’s boyfriend. Marina who looked just like her except for the gaudy clothes and jewels, and the accent.

  Marina, who must have known that there were law enforcement guys after her and her boyfriend. Emily didn’t know why, but she did know that there had been tons of drugs at that party, and that she hadn’t felt safe.

  “Wait, this isn’t what you think! I’m not that Alexei guy’s girlfriend!”

  He blinked a few times, his brows drawing together.

  “I beg your pardon?” His tone sounded neither startled nor convinced; her guess was that he was expecting her to talk her way out. Except that it really was true!

  “My name’s Emily. My neighbor Marina looks a lot like me. Last night she asked me to sub for her as a dancer at a party her boyfriend was giving. She paid me a thousand bucks cash up front to stand in for her. That’s the only reason I was at that party!

  Please...you have to believe me. This bitch is screwing us both over! She used me for a bait and switch along with her boyfriend. They must have known you were after them!”

  She saw a flicker in his eyes: hesitation. “That’s a very good story,” he said finally. “I imagine you rehearsed it for a great deal of time perfecting it in case you were caught. However, there’s no reason for you to continue trying to protect this lover of yours. I assure you, no matter what he’s promised you, Bogdanovic isn’t worth spending your life in prison.”

  “Life in prison…!” Her eyes filled with tears, and his expression flickered again, almost as if a touch of guilt had passed across his features. “But I didn’t do anything! For God’s sake, my ID was tucked inside my costume belt--”

  He shook his head, running a hand back through his dark brown hair, and then produced the slim leather wallet she kept her ID and emergency cash in. The cash was gone, and the ID wasn’t hers. Marina Dragovic.

  “But...but...they...they switched it….” she felt all the strength leave her as she realized just how perfect the setup was. No ID, no witnesses, no one to differentiate her from Marina unless he let her call in people who knew her.

  “Oh God, this can’t be happening.” She hid her face in her hands.

  “Miss Dragovic--”

  “My name is Emily, damn it!” She looked up at him, her voice shaking with frustration and terror. “The card has my address. I live in Apartment 320 and Marina lives in the penthouse. If you go to my apartment, you’ll see all the evidence you need that I’m me and not her!”

  “This is nonsense,” he grumbled quietly, standing.

  “I’m going to tell you how this will go. You can hold out with your ridiculous story for as long as you want, but I fully intend to get the truth out of you. You will not be leaving this safe house until I do have the truth, at which point you may negotiate with my associates on whether you wish to turn state’s evidence against your paramour.” He practically spat the last word, sounding disgusted--and also strangely jealous.

  “But he’s not my...but…!” she shook her head, her heart pounding in her ears. Last night she had been completely prepared to bang this guy in the middle of the party. Now, she was the one getting screwed.

  The bad guys were using her as bait for this egotistical, pigheaded agent, and he wouldn’t listen to her long enough for her to be able to clear this up.

  “I’m not even the person you are looking for! For God’s sake, Marina has a Serbian accent! Do you hear an accent?”

  “Sorry, but I was briefed on you. You have lived in the States for the last ten years. Plenty of time for you to lose your accent if you wanted to. Especially in Hollywood, land of voice coaches.”

  “Oh God. This is a nightmare.” She rubbed her face and then looked up at him pleadingly.

  “Is there anyway I can convince you that I am who I am, and not that crazy bitch with the gangster boyfriend?”

  He stood up suddenly, his throat working. “Nothing immediately comes to mind,” he replied coldly. “I’m going to leave you here for a while, to think about just how long you feel like keeping up this ridiculous ruse. There are clothes in the drawers and food in the cupboard and fridge. You will notice that I did not leave you any knives.

  I assure you that they would not do you any good if you attacked me with one, but I also don’t want you getting any romantic ideas of dying to protect your lover. There is no way out of this safe house, and no way of contacting the outside world. I am empowered to keep you here until you talk.”

  “That can’t be legal!” she gasped, feeling even sicker.

  “I’m afraid that it is.” But he couldn’t meet her gaze. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t do anything stupid while I am gone.” He glanced back at her.

  “This situation doesn’t have to involve you coming to harm. It doesn’t even have to involve you serving time. But we have to know what you know, and I will get that information however I must.”

  He left, and she stared after him, tears in her eyes and her heart in her throat.

  3. The Prisoner

  Alan left her alone for a while while he checked in with his team. The encoded video chat tended to skip and blur; it was a quick and ugly program, heavier on security than it was on clarity of image.

  Jim Coulter, his second in command, appeared on the screen, his sharp, tanned features tired and his hazel eyes sunken. He smiled tightly. “Alan, hey. How’d the pickup go?”

  “She’s got a story in place, as we suspected. She’s claiming to be a completely different person. She even gave me an address.”

  “Huh. That’s one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it’s weird from a material witness. She must really be trying to protect this guy.”

  “I guess so. But it doesn’t make much sense. She seems entirely too sincere for someone covering her boyfriend’s ass.” Alan rubbed his face. “Jim, do we have any movement from Bogdanovic’s men?”

  “All quiet on the Western front. The big boss thinks we’re missing something, but it’s like they’re hunkering down waiting for something. I have no deals, no fights, no murders. It’s the quietest day since they popped up in the LA area.”

  “That doesn’t make any damned sense. We have his woman. Even if he doesn’t value her much personally, the very insult to him should have him going on a rampage. Slavic machismo is pretty much legendary.”

  Coulter puffed out his cheeks, his green eyes dull and tired. “I don’t know what to tell you. We’ll keep monitoring, but so far it’s like Bogdanovic decided to take a day off.”

  Alan nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “All right. That’s all we can do for now. Check Marina's penthouse. And...What the Hell, check Apartment 320 in the same complex, just in case. I’ll work on the girlfriend.”

  After signing off, he went for a walk, thinking about the woman’s strange story...and his strange reaction to her. He had come within inches of tearing off their clothes and claiming her multiple times last night, and every time he was with her his head filled with a fuzz of lust and infatuation. He could not get close to her without his body’s demands forcibly entering his consideration.

  Even back then, with her weeping and begging and claiming she was someone else, half of his mind had been on how wide and soft-looking that bed was, and how easy it would be to join her in it.

  Could she be telling the truth? No, that wasn’t possible. It involved too many coincidences, and it implied that Bogdanovic was a much smarter man than they had been led to believe. But she had seemed so sincere.

  He had methods of determining whether she was lying or not; he simply had not used them before now because it was safe to assume that everything out of a freshly-caught suspect’s mouth would be a lie.

  He was law enforcement, even if his real badge had something entirely different from Homeland Security on it, and every single person, from children
on up, habitually lied to law enforcement. But it seemed it was time to bring some of these methods to the table. He hoped to avoid a full-blown interrogation. In fact, the very idea of deliberately frightening her or causing her harm made him sick to his stomach.

  But what if I seduce her instead? whispered a tempting impulse. If she is so devoted to her lovers, why not turn her devotion? The whole idea delighted him: it would satisfy both his agonizing needs and his duties. But….

  I can’t. It’s not possible. Not with my background. I can be husband or lover to exactly no one on this planet safely. No woman would be able to handle the kind of secrets I’m carrying around.

  His heart sank. He wanted her so badly...and he needed that information. How could he possibly get it without force if he didn’t persuade her somehow?

  I’ll just have to start by reading her emotions and biosignals, and seeing if she’s actually lying or if she believes her own story. Once that was done, he hoped to check back in with the team.

  None of them actually knew where the safe house was; it was his private holding area, designed that way both by his personal preference and because if someone on the team got captured and interrogated it was best they not know where it was. But on-line communications would work fine to keep everyone on track.

  He wished that he had thought to do readings on her upon meeting her, but he had quite simply been too addled by her presence to even think of it. He would have to focus. His father had taught him these techniques since he had been small, but they came with certain vulnerabilities. Reading the emotions of others was a short step away from feeling their emotions, and the girl was frightened, confused and angry. And she was also….

  His

  ...No, he couldn’t think about things like that. He had to consider the possible outcomes logically. If he had some kind of emotional vulnerability to the girl, or she to him, he had to take that into account before he used these techniques.

  Otherwise he could get caught up. He could use his objectivity. He could find himself thinking with his emotions instead of logic, and when he was around her that was definitely dangerous.