“I’ve brought you some clothes…Oh. I hope I’m not interrupting.”
The spell broke. Gods. Frek ! He was about to kiss her. What happened to self-control? To reigning in urges? It had slipped away into the ether with a glimpse of her sexy body and the storm of emotions in her eyes.
If the girl hadn’t turned up, he would have kissed Lauren. And probably more. Control . He opened his palms and stepped away from her. A rough, stiff step back, but enough to put distance and clarity between them. “Get dressed. I’ll see you when you’re decent.”
He slipped through the leaves without another word, not looking to see the incrimination he knew would be written on her face. He had to keep control. Had to keep her safe.
Even if it was from himself.
10
L auren stared mutely where Jo’Aquin disappeared through the leaves. Restless heat simmered through her body and her release had walked away. Not that she blamed him at all.
She was well past her blush of youth. There was no comparison to Shanaea standing beside herself. She had two odd decades of extra wear and tear that she couldn’t hide. Stretch marks, cellulite, lines. Grief. Anger. Trauma. Time and experience hadn’t been kind.
His eyes had flared when he’d seen her, she’d seen that, but it would have been in horror that he’d caught her naked. Long gone were the days where any man had looked at her like she was a sexual being. She’d had those types of glances in her twenties, but certainly as the years had worn on they were more and more infrequent until they’d stopped altogether. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been wanted, desired.
In recent years, she’d stopped looking for them, too caught up in the horror of her life and Mike’s declining health to even care.
There was a part of her, a part she’d kept locked tightly away, that thought he might actually want to kiss her. When he’d caught her in his arms, those long, strong arms that had held her as though she was the most precious thing in the universe, her body had…awoken. It was the only way she could describe the intensity that that crashed through her. She’d become acutely aware of his skin, body heat, his spicy masculine scent. She’d been enveloped by him. And God help her, she wouldn’t have pushed him away if he’d kissed her. As revolted as he would have been, she would have let him.
She hadn’t been attracted to anyone since Mike. Not when he’d grown ill. Not when he died. That part of herself had turned off with Mike’s death and never switched back on. It had never been the right time. The right place. Or the right person.
And here, well, on this planet, all three things were still not right. Even if there was an attraction, albeit one-sided, this was definitely not the time for her to act, no matter how much her body had decided to awaken.
“I found these clothes. I hope they will fit you,” Shanaea said.
Lauren took them. “I’m sure they will be fine. Thank you for getting them for me.”
“The Commander. He is a very handsome man.” A blush coloured Shanaea’s unlined cheeks.
To Lauren’s surprise, a quick stab of jealousy flared through her. She was…jealous of Shanaea’s attraction? Nonsense. Jo’Aquin was an attractive man. Anyone would see that. Shanea had merely commented on a fact.
If anyone was better suited to the man, it was Shanea. Young and beautiful and blossoming with an innocent freshness. Things that Lauren was just…not.
She had baggage. Not just baggage, she was emotionally scarred . Too heavy. Too jaded. Too much work. Who in their right mind would want any part of that crap? There were bigger issues here that she had to worry about. Like getting back to Earth and stopping an alien invasion.
“Yes. He is,” Lauren replied, not justifying Shanaea’s comment with any more response. “Tell me, can I please talk to MalCom?”
“Yes. He’s waiting for you with Mother. She has fixed a meal for you. You must be hungry,” Shanaea said.
“Ravenous,” Lauren said. However, her meal of choice was forbidden.
She followed Shanaea along winding tree branches. The branches that served as pathways were worn and smooth, the thickness making it quite easy to walk along. It helped that she couldn’t see much past the edge of the branch, or the ground below. The leaves obscured so much, it was hard to see anything at all. She was glad, she was sure she’d be frozen to the spot if she saw how high up she actually was.
Shanaea took her to a leaf igloo. She bent to see Jo’Aquin and MalCom inside. As soon as she drew the leaf back, Jo’Aquin’s gaze raked over her, making her feel as naked as she was when he’d crushed her against his solid body. She faltered as responding heat enflamed her body, leaving her skin tight and hot.
She mentally shook her head. She was far too old and far too cynical to be taken in by the first flush of attraction. Besides, whatever it was between them had nowhere to go. She was on a strange planet. She’d been abducted by aliens, and the Earth was on the verge of being enslaved. If that didn’t put a dampener on hormones she knew she didn’t have any more, then she’d have to reign in some self-control. She was a thirty-eight-year-old woman, for pity’s sake. She had self-control. She was most probably reading too much into his embarrassment. After all, he couldn’t wait to get away from her when Shanaea had walked in on them, and she’d been about to kiss him. The girl might have saved her from a really embarrassing situation if she’d given in to the urge.
Men who looked like Jo’Aquin never looked at women like her. It just didn’t happen. Obviously, being abducted had done something to her brain.
A flash of searing heat and a burst of red-orange snapped a nearby branch. It exploded into a ball of flame and an ear-splitting crack. The charred branch tipped and fell, severed from the tree.
Behind her, another explosion rent the air. She spun to see leaves on fire. Shanaea screamed. She bent over double, her stomach a charred mess. A look of surprise crossed her face. She staggered. Lauren reached out to her, but too late. Shanaea slipped over the edge of the branch.
That was when Lauren screamed. Her screams joined others as fire rained around her. Electric fireballs dropped from the sky. The tree erupted as bursts of explosions severed branches everywhere. Loud booms thundered like masses of grenades were released. She dropped where she stood, hand splayed on the thick branch as tremors wracked the tree.
There was a masculine roar and a strong arm wrapped about her middle. She was picked up off her knees and crushed into solid muscle. Joe. Part of her panicked mind knew he’d picked her up as though she weighed no more than a child, the other part struggled to understand what was happening.
“They’ve found us!” MalCom said.
She blinked uncomprehendingly at the leader. Who had found them? How?
“We need to get away,” Jo’Aquin said.
“Down. We need ground cover,” MalCom said. “Everyone to the ground! Spread the word! We’re under attack!”
Voices echoed all around. Leaves crashed as people ran and dropped down. Men helping women. Arms clutching children crying in fear, faces scrunched tight in distress as they disappeared into the canopy.
Lauren’s panicked mind grappled with thought too thin to latch onto. The ground? That was way, way below. She knew that. She couldn’t climb down. She was afraid of heights. This shouldn’t be happening. She’d only just taken in that fact she was on an alien planet. That there were in fact aliens in the universe other than bacteria…
A voice in her ear, “Hold on to me, Lauren. I’ll get you down.” He spun her around, crushing her to his body. Her hands flailed, fluttering over his shoulders, “Put your arms around my neck.”
She looked up into his serious face. All around fireballs ignited the tree, washing his golden skin with red. Walls of flames burst around her, crackling, igniting, destroying. Her heart raced, pounding, pounding, pounding.
His fingers tightened on her waist, and he shook her a little. Her eyes flew back to his face. She hadn’t realised she’d even dropped her gaze. “Lauren. W
e are under attack. We need to seek cover. Put your hands around my neck, and I will take you to safety.”
“Safety…” She whispered. Another flame-ball cracked through a nearby branch. She flinched and Joe’s arms secured around her.
“I’ll keep you safe, Lauren. Always.”
“Safe…”
Another fire-ball cracked through a branch. Jo’Aquin took her hands and latched them behind his neck when she seemed unable to do that for herself, secured one arm around her back and reached for the trunk. He was tall and strong, but even he would have trouble climbing down a tree this tall with her on his back. It’d be like climbing down the straight slippery sides of a sky-scraper with her on his back. She couldn’t let him do that. Wasn’t going to let him do that.
Her mind slowed with that stone-cold state she relied on when Mike died. Where there was no emotion. Only doing. Doing she could do. Doing meant she didn’t have to think. To feel.
“Wait! Stop, Joe!” She’d made it through Mike’s death. She’d made it to an unknown planet. She wouldn’t let Jo’Aquin potentially be killed because she was panicking like a child. She wasn’t a child. Wasn’t even young. She was a full-grown woman, and she needed to start acting like one.
She stepped back from him. “I’ll climb myself.”
His mouth firmed. “You’re not in any condition.”
“Don’t go all caveman on me. I’m stronger than you think. Just lead the way. I’ll follow.” She ignored his I-don’t-agree-with-you stare. She was stronger than he thought. She was stronger than she’d thought. “I’ve survived, and I’ll keep on surviving. Climb down. I’ll follow. We don’t have sucker things on our fingertips, and you can’t climb with my weight on your back. Now go.” Fear threatened to carry her away into a territory she couldn’t afford to go. She pushed it back. There was always time to be afraid, but now wasn’t one of those times.
“Lauren…”
“Listen, if you die, I can’t get home. Right?” It was cruel, she knew, but she also knew Joe was honourable. He’d rather be hurt than risk her, and now wasn’t the time to argue. She’d apologise later. That was if they had a later.
She registered the hurt on his face, shoved away the responding emotion that came on her just as quick. She hadn’t liked hurting him. It cut something deep within herself, yet she stood her ground as fire and mayhem continued to blast around them. “Hurry, Joe. We’re going to be hit if we keep standing here.”
He gave a curt nod, reigning himself in. “If you falter, I will catch you.”
She nodded, grateful, although she couldn’t peg whether she was grateful he was listening to her, or that he’d catch her if she fell. Strangely, that thought was…comforting. She was the person who usually caught everyone else.
“Well, then. Let’s go before we’re barbequed alive,” she said.
Jo’Aquin hitched his leg onto a branch below the main thoroughfare and dropped down. She drew a deep, trembling breath and stepped after him, praying she could follow through and actually climb down herself. Talk was one thing. Acting out bravado was another thing altogether. She dropped, trailing in his path.
A fireball hit. Too close. She shrieked. Toppled. Hands flailed, reached for the trunk, branch, twig. Anything. Missed.
She fell.
11
S omething like steel banded around her waist. She was weightless for a second, then she was crushed against a hot, hard surface. She cracked open her eyes. Joe’s massive chest filled her vision. The surface was Joe! She cried out, clinging to his shirt, trembling, trying to slow her racing heart.
“As I said, I will carry you.”
Lauren gulped air. “No! I just got…a fright.”
She peered up into a face set in granite. He held onto a branch while the other arm held her. A line appeared between his brows. “Of course you’re frightened. You’ve never seen fire play before.”
Spots of flames licked closer, lighting the tree on fire. She cringed into Joe’s chest even though she hated herself for doing it. “And you have?”
The seriousness in his eyes told her he had. “Of course. I’m a seasoned military man. I have taken part in many battles.”
Lauren shivered. She hated to think about that. That it was true. But it had to be. A man didn’t get to be a Commander without his time in the field. Destruction was all around her, and he hadn’t so much as flinched while she was a blubbering mess. God, how did he do it?
She resisted the urge to fall into the comfort of his body and take the security he offered with everything she had. Both of their lives were in danger, and there was more than a good chance they wouldn’t make it if she didn’t pull herself together.
She worked at unclenching her fists and released Jo’Aquin’s crumpled shirt and clutched the trunk. She drew a steeling breath and looked up at him. “I’m okay.”
“You are sure?” He still held her as though she might fall at any moment. To be honest, she didn’t blame him.
She nodded once. “Positive. I’m a grown woman. We don’t have time to argue.” She hoped she sounded sufficiently confident and not like she was so scared she was about to wet herself. Smoke drifted into her face, stinging her eyes.
“I will be ready to catch you if you fall. Again.”
“Smartarse,” she muttered under her breath, but no-nonsense neon eyes locked with hers when she glanced up. She fought the urge to cringe. Now wasn’t the time to be a bitch, either. She glared back and pointed down. She knew he didn’t want to go, but she was damn grateful when he started to move. This time, she moved more carefully after him.
Although Jo’Aquin climbed quickly, she suspected he slowed down for her. She climbed as fast as she could, but her sweaty hands slipped off branches. She hadn’t exactly received footwear either, and she had to dodge broken twigs and sharp knots.
There was a petrified scream from above. She gasped, looking upwards to see a figure crashing through the foliage, coming right for her. She hugged the tree, pressing her cheek into the bark. She braced herself, waiting for the impact of the hurtling body.
Something shoved her away. A massive arm reached out and plucked the shirt of the person plummeting past. Jo’Aquin’s grip tightened on the branch over her head as his fingers locked on the back of the man’s shirt.
His breath hissed between clenched teeth as the man arced through the air. Jo’Aquin’s muscles stood out on his neck, straining with the weight. The man flapped about, arms and legs kicking out as he struggled to catch the trunk, swinging at the end of Jo’Aquin’s fisted hand at the back of his shirt.
The shirt ripped. The man let out a frightened yell, clutching at Jo’Aquin’s hand. The material clearly wasn’t meant to support the weight of a plunging man. The shirt ripped again, and the man dropped. He was going to fall all the way to the ground if the shirt ripped any more.
Lauren sat, thighs either side of the branch she was on and reached, holding out her hand. “Take my hand!”
The man turned frightened eyes up to her, just out of reach. She lay on the branch, wrapping an arm around it for support. The man frantically gripped her hand. She tugged with all her strength and swung him towards the tree. He gripped the trunk just as his shirt ripped through.
“Thank you,” he gasped. Lauren was surprised to see it was the man who had slung her over his shoulder and climbed up with her that first day.
“Just as well you have super suction fingertips.” She knew how strong they actually were.
The man gave her a quizzical expression before he said. “I will never forget this.”
“No problem. Now go,” she said, scrambling to her feet as he sank below the visible foliage.
A grip on her upper arm had her looking up at Jo’Aquin’s face. His expression was unreadable. “You put yourself in danger!”
She flinched, not expecting that comment. Well, maybe she did after his recent caveman behaviour, but she’d only done what was meant to be done. She wasn’t going to st
and by and not save someone. “How about a thank you for helping!”
“You need to stay safe,” Jo’Aquin said.
She would have put her hands on her hips if she wasn’t scared half to death of falling. “He would have fallen if I hadn’t got him.”
“Then he would have fallen. You are not to put yourself in danger just to save another.” His eyes looked like granite flints.
“That’s exactly what you did! Don’t tell me you have one rule for you and another for a feeble woman,” Lauren said.
“That is not what I meant. I had a solid grip on the branch and was able to save him without harm to your safety, or to mine,” he said.
“How is that different from what I did? Believe me when I tell you I locked my thighs around that branch so hard I could have cracked it. Twenty years of hip, thigh, and buttock blaster classes can do that to a girl.” She was blabbering. Shock tended to do that to her.
He blinked once. Twice. The anger in his eyes shifted to something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but left her insides warming despite herself. “Protect yourself in the future.”
“So you can save everyone?” she said. Men, they were the same the universe over. Save the worlds so the feeble little females can fawn over them when they return from battle. Huh, typical hero complex. Probably didn’t get to Commander status without it.
“So that you may live and I will take any repercussions.”
Oh. He’d put himself in danger so that she would be safe? She was so used to being to one that did everything, ran herself ragged doing everything. She just…wasn’t used to…this. In fact, no-one had ever said anything to her like that at all. She was…shocked. She cleared her throat. “I’m just not…used to anyone…saying anything like that to me.”
JoAquin_An Alien Abduction Paranormal Romance Page 7
