Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two (9 page)

“Why don’t
I
come with you, little sis?” Jake smirked.

I stared at him. “Why on earth would you want to do that?” Then, glancing down at the card, I let out a sigh. “Oh. Right. Of course.”

Jake dismissed my words with an older-brotherly wave.

“This is one job where you might actually
need
me, little sister,” he said, doing his best to give me his sincere face. “If I don’t dress you properly, you probably won’t even make it inside the door...much less have anyone take you seriously. P.I. or no, they will flay you alive, if you walk in there like that, girlfriend...”

He motioned towards my ensemble.
 

I couldn’t help but be annoyed by his words. I knew he was probably right, but yeah, annoying. It also occurred to me, in the more strategic areas of my brain that is, that having Jake there might work as a fantastic diversion.

“Sure,” I said, causing Jake, Gantry and Irene to all turn, staring at me. “You can come. Just don’t be late,” I warned. “...Or I swear to God, I’m leaving without you, Jake. And putting your shit on Irene’s porch in garbage bags.”

Jake beamed at me, though, obviously tickled at the thought of all that flesh and money, both the boy and girl variety.

I could already picture the demise of the lovely little getaway in Italy, along with whatever loyalty Jake might have felt towards the poor sap he’d left behind. Jake’s new image of himself was already reforming in his light hazel eyes as I watched. He stared into the distance, no doubt envisioning himself latched onto the arm and wallet of some young designer or international model...jetting-set to Paris, Rome, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles.

The sad thing was, I knew he could probably do it, too.

Jake was pretty enough, and good enough at excessive flattery, to be a natural in any entertainment industry. That, combined with an embarrassingly vast knowledge of fashion and art, and other skills of Jake’s I preferred to know absolutely
nothing
about, would likely land him a new playmate before we left the building.

When I looked at Nik that time, I felt the frown, more than saw it.

Even so, he didn’t argue.

Maybe he just wanted to reserve the right to kick me off the job at some point in the future, especially if he started working for Gantry for real. But that was a thought I still couldn’t quite wrap my mind around, truthfully.

Gantry and Nik, that is.
 

Working together.

Still, yeah, of all the guys I could have brought along with me from my new, alien-focused entourage to act as a wing man, I couldn’t help wondering if I’d picked the wrong one.

4

Social Etiquette, Psychos and Jake’s Fashion Sense

I spent most of that night with Irene, catching her up, I guess.

She had about a million questions, now that she knew where I’d been all of that time, so we ended up having that kitchen table talk I’d envisioned all of those weeks ago. In fact, we didn’t leave that table until about two in the morning.

When I finally got back to the living room, which now doubled as me and Nik’s bedroom, Nihkil was already asleep, stretched out on his back with an arm wrapped around his chest. I found myself watching him for a few minutes as he slept, wondering if I could feel his dreams if I tried...through the lock, that is.

I left him alone.

Still, I couldn’t help wondering if part of my decision to let Irene keep me up half the night was to give me some more thinking room around Nik himself.

After that morning, and getting Gantry and everyone else involved in this thing with us, I couldn’t help stepping back a bit, and wondering what exactly I was doing.

With Nik, that is.

Nik made it pretty clear he saw our connection as lock mates as having more than one facet, and while, yeah, sure, I was sorely tempted, I wondered if it was really such a great idea for me to start sleeping with him, now that we were back on Earth.
 

I could feel the part of me that wanted to go there.

I could feel the part of me that wanted to go there pretty badly, and say the hell with reason or logic or whatever else. It wasn’t all because of looks or hormones or whatever, either...although that definitely played a part, sure.

I cared about Nik. A lot, actually.

He’d saved my life, but it was more than that, too, I knew.

I guess I just wondered if it made sense, the me and him thing.

Or maybe it just freaked me out, because I saw a glimpse in Gantry’s eyes of how most people would view it, if it ever got out what Nik really was.

My mom always had this thing about me not marrying a Cuban like dad, because she was convinced all Cubans were cheats. While I’d pretty much rolled my eyes at that piece of advice from day one, I couldn’t help smiling humorlessly at the thought of explaining to dear old mom and dad how I’d decided to shack up with a guy from another dimension, instead.

I knew even that wasn’t all of it, either, though.

That bond between us was strong. Freakishly strong, at times.

Truthfully, it scared me a little. Part of me wanted to keep a distance between us for that reason alone. I wasn’t sure what it meant, or how much of it came from me versus whatever being Nik’s lock-holder did to me. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to sign over my whole life to someone I’d only known for a few months...and something told me if we started sleeping together, things were going to get a lot more intense between the two of us. More intense than the usual boyfriend-and-girlfriend thing, that is...which could be intense enough.

Still, looking at him while he slept, even for those few seconds, I could tell it wasn’t going to be that easy to stay away from him.
 

Maybe that was the lock thing, too...or simply how much we’d been through together already. Either way, I knew things had changed with how I saw Nik from as far back as when we’d first been bunked in that cell together on Ledi’s ship.

Since that time, the feeling hadn’t diminished any, unfortunately.

Really, it had gotten worse. A lot worse...even before I found out that my little crush on Nik wasn’t exactly unrequited.

Realizing I was still staring down at him like some kind of creepy stalker, I sighed a bit, combing my fingers through my hair as it hit me how tired I was. Looking for the biggest open spot on the roll-down bed, I kicked off my shoes with another sigh, relieved I had another day to think about it before we were alone again and both more or less conscious.

Tomorrow I would get up early.

After all, I was going to let Jake dress me.
 

That would require at least a full pot of Irene’s high-octane coffee.

Possibly with a few shots of something stronger thrown in, too.

“I do not understand,” Nik said, frowning at me. His eyes had turned a light green in the pause, one of those colors I hadn’t figured out the meaning of yet. “...This is fashion?”

He looked at Jake that time, as if expecting some sort of explanation.

Jake rubbed Nik’s shoulders, a little more sensually than necessary I thought, and kissed Nik on one of his excessively symmetrical cheeks.

“Yes, darling,” Jake drawled at him, giving him another squeeze. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”

I did not, for the record, feel gorgeous.

In fact, I felt a little bit like one of those dancing monkeys that used to wear red doorman uniforms with gold buttons, holding out tin cups for blind beggars playing accordion.

Only in much less comfortable shoes.

Looking down at myself with a sigh, I found myself having a déjà vu moment with me and Nik’s last little fashion head-butt, which happened back on Palarine. That time, it had been Nik’s pal, Ledi, aka, Razmun, who had been the one to dress me up like a quasi-prostitute.

To his credit, Nik took it significantly better this time than he had on Palarine.

“Don’t you think she looks hot?” Jake pressed, clearly not going to be happy until Nik validated his creation. “Don’t you just want to ravish her, right now?”

Nik gave him a puzzled look, then looked back at me.

“Yes,” he said then, shrugging lightly as he exhaled. “...But I wanted to before. And this is likely to make others react to her in inappropriate ways.”

Irene giggled at that, covering her mouth.

She leaned against the tile counter as she watched our little exchange, gripping a chipped coffee cup from her collection in one hand.

I only rolled my eyes, although my cheeks might have warmed a bit.

“Jeez, louise, guys,” I said. “What am I, a prize pig?”

“You want to ravish her?” Jake said, ignoring me to focus on Nik. Clearly he saw an opening, and pounced. “Really?
Did
you ravish her, Nik? Last night, maybe?”

“No,” Nik told him. “I fell asleep before I could ask her. I woke up wanting sex this morning, but she had already left the room...”

“Really?” Jake said, his eyebrows going up in delight as he glanced at me. “You wanted sex this morning, did you? Did you have an erection?”

“Yes––” Nik began, but I’d completely had enough at that point.

“Nik,” I snapped. “House rule, okay? We don’t talk about erections with Jake, okay? Ever. Not yours. Not anyone’s. Clear?”

There was a silence where Nik seemed to think about my words.

“What about with Irene?” he asked me then, his eyes puzzled as he glanced at the object of his question, his mouth firming into a straighter line.

I followed his gaze to where Irene leaned against the counter.

Feeling another irrational stab of jealousy, I bit it back, but not before my cheeks warmed more.
 

“Not with her, either, Nik,” I said. “...And not with Gantry. And not with anyone else you meet here. That stuff is private, all right? And you don’t
ever
have to answer my brother’s ridiculous questions, especially when it’s about anything personal. He’s taking advantage of the fact that you don’t know these things...”

Nik nodded, his eyes holding a denser, more intent look that time.

Something about that look made me think he’d caught more than a small glimpse of my reaction to him looking at Irene, too.

Nik looked away from my eyes even as I thought it.

I watched him give Jake a wary look, right before he looked back at me.