Discovery (18 page)

“You must let the agencies have me.” Her husky voice was strained and low.

He refused to look in her direction. “Fine. I’ll call them in the morning. They’ll use their primal urges to take you apart one small piece at a time.” He punched his pillow and despite himself, shot a glance toward the contortions she was making beneath the covers. Two seconds later she emerged, naked from the waist up that he could see. The rest, too, he imagined. “Did you hear me? Understand that?”

“Yes.” She sent him a look of defiance. She flung the clothing he’d put on her into a corner and confirmed his guess as to her total nudity. “You will contact them in daylight. And it is unhealthy to sleep with clothing. Skin needs to breathe.”

“Well, forgive me for not reading the manual you came with,” growled Kent, tearing his eyes away and staring at the pattern in the drapes. “I thought I would be protecting your fair blue body from my primal urges that way.”

She said something in her language he was sure he didn’t care to have translated. He snapped off the light and scrunched into the chair. Well, at least it was warm, he was clean, and things could be a lot worse.

Visions of being tangled with Povre in a tight sleeping bag teased his mind. Her slender form snuggled trusting and tight behind him. That subaudial electric thrumming that both stimulated and soothed, as lulling as the purring of a cat. Her flash of outraged jealousy when he, in the grogginess of awakening, called her Lynn. He granted her that womanly anger. He guessed he deserved it, but hell, three years of waking up alongside someone he thought he loved, calling her name in a sleepy murmur or in the mindless throes of passion—that was hard to erase.

Then again, Lynn never erred. Never in all their time together did she call him Jim, or Tom, Dick, or Harry either. Another sign of her shallowness, as far as Kent was concerned. He wondered why she bothered being so nice about checking on the house.

His notebook was on the table and he gave up thoughts of sleep. Soon the light was back on, his pencil was busy. He added to his notes, making corrections in spots. Then he flipped to the back and let his restlessness loose on the blank pages there.

His thoughts returned to Povre. One of the most gentle, passionate, sensitive people of any race, color, sex, or size he’d ever met. Even after he’d scared her to death, she’d stayed to bandage his self-inflicted wound. Her pure, sensual pleasure in nature was a definite turn-on. He could swear she was trying to communicate with that ancient behemoth of a mountain hemlock, with every living thing he watched her encounter. Even her touches to him—perhaps in the excuse of science—were bestowed with such tenderness, such wonder and longing. And to punctuate her touches was that deep expression in her eyes, timidly begging him to understand, to return her regard in kind.

Good Lord, she loved him. Love? Was that what Sirgels called it? Someone bent entirely on pure research wouldn’t have reacted like that. They would’ve noted it clinically and proceeded to the next stimulus and response.

He stared at the pictures he’d sketched.
Oh, damn it. I don’t want to fall in love. Especially not with Povre. It’s a no-win situation no matter what happens.

But he already knew it was too late.

“No, it’s
not
fine!” he said, flinging notebook and bedspread aside. He stalked to the bed. She was watching him, her large eyes still dull and lifeless. He lifted the covers on the side she didn’t occupy and slid in.

She didn’t move. He heard her swallow.

“Damned if I paid sixty-five bucks to sleep on a damned chair.” Kent arranged the pillows under his head, the blankets over them both, and snagged Povre into the circle of his arms. She blinked and bit her enticing lower lip, but offered no comment or resistance, no softening. Her body—the fur silky and smooth after her awful wetting and enforced scrubbing—was tense and hard against his. Eye to eye they stayed, motionless, hardly breathing.

“I’m not planning on doing anything but going to sleep.”

“You can do what you will, Kent. This is your planet. You have your ways. Mine say I must cooperate. No resistance, no violence, no trouble.” Her voice trembled only a bit but stayed cool. “You have been most kind to me. I have been ungrateful, and wrong to think our species shares anything beyond surface similarities. Assigning Sirgel emotion to human behavior because of wrong observation. So for nothing you need to apologize to me. You say bathe in water, I do. You say eat, drink, eliminate, I will. You want to touch, kiss, make me hurt with wanting you, you can. You are…” she stopped. “I am…your prisoner.”

Prisoner? Of all the ridiculous, idiotic ideas.
“Povre,” replied Kent after a long minute.

“Yes, Kent.”

“Don’t cry.”

He saw how her dry eyes wanted to close, to break the unswerving contact he held her in. Obedient, she controlled the trembling and sobs that started to threaten her slender frame, and he admired her control.

“Yes, Kent,” she repeated, woodenly. She took a breath and let it out slowly through her nose. He felt the soft rush of warm air on his chin. Her lips quivered a little.

As much as I want to oblige you, sweetheart,
he thought,
I am just too danged exhausted.

“You’re an empath,” he said. “You feel my emotions in contact with me. You said so yourself.”

She shrugged, hardly moving.

“What do you feel now?” He willed her to feel what he did. That she was special. Beautiful. Desired. How he longed to totally cast out his self-imposed thinking that just because she wasn’t his exact species anything between them was impossible. He wanted her so badly it scared him. Just like she wanted him. And the thought of her leaving broke his heart into smaller pieces than even Lynn’s betrayal had.

She remained stiff for only a few more seconds. Then she relaxed, snuggled closer, and sighed as he tightened his embrace.

“That I am a very astute scientist.” The words were sullen, but her voice carried a note of pleasure. A gleam returned to her eyes as the dryness receded.

“You bet you are,” he breathed. “The most astute, beautiful scientist I’ve ever met in my life.” He closed the small distance between his lips and hers, feeling her smile.

* * * * *

“PLEASE?” SHE BATTED HER
eyelashes and made her doe-eyed orphan waif victim face. The one that never failed. Oh yes, and tears. She turned those on as well.

She kept her satisfied smirk on the inside when the clerk’s expression of solid denial dissolved. A minute or two of rubbing her eyes with her fingertips before entering the office had artfully added to the effect she went for: a woman who’d spent night after night sleepless and crying.

Then the wavering indecision on the clerk’s face firmed. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Mrs. Xavier.”

Lynn Eddleston allowed several of her tears to spill over. She reached into her handbag, withdrew something in her closed fist, and stretched just a bit to deposit it on the workspace on the other side of the chest-high countertop separating the lobby from the clerk’s work area.

The older woman’s mouth opened.

“Please,” begged Lynn, voice trembling.

Another item joined the first.

All signs of her tears faded when Lynn turned, key in hand, from the front desk. She exited, looking up and down for the number.
149
.

“Got it?”

Her attention swung to the man in the nondescript blue car. She’d almost forgotten about him. The government man. Lynn tossed her head and sauntered to the driver’s side of the vehicle, which had been backed into its parking spot. For a quick getaway, guessed Lynn. The agent certainly hadn’t offered to explain why he backed in.

“What an old battleaxe,” she said. “I almost had her, but she needed the cash incentive to cave in the rest of the way.” She displayed the electronic key on her flattened palm. The agent opened his door and made a move as if to pick it up, but Lynn snatched her hand back.

“What if this all is totally innocent? A hoax? Kent’s a good guy—”

“Look, Ms. Eddleston,” the agent said coldly, “if he’s so nice, first of all we wouldn’t be investigating him. Secondly, why’d you choose to sell him out?”

Lynn pushed back the flush she felt rising to her cheeks. She could taste Southern California with every passing second, and her desire for that overruled anything else. She dismissed any guilty feelings. She owed Kent nothing.

“I need the money. I want out of this slug-infested, moldering, rainy town.”

“And you’re doing your bit for national security. If there’s no problem, there’s no problem. As soon as we’re done here, we’ll get your tickets and make arrangements.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re investigating him?”

“No, I am not,” replied the agent.

Lynn sighed and, having leaned against his car during their conversation, started to straighten.

The agent suddenly closed his hand around Lynn’s arm and yanked her into his car, right through the open window. She fell across his lap, her protest muffled by a firm hand across her mouth.

“He’s coming out,” muttered the agent.

Lynn wriggled into the passenger side of the midnight blue sedan and peered over the dash. Kent was alone. He adjusted a Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob, then climbed into the van and pulled out.

“Okay…you go check the room.”

“Wait a minute. What if there’s something or someone in there and I end up dead?”

“You should have thought of that before you agreed to come along.” The agent dialed his cell phone as he spoke and called another to follow the gray Dodge van. “I’ll be with you.”

Lynn got out, settling her jacket and shirt where they’d hiked up after the agent had dragged her across his lap. “Surprised I’m not bruised or scraped anywhere,” she said, inspecting the exposed portions of her anatomy anxiously. She eyed him in appreciation as she waited for him to end his call.
No one could be that cold-blooded,
she thought. Maybe later she’d see just how this defender of national security measured up, and put her tax dollars to work.

She turned and walked ahead of him to the door, feeling his eyes target the deliberately provocative sway of her hips.
Gotcha
. Smirking, Lynn slid the key into the slot. Then, without waiting for any sort of response, she opened the door and stepped inside Room 149. The bed was mussed. No lights were on. Leaning against a dresser was Kent’s backpack, packed, zipped, ready to travel.

She moved inside, the agent a breath behind her. Lynn reached for a light switch. “Hello? Kent?”

No one home. No one in the bathroom, the shower. No one under the covers, either. The bedframe was too low to allow anyone to hide beneath, but Lynn dropped to the carpeting and checked anyway. Clear daylight to the other side. A few dust bunnies were evidence the housekeepers didn’t vacuum underneath too often. Given the six inches of clearance, Lynn didn’t wonder why. Weren’t many vacuum cleaners that slim.

“Maybe he set off a flea bomb and needed a place to go overnight,” she said.

~~

What’s this bimbo on about? The agent gave her a hard stare.

“The cat,” she explained, giving her hair a flip. “You should remember that.”

“Yeah.” The damn cat had all but attacked him with his first step inside the door. The bimbo had to lock the creature into the pantry until they were finished. “That wasn’t a cat, that was a Rottweiler undercover,” muttered the agent under his breath. He raked the room with his gaze. There was always something. Even when someone was completely innocent, there was always something to give their secrets away.

“Watch the door.” He didn’t stop his search. Man, the woman was on him like a cat in heat. He couldn’t wait to get rid of her and prayed he’d find a clue so he wouldn’t need to rely on her help any more. He went through each drawer, each wastebasket. Going into the bathroom, he examined the pile of limp towels and counted how many there were…enough for four adults to have showered.

“We’re too late,” he said. “Shit.” He hurled the wet towel he fingered to the floor, and then looked more closely at his hand.

Fine, short blue hairs, like the fuzzy fibers from a child’s stuffed toy, stuck to his skin. He picked the towel up again, and looked. Throughout the thirsty cotton terrycloth were caught more of these blue hairs.

He reached into a deep pocket and withdrew a plastic bag. Crouching near the pile, he found the towel with the most hair. He stuffed the towel inside, made a knot, and moved from the bathing area to the sink alcove. He washed his hands carefully. Then he tucked the bag in a special inside pocket of his trench coat and was glad the damp, rainy weather made such a garment unremarkable.

“You’re right, Ms. Eddleston. It was a mistake. Come on, run along to the office, and give them back the key. I’ll take you home to pack and then to the airport. Your flight leaves in two hours. You held up your end of the deal so we’ll hold up ours.” He imagined her demands for a place in Southern California, all expenses paid for a year, and a guaranteed job with a theatre company were granted without argument just to keep that nymphomaniac from trying to screw everyone on this case.

She looked around the room doubtfully. “Wait a minute. Nothing? No excitement, drama, nothing? That’s it?”