Alien Diplomacy (16 page)

“Bath or shower?” Jeff asked.

“Both?”

I must have sounded overly hopeful, or he was merely reading my mind, because he got the expression on his face that always reminded me of a big jungle cat about to eat me. I loved that look. Besides, for us, escaping death was sort of like foreplay.

Jeff turned on the tub and, as the water filled up and the bathroom
started to steam, he pulled me into his arms. I snuggled in and buried my face in the hair on his chest. “You’re not as cold as me.”

“I’m bigger.”

“Very big.”

Jeff chuckled, though it sounded more like a purr. “Glad you think so.” He stroked my back, fingers doing a sensuous massage. “You’re still shivering.”

“I’m cold. Inside and out.”

“I’ll do my best to warm both.” He lifted me up and put me gently into the tub. He joined me, but didn’t do anything other than lean back, stretch out, and pull me in between his legs, so I could lean my head on his chest.

“I thought you were going to warm me up inside, too.”

“You need to warm up your body first.” He sounded worried.

I looked up at him. He looked worried. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll have Tito take a look at you later.”

“I’m fine.”

Jeff kissed the top of my head. “Humor me.”

I snuggled my face back into the hair on his chest, between his impressive pecs. “Okay, if you insist.”

“I do.”

Jeff continued to stroke me, and I let my body relax. I heard water running. “Why are you filling the tub up more?”

He chuckled. “You’ve been asleep and it’s cooled down. For the third time. I think your body’s finally feeling normal, that’s why you woke up.”

I thought about this as he shifted me around into a sitting position. “This is an A-C thing for when you get overcold, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Water isolation.” He smiled at my expression. “Which is why we’re here, in the tub, together, instead of me sending you over to Dulce to go into a water chamber there.”

“I knew I loved you for a lot of reasons.”

“Good.” Jeff stood up and let the tub drain. “Let’s actually clean off now.” I considered whether or not to point out that we hadn’t had sex while in the tub, but I figured he had his reasons. “I do. We’ve both got Potomac still on us, at least in our hair.”

“That mind reading thing is sometimes freaky.”

“Read your emotions. Lust mixed with disappointment is very strong, especially coming from you.”

“Humph.”

We moved to the shower, and Jeff insisted that we actually cleaned off before we did anything. This was becoming, hands
down, the most disappointing bathroom experience of our entire relationship.

“What was in the Potomac that’s got you acting like a germaphobe?”

“What isn’t in the Potomac’s probably a better question.” He kissed me, and this was a real kiss, strong, deep, sensuous. I was grinding against him in moments. He pulled away slowly. “I was cold, too.”

I thought about it. “You’re from an extremely warm planet.” Jeff grunted. “And when reptiles get too cold they get really sluggish.”

“Thanks for the reptile comparison.”

“I’ll bet it’s apt.” I thought about it some more. “Wow, I hate living here even more now.”

Jeff snorted. “It takes a lot to make me too cold to make you happy, baby. However…”

“Taking a long swim in the freezing cold river did it. Gotcha.” I considered all my options. “You want to dry off and then, ah, take a nap?”

Jeff’s eyelids drooped, and he got the jungle cat look again. “I want to dry off and go to bed.”

W
E DRIED OFF QUICKLY.
Jeff used hyperspeed; I just hurried it up at human regular. No reason to risk hitting myself or something.

The second my hair was combed out, Jeff’s hands were on me, roaming my body, teasing my nipples and squeezing my butt. I was grinding against his leg as his mouth moved to my neck, and I started yowling like a cat in heat.

Jeff lifted me into his arms and wrapped his arms around my back while I wrapped my legs around his waist. “Mmmm, that’s what I like.” We were in our bedroom, up against a wall, grinding together in a nanosecond. Hyperspeed had great advantages.

His mouth went to do wonderful things to my breasts. From the first time we’d slept together, he’d brought me to orgasm at second base, and he continued to never miss a step or an opportunity.

He lifted me, back still against the wall, as his tongue trailed down my stomach. My legs wrapped around his neck as my hands went into his hair, and his tongue went into me.

My hips were bucking as I rubbed against his mouth frantically and he stroked me, inside and out, gently taking me between his teeth, while the fireworks went off behind my eyes and I hit high C.

Jeff kept on until I’d hit all the high notes at least twice, then, with one last nip and lick, trailed his mouth up over my stomach, renewing the relationship with my breasts and neck, as he slid me back down and onto him.

Before we’d become parents, our foreplay could last hours. Now we’d gotten trained to take advantage of available alone time. Not
that I minded. Foreplay was great and I loved it, especially the way Jeff did it, but nothing was better than when he was inside me.

I gasped as he entered me, and his head reared back a bit. He had the jungle cat look on his face again. “This is what I’ve really wanted to do since I picked you up from class.” His voice was a low purr, and it made me moan as much as him being inside me did.

He covered my mouth and ravaged my tongue with his, while he slammed into me. I wrapped my limbs around him while I screamed my orgasm into his mouth.

Jeff was a sexual god, and his opinion always seemed to be that it just wasn’t good enough unless I had a variety of screaming orgasms. Needless to say, I considered this one of his finer traits. He spun us around and deposited me onto our bed, still moving inside me. I’d have marveled at his skills, but I was too busy yowling my head off.

I managed to take a semiactive role by running my hands over his chest. He had just the right amount of hair to be manly without being a rug, and I wanted my mouth on his pecs. Happily, he knew and leaned closer to me. I attacked, the feel of his chest against my mouth drove me wild and my body writhed against his. “Mmmm, you’re such a good bad girl.” He drove into me harder and faster, and another climax hit.

He flipped us over while I was still screaming, so he was lying down and I was riding him. His hands stroked and fondled my breasts while he gave me the best ride on a bucking bronco in the world. My wailing was at an all-time high. Fortunately, the Embassy had amazing soundproofing, a contrast to everywhere else we’d lived, so as long as the com wasn’t on and the baby was in another room, I could do my thing. I’d never been able to be quiet while even making out with Jeff, let alone doing more. Again, he didn’t seem to mind.

He slammed up, and I rocked back, and he exploded inside me at the same time my strongest climax crashed over me. I hit a level where I could shatter crystal, and he roared as our bodies shuddered together. Each throb from him made my orgasm spike, until the room started to spin.

Jeff shifted so I’d fall forward. His hands were still on my breasts, and he moved me gently down until I was lying on top of him, whimpering quietly while the spasms in my body quieted.

He stroked my back and kissed my head. “I love you, baby,” he said softly.

I snuggled my face into his neck. “I love you, too, Jeff. I’m sorry
I didn’t do what you said and ended up putting us both into the river.”

He chuckled as he pulled the covers up and over us. “As long as you’re safe, still mine, and in my arms and my bed, I don’t really care about anything else. Including you being you and ignoring anything anyone tells you, including me.”

“That’s my kind of détente.”

W
E BOTH FELL ASLEEP,
which wasn’t all that surprising. I woke up a few hours later because my breasts were torpedoes. Did a quick search and retrieved Jamie from Doreen and Irving.

I fed the baby, Jeff did the diaper check and change, and we tucked her into her bassinette, which we put by my side of the bed, just because we were both feeling a little jumpy about exploding cars and river swims. Then we all went back to sleep.

Jamie woke us up a few hours later, we did the feeding routine, and then all collapsed back into bed. I marked swimming in the Potomac as being something we wanted never to do again, either individually or as a family.

The sound of Maroon 5’s “Must Get Out” woke us up hours later. One of the nicer things about living in the Embassy was that we continued to avoid the standard A-C Morning Militant Bell Ringing that was so popular with everyone but me. We got to have an actual alarm clock and one of my backup iPods lived there. I had this one continuously tuned to my Hate This Place playlist because, well, why not?

As Maroon 5 shared my sentiments about D.C. and what it was doing to us, we gave Jamie her morning feeding. The music changed to Pink and Steven Tyler singing “Misery.” Yeah, I loved it here, I really did.

Once Jamie was burped and resting in her crib, we showered, quickly. These days, our long showers were for when the baby was with someone else or asleep. Once we were clean again, we stayed in our robes while Jeff prepared and we ate breakfast. It was sort of a decadent thing to do, but it made both of us feel
more like we were on vacation than relegated to an assignment we both hated.

Jeff made some calls, during which he spent a lot of time grunting. When he finished, I made the standard inquiries. “What’s going on?”

He sighed. “The cluster acted just like the one in Paris a few months ago. There were no rage indicators. Based on what happened before, James and Tim knew Reynolds would want to get at least a sample of the superbeings to study.” He didn’t look happy.

“But they all blew up before our teams could either blow them up ourselves or get a superbeing captive, right?”

“I married the smartest girl in the galaxy. Yes. And there were no signs of outside attack. Just like in Paris.”

“So, they were set to self-destruct. We need to find and stop whichever lunatics are behind this supersoldier project.”

“If that’s what it is.”

“I know that’s what it is, Jeff. And so do you, if you’ll be honest with yourself.”

“Maybe. We have something much more pressing to deal with, though, baby. The President’s Ball is tomorrow, and barring Reynolds and your mother having extracted something useful out of the prisoners, we’re still likely flying blind.”

We were interrupted by Walter on the com. “Excuse me, Chiefs, but Mister Katt is here.”

“Please ask him to give us a couple of minutes before he comes up, Walter,” Jeff said, as he stood up.

“Will do, Chief.”

“Why’s my dad visiting without calling first?”

“He did call first. He just talked to me yesterday, not you.” Jeff started getting dressed. Clean clothes, which included everything we’d been wearing the day before, were in the closet, courtesy of the Elves. I really hoped they didn’t hang out and catch our sex life live and in person, but I decided the five-star maid service probably made up for it if they did.

“Oh. What about?” I asked as I rummaged through the closet for an appropriate outfit for today’s festivities. I settled for another pair of jeans, a Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers T-shirt, and my Bon Jovi hoodie. I didn’t want to risk another piece from my Aerosmith collection, but I still felt the need for some rockin’ support.

“Something I think you’ll be happy about.”

“Why all the mystery?”

Jeff grinned. “I like to keep you guessing.” He was, of course, in
the standard black suit, white shirt, and black tie combo. You’d separate an A-C from their formal dress and their beloved Armani only if the entire safety of the world depended on it. The Diplomatic Corps were supposed to wear other, regular-type clothes, in order to blend in, but so far, Jeff had managed to make the suit work for everything.

There was a knock at our door. Jeff went to get it, I got Jamie. “Papa Sol’s here for a visit, Jamie-Kat!” She did the Happy Baby Dance, which consisted of her sort of bouncing in my arms and making little squealy baby sounds.