Amorous Overnight (10 page)

But what in the name of all the Powers had happened to the provocative young male he’d seen in the probe demonstration? If all he required were mechanical fucking, the probe would have sufficed. He required more, and after four months of being denied it, he was once again nearing the point of having to vent his spleen in the sparring arena.

Cecine very nearly thumped himself on the forehead in a distinctly Terran gesture. Peserin’s hell, of course—the sparring arena. It was the one place he could put his hands all over the ensign with impunity. Why hadn’t he thought of it earlier? He couldn’t humiliate his own second in a public challenge, and didn’t care to, but there was nothing forbidding a bout of friendly sparring between bondmates.

Knowing he’d be unable to return to the ship until late in the evening, he asked, “When is your rotation tomorrow?”

The ensign’s expression didn’t change. “I have first shift at the Command Core.”

“Good. Meet me in the sparring center directly afterward.”

That did it—Hastion went wide-eyed. “The sparring center, sir?”

“The sparring center, Ensign,” he replied with the faintest of smiles. “I believe it’s time we tested our skills.”

Composure slid over the ensign’s features. “Yes, sir.”

Grimly satisfied with whatever havoc he might have wreaked on his second’s concentration, Cecine returned to the table to enjoy his luncheon. With anticipation now humming pleasantly under his skin, he had more than enough patience for the afternoon’s negotiations.

“There’s got to be something wrong with me,” Shelley said, staring in worried fascination at the sterilizing block Monica was preparing to plunge her hands into. It would be a long time before she stopped dreaming about the horror of Dr. Ketrok’s shredded hands when Monica and Tiber managed to yank them free. It would be even longer before she could forget it was her own husband who’d infected the block with a biologically engineered flesh-eating virus.

She noticed Monica hesitated for just a second, too, before shoving her hands into the spongy aqua block. The infirmaries were still stocked to the gills with hand sanitizer and all the human nurses still used it, but, as always, Monica the Intrepid refused to be ruled by fear.

“You’ve got to cut yourself some slack,” Monica said. “It’s only four months since you gave birth to twins via C-section.”

“Monica, I exercise ’til I drop and I’ve cut my calorie intake to the point where I’m starving all the time, and yet look at me.” Shelley gestured down her body. “I’m the Michelin Man in drag.”

Monica snorted with laughter. “You are not. Although that’s funny as hell.”

“Try looking at all these rolls of fat in the mirror every day.”

“Oh stop.”

“It’s true. And sometimes I get so pissed off—I mean, just out of the blue, I want to go total Bitchzilla on the nearest innocent bystander.”

“What’s new about that?”

“Ha-ha,” Shelley said sourly. “And I’m getting zits! My God, do you know how many years it’s been since I had a zit?”

Monica tipped Shelley’s face up to the light and had a look. “I see worse in my own mirror every morning. And you know your hormones won’t start getting back to normal until you stop breast-feeding.”

“Oh, I forgot—you’ve been so busy lately I never got a chance to tell you that the twin-powers united to boycott the boob last week.” Shelley grimaced. “For the record, I don’t recommend the insta-wean method.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” Monica told her with a grin. “Still, it’ll take time for your hormone levels to return to normal.”

“I know.” Shelley sighed. “I just don’t understand why this is happening. I didn’t get this psycho or gain this much weight while I was pregnant.”

“You’re under a lot of stress, Shel, but otherwise you’re incredibly healthy. In fact, Tysan says you’re more physically fit than ninety-five percent of the recruits.”

“And how would he know that?”

Rolling her eyes, Monica said, “Quit being so damn paranoid. He was your surgeon. Of course he’s going to monitor your fitness level. He’s probably watching to make sure you don’t kill yourself on one of those cardio platforms from hell.”

“Hey, those things are great. I wish I could take one home with me.” The platforms generated exercise flare fields that made it look, and to a certain extent feel, like she was running along whatever scenic route she programmed in. Usually she used the beach and high-altitude programs that really worked her legs and lungs, but once in a while she liked to do something totally off the wall, like bounce across the surface of the moon or water-walk through some cartoon location like Bikini Bottom and wave at SpongeBob and Patrick. Once she’d even trekked across the surface of a Milky Way bar magnified thousands of times, wishing every step of the way that she could throw herself down face-first and eat the whole damn thing. Talk about death by chocolate…

Monica gave her another eye-roll. “Of course you do. What you really need to do is relax. Why don’t you go beat the stuffing out of one of the sparring dummies in the training center then have a glass of wine and get a massage from one of the trainers?”

Shelley gave her the stink eye in return. “I’d rather beat the stuffing out of one of the trainers and get a massage from the sparring dummy.”

“Whatever turns you on,” Monica said with a shrug. “You realize the Garathani aren’t the bad guys here, though, right? That they’re—that we’re doing everything we can to help you and everyone else the Narthani fucked over.”

“I know. Sorry,” Shelley added. “Slamming the Garathani is a hard habit to break, but I know I need to. They’ve been nothing but kind, especially your father and Hastion.”

In point of fact, they’d treated her like one of the family. Right after the twins were born, the minister had moved her to a three-bedroom suite on the Command Deck, converted the dining room to a nursery and given her two nannies so she could get some sleep on a regular basis. Then he’d insisted she and the nannies take meals in his dining room with Monica and Jasmine and their mates, as well as him and Hastion.

Shelley was a little uncomfortable with it at first, but he’d programmed the door between the corridor and the dining room to open upon their approach, so really it was almost like going to a cafeteria. Certainly it was a lot less lonely and depressing than eating in her room all the time, as she had with Mark.

“So why not come to Garathan with us?” Monica asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Come on, Shelley. Just think, you’d get to experience a whole new world—a blue sun, two moons in the same night sky…”

“Forget it. I’m happy with the old world.”

“It’s always warm on Garathan. Like Hawaii,” she added, “only planet-sized, and without all the lava and tidal waves.”

“I’d rather be in Hawaii.”

“There are lots of single men there,” Monica said with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows. When Shelley scowled, she immediately looked contrite. “Sorry, that was insensitive, wasn’t it?”

“Slightly.” Shelley sniffed. “And even if I were in the market for another man, Garathan’s the last place I’d shop. I’ve already got chronic neck pain from looking up at everyone, and unlike you and Jasmine, I don’t have dormant genes waiting to turn me into a seven-foot alien overnight.”

“I’m only six-three,” Monica grumbled. “It’s no fun being the shortest.”

“Welcome to my world. You’re still more than a foot taller than me.”

“Come on, you know you’ll miss me if you go back to Earth.”

“Well I’m going to miss you sooner or later because I’m definitely going back to Earth.” She sighed. “Although a tour of duty on Garathan would give the media frenzy more time to die down.”

“See? After two years, you’d be such old news that you wouldn’t even have to go into a relocation program.”

“That would be great.” She really wasn’t looking forward to being totally alone and unable to contact her family for years. And God knew the money was amazing—she could pay off her debt to the Alliance and still have enough left to live on for a few years, if she had to. By that time the twins would be almost school-aged.

“Then again, maybe you’d decide you love Garathan so much you’d want to stay forever.”

“Yeah, right. And maybe it’d be like the Hotel California and I could check out anytime I liked but I could never leave.” She’d thought more than a few times about applying for one of the nurse openings, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she did, she’d never see Earth again.

Monica cocked her head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Shelley gasped. “You’ve never heard ‘Hotel California’?”

“Of course I’ve heard ‘Hotel California.’”

“Then why did you ask what the hell I was talking about?”

“I was talking to…” Monica shook her head impatiently. “Never mind. Empran’s just being a smart-ass again.”

She reached for one of the Garathani syringes that collected blood through the skin without piercing it. “Let me get some blood and we’ll do a workup just to make sure nothing’s out of whack.”

Shelley rolled up her sleeve.

“As far as the Hotel California thing, that would be counterproductive, wouldn’t it?” Monica held the syringe against her plump inner arm and pressed. “The Garathani want to attract more females, not scare them off by holding them captive. They need women to want to go there.”

Shelley didn’t reply as she watched the syringe fill with her blood as if by magic. Dammit, she didn’t want to go to an unknown planet in a distant star system. She wanted to go home, where everything was familiar, if no longer as safe as it used to be. Her yearning to be off this ship was so acute it sometimes left her breathless and frantic. She felt like a secondary character in a disaster movie—the one who can’t take the pressure and somehow manages to kill herself right before help arrives. It was a good thing she had no idea how to operate the air locks.

Monica pulled away and plugged the syringe into a panel. Seconds later, a holographic readout popped up in front of her face. “Empran, are you brain-dead? How many times have I told you I need my readouts in English?”

“I can read English and Garathani, Monica, which I believe makes your brain more dead than mine,” Empran returned sweetly.

“Bite me, you infantile pile of scabby circuitry,” Monica told her, clearly fighting back a smile, “and put it up in English.”

“As you wish.”

The readout scrambled and reappeared. “Well, you’re slightly anemic,” Monica pronounced, “and your electrolyte levels are a little low. Do you drink the hydration fluid when you work out?”

“Hell no,” she said with a shudder. “It tastes like semen.”

Monica snickered. “That’s what Jasmine said.”

“You haven’t tried it?”

“Hell no—you know exercise and I parted ways when PE became an elective. But you need to drink it, no matter how nasty it is. Are you still taking your prenatal vitamins?”

“I ran out.”

“We’ll fix that.”

“Shelley,” Empran said, “Director Thorpe is preparing to flare aboard the ship. Please proceed to Tactical One to meet with him.”

Shelley started. “Alien Affairs Director Thorpe?”

“Yes, he’s director of the Alien Affairs Department.”

“Well shit,” Monica said with a scowl. “That means you’re going home, doesn’t it?”

“God, I hope so. Are we done?”

“For now. But seriously, I want you to relax and get plenty of rest, whether you’re here or on Earth, okay? Once your hormones level out, you’ll feel a lot better.”

“Got it.” Taking a deep breath, she slid off the table. “Okay, I’m off. Wish me luck.”

Chapter Five

“I can’t believe they’re putting you in freaking Asscrack, Alaska,” Monica groused at breakfast the next morning. Both her mates had already eaten and gone—so had Shauss, thank God. He still unnerved the hell out of Shelley—but Hastion, Tiber and Jasmine were still at the table.

“Mooseback,” Shelley corrected automatically as she tried to spoon rice cereal and pureed peaches into her son. It was a thankless task this morning. Wyatt and Kallie were both wound up—picking up on her turbulent mood, no doubt. Hastion seemed a little edgy and distracted too, which didn’t help.

Monica snorted. “Whatever. You’ll still be living in a freaking icebox, where the sun never shines in the winter and it never gets dark in the summer. And you know what they say about the men there.” When Shelley gave her a blank look, she grinned. “The odds are good but the goods are odd.”

“Well I couldn’t care less about the goods or the odds,” Shelley said with a grimace. “You know I’m not in the market for a man yet.” Especially one who would trap her forever in the wilds of Alaska.

Jesus. She’d told the Alien Affairs agents that she preferred cold weather, but Alaska? Where would they have put her if she’d said she preferred it hot—hell?

She’d been so upset after her meeting with Director Thorpe yesterday she couldn’t even bring herself to talk about it at first. Pleading a headache, she’d skipped lunch and stayed in her room, hiding her head under her pillow. When Monica stopped by in the afternoon to check on her, Shelley told Empran to say she was sleeping and had asked not to be disturbed.