A Touch of Lilly (8 page)

Through
the fog of agony, Dallas wondered if he’d been set up.

Whatever
had happened, he’d let his guard down and managed to endanger
himself and his partner—again.
A dry run
. What the hell
was that? Dallas had known something wasn’t right when the
human female had come on to him. He’d naively operated on the
misconception that she’d actually been attracted to him and
wasn’t working some hidden agenda. Well, that’s what he
got when he allowed his dick to do his thinking rather than paying
attention to the facts. And it looked like Thaegan may have paid the
ultimate price for his lapse in judgment.

Dallas
had no idea what Lilly had done to his partner, but there was no
doubt in his mind she was responsible for whatever caused the man to
cry out in torment before hitting the ground like a felled sequoia.

Dallas
pushed himself to his hands and knees, fighting the dizziness and the
nausea. He walked his hands up the nearby handrail of the stairs
until he was upright. Neither Thaegan nor Lilly were moving. The
laser shot he’d delivered probably hadn’t killed her, but
at the moment, he didn’t give a shit one way or the other. The
pain in his leg had subsided to a sharp ache. In the yellow wash of
the naked bulb over the doorway, he checked his wound. With rapt
fascination he watched the blood continue to clot and the wound
slowly heal. It was an odd tingling feeling that Dallas hadn’t
quite gotten use to.

Satisfied
that he wasn’t going to bleed to death, Dallas limped over to
the big Ka’al, checked for wounds before rolling him over on
his back. Thaegan appeared to be sleeping, one side of his mouth
curved in a drunken smile. What the hell had the woman done to his
partner that had brought him down without any outward sign of injury?
He slapped Thaegan’s cheeks and his partner’s eyes
fluttered.

“
Thaegan.
Wake up. Looks like you’ve fallen asleep on the job.”

Thaegan’s
eyes opened, the pupils dilated and unfocused. He mumbled something
incoherent about his ex-wife’s oral prowess. Without knowing
what was wrong, Dallas had no idea how to help him. He slapped the
man’s cheeks a couple more times.

Thaegan
swam from the mist of unconsciousness, focused on Dallas, and
immediately jumped to his feet. “Get that woman away from me.”
He turned in a quick circle, confusion furrowing his brow. “Where
the hell’s the little witch?”

“
If
you mean Lilly, she’s—”

“
No,
the Seraphelium. Where. The. Fuck. Is she?” Thaegan asked
through clenched teeth.

“
The
woman you carried from the tavern is down for the count.”
Dallas pointed to Lilly’s still form. “I stunned her with
my laser after you went down.” He wondered if he’d hurt
her but pushed the thought aside. He shouldn’t give a rat’s
ass about the woman who’d tried to kill him.

Thaegan
stormed over to the van and threw open the back doors. It had been
parked there in anticipation of collecting
Hij’Rozhod
tomorrow night. No one expected they’d be taking anyone into
custody this night.

The
big alien leaned in. From the noisy crashes and bangs, it sounded as
if he were emptying some of the supply boxes on the shelves.
Triumphantly, Thaegan came up with a length of rope. “You’re
going to tie her fucking hands.” He stalked to Lilly, his
breath coming hard, sweat glistening on his forehead. “I don’t
want her touching me again.”

Dallas’
leg was down to a throbbing pain, the blood no longer flowing from
the gash laid open by the dagger. Still, he limped as he followed his
partner and worked to assess the situation.

Thaegan
stood a foot from Lilly as if she exuded some malevolent aura. Dallas
reached out to reassure his partner. The Ka’al’s muscles
trembled beneath his palm. He’d never known the big alien to
get rattled over a simple hit and split. He wondered again what
exactly she’d done to the Ka’al.

“
Dude,
I don’t think she’s going anywhere,” said Dallas.
He looked down at the still form of the woman who’d rocked his
world not two hours earlier and guilt sliced his gut. He wasn’t
sure how it had all come to her being unconscious, but here it was.

“
I
don’t really give a shit what you’re thinking right now,
Sawyer.” Thaegan shook the rope in his face. “You
will
take this from me and you
will
tie her hands. Not some sweet
little granny knot she can undo when she wakes up. But some fucking
double bowline square hitch shit you learned in Boy Scouts kinda
knot.” He shoved the rope at Dallas’ chest. “I
don’t want her touching me again. It’s too much. I can’t
handle it.” The words growled low and menacing. Thaegan paced
in a quick circle, his trembling hand running down his long braid.
Dallas had never seen him this hyped on adrenaline before.

Dallas
knelt beside Lilly. The woman’s face was angelic in its
softness. He hadn’t liked what had happened to Thaegan, but
using the laser on her seemed overkill. Worse still as she lay so
motionless on the uneven bricks of the alley. He gently rolled her on
her stomach, bringing her hands behind her back and tied the rope.

“
Don’t
you feel it?” Thaegan stood over him, nervous energy sluicing
off him in waves.

“
Guilty?”
Dallas touched Lilly’s shoulder where the laser beam had singed
her coat. “I sure as hell do.”

“
Guilt?
Are you shitting me? That woman’s as dangerous as any fully
armed fugitive we’ve chased across this galaxy. She’ll
suck the life out of any male and they’ll thank her as she’s
doing it.” With the edgy moves of a boxer getting ready to
enter the ring, Thaegan bounced on the balls of his feet, his hands
shaking at his sides.

Lilly
stirred.

“
Do
it now. Before she gets her hands on either of us,” Thaegan
said. “Put her palms together and wrap the rope so she can’t
lay them on anyone.”

Dallas
did as Thaegan instructed, though it seemed a little obsessive. He
straightened, staring at the crazed look in his partner’s eye.
“What the hell did she do to you?”

“
Let’s
get her in the van. I desperately need to get back to the apartment.
Thanks to her I’m horny as hell, and if I’ve got my facts
straight—and I’m pretty sure I do—nothing but a
good fuck is going to bring me down from this.”

Dallas
rolled Lilly over. Gently, he scooped her up and pushed to his feet.
She snuggled into his neck as if she were sleeping. She felt right in
his arms. Shit, at the moment she seemed about as dangerous as a lost
kitten, and he felt the hard punch of guilt to his gut. He had no
idea how the situation had come to this.

Thaegan
reached into the van and came out holding a hood. All this equipment
was for a criminal who had killed government officials and a
president, not a human female who smelled like a Texas summer rain.
Dallas wanted to wave him off, but if Lilly came to, it wouldn’t
do for her to know where they’d taken her. No doubt Bastower
would want a formal interrogation and QAL protocol said that had to
be done in an undisclosed location. He nodded and Thaegan brought the
dark material down over her head, careful not to touch her.

The
Ka’al stepped away quickly as if her body were toxic sludge
from the crystal mines.

Dallas
laid her carefully on the carpeted floor of the van. Rolling Lilly to
her side so she wasn’t lying on her bound hands, he smoothed
the leather skirt down her thigh, covering the luscious curve of her
ass. He couldn’t keep his hand from traveling the full length
of her silken thigh. Jesus, what was his problem? He was mooning over
Lilly like a lovesick teenager with his first crush.

He
moved back and caught Thaegan eyeing her with unmitigated lust in his
eyes. Stepping around the Ka’al and closing the doors, Dallas
blocked Lilly from his partner’s hungry gaze.

They
settled themselves in the front of the van. Dallas sent a coded
message back to headquarters, informing Bastower they had the woman
who had very likely screwed up their mission beyond repair and were
now taking her in for questioning. He could only imagine how his boss
would react to
that
news. No way was it some karmic blunder
that she’d randomly chosen Grebetz as her client out of a
tavern full of aliens. The lethal way she’d used the dagger
didn’t bode well either. Dallas pondered the connection between
Grebetz and the woman and the strange effect she had on his partner.

When
the coded radio transmission was confirmed, Dallas called up the city
map on the computer, programmed the coordinates of the QAL safe house
and sat back as the van lifted and began to move.

“
The
Seraphelium really doesn’t affect you, does she?” Thaegan
motioned his head to the back of the van where Lilly lay motionless.
“I mean, you just touched her and you feel
nothing
?”

Dallas
shook his head, trying to clear away the confusion. “You’re
losing me on this one, dude. I screwed some whore in the alley who
not only blew our indestructible plans to smithereens, but tried to
gut me with a dagger. And now she’s unconscious in the back of
a van that was supposed to be for a murderer because I had to shoot
her with my laser before she got away. On top of that she’s
hogtied and blindfolded because of some weird sissy-assed fit you had
in the alley. So, the only thing I’m feeling right now is
pissed
. I have no idea what she did to you, but in light of
everything that’s happened, I’m not sure what cerebellums
have to do with
anything
that’s gone down tonight.”
The volume of Dallas’ rant ratcheted higher with every word
until his voice echoed painfully off the walls of the van.

Thaegan
inhaled deeply and closed his eyes as if centering himself. “Not
cerebellums, though I suspect there’s something involved there.
Ser-a-fee-lee-um.” He pronounced the word slowly. “An
ancient race.” He turned and stared out the side window at the
high buildings of the inner city giving way to smaller neighborhoods.
It would be only minutes before they reached the ranch in the desert.
Hopefully enough time for Thaegan to pull himself together.

Thaegan’s
voice was soft as he continued. “It’s a myth. A story
told by horny males in the locker rooms of Beta Mrenn. No one
believes they really exist.” He paused and turned back to
Dallas. “But it has to be.”

Dallas
just stared at him, thinking the mishap in the alley had rocketed his
partner into a black hole of crazy space. “What the hell are
you talking about, Thaegan?”

“
Here’s
the short version.” He turned back to Dallas, the green hue of
the control board accenting the deep ridges along Thaegan’s
forehead and nose. “There’s a story about a race of
women, the Seraphelium who can control a male’s libido with
just a touch.” Thaegan’s hands stirred the air as he
searched for words. “Affect his hormones. Make a guy horny as
hell. Make you want them so badly that you don’t have any
choice but to sleep with them. When buddies would give you a hard
time about sleeping with someone…less than desirable…we’d
say she was a Seraphelium…we had no choice.” He laughed
at the absurdity of how he sounded and shrugged. “No one
believed they existed. Everyone knew it was a flimsy excuse.”
He shot a look over his shoulder at Lilly’s still form. “But
now I’m not so sure.”

“
And
how does this fairy tale involve Lilly exactly?” Dallas asked
evenly.

“
I
felt the surge of sexual energy in the tavern when I first grabbed
her, but I thought it was caused by the fight.” He looked away.
“You know that adrenaline-induced hard-on.”

Dallas
nodded. Yeah, dangerous situations tended to do that. He was never
sure if it was the adrenaline or the close calls on one’s life,
but whichever, a good round of sex with a willing partner usually
stilled the trembling muscles and pounding heart faster than any shot
of gall’s blood ever could.

“
But
this was different,” Thaegan continued. “While I was
holding her down, I could feel it slam into me in waves.”

“
What
the hell are you talking about?”

“
I
know it sounds crazy, but what I really wanted to do right there in
the tavern was rip her clothes off and screw her brains out. Right in
the middle of all that chaos, it’s all I could think about.”

“
Thaegan,
you’re not—”

“
Let
me finish.” He held up a hand. “I was focused on getting
us all out of there and didn’t think much about it
until
I was running through the alley. The feeling was overpowering. I
became acutely aware of her hands, hot on my back, but it felt as if
she had them wrapped around my dick. With each step, the urge to
throw her on the ground and fuck her was overwhelming. And it kept
growing until every cell in my body burned with the need. Then…I
don’t know…it just sort of swamped me. Everything washed
over and completely inundated me. I must have blacked out.” He
looked over at Dallas. “My cock feels as if it’s going to
explode if I don’t get some relief soon.”

“
So,
you’re saying when I did the vertical mamba in the alley with
Miss Serph-a-whatever back there, she
made
me do it?”

“
Actually,
I’m not saying that at all.”