Angeli (10 page)

“Meanwhile, there aren’t enough women?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Define enough.”

“Enough for…you know.” She figured he knew, too, and didn’t want to answer. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Do your people pair up? Group up? Whatever your people do when a man and a…when people,” she said, stumbling over her words, “want to be together. That kind of thing.” Her face heated like Arizona in July.

“We aren’t that different from you.” He inspected his nails before he answered. “I don’t have someone because there aren’t many females on my Ship, and I’m not attracted to men.”

She put down her pen. She didn’t like where this was going, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going there. “Your fake rapture is kidnapping women and children.”

When he sighed, it was a long, weary acquiescence that she was on the right track, even though he was going to keep arguing. Adelita had won enough debates to recognize the signs. “It’s not kidnapping.”

“Says who?” Never once in the past three weeks had she been more happy she hadn’t been taken by the light. “Ship?”

“It’s standard procedure to preserve the genome.”

“It’s standard to let Ship call the shots for you, you mean. And for people on Earth, too, though you don’t know what we want or how we’d feel about it, since you didn’t ask. You just lied to us and expected us to kiss your pearly butts. Why are you all white anyway?”

“We’re not.” His fingernails must be fascinating, as much as he was staring at them. “Ship selected pale-skinned handlers for your planet as most likely to have a favorable impact.”

“Lovely. Ship’s bigoted.” And a scavenger. She was right. She knew she was right. Her stomach rolled over like a frightened dog. “Do you know what I think?”

“As you so eloquently informed me, I can’t possibly know, since I haven’t asked.” He tore his gaze from his nails. “This is me asking.”

“Don’t get smart with me.” Adelita closed her notebook and slid it into the knapsack. Writing clarified her thoughts, in life and in law. “It sounds like Ship screwed up here, not by accident. If there’s one thing we know on Earth, it’s never trust a sentient computer.”

Chapter Eight

As Adelita ransacked the restaurant and gift shop for supplies, Gregori cleaned the endo-organic connections on his wing pack and fumed. Her ideas were ludicrous. Incomprehensible. Ship was more than a sentient computer. Ship was Ship.

Ship had also made choices on Terra that, to him, were clearly wrong. Ship had its own goals and motivations, like any sentient.

Adelita certainly had her own goals and motivations. Now she seemed to think she was in charge of Operation Rescue Terra, which she informed him they’d discuss after they had a good meal…if he ate food.

Yes, he told her, he ate food. Yes, meat. No—again—not people.

Several lanterns lit the silver counter, enough for him to see the tiny parts he was cleaning. The commercial kitchen hadn’t been too hard to sterilize, and the Terrans hadn’t taken all the supplies. He hoped Adelita could find rations and save him that task. He was tired enough to sleep four hours straight.

He heard her before he felt her. Soft footsteps, the rustle of plastic, scuffed the tile behind him. Then her hand touched his naked back where his wings had been. He’d had to remove his armor and peel down his tunic to get out of the wing pack.

“It’s odd to see you like a man.”

Her words seemed more loaded than a comment about his missing wings. Gregori shrugged, not turning to her. “I am a man.”

“Does it hurt where those wires were inside your body?” She’d helped him remove the pack and had turned green when she’d seen the blood. When he’d tried to explain it would heal, she’d waved him off and walked quickly away, shining her flashlight around the kitchen.

“It itches.” He’d worn the wings too long. He wanted to roll on his back like a Terran canine. The punctures had sealed and the ichor blisters had disappeared, but his speed-healing didn’t erase annoyances.

Her fingers raked between his shoulder blades, back and forth. “Here?”

“Up and down. Up farther. Yeah.” He set down his multipurp tool as her fingers hit all the right spots. How long had it been since someone had touched him for pleasure?

“Is that good?”

Gregori closed his eyes. Too good. “You don’t have to—”

“I know.” She continued to scratch, adding her other hand. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”

“You didn’t.” He daubed solvent on the gauze pads and tried to think of something to say. If he told her he didn’t itch anymore, she’d quit touching him. “Did you find food?”

“I found something edible.” Her touch softened. “Can you fix the wings?”

“Don’t know yet.” The wingspan leaned against the counter. He’d removed the insert to clean the connections. The force field generator was charred, as he’d feared. He could scrape corrosion and reassemble pieces, but it might not be enough. Niko had been their field mechanic, while Gregori was a strategist and combat trainer. It was his job, when not on a mission, to teach others various combat techniques handlers might need.

She flattened her palms against him as her thumbs traced his spine. “There’s not a single scar.”

“Told you,” he said, conscious of her heat. “I heal fast.”

“Hmm.” She smoothed up his shoulders on either side of his braided queue. If she intended to calm him, as he’d tried to do with her earlier, she was going about it the wrong way. “What about the halo?”

“Stem’s broken. It was already weak.” His equipment hadn’t been stellar to begin with, and three weeks without the benefit of a mechanic had pummeled it to pieces. “If I can fix it, the fusion cell’s live. The battery, I mean.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Doubtful.” He couldn’t cobble together a tactanium welder out of pots, pans, and primitive electronics. Without the implants that connected to his neural synapses, any information from the array was as good as nonexistent. There was no way to read it if there was no way to connect it.

“How about your gun?”

He glanced at the unit on his wrist, indistinguishable from his other multipurp bracelets. “Dead, but I could switch the fusion cell to the blaster. I saw our tech guy do that once.” The trick would be figuring out the settings Niko had used to account for the altered power wavelength.

“So right now, everything’s ruined?”

“Not everything. I still function, and I can put the wings back on. I just can’t fly you at high speed.” His body was weapon enough for most purposes, but he wasn’t sure what he’d do if Niko and the trackers located them. Normally he’d escape rather than battle his former comrades, whose ineffectiveness spoke volumes about how much of a threat they considered him.

Well, he couldn’t predict the Ship-lickers. And it would be a day or more before the blotch of horde near the north rim became a threat. He could stay here long enough to sleep and plan—including a plan for Adelita, since he couldn’t see how she’d be of assistance in the days ahead.

She was Terran. Weak. Untrained. Vulnerable. Distracting. Sexy. Delicious.

Her breasts nudged his back as she stroked his neck. She didn’t have to be standing so close to scratch between his shoulder blades, which she wasn’t doing anymore.

What
was
she doing?

His hair fell free of the queue, and Adelita made a satisfied noise. “Is this a wig? Part of your disguise?”

“No.” It was part of the disguise, but a medtech on Ship had stimulated his hormones to grow it.

She leaned against him, almost in a hug, and smoothed his hair from his temples to his shoulders. “I’ve never seen it loose. You must get headaches.”

“I don’t have a headache.”

“Do you ever want to cut it off?”

“I don’t really care about my hair, Adelita.” Her soft touches were making him lose track of his thoughts. With so much of his skin bare and so much of her body in contact with him, he was getting an erection. On Ship, pressing yourself against a possible partner, invading his space, was considered a sign of interest.

They weren’t on Ship. He had no idea what she intended.

“Adelita.” He set down the gauze before he ripped an endo-organic connector out of its socket. “What are you doing?”

“Checking if your hair is a wig.” She caught the bulk of it against his nape, running her fingers through it.

“I told you it wasn’t.”

“Yeah, but you’re a liar.” She stroked his neck and skin, not his hair.

Her mouth said one thing, her body another. Her belly brushed his ass. If he turned around…

He gripped the cool, silver counter and willed his lust away. She hadn’t welcomed his desire when they’d met, and Terrans touched more than the Shipborn did. Her actions meant nothing. “What difference does it make if my hair is real?”

“None, I suppose.” Her breath puffed across his skin, and she plucked at the tunic folded down to his waist. “I found clean clothes in the gift shop and a couple hats. What would you like? You’re going to need a better shirt than this thing. Something with sleeves.”

“Is my skin offensive to you?”

She laughed. “Hardly. But you’ll get cold.”

With her around? “I doubt that.”

“You might.” She touched his upper arms, which felt oddly sensitive. “You’re sunburned.”

“What?”

“As pale as you are, it’s a wonder you haven’t been sunburned before.”

He glanced at his arm, twisting to see the skin. Pink as a tongue everywhere he was exposed, instead of in spots caused by the daemon’s ichor. “Fraggit. I need that force field back.”

“I guess your superpowers don’t heal everything.”

“Enhancements aren’t designed to waste energy on minor inconveniences.”

“Turn around. Let’s see your face.”

“I don’t think so.” The tunic wouldn’t hide his desire. Much of his team had switched to longer armor for this very reason, their lusts enflamed by Terrans and their touchy ways. They’d tried to keep their code-breaking circumspect. To his relief, unlike the others, he hadn’t often gotten erections when Terrans might notice.

He seemed to be making up for his discretion now.

She pulled his shoulder. “Big baby. Turn around. I found aloe lotion in the gift shop I can put on the burn.”

This woman did not take no for an answer. “I’ll be fine.”

“Earth medicines too primitive for you?” She cuddled against his back like a curvy furnace, stuck her chin on his shoulder, and spoke into his ear. “Here’s a secret. You don’t have to be the macho man for me, Gregori.”

“I’m not macho.” His arousal cranked higher. Her body was squishy and wonderful and he wanted to get his hands all over it. Bury his face between those magnificent breasts. Sink into her like bathwater.

She wiggled, bumping his ass. “You don’t even know what macho means.”

“I can guess.” If she didn’t want him to be this macho thing, what did she want? Was this her way of inviting him to…comfort her?

“You’re too uptight.” She laid her cheek against his back. Her hair tickled his skin. She could hardly be any closer to him. “You saved me from certain death. Twice. I just want to help you.”

“You helped remove my wings.”

“Don’t remind me. That was disgusting.” She shuddered. He felt every quiver. He wanted to feel more.

“You’re killing me here, woman.”

“Killing you? Why?” She finally, sadly, moved away. “I was worried you might be in pain. Sunburns can be miserable.” Unexpectedly, she smacked his sunburned arm. It stung.

“Shit, what was that for?”

“I know why you’re acting like this. Women on your Ship, are they not good for anything except having all those boy babies? You think women are dumb and useless? Well, let me tell you something about my people, Gregori, we—”

To hell with being discreet. Gregori turned around. “That’s not what I think.”

She punched him again, not hard. It didn’t sting. “Physical contact calms humans, right? You said it first. Why won’t you let me help you?”

He spread his arms. “Help me.”

She froze with one hand at her chest. Her gaze dropped to his torso. “Um. What?”

She was the one telling him about sunburns. “Put lotion all over me if it would make you feel better. But really, I’m not in pain.”

His skin wasn’t in pain. The expression on her face, her soft, open mouth, the vee of her new shirt, her fingers hovering over her breasts, were driving him into a state of painful lust.

“You want me to put lotion all over you?”

“For the burn.” Like his arms and shoulders, the backs of his calves felt hot and tight where the sun had touched them.

She licked her lips. “Dios. You’re…” She let out a breath. “Okay. Okay. I can do this. Let me see this face.”

She stepped close and put a hand on his cheek. “Does this hurt?”

“Not exactly.”

She pressed her fingertip against his forehead, then his cheekbone. Last, the bridge of his nose. She smelled like a flower; she must have found perfume in the gift shop. “No blisters at least.”

“At least.” She hadn’t noticed his hard-on yet. She had time. It wasn’t going anywhere.

She leaned forward, her breasts bumping him, and lifted his hair away from his ears.

“They’re red, too.” She traced the shell carefully. “Does this hurt?”

No, but his cock ached. Instead of telling her that, he shook his head. If she didn’t step away from him in about two seconds, he was going to demonstrate how he treated women.

Her lashes lowered, and she curved her hands over his shoulders in the area where his skin wasn’t sunburned. “Gregori, I have to tell you something.”

“You’re not angeli?”

“I am definitely no angel. But that’s not news.” She cleared her throat. “What I want to tell you is you need to put on some clothes.” Her voice broke when she said it.

“How will that help? I’m already sunburned.”

She raised her dark eyes to his, the pupils dilated. “It’s not for you. It’s for my sanity. I can’t look at you half-naked.”

People on Terra walked around half-naked all the time. He took her wrists, pushed her hands away from his skin. “What’s your problem?”

She shrugged.

This was a foolish time-suck. “Fine. Give me some new clothes, but now I get to tell you something. Stop touching me.”