Parallel Desire (6 page)

J
ake stood back from the desk
, gauging Shelby's reaction. He'd pried open the surface microchip from the wallet that had belonged to Jake Tierny—the original Jake Tierny—to reveal the much tinier quantum chip hidden within. She stared down at it, the look of horror he'd anticipated sweeping across her features. "That's Antousian."

He kept his gaze on her. "You've seen one of these before?"

Shelby bent low over the desk, narrowing her pale blue eyes as she examined the chip; he swore that she blanched. "Of course." She didn't elaborate, but he heard the revulsion in her voice. "I'm a medic—I've had my share of encounters with these processors in the past."

Now it was Jake's turn to be surprised. "You've tended to Antousians before?"

She rubbed at her eyes, frowning. "There have been times back home. I did some viral work at one of the rebel outposts. It wasn't like I would turn someone away just because they were my enemy, not when they were that sick."

"Some people would."

Shelby shook her head vehemently. "Being a nurse is my calling. I'll always answer to that, no matter who the patient might be."

They exchanged a look of understanding. Even though Jake had never identified with his native species, or even called himself Antousian, the devastation of the virus had been a horror beyond description. He would always be Refarian in his heart, even if he technically was a human-Antousian hybrid; still, he wouldn't have wished the virus on anyone. Not even a bloodthirsty race like the Antousians. "My parents were scientists, working on a cure," he explained quietly.

"I never knew that. How old were you? You must have been just a boy."

"They were killed by their own people when I was barely more than ten. The same people they'd given everything for in an effort to find a cure for this"—he jabbed his index finger at the quantum chip—"madness."

The greatest battle back on Refaria had been waged long before Shelby—or even Jake—had been born: a philosophical debate over the choice to become "enhanced," adding a microprocessor to the brain to become cybernetic. With an ever-developing landscape of intelligent machines, they'd believed it the only way to keep pace with their own creations.

And so many had become implanted. Millions and millions of Antousians had allowed themselves to become cyborgs—part living being, part-computer. It had worked for a while, too—until a lethal disease had spread among them, a computer virus that killed off most of their population. Without any other recourse for survival, the Antousians had resorted to their
other
state, a formless, ghostlike existence. It had been a terrible, demonic exodus.

Until one Antousian leader had offered a way for survival: Raedus had introduced a new brand of enhancement—the possibility of assuming a host body.
Human
hosts, to be exact. How Raedus had identified the perfect genetic match, well, nobody ever disclosed that fact. But growing up, Jake had always considered his own "people" murderers. Thieves … body snatchers. And he'd refused to consider himself Antousian ever since.

This was ultimately what had led the Refarians to Earth: the need to protect the planet from the scourge of death and devastation that the Antousians had wrought like locusts back home.

Jake suddenly found Shelby peering up into his face, her eyes wide. "You zoning on me, Tierny?"

He gave his head a slight shake. "Talking about home never does me a lot of good."

"You miss your folks?"

He gave a mirthless laugh. "Hardly."

"But they were your parents—I don't understand." She chewed on her lip, studying him as if he were an Antousian
gorabung
.

Jake slid the quantum chip back into its protective casing. "They were killers. They assumed human hosts in order to keep battling the virus."

"That was a noble reason."

"There's never a good reason for killing—or taking a body that doesn't belong to you. Trust me"—he eyed her fiercely—"I know firsthand."

"You took Jake's body when he killed Hope, right?" Her voice was soft, sympathetic, but he sure as hell didn't want any sympathy.

"I don't talk about that," was all he said, sliding the chip back into the wallet. "In fact, the only question I'm willing to entertain right now is this: Why did Jake have this chip hidden in his wallet? He was human, totally human. How did he know about this aspect of the war? What was his part in it?"

"What do you think the answers are?"

"Hell if I know, Shelby," he snapped bitterly. "It's why I'm here, in this godsforsaken state, chasing nothing but dead ends."

"Good thing I've come, then," she said, just as she had earlier. "Cause you need someone who can help you see things straight."

"Oh, so you've got this all figured out? Already"—he snapped his fingers—"just like that?"

"You've shown me yours, now it's time I showed you mine."

He swore her blue eyes sparkled with sexual innuendo, and there was an immediate tightening in reaction all through his body. "Show me what, Shelby?" His voice sounded husky, wolfish, and he felt his cock stiffen.

She ignored his come-on, instead digging through a canvas satchel that she had slung over one arm. She produced a slim-line cell phone, declaring it "dead as a doornail" as she tossed it aside, then, after quite a while—and after plunking a variety of bizarre items (including a silver dinner fork) down on the desk—she finally retrieved a file folder. "Aha! Here we go, sir."

He took what looked to be a pretty thick dossier from her hands and flipped it open. Much to his surprise, a younger version of the human Jake Tierny stared back at him from several photographs within.

"How did you find this?" He thumbed through more pages, and yet more, seeing Tierny's name appear repeatedly. She had just given him a gold mine—leads and detailed information about his enemy.

Shelby looked pleased with herself, her eyes sparkling. "A girl has her methods."

Jake clutched her by both shoulders and, without thinking, gave her a playful kiss on the forehead. "Whatever you did"—he kissed her a second time, lingering a bit longer against her smooth skin—"thank you."

She placed a warm palm against his chest. "No, no. Thank you," she half purred, her eyes sliding shut.

Jake froze; he had Shelby practically swooning within his grasp, his lips against her face, their bodies pressed together. Damn it all, he was only a click away from tilting her head back and kissing her hard—and then doing a hell of a lot more than that with her supple little body.

Her lips parted slightly, and she kept her eyes closed, leaning into his body. The woman might as well have moaned,
oh, yes, yes, yes,
into his ear, from the look of pure ecstasy on her face. It was tempting, gods, so totally tempting to hike that little miniskirt of hers up her thighs and take her right atop the desk.

But it had been years since he'd touched a woman other than Hope. He'd promised her that much the night of her murder, as he'd rocked and rocked her, and a part of him had been closed off ever since. It had been a pretty big vow for a guy who'd once craved and needed sex almost insatiably. Now he was pushing forty even if the body he inhabited, Jake Tierny's body, was only thirty-three, and after so many battles and so much loss, it was hard to remember the dreams and desires of his younger days.

He made a great show of releasing Shelby, holding both hands up. Slowly, her eyes opened again, and the quirky smile on her face slipped. "Good job on this information," he told her, walking with it toward the other side of the room.

"You can thank Hope for that."

He glanced up and caught her tugging at her skirt; it had hiked up a little during their almost embrace.

"Hope?" He couldn't contain the thrill that shot through him at just the mention of her name.

Shelby gestured toward the folder. "Yeah, she pulled some major strings to get that for you." Her normally bright eyes looked a little dull, but only for a beat.

"She called her brother?" Hope's twin, Chris Harper, was a special agent with the FBI.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you, but"—she gave a little shrug—"well, she had to know that I would. Wasn't that big a deal; Chris has been in and out of camp ever since you've been gone. He's working directly with Commander and Hope and …"

"And Scott," he finished for her, sensing her awkwardness. But he didn't volunteer exactly how much of these details he already knew, thanks to his incessant phone calls to Hope.

"They're working together on a Joint Alien Task Force, between the FBI and our people, sir," she explained, telling him what he already knew. "FBI is employing her as a special consultant because of her … special knowledge. That's how it's going down, sir."

Maybe Shelby would tell him more about Hope's new life; she had hardly been forthcoming during their repeated phone calls. Of course it was to protect his feelings, he knew that, but it killed him to know so little about her. "How is she?" His throat went dry with the very question.
And how is he, my younger self?
He didn't dare ask.

Him
. Always him, the lucky, happy bastard. It was damned unfair that his younger self had won the draw in this cosmic lottery.

It was as if Shelby had heard his thoughts, his deepest fears, when she answered quietly, "They got married. A few months back."

"I'd heard that." He made a great show of studying the file as he sat down on the bed, hating himself for the bitterness that raged in his heart. Hating himself for still loving Hope, in any version he found her, when that love would bring him only more heartbreak.

"Look, you." Shelby flew across the room and planted herself right in front of him. He kept his gaze lowered but couldn't ignore the creamy pair of legs and the curvy little hips that were only a few inches in front of him. "Look up. At me, right now, soldier."

Shelby would be damned if the sad-eyed giant of a man was going to mope another moment.

With a sigh, he obeyed, lifting his gaze upward. "Yes,
Commander
?"

"You should be whooping and hollering. You just got what you've wanted for a long time now, right?" She pointed at the folder spread open across his lap. "And you've got help in your search—good help. In other words"—she curtsied significantly—"me."

"Modest help, too." His full lips quirked upward at the edges, a sure sign of life in the poor guy, and that made her smile, too.

"I'll stick with you in this fight, Tierny, but only on one condition."

His mouth settled into a frown again. "What would that be?"

"You're in a hell of a mess, son, in case you hadn't noticed. And all this pain you're in ain't getting you nowhere."

"What condition?" His voice rose, and his green eyes assumed a ferocious look that caught her off guard.

"That mean you want me to stay?"

He threw his hands in the air. "Gods, woman, no way in hell at this rate."

Meeting his stare, she bobbed her head. "All righty, then. I see how it is. I'll just be hitting the road here in a minute or two—"

One bearlike hand shot out, long fingers encircling her wrist. "You aren't going anywhere. Tell me that condition."

"The truth is," she said, plopping down beside him on the bed, "it's more like two or three conditions." Jake growled but said nothing more, waiting for her to elaborate. She sucked in a breath, raising a finger. "You have to accept that Hope's life here—in this time—is with Scott."

He gaped at her, his mouth falling slack. She lifted a second finger. "And you have to stop mourning a wife who died a long time ago."

Jake slammed the folder shut. "Just get out. Go back to Wyoming."

She ignored him, raising a third finger. "And you have to realize you need help. Seriously need it, if you're going to have any chance of finding this guy."

Jake's bright green eyes drifted shut. "And if I don't obey all these simple directives?"

Shelby planted a hand on his shoulder, leaning in much closer. "Then I'm leaving and taking that folder with me."

"Like hell you are." He snarled up at her, his blazing eyes assuming a severe, almost predatory gleam.

"Is it the thought of losing that folder or the idea of me leaving that's got you so worked up?"

For a long moment, he kept his forceful gaze on her, never letting it waver. There was only the sound of his heavy breathing, the image of his powerful chest rising and falling as he sucked at the air between them. He reminded her of a bear that she'd surprised once in the woods, frozen in its tracks, frightened and threatening all at once.

"Jake," she whispered softly, "just admit that you need me. And the folder."

He blinked, slowly training his gaze across the room. "I'll have the folder and send you back to Wyoming. I can't have a crazy chick like you slowing me down."

"Then I'm not leaving the folder with you." She reached for it, but Jake jerked it out of her grasp.

"No way in hell, Medic Tyler. This is mine." He waved it overhead. "I thank you for it, and now I'll thank you to leave."