Read The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense) Online

Authors: Aphrodite Hunt

Tags: #romance, #romantic suspense, #erotica, #scifi, #suspense, #mystery, #paranormal, #amnesia, #erotic suspense, #tornado, #hardcore

The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense) (10 page)

BOOK: The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense)
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Several men
and
one
woman.

Agent Sansky
strides to the front door and pushes it open. She casts a gimlet
stare at Don and me.

“The two of you are
under arrest,” she says.

10

 

It’s no use
resisting.
There are ten of
them and two of us. I sense that Don doesn’t even try putting up a
fight because he’s frightened and confused. Like me, he wants and
needs answers. And maybe the NPB will be the ones to give them to
him.

W
e are put in the back of
the black van. Our wrists are cuffed before us and a stone-faced
agent sits with us with a gun, trained specifically at Don. There
are no windows in the back of the van for us to peer out from, and
a lone light on the ceiling is our only comfort.

“I’m sorry I got you
into this,” Don says in a low voice.

“You didn’t coerce
me into doing anything I didn’t want to do.”

The agent merely
stares at us in silence.

I clear my throat
and raise my voice. “Where are we going?”

More stony
silence.


Are you
taking us to the NPB headquarters or whatever you call
it?”

Zilch.

“How’s that for
manners?” I grumble to Don.

He murmurs,
“If I look like John Simmons and if I have the same handwriting as
John Simmons, does that make me John Simmons?”

“Maybe we’re about
to find out.”

“If I’m not a ghost
– ”


You’re not a
ghost.”

“ –
perhaps
John Simmons wasn’t killed in Iraq as presumed. He became part of a
NPB experiment.”

I frown. “That
allows you not to age? Because John Simmons died twenty years
ago.”

Don’s
features are troubled. “I don’t even
remember a place called Iraq. Is it near Kansas?”

Okayyyy.
If my hands
weren’t cuffed together, I would have reached for his arm. “I
believe we’ll find out about John Simmons soon enough.”


I only wish
you weren’t part of this, Jean. They can do anything they like to
me, but if you are involved – ”

I won’t deny
being scared.
A few days ago,
I was lonely and miserable and contemplating an entire life of
being lonely and miserable. Don has reversed this by making me more
alive than I ever have been.

I will never
regret having Don in my life, however brief
ly.

We drive for
what must be hours before the van finally rolls to a halt.
The back doors are yanked open, and
we are ushered to a concrete compound. Low buildings sit all around
us, as well as silos and barracks. ‘Restricted’ and ‘No Entry’
signs are posted on almost every door.

They take us
through one of these ‘No Entry’ entrances. We are marched through
grey co
rridors of
indeterminate length where we pass several people in lab coats.
They all scrutinize us with an intensity usually reserved for
pinned insects on a dissection slab.

Don and I are
separated. An agent leads me to a
hospital-like room, complete with a double bed, a bathroom and
artificial flowers on a desk. There are no windows anywhere, and
the adjacent bathroom is small but clean, possessing only a shower
space.

The agent
slams the door behind him and bolts it.

I am effectively a
prisoner.

 

*

 

I spend an
entire night wondering what has happened to Don. Are they
interrogating him?
Fat lot of
good that would do, seeing as he can’t even remember Iraq. If they
don’t get the answers they want, what would they do to
him?

I picture all
kinds of
worrisome things
happening to Don. Electroshock torture. Waterboarding, like I’ve
seen government agents do to spies in movies. Or is Don one of the
NPB’s own creations, now brought back to their fold after having
escaped?

If I am privy
to something I am not supposed to know, then I have clearly seen
and heard too much. I can kiss all sembla
nce of a normal life goodbye.

But I’m not sorry
for having met and fallen in love with Don. Not one bit sorry. If I
had to do it all over again, I would do it in a heartbeat.

My door opens
without warning. I am in bed, and I clutch the bedclothes to my
chest. I am thankfully not naked, having donned the pair of white
pajamas they gave me. Still, they are being very rude.

The same agent who
accompanied us in the van stands at the doorway.

“Come,” he says.
“You are wanted.”

 

*

 

The
agent
leads me to white door
with a panel beside it on the wall. He depresses the panel and it
folds in, revealing a boxlike niche containing a scanner. He places
his index finger on it. A red light buzzes and the door slides
open.

“Enter,” he
says.

As if I have an
option.

The room
inside is clinical,
with a
table and several chairs as well as a hospital bed. Don lies on the
bed, wearing just a pair of white briefs. He is surrounded by
several men and women in lab coats. Agent Sansky and two other male
agents stand by the wall. Agent Sansky’s arms are
folded.

Don
tries to sit up as soon as he sees
me, but a male doctor with a short white beard presses him
down.

I cringe
inwardly at Don’s
appearance.
He is magnificent as always, of course, especially half-naked. But
electrodes snake from his chest to a heart monitor where steady
yellow wavy lines run. I catch the reading on his heart rate – it’s
a very low 42 beats per minute. There is a bandage around his right
forearm.


Jean? Are you
all right?” Don says anxiously.

Age
nt Sansky turns to me,
and then back to him. “As you can see, she’s perfectly all right.
If you would like to keep her that way, it would wise for you to
comply with everything we ask of you.”


Don?” I say
in a shaky voice.
“Are you all
right?”

“I’m fine.”


Touching,
very touching.” Agent Sansky says this in a manner that suggests
she doesn’t find this touching at all. “Now that you have seen her,
we shall resume, shall we not?”

She shoots a glance
at the agent behind me. “Take her away.”

The agent catches
hold of my arm and manhandles me out of the door, but not before I
catch the stricken look in Don’s eyes.

I understand
perfectly now why they are keeping me here.

I’m collateral.

 

*

 

It’s a whole
worrying day before Agent Sansky oils her way into my prison
cell.

“Leave us,” she
tells the agent who accompanied her.

As the door
shuts
, she turns to me. We do
not exchange any pleasantries for a long while as she studies me,
and I her.

She finally murmurs,
“What he sees in you, I will never know.”

My pulse
quickens. So Don has feelings for me, feelings which he has
probably confessed – for better or for worse – to our
captors.

Is that a gleam of
envy in Agent Sansky’s eyes?


Why are you
here?” I demand.
“To crow over
me? What are you doing to him?”

We both are
standing, facing off each other. I’m aware that physically, I am no
match for her. It’s not just her size. She reeks of ‘professional
assassin’ vibes.


Him,” she
repeats. “Yes, let’s talk about him. He appeared overnight in your
storm shelter. At least that’s what he tells us.”

So she wants to
corroborate our stories.

“Yes.” I grit my
teeth.


He’s a fine
specimen, and I don’t mean just in the aesthetic sense.” She lifts
her chin. “I’m not sure you know
what
you are
even dealing with.”


Then tell
me.”


He has the
muscle fibers of an Olympic sprinter and the healing capacity of
something beyond human.”

“Are you saying he’s
not human?”

I’m a little
alarmed.
He’s not a ghost, is
he? Ghosts don’t have hearts, let alone resting heart
rates.

She laughs.
“No. He’s very human, as you’ve undoubtedly found out. But quite
unlike any human we know.” She pauses. “In this world.”

Here it comes. I’ve
suspected as much.


Then what is
he?”

I know she’s
going to tell me because she wants this knowledge to
wound
me, not out of any kindness to keep me
informed.

She smiles. “Do you
know how we found you?”

I picture the rush
of officious black cars to the lakeside house.

“No.”


You were very
careful not to use your credit card or cellphone. I’ll give you
marks for that. Truly, you have more of a criminal mind than you
realized.”

Her perfect
white teeth shine like tombstones in her scarlet splash of a
mouth.
I’m sure she didn’t
mean that as a compliment.


However, you
neglected to erase your
Google
Search history from your laptop. I was able to find out where you
were going quite easily.”

So that’s how she
found us. Deleting my Google Search history had never occurred to
me then, or ever.


Yes.” She
walks over to the table where remnants of my lunch smear the
plate.
“Not a potato person,
are you?”

I clench my jaw.

Agent Sansky
picks up my fork
and twirls
it. “He’s not one of ours, just in case your speculations go down
that path. He’s not something we created in a vat of
DNA.”


Then stop
beating around the bush and tell me who he is.

For answer,
she flashes me a secret smile. “Since you’re not going anywhere,
I’ll tell you.”

That sounds
ominous.
She means me to take
this knowledge to my grave.

“You can’t keep me
here forever. I’ve done nothing.”


You have
assaulted a government agent. You aided a government fugitive.
You’ve done enough for us to keep you under lock and key forever.
Believe me, there are plenty of people in this facility who have
done a lot
less
than what you
have.”

U
nease crawls down my
spine. Still, I
want
to know.

She goes
on,
“The Umbra Project was
created to harness the power of the tornado.”

The pieces suddenly
come tumbling down.


However, it
generated an unexpected side effect. Through accident, we found
that a portal in the time space continuum can be opened in the eye
of a tornado.”

I hold my breath.
“Portal to what?”


Your guess is
as good as ours.” She sounds almost conversational, as if
discussing a dissertation with a fellow scientist.

The portal is open for only a
very brief period. During that time, we have managed to pick up
objects from different places.”

I am piqued
despite knowing
that I am not
meant to let this knowledge travel beyond these walls. “What do you
mean – places?”

Agent Sansky
seats herself at my table. She leans against the back of the chair
with the air of someone who knows she has total power over
me.


Once, we
picked up a
bowl, completely
intact. At first, we thought it was carried from somewhere else in
the tornado’s path, but the bowl contained particles unlike
anything our world has ever known.”

She lets this sink
in.

My throat is dry.
“What else have you picked up?”


The Umbra
Project was renamed Project Oz, which gives you an inkling of where
all these objects were coming from. We picked up a metal fan with
strange writing which corresponds to no known writing in our world.
On another occasion, we picked up a living creature.”

I can see where this
is heading.

“A cephalopod. Not a
documented species in our world either. A pity it died three days
in captivity.”

I remember
Don’s fainting spell and nosebleed, and a
sudden rush of dread fills me.


Your friend,
the one you call Don and whom we codenamed Subject A21, is our most
significant yield yet. He appeared on Oz’s scanners as an infrared
signature. But we lost him as the tornado we were tracking spun out
of projected path. We hazarded that he was somewhere in the
vicinity, and providence led us to you.”

Yes. I guessed
as much. Don was just too strange, too otherworldly. Still, to have
the truth laid so starkly in my face . . .

“So where is he
from?” I say in an awed voice.


Your guess is
as good as ours
. It’s no doubt
he’s from a different place. It might be in our world, though it’s
looking highly unlikely. He might even be from a different era, and
I’m willing to bet he’s not from our past.”

BOOK: The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense)
6.3Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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