Page 5

Sonja woke early the next morning feeling groggy and out of sorts. Aklan had kept her at the gym going over the most basic forms of Ky’Lota entirely too late. After, despite the rigors of diving into a new martial art, it had taken ages for sleep to find her. Her mind had fixated on one part of the evening after another.

The way he’d easily taken on all comers, including Mike, and won.

His gentle touch guiding her hands and body into the correct poses without ever becoming intimate.

The conversation they’d had when other men and women had wanted to learn the Xeruvian fighting forms, too.

He had glanced over the gathered crowd of potential acolytes, then focused his intense gaze on her. “You wish me to place my hands upon other women?”

Her jaw had very nearly dropped open at the question. “They want you to teach them how to defend themselves. I can’t object to that.”

“Then I shall gladly do so.” He’d leaned down and placed his mouth near her ear, the most intimate gesture he’d made all night. “Do not ask a like courtesy from me. Xeruvian warriors are possessive of our mates. Any male who dares come between the two does so at his own peril.”

The warning had caught her as off guard as his initial question.

It had also caused a wave of concern. Humans, male or female, who became possessive of their significant others tended to be jealous or abusive assholes. She’d watched Aklan carefully after that. Not only had he not gone into a rage when another man talked to her, he hadn’t even blinked when Mike clapped her on the shoulder or one of the guys fist-bumped her. And when another man took her down during one-on-one practice, Aklan hadn’t so much as grimaced.

Which led her to conclude that Aklan’s warning covered the kind of activity also frowned upon in human culture. Say, making a pass at another guy’s gal or interfering with the relationship.

Maybe if he hadn’t kept his hands to himself, she’d have drawn a different conclusion. But he had kept his hands to himself with every woman there, treating her exactly as he treated Missy and the Chines ambassador’s daughter: with the kind of courtesy and respect she’d come to expect from him.

Then had come the moment at the end of the night when she’d handed him his robe. His gaze had dropped to her lips and her throat, and this wonderful, magical tension had stretched between them, zinging through her blood in a beautiful chorus of desire and need. She’d thought, Oh, he’s going to kiss me now , and bitten her lip, already anticipating the touch of his mouth to hers.

His expression had tightened, but all he did was step back, bow respectfully, and leave. No kiss, no hug, not even a pat on the arm or a “Next date, please!”

That lack of contact, of resolution, had left her feeling…bemused. Any other guy would’ve tried to cop a feel at least once during the evening. Not Aklan. Being so close to him, having his distinctive, masculine scent wash over her every time he drew near, had tickled her senses to the point of arousal. Apparently, her scent had not done the same to him.

Maybe being around her hadn’t affected him the same way. Maybe the mate thing didn’t mean what she thought it meant. Or the dating. Or giving her a gorgeous robe. Or those sexy, intense gazes he directed at her…

She really should ask him to clarify exactly what he wanted from her so she could at least lay her mind to rest. And sleep, she thought groggily as she forced herself out of bed. The robe he’d given her lay exactly where she’d left it, atop the rickety chest of drawers opposite the bed. She pulled it on over the t-shirt she’d slept in and padded over to the desk wedged into the corner to brew a cup of coffee.

The coffee had just started percolating when someone knocked on her door. Her heart leapt into a gallop. Aklan!

But no, it couldn’t be him. He didn’t know where her quarters were located in the labyrinthine complex.

She hurried to answer anyway, realized she was wearing a gift from a visiting dignitary and all the complications that could create.

Screw it. It was too early for propriety.

Besides. She was practically dating the man.

She swung the door open on Missy who, unlike her, looked fresh, bright eyed, and entirely too perky for that time of morning.

“Girl.” Missy drew the word out as she sidled past Sonja into her quarters. “You look like you’ve been brawling with an angry cat.”

“Too early for jokes,” Sonja muttered as she shut the door. “What’s up?”

“Aklan’s leading another Ky’Lota session in ten.”

“How do you know that and I don’t?”

Missy flipped her blonde ponytail over one shoulder, grinning smugly. “A little birdie told me. Anywho, why aren’t you dressed already? Daylight’s a-wasting.”

Sonja groaned as she flopped down on the end of her bed. “Because I got exactly three hours of sleep.”

“Couldn’t get Mr. Sexy out of your mind, huh?” Missy flopped down beside her and leaned back on her hands. “Did he tell you what Ky’Lota means?”

“Gimme a break, Missy. We’ve barely spoken to each other. Come to think on it, how do you know?”

“Little birdies,” Missy said firmly. “It means soul dance .”

“Wow. That’s—” Sonja’s fog-enshrouded mind refused to supply an appropriate adjective.

“Beautiful? Interesting? Illuminating?”

“All of the above.” The coffee pot finished bubbling. Sonja stumbled toward her desk and lifted the mug of coffee to her nose, breathing it in. “Must. Have. Coffee.”

Missy waved that away. “I get it. You need to wake up first. Don’t worry. I’ll run interference for you with Aklan, keep all the ladies distracted so nobody gets any ideas.”

Sonja let out a strangled sound.

“I’ll just leave you to your coffee,” Missy continued airily. “Nice robe, by the way. Looks almost as good on you as it does on him. Toodles!”

Sonja closed her eyes as Missy breezed out of the room. What was that even about?

Her cellphone rang before she could muddle through an answer. She picked it up, saw Mike’s name displayed, and thumbed into the call. “Hello?”

“Debriefing at oh seven thirty.”

Sonja glanced at her bedside clock and winced. “Make it oh eight hundred and I’ll swing by the cafeteria and bring pastries.”

“Deal.”

He hung up, and Sonja reluctantly set her coffee aside. If she wanted to make it to Mike’s office on time, she needed to hop in the shower now.

“Soon, my little friend,” she told the coffee, then she wandered into her en suite bathroom, stripping as she went.

The shower woke her up. The coffee put her brain in working order. By the time she reached the cafeteria, she’d finished that cup and realized one wasn’t going to be enough to get her through the debrief. She snagged some fresh-baked apple fritters, refilled her mug from the cafeteria’s drink station, and arrived at Mike’s office one minute before oh eight hundred.

Mike was already at his desk, brooding at his laptop. When she knocked and entered, he glanced up and offered her a tight smile. “Thanks for bringing breakfast. I completely forgot.”

“Then I’m glad I suggested it.” She set the plate of apple fritters on the edge of his desk, dropped some paper napkins beside it, and sat in the chair across from him. “What did you think about last night?”

“The fact that he’s bigger, faster, and stronger than any trained soldier or Marine on this base, or that he couldn’t keep his eyes off you?”

She held his gaze as she sipped her coffee, refusing to allow even an inkling of discomfort to show. “The first.”

Mike leaned back in his chair and swiveled it to the side, his gaze on the industrial white concrete wall. “I think he’s right. We have a lot to learn from him, and a lot to fear.”

“He didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Not permanently, no, and he was gentle as a lamb with every woman there.”

She hummed against the mug’s rim, sipped again, then set the mug next to the fritters. “You’re wondering whether he’s going to be as gentle with me when no one’s watching.”

Mike held her gaze for several moments, letting the statement stretch between them. Finally, he said. “Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even hesitate.”

“I’ve had time to think about it.” She crossed her legs, clasped her hands together in her lap. “A man that big, one that aggressive who can easily take down two and three trained men at a time? What woman wouldn’t carefully consider being alone with a man like that?”

Mike’s eyebrows popped up. “But?”

“He had the opportunity to…stray outside the bounds of propriety. Not just with me. With all the women.”

“And he didn’t?”

“Did you see him get handsy with any of us?” she countered.

“You’re defending him.”

“If you’re accusing me of siding with him,” she said flatly, “you’re barking up the wrong tree. The whole point of a debrief is to tell you what I observed as objectively as I can. And I’m telling you flat out that I don’t think he would hurt any woman without just cause.”

“Just cause.” Mike minced the words out through tight lips. “There’s a just cause for hurting a woman?”

“If a woman attacked him. If she tried to hurt other people.” She picked up her coffee, using it to hide the nip of anger his question had stirred. “Would you allow a woman to do that?”

He sighed and closed his eyes, rubbed them with his fingers and thumb. “We’re not talking about me.”

“No, we’re talking about an alien warrior whose code of ethics is so strict, he’s abiding by every rule we set forth. An alien who is, by the way, willing to give us the technology that would offset the absence of the women he and his fellow warriors want to court. And alien who is teaching deliberately teaching us how to defend ourselves against him.”

“You’re defending him again.”

“I’m telling it like I see it.” She snagged a fritter, bit into it savagely, and forced herself to chew and swallow with the manners her mother had scolded into her as a young child. “Which is what you hired me to do.”

He opened his eyes on another long stare. “You’re prickly this morning.”

“No, I’m telling you something you don’t want to hear.” She cut him off before he could object. “Aklan Phyrz is one of the most honorable people I’ve ever met, which begs the question as to why you’re so hellbent on finding a flaw in him.”

“God, Sonja. You know me so well. Rose would be proud of you, you know.”

At the mention of his late wife, tears pricked Sonja’s eyes. She blinked once, forcing them away. Now was not the time for sentimentality. “You’re evading.”

“Yes,” he said on a sigh. “The higher ups are balking.”

“Higher ups,” she said slowly. “The president?”

“Among others. They want me to negotiate for something else. Technology for resources.”

“Women are resources.”

“Different resources.”

It took her a moment to realize what he meant. “You have no intention of allowing the Xeruvians access to those women, do you?”

“Women are off the table,” he confirmed with a hard stare. “Including you, if I can help it.”

“Then why put me through the turmoil of meeting him? Why allow him to believe he can date me?”

“To stall for time.”

Her eyes went wide as the breath whooshed out of her. “Jesus, Mike. What game are you playing? He’s not the enemy here.”

“But he’s not our friend either.”

“He never will be if you can’t deal honorably with him.”

He leaned forward and stabbed a finger against his desktop, his eyes steely. “We cannot allow the Russians and the Chinese to get their hands on his technology, let alone the Saudis. Think about what a national security nightmare that would create.”

“Then why not use me to get to him?”

“Because you’re not a broodmare!”

She slapped her mug down on his desk, unable to hide her fury. “Fuck’s sake, Mike. That’s a ridiculous excuse. He doesn’t see me that way. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be playing the courtship game. So why don’t you level with me and tell me what you’re really afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of a lot of things,” he shot back. “Including the spaceship the Xeruvians have hovering over this site, weapons hot.”

“You think they’re going to force the issue?”

“They just might, especially if we can’t come up with another solution. It’s not just us, you know. The Chinese government has cracked down on population growth for so long that they’re on the brink of a population collapse. They simply cannot afford to lose any women of childbearing age.”

“And the Russians?”

Mike grimaced. “They’d get in bed with the devil if they thought it would help them defeat us.”

“Then let us be the ones to find a way forward. We’re the Land of the Free, Mike. We can afford to be generous.”

He snorted.

She ignored that and rolled onward. “Seriously, we can. We have the numbers, we have the gumption. God knows any woman in her right mind would jump at the chance to meet a man like Aklan.”

“Would you?”

“I already did,” she said quietly. “Because you asked it of me.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him. “I knew it was a mistake to bring women here.”

“Pfft. It was me or that idiot Johnson, who can’t tie his shoes without two assistants and written instructions.”

Mike barked out a laugh, then quickly sobered. “If you want out, say the word. I’ll make it happen and damn the consequences.”

She allowed the idea to roll around in her mind. Quit now while she could. It held some appeal. Aklan was an alien, as she’d reminded herself countless times yesterday, and while he was intriguing, sexy, and more than suitable dating material, even casually dating him dropped her in the middle of a potentially nasty situation.

She could lose her job over this.

Or she could gain the love of her life.

A breath hissed out of her. Wow. Was she really that attracted to him?

The answer came so swiftly, it shocked her. Yes, she was, and for the first time in her life, she wanted to say damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead regardless of the obstacles standing between them.

But it was more than that and she knew it. Her life wasn’t the only one at stake. The fate of his entire culture hung in the balance. She would never be able to live with herself if she didn’t do everything in her power to help the Xeruvians, short of committing treason.

“No, Mike,” she said. “I’m committed to seeing this through. What better way to prove humans are worthy than by reflecting his honor back to him?”

Mike nodded as if he’d known what she was going to say. “I stand by what I said earlier. Rose would be proud of you.”

“Thank you.”

“But, you’re putting me in a helluva spot, Sonja. What happens when Aklan finds out we’re not willing to trade those women’s lives away?”

“We’re not trading their lives, Mike. We’re offering the Xeruvians hope.”

“Christ. You make it sound so reasonable.”

“Because it is. All they want is a chance to meet these women, to court them.”

“And if we can’t allow them to do that?”

Her gaze hardened. “Then we have no choice but to reject their technology.”

“Which risks dropping it into the hands of someone who will cooperate.”

“The solution seems simple to me.”

“Only because you’re not the one being pressured by the president, the Secretary of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the—”

She held up a hand. “I get it. All the important people.”

One corner of Mike’s mouth tilted up in a half smile. “Exactly.”

“I can’t help you there. But I can let you debrief me, and I can continue meeting with Aklan.”

“You’d do that, even knowing we can’t negotiate in his favor?”

“I’ll do it despite that. Like I said. He’s an honorable man. He deserves a fair chance.”

Mike toyed with a pen on his desk for a moment, his gaze lowered, before responding. “Ok. Let’s start the debrief.”

Sonja took a sip of her now-cold coffee and allowed her boss to coax information out of her. A strange knot had taken root in her gut, a foreboding. Mike was playing a very delicate game here, and she was caught right in the middle. Maybe she should’ve taken the out when he offered it to her, but she’d never been one to cut and run.

No, she’d stick this out to the bitter end, accepting the good, the bad, and the ugly as they came along.

And something ugly was coming. She could feel it building beneath her skin, and dreaded having to face it when it arrived.