Chapter 13
Leigh
I wished Aunt Ann hadn’t told T’raat we were being followed. His eyes stayed locked on the road behind us for hours, watching every move the other cars made. When one of the cars took an exit, he relaxed just a smidge, but only a tiny bit, and only for a second. He then redoubled his watch of the remaining cars. The sun rose to our left, making it harder to see anything more than the light glinting off metal in the distance, but he just squinted against the growing light and stuck to his vigil.
By seven thirty, only two cars remained behind us. I found that odd, as there should have been more cars appearing on the highway by that hour. Something was up, and I asked Aunt Ann about it.
“Yeah, I noticed that, too. My guess is our moles have gotten in touch with the local LEOs and are blockading the roads leading in. They’ve probably devised some story where Timber and I are the spies or some such thing. There are likely warrants out for all of us, with explicit instructions for the state troopers to leave us for the AARO to apprehend. ‘Armed and dangerous,’ ‘deserters,’ any number of things like that.”
My blood ran cold at the thought. I’d never been in any kind of legal trouble before, and it was ten times worse for T’raat. If he got arrested, he could be taken away and experimented on! Wasn’t that what they did to alien prisoners?
Half of me wanted to ask Aunt Ann for reassurance that they didn’t, but the other half knew my aunt was a pragmatist, and she just might tell me the truth whether I wanted to hear it or not.
T’raat and I held hands as my aunt drove. I looked at his scaled fingers laced with mine, dwarfing my hand. All my horny brain could think of was those fingers inside me, of the way he made me come in the barn. I suddenly wanted to be alone with him, to find some excuse to make the AARO agents disappear so T’raat and I could throw the three-date rule out the window.
I shifted in my seat, pressing my thighs together to try to ease the aching urges I felt.
Unfortunately, T’raat noticed this and, typical to his species, totally misunderstood what I was doing.
“Ann!” He rapped the back of her seat hard. “We need to stop.”
Aunt Ann’s eyes widened, and she looked at him in the rearview mirror. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Leigh needs to urinate.”
Oh. My. God. I wished this could have been a dream, but nope, I was wide awake. “T’raat, I—”
He squeezed my hand and smiled. “It is all right. I will take care of you.”
The car angled towards the shoulder, and I scrambled to get us back on track.
“No! Stop!”
“I am stopping.”
I grunted with frustration. “No, Aunt Ann, don’t stop! Stop stopping. Please, whatever you do, don’t pull over.”
“Well, it’s this or nothing, honey. There aren’t any rest areas around. Do you think you can hold out for a gas station? I think I saw a sign for one coming up ahead, we could—”
“Please. Please, just keep driving. I don’t have to pee. T’raat’s … mistaken.”
T’raat frowned. “You are displaying pelvic discomfort. We should stop.”
“It’s nothing!”
We swerved a bit as T’raat and I argued over my need to pee—or lack thereof. Timber turned around in her seat and joined the conversation, much to my dismay.
“Is it your period? I know T’raat’s your boyfriend, and this is a touchy subject, but just trust me. If you’ve started, it’s better to just say so. Being embarrassed over that isn’t something that’s going to help us right now.”
“I am not on my period!”
Aunt Ann rubbed her forehead. “Well, if you’re not needing the bathroom for whatever reason, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” I let go of T’raat’s hand and crossed my arms over my chest with a huff, sitting back against the door of the car. Whatever mood I’d been in, he’d killed it with this nonsense. “I’m fine. Just keep driving and drop it.”
T’raat sat back against the other door and mimicked my pose with crossed arms and a scowl of his own.
Timber and my aunt exchanged a glance, and Timber snickered. “I think we just witnessed their first fight.”
For the next hour, neither T’raat nor I budged. The air in the car grew thick with tension, and Timber and Aunt Ann started up a conversation up front about nothing much in particular. I bet they were trying to give T’raat and me a chance to work out our little tiff. The problem with that was twofold: T’raat hadn’t actually done anything really wrong, and I was too damned stubborn to admit that.
After that first hour, the guilt of getting mad at him for a simple misunderstanding started to eat at me. Rather than apologize, though, I just scooted a couple inches in T’raat’s direction. I didn’t relax my arms, didn’t look at him, just moved that little bit.
His yellow eyes flicked towards me. Watched me scoot and stop. Narrowed.
Then T’raat scooted two inches of his own.
I took that as a good sign. Maybe he wasn’t as mad at me as I’d thought. I scooted another couple of inches, which was about as far as the seatbelt would allow. The corner of T’raat’s mouth tipped up in a grin, and he scooted to the extent of his seatbelt’s reach, too. I unfolded my arms and set my left hand on the seat between us, palm up. He stared at my hand a few moments before placing his on top and giving me a soft squeeze. I returned the gesture, and he stretched across the seat to engulf me in a hug.
I never quite figured out who won that argument, but I was glad it ended quickly. Timber just rolled her eyes and muttered, “Kids.”
I ignored the jab at my age. So I was young—so what? I was plenty old enough to know what I wanted, and I wanted T’raat. Plain and simple. One little tiff wasn’t going to be enough to stop me from caring about him.
“Apologies for angering you.”
His sudden words startled me. I tipped my head up to look into his eyes, which glistened with tears. I felt like the biggest asshole in the galaxy for upsetting him.
Sneaking a glance at the front seat, I made sure Timber and Aunt Ann weren’t looking. Since they both seemed occupied with the road ahead of us, I gave T’raat a kiss … and slid my hand slowly up his thigh. His breath caught in his throat when I reached his n’ril and gripped the bulge in his pants. He was already hard, and I stroked him through the fabric a few times while we made out. A low, muffled buzzing sound began as his Xalanite vibrations kicked in.
In the front of the truck, I heard rustling as Timber cleared her throat. When I snuck another peek, I saw she had shifted in her seat to sort of block my aunt’s view of the two of us in the back.
“Do I want to know?” Aunt Ann asked her dryly.
“Probably not.”
She sighed. “Harry’s gonna kill me.”
Part of me hated putting my aunt in that position, but another, larger part wanted nothing more than to have some extended time alone with T’raat. My panties were soaked as he did things with his tongue that were probably illegal in a few states, and when he reached inside my jeans to rub my clit and finger me, it took everything I had not to moan and scream.
This was the best road trip ever.
I lost track of how long we pawed at each other, but it was apparently long enough for us to reach our destination. The truck came to a halt, and Aunt Ann cut the engine. She paused a moment before opening the door.
“You two done yet?”
Well, that all depended on the definition of “done” … “Um, yes, ma’am.” We disengaged and adjusted our clothing, so we’d be presentable. I didn’t know Timber’s contacts, but if they were former CPD, then it behooved us to behave.
Growing up with an aunt in a high-profile government position of authority, one might think I was accustomed to being in the presence of cops and soldiers and the like. It didn’t quite work out like that, though, as she wasn’t ever Director Hall at home; she was Aunt Ann, my dad’s fun sister who let me get away with little transgressions around the farm whenever she came to visit. I never thought of her as an officer or director or anything like that, so I never developed a sense of comfort around other authority figures. Cops always freaked me out. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d do something illegal without realizing and get arrested for it.
The feeling apparently also applied to former cops. The two men who answered the door at the sprawling ranch home bore matching buzz cuts and severe expressions. My anxiety skyrocketed when they glared past Timber to T’raat and me. I straightened my spine and held my head a little higher, like better posture might win me points with them.
“Hi John. Marcus. How’s retired life treating the two of you?” Timber started as though this was a social call and not a flight for our lives.
The first cop—John—sniffed and crossed his arms over his chest. Given the way his tight t-shirt fit him and the look of his arms, he still worked out. Despite the salt-and-pepper hair and the fine lines around his eyes, I knew he’d have no trouble kicking my ass if I stepped out of line. “You’re all over the news, Detective Millwood. Again.”
“Agent Millwood,” she corrected. “And unfortunately, there’s been a … misunderstanding.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement,” said Marcus. “They’re slinging around words like ‘deserters’ and ‘spies.’ One channel is even going so far as to say the two of you conspired with the alien to kidnap the girl.”
I had planned on staying quiet and letting Aunt Ann and Timber take care of this, but my resolve broke when I heard that. “What? That’s ridiculous! I begged them to bring me with.”
Marcus smirked. “Guess you didn’t read them their rights.” He leaned closer to me. “You’re supposed to remain silent. You have that right, young lady, and it would be wise to practice that right.”
“I’m not gonna keep silent while people are accusing Aunt Ann of kidnapping me.”
“Your aunt, huh?” John rubbed his chin. “Fawkes News didn’t mention that.”
“Does Fawkes ever give the whole story?” Aunt Ann said dryly. John chuckled, and he and Marcus both stood back and waved us all in.
The home was decked out in Southwest décor, with woven blankets displayed on wooden ladders, handmade pottery, and enough turquoise to start their own bazaar. It seemed out of place in Iowa, but what did I know? I followed John and Marcus as they led the four of us to a back bedroom.
“I’m guessing you guys didn’t get much sleep. This all started last night, correct?”
Aunt Ann nodded. “I’m good for now, though. Timber? Leigh? T’raat? Anybody in need of some shuteye?”
Timber shook her head, and I peered around them into the room. Cozy enough, with a queen-sized bed loaded down with rust-colored pillows and more woven blankets. I didn’t know about T’raat, but I, for one, was exhausted, and those blankets looked rather inviting. The heater in the truck worked well enough, but the Midwest fall weather had a nip to it, and I kind of wanted to burrow into those blankets and pass out for a few hours.
“I’d like a nap, if that’s okay,” I said, tugging on T’raat’s arm. He patted me on the back but didn’t follow me.
“I am capable of shutting my eyes out here,” he said. “I will give you privacy.”
Everyone else snickered, and Timber whispered something Xalanite in T’raat’s ear. His yellow eyes widened, and he answered with, “Alone ? ”
Timber pulled something out of her suit pocket and handed it to him. It looked like a slim foil packet, almost like … no. It couldn’t be … Did she just give him what I thought she did?
As the rest of the group headed back down the hall to the living room, Timber caught my arm and pulled me aside. She motioned for T’raat to go into the bedroom while she kept me a moment longer.
“That was a zi’in . Xalanite condom. Pretty cool little thing, actually. It doesn’t hinder sensations for either of you, but it won’t rip on the Xalanite scales and risk an oopsie. If you two insist on doing what I think you’re gonna do in there, use it. You’re young, and you don’t need the added complication of an interspecies pregnancy in your life right now. Maybe a few years down the road, when we see what happens with my little nugget, but until then, be responsible. Okay?”
She followed my aunt and her two friends, leaving me gaping in the hallway.