“Don’t be afraid, love.”
Erik’s voice echoed through the hum in her head, though she didn’t see his lips move. He dropped the phone and cradled her waist with both hands, drawing her closer measure by measure.
His lips hovered inches from her face. Allie whimpered as his mouth remained suspended only a whisper from hers. Over the humming, and through her melting bones and the unbearable tension inside she wondered faintly if it were possible to die of an orgasm without ever touching the man you craved most.
A sound like a growl escaped Erik. The next moment his mouth covered Allie’s with a gentleness that surprised her, disarming her and soothing the humming and tension in a way nothing else had. With leisurely care, his lips reassured her that this was real and she wasn’t crazy. What’s your hurry? his kiss seemed to say.
Allie sagged with the gentle release washing over her, and sighed into his kiss. Still holding the phone, she reached her hands around his neck, tangling the fingers of one hand into his thick, streaked hair, caressing the warm muscles of his strong neck.
Then, just as delightfully as the tension had abated, it began to build again, with a slowness and sureness that Allie welcomed this time. Erik slid his hands up her torso to her breasts, lifting and molding them under her knit top. His mouth, gentle until now, became more demanding. His tongue sought entrance and hungrily possessed hers with a confidence that brooked no doubts. He undid the buttons of her top one by one, exposing the thin lace of her bra and the swelling, aching nipples straining towards him. Allie exploded in a frenzy as he touched her nipples through the lace.
Frantically she pressed her mouth against his.
The shrill blast of the forgotten phone was like the retort of a rifle six inches from her ear. Allie sprang back from Erik and dropped the phone.
Dumbly they both watched it bounce across the floor, still ringing.
With the habit of years, Allie reached for the ringing phone. Erik reached for her at the same time. “Don’t,” he said, his voice simmering with promise.
Allie swallowed and shook her head, suddenly aware she was doing exactly what she’d sworn not to do. She tried not to look at him. “No.” She shook off his hand and backed away, then pressed the talk button.
Erik clamped his lips together to prevent the Zalian curse from escaping. Damn that phone!
And had he seen something that looked awfully like relief flash across his destined one’s face as she dived for the phone? Relief that she had escaped his embrace?
Erik’s mouth straightened into a grim line as he watched Allie field the call.
“Yes?” she gasped into the receiver. She swallowed and made an obvious effort to compose herself. “Yes, Nate, it’s me.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just a bit out of breath.”
She glanced at Erik, then quickly looked away.
Erik bit back the disappointment that seemed to come from deep inside him. He looked down at his boots and scowled. Despite a disturbing doubt he couldn’t quell, he told himself his disappointment was strictly the result of the failure of his strategy. The interruption might be just enough to delay their physical union, which would delay Allie’s commitment to him, and their departure for Zura, just that much longer.
“What?”
The sharp note in Allie’s voice made Erik look up. Her brow was creased in concern. Except for her unbuttoned top and her glistening, swollen lips, all signs of passion had evaporated.
“Okay. Where did you say?”
Allie glanced at Erik as she listened to the city editor. She frowned. “No, it’s all right. Erik’s here right now, with his cameras. We’ll be over there in,” she glanced at her wrist watch, ”less than thirty minutes.”
Erik could hear the low drawl of Nate’s voice as he made a parting comment.
“All right. Bye.”
Allie punched off the talk button. Still holding the phone, she lowered her hand to her side.
“What’s wrong?” Erik asked.
Allie didn’t respond. She shook her head and swallowed.
“What’s wrong?”
Allie looked directly at him, her sea-green eyes sharp with alarm. “It’s Cody,” she said. Her voice cracked. “Nate . . . Nate said the police just called. They’ve found Cody’s car off Lake Shore Drive, just the other side of Hyde Park.”
“So?”
Allie’s eyes widened with fear. “So it’s abandoned. And Cody still hasn’t shown up.”
Twilight slid seamlessly into night as Allie and Erik sped along Lake Shore Drive towards Hyde Park. To the east, the blue-black sky slowly filled with stars, their light reflected on the still darker body that was Lake Michigan.
Allie drove, her body tense, her eyes focused on the road, her lips pressed tightly together. Erik had been surprised at how completely she had broken free of the haze of physical desire and electrical anticipation that had confused and directed her earlier actions. He had felt it too, the clear Zalian signs that they were destined to mate, but no where near as strongly as had the unprepared Earthling. And while his plans had been disturbed, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the strength of her will and her ability to focus on new problems as they arose. She would, indeed, make a suitable wife for a Zalian commander.
Finally Erik broke the silence that had gripped them both since their embrace had been cut off by Nate’s phone call. “Why did the police call
The
Streeter
about Cody’s car? Normally wouldn’t they just have had it towed away?”
Allie, her face pale, shook her head. “It’s the card.”
“Card?”
Without taking her eyes from the road, she snapped open the glove box and pulled out a folded strip of white cardboard. She handed it to Erik.
He unfolded it. In large red letters, the sign read, “The Chicago Streeter. On official business.”
“We’ve all got one,” she said. “We’re supposed to post it on the windshield when we’re on company business. You know. So the reporters and photographers don’t get ticketed by the cops or towed away.”
Erik looked down at the card. Why hadn’t he remembered that? He—
“There it is!”
Erik looked across the center barrier dividing the south and northbound lanes. There, on the northbound shoulder behind the orange flashing lights of a tow truck, was a white Corvette.
“I’ll have to get off at the next exit and then turn around and go back to it.”
Erik observed Allie carefully as she did just that. A few minutes later she swerved out of the traffic and screeched to a halt on the shoulder in front of the tow truck. Erik frowned.
Well, maybe
she wasn’t as controlled as he’d thought.
Before he could say anything, she slid out of the car into the warm, damp night air and strode around the car to where the tow truck driver leaned against the bumper of his truck. Erik grabbed his camera bag from the back seat and followed.
The beefy fireplug of a man viewed Allie sourly, his mouth pulled down at one corner. The thick fingers of one hand tapped the hood of the truck.
“You the lady from the paper?”
Allie nodded.
“Well, I hope you àin’t gonna be too long. I got two more calls lined up already, and it’s only quarter to ten. The cops told me to wait `til you got here.”
“No. I won’t be long.”
Erik didn’t wait to hear the end. He strode past Allie, the driver and the tow truck and stopped in front of the Corvette. His gaze sped over the car.
Nothing looked amiss.
Allie brushed by him, leaving behind a whiff of her alluring scent. For a second, Erik let his senses rule, flashing back to the taste and feel of her in his arms, the desire that had taken him as well as—
“It’s not locked!”
The surprise in Allie’s voice brought him back to earth. “So?” he queried, shifting the camera bag from one shoulder to the other. He looked at her.
She was holding the door open and staring at it.
“No one ever leaves a car unlocked. Not here.
Especially an expensive car like this. I’m surprised it’s still here.”
“Well, it has been. Since early this morning.”
Allie jumped at the unexpected comment of the driver, who’d ambled up behind her. Once he had her attention, and Erik’s, he continued. “Cops saw it about eight this mornin’ but when they saw that
Streeter
sign, they just let it be. Wasn’t til just a while ago they started to think somethin’ was fishy.”
Allie’s brow creased and her teeth worried her bottom lip. “That’s really weird.”
She ducked her head inside for a quick look at the ignition, then straightened. “Where are the keys?”
The driver shrugged. “Dunno. Cops never said nothing `bout no keys to me.”
“Hmm. I guess they could be with him. Or maybe the car broke down when . . . when . . .”
Allie faltered, then muttered words Erik barely caught. “When he was on his way back from Tiffany’s.”
“I doubt it,” Erik interjected, unsettled once more by the glimpse of vulnerability, and her deep hurt over Cody. He didn’t understand why it bothered him, but it did. He cleared his throat. “If the car had broken down, Cody would have called a tow truck himself and the car wouldn’t be here any more.”
“Hmph.” Allie ducked back into the car. Erik jogged to the other side and opened the passenger door. A nylon jacket, a week’s worth of
Tribunes
and
Streeters
, and three Styrofoam coffee cups started to slide off the cream-colored leather seat.
He shoved them back while Allie did a visual tour of the interior.
“The phone’s still here, the radio and CD
player, the usual garbage.” She pulled out the ashtray, then grimaced in distaste. “The usual butts.” She slammed it back into place, and exited the car. She frowned, then shook her head at Erik over the top of the car.
“I don’t like this. Not at all. It’s really strange.
Why didn’t Cody lock up? Even then, I’d have expected the car to be stripped down after all this time. But nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
She shoved the hair out of her face with jerky, worried motions, and bit her lip. “I’m phoning Nate right now. Maybe Cody’s finally shown up. If not,” she raised her anxious gaze to Erik, ”we’re going to have to get the police on to this right away.”
Allie sighed. “In the meantime, you’d better get a few shots. Inside and outside, whatever strikes you as relevant. You never know how we can use them.”
She turned, sidestepped the scowling tow truck driver, and headed for her car.
A rare spurt of impatience exploded inside Erik as he removed a camera from his bag. He knew it was necessary to go through this charade, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
Instantly he rebuked himself and forced the impatience aside. He circled the car, concentrating on the job at hand. The best angle might be a long shot from the center of the divided highway, or farther down the shoulder. The car’s interior revealed nothing worth shooting, besides the fact that Cody was a slob. A slob, he thought sharply, Allie was better off without.
Erik waited for a break in the traffic before dodging to the center line. He held the camera in a crushing grip and clamped his lips. He would
not
let the delay, or Allie’s obvious concern for Cody bother him. If they did, it would just complicate his mission. Sometimes plans worked.
Sometimes they didn’t. Recoup and replan. It was as simple as that.
After a few shots, he darted back across the highway to the shoulder and the Corvette. He heard the slam of Allie’s car door and the crunch of gravel as she approached. But nothing prepared him for her sharp gasp.
“Erik! The car! There’s a glow, a strange blue glow all around the windshield. Look!”
Erik glanced at Allie. The shock in her electric green eyes made him pivot towards the front of the Corvette.
Sure enough. The telltale blue glow had inexplicably flared up, revealing the quickly fading remains of the invisible sensory field that had temporarily prevented most passersby from even considering approaching the car. But thankfully, it was already dissolving into nothingness. Erik started to frame a response when Allie squealed again.
“And your hand. Erik, your right hand is glowing. It’s glowing blue too!”
For a fraction of a second, Erik shut his eyes.
He concentrated every ounce of his steel will on shutting down the traitorous glow from his hand.
He opened his eyes. Allie was staring at him, her eyes round, her face a sickly yellow in the flashing orange light from the tow truck.
“It was probably just a reflection from the car,”
he said as he transferred the camera to his left hand. He jammed his right hand into his pocket as the glow snapped off.
By the stars of Zura
. He thought he’d remained detached. Obviously he hadn’t.
“I don’t think so,” Allie insisted. “It wasn’t like that. And hands don’t usually—”
“I don’t see no blue glow from the car, lady. Or from your buddy’s hand.” The tow truck driver, impatient to be on his way, stood legs akimbo, hands on hips. The wind rippled the bottom of his grease-stained shirt, exposing his well-developed beer belly. “Can I hook up the car now?”
“Maybe the glow was just from a passing truck,”
Erik suggested. He was glad to note that the glow from both his hand and the car had indeed disappeared. “There’s a lot of traffic out here tonight.”
Allie looked at the windshield, then rubbed her temple and shook her head. She shut her eyes briefly, then opened them. The corners of her mouth turned down. “Maybe you’re right. It’s been a long day, and I’m upset. I haven’t been myself all night anyway. I’m not acting normally, and I’m probably not seeing right either. This isn’t helping any.”
She sighed and turned to Erik. “Have you taken all the pictures you need?”
“Not quite. I still want to take a couple from farther down the shoulder. But that’ll only take a minute or two,” Erik said, relieved they had left the alien glow behind. He nodded to the tow truck driver. “Then you can tow the car.”
He turned back to Allie. “What did Nate say?”
“Cody still hasn’t shown up.” Allie bit her lip and looked at the ground. After a moment she looked up again, her liquid eyes brimming with worry. “Nate is calling the police and reporting him missing.”