Alien Diplomacy

could shatter crystal, and he roared as our bodies shuddered together. Each throb from him made my orgasm spike, until the room started to spin.
    Jeff shifted so I’d fall forward. His hands were still on my breasts, and he moved me gently down until I was lying on top of him, whimpering quietly while the spasms in my body quieted.
    He stroked my back and kissed my head. “I love you, baby,” he said softly.
    I snuggled my face into his neck. “I love you, too, Jeff. I’m sorryI didn’t do what you said and ended up putting us both into the river.”
    He chuckled as he pulled the covers up and over us. “As long as you’re safe, still mine, and in my arms and my bed, I don’t really care about anything else. Including you being you and ignoring anything anyone tells you, including me.”
    “That’s my kind of détente.”



CHAPTER 22
    W E BOTH FELL ASLEEP, which wasn’t all that surprising. I woke up a few hours later because my breasts were torpedoes. Did a quick search and retrieved Jamie from Doreen and Irving.
    I fed the baby, Jeff did the diaper check and change, and we tucked her into her bassinette, which we put by my side of the bed, just because we were both feeling a little jumpy about exploding cars and river swims. Then we all went back to sleep.
    Jamie woke us up a few hours later, we did the feeding routine, and then all collapsed back into bed. I marked swimming in the Potomac as being something we wanted never to do again, either individually or as a family.
    The sound of Maroon 5’s “Must Get Out” woke us up hours later. One of the nicer things about living in the Embassy was that we continued to avoid the standard A-C Morning Militant Bell Ringing that was so popular with everyone but me. We got to have an actual alarm clock and one of my backup iPods lived there. I had this one continuously tuned to my Hate This Place playlist because, well, why not?
    As Maroon 5 shared my sentiments about D.C. and what it was doing to us, we gave Jamie her morning feeding. The music changed to Pink and Steven Tyler singing “Misery.” Yeah, I loved it here, I really did.
    Once Jamie was burped and resting in her crib, we showered, quickly. These days, our long showers were for when the baby was with someone else or asleep. Once we were clean again, we stayed in our robes while Jeff prepared and we ate breakfast. It was sort of a decadent thing to do, but it made both of us feelmore like we were on vacation than relegated to an assignment we both hated.
    Jeff made some calls, during which he spent a lot of time grunting. When he finished, I made the standard inquiries. “What’s going on?”
    He sighed. “The cluster acted just like the one in Paris a few months ago. There were no rage indicators. Based on what happened before, James and Tim knew Reynolds would want to get at least a sample of the superbeings to study.” He didn’t look happy.
    “But they all blew up before our teams could either blow them up ourselves or get a superbeing captive, right?”
    “I married the smartest girl in the galaxy. Yes. And there were no signs of outside attack. Just like in Paris.”
    “So, they were set to self-destruct. We need to find and stop whichever lunatics are behind this supersoldier project.”
    “If that’s what it is.”
    “I know that’s what it is, Jeff. And so do you, if you’ll be honest with yourself.”
    “Maybe. We have something much more pressing to deal with, though, baby. The President’s Ball is tomorrow, and barring Reynolds and your mother having extracted something useful out of the prisoners, we’re still likely flying blind.”
    We were interrupted by Walter on the com. “Excuse me, Chiefs, but Mister Katt is here.”
    “Please ask him to give us a couple of minutes before he comes up, Walter,” Jeff said, as he stood up.
    “Will do, Chief.”
    “Why’s my dad visiting without calling first?”
    “He did call first. He just talked to me yesterday, not you.” Jeff started getting dressed. Clean clothes, which included everything we’d been wearing the day before, were in the closet, courtesy of the Elves. I really hoped they didn’t hang out and catch our sex life live and in person, but I decided the five-star maid service probably made up for it if they did.
    “Oh. What about?” I asked as I rummaged through the closet for an appropriate outfit for today’s festivities. I settled for another pair of jeans, a Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers T-shirt,