Touched by an Alien

us to wait until the two of you were through the gate,” one finally admitted.
    “And Christopher’s in charge of image control. Who, do you happen to remember, is in charge of active situations?” Martini’s voice was clipped and filled with authority. I found it interesting to see which of them got huffy when.
    The agent who’d spoken up dropped his eyes. “You are, Jeff. But Christopher thought it was important for us to watch your back.”
    “Right. I know exactly what he wanted watched. You and the rest of our crack image control team get out of here, now. Get back to East Base and, as an idea, try to monitor if we have Mephistopheles or one of his cronies heading out of their respective states. You know, if you think you can handle it.”
    Admittedly I’d only known them less than a day, but in all that time I hadn’t seen Martini be anything but genial. Even when he was all business, he wasn’t rude or nasty. This was sort of a shock, and an unpleasant one.
    The other agents seemed confused as well, but they left, albeit reluctantly. Martini watched them leave. Then he turned back to me. “Ready to go?”
    “Sort of. You want to share why you were just Jerk of the Year to those guys?”
    “No.”
    “What’s going on between you and Christopher?”
    I’d hit the target. Martini’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing.”
    “You know, none of you can actually lie, not even Paul.”
    “Time to go through the gate.” He shoved me, gently, toward the bathroom stall.
    I refused to budge. “No. I want some answers. Christopher being a jerk seems like his natural state of being, but you’re not acting like what I’d call normal. For you, I mean.”
    “Look, I don’t want to talk about this here. We just spent a lot of time and energy so we could get you and your mother out of here safely. Let’s not have all that go to waste, okay?”
    “No. The last time I asked you a question you didn’t want to answer, we ended up in New York. I want the answer to this question before we end up God knows where. Now, what’s going on that’s making you act like this?”
    He wasn’t lying, I could tell—but the answer was a bit of a surprise. “You. Now, let’s get moving.”
    “You’re mad at me?” I didn’t know what I’d done differently that would have caused him to be this upset.
    Martini gave a growl of exasperation. “No, I’m not mad at you! I’m crazy about you! Yes, I know, less than a day. Empath, remember? Gives you certain insights into people. Now, can we please go?”
    I let him move me to the stall while I digested this. “So Christopher doesn’t want you with me, does he?”
    Martini snorted. “That’s for sure.”
    “Well, who cares what he wants? But that’s no reason to be nasty to those other agents.”
    “Fine. I’ll send them all a fruit basket once we’re out of here. Now, step through, please. So I can step through, and we can get to safety.”
    He seemed so stressed out and upset, and he was leaning over me, trying to get me fully into the stall and through the gate. I didn’t think about it, I just leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Okay, I’ll be good.”
    Martini gave me a slow smile. “Nah, I like you just like you are.” Then he bent down and kissed me back, but not on my cheek. And I forgot about where we were, evil things trying to kill me, or anything else.

CHAPTER 16
    THE ONLY SEMI-COHERENT THOUGHT I could muster was, if his kiss was any indication, Martini wasn’t lying when he said he was great in bed. Because I was ready to find out, right then and there.
    His mouth covered mine—soft pillowy lips you could fall into and a tongue that knew just how to twine with mine to make my knees go weak. His arms went around me, pulling me away from the stall and turning me so my body was fully against his. My arms went around his neck, and I kissed him back as deeply as he was kissing me. He had one hand behind my head and the other at the small of my back; we were pressed so tightly together I almost couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t want to pull away. I was perfectly willing to stay like this for the next several hours.
    Finally, he ended our kiss—gradually and sensuously. As we drew apart, I slowly opened my eyes to see his smoldering back at me. “I’d be happy to continue this conversation somewhere else, when I know nothing’s going to show up to try to kill us,” he said with a small smile.
    I managed to stop myself from suggesting we not