Page 53 of Alien Rescue

She casually broke off a piece of bagel. “Of course, only those who wake at a decent hour get to do morning sex.” She looked down at her plate to hide her smile. Take that Mr. I Have To Be Up Before the Crack of Dawn. She took a sip of strong coffee, savoring the taste. She didn’t know how his machine managed it, but it made the best coffee she’d ever tasted. She wasn’t surprised he didn’t bring coffee along with the ‘authentic’ breakfast. These days coffee was scarce, and even the most expensive brands she’d bought weren’t as good as the coffee his machine produced.

He’d lost all interest in the slop on the plate in front of him. Those eyes that reminded her of the darkest night, filled with red. “How many hours?”

Rose almost moaned. That will teach her to tease the alien. She might as well tug on a tiger’s tail. She might just get eaten. Or made love to most of the night and morning. Hmm, maybe it would be like the interesting things he’d done with his tongue last night. She squeezed her thighs together, remembered pleasure heating her cheeks.

“One hour exactly.” With his literal mind, he’d hopefully stick to one hour exactly, because she was reasonably sure she wasn’t going to get him off the idea of morning sex. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to anyway. On the other hand, her body could handle only that amount of pleasure. So one hour it was.

He flashed that awful grin at her, all teeth and glowing eyes. “Tomorrow we will do an hour morning sex.”

Her skin tingled in anticipation of the pleasure to come. Yip, Mr. Literal fell for it, she thought, amused.

“All right, but remember, morning sex is only one hour long.” She searched for a logical reason for that. “Female bodies are fragile in the morning and can only take one hour of pleasure that early.” She wasn’t awake enough yet to come up with anything better.

He nodded. “You are merely human, that is understandable.”

And aliens are easily duped, she thought, but kept it to herself. Rose resisted the urge to roll her eyes and instead asked, “So what are we doing today?”

“First, I will scan you and send the results to Viglar, then we will walk to the farthest edge of the city. Where the buildings are mostly under water.”

All the warm tingles racing through her body disappeared and were replaced by bone-chilling fear. For a moment she’d forgotten about the little killers running around in her body.

“Why there?”

“The probe picked up humans furtively coming and going. The probes also recorded screams.”

Rose frowned. “I thought you said your probes are blocked from finding the scientists.”

“These may be lesser conspirators or humans involved in other illegal activities.”

She nodded. Screams didn’t sound good at all. She could think of all kinds of reasons for those. Tattoo parlors were notorious for the agonised screaming coming from them.

He finished his breakfast and stood, and came around to stand behind her chair. “Drink your coffee, my breeder, I will improve your hair.” He started to loosen the braids she’d put in her hair.

“What is it with you and hair? Did you secretly want to be a hairdresser?”

He snorted and there was no misinterpreting the contempt in that noise. “I do not wish to do the inferior hair of other humans. I have great pride that I have a breeder with such magnificent hair. It is truly superior.”

Rose took a drink to hide how his words affected her. He made her feel like the most precious woman on Earth. She deliberately didn’t think about the little machines in her blood; instead she leaned back and enjoyed him fussing with her hair while she slowly drank her coffee.

He held up a shiny piece of metal in front of her that turned into a mirror. “It is done, my breeder. I have managed a superior style of braid,” he said with obvious pride.

“It is lovely and functional, thank you,” she said. He’d started out with several braids and combined them until one thick braid hung down her back.

“I will scan you before we go.” He scanned her thoroughly and grunted.

“When you grunt like that, are you talking to the doctor?”

“Yes, my breeder. But it is not grunting. It is superior talking that your badly developed ears cannot process.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” As usual her sarcasm went right over his head. “Viglar said he detected a slight change in the nanos. But the change is so slight, it shouldn’t affect you yet.” He sounded angry as if he felt as afraid and helpless as she did.

Rose swallowed and nodded. What could she say? They both knew what would happen if they couldn’t find the shutdown codes when they found the bombs.

“We will go to the hoverbike now,” he said and they went outside to where the hoverbike already stood. He must’ve prepared it, or whatever he did to get it ready to fly. He lifted her and placed her on the seat as if she weighed nothing. “We will fly closer and then walk the last few blocks to where the activity was spotted.” He got on in front of her.

“All right.” She put her arms around him and held on tight.

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