Grady's Awakening

Chapter Six

“Your name is really Larry?” The surprise on her face was easy to see when Larry nodded in response to her question. “Jeez. I was calling you three Moe, Larry and Curly in my mind since you didn’t bother with introductions.” She laughed at her own joke, and the men joined in to varying degrees.

“My three stooges are Max, Larry and Pierre,” Jim clarified, pointing to each as he introduced them. “Back to you—what else can you do?”

Her attention shifted away from the men and back to Jim. “I can talk telepathically over short distances.” She sighed, looking at her hands. “I guess the thing I’m best at is healing, but even there, I’m not great. Nothing like my dad or brothers. They were truly gifted.”

“How about we start at the beginning. We all probably saw news reports of you with a gold medal around your neck. Where were you when the crystal bombs started to fall and what did you do after that?”

“Man,” she pushed her chair back and got comfortable. “You really want to delve into ancient history, huh? Okay. Well, let’s see. I was in California, doing a publicity tour for the presidential children’s athletics drive when the bombardment started. I called my dad and managed to talk to him for a few minutes before all hell broke loose. I’d had a dream a few hours before it started while I was sleeping in my hotel room. I don’t really remember the specifics of the dream. I woke knowing I had to get to higher ground. I got in the rental car—I didn’t even check out—and ran for the hills. I warned my family back East using my mobile phone, but I was only able to tell them that something was coming and to take cover. I didn’t know what was coming. I’d never felt anything so strongly as the urge to run. I told them I loved them.” Her voice caught. “And that I’d be in touch again when we were all safe.” She looked at her hands through the retelling. Every man in the room could feel her sorrow—empathic or not. “The crystals took out the satellites and cell towers and the earthquakes and tsunamis did the rest. I never talked to my family again. I made it up into the hills just in time.”

She was quiet a moment, and Jim let her have the time to regroup. They all had painful memories of that time. He didn’t want to intentionally cause her pain by reopening those wounds, but he needed to know.

“I kept driving as long as I could. I found a gas station or two along the way to refuel as I got deeper and deeper into the mountains. I just knew I had to keep going. Eventually I had to take cover, and my rental car was demolished by a huge crystal shard. I went on foot then, trying to stay clear of the path of destruction. I wandered for days—maybe weeks—before coming upon other humans. We walked together for a little while. Then some of the men turned ugly. I was the only woman in the group. I knocked the snot out of two of them and took off on my own. That happened a few times. I lost track of time. I was drinking out of streams and eating berries and leaves. My strength was pretty low when I saw my first Alvian.”

“Did you fight the alien?” Jim asked, wondering how that confrontation had gone. Gina didn’t look tough on the outside, but he knew she had skills few human men could match.

“Not at first. He watched me like a bug. Like he’d never seen anything like me before. It pissed me off, but I was so weak. He spoke a little English, which I thought was weird, but was glad for at that moment. He gave me water and something to eat, then when he called his companions out of cover and tried to have them take me into custody, I went ballistic on them.”

“How many?” Larry asked.

“There were five of them. It was the weirdest thing. After their initial group response, the leader called some commands to them in their language and they came at me one by one, like they were testing my limits. Each one tried a different tactic—a different style of fighting. I felt like I was back in my dad’s dojo, taking some kind of elaborate test. And these guys could fight. They were as good as my dad or better.”

Jim knew that was really saying something. “What happened? Did they finally wear you down and capture you?”

“Oh, they wore me down all right. I was weak to begin with. By the end of it I wasn’t captured so much as adopted. The leader was the Zxerah Patriarch. The fighters were his students. These guys weren’t interested in capturing humans. They’d gone out into the wilderness with the express purpose of finding some and seeing what we were like. It was pure fate they ran into me first. And I do mean fate. These guys are like highly skilled Tibetan monks. That’s the closest analogy I can come up with. Even that doesn’t fit completely. The Zxerah are a secret clan of Alvians that have existed for centuries in complete anonymity. The only Alvians that know they exist for sure are the Alvian High Council and those they allow to have contact with the Patriarch and his people. The Zxerah spend their entire lives training and teaching fighting skills to other warriors. When they go out among the Alvian army, they’re introduced simply as advanced teachers. Nobody knows where they come from or where they go, and the Council keeps it that way.”

“What does the Council get in return for keeping their secret?” Jim asked.

“The best assassins money can’t buy,” she answered bluntly. “Zxerah never miss.”

“Merde,” Pierre cursed, clearly shocked by the idea. “A secret Alvian hit squad? And you’re friends with them?”

“More than friends,” she admitted. “I’m a member of the clan. They adopted me and a few other humans they protect. Even the Council doesn’t know the Zxerah have been interacting with humans almost from their first day on this planet.”

“Why would they do that? I mean, what makes them different from the rest of their kind who want to put us in pens?” Jim didn’t know if he believed her. A quick check with his team told him she wasn’t lying.

“The Zxerah value innovation,” she said. “They’ve come to believe that psychic abilities are the manifestation of the next logical evolution of both our species. The Patriarch also believes that by breeding emotion out of his people, they’ve made a giant mistake. He studies these things—population growth and sustainability—and he thinks that unless the process is altered, his race is doomed.”

That idea sank in for a moment while Jim thought about the implications. This could be big—if the Patriarch was someone they could work with.

“You’ve lived with these Zxerah since then? You’ve spent decades with them, right? Can you tell me why nobody ages anymore?”

“Oh, yeah. That was a surprise even to the Patriarch,” Gina said. “He discovered well after the fact that one of the lead Alvian scientists discovered lost Alvian DNA in certain humans she was studying. It turns out all human survivors have some amount of Alvian DNA and it was a simple matter for their geneticists to design a treatment that would turn on the Alvian aging gene that was dormant in us all. The scientists figured it would give them more time to study us, so they disseminated the treatment planet-wide. It was an airborne thing that eventually infected us all. That’s why our aging slowed. We age like Alvians now, and they live several hundred years.”

“If that don’t beat all,” Max murmured.

“Your Patriarch sent you here for something.” Jim brought the conversation back on track. “What did you hope to accomplish?”

“I’ve been sent out from time to time over the past decades. Always in secret and always to advance the Patriarch’s own secret agenda. Most often, I’ve gone out to rescue human women who were being mistreated by their males. I’ve also been used to find other human martial artists and bring them into the Zxerah fold. Seems more than a few remember my face from the Olympics and the ad campaigns that came after. We have a small cadre of human fighters that had some training in martial arts before the cataclysm and have since been taught Zxerah fighting styles. We train hard every day. We’re as good as the Alvian Zxerah and in some notable instances, even better. When the Patriarch realized the difference that made humans better at the ancient Zxerah arts than his own people, he decided on his current course of action.”

“What was the difference? And what’s his course of action?”

“The difference is heart.” Her gaze held his as she made her revelation. “Emotion makes the difference. Too much emotion is not good in a fighter, but the Patriarch believes that too little emotion is just as detrimental to his brethren. His current course of action is to do everything he can to return emotion to his people. Like I said before, some Alvian scientists are already experimenting with such things. It’s the Patriarch’s plan to help those experiments along as best he can from the shadows. More than that, he’s vowed to help protect humanity because he sees no future for his own people without humans too. He believes a blending of our races is what will save them both—eventually.”

“Then why come here? We’re one small enclave, and we don’t get too involved in what goes on outside our complex.”

“Your group is one of many, Jim. There are other strongholds, like this one, scattered around the world. A large number of them are on the North American continent. The Patriarch sent me to try to put you in touch with the others. I’m hoping yours will be the first to reach out to another encampment of humans—if you’re willing to take the chance. Eventually, all the different groups of humans could be organized into a real resistance working in concert with each other, if and when necessary.”

Jim sat back, regarding her steadily. “That’s a mighty tall order, sweetheart. Many of our folk don’t want anything to do with the outside world. A lot of them barely made it here and this place represents safety. Opening it up to others puts them at risk, and I’d hazard to say many of them won’t want to take that risk.”

Gina sighed deeply as she seemed to consider his words. “I see your difficulty. There’s got to be some way to bring you together—at least into communication with each other—without jeopardizing everyone’s safety.”

“We can’t decide something this big in a matter of hours. Maybe not even in a couple of days.” Jim stood and his men followed suit. “I hope you planned on staying a while. We have some guest quarters nearby where you can sleep. There’ll be a guard. Sorry for that, but by your own admission, you’ve been consorting with Alvians. To us they’re still the enemy.”

“I understand.” Gina stood and followed the men out the door and down the hall. Max, Larry and Pierre said their farewells and stayed in the hallway, but Jim followed her right into the guest quarters.

“So what now?”

Gina turned to face Jim—a man she had secretly admired when she was a teenager. Heck, if she were being honest with herself, she would admit to the huge crush she’d had on him. He’d been a hottie then and things had only improved with time. He was tall, muscular and lean in the way martial artists often were, only he carried himself with more assurance than any man she’d ever known outside her own family.

Jim had that indefinable something that made him nearly irresistible. She stacked him up in her mind against her dad and brothers and knew he could have held his own with the men she admired most—both intellectually and physically. He’d been a talented fighter when she’d first seen him in the gym training with her dad. After only a few months of her father’s instruction, he was a force to be reckoned with.

She’d watched him from afar, even though she’d known better. Her dad was the specialist the CIA had sent certain people to when they needed extra training. Only the most gifted athletes and operatives were sent and more failed at the rigorous training program her father subjected them to than passed. Jim was one of the latter. He’d not only passed the months of training, but he’d earned Sensei Hanson’s respect.

The object of her thoughts closed the door firmly behind them and leaned back against it. His expression was guarded. She thought she sensed regret mixed with something indefinable that almost felt like attraction as he watched her from half-closed eyes.

“Now you’d better strip.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Jim sighed and pushed himself away from his leaning position against the door.

“You heard me. I’m taking your clothes and your bag for safekeeping. There’s a jumpsuit in the bathroom for you to wear.”

“You’re kidding right?”

“I’m afraid not, Gina.” His deep voice growled across her skin, raising goose bumps. “Take off your clothes.”

“Taking your security measures a little far aren’t you?”

His sensuous lips firmed into an unrelenting line. “Never far enough, sweetheart. I’ve learned the hard way that I can never be too careful when it comes to my people’s safety.”

She recognized the determination in his jaw and the bitter truth of memory in his eyes. He wouldn’t relent on this point, and she realized she should have expected something like this.

“Oh, all right. Turn around.”

“Can’t do it. If you’re hiding anything on your person, I need to see it. And if you’re hiding anything in your person, I’m going to do my best to find it.”

She gasped. “This is a body cavity search? You’ve got to be kidding.” She felt shaky when she realized what such a search would entail.

Jim moved toward a small bathroom on one side of the guest quarters. He opened a small medicine chest and took out a couple of things—among the most daunting was a jar of something that looked like petroleum jelly.

“Afraid not. Look, I had medical training back in the day. I know what I’m doing and I promise not to hurt you, but this has to be done. I won’t allow you to smuggle anything that could be dangerous to the safety of my people any farther into this facility than you already have.”

“I’m not smuggling anything!”

“I’ve trusted you this far on instinct alone, but I have to be certain. Now strip. I won’t say it again.”

The edge of steel in his voice made her shiver, but it wasn’t all in fear. No, something started to stir in the pit of her stomach at his dominant tone.

“Isn’t there any other way?” She shifted her weight from foot to foot, agitated at the idea of what he was asking.

“If you don’t agree voluntarily, I’ll call in the troops and after what I suspect will be a painful fight, we’ll restrain you and do it by force. You can’t be allowed to leave now that you know about us. You’ll be a prisoner.”

“Some choice.” Gina held his eyes as she began to unfasten her top with rough motions. She was angry and not shy about showing it. He looked relieved, but his expression also held a hint of anticipation she found hard to ignore.

“Throw everything onto the chair by the door.” He nodded toward it as her top came undone, but his eyes followed her movements closely.

The dark, alien fabric shrugged off her shoulders, and she threw it over the chair with deadly accuracy. She removed her pants next and his gaze flicked over her skin like flame, making her hot in an inexplicable way. The pants dropped to her ankles, and she kicked them upward toward the chair. Her soft shoes and socks followed, leaving her in her underwear. There she hesitated.

“Everything, Gina.”

She felt a flush steal up her cheeks, lighting her face bright red, she was certain, as she debated her next move. Before Grady, Gina hadn’t been intimate with a man in more years than she could count on one hand. Her few liaisons hadn’t ever involved this kind of thing. She couldn’t recall ever being totally naked in front of a man who wasn’t also bare-assed. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and now Jim—this man she’d lusted after as a teen—was ordering her to not only get naked, but allow him to…to…stick his fingers in places she’d never had anybody’s fingers.

Why did that thought turn her on? Especially since her stolen night with Grady. She must be depraved for the idea of this invasion to be even remotely exciting. But she couldn’t help the little gasp that caught in her throat when Jim walked closer to her.

“I won’t hurt you, Gina, but I have to be sure. Turn around and keep your hands where I can see them.” His voice was pitched low, coaxing and demanding all at the same time.

Gina did as he asked, feeling her body quake with fear, excitement and…was that yearning? She gasped out loud this time when Jim’s warm fingers undid the clasp on her bra. He pushed the straps down her arms and moved closer, his tall body warm against her shivering back as he pushed the garment all the way down her arms and off. He threw it behind them to the chair before stepping back.

Gina knew he could see her breasts, tall as he was, looking over her shoulder, but he moved away, restoring the illusion of privacy. She breathed easier until his hands returned to her body, this time skimming her panties down over her hips, dragging them slowly to the floor.

“Up,” he commanded, leaving himself vulnerable to a kick as he crouched behind her legs. He trusted her not to take advantage and try to hurt him. It was a significant gesture that made it somewhat easier to do as he said. She lifted one foot, then the other as he flung the panties to the growing pile on the chair.

Jim took her hand and led her into the small bathroom. She felt his eyes on her. She was too mortified by the situation and her body’s response to this compelling man to meet his gaze.

He positioned her in front of the countertop and used a cotton swab and a pointed light to look into her ears first. That done, he did the same for her nose and then instructed her to open her mouth. She did, finally meeting his eyes, unable to ignore his handsome face close to hers as he poked around inside her mouth with a small mirror and the light. Apparently satisfied, Jim laid the instruments down on the counter, then ran his fingers into her hair, stroking all over her scalp and down her neck.

“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.

“I’m feeling for any synthetic patches on your epidermis. You look clean, but touch is a better way to tell for sure.”

“This is insane.” A shiver raced down her spine as his warm hands followed the same path. He touched every inch of her back and sides, his palms skating over her arms and even under them. Then he returned to her shoulders and began his journey down her front.

Gina had to look away when he cupped her breasts. Her nipples hardened in his palms and he paused, giving them a tweak that made her jump.

“Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.” His grin made her want to smack him.

“You’re not supposed to enjoy this,” she ground out, accusing.

“Who says?” Jim countered, his big hands still cradling her breasts, kneading them now with gentle motions that caused her stomach to flip.

She sputtered for a smart reply but came up short. “B-b-because!”

Jim laughed, finally releasing her breasts only to continue his examination of her body, stroking each leg as he knelt before her. Again there was that trust he gave, putting himself in the vulnerable position that would leave him open to attack if she chose to launch one. The gesture calmed her as much as his roving hands stirred her.

When he moved closer as his fingers worked their way up the insides of her thighs, she was hard pressed not to moan. It should have felt wrong or awkward. This wasn’t about mutual pleasure, as her night with Grady had been. This was something else entirely, but it sure felt like the real thing. Having Jim’s hands on her felt like the most natural thing in the world. The thought scared her.

Who was she? What was she becoming? Gina didn’t even recognize herself anymore. Had Grady’s lovemaking flipped some hidden on switch inside her and now she was ripe for any man? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think so. She hadn’t had this reaction to any of Jim’s men. But all Jim had to do was touch her—even in the most clinical way, and this touch was far from clinical—and she melted. She didn’t understand herself at all.

“Open for me, Gina.” His words whispered across the bare skin of her belly, warming her, exciting her. “Spread your legs.”

As much as she wanted to keep her legs locked together to hide the wetness now coating her most intimate place, she had to comply. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip as she stepped out with one leg, giving him access. Jim took immediate advantage, sliding his hands up into the warm juncture of her thighs.

“I see we won’t need to use the lube for this part,” he growled, still at eye level with her pussy. “I thought you didn’t want to enjoy this.”

“I don’t,” she gasped as he combed his fingers through the neat patch of curls she kept meticulously trimmed. He spread the outer lips and ran one finger down her grooves, sliding in the slick wetness of her arousal.

“You have a funny way of showing it, Gina.” His breath puffed across her spread folds, making her quiver. The warm, masculine chuckle that followed rumbled through her body like an earthquake of sensation. At that moment, he struck, sliding one thick finger into her channel.

Gina realized suddenly what a terrible idea it had been to close her eyes. Locked in sensation without the distraction of vision, she could feel every last rasp of his calloused skin against her sensitive tissues as he pushed all the way inside.

Then he began to move.

Gina opened her eyes, but it was worse to see his rapt expression as he watched his finger sink into her. There was color on his high cheekbones, showing he wasn’t completely unaffected by what he was doing. That gave her some satisfaction. She wasn’t the only one being brought to her knees here tonight.

“Do you do this to everyone who comes knocking on your door?” Her voice was a breathless whisper.

“Not me personally, no. Usually we let Pierre do the honors since he’s a doctor.”

“Then why? Why you?”

“Because that French bastard was flirting with you.” He punctuated his unguarded words with a particularly fierce curl of his fingertip as he reached right up inside and hit her G spot. She cried out as he rubbed it again and looked into her eyes. “You like that, baby?”

The grin he gave her melted her bones. She could only nod as he stroked inside again. She was so excited, it wasn’t even funny. Only her teeth biting into her lower lip kept her from crying out when he started a concentrated rhythm, his dark eyes watching her face intently.

“Come for me, Gina. Do it now,” he ordered her, leaning forward as she mounted the final rung of the ladder on her way to oblivion. The touch of his tongue on her clit sent her over, spiraling upward as he rode her through the explosion.

A minute later he pulled out, positioning her limp body to his satisfaction. He turned her and laid her out over the counter, bent at the waist so her ass was up in the air. He moved behind her, and her foggy brain dimly recorded his use of the lubricant in the jar before he slid one long finger into her ass.

She’d never had anything up there before and wasn’t sure she liked the feeling, but it didn’t really hurt. Of course, her body was in a state of bliss from the amazing orgasm he’d just given her.

To her horror, the finger in her ass made the fire in her blood rise again. It wasn’t possible. Was it?

Before she really had a chance to find out, he pulled out and washed his hands in the small sink. Gina barely had the strength to stand. After a moment to catch her breath, she straightened by slow degrees.

Jim turned away, pulling the promised jumpsuit off the peg on the back of the door and handing it to her.

“Get dressed.”

Gina considered the jumpsuit. “You want me to go commando?”

That got a smile out of him. “We don’t have spare undies for you at the moment. Your stuff will be examined and returned once the techs have a look at it.”

It was only as she tugged on the jumpsuit that she realized Jim wouldn’t be leaving here totally unaffected by what he’d done to her. Gina’s gaze fell to his waist and the huge bulge below his belt. The man was hard and had a huge cock if that long, thick ridge was anything to go by.

“I—” he began, hesitating as she tugged the zipper on the suit all the way up. Covered now, she faced him, trying hard to suppress the flush in her cheeks.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Gina. I was too trusting once before with disastrous results. It’s better to be sure.”

“Do you believe me now?” She was surprised he’d unbent enough to apologize. She appreciated the very real concern she sensed from him. Her empathic skills were low, but she picked up more from Jim than she had from anyone in a long time. Anyone except Grady—but she promised herself she wouldn’t think of him. Especially now, after coming so easily and so hard for a man she hadn’t seen in years. She didn’t know what being able to read Jim’s emotions meant yet, but she was intrigued.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” The twinkle in his eyes warmed her though his words spoke of caution. “But it’s a beginning. I’m satisfied you didn’t smuggle anything in here on your person. At least nothing I can find. The techs will go through your gear and that’ll bring you one step closer to earning my trust. For now, let’s take it one day at a time.”

“Fair enough. One thing—when you take the maps out of my bag, you might want to handle those yourself, or keep them among your top men.”

“Why?” His eyes narrowed. “I thought they were just maps.”

“They are. Maps to get me here and one very special map the Patriarch sent along for you. It shows the coordinates and locations of the other sites we know of where humans are hiding out, plus some we suspect based on other data. That’s very valuable information, Jim. It’s meant for you alone. It would be a catastrophe if it somehow fell into Alvian hands.”

“It came from Alvians.” His posture was challenging. The man who’d brought her to such heights of pleasure only moments before was all business now.

“It came from the Zxerah Patriarch. He’s very particular about what he tells the High Council and what he keeps to himself. This information is held closely among the brotherhood. The rest of the Alvian race has no idea these sites even exist.”

“Show me.” He walked out of the small bathroom to where her belongings were lying in a heap on the chair. He dug through and pulled out her pack, laying it on the bed where he could observe her every movement.

Gina was careful to keep her hands in plain sight as she opened the bag and took out the maps. She spread them on the bed, pushing the bag aside to make room.

“This one helped me get here from the coast. I can’t tell you exactly where I originated. The location of the Zxerah base is known to only a handful of non-Zxerah on this planet.”

Jim’s jaw firmed. He didn’t go to the trouble of pointing out that trust went both ways. For her part, she was beginning to trust Jim but the secret location of the base wasn’t her secret to share.

“And this…” she carefully peeled away a layer of the laminated map to reveal another, thinner layer of map beneath. “This one is for you.” She laid out the map and pointed to a few features. “This is where we are now. There are a few known locations where our scouts have actually seen humans living in large numbers. The mountains of what used to be New York have a very large population. There are also sites in most of the surviving mountain ranges throughout the United States and Canada. The closest suspected site to you is this one here, in the Canadian Rockies. We don’t have confirmed reports of habitation yet. We do believe there is a strong possibility humans have moved in based on increased power consumption and other data.”

“You can read their power consumption?”

“Only marginally. The Zxerah site was part of a network of prototype artificial intelligence-controlled computers. The core was damaged almost beyond repair during the crystal bombardment but they managed to reestablish a few of the dormant computer links to the other sites. A very slight increase in power consumption was noted from this facility,” she indicated the one in the Canadian Rockies again on the map, “in the last year or so. That, combined with some other data I’m not at liberty to divulge has led the Patriarch to believe people have moved in.”

“Do you even know what the other data is?”

“Not all of it, but I’ve pieced together some from little things I’ve heard. Rumors of missing test subjects, escaped prisoners, et cetera. I think there’s a better than good chance they’re hiding out there.”

“And you want us to get in touch with them?”

“I believe with all my heart that doing just that is humanity’s best hope for the future.”

“All right.” Jim folded the maps and tucked them both into his pocket, then grabbed the bag off the bed and the rest of her things from the chair. “We’ll go through this stuff as quickly as possible. There will be someone outside in the hall if you need anything. Otherwise, I’d ask that you don’t leave this room until we come get you tomorrow morning.”

“Sure thing.” She sat, her arms folded as she watched him go. “I’ll be a good little prisoner and won’t make waves. For now.”

He turned to stare her down. “The guard is for your own good, and the good of my people. Give us some time to get to know you, Gina.”

“Oh, I think you just got to know me pretty darn well, Jim.” She felt heat rush to her cheeks as the words popped out of her mouth. Too late to call them back. She had to brazen the awkward moment out.

“I’m sorry to have put you through that but I’m not sorry I gave you an orgasm, sweetheart.” He winked, and she had to stifle a gasp at the heat that entered his gaze. “In fact, I already plan on doing it again, when you’re in a better position to agree willingly to letting me fuck your brains out.”

The raw words hit her like velvet punches to her midsection, leaving heat in their wake and an almost painful arousal. No man had ever been so bold with her. She was shocked to discover she liked his blunt talk.

“Surely you have a woman here—or two—to see to your needs. You’re in charge, aren’t you?”

“I protect my people,” he bit out, his eyes going hard. “I don’t take advantage of them. Ever. Especially the weakest of them. The women here are either part of existing families or have been traumatized. Like Tory. We protect them. We help them. We don’t take advantage of them. We’re not barbarians.”

The very real anger in his tone brought her up short. She’d grown too used to the way most human males had coped with the shortage of females since the cataclysm. Many were downright savages. Most shared whatever women they could find, “protecting” them as best they could in small groups. Gina hadn’t given much thought to how a large group like the one living here would make do, but she remembered Jim as a man of honor.

At least, he had been when she’d known him briefly in her youth. From the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice, the honor remained. Gina wondered what else of his previous existence had stayed with him and what parts had changed. She wanted to know what made him tick.

“If that’s the case, then you have my respect.”

“It is the case.” Challenge was written in every line of his tense body. Then he began to relax. “You’ll learn that for yourself once you meet the rest of my people.”

Gina thought it was telling how he claimed caretaker status over the group. He probably didn’t even realize his word choice implied so much. He said it so matter-of-factly that she knew he felt a strong sense of responsibility for the people under his care.

“Then you think there’s a chance I’ll make it past all your inspections and actually get to meet the rest of your group? I have to tell you, the only reason I came here was to meet you, Jim, and pass on what I know.”

“There’s no going back, Gina. Once you learned of our existence—and especially with the knowledge you have—I can’t let you go back to your Alvian masters.”

“They’re not my masters, Jim. The Patriarch is my sensei, my leader. I follow him of my own free will.”

“So you say.” Jim held her gaze. “We’ll take this slow for now, but know this: I want you, Gina, and I intend to have you. You’re not off limits like you were when you were a kid.”

His commanding voice sent a spear of heat through her belly as his words sank home.

“So you were looking at me when I was a teenager? I think I’m flattered.” She tried to keep her tone light. There was more truth in her words than she dared let on.

“Oh, I noticed you sashaying around the dojo, little girl.” A sexy grin lifted one side of his mouth as he stepped right up to her, invading her personal space. “I noticed you then, but kept my distance. This time nothing stands in the way. Not your age. Not your father or brothers. Not my honor.”

“You’re still a man of honor.” Her words whispered across the scant space separating them as his head lowered toward hers.

“How can you tell?” His voice was pitched low, his lips dragging across hers as his arms came around her body.

“I just know.”

Her words were swallowed by the sweep of his tongue over her lips. He kissed her then, delving deep. It was a kiss of possession, of learning and heat. She didn’t want it to end. He’d already been more intimate with her than a mere acquaintance, but they’d yet to share a kiss.

As first kisses went, this one was damned near perfect. Jim seemed to know just where to touch, just how much pressure to apply, just what to do with his talented tongue to make her bones melt. She flowed into him as his arms tightened around her, craving his nearness, his strength, his warmth. She’d never felt anything like it, never dreamed such complete possession could be so freeing, so exhilarating, so much like flying.

Her head was still spinning when he pulled back, letting her go by slow degrees. Her blood pounded through her veins, her breath labored, and she watched him with dazzled eyes to see what he’d do next.

But Jim stepped away, setting her free. It was the dead last thing she expected and the one thing that restored her faith in him as a man. He wouldn’t take advantage of her dazed senses. He wouldn’t push her into anything on such short reacquaintance. He’d give her space and the time she needed. He wasn’t the barbarian she’d nearly accused him of being.

“You have more faith in me than I do, Gina,” he said, putting his hand on the doorknob. “Keep this locked, and don’t go out until I come get you tomorrow.”

As the door closed behind him, Gina realized two very important things. First, her life had just become very complicated. And second, she finally knew who the second man in her dreams had been.