“You asked for proof, and I shall give it to you, but I need to be touching you for it to work.” Not entirely true. Beta 690 could teleport Colette without Cade. However, given the beam could only transport one living being at a time, she’d arrive alone. Who knew what kind of damage she could do in the seconds before he joined her? Not to mention, what if Jaspar got to her first?
“Touch me and it will be the last thing you do,” Colette huffed as she stood and glared at him.
“Why so hostile?”
“Because I told you I don’t want to be a part of your prank.”
“And when I prove everything I’ve said is true, will you apologize?”
“Sure,” she drawled. “But if I’m right, and you’re a liar, whatever show you’re working for is going to give Locked and Mated some free publicity.”
He didn’t know what that meant, but didn’t worry because he’d not told her a single lie. Well, except about the fact he had to be touching her to teleport. Before she could flee, he slid an arm around her stiff body and dragged her close, drawing a grunt of surprise from her.
Her head tilted as she met his gaze. “Guess your size is due to muscle, not fat.”
“While I might be here on a diplomatic mission, I am still warrior trained.”
“And horny,” her dry reply as she shifted her hips away from his.
“She seems to have noticed your erection,” Beta stated in his head.
“I’m aware,” he murmured.
“Don’t think you’re using that cock on me. If I see your one-eyed snake, I will chop off its head.”
He didn’t understand the reference, but, given the vehemence she spoke it, could guess it would be violent. It should have toned down his arousal. Instead, he had to resist an urge to seduce. How baffling. Had he caught some kind of human ailment that had him feeling this way? Because it made no sense. This abrasive female, of an alien species, shouldn’t be affecting him so. It didn’t help it seemed to be one-sided. Colette made no pretense of the fact she didn’t care for him one whit. On the contrary, he got the impression she would bodily harm him if given the chance. Perhaps he should have listened to Jaspar. Too late now.
“So, where is this spaceship?” she asked in a mocking tone. “In your pants?”
“You might want to close your eyes,” he suggested before saying, “Ready to beam, Beta.”
Colette began to reply. “Who are you pretending—Blerg.”
Thankfully, Cade had his eyes closed so he didn’t see the vomit she spewed, but that didn’t stop him feeling it.
Instant erection killer.
4
The alcohol Colette had been sipping—copiously—suddenly hit hard. The room spun, and she probably would have collapsed if Cade-with-the-gobbledygook-last-name hadn’t been holding on to her. A guy who’d somehow managed to evade surveillance cameras, claimed to be an alien, and wanted her to help him hook up women with his alien buddies. Utterly ridiculous. He paid for his stalking and lies with a slimy and smelly coating of vomit.
Gross, especially since some of it spewed onto her, but all that combined wasn’t the reason she almost had her first panic attack.
In the blink of an eye, her dimly lit office suddenly turned bright. Had someone entered and turned on the lights? A theory bashed when Colette noticed she no longer stood by big plate-glass windows overlooking the city but in a bright, windowless room with off-white walls. A buzzing sound erupted along with strange moving lights that skimmed her body and left it tingling—and clean. The puke disappeared, along with her clothes—and his.
A rarely silent Colette took a fraction of a second to glance around and take in her situation before exclaiming, “What the fuck? Where am I?”
“You are currently aboard the Bekke, the spacecraft assigned to Commanders Jaspar’uilla Var Jannu and Cade’krinno Mer Acadu for their mission to Earth,” a feminine voice replied.
“Who’s that speaking?” Colette shoved away from the naked blue man, who was even more blue in the stark lighting of the sterile space she found herself in, not to mention muscled in ways that might have intrigued if she weren’t discombobulated—the first time in her life she actually had a reason to use that word.
“The voice you hear is Beta 690, the ship’s computer,” Cade replied.
“Ship, as in space?” Colette couldn’t help the high-pitched lilt.
“It seemed best to orbit your planet rather than land and cause consternation amongst your kind.”
“If we’re in space, then how did we get here in the blink of an eye?”
