Chapter 8

Bloody hell. Why did the woman have to be so perfect?

Having parked her in front of the fire with a cup of coffee bright and early, he packed up the tent and sleeping bags, then stowed them in the back of her SUV. They’d bathed in the river not long after first light, after only a few hours of sleep. The buzz still hadn’t worn off from hog-tying her after their second dip in the river and going down on her until she begged to come again, like a good girl. He’d cuddled her for ages afterward, eventually opting to pack up camp before he broke his dick. He’d fucked her so much that he was sore, so he could only imagine how much worse it was for her.

Really, as a gentleman, he should kiss her better.

The memory of licking her sweet little pussy while she wriggled helplessly in his bonds, desperate to come or to get away, made his cock start to stiffen again. She was so receptive to dominance and yet so confused by her own reactions. He’d never dominated someone who had no real experience with kink, and watching her realize how much she loved submitting was a heady experience.

Everything about her drove him crazy. It was too bad they’d only have a few days together.

Once everything was packed up, he swept up the sleepy girl and deposited her in the passenger seat of the SUV, and couldn’t help pressing his forehead to hers. She averted her eyes and blushed, and he could feel himself sliding down the slippery slope to that possessive, protective affection that came with caring for a submissive.

He had no right to those sorts of feelings with her. Not already, and really not ever. There was no place for either of them in each other’s lives. The last thing he needed in his line of work was a famous girlfriend who attracted paparazzi, and the last thing she needed in her line of work was a criminal boyfriend.

And it had only been about thirty-six hours since he’d accidentally kidnapped her. Falling for someone after thirty-six hours was impossible, even though they’d barely slept.

Afterglow wasn’t love, no matter how lovely it felt.

Give your head a shake, idiot.

He threw the campfire blankets in the back of the SUV, then dumped water on the fire and covered it back over with dirt when it was well out. By the time he got into the driver’s seat, Ophelia was sound asleep again, her seat belt buckled, and her legs curled beneath her. God, she was adorable when she was asleep.

Reluctantly, he pulled his gaze away from her and checked his phone. The group chat with Fox, Addison, Atlas, and himself had kept going without him. It took several minutes to read through all of the ribbing he’d missed.

Before he’d even arrived at the bottom of the messages, his phone vibrated in his hand. Atlas.

He got back out of the SUV before he hit answer.

“What the fuck do you want?”

Atlas’ deep chuckle irritated him. “Am I interrupting?”

“Like I’d answer my phone if you were, peasant.” Absently, he stomped over the buried fire pit again, tamping it down more firmly.

“This unscheduled vacation wasn’t approved by management, Mr. Larson,” Atlas replied severely. “I’m afraid your employment with our organization has been terminated. A hot girl named Addison has taken your position.”

Luke shook his head, not in the mood for banter. His emotions were all over the place this morning, and he just wanted to get back to Ophelia. “She’s welcome to it. Just don’t let Fox hear you call her hot. It makes him cranky.”

“You’re going to run out of money eventually.”

“Oh, for fucksakes.” He picked up a green twig that had somehow found its way to the ground, and swished it through the air, wondering if it was safe to use as a switch. Maybe if he covered it with duct tape or whittled it smooth. “I wouldn’t run out for a few years, at least.”

Atlas huffed a breath into the phone. “I hope you’ll make it home before that. We’ve got jobs piling up.”

“Oh, fuck off. I left yesterday.”

“Yeah, but you’re coming back for the wedding, right?”

“Oh my god, Atlas, what’s your problem? They haven’t even nailed down a date yet. I’ll be home in less than a week.”

“You don’t know what it’s like.” He sighed. “At least with you here I was the third of four wheels. At this point I’ve locked myself in my room and I’m afraid to leave it, even for food.” His deep voice dropped to a rumbling travesty of a whisper, “They’re having sex everywhere.”

Luke snorted. “They always have sex everywhere. Just use the ice-water spray bottle on them a few times. They hiss, but they slink off to their room soon enough.”

“Yeah, Fox doesn’t take that sort of harassment from me for some reason. He threatened to castrate me if I tried it again.” They both laughed. “Things are good though?”

Luke sighed. “Too good.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t do it, man. There’s no future in this.”

“I know. But the things she lets me do . . .” He grunted, shaking off the arousing images that threatened to distract him from the conversation.

“Don’t fall in love with her,” Atlas warned. “We don’t have time for you to get distracted like Fox is. Although at least Addison picks up the slack. Any chance this girl would make a good . . . computer programmer?”

“No, she’s a good girl.” Calling her that reminded him of the spanking he’d given her.

Atlas must have heard the nuance in his voice, because he groaned. “Good girls are so distracting.”

“Fuck, I’m camping in Montana. You don’t have to tell me how distracting they can be.”

“Fiiine. We can manage for a week, but you need to get your ass home after that. The guy we did the last job for has another order for us—not as crazy as the last time, but more work and he’s only giving us two weeks. We’ll get some done before you get home, but we need you back here, as soon as you can pull yourself away from your little distraction.”

Damn it. He didn’t want to think about work while he was on vacation. The urgency to get home and help out was going to ruin things if he let it.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there,” Luke grumbled. “Is that it? I have to get back on the road.”

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“I think they’re fucking in the living room, and I’m hungry.”

“So take the other way to the kitchen.”

“Maybe I’ll rent a suite at Fitte until you come home,” Atlas mused. Having friends who owned a hotel/tattoo shop/club had its advantages. “Do you think they’ll settle down once they’re married?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah,” Atlas said dejectedly. “I don’t think so either.”

***

They faced each other over the diner booth’s peeling yellow table, squinting at their menus. Luke felt like he needed to use the forks to prop his eyelids open, but hoped several mugs of coffee would be enough to help him stay awake. When they got to Glacier they’d need to take a nap or call it an early night. Well, he’d have to. Ophelia had been sleeping for the morning’s two-hour drive, and was just as adorable awake and groggy as she had been curled up and asleep.

She’d been quietly eating her eggs and toast and he had a hard time focusing on his own breakfast because of her sexy mouth. At some point during the morning drive she’d mewled in her sleep, her lips parting slightly, and he’d been subjected to a very detailed fantasy of her sucking his cock. She’d told him she didn’t really know how, and now he was fascinated by the idea of coaching her through it.

“What?” Her full lips curved in a wry smile. “Why are you staring at me?”

“I just got distracted by your mouth.”

Her eyes widened and she coughed, turning bright scarlet as the diner’s owner refilled their coffee mugs. The man gave them a friendly nod and withdrew just as Ophelia kicked Luke’s shin under the table.

“What?”

“He heard you!” she hissed, giggling. Maybe she’d deny that it was an actual giggle, but it sounded suspiciously gigglish.

“Watch yourself in the mirror sometime, and tell me you can blame me.”

She snorted. “You’re crazy.”

They ate in silence for a while, with Luke stealing glances at her. She cut her food into tiny pieces and put them into her mouth with a primness that came from being raised in a very formal household. She’d even unfolded her paper napkin and laid it in her lap. Compared to her, he felt like a barbarian.

Especially when he thought about the things he’d done to her last night.

Despite her manners, she did manage to work her way through a large portion of her plate. Hopefully, she’d need energy for later.

“So how far are we?” she asked.

“Under three hours. We’ll get there good and early. Are we camping tonight, or staying at a hotel?”

“Hotel. For some strange reason I feel like I need a hot shower.”

“I can’t imagine why,” he said, his tone bland. “Maybe it was all the fresh air.”

“Yes, the fresh air.” She narrowed her eyes. “Not your fault at all.”

“I’m glad we agree.” He winked and she rolled her eyes. “If we don’t have a tent to set up, I guess we could take a side trip somewhere.”

She grinned and then yanked a pamphlet out of her bag, as though she’d been hoping he’d say that. “I grabbed this on the way in.”

The pamphlet, with its blob of a logo, was photocopied crooked and had obviously been hand-folded in a hurry.

“Mitchell’s Museum of Alien Contact,” she said, poking the place’s name with one finger. “It’s only about a half hour from here. Can we go?”

With those sweet golden brown eyes shining at him like that? Hell, he’d drive her anywhere.

Oh wait, he already was.

“Of course. Why there?”

She shrugged. “I always wanted to go to hokey places like this, but my mom was too fancy to let that happen. It seems fun, so . . . why not?”

The owner came back to take their plates and saw the pamphlet and chuckled. “You’ll make old Mitchell’s day if you drop by. Tell him you saw his pamphlet here and he’ll take two dollars off your entry fee.”

“Thanks!” Ophelia said eagerly.

They complimented him on the food, and the man smiled and wandered off into the kitchen with their dishes. Luke left a fifty to pay for their ten-dollar order and led Ophelia out to the SUV.

“That was a big tip,” she said, smiling at him like he’d done something noteworthy.

He shrugged. “Those were some damn good eggs. I was starving for some strange reason,” he said, echoing their earlier conversation about her wanting a shower.

“I can’t imagine why,” Ophelia said, following suit. “Maybe it was all the fresh air.”

“Yes, the fresh air. Not your fault at all.”

“I’m glad we agree.” She winked and he winked back, then he shocked himself by grabbing her hand as they walked to the SUV. How long had it been since he’d done something silly like hold someone’s hand? Ages, but holding her hand just felt right. Although she glanced up at him in surprise, she didn’t object.

They grinned at each other like goofy middle schoolers. A loud, revving engine caught his attention. He turned toward the noise just in time to see Ophelia’s SUV peel out of the diner parking lot.

“What the fuck?” he shouted, then released her hand to take off after the thief. It was pointless, though, since the car was already on the main road, its taillights soon too distant to see.

They were out in the middle of nowhere, which meant there weren’t many places for the fucker to go. Luke scanned the lot, looking for something fast he could hotwire.

Ophelia jogged to his side. “It’s okay. I have insurance,” she told him, watching him warily. “Or I can just buy another one.”

That wasn’t the point. He’d be damned if he let some idiot steal a car right out from under him. Without answering Ophelia, he ran to an ’86 Corvette. The car looked like it’d seen better days, but he could work with it as long as it ran. The door was unlocked and he leaned down under the wheel to hotwire it.

“Be my lookout,” he ordered Ophelia, whose face had gone pale.

“What?” she hissed. “What are you doing? I’ll just get another one. Stop!”

He ignored her. When the engine purred, he motioned to her. “Get in.”

“No,” she answered. “This is crazy! I’m not doing it.”

Shrugging, he settled into the driver’s seat. “Suit yourself. I’ll come back for you.”

Her gaze darted around them while he buckled his seat belt. “Fuck,” she finally muttered, then moved toward the passenger seat.

“Buckle up,” he ordered when she slid in.

She obeyed. “Promise you’ll return it—”

He took off after her car and she threw a hand out onto the dashboard. “Whoa! Luke!”

Focused on the chase, he ignored her distressed reprimand. Some dick dared to steal from him? No fucking way. He was going to give whatever punk took her SUV a serious lesson in manners.

Luke knew it was hypocritical, but he was too pissed to care. Ophelia gasped and clutched the seat as he flew through a yellow light.

At least the road was straight and flat. Thank god for long, empty stretches on this route. He passed two other cars whose drivers had honked as he’d sped by. The back of Ophelia’s SUV was visible in the distance. He hadn’t really thought past catching up to the car. What was he going to do once he did? Ram it off the road?

“There it is,” Ophelia pointed out. Her body stiffened as he accelerated. The car’s speedometer was pushing past a hundred.

Luke pulled up beside the SUV, trying to get a good look at the driver, but from his view he couldn’t see up into the SUV’s window. Putting Ophelia between himself and the other driver also felt wrong—dangerous. Fuck . . . why had he even told her to get in the car?

“Oh my god, the kid who’s driving looks like he’s maybe fourteen!” Ophelia’s mouth opened in a grimace of indignant shock. “I bet he doesn’t even have a license!”

That complicated matters. If it was just some impulsive kid, who knew what he’d do?

“Luke!” Ophelia screeched just as he noticed a car coming at them. A long line of cars snaked along behind it, like the driver was going well below the speed limit.

He floored it and sped ahead of the SUV. “Hold on,” he told Ophelia then veered right to cut the car off. When he slowed to a stop, the kid behind him was forced to stop too, brakes squealing. He swerved, almost hit the guardrail, then pulled left and bumped the rear of the Corvette.

“Oh my god,” Ophelia whispered, her eyes glazed over as she stared out the windshield.

Luke put his hand on her knee and squeezed. “Are you okay?”

She gulped loudly then nodded.

“I’ll be right back.” He threw open his door. “Stay here.” He had to deal with this kid before he took off, then he’d get back to Ophelia.

The thief was scrambling to get out of the SUV as Luke sidled up to him. His seat belt appeared to be stuck. All the better.

The door was already open so Luke blocked his exit. “Nice try, kid.” He could feel people driving past them, staring.

The kid’s eyes widened under his mop of shaggy blond hair. “Don’t fuck with me. I have a gun!”

Rolling his eyes, Luke put his hands up. He wasn’t in the habit of terrifying children. “I’m not going to hurt you, and I know you don’t have a gun.”

The boy sighed and threw his head back against the seat. “What are you gonna do? Call the cops?”

“Worse.” Luke leaned in, glad his cousins weren’t here to laugh at him. “I’m going to call your mother.”

***

When given the choice to call his mom or wait for the police, the kid reluctantly dialed her and handed his phone over. The woman was pissed and heading to the diner to pick her son up, profoundly grateful that Luke wasn’t calling the cops.

Luke snuck the Corvette back into its parking spot without anyone seeming to notice it had gone missing. Weird little town.

After hurrying back to the SUV, Luke ushered Ophelia, who’d finally calmed down, from the driver’s seat into the passenger seat. He kissed her before he closed the door and circled to his own side.

“How am I in the passenger seat again?” she asked when he’d slid in behind the steering wheel. “I thought we’d be sharing the driving.”

“I let you drive for a while last night, until I couldn’t hold back anymore.”

“Oh god,” she blurted. “Shut up.” She covered her face with both hands.

“What?” he asked, amused by her discomfort. He pulled out of the lot and back onto the highway. “Don’t blame me. You’re the one who brought it up.”

“I meant driving the car, not . . .” She glared unconvincingly. “You know damned well what I meant.”

“I get the distinct impression you prefer it when I drive.” He chuckled. “Although you’re actually a very good driver when you’re too horny to second-guess yourself.” He patted her knee when she moaned in mortification. “And as for driving your SUV, I drive a lot for work. For me it’s like breathing.”

They followed the hand-drawn map on the back of the pamphlet, taking the twisty trail up the mountain.

“If we meet up with someone going the other way, we’re fucked,” Ophelia said.

Luke laughed. “What? I’d just reverse back to that overlook we saw earlier and let them pass. Not a big deal.”

“That was like two miles ago. You could drive backward that far and not go off the side of this stupid mountain?”

“With my eyes closed.”

“Nooo, you keep those bad boys open,” she replied, staring straight ahead. “I’m pretty sure the road is getting narrower, by the way.”

“Look out your window and tell me how close we are to the edge.”

“Fuck you, Luke. Fuck you, and your little red wagon.”

He smiled and looked over at her. “I don’t have a little red wagon, but I wouldn’t hesitate to buy one for the occasion.”

“Watch the road!”

“I am. You should look though. The tops of the trees look like a carpet from here.”

“I’ll take your word for it. In the brochure they probably should have said to park at the bottom and ride billy goats up.”

“It is an alien museum. They might actually have mutant billy goats that can carry a grown man. Or maybe they have a transporter.”

“I don’t know,” she mused. “If we use their transporter, we might have to tack our two-dollar diner savings back onto our entry fee.”

“What’s the entry fee?”

“Five dollars. Three with the discount.”

“Each?” He whistled. “I should have dressed better.”

“Maybe they’ll have a sports jacket you can borrow. The next time I pick a side trip, remind me to look the route up on my GPS first.”

“Why? We’re perfectly safe. It’s beautiful, if you’ll look.”

“I will on the way back down when I’m not the one right next to the drop-off. Those guard wires don’t look very trustworthy.”

The plateau at the top of the mountain made Ophelia groan with relief. An old house and barn were planted in the middle of the broad clearing, and an old pickup was parked in front of the hand-painted sign proclaiming the museum was open from 11AM-3PM, THURS-SAT, and that the gift shop sold vials of REAL ALIEN DNA! for five dollars.

Luke helped Ophelia out of the SUV, pleased she’d already gotten into the habit of waiting for him to do so. When he closed her door and turned back toward the museum she slid her hand into his, but glanced shyly away as soon as their gazes met.

The front door loudly protested, then released a man with wild white hair and an equally impressive beard. He wore a torn and grease-stained red T-shirt with the museum name and logo emblazoned across the front.

“Welcome to Mitchell’s Museum of Alien Contact!” he said, sounding like a barker at a sideshow.

“You’re Mitchell?” Luke guessed. The name didn’t seem to go with the strong German accent. He extended his hand and the man shook it warmly.

“No, no. My name is Georg Vogl.” He grinned, showing even white teeth that made him seem younger than Luke would have guessed initially.

“Pleased to meet you, Georg. I’m Luke, and this is Ophelia.”

“Ophelia! Beautiful name your wife has. Welcome! Come in!”

Luke waited for Ophelia to object to being called his wife, but the older man had already made his way back into the house.

She shrugged. “From the looks of things we’ll be here twenty minutes, tops.”

“Whatever you say, little missus.”

She smacked his arm, and he pulled her close.

“Do that again. I dare you.”

When she bit her plump bottom lip and stared up at him hopefully he almost groaned.

“Behave, woman.”

With an evil chuckle, she tugged him toward the house, then carefully avoided the broken board on the stairs. Damn. She was getting sassy for a girl who’d initially been shy.

Inside, dusty shelves and showcases lined the front room, hosting an array of extraterrestrial-looking odds and ends—green alien pencil toppers, UFO snow globes, and rings set with what were purported to be pieces of meteorite. Each had a small boutique tag saying how much Georg was asking for the item. Most of the tags looked blank, but upon closer observation Luke could see the marker had only faded in the sun shining in from bare windows.

In the next room, there were exhibits under glass.

“This is a piece of the meteorite that flattened out this part of the mountain,” he said. Without any encouragement, he launched into a rehearsed speech about the history of the area and the numerous alien abductions documented nearby over the past hundred years.

“It’s why I moved here, you see. When I was a boy, in Austria, all I ever wanted was to meet the gray people, but where I lived? Nothing. This mountain, though, is special. When I bought it, people said I was crazy, but what do I care about that?”

Passion shone in Georg’s eyes, and Luke nodded. “Did you buy the museum from Mitchell?” he asked, not willing to let that go. Ophelia’s eyes gleamed as she browsed through the exhibits. Did she believe Georg’s stories or was she just enjoying the whole hokey place? It had almost as much dust as it had character, but there was something about the old man that made you want to visit him regularly, just to give him someone to talk to.

“Here, look at this one.” Georg jabbed a finger at a showcase that had a small pillow in the middle of it. On the pillow was a tiny computer chip, visible only because of the magnifying glass positioned over it. “Every time they come, I find one of these buried in the skin behind my knee, like the microchips veterinarians put into dogs. I dig them out with a penknife, because the hospital doesn’t believe anything is there. Our inferior medical technology won’t show us the small devices aliens implant under our skin.”

He sidled over to Luke and whispered, “You should really check the back of your wife’s knees. She looks like the type of woman they’d want for their breeding program.”

Ophelia glanced over at them, and Georg smile pleasantly, as though he hadn’t just been talking about her. When she looked away again, Georg continued.

“If you want to make sure they don’t track her down again, you need to look for a reddish patch behind the knee that never seems to go away. If you find that, dig just under the skin with something sharp. If you’re squeamish, though, just cover the area with Vaseline before she goes out and it should block the signals they read off the chip.”

Luke managed to keep his expression neutral, and whispered, “If you like going with them so much, why would you assume she wouldn’t? Maybe she won’t want me to interfere.”

Georg shook his head sharply. “Not the same. The women . . . Let’s just say the gray men can have peculiar appetites compared to a human male’s. No decent woman like your wife should be exposed to that sort of depravity.”

These gray men sounded like Luke’s kind of people.

Slowly, and with great showmanship, Georg led them through displays of the gray men’s culture and eating habits, culminating in a small room in which he’d recreated one of their research labs, complete with an exam table and reconstructed alien medical implements.

When a phone rang and Georg stepped out of the room for a moment, Ophelia leaned in. “I heard his warning.”

“I wonder which of these things is the probe he thinks you’re too ladylike for?” He pinched her ass and she smothered a laugh.

“Maybe he thinks the bed restraints will freak me out.”

“Won’t they?”

She lifted her chin and looked him bravely in the eye. “After last night?” Her shrug seemed like a dare. “Do you really think bed restraints will intimidate me?”

“We could try tonight, but there’s only one alien probe I’m interested in using on you.”

“Dirty.”

“I blame you.”

“Oh, you were like this when I found you . . . or I suppose I should say when you borrowed me without permission.”

Behind them, Georg cleared his throat. “If you’d care to join me, I’ll bring you out to the barn. I’ve constructed a quarter-sized model of the gray men’s most commonly used ship. No one else has seen it yet!”

They followed him out, ready to be suitably impressed.

Later, before they got in the SUV for the long trek back down the mountain, Georg insisted Luke buy his beautiful wife a necklace, from which dangled a tiny vial of alien DNA.

For the rest of the drive to Glacier, they speculated about what superpowers she might develop if the vial leaked.