Aran: Love me Harder - Alien Paranormal Romance (13 page)

Rena reached out and gave Dee a hug. Thank the Lord for friends.

There was a knock at the door. “Everything ok in there?”

Rena dried her tears and put a shaky smile on her face. “We are fine, Dante. You can come in of you want.”

“Just wanted to let you know that Aran is off. They have a private airstrip not far from here.”

“He said he was going overseas, but didn’t say where. Do you know?”

“He went to France.”

“One of his government contracts?”

“Yes. There is nothing to worry about. It will be fine.”

“If you don’t mind I think I will worry anyway.”

She grabbed both phones and headed out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Dee call behind her.

“To look a little deeper into the people I worked with.”

She climbed the stairs, deciding to start with Mr. Harris. No one was above suspicion now. She had a reason to live. One tall, green eyed, glorious, muscle-packed reason to live. Not that she had a death wish before him, but come on with him around, who would want to visit the next world?

Opening her laptop, she flexed her fingers and went to work. She started as far back on Mr. Harris as possible. She found his high school graduation picture. He was kind of cute for a geek.

She followed him to college and got wind of a girl or two he dated there. So far, nothing jumped out at her. She found his first and second jobs after college. He had lost his second job because he had developed a gambling habit.

Now they were getting somewhere. By his fourth job, he had met the woman he would eventually marry. Turns out, she was a power-house and she didn’t deal with men who gambled etc.…

He got help, not the temporary kind either. He avoided anyplace that had gambling and turned his life around. She had to smile. She was glad he met someone who truly loved him.

Since then, he had been on the straight and narrow. Not even a parking ticket. She remembered he had once told her every bit of excitement he wanted, his wife gave him. Because she couldn’t be too suspicious, she traced the wife too. Nothing.

She moved on to Brad. He was the one that she had gotten fired because of his activities. Brad was not a choir boy. In fact he was far from it.

Brad had a record. Nothing hard. How had he gotten hired? Petty theft between eighteen and twenty, then by some miracle, he landed in college and he thrived.

He was presently engaged with a child on the way. Was that why he was embezzling? She checked out his bank account and didn’t find the funds he stole. Foreign bank accounts? She started looking deeper for the money he had hidden. Nothing.

Maybe in the girlfriend’s name? She checked deep into her and found nothing. She ran her hands through her hair. She was getting agitated. Something wasn’t adding up. From petty theft to corporate embezzler was quite a step. Add on to that the fact that she couldn’t find the money and every spidey sense she possessed was ringing.

She let go of the several strands of hair that she was in the process of pulling. She backtracked her steps until she found the trail on Brad’s workstation that implicated him in the theft of the funds.

Why hadn’t this been taken off line yet? Was he still working there? She spent the next two hours following the trail of the money but it seemed to disappear. Money didn’t disappear, unless she was spending it.

She went over it again, determined to find the path it took. Nothing, except for a blip that seemed so random. She backtracked and waited for it to appear again.

Money, but this wasn’t Brad’s account.

The ringing of the phone startled her, making her jump. She reached for it blindly.

Chapter Twenty-one

“Hello.”

“Hi, doll.”

“Aran! You called me.” Her heartbeat quickened and a smile crossed her lips. Maybe Dee was right and she did have a chance to make this right.”

“Course I called you, doll. I wanted you to know I got here.”

That was fast? Did he have a Concord? Shaking her head, she stopped trying to figure out the time verses the miles.

“Rena I…”

“Aran wait, please. I have something I have to stay. I need you to listen.” The silence was long and drawn out before he finally responded.

“Ok.”

“I’m sorry. I knew you were just trying to help me, keep me alive, but I was scared. Scared you would try to control me, dominate me and then throw me away. My pride got in the way. I’m used to handling my problems myself.”

“Doll, if I ever decide to dominate you or control you, I assure you that you will be all for it. You will want it as much as I want it. You will be crying out in pleasure, not storming out in anger.”

She felt her sex throb. Had she really turned him down last night? Now she would have to wait until he got back to make up. Mmm makeup sex. She couldn’t wait.

“When will you be back?”

“Not sure. It could be finished by tomorrow or take a week. I should know more after I meet with my contact in a couple of hours. Is everything fine there?”

“Yes, I have been doing more digging now that my laptop is secure. I found the missing money. Someone with a talent close to Hale’s did this heist and pinned it firmly on Brad. I owe him an apology.”

“That’s impossible. Hale is light years ahead of your best programmers.”

“Then Hale did it.”

“Again, that’s impossible.”

“Are you still online? Don’t answer, disconnect. I will have Hale come over and look at what you found.”

The silence once again stretched between them. “I will be waiting for him. Do you think he can come tonight?”

“Yes.”

“I needed to hold you last night.”

Her heart pounded fast. He needed to hold her, not wanted to. She felt moisture in the corner of her eyes. Dee was the only person until now who had needed her.

“Sorry I was being stupid.” Her voice had dropped lower. It sounded husky even to her own ears.

“Are you crying, doll?”

“No.” She wiped her eyes and tried to hide her sniffles.

“Rena, I won’t always know how to act. You’re so different than what I grew up watching. So different than what the males on my planet talked about. I won’t always get it right.”

“I won’t always get it right either. That means we can stumble together and make our own way.”

“Think about me tonight. Hale will be there soon. Later. Doll.”

She hung up, wishing he was with her. She had been stupid. How was she supposed to know he would be leaving today?

Her phone rang again and she picked it up, hoping he had called back.

“Hello.”

“You’re dead.”

“No I am alive, but I wouldn’t lay odds about your chances of survival.” She was pissed. All she wanted to do was hang up. How long did a trace take? She didn’t want to blow that.

“You’re the reason I have to kill you.”

“Insane lately?”

“Why couldn’t you just leave everything alone?”

Dante walked into the room with Hale right behind him. Hale was making the keep him talking sign.

“Care to tell me what I didn’t leave alone?”

“Do you think I am stupid?”

“Yeah.”

The phone clicked and the line went dead. She looked over at Hale who was already on his laptop.

“Got him.”

“You know where he is?”

“Better than that. I have his phone. Wherever it goes, I will know.”

“So we go and get him?”

“Not without Aran.”

“What if he ditches this phone?”

“Then we trace his new phone.” Dante said, coming over to her. “We wait.”

She found herself nodding. She didn’t like it, but she had already made up her mind to accept help.

“Hale, I found something when I was looking into Brad and the missing money. It was subtle. I would never have found it without taking a second look, because of all that has happened.”

She looked from Hale to Dante. What had happened to her boring, safe life? She felt like she was taking a walk in the twilight zone. She could even handle that, but it was the absolute need she felt for Aran that had her fighting shaking limbs.

“Something about the signature reminds me of what you have done. Here take a look.”

She pulled it up and slid her laptop over to him. He took one look and closed it down immediately. He ran to Aran’s desk and logged onto his computer. She walked over to look over his shoulder.

His secure system was being attacked. Parts of it were beginning to fail. His fingers flew over the keys, faster than humanely possible as he wrote code she couldn’t begin to understand.

The battle was intense, but not long.

“What happened?”

“We were under attack.”

“I gathered that much. Who? How? Aran thinks no human could write a code close to yours.”

“Aran’s right.”

He met Dante’s eyes over Rena’s head and nodded. Dante slipped out of the room.

“Want to explain that comment?”

“Not really.” His smile was disarming, but she wasn’t falling for it. “Looks like you’re not going to take no for an answer.”

She gave him her best, let’s be friends smile and shook her head in agreement.

“No human could have written that code. It had to come from one of The Created.”

The smile on her face disappeared and she stepped back. How did she fight an alien? She thought the brothers liked her.

“One of you? One of the brothers?’ Maybe it was Hale who had done it. Could have been Sergey. She was sure it was not Aran.

“Rena.”

She continued to walk backwards. Every time she thought she found something good, someone corrupted it. Maybe it was her fate to be alone or dead.

“Rena.” Hale’s voice penetrated her mind as his hand grabbed her arm, keeping her from backing into an open window.

“None of my brothers did this. We would never hurt you.”

“You said it was one of you.”

“One of our kind. Someone who followed us to earth, but not one of us personally.”

“How do I fight one of you?”

“You don’t. You let Aran and the rest of us fight this battle. I stopped the trace in time. No one knows where you are, even if they did, we would just move you to a safe place.

“My lap top?”

“It’s not compromised. The new code I wrote will stop any back traces.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but I will find out. May I have your old phone?”

She reached out and picked it up. She wouldn’t be sad to see the last of it. She handed it over and went back to her desk.”

“Thank you.”

“Welcome.”

“Aran should be calling anytime.”

He headed for the door. She picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Aran?”

“Not what you bargained for when you met me, huh?”

She laughed. “Not what I had in mind when I looked at you. Of course, all I could really think was that you were so hot I wanted to lick you all over.”

She heard him groan into the phone. “You say all these things when I am not there.”

“Don’t worry. When you come home I will lick you from root to tip and back again.”

“Doll.”

“Hard yet? Imagine my tongue licking around the head of your cock. My mouth opening wide to suck on the head, before I suck you into my mouth. My cheeks bulging out as I take you deep and then suck you hard. Mmmm. I bet you taste so good.”

“I wonder if you will blow in my mouth, give me a taste of your alien seed. I can almost feel it on my tongue, flowing down my throat.” She gave a husky laugh, then licked her lips.

“I am throbbing, doll. Help me.”

“Reach out and touch yourself. Think of my soft skin rubbing against you, massaging your cock. My hot tongue licking it. Do you like that?”

His thick moan encouraged her to go on.

“Stroke yourself as you feel your cock smothered between my breasts. You are thrusting back and forth and my tongue comes out for a lick on the forward thrust. Tastes so good.”

“Go faster, baby. I am sucking the head of your cock every time you thrust forward. Come for me baby give me all that sweet jizz.”

She let her voice lead him down a path of pleasure. She smiled in satisfaction when his voice caught and he cried out doll.

Who wanted safe when she could have him?

Chapter Twenty-two

Things had been quiet the last three days. Too quiet. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The brothers had made sure she was never left alone. It had comforted her, but on some level the fact that they felt she needed around the clock babysitting freaked her out.

Then there was the fact that Aran was not back and she had not heard from him in twenty four hours. That might be the reason she missed the eight ball and Dee had crowned herself winner.

“Not fair. I was distracted.”

“Huh, you’re just a sore loser.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

She had to smile. Spending time with Dee had helped her hold it together. She was about to launch into the reason she needed a do over, when the commotion at the front door caught her attention.

Dropping the pool stick, she went out to find Hale and Sergey helping Aran through the door.

“What’s wrong with him?”

All eyes swung to her, but the hall was silent.

“His mission went south.” Dante answered as he walked through the door. He seemed to do a lot of the talking when Aran or Sergey were not around.

“We have to lay him down.”

“Take him upstairs, Hale.”

“Do you want us to take him to a guest bedroom?”

The stunned look on her face probably said it all, but there was no time for questions. “Take him to our room.”

She followed them upstairs knowing she would get answers when she knew he would be ok. She was shaking from fear. His face was pale like he had lost lots of blood. He had to be ok, she thought trying to stem the rush of panic taking over her body.

Once they laid him down, she pulled off one of his boots, noticing that someone had thrown the cover from the couch over the bed before laying him on it. She would probably thank them later.

Rena felt like she was on an emotional see saw. Every time she thought she was stabilized something else happened. The thought of losing Aran when she just found him had her breath coming out in uneven pants. Choking back her fear she got herself into gear.