Galaxy Girls

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Hawk stood on the other side of Susan’s desk and watched her cool façade splinter, panic flickering in her blinking eyes, her mouth wobbling.

The next second, the panic vanished. Her face smoothed with confidence, her eyes gazed at him calmly, her mouth pressed lightly together. Once again she was the girl voted by her sorority sisters Most Likely to Succeed “by fair or by foul.”

If she did, it wouldn’t be from climbing over his shoulders. Not anymore. A lightness came over him. He knew it wouldn't last – lightness never did – but he thanked the sexy alien for this fleeting moment.

“The FBI is your life.” She stood and leaned forward. She was five foot ten, and her three-inch heels put her eye to eye with him, her dark bobbed hair swinging forward. “You don’t mean this.”

He smiled. And didn’t say anything. Glad he’d waited a day. This way she wouldn’t suspect anything happened at the job to trigger this.

“You’re doing this to punish me, aren’t you?”

He smiled wider. “No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then we’re even. If you told me black was black, I’d wonder what color it was beneath the black coating.”

She sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t feel that way. The country needs you, Hawk. We’re going through uncertain times, and I’m not ashamed to admit that you’re my best man.”

“You’re wrong.” He leaned over the desk until their eyes were a half a foot apart. Her black pupils shrunk, her nostrils flared, and he could see the crack again, the fear.

Once her fear might have softened him, shamed him, but that sucker had left the building.

“Hawk –”

“Not Hawk. Not to you. Not anymore. To you, I’m Special Agent Higgens. And I’m not your man. I’m something else.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Your worst enemy.”

Her breath hissed in, but a smile curved her coral-colored lips and punched up her cheekbones. Her lids lowered, and she smoldered. Not with a warm heat like the alien’s. Hers was an icy burn.

She leaned forward another inch. “You wouldn’t be my enemy if you didn’t care. You still want me. You still love me.” She reached up and brushed a fingertip down the side of his cheek. “Stay. There’s no reason we can’t work something out.”

He was almost tempted to see what else she would do. Almost. But she wasn’t worth it. He drew back.

Yesterday he still would have hauled back. But he would have felt Susan’s chilly pull, even though underneath the patrician princess exterior was ugliness and betrayal.

Today he felt nothing for her. No quickening blood, no attraction, and best of all, no regret.

All because of the sexy alien.

Thinking of her, his blood quickened. He wanted out of here. He had bigger game to hunt than Susan.

“Goodbye.” He turned and walked away.

“You can’t walk away from me so easily.” The venom in her voice lashed at his back.

He kept walking.

“Do you think I don’t know you?” she called after him. “You’re up to something. I’ll be watching you. Whatever you’re up to, I’ll find out. Wherever you go, I’ll find you.”

~~

With the words, “I will kill that person,” barely out of Phyrne’s mouth, the hotel door opened. Deena squeaked, but Phyrne laughed. Liss’s silvery aura preceded her into the room, tall and magnificent, her full lips showing her generosity. Only in her soft blue eyes could Phyrne see her vulnerability and know she hadn’t grown into her magnificence. That she was like a plant trapped in a small space, with not enough room to spread her roots and bloom.