Read Online Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two by JC Andrijeski - Free Book Online

wallet of some young designer or international model...jetting-set to Paris, Rome, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles.
    The sad thing was, I knew he could probably do it, too.
    Jake was pretty enough, and good enough at excessive flattery, to be a natural in any entertainment industry. That, combined with an embarrassingly vast knowledge of fashion and art, and other skills of Jake’s I preferred to know absolutely nothing about, would likely land him a new playmate before we left the building.
    When I looked at Nik that time, I felt the frown, more than saw it.
    Even so, he didn’t argue.
    Maybe he just wanted to reserve the right to kick me off the job at some point in the future, especially if he started working for Gantry for real. But that was a thought I still couldn’t quite wrap my mind around, truthfully.
    Gantry and Nik, that is.  
    Working together.
    Still, yeah, of all the guys I could have brought along with me from my new, alien-focused entourage to act as a wing man, I couldn’t help wondering if I’d picked the wrong one.
     

4
    Social Etiquette, Psychos and Jake’s Fashion Sense

    I spent most of that night with Irene, catching her up, I guess.
    She had about a million questions, now that she knew where I’d been all of that time, so we ended up having that kitchen table talk I’d envisioned all of those weeks ago. In fact, we didn’t leave that table until about two in the morning.
    When I finally got back to the living room, which now doubled as me and Nik’s bedroom, Nihkil was already asleep, stretched out on his back with an arm wrapped around his chest. I found myself watching him for a few minutes as he slept, wondering if I could feel his dreams if I tried...through the lock, that is.
    I left him alone.
    Still, I couldn’t help wondering if part of my decision to let Irene keep me up half the night was to give me some more thinking room around Nik himself.
    After that morning, and getting Gantry and everyone else involved in this thing with us, I couldn’t help stepping back a bit, and wondering what exactly I was doing.
    With Nik, that is.
    Nik made it pretty clear he saw our connection as lock mates as having more than one facet, and while, yeah, sure, I was sorely tempted, I wondered if it was really such a great idea for me to start sleeping with him, now that we were back on Earth.  
    I could feel the part of me that wanted to go there.
    I could feel the part of me that wanted to go there pretty badly, and say the hell with reason or logic or whatever else. It wasn’t all because of looks or hormones or whatever, either...although that definitely played a part, sure.
    I cared about Nik. A lot, actually.
    He’d saved my life, but it was more than that, too, I knew.
    I guess I just wondered if it made sense, the me and him thing.
    Or maybe it just freaked me out, because I saw a glimpse in Gantry’s eyes of how most people would view it, if it ever got out what Nik really was.
    My mom always had this thing about me not marrying a Cuban like dad, because she was convinced all Cubans were cheats. While I’d pretty much rolled my eyes at that piece of advice from day one, I couldn’t help smiling humorlessly at the thought of explaining to dear old mom and dad how I’d decided to shack up with a guy from another dimension, instead.
    I knew even that wasn’t all of it, either, though.
    That bond between us was strong. Freakishly strong, at times.
    Truthfully, it scared me a little. Part of me wanted to keep a distance between us for that reason alone. I wasn’t sure what it meant, or how much of it came from me versus whatever being Nik’s lock-holder did to me. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to sign over my whole life to someone I’d only known for a few months...and something told me if we started sleeping together, things were going to get a lot more intense between the two of us. More intense than the usual boyfriend-and-girlfriend thing, that is...which could be intense