He watched intently as she approached. He tried to look professional, but with a woman that stunning it was impossible to be anything but captivated.
Come on, fall back on your training.
It didn’t work. This wasn’t a mission. It was a dinner meeting. No, no. It wasn’t even a meeting. It was a blind date.
Why can’t you?
It wasn’t that he was easily hooked. Far from it. Most woman disinterested him at best beyond the basic primal physical attraction between a man and a beautiful woman. Even then, he was always self controlled and able to avoid being flustered let alone trapped. But right now? He was surely trapped. He had resisted everything at some point with decent success. From plain old seduction to alien poisoning with aphrodisiacs that were a heart attack in a bottle. He always had managed to although admittedly barely, keep his self control. But his fixation on the lady in front of him–and make no mistake she was indeed a lady–was far deeper than merely a physical attraction.
“Hello.”, she said dryly. Her lips relaxed, but controlled. He couldn’t help but study them. Lush and full, a dark wine colored lipstick that accentuated them even more.
He adjusted his suit collar and reached for her hand. Gently planting a kiss. On her hand not her lips. Though the thought was not far from his consciousness.
“The pleasure is all mine.”
“It sure is.” she quipped without missing a beat. Which is more than could be said about Matthew who looked like he had just hit a patch of ice and was now violently spinning out of control.
Ouch. Hold yourself together.
“I see.”
“I sure hope so.”
Ronald had said nothing about an attitude. Recalling the conversation, Ronald had described her as “Essence of heaven accidentally left behind on Earth…or whatever planet you were from.” Ronald himself was a short stubbly man who was balding–okay bald, I was trying to be nice–and was all analytical and far from anything creative or artistic. Ronald was Ronald. Not Ron. Not Ronnie. Ronald. Dry. Boring. Ronald.
It was odd that Ronald had even engaged him in a conversation that didn’t involve work. Ronald was a workaholic and his life, almost literally, had been absorbed by his duties as a ISID (International Space Intelligence Directive) Mission Advisor. That wasn’t too uncommon for Mission Advisors. Their goal was to act as human computers. It was far safer to send a message through a trained individual programmed to fight and survive than on a data storage device that could easily be absconded. Although it seemed that every day inched closer to the breakthrough that would allow the copying and tampering of humans–especially against their will.
Thus, most MA’s tended to keep to themselves and preferred not to remember much about their underlings. Either because they didn’t want to compromise an agent if tortured or because they lost so many agents nowadays that being disconnected from them was the only way to survive the job.
Okay. Deep breath. Offer to take her coat.
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