“Claire?” he asked, leaning closer. She nervously tugged at the steel manacles, forgetting for a moment that they were solid metal and not soft cl...y.“Y…yes?”His kiss was powerful and harsh, his lips moving roughly against hers, smooth painter’s hands, still stained with splotches of paint, cradling her jaw. She moaned, her mouth opening for his tongue, tasting him. One of his hands circled her throat and pinned her to the wall, squeezing just slightly and groaning into her mouth.She let out a. " Not interested," I drawled, waving her off immediately."I know, I know. Your funeral." She sighed and leaned back on her towel, adjusting her sunglasses. "I can't hook up with one of the jock-types. I need somebody weird ... quirky ... like me." Aaron's a certifiable nutcase," I suggested with a little grin."Aaron? Yeah, right. A little too nutcase, if you ask me." She turned her head and rolled her eyes."Maybe. But if you ask me, he likes you." Does not." Oh, yeah? Then why is he always. A lubricated catheter was inserted into her urethra at this point and pushed up into her bladder. This, like some of the other tasks, was done by a technician because even though it was possible to do it by machine, it was a lot cheaper to have this done by a worker than to design and build a special machine just for this. The catheter came bundled with some wires and tubes as well as sensors at the tip, to record data from inside her and send it back to the monitoring computer. Again, Emma. Ah ... A blue Chevrolet with a two star bumper flag. A driver in green ... must be a Marine ... got out and removed the bumper flag. A lieutenant in whites stepped out and walked to our boat. He saluted. We saluted back."Lieutenant Commander Grace Austin?"Grace nodded."Lieutenant Commander David Austin?"I nodded.He held out a sealed envelope. "Orders, Sir. From Admiral Naismith."He stepped back, saluted and left while we were looking at the envelope. The Chevrolet drove away."Well, Hell ....