It’s Scar.
Filling my whole doorway and then some, ducked slightly under the frame, one enormous, gloved hand wrapped around a data drive that looks absurdly small in his grip. He’s so big he blocks the hallway light. He looks down at me with those dark unreadable eyes, and for one long beat neither of us says anything at all.
“You said tomorrow,” he says finally, in that low rumble that causes butterflies to take flight in my belly. “And it’s tomorrow.”
Chapter Five
Scar
The door opens, revealing a great deal of bare human skin.
It’s a shocking visual.
Well, alovely, shocking visual. I’ve ignored the skin of all Xylan and humans before but this once it looks so…delectable. Soft. Touchable.
She wears a shirt that leaves her arms and shoulders exposed. The whole long line of her legs and her bare feet are visible on the floor. That shiny brown hair is loose and crushed flat on one side. The blue eyes look half-shut with sleep. Her hands are bare to the wrist with no gloves on them anywhere.
Mara whimpers and her cheeks flush pink. “Oh my gosh, Scar. I was taking a nap and I thought you were Andrew. Come in, come in. I’ll go and change. I’ll be right back.”
She waves me through the door with both of those tantalizing bare hands and then rushes away through a narrow doorway at the back. I hear a drawer bang. “I’ll be back soon,” she shouts.
I come inside and let the door close behind me.
Employee housing still remains acceptable. My brother and his bride as well as their offspring, live in their own housing unit across the hall. Their apartment is much larger than this one, but the location set aside for Mara is obviously still comfortable. She’s on the third floor with an expansive view of the other colony buildings and the surrounding jungle vegetation. Her quarters have plenty of comfortable furniture and a small kitchen with a food dispenser.
Her tools are laid out on the table. There are three different tablets nearby.
Mara returns and this time she’s not in uniform but in soft blue, civilian, human clothes, which are loose and comfortable. Her shoes are slides that half cover her adorable feet. Her hair’s been dragged back off her face. She’s got her green gloves on though, tugged to the wrist. “There,” she huffs. “Regulation. I promise I do not normally answer the door half-dressed and behaving like a criminal.”
“You weren’t criminal.”
She places her hands on both hips. “Scar, I wasextremelycriminal. I was literally breaking the Scales of Xylan Law. I’m just lucky that you seem to be completely mellow about the whole situation. Thank you.”
I find myself gazing again at her perfect lips. She is the most beautiful female I have ever seen.
“Do you mind if I make coffee instead of traq?” she says over her shoulder as she strides over to the small kitchen. “I need some to wake up. I mean, I can of course make traq for you if you like, it’s no problem. But I’ve found a way to get my favorite human-style coffee from our original planet. It’s so very black market, but I love it so much, I take it everywhere with me. This isn’t something I can make with the food processor. I am going to make it using this coffee press I’ve brought with me. Would you like to try it?”
“I’ll take it.”
She smiles. “Brave male. Go ahead and take a seat. I’ll make this for us while we talk.”
I take a seat at the table and set down my tablet. “You were sleeping,” I note.
Her back goes very slightly still. “I was.”
“It’s midafternoon.”
“It is.” She grinds something and then shakes the dust into a container. “I’m a woman of leisure. It’s part of my mystique.”
“Miners don’t nap.”
“Well, as you can tell, I’m not a miner.”
“What is this human coffee made of?”
“Oh, it’s from a plant that grows on Earth, which is the original planet of my species. As you must know, New Earth isn’t where my species originated. The Hurlians stole thousands of humans from our original home planet, Earth, over millennia and made us slaves, leaving us on a different planet we now call New Earth as sort of our cage, to pluck us off at their leisure, when they wanted to use us for something. But the Xylan rescued us from the Hurlians, when you discovered they were enslaving us. Thank you, we still consider the Xylan heroes for doing that for us to this day. That’s another reason why I’m happy to be working here, helping out this Xylan outpost. Unfortunately, none of us are able to return to our home planet, because of the Indigenious Species Act. Our arrival would mess up their evolution at this point. So we’ve made New Earth our planet. But all humans love, love, secretly watching from afar what’s happening on the original planet and getting what we can from it for our own use. I’ve discovered I enjoy Earth’s favorite hot drink, coffee. It’s made from these dried beans. I grind them up and steep that in hot water and it creates a really good drink similar to traq.” She pours the dark, hot drink into two separate cups. “Do you like sweetener?”
“Yes.”
