Page 3 of Tamed By Her Touch

“Seriously?” Clair had a hard time believing this. Her weight had been another bone of contention between her and her ex. James had claimed that she gained too much weight after they got married. But Clair had always been full-figured, and she didn’t think she’d gained that much—it was just another excuse for him to cheat on her. So it was really difficult to believe that the Kindred—especially her grumpy new lab-mate—found her overfull curves attractive.

But Kat had nodded and taken another sip of her Woo.

“Seriously. He’s afraid you’ll distract him from his research with your curvy beauty,” she told Clair.

“I really doubt that,” Clair said, taking a sip of her own Woo which was sweet and sparkling like champagne. “I think he just doesn’t want to share his lab.”

“Well, that’s too bad for him,” Kat remarked. “We have a research project going on right now that has tied up most of the lab space aboard the Mother Ship. But don’t worry,” she added. “It’ll be over in the next six to nine months, which means you can have your own lab soon.”

Six to nine months sounded like an awfully long time to share a lab with a grumpy, seven-and-a-half-foot tall Hybrid Kindred, but Clair hadn’t gone through a difficult divorce and moved her entire life to an alien space ship orbiting the moon just to give up now. So she was determined to make the most of it.

It wasn’t easy at first, though. When she came back to the lab the next day, she found the door locked.

“Hey? Hello?” she called, rapping on the sliding silver panel. “Hello, it’s Doctor Donovan!”

At last, just when she thought she was going to have to go to either Kat or Commander Sylvan for help, the door slid open revealing a scowling Kaelus.

“Come in and don’t bother me,” were his first words to her.

Clair stepped inside, expecting the lab to look exactly like it had the day before. Instead, to her surprise, exactly half of the lab had been cleared, as per Commander Sylvan’s instructions. The right side of the room was bare and clean—a long rectangular lab table and several shelves were empty for her use.

But before Clair could open her mouth to thank him courteously for making room for her, something else caught her eye.

Running directly down the middle of the white tile lab floor was a thick black piece of tape. It divided the room exactly in half, Clair saw. And when she followed it with her eyes, she saw there was a white board placed at the very end of the lab. On the board, written in heavy black letters, were three rules.

Stay on your side of the lab—ALWAYS.

No talking when I am working.

Do NOT touch any of my equipment.

Clair stared in growing irritation at the rules and then glared at her new lab-mate.

“Are you serious with these?” she demanded. “You’re really going to be this petty?”

Kaelus frowned at her.

“I do not know what you mean by ‘petty.’ This is simply my way of making sure my lab continues to run in an orderly fashion.”

Clair took a deep breath, intending to tell him off…but then she paused and thought. What good would it do to start a fight with the guy she had to share a lab with on her first day of work at her new job? Of course, she could get Commander Sylvan involved, but that made it look like she couldn’t fight her own battles and also made her a problem immediately. If Kaelus had groped her or started spewing sexist remarks, that would have been different. But he was just being rude and boorish—that she could handle on her own.

So she decided to take a different tactic with him.

“Okay, sweetie-pie—your lab, your rules,” she said breezily and stepped right past him.

“Excuse me? What did you call me?” Kaelus demanded, following her into the lab. He stayed exclusively on his side of the line, Clair noticed.

“What? Sweetie-pie?” She looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Oh, that’s just a term of affection, big fella. Don’t you worry about it.”

“I do worry about it. I dislike being called names that are not my own,” he growled.

“Sorry about that, big guy,” Clair said. Giving him her sweetest smile, she added, “I can’t help noticing what a good job you did cleaning up my half of the lab. Did you do that all yourself?”

“Of course I did.” Kaelus seemed to be squarely on the back foot by now. “Who else would I get to clean my lab?”

Clair was somewhat surprised—no human man she knew would have cleaned up on their own if they could get someone else to do it for them. But she wasn’t about to tell her grumpy new lab-partner that.

“Well, that was a real big-boy thing to do,” she remarked, smiling brightly at him. “And I really appreciate you being so sweet and welcoming me in like this.”