Page 69 of Tamed By Her Touch

He had caught her when she fell off a shelf, stripped her nearly naked when she spilled molecular solvent on herself, smelled practically every inch of one side of her body while making sure the solvent hadn’t soaked into her skin, fed her when she forgot to eat, covered her with his lab coat while she slept, and spent most of that afternoon with her ass planted directly on his lap.

If she couldn’t wear a nightgown around him by now, well, it was just ridiculous.

“We’re colleagues,” Clair told the woman in the viewer firmly. “Friends, even. Sort of.”

Her reflection looked unconvinced.

“Besides, he’s already seen me in my underwear,” Clair added.

But that brought back the memory of Kaelus kneeling in front of her under the emergency shower, his huge hands gripping her hips while he slowly inhaled his way up her bare thigh and torso. It came back with considerably more detail than Clair wanted, and she felt her nipples tighten even more.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said to herself, disgusted. She was being stupid about this whole thing.

She was a grown woman, a scientist, and a divorcee who had survived betrayal, a major career change, moving aboard an alien space station, and sharing a laboratory with the grouchiest Kindred male in existence.

She could walk into a bedroom wearing a nightgown.

Clair lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and walked out of the bathing chamber.

The bedroom beyond was even more luxurious than the bathroom. The walls curved gently upward into a high domed ceiling which appeared to be made of translucent crystal. Through it, Clair could see the Titus Four night sky scattered with enormous stars, while one of the planet’s moons hung low and luminous over the silver treetops outside.

Instead of ordinary lamps, clusters of glowing flowers grew from niches in the walls, casting a soft bluish light around the room. The same strange living carpet covered the floor, its velvety green fronds stroking Clair’s feet as she crossed toward the enormous bed that dominated the center of the room.

And it really was enormous. It was circular instead of rectangular, easily large enough for four people, and covered with pale gold sheets and thick blankets that shimmered faintly when they moved. Several pillows were scattered across it, each one apparently made from some soft substance that adjusted itself automatically whenever someone leaned against it. Clair knew because she had tried laying on the bed for a minute before she went to get ready for bed.

Kaelus was standing beside the bed, shirtless. Apparently, the big Hybrid had also decided to get into his sleep wear because he was wearing nothing but a pair of long black satin sleeping trousers which hung low on his narrow hips. Above them, his chest was completely bare.

Clair nearly walked straight into a low table because she was too busy staring.

Dear God, what a chest!

She had known he was muscular. It was impossible to spend months looking at a seven-and-a-half-foot tall male without noticing that he was built like somebody had taken a professional linebacker, fed him steroids for breakfast, and then scaled him up another twenty percent.

But she had never really seen all of him before since he was usually wearing his Kindred uniform and a lab coat. Now she could see him, and she really liked what she saw.

His shoulders were impossibly broad, tapering down into a muscular chest and a flat stomach ridged with defined abdominal muscles. A light dusting of black hair spread across the center of his chest and narrowed into a dark trail that disappeared beneath the waistband of his satin trousers.

The happy trail, a naughty little voice in her mind whispered and Clair tried to push it away—but she couldn’t stop staring.

The big Hybrid’s arms were thick with muscle, and his skin had the faint golden undertone Clair had noticed before, though in the soft blue light of the room it seemed almost bronze.

Good Lord—mouthwatering was the only word for it. But she’d better stop thinking that way because she had absolutely no business looking at her coworker and thinking about putting her mouth anywhere near him.

She forced herself to keep walking and after a moment, Kaelus looked up.

His molten golden eyes found her face first…then they moved down slowly. Over her shoulders…her breasts…her waist…her hips and her bare legs.

And then they came back to her breasts—only for a second, but Clair noticed.

His pupils narrowed into dark vertical slits and the muscles in his jaw tightened.

“Fuck,” he growled, which surprised her since he almost never swore.

Suddenly she was acutely aware that her nipples were still showing through the thin nightgown—it was as though they were begging him to look.

Clair resisted the urge to cover herself. They were pretending to be married—they would just have to get used to seeing each others’ bodies.

She lifted her chin instead.