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“Yeah, I guess so,” he murmured, looking down at her little fingers on his chest. He didn’t like the way his body reacted so strongly to her gentle touch—already he could feel his shaft stirring again inside the wet leather he still had on. “Uh…we should get you changed for bed, baby girl,” he added. “I’ll get you something to wear. Wait here.”
He left her in the fresher and headed for his sleeping chamber, making wet footprints through the suite. He dug out one of his T-shirts for Makenna to wear and grabbed a pair of long, sleeping trousers for himself. He laid the two garments on the bed and then had to fight to peel down his wet leather trousers, which seemed to be glued to his long legs.
At last, he got the sodden trousers off and kicked them to the side. He pulled the towel from around his shoulders and was just toweling off when he turned around and saw Makenna standing there in the doorway of his bed chamber.
She was watching him with wide eyes, as quiet as a mouse, and Bard nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw her there.
“Shit, baby girl!” he exclaimed hoarsely, his grip on the towel tightening. “What in the Seven Hells are you doing here?”
Makenna didn’t answer in words. Instead, she dropped the towel she’d been wearing wrapped around herself, walked straight over, and hugged him while they were both completely naked.
“Hey…what…no!” Bard exclaimed, trying to disentangle himself. “No, baby girl—what are you doing?”
She looked up at him, her dark eyes filled with need.
“Bard help Makenna?” she asked hopefully. “Makenna first…first…” She shook her head, a look of frustration coming over her face and Bard guessed that she was probably looking for a word.
But while she was looking, her petite, curvy body was pressed against his and his now fully erect shaft was branding her belly.
“Sorry, baby girl,” he said, taking her by the upper arms and pushing her gently but firmly away from himself. “Bard not help Makenna that way. Here.”
Reaching blindly for the nightshirt he’d laid out for her, he shoved it at her chest, hoping she would get the hint and put it on. Then he reached for his sleep trousers and pulled them up over his hard-on. His erect shaft tented the front of the thin fabric, looking somehow more obscene than when he had been completely nude.
“Damn it!” he muttered, looking at himself and wishing he could do something to make the fucking thing go down. But “Mr. Happy,” as Rilla used to call it, apparently wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, Bard didn’t think he’d been so hard in the last twenty years! Why did the girl have such an effect on him? He needed to fucking control himself and if he couldn’t do that, he needed to get her away from him so he wasn’t so damn tempted.
He’d made a promise to himself when his wife died so many years ago that he wouldn’t ever be with another woman. He’d never had any problems keeping that promise until now.
But when he looked up, hoping that Makenna had taken the hint and put on the nightshirt he had given her, he saw that she was still standing there, the shirt clutched to her chest and her eyes filled with tears.
“Bard not help?” she asked, with a sob in her voice. “Bard not help Makenna?”
“Not help that way, anyway,” Bard said firmly. His heart was melting at her obvious distress, but he couldn’t possibly “help” her in the way she seemed to want him to.
Poor little female. Probably thinks she’s got to screw me to earn her board and keep. That was probably the way it worked at that damn Pleasure House I took her from.
“Look, Makenna…” He knelt on the floor in front of her, trying to get more on her level. “Makenna, you don’t have to…to offer yourself to me that way,” he said awkwardly, looking into her dark eyes and wondering if any of what he was saying was getting through. “That’s not how things work here on the Mother Ship and it’s damn sure not how they work with me. You don’t owe me anything for saving you or feeding you or giving you a place to stay. I was happy to do it. Kindred believe in protecting and cherishing females. We—”
But he could see she wasn’t comprehending. She shook her head, her eyes still bright with unshed tears.
“Bard not help?” she asked again in a small voice. “Not help Makenna?”
“I’m sorry, baby, but no,” he said heavily. “Bard not help.”
She nodded in apparent understanding. Then she went to the corner of the room where Tiny’s bed was. She lay down on the extra-extra large dog bed, curling up in the center with Bard’s shirt still clutched to her chest.
