Chapter 33
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Nothing.
—Hugo Sorensen in a message to Alden Jones
BO SPENT MUCH of the afternoon being divested of the bugs.
He’d worried their removal would weaken him, but he felt the same. Obviously, the bugs had done their job and done it well.
The rest was up to him.
Hundreds of tiny pinpricks dotted his body where the bugs had hooked into his system, but Dr. Kahananui prescribed him a thin gel that sank into his skin and caused an immediate reduction of the redness. Another day and the pinpricks would be all but gone. Since Bo wasn’t a man who went around moisturizing himself, it felt distinctively odd to slather the gel all over his body, but he told himself it was topical medication and got on with it.
When he realized he couldn’t get to all the pricks on his back, he decided to use the opportunity to play with his siren. He hadn’t seen her since she left his bed, the hunger inside him a throb.
Using the comm function on the data panel to access the station’s list of public codes, he contacted the kitchen. It was postlunch and predinner, so hopefully, Kaia would be free. He kept it audio only until he got her on the line; he’d noted the location of the kitchen comm panel the first time he entered the room and knew no one else would see him if he turned on the visual.
“YES?” Kaia was not having a good day; she missed Bowen like he was a part of her she’d mislaid, and none of her rational arguments about how he’d inevitably break her already scarred heart seemed to be having any impact on the painful need deep within.
Even her exuberant other self was morose and sulking. Which was why she’d given all her kitchen staff the afternoon off and was personally making the vat of pasta sauce for tonight’s dinner. Her clanmates shouldn’t have to put up with her bad mood.
“What—” She cut off her impatient question when she saw the face of the man who’d called—and noticed his half-naked body.
Her thighs clenched, her nipples suddenly plump, hard points. “I’m sorry,” she said aloud. “I didn’t sign up for a porn show.” Or for this man who’d thrown her world into chaos.
“So you think I could be on a porn show?”
Kaia’s lips wanted to twitch. How could she have seen him as harsh and grim at the start? He was so wickedly playful, reaching the core of her nature. “For those with a hospital-patient fetish, maybe.”
“Ouch.” Making a downcast face, he said, “That’s kind of why I called.”
She folded her arms, refusing to soften . . . trying to keep her distance.
He held up a small jar of what she recognized as a healing gel created by Tansy. “I can’t reach my back.”
“Try using a shower scrubbing brush.” She switched off the screen on those sharp words and told herself to concentrate on her work; dinner wasn’t going to make itself. She had no time to go pet a man who was going to leave her, one way or another.
Oblivion or back to the surface, those were the only two choices open to the security chief of the Human Alliance.
Both were places Kaia couldn’t go, couldn’t follow.
It took her two short minutes to surrender to the compulsion to touch him, draw his scent into her lungs, take care of him. “Argh!” Leaving her ingredients spread out on the counter, she pulled off her apron before stalking out.
Hex was nowhere in sight; maybe her genius mouse had decided to avoid her temper, too.
“COME in,” Bo called out when someone knocked on his door.
It slid open. He’d been expecting Dr. Kahananui, come to take another scan or reading, but the scent that whispered across on the air was of an exotic tropical flower fused with a hint of coconut. A creamy white bloom sat tucked over Kaia’s right ear.
Bowen’s gut clenched.
Striding over, she grabbed the jar and said, “Stay still.”
He obeyed . . . but couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. At least until she slapped the gel onto his back hard enough to tell him she’d caught his response. His lack of a grin didn’t last long—Kaia might still be wearing the flower over her right ear, but she had her hands on him and after that first rough touch, she’d turned gentle, caressing the gel onto his skin, where it sank in without a trace.
Bowen wanted to purr like a damn cat.
“What’s this tattoo?” she asked as she worked.
“Which one?”
“This.” She touched the design just below his left shoulder. “No, wait. I’ve seen this before . . .”
Wondering if she’d recognize it, Bo closed his eyes and surrendered to the bone-deep pleasure of her hands on his flesh, strong and competent, with the odd patch of roughness from her work in the kitchen.
“It’s the emblem of the Peace Accord.” She traced the lines with a fingertip.
Fighting back a shiver, he said, “My first tattoo—got it when I was fifteen.” After reading all of Adrian Kenner’s journals and earning enough money to pay for the tat himself; he’d known his parents wouldn’t give him permission, but Cassius was friends with a guy who knew an artist who didn’t ask for ID.
It had been stupid teenage luck for Bo that the artist was excellent at what he did.
“Why do you have it?” A wild curiosity in the question that told him he wasn’t only talking to her human side, her body close enough that he could feel the lush warmth of her against him. “Humans don’t often care about the Peace Accord.”
Bowen knew it was mostly changeling blood that had drenched the land in red, changelings who’d fought so brutally that they’d ended clans and devastated packs. The Peace Accord had forever altered their history. “Do you remember the name of the peace negotiator?”
“Of course. Adrian Kenner is one of the most respected men in our history.”
“He had a middle name.”
“Adrian B. Kenner, yes.” Her hand paused on his back. “Bowen? You were named after him?”
He nodded. “My full name is Bowen Adrian Knight.” It was a heritage he wore with pride. “A lot of humans respect him as deeply as changelings do.” Kenner had stopped a war that had caught nonpack humans and Psy in the crossfire, turned rivers red with blood; he’d left a legacy of peace that stood to this day. “He was my great-great-many-times-over grandfather.”
“You have a proud history.” Kaia began to smooth the gel into his skin once more. Bowen closed his eyes again, his focus on her touch alone. Only when he heard her screwing on the lid of the jar did he turn.
She stood her ground, though he was far too close, her breasts a bare inch from brushing his chest. Shoving the jar against his breastbone, she said, “I have to get back to the kitchen.”
“A couple of your clanmates cornered me earlier.” Bowen had listened politely to the older women while his muscles bunched one by one. “Said it was a disgrace I was taking advantage of you when your future mate wasn’t here to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting.” Kaia scowled.
“Is he? Your mate?” Bowen had shrugged off Alden’s comments and reasoned his way out of Carlotta’s earlier ones, but the words had built silently inside him until he needed Kaia to tell him her heart didn’t belong to another man. “Is that why you’re pulling away?”
“If I had a mate,” she gritted out, “if I felt that way about a man, I sure as hell wouldn’t have shared intimate skin privileges with you!”
He’d insulted her honor, he realized too late. “Jesus, I’m a fool.” Knowing he was playing with his life, he kissed his enraged siren and she went straight to his head.