10 Some Sights Cannot Be Unseen #2
Temmi took his proffered hand, the leather of his glove cold.
He pulled her gently to her feet, then took her injured hand and turned it over.
“This is going to require stitches. How could you not say anything?” His grip was firm, steadying.
Temmi found she didn’t hate it. Moreover, she found herself holding her breath a few beats too long.
Nix pulled his sweater over his head, briefly revealing a muscled abdomen that Temmi also didn’t hate, and then wrapped her bleeding palm in the heavy garment. It’d be stained after this, without a doubt. He led her out of the library.
· · ·
“You’re a theoretical physicist?” Temmi asked as they rode a lift down two levels. “More’s the pity. Talking about what could be is infinitely less satisfying than making it come to pass.”
The lift doors buzzed open, and they stepped into a sterile corridor.
“Spoken like an engineer,” the prince said, glancing at her with a sidelong smile.
“My dissertation was on the theory behind improving inter-ship communication networks for the Fleet. The ability to send instantaneous messages cross-galaxy without tapping into a space station node or waiting for a runner? It’d revolutionize our fringe-system conflicts. Did you study as well?”
“University is a waste of time.” Temmi dipped her chin to hide a sudden flush.
“My own research in energy prototypes never suffered for a lack of tired old authority figures.” True and not true.
Her real disdain for the stuffiness of academia came from having been locked out of it her entire life.
But it was true that she didn’t need it.
She could think well enough on her own. Probably better.
Problem was, no one would listen to anything she had to say without the accreditation of a nebula-cursed degree.
If anyone had, she wouldn’t be sacrificing her every principle to be on reality holovision.
“Oh?” He slowed as they neared the corridor’s end. “I loved my time at university. In another life, I might’ve made a career out of academia.”
Temmi considered that, in another life, she may have done the same. But she kept the sentiment to herself. They weren’t in another life; they were in this one. Where he was the heir to a galactic empire and she was a poverty-ridden trash collector.
Nix punched a code into the control panel beside the med-bay’s door. It whooshed open.
A treatment room with three empty medical beds greeted them. White privacy curtains were pulled taut between each one.
“It’s early, but Dr. Carter always has someone on staff—” Nix’s attention shifted to his CB, his eyes twitching at the air above his wrist as though reading an invisible message.
“Actually, I’ll need to leave you here. Try Dr. Carter’s office through that door.
” He pointed past the privacy curtain on the far right. “I’ll be sure to check on you later.”
Temmi debated, momentarily, just rinsing her wound in the treatment room’s sink and rooting around for a bandage.
Surely, something in one of the many shiny aluminum cabinets would suffice.
But when she unwound the prince’s sweater from her hand, a fresh wave of stinging made her wince.
The cut was deep. Had it been worth it? Did Nix like her?
Or was he just being polite? She honestly couldn’t tell.
Winding the sweater back around her palm—the pressure eased the pain—she swept aside a privacy curtain to find a narrow corridor leading into a surgical unit.
At the rear, a normal door, not one of the fancy pressurized ones, boasted a plaque that read LIN CARTER, MD, CL1 .
It hung ever so slightly ajar. Soft music and softer scuffling sounds came from within, like someone was rearranging their workspace.
Temmi called out, “Hello?” and received no response.
But as someone who liked to work with minimal sound intrusions, she wasn’t all that surprised.
As she approached the door, she could make out heavy breathing. And then an almost-pained exclamation, followed by a drawn-out fuuuck . Like someone had hurt themself. Temmi hurriedly shouldered open the door.
Then immediately regretted every decision in her life leading up to that moment.
Gods and nebulas, but some sights couldn’t be unseen.
Two women occupied the disheveled office.
The first lay supine on a large desk, her blond head thrown back in undeniable pleasure, her white medical blouse unbuttoned.
Leaning over her was the second woman, a waterfall of dark, sumptuous hair spilling across her shoulders.
The second woman’s mouth traced the blonde’s naked collarbone while her left hand worked meaningfully beneath the waistband of the blonde’s unbuttoned slacks.
Her movements were cocky, self-assured, her tongue precise as it licked its way down to the woman’s exposed breast.
Princess Spie fucking Expani. Literally fucking.
Temmi’s retinas burned. Her cheeks burned. A fire low in her stomach crackled horrifically to life.
She needed to leave. Needed to throw herself out of an airlock. Needed to sanitize her eyeballs with an entire planet’s worth of soap.
But her limbs were frozen. Half in shock. Half in embarrassment. Fortunately, neither the princess nor the woman moaning on the desk with her eyes closed seemed aware of Temmi’s intrusion.
And we’re out, she told herself, grateful when her rebellious body obeyed. If Spie ever realized how long Temmi had been standing there? Temmi might very well have to go into permanent hiding, consequences be damned. Surely, Ollie would understand.
She backed up quickly, fully holding her breath, and clumsily rammed her back heel against the open door. It swung wide, smacking loudly against the office’s inner wall. Temmi grimaced. Way. To. Go. Really on a roll today.
The blonde woman’s eyes flew open. Spie flipped around, hand extricating itself languorously from the blonde’s slacks. The princess’s pale pink blazer hung open at the front, revealing a lacy black bra. The naked, flat planes of her abdomen led to a narrow waist. She was incredibly fit.
“Eyes up here,” Spie said, voice sultry and low, and—somehow—still cocky.
Temmi hadn’t even realized she’d been staring. Incineration by a geyser of hot lava sounded like an excellent prospect right about now. She flicked her gaze up, certain every inch of her skin was flaming beet red with the worst embarrassment of her life.
“I’m...uh . . . I’m...” she held out her hand wrapped in the prince’s sweatshirt. Had she really lost the ability to form coherent sentences?
The woman on the desk launched to her feet, a string of embarrassed apologies pouring from her mouth as she worked to refasten the buttons on her uniform.
“How entirely unprofessional...It’s just normally there aren’t any patients at this hour, and I thought—well, I didn’t think, clearly, and I can assure you this type of behavior is highly unlike me.
” The explanation was directed at no one in particular.
“I’ll ready a bed in the treatment room.
Might as well get your vaccines out of the way while you’re here.
” The color of her cheeks deepened with an obvious blush, her blond bun in disarray.
She inclined her head in Spie’s direction. “Your Highness, if I have your leave.”
“Doctor,” Spie said, her gaze not leaving Temmi’s face.
The doctor bolted from her office. Temmi felt a sudden, visceral envy for not being able to do the same. Who cared about hand gashes that might need stitches?
“You just cost me a bet, Trash Girl.” Spie stuck her hand beneath a wall dispenser. A gentle click preceded a glob of sanitizer dropping onto her palm. She rubbed the sanitizer over her hands as she stepped toward Temmi, making no attempt to zip up her blazer.
Temmi’s pulse hitched. She needed to get her shit together. So, she’d walked in on the princess with another woman? So what? “Not my fault you opted to fuck the doctor before dawn.”
“You’re right. I’m usually allergic to the predawn hours, but there was a bet at stake.
And it is your fault that I’m now going to lose that bet.
There’s no way she’s going to let me do that again.
Four months of legwork, wasted. And I was so close .
” She tossed her long hair over one shoulder and wiggled the fingers of her right hand, the hand that had been doing things to the doctor that Temmi very much didn’t want to think about.
“Three more minutes and I would’ve had her screaming my name. ”
Temmi’s stomach clenched with stupid, confusing heat.
It wasn’t attraction, certainly. She’d never be attracted to someone like Spie Expani.
The woman was a conceited, hedonistic jackass.
No, this was simply embarrassment. The princess had a way of putting Temmi out of sorts, and her body just didn’t know how to react.
“Right, well, I’m gonna go now.” Temmi started to turn. The less time she spent around Spie Expani, the better.
Spie stepped past her, cutting off her exit. She lifted a regal hand to twirl a finger in Temmi’s hair. The same hand that had been . . . Why did the woman always stand so damn close to her? It was infuriating.
Temmi was struck suddenly by how different the prince and princess were.
As far as twins went, they looked alike, both more beautiful than any human had a right to be, with medium-dark complexions and rich onyx hair.
Both with stunning violet eyes and sensuous mouths.
But the similarities ended there. Nix was an oasis of cool water, his sister a raging firestorm.
And Temmi felt like she was trapped in between two incompatible worlds.
“I see Manny got to you. I like the color, but”—Spie leaned in close, ducking her head to Temmi’s ear, her breath hot and tickling, causing an unwelcome shiver to flash from Temmi’s chest to her gut—“I miss the curls.” She withdrew abruptly and began to saunter away, heels clicking on the vinyl floor.
Temmi stared after her, speechless, feeling very much on the verge of passing out. Probably because she’d forgotten to breathe. She forced her lungs to inhale.
“Oh, and Trash Girl?” Spie called over her shoulder as she turned the corner. “Your outfit is ridiculous. You look like a toddler who’s dressed herself for the first time. I’ll talk to Manny about some alternatives.”
Temmi glanced down at the clothes she’d thrown on this morning, feeling suddenly self-conscious. She’d layered herself in three of the outfits Manny had provided. For modesty’s sake.
The next hour was excruciating. Temmi endured an embarrassed silence as Dr. Lin Carter sewed up the gash on the side of her palm, then jammed seven different needles into the flesh of her upper arm.
The doctor refused to meet her eyes, a perpetual blush blotching her cheeks and neck.
Temmi tried, and failed, not to picture the dignified woman half-naked, bent backward over her desk, while Spie.
..Gods and nebulas, Temmi needed a memory wipe.