5. Clair
CLAIR
To be fair, Clair didn’t know it was a molecular solvent.
It was just labeled “solvent” in Kaelus’s bold handwriting.
Also, it wouldn’t have been a problem if she’d had the proper PPE on, but of course, she hadn’t put it on because she hadn’t known how strong and dangerous the chemical she was using was.
She’d just wanted to clean out some of her Petri dishes where she’d been growing Fethurian slime molds.
The molds were incredibly hard to kill and clean up after, so Clair opened the large glass bottle filled with clear liquid and began pouring it into the dirty Petri dishes, the same way she would if she was using her regular solvent—which she had inconveniently run out of.
It smelled sharply of lemons, which was nice—she’d always liked the smell of fresh citrus.
But the minute she started pouring the clear liquid out, she heard Kaelus inhale deeply. She had her back to him, however, and thought he was just clearing his throat.
“Doctor Donovan,” he rumbled “What chemical are you using over there?”
“Just some solvent I found on the shelf,” Clair told him. “I just needed to clean out some Petri dishes. These Fethurian slime molds are so stubborn—I think I’m going to have to scrub them by hand if I can’t—”
“No! Don’t touch it with your bare hands!” he exclaimed and the real fear in his deep voice surprised Clair.
“Don’t worry,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him. “I’m being careful with it.”
Just as she spoke, she started to pour some more of the solvent, but her hand slipped on the glass bottle and some of the clear liquid sloshed out and landed on her lab coat.
“Well, crap!” Clair muttered as the clear liquid ran down from her chest all the way to the hem of the white coat. It seemed to move in a strange way—not like water or any other liquid she’d ever seen at all. It balled up on the fabric before soaking in.
She put the bottle on the table but just as she was about to reach down instinctively and brush the solvent away, her wrists were clamped from behind in two huge hands.
“What?” Clair gasped, looking up. To her shock, Kaelus was standing right behind her, looming over her and holding her hands high, away from her body.
“Off,” he growled in her ear. “Get it off—now!”
“Get…get what off?” Clair asked. Why was he acting like this?
Before she could ask any more, the big Hybrid spun her around and started stripping off her lab coat. It came off quickly, but he didn’t stop there. Before Clair knew it, he was pulling her dress right over her head!
“Hey!” she cried, trying to twist away from him, but Kaelus wasn’t having it.
He lifted her with ease and carried her, kicking and protesting, to the safety shower in the corner of the lab.
There he shoved her—wearing only her bra and panties—under the silver nozzle and held her there while he twisted the knobs.
A rush of freezing water sprayed out, drenching Clair immediately—it got Kaelus all wet too, since he was still holding her in place.
“Hey!” she screamed—had he gone crazy? She was freezing—her skin was covered in goose bumps and still he wouldn’t let her go.
“Be still, Clair!” His voice was a low, panicked growl as he held her under the water. “I saw what happened—you spilled the Triforezine solvent all over yourself! We have to get it off.”
“You d-did get it off when you stripped me n-nearly n-naked!” she protested. Her teeth were beginning to chatter as the ice-cold water continued its assault.
“I can’t be sure until I examine you.”
Abruptly, he turned off the water and knelt in front of her.
He was so tall that even kneeling, their faces were nearly level. Clair wrapped her arms around herself and watched in shock as he looked her over.
“Are you crazy?” she demanded. “I’m fine—get away from me!”
“No.” He glared at her, but there was real concern in his eyes. “You’re not fine until I say you’re fine. Now move your arms and let me look at you!”
The way he was looking at her was so intense, Clair was afraid to say no.
She held still, trembling, as he scanned her body, his golden eyes moving up and down her side from her right breast down to her right thigh.
She was incredibly embarrassed to be soaking wet in front of him—especially since the water had made her pink bra and panties practically see through and her nipples—which were tight from the cold—were poking against the wet fabric.
“I’m t-telling you, I’m fine!” she protested. “I barely got any on me and you ripped my lab coat off before anything could happen.”
“Do you know what you spilled on yourself?” he demanded, looking up to meet her eyes again. “Triforezine is a molecular solvent. It eats through fabric in less than five seconds and soaks into flesh immediately.”
“Well, you can see it hasn’t eaten through any of my skin,” she said impatiently. “Please—let me dry off and get dressed!”
“Not yet,” he growled. “You didn’t let me finish. It soaks into flesh and then, after ten minutes or so, begins to cause necrosis. And Clair, you got it all down your side!”
“Necrosis?” Clair was so horrified she barely noticed that he’d used her first name instead of calling her “Doctor Donovan” as he usually did.
“Yes—so I’m sorry, but I need to smell you to be sure your skin didn’t absorb any of it.”
“You need to what?” she gasped.
But instead of answering, the big Kindred bent his head and pressed his face to her thigh.
“Hey!” Clair exclaimed. But his big hands clamped around her hips, and she couldn’t get away. All she could do was stand there, trembling as he pressed his face to her flesh and slowly moved up her body, inhaling as he did.
His hands and face felt incredibly warm against her cold skin, and she still couldn’t quite believe he was holding her in place as he made his way up her body.
“Doctor Kaelus, please!” she protested as he made his way over the curve of her waist and up to the side of her breast. She put her hands on his broad shoulders, trying to push him away but it was like pushing against a brick wall.
Basically, she was stuck until he satisfied himself that she hadn’t gotten any of the dangerous solvent on her skin.
At last, Kaelus pulled back and she saw a look of relief spread over his face.
“Thank all the Gods that ever were,” he muttered, and his deep voice was hoarse with emotion.
“So I’m okay?” Clair asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Yes—I don’t detect any of the scent on you.” He released her hips at last and straightened to his full height to loom over her.
“Was that really necessary?” Clair demanded.
She felt naked and embarrassed—she hadn’t taken her clothes off in front of a man in almost a year—not since she’d found out that James was cheating on her and had stopped sleeping with him.
Also, she hadn’t exactly been watching her weight since the divorce.
She knew lots of women who went out and got what they called a “revenge body”—getting uber-fit after a divorce or break up.
But Clair hadn’t done any of that. She’d spent more time with Ben and Jerry’s than she’d spent at the gym and right now she felt like her self-neglect was on full display.
“I mean, I’m soaking wet, and I don’t have a change of clothes!” she went on, covering herself with her arms again as best she could. “Surely you could have just—”
“Just what?” Kaelus demanded. “Just waited to see if your skin started to slough off? You ask if my precautions were necessary? Just look at your clothing.”
He stepped to one side, finally allowing her to get out of the safety shower. Clair saw her lab coat and dress in a pile on the floor…and then she realized the fabric was smoking. A trail of white vapor was rising from the lab coat and there were huge holes eaten through the fabric.
“My lab coat!” she exclaimed. It was one she’d had forever, and she really liked it.
“Your other garment too, I’m afraid.”
Carefully Kaelus used a pair of long forceps to twitch the lab coat to one side, revealing her dress—which also had huge holes in it.
“Crap! That was my favorite dress!” Clair exclaimed.
“Better your dress than your skin,” Kaelus rumbled. “Here.”
He draped something around her shoulders and Clair realized it was his own spare lab coat which he kept on his side of the room.
It was huge on her, falling almost to her ankles, but she wrapped it around herself anyway, glad to be covered.
It had his warm, spicy scent on it which made her feel calmer for some reason.
“I didn’t realize,” she said, looking at the pile of smoking fabric on the floor. “I thought it was just a regular solvent—like the one I ran out of.”
“From now on ask before you use one of my chemicals,” Kaelus growled.
Hot words rose to Clair’s lips but then his expression softened slightly, and he added,
“It’s my fault for not labeling it properly.”
“Well…I suppose I should have asked before using it,” she said, and wrapped the lab coat more closely around herself.
“I guess we’d better clean this up,” she added, nodding at her smoking coat and dress and the Petri dishes in the sink, which all had the deadly solvent inside them.
The slime molds were completely gone, she noted. Not a single trace of them was left.
“Correction,” Kaelus said, frowning. “I will clean this up—you will go back to your suite and get dressed. I cannot have you half-naked in my lab—your curves are far too distracting. I wouldn’t get any work done for the rest of the day.”
Clair opened and closed her mouth, not quite sure what to say. On one hand, she disliked being ordered around. But on the other hand, he seemed to be paying her a compliment and saying she was so beautiful the sight of her body interrupted his concentration.
No one had ever said anything like that to her before—not even her ex-back when they were young and in love, before everything went wrong and he started cheating.
At last, she decided just to do as he asked.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go get changed.
Er…do you want me to stop by your place and get you a change too?
” she added, nodding at the way the front of his shirt was soaked with water from washing her in the shower.
“Your suite is only a few doors down from mine. I can grab you some new clothes if you want.”
He frowned.
“Do I want you to go into my domicile and leave your bewitching scent all over the place so that I have as much trouble concentrating there as I do here in the lab? No—absolutely not.”
Clair frowned back.
“Well, excuse me for trying to be nice and helpful.”
But again, it seemed like he was giving her some kind of backhanded compliment. Was he really saying she smelled so good it made it hard for him to think?
But I don’t even wear any perfume, she thought. What is he talking about?
She had no idea, and decided she didn’t want to stand there dripping in his oversized lab coat one more minute.
“I’m going,” she said shortly.
“Be safe,” he said. “And keep an eye on your skin—I didn’t smell any of the solvent on you, but your scent, as I said, is distracting. If you see anything strange at all, call me and I’ll meet you at the nearest Med Center.”
“What? But I thought you said I was all clear!” Clair opened the lab coat and looked down at herself anxiously. Her skin still looked the same—there weren’t even any red marks.
“You are ninety-nine point nine percent clear,” Kaelus clarified. “My sense of smell is many times better than the Earth animal you call a bloodhound, but in science, there is always the cautionary room for error.”
“Oh…all right.” Clair felt somewhat better. He was just being cautious then. And was his sense of smell really better than a bloodhound’s? That was fascinating. It made her wonder how else his Kindred anatomy differed from a human’s. Were there any other physical differences?
Her eyes wandered from the way his soaked shirt was clinging to his broad, muscular chest, down to the crotch of his black trousers, where there appeared to be a sizeable bulge running down the inside of one thigh.
“Doctor Donovan, are you well?”
His deep rumbling voice broke her train of thought and Clair realized she’d been standing there, staring at his crotch for who knew how long.
“Oh, uh, fine. Just fine,” she said, feeling flustered. “I, um, I’m going to get changed.”
“That’s a wise decision,” Kaelus rumbled.
Clair only nodded and then hurried out of the lab, her wet shoes squelching with every step. Her mind was in turmoil and all she could think about was the way the big Hybrid had held her in place as he sniffed his way slowly up her body.