11. Clair
CLAIR
Clair stood in front of the viewer in the guest suite’s enormous bathing chamber and wondered why in the world she hadn’t packed more sensible sleepwear.
The viewer itself was nothing like an ordinary Earth mirror.
Instead of glass, it appeared to be a sheet of pale silver liquid flowing continuously down the wall, though when Clair looked into it, her reflection was perfectly clear.
Every once in a while the surface rippled gently and gave off a faint pearlescent glow which made her skin look smoother and her curly auburn hair considerably more cooperative than it usually was.
The rest of the room was just as alien and luxurious. The bathing pool was sunken directly into the floor and lined with smooth violet stones that warmed automatically when she stepped near them, while the shower was more like standing inside a warm misting cloud than getting sprayed with water.
Strange blue-green vines grew along one wall, opening tiny luminous flowers whenever the humidity rose, and the floor beneath Clair’s bare feet looked like thick emerald grass, though it was far softer than any lawn she had ever walked across.
Every time she shifted her weight, the tiny silky blades seemed to curl around her feet and massage her soles.
Honestly, if pretending to be married to Kaelus didn’t kill her, she might ask Commander Sylvan if the Kindred could establish permanent diplomatic relations with Titus Four just so she could come back here for a vacation, she thought.
Unfortunately, the nightgown she was wearing was doing nothing to make her feel relaxed.
Clair turned sideways in front of the viewer and frowned at her reflection.
The gown was made of incredibly soft, pale rose fabric that fell to just above her knees and floated around her curves when she moved.
It wasn’t exactly indecent—at least she hadn’t thought so when she packed it—but the material was extremely thin and had a tendency to cling to her breasts and hips in a way that made it obvious she wasn’t wearing anything underneath except a pair of underpants.
But it wasn’t totally the gown’s fault that certain things were so…visible. Because she was also wearing the float dots Kat had talked her into trying.
Clair had laughed when her friend first showed them to her.
The tiny ruby-colored gems were no bigger than pencil erasers and adhered beneath the curve of each breast. Apparently they generated a very small anti-gravity field which lifted the breast tissue just enough to make even large, heavy breasts stand up perkily without any kind of bra at all.
As a woman who had been hauling around a very generous set of boobs since puberty, Clair had initially been skeptical…then she'd tried them and found out they were amazing.
No underwire digging into her ribs…no straps sawing into her shoulders…
no industrial-strength contraption that felt like it had been designed by the Army Corps of Engineers just to keep her boobs north of her belly button.
Just a subtle lift—as though an invisible set of hands was holding her breasts up and making them look as perky as they had been many years ago back in college.
Kat had laughed when Clair called them life-changing but Clair hadn’t been kidding. She had privately decided they might be one of the greatest technological advances the Kindred had ever brought to Earth.
The only problem was that while the float dots lifted her breasts beautifully, they did absolutely nothing to hide her nipples.
In fact, having her boobs look so perky actually made her tender peaks more prominent.
And right now, thanks to the cool air of the bathing chamber, they were standing out very obviously beneath the thin pink fabric of her nightgown.
“Terrific,” Clair muttered to her reflection. “Absolutely terrific.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts which helped…some. But she couldn’t exactly walk around with her arms clamped over her chest all night without looking ridiculous.
Besides, Kaelus was the only one who would be seeing her, and she had been working beside the big Hybrid for months.
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.
He’s seen boobs before, she told herself. Probably lots of boobs. Probably nicer than mine. It’s no big deal.
Her body, annoyingly, did not seem convinced. She could feel her cheeks getting hot as he looked her up and down and her breathing was faster now for some reason.
Kaelus cleared his throat and finally looked away.
“You sleep on the bed, I’ll take the floor,” he growled.
Clair frowned.
“What? Why would you say that?” she demanded. “We’re supposed to be married—we need to sleep in the same bed.”
“No,” he said, scowling. “We don’t.”
Before Clair could argue further, the big Hybrid reached for two pillows and began pulling one of the thick gold blankets from the bed. Clearly, he was intent on making a makeshift bed for himself on the floor.