Gena Showalter Bundle. Gena Showalter
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sighed. “You must wash my back.”
“Wash your own back.” Katie inched forward another step. Another. And another. Almost there. If he would just move out of the way…
“As it is clear to me that you do not understand, I will explain another way. My muscles are still stiff from my confinement and require the gentle touch of a female.”
“I’m not touching your back for any reason because I know you’ll consider that part of your rule adjustment. I’ll find myself naked and in the tub with you.”
His long, spiky lashes swept down in a slow, alluring appraisal. “Would that be so bad?”
“Yes!”
He leaned against the door frame and smiled. “I can promise you that you will enjoy every moment.”
“I’m sure you can, but I’m still not interested.” She pushed past him and closed the door firmly behind her. Alone in the hall, she tried not to imagine all that glorious skin covered with glistening soap bubbles.
She failed.
He emerged half an hour later on a cloud of steam. A clean and fresh floral scent enveloped him. Fortunately, he was wearing his pants. Unfortunately, he was not wearing his shirt, and he was, without a doubt, one hundred percent pure Imperian beef. Droplets of water trickled from his hair and down his rippled chest, pooling in his navel. Her mouth went dry, and she wanted so desperately to lick the moisture from his skin.
Lord, when had she become such a sexual creature?
“All of your ‘shampoo’ was scented for a woman,” he accused.
And for seduction, she silently added, “Are you still hungry?” The words emerged as a croak.
He perked up. “You will feed me?”
“Sure. Why not?” They adjourned to the kitchen, and Katie used that time to cool her mounting desire. All the while doing subtle, deep breathing exercises, she gathered the necessary items for a turkey sandwich. She knew how to cook, very nicely, too. But she hadn’t actually baked a meal since leaving her father’s home at the age of eighteen. A small rebellion, she supposed, for all the years she had slaved over breakfast, lunch and dinner for the men of the house.
“I’m not your personal chef,” she told Jorlan, “so pay attention. Next time, you’re on your own. Are you watching?” Before he could answer, she began, working as she spoke. “Bread. Mayonnaise. Cheese. Turkey. Lettuce. Tomato. Bread. Got it?”
He nodded, and she handed him the sandwich. He ate the blasted thing as if he had never tasted anything so delicious in all his life. Definitely not a nibbler. In fact, he somehow made the simple act of chewing a passionate feat. His strong jaw moved quickly. Potent and intense.
Damn it! She needed to find something about him that turned her off. First Date Syndrome was preferable to Obsession Disease.
Jorlan fixed himself three more sandwiches.
“What are the houses in your world like?” she asked, sitting beside him.
He spoke in between bites, his eyes warm with remembrances. “They are much bigger than those offered here. The stones are more colorful, the chambers open and easily accessible. At times, it seems the sky dusts the floor.” He drained half a carton of milk, then leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grunt.
“Sounds beautiful.”
“’Tis indeed.”
“Come on. I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping. Alone.”
“Your continued rejection humbles me.” The wry comment was delivered with an equally wry grin.
“Something needs to,” she muttered.
Walking through the hall, a sweet vanilla scent drifted to her nostrils. That was the only thing she liked about the place. The smell. Decorated with a contemporary slant, the interior was too bold, too modern, and lacked character. Instead of wood, the walls were trimmed with silver metal. Instead of carpet or paneling, the floors were covered with mosaic tile. Ceramic animal paws showcased all the light fixtures. She would have preferred a chandelier lit by hundreds of crystal prisms.
Katie knew she’d bought this home for all the wrong reasons. Her dad, who would have a fit if he knew a strange alien male was staying the night with her, believed only men could earn a living as home renovators—or anything else, for that matter. She’d wanted to prove to him that she, a woman, was a success at her business.
To this day, he refused to believe she earned her money on her own and hadn’t borrowed from her brothers.
Ryan James had been raised by the “old school” of thought. Men worked and earned money while women baked cookies, raised the kids and devoted their entire lives to pleasing their husbands. (Much like Jorlan’s perceptions.) Maybe that was why, sixteen years after becoming a widower, her dad still had yet to remarry. No sane woman would take him. He barked orders like a drill sergeant and expected total compliance from those around him.
As a child, that type of ideology could have easily crushed her spirit. Yet her brothers had sought to protect her from their father’s low expectations. They’d made her one of the boys, helped her don jeans and tennis shoes instead of lace and bows. She’d trailed their every step. She’d helped them catch frogs, stood by their sides and fished in a nearby pond, and held her own as they wrestled in the mud.
She and Jorlan reached the guest bedroom. “This is it,” she said, flipping the light switch. The room instantly brightened. “The bathroom, or chamber pot, or whatever you call it, is through the side door. It’s nothing as grand as what you described, but it’s comfortable and private.”
Entranced by the origin of light, Jorlan barely registered her words. With the tip of his finger, he lowered the silver switch. Darkness flooded the small area. When he raised the switch, light once again sprang from the overhead source.
“Again I sense no magic, and yet…” Up, down, up, down he continued to move the switch. “I would not have guessed your world capable of such things. First a talking box and now instant lighting.”
Katie chuckled, charmed by his bedazzlement with technology. “What does your world use for light?”
“Lamori gems.”
“Are they magic?”
“Nay, they are alive.”
She did not even want to contemplate living stones.
“Even on Imperia, a world of highly developed mystical abilities, no one has yet mastered magical lighting.”
“We haven’t either. We rely on electricity.”
“I am unfamiliar with this word.” He flipped the light switch several more times.
How best to explain…“Electricity is a fundamental entity of nature consisting of negative and positive kinds composed respectively of electrons and protons.” She spouted Webster’s definition with ease. “This is observable in the attraction and repulsion of bodies electrified by friction and in natural phenomena.” Wires and power circuits were part of her business, after all, and God knows how many classes she’d taken on the subject.
On and off the light went.
“Does the room meet with your approval?”
“It will suffice. For now.” Jorlan released the little switch and surveyed his new chamber. The room offered ample space, but better yet, it provided the most important item in a man’s life beside his talon, his horri and his food. A bed—a bed Katie did not plan on making use of in the way Elliea had intended, he thought dryly, but a bed all the same.
“What do you mean ‘for now’?” she demanded.
He hid his amusement behind a bland expression. He had expected such a reply from this woman who continued to refuse all pleasures;