The softness of his features had vanished and his eyes had grown dark and menacing; his muscles twitched and strained under the lab coat. He looked mad, yet restrained, and Clara resisted the urge to cover herself up behind her arms.
There's no way he knows what I was thinking.
“I'm ready,” she whispered, letting her previous thoughts burn up in flames.
He brushed his finger over the back of her hand, dousing that fire. Before the pod closed up behind a glass shield and a euphoric mist filled up the space, he did it once more. Clara snatched her hand away from the contact. Their eyes met.He touched me by choice? Again?
She didn’t get a chance to ask why before the glass cut her off and another, thicker gas filled in around her. She sucked it into her lungs. It calmed her heart, took away her excitement, and her adrenaline; her body grew heavy while her thoughts went airy and light.
That touch of his fingers stayed with her until she succumbed to sleep.
***
CLARA WENT UNDER INless than a minute. Reid studied her vitals. And when the mists dissipated and her body came back into view, a surge of primal instinct coursed him. It felt like a bullet to his gut and he took a step back.Her smell...
Something he did, she liked; he had made a mistake. He clenched his gloved hands around the scanner, hearing a plastic crack. Even now he could smell her excitement, the heady scent of arousal. His body hardened, his cock stiffened, and he swore to himself that it would pass as quickly as it had begun.
He turned around and counted to ten. Slowly. Then he did it again. It was enough for him to regain control over his beast.
His fingers relaxed at his sides and he sighed in relief as her smell was replaced by the clinical and antiseptic gas released from the machine. He looked upon her with indifference. At least that's what he tried to convince himself of.
The glass lifted away and he loosened the straps on either side of her shift, revealing the lower half of her body.
Reid stopped. He stared. The metal plates in his body expanded.
Every shred of control he had gained back vanished as his eyes traced her pelvic area. An anger rose inside him and his coding flared red alert throughout his mainframe. Clara’s belly was covered in crisscrossing white scars, a web of uncontrolled frenzy. It was chaotic, and even though they were healed, he could feel the pain of her old wounds inside him. The scars ran from one hipbone to the other and down below her pelvis where they vanished beneath the band of her underwear.
He’d read that she’d been stabbed—it was in her file—and even then it had angered him, but seeing them was worse.
A need arose in him to protect what was now under his care and his authority.
Reid wanted to shift his face and growl, to feel the rumbles of his anger vibrate through his body. He wanted to shift and seek out her attacker, whoever he was, and stalk him in the dead of night. He wanted to rip out the man’s throat and feel the slick essence of that bastard’s life force bleed over his gums.
He could already taste the coppery tang of the man’s blood in his mouth.
But it wasn't his place to insert himself into Clara’s life or her past. It certainly wasn’t his place to seek out her enemies. Reid allowed his heart to freeze over again. Right now, there were better things to do with his time: to do for her.
I can heal her, and I can make her future more secure, but I can't save her.
He hooked one finger in her underwear and pulled the top down to see how far down her scars went.
His mouth watered as a delicious, tart scent flooded his nose, and he ran his gloved fingertip through the soft, groomed curls between her legs. The scarring vanished within and left only small trails of white where her hair no longer grew.
So soft.He traced the scars with his finger until it stopped an inch above her clit. His gaze locked on it, pink and perfect, and unhidden. He leaned forward, wondering what it tasted like, whatshetasted like and if it was anything like her scent.She’s just waiting to be played with.
Her pretty pink clit looked like a perfect target for his mouth. He wanted to practice.
Reid jerked back as if he’d been burned. The seam of her panties righted back into its position over her, hiding her from his prying eyes.What the fuck is wrong with me?
His jaw ticked as he stretched his tense muscles and he composed himself.
He got to work.
