I swivel round to see her dressed in my checked shirt. Her usually sleek bob is tousled around her face and her eyes still dewy from sleep. Too cute. Despite my best efforts to keep my eyeballs fixed on her face, my gaze dips to her shapely legs. Ah, fuck. I feel the tide of my libido rising again.
Abruptly, I turn back to the bacon, and a snap of fat obligingly pings into my eye. I let out a low expletive.
“Are you okay?” She’s at my side now, and I have to glance down quite a way as she looks up at me, her green eyes worried. It’s been such a long time since a woman has showed me concern that I blink, and not because of my stinging eye. “Sure,” I say gruffly. “Just got hot oil in my eye.”
“Ouch.” She gazes at the contents of the pan and her nostrils visibly quiver. “That looks like great bacon, where does it come from?”
“We have farmlands on the other side of level one, lit by a million lumen lamps. It’s where we grow our vegetables and fruit and keep our livestock.”
“We have something very similar in Sparkle.”
“In the early days we taught you guys how to farm, how to harness lumen light and we sent up mineralized soil for your farmlands.”
“Oh my. So that’s how it happened. We were told it was a miracle that the soil and light appeared. We even have days in the year when we give thanks to the Dome Gods.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoff lightly. “Well, they wouldn’t tell you the truth, would they? Then you’d have to worship monster gods instead.”
“What horrible lies they’ve perpetrated,” Clem says quietly.
I look down at her and see her biting her lip pensively. I don’t want her to dwell on it.
“I’ve cooked plenty for two, want some?”
“Yes please.”
“Eggs?”
“Just one.”
“Sunny-side up?” Funny how we say that when we’ve never seen the sun.
“Please.”
I crack another egg into the pan.
“You sure are an adept cook,” she observes wistfully, watching me flip the eggs and bacon.
“It’s how I relax,” I reply. I try to not recall Leanna’s parting shot as she walked out on me. “If it wasn’t for your cooking Otis, I’d have left months ago.”
My gut constricts. Why would I even let myself imagine anything happening between me and this gorgeous little human? I’m not the kind of guy women stay with for my appeal. I must have imagined her arousal last night in the shower; it was probably just fear of the octomopede I saw reflected in her eyes.
She’s here to hide from the human authorities in Sparkle, I remind myself sternly. That’s all.
As we sit at the table with its checkered red and white cloth, I clear my throat. “Did you sleep okay?”
Those dimples dip into her cheeks. “To be honest, I was eyeballing the walls and ceilings for another of those octo… octo… things for quite a while.”
“Octomopedes,” I supply, unable to hide a smile at her attempts to name it.
“Yeah, them.” She gives a little shudder.
“They like warm, damp places, so, er…”
Her eyes widen just a little, and I realize the other connotation of those words and groan inwardly. I dig furiously into my breakfast, cramming bacon into my mouth to stop myself saying anything else inappropriate.
Finally, I wipe my face with a napkin and get started on explaining practicalities.
“Okay, first things first.” I put on my best sheriff voice, gruff and to the point. “I have to go into the sheriff department offices this morning, but Tippy will be coming round to bring you some clothes.”
