Kaz’s hands crept up her back, drawing her into the gap between his spread legs. She felt the cool tip of his nose nudge the corner of her jaw. A low, low rattling sound came from somewhere deep in his chest just a moment before he suddenly hooked his hands around her waist and set her back again.
In a completely unaffected voice, he announced, “Apology accepted.”
Oh, he was just theworst.“It wasn’t an apology!”
He shrugged. “I’m taking it.”
She felt her face heat but stubbornly kept her silence as he stood up from the bed. Atria did not need to give him the satisfaction of her denial, especially when she couldfeelhow amused he was.
It rippled over her in soft, warm waves. There was an edge of exasperation to it, certainly, and the clinging film of guilt still hung in the air, but there was an undeniable warmth that somehow managed to override it all.
Her stomach fluttered with treacherous butterflies.Damn orc does one nice thing and all of a sudden I’ve got a crush,she silently berated herself.It’s like I’ve learned nothing since Norman.
The reminder of her ex-boyfriend and research partner made her shudder.What in the world is going on?
Smooth, leather-clad palms landed heavily on her shoulders and turned her around. “All right, in you go.”
“What are you doing?” she squeaked, digging in her heels as he began to march her back toward the bathroom.
“I’m going to fix up your scrapes, get some pain meds in you, and then we’re both going to bed. It’s late as shit and we’ve got an early pick-up.”
Atria swung her head around as far as her neck would allow to fix the half-orc with a wide-eyed look. “I amnotsharing a bed with you!”
Kaz didn’t deign to look at her when he gave her a tiny push over the threshold of the bathroom, muttering, “Never said I wanted to. I’m taking the floor.”
Her face heated again.Suppose I might have earned that.
She was saved from having to think up a quick response when he curled his fingers around her waist and effortlessly hauled her up onto the tiny bathroom counter.
The backs of her thighs hit the cool synthetic material. It was faintly wet from the lingering steam of her quick shower. The shock made her gasp and immediately try to scoot off. There was nowhere to go, though, when a massive half-orc wedged himself between her legs.
“Hold still,” he grunted, reaching back to dig around in his pocket.
Her stomach dropped, and not in the fun way that usually happened when an outrageously attractive man stood between her thighs.
Atria scooted back until her spine hit the mirror. Reflexively lifting her hands in preparation for a telekinetic strike, she warned, “Don’t you dare try and cuff me again!”
Kaz held up a thin packet between them and arched a brow. “Princess, I’ll cuff you if I need to cuff you. But don’t worry, this is just a med pack.”
Scowling, she reached for the packet. “Fine. I can take care of myself, thanks.”
That arched brow dropped down instantly. Peering at her through narrowed eyes, he held the packet out of her reach and moved to wedge his hips against the counter. One hand fell to her bare thigh — encompassing nearly the entire thing effortlessly. “I’ll do it,” he announced. “Just hold still for me.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to vehemently argue the point, but a wave of conflicting emotions held the words back. Notheremotions. His.
Annoyance. Affection. Exasperation. Guilt. Pleasure. Lust.
They were all sorts of tangled up. Normally that would have made her skin itch with the need to soothe, to smooth out the ripples with her hands and her abilities, but with Kaz she only felt… intrigued, maybe. Almost like sheenjoyedfeeling his chaotic jumble of emotions.
Norman’s emotional landscape had been so smooth that she rarely felt any disturbance. It was part of what had drawn her to him in the first place, but after a while, she’d grown to realize that some disturbance was good. It meant the person you cared about was affected by you, that theychangedyou, day to day. They made you feel even when you didn’t necessarily want to.
While Kaz’s facial expression seemed to only have three settings — furious, mocking, neutral — his emotions were in a constant riot. Atria could only compare it to the difference between sitting in a lukewarm bath versus a jacuzzi with all the jets on.
Atria liked to think that her abilities made her a good judge of character, but she’d been wrong before. She’d certainly been wrong about Kaz. So she couldn’t begin to guess what in the world was going on with him other than the fact that he wanted her.
Badly.
More butterflies took wing in her stomach as she watched him rip open the seal of the packet and deftly extract a sachet of ointment, some pain pills, and three small m-bandages, the fancy sort that healers used when they ran out of energy to stop bleeding.
