Dathan snorted. “We aren’t very good at that.”
“She’s not getting Star’s End.” With that, Niklas strode off.
With a sigh, Dathan lifted the edge of his shirt. A huge bruise mottled his ribs.
Eos sucked in a breath. “Where’s the medscope?”
He nodded toward a medical alcove. He touched a button and a seat extended from the wall. He sank onto it.
She held up the medscope. “Shirt off.”
“Knew you’d eventually be getting me out of my clothes.” He shot her a lopsided grin.
The man had serious charm when he deigned to use it. She reminded herself he’d been flirting with the trollop of a fortune-teller. She turned on the medscope.
As his skin turned from purple back to his normal tan, she realized she was standing in the V of his strong legs, her face inches from his bare chest and abdomen. Damn, he was put together nicely. Toned but lean. Sinewy muscles earned from hard work, not paid for in a shaping salon.
“You did a great job out there,” he said. “Didn’t once lose your cool.”
“Thanks.”
“Aren’t you going to thank me for rescuing you?”
She snorted. “I was doing a fine job of rescuing myself. But consider me patching you up as thanks.”
“I could get used to you fixing me up.” His voice was raspy.
She looked up into aquamarine eyes and fought back a shiver. “Before Darc showed up…”
“You referring to that scorching hot kiss?”
“We’re so different. You jump into life, Dathan. You take risks I would never even dream about. I like to measure things, mull them over. I don’t leap.”
He was silent, his eyes considering.
“We have an important mission.” She stiffened her spine. “We need to focus solely on that.”
He made a sound. “I think my ribs are all better, Doc.”
“Oh, right.” She turned off the medscope.
“But feel free to keep looking. I like it when you look at me.”
Her gaze snapped to his face. He was still flirting. “I suspect women look at you all the time. Like Ms. I’ll-tell-you-your-destiny.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never really cared that much if they did or not.”
They stared at each other, and Eos felt every hard thud of her heart.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Scared the hell out of me when I saw Darc dragging you into that building.”
“Scared me too.” She looked at the floor. “Took me back to when they came for me as a child after my mother died. They dragged me out of bed and took me to an orphanage. I couldn’t take anything.” None of her toys or books, nothing of her mother’s. “They left me with nothing.”
“Hey.” He tipped her chin up. “The Eos Rai I’ve seen seems to go after exactly what she wants. Once you find Star’s End, you’ll be famous. The bigwigs at the Institute will trip over themselves to have you back. Everyone in the galaxy will want a piece of you. You’ll have more than you ever dreamed of.”
She nodded. “When Darc took me, I thought you hadn’t noticed.”
“I notice everything about you.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to tip Darc off.”
