“I’m sure it’s very tender. I’m almost done. How fortunate you’re in such incredible shape.” Taylor raises her eyebrows but says nothing. Katrina swings around to Taylor’s back, liberally gooping more cream. Her eyes catch the same stark black ink mine did in the Order bar and she rests her hand on Taylor’s hip, the other on her back. “Selene.”
Taylor’s jaw clenches. “Excuse me?”
“This tattoo,” she says from over Taylor’s shoulder. “It’s Selene, goddess of the moon. It’s beautiful.”
My brain kicks into gear out of nowhere. Selene is the code name for Hunter. Taylor has a dedication to her “partner” permanently imprinted on her skin. I swallow the bad taste in my mouth and let it sink inside me, green and hot.
“Thank you,” Taylor says, but it sounds like an expletive.
Katrina chuckles. “I’m only making conversation, baby, relax.”
Taylor doesn’t appear moved, other than annoyed. “I do not need bedside manner. You may do your job.”
“If I were doing my job, you’d see a much more pleasurable bedside manner than this.”
“I wonder why Delilah didn’t send Jacqueline?” I ask loudly, slapping the note against my open palm. Years of practice keeps my voice disinterested, instead of betraying this inappropriate feeling of aggressive dominion for a woman who only started using my first name like eight hours ago.
“I volunteered first when she asked this morning.” Katrina smirks at me from behind Taylor. “What a privilege for a lowly soldier like me to get up close and personal with thelieutenant general. I didn’t realize she’d have company.”
I cross my arms over my chest and level a haughty glare in her direction. Before I can follow my sneer with a snide remark or opaque threat toward this succubus, Taylor pipes up. “I appreciate your time, Katrina. If any complications arise, I will send for you.”
“Send for me anytime.” Katrina gathers her supplies from the bed with an exaggerated bend at the waist. A great position for me to kick her in. Courageously, I resist the urge.
“Sure.” Taylor draws out her response as she guides the woman to the door and shuts it behind her. The tension she was holding in a vise grip loosens and she lets out a sigh, snatching a long-sleeved shirt from off her bed and slinging it over the footboard. “She is peculiar.”
I snort. “That’s a word for it.”Pushy, flirtatious, about to piss me off, are others.
“Everyone here is accommodating, that is part of their job. She is more thorough than most.”
Against my better judgment, I bark out a laugh at this hilarious underestimation. “Thorough? Yeah, right. Thoroughly flirting with you.”
Taylor’s forehead crinkles. “Flirting with me? Why?”
“Because she wants you.”
“Wants me for what?”
“Come on, Taylor. You know what she wants, look at you.” Though I think I’m being perfectly clear, Taylor frowns innocently as she pulls up her hair into a messy bun. “I’m sure she’s not the first of them to try.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replies. “First to try what?”
“Clearly, she wants you for, you know. Private…times. Indecent things.” The impish grin crawling across Taylor’s face and devious glint in her eyes tips me off and I gape at her. “You jerk! You’re teasing me!”
“‘Indecent things.’ That was the most tact you have ever used with me. Did it hurt very much?”
I pick up a nearby towel and smother her face in it. She laughs into the soft cotton. “Brat.”
Taylor uses the towel to wipe down the back of her neck, then to clean the salve off her body with a displeased expression. “Even if she wasn’t as subtle as a brick in the face, the note was a tip-off. Delilah is left-handed and the writing on there is most certainly written by someone right-handed. A decent forgery in terms of script, but the slant is wrong.”
I peer down at the note. “But you let her continue.”
She discards the towel and pulls her shirt over her head. “Evidence to support intuition. Her motives can stay her own.”Taylor tugs at the hem of her sweater. “You are right, she is not the first.”
“You’ve never taken advantage of it?” Taylor leads me down a flight of stairs and through the corridors. She shakes her head. “Why not? Lots of opportunity, lots of attractive people around here. Maybe ‘Trina’ isn’t your taste, but there’s got to be somebody.”
Her pale eyebrow cocks and she halts in her step. “If you want to patronize this business, Lucy, by all means, do as you please. Of course, your boyfriend may mind.”
A fierce blush invades my cheeks. “He’s not my—that’s not what I—I didn’t say I wanted—” Taylor nudges my arm with her shoulder. I’m not on my best game today, and she is taking full advantage of my lack of verbal sparring skills. “How are you this bratty so early in the morning?”
