Page 16 of Tamed By Her Touch

She raised her eyebrows.

“What about pumpkin?”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest, making the white fabric of his lab coat bulge against his biceps.

“No.”

“Snuggle-bunny?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Sweet cheeks?” she suggested.

The big Hybrid gave her a measured look.

“Doctor Donovan…”

The warning growl in his voice only made Clair's smile wider.

“Yes, Doctor Kaelus?”

He glared at her for another long moment, then he pointed toward the star-vine.

“Collect your sample before it degrades.”

Clair blinked and looked back at the growth chamber.

“Crap!”

She rushed across the black line toward her side of the laboratory. Behind her, she could have sworn she heard a low rumbling sound. It wasn’t a growl this time—could it be something suspiciously close to a chuckle?

But when she turned around, Kaelus was already bent over the Molecular Resonance Analyzer, his broad back to her as though he'd been completely focused on his work the entire time.

Clair narrowed her eyes at him. Maybe there was a sense of humor buried somewhere under all that muscle and bad temper after all.

She'd just have to keep digging until she found it.

4

CLAIR

Her optimism lasted exactly one day because the very next time she stepped into the lab, another incident happened.

This time, Clair had to admit, it really was her fault. She’d been trying to get to the bottle of plant growth formula which had somehow gotten stored at the very top of one of the shelves on her side of the room. Clair didn’t know how it had gotten up there—she suspected that maybe Kaelus had moved it but whether he’d done it on purpose or just by accident to make room on the shelves, it was irritatingly out of reach.

She thought about waiting and asking for his help to get it—nothing was out of reach for a seven-and-a-half-foot tall Kindred. But then her pride rose up and nearly choked her.

“I’ll be damned if I ask him for help,” she muttered to herself. He had only just started treating her slightly more like a colleague and less like an annoying child who was running amok in his lab. If she started asking him to reach things for her, that would definitely make her less than his equal and Clair wasn’t going to stand for that.

So she positioned a high lab stool under the shelf she was trying to reach and climbed up onto it carefully. But the stupid bottle of plant formula was still out of reach. No matter how she stretched, Clair couldn’t…quite…reach it. Oh, she could brush it with her fingertips, but every time she did, it got pushed further back on the shelf.

There was only one thing to do. Carefully, she lifted one foot from the stool and placed it on one of the lower shelves. Pushing herself up on her tiptoes, she could almost grab the bottle, but not quite…and that was when she heard the lab door sliding open behind her.

Panicked, she pushed up with her other foot, knocking the stool over by accident with a clatter. Now she was clinging to the shelf in a most undignified way, and she still couldn’t quite reach the bottle—though she was close.

“Dr. Donovan, what do you think you’re doing?” she heard Kaelus’s deep voice asking behind her.

“Oh, nothing—just…just getting a bottle of…of plant growth formula.”