Page 7

Chapter 2

Sloane was so closeto Dallin, he lost focus and simply stared at the silky strands of her hair. He reached out to wind them through his fingers, but froze. What the fuck was he doing? She wasn’t his to touch, or smell, or taste. Sloane was his partner. She was a human, and she wasn’t safe around him. How many times did he need to remind himself of that crucial fact before it stuck?

He lowered his hand, gritting his teeth.

Sloane turned her face to his, and her expression shifted. “What’s wrong?”

Dallin shook his head, dislodging those thoughts. “We have to know how far-reaching this poisoning has gone.”

“It looks different from the results we’ve previously studied. How is it possible the Siblet poison got onto the ship?”

“I don’t know. And you’re right, the marker is similar, but slightly altered again thanks to the nanotech.”

A frown marred Sloane’s face. “This is an efficient way to attack your enemy. The Siblet have been relying on their mutated beasts, but if they can get the poison to us another way, they’ll speed up the harm they can do.”

“I’ll run the samples I’ve already checked through the analyzer and see what results we get.”

“Yes, we start there. We only need to panic if the same results come back on all the Apexian samples. After all, you’re our last line of defense,” Sloane said.

Dallin added blood samples to slides, then placed them in the analyzer. He closed the lid and pressed a button.

His gaze ran over Sloane as he waited for the results. It wasn’t until he’d reached her boots and was torturing himself by slowly working his way back up her legs, that he realized she had turned and was watching him, a half-smile on her face.

“Is there something you like the look of, sugar?”

“I was just thinking you’d gained weight.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re saying I’m getting fat?”

“No! I mean, not really. Human females are generally plumper than the males.”

“Plump! You make me sound like a grumpy maiden aunt. Should I wear support stockings and get a purple rinse?”

His translator failed to unscramble fifty percent of those words, but he realized he was stumbling into one of his regular, socially inept holes. Still, he couldn’t stop himself. “You have more fat distributed around your hips and thighs. I believe it’s an effective placement for the purposes of becoming pregnant.”

Sloane spluttered out several half words. “You’re saying I have childbearing hips?”

He smiled. “You do. Perfect hips. You could easily fit a child on each hip after birthing them.”

She pursed her lips together, her eyes sparkling. “It’s bad form to comment on how fat a woman is. You need to read up on your human etiquette protocols again. Telling a woman she’s fat is likely to get you slapped in the face. And I’m quite tempted to punch you.”

“I didn’t say you were fat, I was simply noticing the distribution of your body mass. If the fat was accumulated around your middle, it would be less healthy. You’d be prone to heart disease and diabetes.”

“So I have healthy fat?”

“You have... perfect fat.” Dallin turned away. He sometimes wished he could invent a way to turn himself invisible. He could do it with their ships, but he needed his own cloaking device when he blundered into situations like this.

He’d panicked when Sloane had caught him looking at her. He had been admiring her curves, but for all the right reasons.

Dallin had lost count of the number of times he’d imagined touching those curves, filling his hands with her softness and holding her close.

The analyzer buzzed.

“Let me look.” Sloane hurried over, and Dallin moved out of the way. “I don’t expect you to be ogling my fat ass while my back is turned.”

He grimaced. “Of course not. I’m sorry if I said something that offended you.”

“If it was anyone else, I would be offended, but I know you too well.” Sloane was silent for a moment as she studied the results.