Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

“You will cook,” he said, avoiding her eyes as he meticulously used his fork to separate his pancakes into geometric shapes. “Then you will clean.” He flicked his gaze around the counters briefly. “Everything,” he said.

That stung. That stung hard. “I will not,” she said.

He ate his breakfast and didn’t answer.

She cooked the last four pancakes, tight-lipped and strangely shaken.

“I don’t have to stop right now and clean everything,” she announced, taking the plate to the table where he waited. “It can wait. I’m not obsessive. I just don’t like dirty dishes cluttering up the whole place, that’s all.” She sat down, helped herself to a pancake and smothered it in syrup. “You make it sound like I go flying off the handle every time I see a crumb on the floor. I don’t.”

Batter from the side of the mixing bowl was dripping slowly down to the countertop. The griddle was just sitting there with grease congealing on its surface as it cooled.

Tagen was watching her, his face expressionless.

“I’m not crazy, you know,” she told him. “You don’t have to be crazy just to like it neat.”

He ate another pancake and said nothing.

The spatula was lying on the stovetop, facedown in a little pool of brown butter and soggy pancake crust. Just lying there.

“Go to hell,” Daria snapped, and shoved her chair back. She went to clean up the stove.

She heard him sigh. She didn’t hear him leave, but he was gone when she turned around.

*

Kane’s hand fell on her out of darkness, shaking reality back into her and shattering her dreams—dreams of a home she could no longer easily remember when she was awake. These days, Kane pretty much ate up all her waking thoughts. Raven struggled into a sitting position, wincing as pain flared through her pelvis so completely that she couldn’t tell what hurt from what just sympathized with what hurt.

She spread her legs wide, moaning as air and air alone touched her throbbing core. Gradually, the blurry ache that overwhelmed her tapered into dozens of tiny pains. She fell back against the leg of the table where she’d fallen asleep, fingers and toes curling at the carpet, grappling with the pain.

She could feel Kane staring at her. It took her several minutes and many aborted starts before she could open her eyes and look at him.

His arms were folded, his legs set firmly apart, and his dark eyes were alert to her every movement. “How do you feel?” he asked finally.

Was he kidding? Raven squeezed her eyes shut again, concentrating on just breathing without whimpering and not writhing, not waking the pain up any further. But…

“Not as bad as I should,” she admitted. She reached down and prodded tentatively at her labia. It ached like a black tooth, but it wasn’t unbearable.

Kane dropped to one knee and put his hand on her thigh, opening her even wider. His hand brushed beside hers and Raven tensed apprehensively. His eye fell on her, dark with humor. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, and returned his attention to her piercings.

He inspected every ring and rivet closely, then touched a claw to the hoops in her belly, tugging at the chain that now belted her. He took her arm and turned it so that he could growl appreciatively at the swollen outline of her new tattoo. He glanced over her breasts and her eyebrows, then looked again at her sex, frowning. Finally, he stood up again. “I have something for you.”

He walked around her and took a shampoo bottle off the table to pass down to her. “Use this twice a day,” he said. “If this lasts you more than two days, you aren’t using enough.”

Raven uncapped the bottle and sniffed it. The contents were thin and pearly and smelled faintly of minerals. She tapped a little out into her palm, glanced at him, and dabbed it onto one of her nipple rings.

It cooled in a way that made her think of mint ice cream and she immediately tapped out more lotion and rubbed it in with enthusiasm. “Thanks.”

“Mm.” He paced around her again, his claws flexing on his powerful biceps, watching her. “No shower for you,” he said. “Let it soak in.”

“I smell.”

“I don’t mind.” He smiled, drawing in a lungful of air, and let his gaze fall below her waist. “Not at all.”

She ducked her head and rubbed lotion on herself, hiding her sex from him.

He laughed at her. “Relax, it’s cool enough in here. Can you stand up?”

She tried. It took a long time and she had to lean heavily on the table. Putting her weight, any of her weight, on her legs made the pain in her pussy break open and bleed all through her. By the time she got to her feet, her vision was swimming in tears.

Kane made a sound, a kind of hissing click through his teeth, and he knelt down and had a closer look at her. The light touch of his fingers on her pussy was excruciating. Raven managed not to cry out, but she was shaking with the effort by the time he leaned back.

“All right,” he muttered, scratching thoughtfully at his throat.

Raven started hobbling toward the bathroom.

“No shower,” he reminded her, pulling his chair out and sitting before his computer.

“I have to pee.”

He grunted, but he let her go by herself, for which she was pitifully grateful. When she came out of the bathroom, he was waiting for her with his injector-thingie in his hand.

“What is that?” she asked uneasily.

“Your new best friend.” He put the device against her arm and sent its contents into her with a sting and a hiss.

Instantly, warmth bloomed out from the injection point, blushing up her arm and throughout her body to spread sunshine in her brain. That fast. Fast like getting hit by a bus. A big, happy bus. Raven drew in a breath, stepped back, and released it as a “Ooo.”

“Nice shit, huh?” Kane turned away.

“Very nice.” Raven watched his muscles ripple down his bare back as Kane replaced his injector in his pack. His whole body seemed alive to her, fluid and powerful and so clarified. “You sexy beast,” she said, and giggled.

He laughed with her. “Go lie down,” he told her. “And don’t get too used to that shit because you aren’t getting it for long.”

“I feel pretty good.”

“I know you do. Lie down, Raven.”

She dropped onto the bed, bounced a little while, and then lay back and watched the ceiling spin. This was better than the best Ecstasy ever. Not only did nothing hurt, but all the things that should hurt felt good, and the more they should be hurting, the better they actually felt. She reached down and pressed on her steel-riddled pussy and euphoria washed through her hips.

“Don’t do that,” Kane said with a sigh.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“It will.”

She pressed down again covertly.

Kane stood up and Raven put her hands behind her head fast and pretended to be utterly absorbed by the ceiling. The whirling state of her brain made that easy and perfectly plausible. Kane came to the foot of the bed and folded his arms, watching her. She was able to lie quiet for a few seconds. Then she just had to raise her foot and poke him in the thigh.

He looked down and raised an eyebrow at her toes.

She giggled again and then sat up suddenly. “Let’s fuck!” she said happily.

He lifted his head, both brows raised now. “Maybe I will give you more of that,” he remarked.

“Yeah, give it to me, stud.” She got on her hands and knees and prowled towards him. “Because I want you in me.”

“I’m not fucking you,” he said mildly, but he made no effort to chase her hands away as she tugged his pants open. “I just put you together the way I want. I’m not touching you until you’re healed.”

“Mm.” Raven, inexplicably transfixed by Kane’s stomach, suddenly leaned in and bit him right above the base of his thick cock.

Kane sucked in breath and jumped back, banging into the table and nearly knocking his computer over. He stared at her for a second and then came back to the bed and plunged his hands into her hair, pulling her to him.

Raven nibbled at his stomach comfortably, letting his stiffening cock push at her breasts for now. But Kane didn’t seem to mind her toothy mood; he groaned as she worked her way around his abdomen, guiding her to the places he thought she was ignoring, until the marks of her teeth pocked his lower torso. She’d never felt anything sexier than the resistance of his flesh and muscle under her jaws. Raven reached down and rubbed at herself as she scraped her teeth across his thigh, writhing against her hand with delicious bliss.

Kane’s hand closed on her arm and wrenched her roughly away from herself. “Don’t do that. I’m not telling you again.”

Raven ducked her head, chagrined, and then rebounded and lay back, legs coyly splayed. “Come and fuck me,” she said.

“No.” Kane paced around the bed and Raven rolled to position her pussy for him again. He bared his teeth at her and she bared hers right back.

He looked startled for a second, and then he smiled. “Raven,” he said gently. “Deep down, you have to know this isn’t smart.”

“Deep down,” she echoed, and rubbed at her pussy.

“Dammit!” Kane sprang onto the bed, seizing her wrists and slamming them down above her head.

That was okay. Raven hooked a leg around his waist and ground up at his huge cock with fantastic results. He pulled back, snarling, and she darted her head forward and bit him on the chest. Kane gasped and Raven bit harder, writhing against him from below as she sought blood above.

“Oh you bitch,” he groaned. One of his hands cupped her head, pressing her even harder against his chest.

“Fuck me,” she said. “Put it right in me. Come on, Kane.”

“No!” Kane sat up, yanking her with him and fought to turn her on his lap, to keep her hands together in his grip and her pussy away from his cock. When the battle ended, he was flat on his back with her laying atop him, spoon-style.

He was panting, moving her like the world’s lumpiest mattress in an earthquake, and she couldn’t quit giggling. His cock jutted between her thighs, but he held her pinned just a little too high up on his body to get to it. She kept trying, though, rolling her ass in short, lazy circles against his stomach, her jaws snapping at empty air.

“Raven,” he said tightly. “Eventually, you’re going to sober up and wish like fuck you hadn’t done this.”

She brought her legs together, trapping him between her thighs, and squeezed him. It put a little pressure on her own pussy—not much, but not bad, either—and Raven purred and ground her hips. Kane thrust, bumping her steadily as he fucked her thighs, and Raven twisted around as far as she could and bit Kane on the jaw.

He whipped forward and bit her back, his teeth grazing her cheek. He moved one of her hands down, stubbornly past her aching pussy to his cock. She gripped and was instantly dizzied by the sheer power of it burning in her hand. She stroked excitedly, craning her neck to keep biting whenever he presented her with a target. His breath grew ragged, and she struggled to sit up futilely.

“Let me go,” she pleaded. “Let me go, I’ll be good!”

“Ha!”

Raven cried out with frustration, her hand working him faster. “Let me go! Please! I want to blow you! Come on!”

He pushed a finger in her mouth and she arched up greedily, sucking with abandon precisely three seconds before biting.

He hissed and pulled his finger free, and she instantly renewed her pleas to be let up. Kane growled, and then he shoved his hips hard forward, pushing her into the air. His cum rained down over her belly and thighs and Raven wailed and caught what she could to taste.

“God, you’re mean!” she said bitterly, sucking semen from her fingers.

He laughed at her, shaking her as she lay atop him. “Poor Raven,” he crooned. “Didn’t mean old Kane let you bite his cock off?”

“I wouldn’t bite,” she said, hurt. And then she leaned over and bit him.

He groaned, pushing luxuriantly into her jaws, and she stole the opportunity of his distraction to rub furiously at her pussy. Not quick enough. She went flying and ended up facedown with both her hands pinned at the small of her back.

“Shu-ra,” he muttered, and reached over the edge of the bed for one of his boots. He started pulling the lacing out.

“Can I blow you now?”

“No.”

“Oh come on, please?”

“No.”

“You’re such a bastard.”

Kane rolled her onto her back and tied her wrists together, then to the headboard of the bed. She bit him several times as he leaned over her and his muscles jumped every time. By the time he had her bound, he was hard again.

“Fuck me!” she commanded, spreading her legs wide.

He put his face very close to hers. “No,” he said quietly, and then nipped her lower lip and got down from the bed. He picked up the bedsheet and rat-tailed it, then pulled it through the footboard in a loop and tied her kicking ankles so she couldn’t get her thighs together.

“You’re a jerk,” she pouted.

He sat down beside her, panting a little, and tickled at her chin with his claw. She twisted away in a huff, then turned back and snapped for him. He let her get her teeth into his forearm, smiling as he hissed in breath.

She eyed his erection hungrily, licking her lips. “Kane,” she began.

“No.”

“God, I hate you!”

“I’m crushed.” He leaned over her, offering himself, and she surged and bit, pulling a rumbling groan from the very heart of him. He lowered himself, curling around her and over her, keeping his chest and shoulders within easy reach of her mouth.

She closed her eyes, losing herself to the pleasure of his flesh’s resistance, to the heat and solidity of him, and the occasional metallic tang of his blood. She was aware, very vaguely, of his leg slipping over hers and his hand between their bodies, stroking himself. She couldn’t really complain; it felt so good to bite and there was so much of him that needed biting. His breath in her ear became shallow and harsh, and soon he was growling louder and louder, his hips grinding against her.

Then, all at once, he stopped. He went away and when he came back, he stayed away from her mouth, wiping at her lower body with a warm, wet towel and ignoring her pleas to come back and fuck her.

After that, he returned to his computer and put his back to her. She tried cajoling, begging and even threatening, but he didn’t turn around. He laughed once or twice, but otherwise ignored her.

Raven gradually lost interest in him and became more fascinated by the ceiling. It spun around above her, taking on different colors at its center if she stared long enough. Raven quieted, gazing up until she was lost to everything else but that.

She felt good.

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Chapter Eleven

Even before Raven woke up, she hurt.

Her pussy, her arms, her breasts…everything was agony. Her jaw hurt the worst; it felt like she’d blown a horse and then taken a hoof to the head for her trouble. The tendons of her jaw were so sore, she couldn’t even close her mouth fully. What had he done to her?

Raven tried to sit up and realized she was tied spread-eagled to the bed. Baffled, she tugged at the shoelaces binding her wrists, but they might as well have been handcuffs. Why in the hell had he done that? Had she tried to run? She couldn’t really remember. She could remember getting pierced and tattooed. She could even remember having to drive home afterwards, and she could sort of remember falling asleep on the floor and waking up there the next day, but everything else was blank.

Her arms were killing her. Raven pulled, trying to at least straighten out even if she couldn’t sit up all the way, and her entire pelvis went magenta as soon as her hips moved. A cry ripped out of her and Kane, working at his computer, half-turned and gave her a distracted once-over.

“Please,” she gasped, rolling her shoulders in a vain effort to stretch her arms. “Please, let me up.”

Kane pushed his chair back and stood up. He came to the bedside, his head cocked and his eyes moving intently over her. Finally, he began to untie her. As he bent to pick at the knots in the shoelaces, Raven saw red crescents all over his shoulders and chest. She’d bitten him. Hard enough to penetrate even his thick skin in places.

Served him right. She had to have given him the champion of all blowjobs to hurt her jaw this much, and then he must have fucked her in spite of her new piercings. She’d fought him like a mad bastard, clearly, but he didn’t appear to be holding a grudge. Asshole.

Kane slipped an arm behind her and helped her to sit up. The pain swallowed her the instant her pelvis took her weight. When her vision cleared, Kane was holding out the lotion he’d made her. It wasn’t a pain-reliever, but it took the heat out of the ache and that was something. Raven could see Kane’s face out of the corner of her eye as she worked the lotion into her swollen pussy. He was smiling. Bastard.

“If you need to piss, better do it now,” he said. “No shower.”

Were they leaving? He wasn’t packing up. He wasn’t even wearing his boots.

Raven hobbled into the bathroom, leaning on the wall and taking arthritic grandma-steps. It took forever to get there.

In the bathroom mirror, Raven paused long enough to look at herself. The studs in her breasts and the rings in her nipples actually looked pretty good. They were a little red, but not puffy at all. They looked as healed as her belly button ring had looked a whole week after she’d gotten it. The same went for her eyebrow rings and her stomach-hoops. Her pussy, though. God, that hurt.

Raven washed her face and dabbed under her arms with soap, trying to take off just a little of the sweat-smell fogging around her. She scrubbed up with the corner of a towel, then ran cold water over it, wrung it out good, and just touched it to her sex. Nothing down there could possibly feel good, but the cold towel made it at least less bad. A little. When she took the towel away, there were tiny spots of red here and there.

The door opened and Kane leaned in. He cocked his head at the towel in her hand. “Is that blood?” he asked.

“Are you surprised?” she asked irritably.

“No.” He laughed a little, and then came all the way in and dropped to one knee. She felt him fingering carefully at each metal setting. “Nothing looks torn.”

“Better luck next time.”

He glanced up at her with a particularly wry smile, but said nothing. He continued his inspection, and when he was finished, he stood up and washed his hands. “I’ve made you something for the pain,” he said. “Hopefully, something a little more your taste.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He gave her hip a pat and left her.

Raven finished cleaning herself up and shuffled back out to the main room. He was waiting by the table, loading his injector, and it was more than just the pain of movement that made the trip across the room a long one. What were those drugs he was putting into her? She’d done just about everything that could be done in her short street-life, but at least everything she’d popped, smoked or swallowed came from Earth. Kane didn’t even know how to open a can of pop, and he was making drugs for her?

But when he snapped his fingers, her feet took her to him without hesitation. She had misgivings, but they were all intangible. Pain was real, and as much as she hurt now, she knew he could always hurt her more.

She held out her arm, wincing away from it as though trying to physically separate herself from it. She felt his hand enclose her wrist and then the cool head of the injector pushed down on her skin and spat something into her. It stung, but only for a second. Then there was warmth, blushing out through her entire body and nestling in her brain like a bunch of happy baby snakes.

Kane was still holding onto her, staring up into her face with an expectant expression while he rubbed his thumb over the point of injection. She wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, but she found herself strangely agreeable to being petted. He could be gentle when he wanted to be. It was almost enough to make her wish he wanted to be a little more often.

“How do you feel?” Kane asked.

Raven ran her hands down her body. “Like skin,” she told him, and giggled. “God, that shit works fast!”

“Yes, it does. Can you walk?”

Raven obligingly stepped over to the door and back again. She finished with a twirl and would have tried a curtsy, but she got dizzy and needed to fall into Kane to keep her balance. He caught her, which was thoughty of him. “Whoops!” she said brightly, and bit him.

He tensed, his hands clenching on her briefly. “I wish I knew what was making you do that,” he murmured.

“Mm. You taste good.” She wriggled against him more fully, twining her arms around his neck and nibbling all over his chest.

He shivered, still holding her, and growled like thunder. Far-away thunder on a warm summer night, with stars coming out and a full moon rising and crickets singing, maybe a little smoke hanging just under the smell of impending rain. Yeah. He growled just like that.

Raven closed her eyes and moved her mouth over him. Every slow bite brought a new bloom of pleasure from muscles that she knew should be sore. She began to dance lazily in place, just to feel her pierced nipples press and slide against him.

Kane growled sharply and suddenly pushed Raven to arm’s length. “We’re not playing this game again,” he said severely.

Raven put her hand over his groin and rubbed at the growing bulge he constrained. “Who’s playing?”

“You need to heal.”

“I need to fuck.” She started to touch herself, but Kane caught her wrists and held them up at shoulder height. She leaned forward and licked his chest instead. “I feel fantastic.”

“I cut that dose in half,” Kane muttered. “Maybe a little less chozo.” He bent with an air of real reluctance and grazed his teeth along her shoulder as she bit and sucked at him. “Maybe not.”

Raven leaned into him and slowly, grudgingly, he allowed her to move against him. The salt of his sweat was the greatest rush she’d ever had, the tang of blood, orgasmic. She ground her hips eagerly at his, letting his hardness act as catalyst for brilliant euphoria as her bruised sex pressed into him.

“Don’t!” he snarled, and shoved her back again. “You’re never going to get better if—”

She dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around his waist and bit him on his inner thigh. Whatever else he was going to say vanished under a hoarse roar. His hands flew to her head, pulling her hard against him, not just encouraging her but damned near commanding her. She bit and bit at him, but the feel of the strange material of his pants wasn’t satisfying. She raised up and scored at his abdomen with her teeth, rubbing her cheek against his groin and tugging hopefully at his iron grip.

He raised her wrists over her head, but let her bite. Slyly, she slid around to grind her hips at his leg, riding him like a badly-trained bitch. He yanked her to her feet at once, and then pushed her away. The back of her knees struck the bed and she fell onto the mattress, bouncing like a little kid.

Kane approached her, smiling crookedly. “Close your eyes,” he said. “Count to ten.”

She started to obey, but she only got to three before she realized he was tying her up again. She started struggling at once, howling dismay, but Kane had her bound hand and foot in less than a minute.

She lay glaring at him, twisting ineffectively at her restraints. “You’re mean.”

“Ah, I’m just misunderstood.” He sat down beside her, his eyes running scorchingly down her body and back up again. “Look at you,” he growled. “You look like someone shot you.”

She writhed on the mattress, pulling at her bonds one at a time, her face contorting with frustration and ecstasy. “Can I fuck you, pleeeeese?” she whined.

“No.”

“Can I blow you?”

“Not a chance.”

She pouted for a second or two, still struggling. “Can I have breakfast?”

Kane glanced toward the door, his eyes narrowing. “I suppose so. Where do you keep the money?”

“I don’t know.” She grew crafty. “Why don’t you search me?” She snapped her teeth at him.

His nostrils flared and half his mouth drew up in a smile. He leaned over and put his hands on her shoulders, and then swept them down, cupping her breasts. She arched up, moaning happily, and his hands continued down over her ribs to her belly, her hips, her thighs, and finally up again to stroke and tease at her sex. Pleasure blew out and out until it enveloped her completely.

“Nope, no money.” Kane stood up and backed away as Raven surged against her restraints.

“No! Come back here! You jerk!”

He laughed as he fished through her skirt pockets. He came up with the cash and then climbed into his long coat.

“Are you leaving?” Raven asked plaintively.

“Close your eyes,” he said again. “Count to ten.”

He left as she counted four. Raven cried, got distracted by her toes, and then lay quietly and watched the ceiling.

She had completely forgotten all about Kane when he suddenly returned, holding a paper bag stained with good-smelling grease. The unexpected sight of him caused her to shout his name with giddy delight, renewing her struggles. He came and sat beside her, tolerating her snapping teeth when they closed on his forearm, and held an eggy croissant to her mouth so that she could eat.

“I love you,” she said happily, chewing.

Kane shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. “I really have to work with this formula a little more.”

“And I love eggs.”

“Good for you.”

She bit him. He smiled.

*

Another day dawned, and it dawned hot.

Tagen woke in an sticky ocean of sweat-soaked sheets. He felt out for his pack and chewed a suppressant before he even opened his eyes. He didn’t want to see how few he had remaining.

He showered under a cool spray and dressed in the tight-fitting human clothes Daria had given him, all the while feeling heat and ill humor gnawing at him. It had been another long night of little sleep, another span of restless hours he had spent wandering the dark halls of this alien house and wondering what in hell he was still doing here. And another program on the tee-vee demonstrating all the creative positions in which humans could mate, while Tagen drank iced water and thought brooding thoughts on the subject of his unwilling host.

She had wakened before him. He could hear her moving around in the back of the house, still trying to force more order into the already painfully-neat structure of her home. The air stung his nostrils; the scent of cleansers was everywhere.

There was a plate of food waiting for him on the table, although she was not in the kitchen. It was a great portion of food, too, and if it hadn’t been for the acid tang of disinfectants fumigating the room, it would have smelled divine. Unwilling though she might be, she was a very good host.

Tagen ate, listening to his human at work in the utility room. It sounded like she was scrubbing the tool shelves. He’d never heard of such a pointless pursuit. Even as a first-year recruit on a military ship, no one scrubbed the tool shelves. She was more than a little unbalanced on the subject of dirt.

No. This had nothing to do with dirt, and everything to do with avoiding whatever the real problem was. Tagen was no mind-doctor, but he knew that much. Just as he knew that his presence was serving to amplify her little habits into something much more obsessive. He no longer believed it would break her just to have him stay—she’d have done so by now, if that were true—but his being here was infecting that secret wound of hers, that much was certain.

The worst of it was, he felt guilty. He had to be here. Leaving aside the physical necessities of food and water and sleep, his understanding of human technology and N’Glish had been greatly furthered, so he knew he had no choice but to stay. All the same, he realized a little more every day that he was an invading force. Daria was enduring him, but her anxiety came through, and his remorse was inescapable.

These episodes of conscience bothered him more than the mere summing of guilt. More and more, the thought was worming into him that he would not feel as much self-condemnation if his host were male.

Daria didn’t act like a female. She was fidgety and shy and altogether selfconscious. Still, there was something in her very vulnerability that struck Tagen as perversely arousing. The fact that she definitely noticed he was male—feared it, but noticed it—only exacerbated the situation. He found himself displaying for her, completely subconsciously, but very obviously, and it irked him fresh every time he did it. And she did not notice, which was even more aggravating.

Tagen put his dishes in the sink and retreated from the kitchen before Daria could come in and find him there. He couldn’t face her yet. Not her fear, not her questions, and not her alluring female scent. Gods, why did it have to be so hot?

He took a seat on the sofa in the front room and put his feet up on the low table. The cat, Grendel, was already there on the cushions beside him, but it permitted only two passes of Tagen’s hand before expressing its own feelings on the cursed weather by leaping down and waddling upstairs. Tagen watched it go, feeling deserted and pricklish about it. He picked up the tee-vee controller and turned it on, scrolling rapidly up through the channels until he found the program he liked.

He heard Daria coming down the hall, but he did not turn to watch her approach. After a second, he realized he was pretending to ignore her the way he would pretend to ignore any approaching female, waiting with male politeness for her to notice him. The thought got in close to the skin like sand, abrading and irritating to the effect that when Daria came into view, he shot her a glare potent enough to stop her in her tracks.

She was holding a glass of something iced, holding it out as a gift for him. He felt like hitting himself.

“Forgive me,” he said instead, and directed his glare at the tee-vee. His favorite law program didn’t deserve the glare either, but at least it couldn’t get its feelings hurt.

“It’s okay.” She inched a little closer, set the glass on the low table before him, and then backed out of reach again.

She was sweating. It was only mid-day and already hot enough to set teeth on fire, so that she should be sweating was hardly surprising, but it aggravated Tagen anyway. He could smell her female musk faintly through her clothes. Her stare had a weight he could feel; it was a look that would be flirting, if only it came from another source. He gazed into the screen of the tee-vee without seeing the images on it.