A Kiss For a Cure (2 page)

“You’re very matter of fact about this.” If someone had given her, Jordan would be pissed, not that she was happy about receiving this type of ‘gift’ either. Her cheeks burned yet again.

“This?”

“Look, no offense to you, I’m sure you’re great at whatever it is you do, but I don’t have a use for, or need a slave.”

Cai blinked at her. If she weren’t ticked off she would have laughed at the comical expression on his face. His mouth went slack, his brows lifted and his dark eyes opened wide.

“A slave?” he choked out.

“Well, yeah.”

His face crinkled into a smile. “Oh
reshaun
, I’m not a slave. I’m a Galairian.”

The word sounded familiar, but she didn’t know why it was important. “I’m sorry, am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

It was Cai’s turn to blink at her. “Galairian. I think you’re under the mistaken assumption I’m human. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not a slave. I’m your husband.”

She examined him again for some marking, a physical indicator he was anything but a man. To her naked eye, he appeared human. “That’s silly. It would mean–”

Jordan’s jaw stopped working. Galairian. Warning bells rattled around in her skull.

“Galairian? From Galair?
Homo voluntas foris?
”

Cai nodded. “Did you miss the part where I said we were married?”

Her anger evaporated, only to be replaced with cold, hard fear. “You can’t be serious. I refuse to marry you.” It didn’t mean her parents couldn’t have had it arranged if it suited them.

“I think we started off on the wrong foot.” He turned toward her living area. “Do you want to, er, have a seat?” He glanced around the space, which was almost wall-to-wall plastos since she hadn’t unpacked much yet.

“You’re Galairian?” She ignored his suggestion and wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “I was under the assumption you were either a myth, or I don’t know.” Her specialty was fish. Give her an ocean and she could name ninety-seven percent of the known creatures. It was out of the water where her knowledge was lacking.

Galairians were a symbiotic race. They needed another person to survive. If the rumors were true, they were also sex fiends.

Cai held out a hand to her. Two feet of space separated them, but she recoiled.

“I’m very much alive.” He smiled, transforming his face into a weapon, no doubt used to get many a woman into bed.

“I think I missed something important. Why are you here?” Oh she could connect a few dots on her own, but she didn’t want to. Living in ignorance was pleasant; there weren’t any complications when she didn’t know they existed.

Cai took a few steps back, retreating from the kitchen, and waved at the windows. “Why don’t we have a seat and discuss this? It might be more comfortable.”

She wanted to say no. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want this handsome man to tangle her life. There was no way she could be married to him.

“Are you hungry?” She didn’t want to ask, but her nanny had raised her to be hospitable.

He glanced over his shoulder. If she didn’t know better, she would have guessed he was surprised she’d asked. “Yes.”

She gestured at the unit, which had provided her uneaten breakfast. “I don’t have anything to cook, but I can order you something.”

He shrugged and the muscles in his shoulders and back danced. “Surprise me. I’m not accustomed to your food.”

Her eyes drifted down to his ass. She’d seen enough men in wet suits to appreciate a firm posterior, and Cai might have the best she’d seen yet. She scowled at his perfect backside.

She spun to face the CU and punched in a standard breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes. What she wanted to do was push Cai back in his box and shunt him into space. A husband? Her? She glanced at the comm station. She could leave a message and hope her parents got back to her in a week or so, whenever their lord and ladyship could fit her in. Today was one of those days she regretted being their bastard.

If she were a normal girl, she could have a nice man court her, seduce her and, if they wanted to, get hitched. But not her. Her life could not be so simple. Though her parents were both nobility, they were from neighboring empires and not allowed to marry. Their indiscretion could have gone unnoticed if they weren’t in love, both emotionally and politically. Jordan had lived her whole life as a tool. People courted or shunned her based on what they wanted from her parents. And now, as an adult, she was still a pawn on the board. Her parents could move her as they wished, and her value was what they deemed it. Hell, if she were kidnapped like one of the girls she’d seen on the news hols, she didn’t know if her parents would pay to get her back. She might not be worth it to them.

Despite Jordan’s attempt to hold onto her anger, it cooled. There was no point in being upset with him. There were better ways to tell a girl her life was being yanked around, but from what she understood of his people, they were both victims here. But she didn’t have to accept it, or him.

Food in hand, she slowly approached Cai. He stood at the window, hands braced on the sill with his head tilted back, watching the fish swimming by. The view from her quarters was enough to leave even her breathless, and she’d lived at the Fuller Center for close to ten months now.

He glanced over his shoulder, his face lit up like Christmas morning. “This is amazing.”

She peeked out of the window to see which of the reef’s inhabitants held his attention. Beyond the window, a scene which anywhere else in the universe would only be possible underwater, floated by in space. They hadn’t figured out how the remains of a research ship became a space reef, or how nanotechnology fused with the sea creatures, but here they were. Existing in a perfect bubble of ocean life.

Her heart did a little pitter-patter. Suspended above the window was one of her creatures, a lumbering whale shark. Even when the species was in its natural habitat it mystified scientists. Out here, in a bubble of the ocean where it shouldn’t be, it was a miracle.

“That’s Suzan.” She set the plate on a stack of plastos.

“What is it? She?”

“She. She’s a whale shark.” She smiled as the shark pirouetted and swam away. “We have three of them on the reef, which is amazing considering how big they get, and how much they eat. Besides her, there’s George and Voirey.”

“I’ve never seen anything so amazing.” He turned to face her. Even though she didn’t want to like him, he cooed over her precious sharks, and her heart thawed a little. Maybe he wasn’t completely bad.

“Here.” She picked up the plate and shoved it at him. “Eat.”

He lifted it to his face and sniffed. He eyed the food, giving it the same interest he had the sharks. “What is it?”

“Um.” She settled on the floor, since she didn’t have anywhere else to sit at the moment. “Eggs, bacon and pancakes. You’ve never eaten it before?”

“I’ve never had eggs that looked like these.” He sat a few feet away from her, the plate balanced on his thigh. The definition of the rectus femoris and vastus medialis muscles stood out through the thin fabric of what passed for pants. “The pancakes are a little thicker than something back home, but this.” He picked up the bacon. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

“It’s meat.”

He nibbled on the crispy bacon, his brows lifting. “Mmm. That’s good.” He sampled some more of the food on his plate before setting it aside. “Thanks. I’m not sure what you know about Galairians, so I’ll start at the top.” He leaned back against the wall. “We’re symbiotic. At maturation we bond with either another of our race, or one with a similar physiology to ours. Unlike humans, we need the biological feedback, or the connection with another, to survive.”

He rubbed his palms on his arms. “Because there are more males born to our people than females, the bloodlines are carefully maintained to keep a balance in the population. I wasn’t selected to go into the pool of potential companions for a Galairian mate, so I looked off-world. My intended mate was the victim of an accident. Your parents were the executors of her will and offered a match with you. I took it.”

Despite knowing how the story ended, she still choked on the news. She could feel her eyes bulging out of her skull, and her breath was trapped painfully in her lungs.

“What?” She was married. No pomp and circumstance. No dress or cake. She was married. And what for? She was a bastard. Nothing could come of marrying her off.

Cai pursed his lips.

She stood and paced through the plastos. She lived at a crossroads, caught between two kingdoms because her parents were from neighboring populations, and not allowed to mingle the bloodlines. It was their right to marry her off, even if she was a bastard without a title.

Tossing the top of a plasto open, she hauled the holostacks out and began arranging them in alphabetical order on the built-in shelves. Frustration simmered within her, but like every other time in her life, she was left with no choice.

She’d been naïve enough when she went away to school to think that after explaining her choices to her parents, they would understand her wishes. But if they were marrying her off, it must all be a joke. A big laugh on her. She could still have her life jerked around by her parents. It hurt. She’d thought she was beyond allowing her parents to hurt her by their dismissal, but she was wrong. She loved them, she couldn’t do anything but love them, but she didn’t like them very much right now.

Chapter 2

Jordan attacked one plasto after another. A side table emerged from one; the next held the throw pillows she’d bought in a tribal village. A battered plasto held knickknacks she’d thought she’d lost. It was all hers. Things she’d bought, pieces of the life she’d put together to make herself happy. There wasn’t a shred of her parents or their wealth. Until now. And it came in the form of a man she didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

“Where would you like these?”

She wheeled around and stopped. She’d cut a wide path through unpacking things, leaving the empty boxes in her wake. Cai had followed her, straightening things and packing up the plastos, stacking them until she could see the floor.

He stood a safe distance away from her, three stacks of different-sized plastos at his feet. With his bare chest and loose linen pants, he belonged on a sandy beach instead of in her cold, sterile quarters. His arms hung at his side, while his hands alternately balled into fists and relaxed.

Rolling her shoulders, she gestured to the door. “Put them there, please. I’ll see about taking them to storage later.”

He nodded and scooped up the two smaller stacks.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted.

Cai slowed his trek across the room, giving her a dubious look.

“I mean, I’m sorry I’m not overjoyed about this whole mess. It’s a lot to take in at a moment’s notice.” She rubbed her eyes.

Cai set the plastos by the door and came to stand a few feet away from her. Still out of hitting distance, she noticed.

“Your reaction was not what I expected. Things happened very fast. I should have realized you might not be in communication with your family. It was my mistake as well.”

“No, you’re right, I know, but it’s complicated.” She shrugged.

“When is it not complicated?”

She swallowed, feeling uncomfortable around him, especially now that he was smiling. He was handsome, with arms that bulged and looked as if they could hold a girl. “Yeah, well, do you have any clothes? I could try to find you some.”

The smile evaporated. His hands flexed and relaxed again. Was something wrong? “No, I have clothes in there.” He thumbed at the stasis chamber. “But it’s better like this for now. I need feedback. Fabric diminishes it.”

“What do you mean?” Her scientific curiosity kicked in. What made him need the symbiotic relationship that characterized his race?

“I need to touch, or be touched. Air flowing over the skin simulates the same reaction, but to a lesser degree.” He held his arm up, as if she could see the reactions under his skin.

“Does it hurt if you don’t get the, er…the feedback?”

He shrugged and glanced away. “Eventually, yes.”

She rolled those two words around in her head. His survival depended on the feedback he received from someone else. Now he relied on her, yet he wasn’t going to force her.

His body tensed, his chin lifted a fraction. He might be dependent on her, but it didn’t seem to make him any less proud.

She’d been focused on her life, how unfair this was to her. She scrubbed a hand over her face and called herself several unsavory names.

“Okay, I’m still trying to get up to speed, Cai. I’m sorry I’m being a selfish bitch. I didn’t even think about how my decisions were going to impact you. What kind of feedback do you need? How does this work?”

“The feedback is generated through touch.”

“Oh.” That didn’t sound bad.

“It’s not that easy.” He shook his head. “There has to be emotion behind it. Touching my shoulder won’t work. That’s why we mate at maturation.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “So you mean you need sex to live?”

Cai’s lips twisted up into a smile. “Tempting to say yes, but no. Emotional connection and physical touch create the necessary reverberation, or feedback, for my body. Sex is, well, it’s like refueling the whole tank. Other, intimate touches have a similar result.” The look he gave her would rev engines. Heat shot through her body making her distinctly uncomfortable as warmth gripped her cheeks. “But, it doesn’t have to be sexual. A kiss. Cuddling. A hug. They don’t work as well, but it gets results.”

“I see.” She bent and tidied a few things so she did something with her hands. “I can’t have sex with you,” she blurted out as she stood.

He straightened, the second armful of plastos in hand. She couldn’t read his expression.

“I don’t know you. I can’t do that. I could hug you, though. That I can do. Hugs aren’t that big of a deal. I’m just–I can’t–please don’t think it’s you, because it’s not.”

He stopped in front of her, plastos between them. “You’re rambling.” His head tilted to the side and the smile returned. “I’d take a hug.”