Domestic Duet: Domestic Alliance & Asset (24 page)

Relaxing her knees, she widened her legs out, allowing his broad shoulders enough space. Pressing his palms together, he rubbed briskly. That simple gesture to warm his hands tugged at her soul.

She touched his face, her fingers rasped by the stubble on his cheek. “Give it a try. I know first-hand you can be gentle and patient.”

What was happening between them today? He was normally more reserved and stoic.

Aroc’s hard chest rubbed her inner thigh when he spoke. “Teach me.” The words held heat. “Teach me how to be a better father, Sadie,” he implored, stroking Norese’s hand on Sadie’s chest.

Short of breath from the look in his eyes, Sadie reached down, took his hand, held it to Norese’s back, and showed him the correct pressure to use. “Feel her tension right around here where she seizes up? Gently apply pressure around each ring. She’ll let you know if it’s too much.” She guided his hands with hers. Together they made tiny circles on Norese’s back.

“See,” she said with a smile. “You’re already a good father. Look at your daughter, Aroc.”

Norese released a drawn out sigh under his touch, her dark eyes slowly shielded by her lowering lids and long burgundy lashes sweeping low.

Sadie let her mouth curve up on the ends as she watched Aroc’s pride fill his handsome face. The moment took Sadie back to her childhood.

“When I was a little girl my father and I laid on the lawn after dinner on our backs to count the stars.” She caressed Norese’s face in her hand. “When he spoke, I felt the rumble in my back laid stretched out over his chest. I loved it. Inevitably, I’d fall asleep and wake up in my bed where he carried me up, tucking me beneath the thin cool sheets.”

“He was a good father to you and your sister,” Aroc stated in a matter-of-fact reply.

Sadie nodded in response, the lump in her throat forming fast. Aroc’s strong fingers that she loved on her body were now making methodical circles around strategic areas on Norese’s back. Truth be told, she’d wanted those hands on her working her body limp the way he had in the shower.

“The best father a girl could have growing up. My father worked construction in the south and those were long, hot, grueling days. But he always made time for us.” She paused. “You’d see him, a tired shadow lumbering down the street with his metal lunch pail dangling from his fingers. His clothes, dusty and sweaty, but the minute he kissed my mother, he’d come outside and sprawl out on the lawn with us to count the stars,” Sadie recounted with love. “Be that father for Norese. Lie down and count the stars, Aroc.”

There was something cozy and important happening in that moment while Sadie sat perched on the desk and Aroc’s eyes taking in her every blink.

Setting the little girl on her feet to scurry off down the hall, she watched the slash of his eyebrows dip.

“Sleepy?”

“Quite.”

She moistened her bottom lip with a quick swipe of her tongue and that seemed to catch his attention. It took her chaste image of curling up in bed for the entire weekend and relaxing to sweaty sex on that big bed.

Shifting her hips on the desk, she studied him closer. What was different between them today? “Something else is bothering you…what?”

His raised brow and deep yawn caused him to grip her calves too tightly, and her wince startled him. “Sorry,” he apologized, smoothing the skin with his palms. “The treaty,” he answered. “Karuntee…Humans. We’re no closer to trusting one another than we were at the start.”

“The treaty allows you to break ties if we abuse the privilege and, well these greedy bankers have. Why uphold your end? We both know compromising isn’t something you’re known for.”

He rolled his shoulders. “You’re too observant and accepting to be human, Detective. One day, I’ll have to check the color of your blood. You think like a karuntian,” he mused with a lingering sigh. “I haven’t gone soft, Sadie.”

“Why keep the treaty if it’s not working?”

“We need the fuel.” He trailed off as he eased her legs further apart to open the drawer. Retrieving a slip of paper, he handed it to her. “I’m forming a special team to work on a private mission and want you on the board with my commanders…give us a human perspective… Interested?”

A million thoughts swam through her brain at the prospect of being the only human on a board with karuntians. Interested didn’t qualify her inner excitement. She got to the end raising her eyes to his. “You know I love working with you, but I can’t sign this waiver without more information. You could be plotting to overthrow Earth, and then I’d have to kill you,” she said on a suspicious grin.

One burgundy brow rose high enough to crease the skin on his bald scalp. His grip tightened. “I doubt that. You’d stay to fight me because you love a good challenge.”

“Probably,” she admitted, watching his focused concentration never break on his task of removing her boots. “I love my planet and the people. With all our faults, our actions come with good intentions.”

He made a sound in his throat. “Good intentions fall short when trust is broken.”

“Since there’s no trust broken between us, and if there’s no conflict of interest—I’m not violating my contract with the government—I’d love to be involved with this mission.”

He let out a small sigh, which she took as relief she hadn’t flat out turned him down. “If you sign on, I’ll consider it a great favor to me.”

A tingle of delight coursed up her legs at the first slip of the shoe strings release. Sadie clasped her fingers tight over the edge of the desk in anticipation of the delicious sensation about to overtake her body as he untied her ankle boots. The stretch and flex of those long veined fingers went to work drawing the ties leisurely apart, releasing the tension across the top of her feet under the tight leather. She swallowed the moan in her throat that he’d worked up under his caress.
This feels amazing.

“You like that, Sadie?”

“I didn’t say stop.”

He chuckled. Their relationship and his personality were so unique till every minute together was a new experience for her. “This program I mentioned has been under way for years,” he told her, pulling the leather from her feet then removing her thick socks before he flexed his knuckles under her toes.

Sadie tried focusing on his words, but the powerful pressure of his fingertips separating the tendons under the soles of her feet nearly blinded her. Amazing. He always did this when she returned from Earth, before closing his hands along her calves and squeezing her tight muscles, coaxing them to relax. She liked the way he stole looks up under his lashes at her when he thought she didn’t notice.

“After this case is over, I’ll share more information. This, Sadie...” And he said that with the tone of an alien protecting his race. “Is singularly, karuntee business,” he stressed the word, singularly.

He wanted her in on top-secret work for the karuntee, possibly with another alien race? Had they accepted her into their circles that much? She sounded like Oliver questioning her appeal to the aliens.
Don’t do that.

“I’ll think about it. For right now, I’m yours for the weekend. If you need to crash early, I’ll make dinner now and we can turn in after I bathe Norese.” A quick scan of the bookshelf in his office revealed the books she’d sent last month for him to read to Norese. “Are you reading to her like I suggested?”

He gave her a nod. “And, I’m hungry. Sadie… Next time, send a better selection of books. You humans have strange children’s stories. Mary should have eaten the lamb for following her to school.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s a children’s story, Aroc. Loosen the chain on your ability to have fun. Read it with a light little girl’s voice.” Seeing his odd stare, she flicked her fingers in the air over his pelt covering his shoulder. “Never mind… I’m not the only one who can do this for you up here. There’s plenty of female karuntee that would give up their spikes to be with you, Aroc,” she reminded him. “Everyone thinks I’m your whore seeing me come here every week.”

She flinched as his grip tightened before he realized he’d hurt her and relaxed his fingers. Aroc rolled the leg of her pants up to her knee, and then laved the spot on her calf where he’d squeezed her leg. He did the sexiest things and had no idea they felt different to a human than they did a karuntian female. “Who called you that? One of my males or one of your puny humans? Tell me. You’re no one’s whore,” he forced, ready to go defend her honor as always.

“It doesn’t matter when they don’t know you the way I do and even if they did, it’s not their concern,” she said.

He nodded. “You’re my concern and I want you to use my shower tonight. The stream of water will ease your tension.”

Laying a hand to his shoulder in appreciation, Sadie smiled. She adored a karuntian shower, with its six waterspouts in the wall in a six-foot vertical line. The jets massaged the spines, relaxing the muscles encircling their spikes. On her, it warmed her tender skin, a decadent indulgence.

A delicious indulgence.

His mouth curved up on the end before he cupped her face and lowered his wide forehead to brush her ear. Sadie felt him draw in air and held still knowing he searched out the scent she carried. He drew back. Their eyes met. His nostrils flared, making the tip of his nose redden. One of his thick fingers tapped her leg just below her knee.

“You smell of Cantrell.” He gave her a wicked grimace she’d never seen before. “You’ve mated with him?”

She scrunched up her nose. They hadn’t even kissed, her and Oliver. He’d made her so mad she could barely tolerate him and yet she found herself intrigued by him. “You have an opinion if we have?” Her voice spiked behind the question. The thought of being with the commander crossed her mind more than once in the last month. Today in his home and shuttle bay soured all of that. She fixed her stare on Aroc and there was the fire she felt whenever they were alone.

“I like you, Sadie. So I’ll keep my opinion and enjoy my weekend with you.”

“I can handle the truth, Captain, and I respect your opinion or I wouldn’t ask.” Most of the time that was.

Aroc pressed the button closing the shade on the viewing window darkening the room.

“You smell his cologne, nothing else, Farkus,” she warned, trying to sound unaffected by his accusation when she knew Oliver had been close enough to kiss her lips. Although he hadn’t, she couldn’t deny she would’ve enjoyed it no matter how much he irritated the skin off her knuckles. Both men intrigued her. If she were honest, Aroc caused more than a passing intrigue in her heart—he was a full-blown desire. A serious urging her body ached to taste. She drew in a breath to clear her head. “We argued over me having karuntee friends. And take your mind out of the gutter; he flirts, that’s all.”

He groaned. “Tell me the truth. Are you in a relationship with the commander, Sadie?” he demanded, his version of please. Startled she just stared at him. Pushing away from his desk he got to his feet, casting a shadow to fall over her face.

Sadie lurched forward, his anger drawing her off the desk onto her bare feet. “No. I know this isn’t a romantic relationship between us, but as long as I’m under our agreement, I couldn’t date someone and share your bed, Aroc. No matter how chaste we are together.”

Something painful filled his face—a memory—when he looked at her from across the room. “Then he’s finally found a way to get back at me,” he said pacing a tight circle. “He’s using you as he vowed to years ago for revenge.”

She hurried after him leaving the room.

“Revenge. What are you talking about?”

“Revenge,” he swore, poking his head into Norese’s room and waving her into his arms. She ran to him, dragging her blanket. Sadie followed them down the back hall. They walked the long way to the dining space. In all her time up here, she’d learned his habits. Walking past the windows overlooking the red lake, as some referred to the landing band surrounding the station, relaxed him. She watched his lips move as he counted the number of shuttles coming and going. It became their evening stroll. She found it endearing.

“He’s looking for retribution—”

“For?” She asked matching his hurried steps.

“If you ask him, I killed his partner…” he admitted and his eyes settled on Norese in his arms, nibbling her fingers covering his mouth. In that moment, Sadie realized he held her whenever things frustrated him.

“Daddy sad, Sadie,” Norese cried. “Hug Daddy.”

Chapter 12

“Hold on, Farkus, where do you think you’re going, dropping a bomb like that?” Grilling him, she came around to face him, placing her hands flat to his chest giving him a harsh stare. “You killed his partner—a government-appointed commander—and no one investigated? Not even Ryner—no one? Why?” That should be impossible.

His face darkened, lips compressed, “His partner wasn’t killed.” His breathing labored, ribs expanding with every deep inhale. If she hadn’t known him, she’d have backed out of the room to run screaming, barely giving the scanner time to slide the doors open. It took a few seconds to push her fear away and form words. She rubbed her eyes, giving herself a moment to compose her shaky voice.

“Please talk to me…I hate it when you clam up and shut me out.” She smoothed her hand up his bare arm in a consoling manner. “I promise not to judge or roll my eyes…”

In his eyes, the reflection of the shuttles out the window appeared as he stared past her for an interminable minute. Soon she’d rub a hole in his arm if he didn’t hurry and say something.