Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
“That fragrance. What is it?” Pace asked as he took my hand and bit his bottom lip.
I heard and also felt a rumbling growl come out of Zane.
“Back up,” Zane snapped.
Pace startled and took one step backwards, letting go of my hand but not before squeezing it.
I looked at Zane with alarm.
“Sorry, Zane. She’s just … stunning. And that fragrance…”
I gulped.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I repeated, sort of lost for words.
“He doesn’t understand you, shortcake. He doesn’t have a translator.”
Shortcake?
“Perhaps I should get one,” Pace interjected.
“Not necessary,” Zane shook his head.
“But isn’t it? Working on the team, being your right hand?” The man looked affronted.
Zane licked his teeth behind his lips and scowled. “We’ll discuss it later.”
“Very well. What did she say to me?” Pace’s eyes were on me.
“She said it’s nice to meet you.”
“Can I ask, beyond the fact that you’re evidently smitten with your beautiful new bride, why you’re carrying her?” He eyed my ankle, which was covered with one of those pillows, quite obviously the reason I was being carried.
“Her ankle was injured,” Zane muttered. “During the security breach of my home yesterday.”
“A pity,” Pace said. “I hope it gets better quickly, Tanya.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“She said, thank you,” Zane parroted grumpily. “We’ll get your ear outfitted, so I don’t have to sound like a Myna vulture all day.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A bird that speaks back what its’ heard…” he started to say.
“Oh, that’s cute,” I said. “We have a myna bird, like a small crow, and…”
“This one is about eleven feet tall and it’s a vulture. It mimics your screams while it eats you. Most of the birds on our planet are four or five times the size of our citizens.”
I gasped.
His expression changed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
I laughed nervously.
“Myna vultures aren’t in these parts of Phallyx. They’re in the Rocklands region very far from here,” Pace added.
I gave him a nervous smile.
“Your toes, Tanya. They’re adorable,” Pace said, looking at my feet as Zane carried me. I had on black thong flipflops and Lacey had given me a French pedicure a few days back.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
I felt tension rolling off Zane.
“What did she say?” Pace inquired.
“She said fuck off, Pace.”
“No, I did not,” I said to Zane and laughed, slapping his shoulder.
His eyes met mine and they instantly warmed. They were full of mischief now.
“Okay, she didn’t say that. That was me. Eyes off her feet, asshole.”
“Zane,” I admonished in barely a whisper.
My, my, my, this guy was possessive. And I sorta kinda found that I liked it.
Pace didn’t even try to fight his grin.
“My apologies, Mrs. Zenith. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a woman’s toes, or a woman for that matter, other than last night at the Blackstar residence, and certainly none as pretty as you.”
I smiled shyly and bit my bottom lip.
Zane’s face had gone stony again.
We were traveling down a long and dim hallway with several sets of doors. I recognized it from when he phoned me during the security alarm going off. The walls were hammered bronze and shiny. The floors were black marble with shiny silver veins through them. I could tell Zane had decorated as his bedroom was similar and this was obviously his domain, too. We stopped at a set of doors and a green laser pointed down over us, illuminating us as if in a spotlight, and then made a buzz sound. Zane touched a panel beside it with his thumb and the light switched to red and a set of doors opened elevator style. We were in a big office with plush black carpeting and white stucco-like swirled-patterned walls. We kept moving through a set of smoked glass doors that slid wide at our approach into a vast white room that had to be a laboratory of some sort. The room’s perimeter had wall-to-wall stainless-steel countertops and all sorts of screens, buttons, and equipment further identified the space as a research lab. It had a similar feel to the lab in the playhouse back in Zane’s daughter’s room, though obviously much, much larger.
The room seemed to come alive with lights turning on and the sounds of machinery booting up as we entered. Zane sat me down on a long countertop and gave me a tight smile as he pulled a stool out from underneath and sat in it. He immediately lifted my foot into his grip and lifted my pantleg just slightly to remove the pillow wrapped around it. My ankle had been cool and verging on numb the entire trip so far and it had the aroma of mint and Vicks VapoRub.
“How is it?”
“Good,” I replied, my voice sort of raspy. I cleared my throat.
“Good,” he said. “Let me know if there’s any pain.”
Zane replaced the pillow, fixed my pantleg, then rolled on his stool about a foot away, fetching a tool from a drawer and rose to come back and stand in front of me. Now we were eye-to-eye. I swallowed nervously. He looked serious. Way serious. My legs were on either side of him and I felt shy but also more than a little… tingly at his proximity. He stared into my eyes and I found myself frozen, lost in those eyes as if I was inside a glass maze.