AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t be so quick to mock,” Mal’ik warned him. “Who do you think is going to have to help me when he’s too much to handle?”
“Well, I’m going to be busy coordinating the rest of this operation,” Patrick said. “So it won’t be me.”
“Oh yes it will.”
* * *
The introductions and the banquet were as tedious and exhausting as Oliver had expected them to be: full of pomp and posturing, which Oliver was very good at but didn’t find particularly engaging. He’d identified the major players and adjusted his mental dossiers as needed so that he could adjust the actual ones on his data tablet when he got to his rooms. Before official talks began, he’d arranged one-on-one meetings for tomorrow with potential allies and adversaries. Overall, it had all gone as planned, and he was quite ready to test out his accommodations and scrub off the horrible scent-neutralizing cream smeared all over his pulse points, but there was one thing left to do.
“I’ve been assured he’s the very best,” Garin told him for at least the third time as he walked Oliver to his rooms.
“I’m sure he is,” Oliver said.
“You know your father would never allow anything else.”
“I know.”
Kevin Garin had been Oliver’s bodyguard for six years now—after his first bodyguard had been killed in action—and he was clearly more upset at the prospect of leaving Oliver than Oliver was. This was perfectly reasonable, considering that Garin would lose an extremely lucrative protection contract if Oliver were to die.
“We’ll be just in the orbital station,” Garin continued. “Technically only a transport ship away. I can be down in hours if you request me.”
Oliver stopped and turned to face Garin. “Which I will not because it would be a terrible idea. It’s bad enough you’ll be on that station.”
Garin pressed his lips together in that disapproving thin line that never gave Oliver any more patience. They had discussed this. At length. The Klah’Eel were a warrior empire above all else, and they found the idea that they couldn’t protect their own guests supremely offensive. It was not an offense Oliver wanted to give.
“Like you said, he’s the best.” Oliver resumed walking and waved a hand over his shoulder. “Now let’s just meet him so I can go to bed.”
Garin followed and didn’t try to reassure him again. They walked through the arcades of the estate’s guest wing, the night air surprisingly pleasant on Oliver’s skin. Northern Tava was notoriously hot, but Oliver had always hated being cold, so maybe the fact that so many of the walkways were open to the air wasn’t so b—
Oliver stopped dead when he rounded a corner.
He had met klah’eel before this trip, and he had met even more today. He’d assumed he’d acclimated to their size, but the klah’eel man standing in front of him now still brought him up short. The man stood outside of a door practically at attention. He was facing the wall across from him and not the hall they’d just come from, so Oliver got a good look at his profile: strong jaw, full lips resting on polished tusks, heavy brow, a prominent and defined nose. Oliver’s eyes trailed of their own volition down the corded muscle of his neck and the bulging muscle of his bare arms—
Arm, he mentally corrected with a shock as the klah’eel man turned to face them. His left arm had bulging muscles, but his right was mechanical, with wires and pistons and plating disappearing under the fabric of his sleeveless uniform shirt. And only the left side of his lips was full; the right was twisted up in the scar tissue that ran down that side of his face.
Oliver met the man’s orange eyes and felt a sudden—strong, shocking, unprecedented, and wholly inappropriate—wave of arousal. The man’s nostrils flared, and Oliver instantly changed his mind about the scent-neutralizing cream still heavy on his skin. It was a wonderful godsend, and he never wanted to take it off. The dirty place his mind had skittered to before he could pull it back did not need to be advertised by his pheromones.
“Captain Mal’ik.” Garin held his hand out to the arresting man, and he took it in a firm grip. “I’m Kevin Garin. We’ve spoken over transmission.”
“Right.” Captain Mal’ik nodded as he shook Garin’s hand. “Good to meet you.” He turned those intense eyes back to Oliver, and Oliver lifted his chin and pulled his shoulders back before his body language could show anything but cool indifference. “Oliver Turner?”
“Yes.” Oliver nodded and did not extend his hand. “I understand you’ll be providing my close protection during these talks?”
“That’s correct.” Captain Mal’ik’s voice was deep and rumbling, and Oliver felt it in the center of his chest. He fought the urge to swoon and then to scowl. He shouldn’t be feeling anyone’s voice that deep inside him.
“Wonderful. Well, I assume you’ve coordinated with Garin, and now I’ve been handed off, and we’ve been acquainted.” Oliver flapped his hands between them and then quickly dropped them back down to his sides before he could do something else just as stupid with them. “So if there’s nothing else, I’m assuming there’s a bed somewhere behind that door you’re standing in front of that I’d really rather like to be acquainted with next.”
Oliver wanted to step around the man and get going, but he really was standing right in front of it. Oliver might actually have to touch him to get to it, and he was certainly not going to do that.
“Do you need anything before I leave?” Garin asked.
Oliver turned to him and sighed loudly. “No, Garin, I do not. Do you need anything before you leave?”
Garin’s lips thinned again. “No.”
“I’ll take it from here,” Mal’ik said in that deep, slow voice.
Garin glanced at him, nodded, and then had the gall to shrug. “Right. Good luck.” Then he turned on his heel and left.
