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Oliver supposed another man might have been kinder to Garin. But another man might have been fooled into thinking Garin was genuinely concerned with Oliver’s wellbeing, and Oliver was not so foolish.
Oliver turned back to this Captain Mal’ik and tried not to be intimidated by how he had to tilt his chin up to look at him. “Great. And do you need anything before I go to sleep?”
“Yes,” Mal’ik replied, and he turned to the door and input its code.
Oliver’s breath caught in his throat. His mind jumped out of reality and straight into a fantasy in which what Mal’ik needed was Oliver, naked on the bed, writhing in ecstasy as Mal’ik pinned him beneath all of those muscles and watched him with those electric orange eyes.
“I want to sweep the rooms before I leave.”
Right. Of course. That was infinitely more reasonable. Back to reality for him. “Well, make it quick.”
Oliver followed Mal’ik into the rooms, skirting around him as soon as he could to get a look at his accommodations. They were appropriately sumptuous if a little uninspired. Oliver had no intention of giving up his accustomed luxuries while away, and he was glad he wouldn’t have to make a fuss about it.
Looking around, he wouldn’t say the decorator was anything special, but they had taste. A klah’eel’s taste, certainly. Things were a bit more brutalist than the current human fashion, but Oliver could appreciate the clean lines and lack of clutter. And there was still plenty of softness to be found in the window coverings and the seating, enough to convince Oliver that the bed would meet his standards.
He stayed put in the first room, an entertaining area with a low table, a couch, and a couple of chairs, with his hands on his hips as he watched Mal’ik work. The klah’eel swept his gaze over the room, nostrils flaring as he scented it, taking in the room on another plane of observation that Oliver could barely understand.
Then he strode to the room on the left, a small study, and peered under the desk and opened the cabinets. Even his almost blank, focused expression was intense, and Oliver found himself shifting and swallowing as he watched the man stride past him again to the door on the right.
That must be the bedroom, so Oliver followed him in. His things had been unpacked and arranged, and when Mal’ik opened the closet, Oliver saw his extensive wardrobe hanging neatly.
Mal’ik paused there, standing in front of the open closet. Oliver was behind him, watching his broad back, but he felt oddly exposed and had a sudden desire to slam the doors shut and hide away whatever it was Mal’ik was observing in there.
He crossed his arms over his chest and affected a dry tone that impressed even himself with how real it sounded. “Is there an assassin hiding among my suits then?”
“No,” Mal’ik said simply, either not irritated by Oliver’s tone or good at hiding it. He closed the doors and then moved across the bedroom to the other door, opening it to reveal a large bathroom. Even larger than the one on Oliver’s personal ship, and he’d had that one custom built.
But it was still just a bathroom, and after a moment, Mal’ik reemerged. “You’re clear.”
“Thank heavens,” Oliver deadpanned.
Mal’ik walked toward him—Oliver overcame the instinctual response to step back and kept his arms crossed—and stopped in front of him. “My room is across the hall,” he said. “There will be two guards posted outside your door all night. I’ll return in the morning. Sleep well.”
Oliver nodded crisply, and Mal’ik walked around him to leave the room. Oliver listened to his heavy footsteps crossing the first room, the door opening, and then the door closing. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until it came out in a deep, shuddering sigh.
Chapter Two
Mal’ik must have smelled him wrong.
The scent cream must have reacted poorly to the changes in atmosphere between the station and the planet and skewed the signals. That or Mal’ik’s nose was playing tricks on him.
It had just been a whiff.
Or two, rather. One as the human had followed him into the rooms and another as Mal’ik had passed him while he left. Two snatches of a base, earthy scent that had made Mal’ik’s blood run hot and thrum with promise.
A growl rumbled in Mal’ik’s chest as he recalled it.
It had to have been wrong.
The scent that had hit Mal’ik’s nose when he’d opened the closet, though, had been impossible to miss. Fresh air. Sunshine. Cleanliness. Like the smell of the bedsheets he had helped his mother hang up to dry in the summers of his childhood in Klah. For a moment, he hadn’t been able to move, and it was a damn good thing there hadn’t been an assassin in there.
Mal’ik shook his head to dislodge the thoughts. That the man smelled as nice as he looked, if not nicer, was not his concern.
A few minutes later, the night guards arrived. He told them to wake him for any concerns and then entered the door to his own temporary rooms across the hall. They were much smaller than the ones the important people were put up in but plenty comfortable. A single room with a small table, a couch, a bed, and a small attached bathroom.
He’d only stepped in long enough to drop off his bags this morning, and now he set about unpacking them. He hadn’t packed much, as he wouldn’t need much. Close protection operations would limit his alone time to an hour before bed, sleeping, and an hour after. If there was an incident, he would get even less.
Dropping off his tusk polish and showering supplies in the bathroom, he caught himself staring at his scar in the mirror over the sink and scowled. He hadn’t been concerned about his scar in years. What did it matter if it gnarled up half his face? It was proof that he had put his body and his life on the line for his duty. Besides, his job was to watch Turner, not the other way around. Turner didn’t need to look at it.
