Page 20 of Tamed By Her Touch

“I mean, I’m soaking wet, and I don’t have a change of clothes!” she went on, covering herself with her arms again as best she could. “Surely you could have just⁠—”

“Just what?” Kaelus demanded. “Just waited to see if your skin started to slough off? You ask if my precautions were necessary? Just look at your clothing.”

He stepped to one side, finally allowing her to get out of the safety shower. Clair saw her lab coat and dress in a pile on the floor…and then she realized the fabric was smoking. A trail of white vapor was rising from the lab coat and there were huge holes eaten through the fabric.

“My lab coat!” she exclaimed. It was one she’d had forever, and she really liked it.

“Your other garment too, I’m afraid.”

Carefully Kaelus used a pair of long forceps to twitch the lab coat to one side, revealing her dress—which also had huge holes in it.

“Crap! That was my favorite dress!” Clair exclaimed.

“Better your dress than your skin,” Kaelus rumbled. “Here.”

He draped something around her shoulders and Clair realized it was his own spare lab coat which he kept on his side of the room. It was huge on her, falling almost to her ankles, but she wrapped it around herself anyway, glad to be covered. It had his warm, spicy scent on it which made her feel calmer for some reason.

“I didn’t realize,” she said, looking at the pile of smoking fabric on the floor. “I thought it was just a regular solvent—like the one I ran out of.”

“From now on ask before you use one of my chemicals,” Kaelus growled.

Hot words rose to Clair’s lips but then his expression softened slightly, and he added,

“It’s my fault for not labeling it properly.”

“Well…I suppose I should have asked before using it,” she said, and wrapped the lab coat more closely around herself. “I guess we’d better clean this up,” she added, nodding at her smoking coat and dress and the Petri dishes in the sink, which all had the deadly solvent inside them. The slime molds were completely gone, she noted. Not a single trace of them was left.

“Correction,” Kaelus said, frowning. “I will clean this up—you will go back to your suite and get dressed. I cannot have you half-naked in my lab—your curves are far too distracting. I wouldn’t get any work done for the rest of the day.”

Clair opened and closed her mouth, not quite sure what to say. On one hand, she disliked being ordered around. But on the other hand, he seemed to be paying her a compliment and saying she was so beautiful the sight of her body interrupted his concentration.

No one had ever said anything like that to her before—not even her ex-back when they were young and in love, before everything went wrong and he started cheating.

At last, she decided just to do as he asked.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll go get changed. Er…do you want me to stop by your place and get you a change too?” she added, nodding at the way the front of his shirt was soaked with water from washing her in the shower. “Your suite is only a few doors down from mine. I can grab you some new clothes if you want.”

He frowned.

“Do I want you to go into my domicile and leave your bewitching scent all over the place so that I have as much trouble concentrating there as I do here in the lab? No—absolutely not.”

Clair frowned back.

“Well, excuse me for trying to be nice and helpful.”

But again, it seemed like he was giving her some kind of backhanded compliment. Was he really saying she smelled so good it made it hard for him to think?

But I don’t even wear any perfume, she thought. What is he talking about?

She had no idea, and decided she didn’t want to stand there dripping in his oversized lab coat one more minute.

“I’m going,” she said shortly.

“Be safe,” he said. “And keep an eye on your skin—I didn’t smell any of the solvent on you, but your scent, as I said, is distracting. If you see anything strange at all, call me and I’ll meet you at the nearest Med Center.”

“What? But I thought you said I was all clear!” Clair opened the lab coat and looked down at herself anxiously. Her skin still looked the same—there weren’t even any red marks.

“You are ninety-nine point nine percent clear,” Kaelus clarified. “My sense of smell is many times better than the Earth animal you call a bloodhound, but in science, there is always the cautionary room for error.”