Page 22 of Tamed By Her Touch

“The previous arrangement was inefficient,” he said. “Especially since you continue to break Rule number four and refuse to ask for my help to reach things that are beyond your ridiculously short stature. I was afraid you’d fall and kill yourself.”

Clair felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “So you did rearrange them.”

He frowned.

“I did not say that.”

“You just said the previous arrangement was inefficient.”

“It was,” Kaelus said.

“And now it's more efficient because I don't have to climb anything to get what I need,” Clair pointed out.

He looked over his shoulder at her.

“It is also safer,” he growled.

“Aha!” Clair exclaimed, pointing at him. “I knew it!”

Kaelus frowned.

“You know nothing.”

“Oh, I know plenty, sweetie-pie,” Clair told him, smiling as she crossed her arms over her breasts. “You moved everything down because you don't want me climbing the shelves anymore.”

“I moved nothing for you specifically,” he said stiffly. “I merely reorganized the storage area to facilitate a more logical flow of laboratory activity.”

“Uh-huh,” Clair said.

“It was necessary.”

“Of course it was, honey-bun.”

“And if this prevents you from behaving like some kind of deranged tree-dwelling creature and attempting to scale the shelving again, then that is an incidental benefit.”

Clair grinned.

“Why, Doctor Kaelus,” she said sweetly. “I think you were worried about me.”

“I was worried about my shelves,” he protested.

“Which are bolted to the wall,” Clair pointed out.

“They could still have been damaged.”

“By my big fat ass?” Clair asked dryly.

His golden eyes flashed.

“I have told you before that I find nothing objectionable about your generous proportions,” he said. “In fact, they are considerably more aesthetically pleasing than the thin female form which appears to be inexplicably fashionable among humans.”

Clair looked at him in surprise–momentarily out of words. There he went again, giving her compliments that didn’t really sound like compliments in his gruff, growly tone. But there was no mistaking what he meant with the way he was looking her up and down with those golden eyes that had gone half-lidded again.

She wasn't quite sure what to do with the compliments Kaelus kept throwing at her in that extremely matter-of-fact way of his. They never sounded like flattery because he didn't seem to realize he was flirting at all. He simply stated that he liked her curves in the same tone he might use to state the molecular weight of a chemical compound, which somehow made it harder to dismiss what he said.

“Well,” she said at last, clearing her throat. “Thank you…I think.”