“Absolutely and unequivocally, Mr. Valen,” the female voice said at once. “I will bring your order to your couch myself.”
“Very good,” Valen said. He released the red button and looked at Selena. “Stay here—I’m going to see if I can find your Seal. Did you lose anything else in the attempted abduction?”
She shook her head and nodded down to the front of the couch, where her violin case and carry-all cube sat.
“No, my violin and my luggage are still here, thank goodness.”
“Good. Then I’ll return momentarily. Here—I should have done this earlier.” Standing up, he removed his wine-red, long-sleeved shirt, and handed it to Selena. “Put it on,” he said when she started to protest. “You won’t be able to wear it out of the privacy bubble unless I can find your Seal, but it will render your considerable assets much less…distracting.”
His eyes flickered down to her breasts as he spoke and Selena realized her arm had slipped and one of her nipples was poking out.
“Oh, um, thank you!” she said hastily, covering up again as she felt her cheeks heat with a blush.
He simply nodded and she couldn’t help thinking that he looked freaking amazing shirtless. All Kindred were big and muscular, but Valen looked like a Greek god, with his broad chest and shoulders exposed. He had smooth, tan skin and she could see his considerable muscles working every time he moved.
He tapped the smoked-glass dome and a doorway opened in it, allowing him to step out. Then he was gone, striding purposefully through the lounge. Selena watched him go, his wine-red shirt clutched to her chest, until she saw him pass the front desk and leave the private space.
Then she looked down at herself and her exposed breasts, which insisted on floating like two perky flesh balloons right out in front of her. She supposed she didn’t really need his shirt—she could always just button her travel sweater. She hadn’t thought of it earlier, probably she’d been to upset by almost being kidnapped and dragged away on a strange planet.
But when she reached for the big, chunky, decorative button that was supposed to hold the sweater closed, she found that it had popped off—probably in the fight with the greasy Ma’shorkan slaver.
Selena sighed. So much for that. It was a good thing that Valen had offered her his shirt, because there was no way her sweater was going to stay closed on its own.
She slipped the heavy, satiny fabric over her head and couldn’t help inhaling deeply as she did. It smelled like the big Kindred’s cologne—or what she assumed must be cologne, though it wasn’t like any bottled scent she’d ever smelled before. It was dark and spicy and warm and somehow completely masculine in every way.
Wait…but was it cologne? She remembered the same masculine scent when she’d had her face shoved into the big Kindred’s crotch by Oatmeal face. God, that seemed like ages ago, but it had probably only been an hour!
But seriously, was this his natural scent? If so, he ought to bottle it and sell it—it was that good. Breathing it in made her feel slightly lightheaded but somehow she didn’t want to stop—the scent was nearly addictive.
She might have stayed like that, with her head inside the shirt, breathing in the big Kindred’s scent, except that a soft tapping on the glass dome startled her.
Quickly, she yanked the shirt down over her head, just in time to see the Ma’shorkan woman who had been at the front desk come in with a silver tray in her hands.
The Ma’shorkan woman’s lavender eyes widened as she saw Selena getting dressed. She looked so shocked, that Selena felt compelled to say,
“Is there something wrong?”
“Oh, no!” the woman said quickly. “It’s only that…does your Master know you are covering your breasts? I know you are in a privacy bubble, but will he not be angry with you when he returns?”
“I don’t think so,” Selena said, frowning. “I mean, this is his shirt—he gave it to me to wear.”
“He did?” The woman looked even more shocked—as though Selena had admitted that she and the big Kindred were intending on performing some kind of lewd sex act on the fancy gold couch, rather than him offering Selena his shirt to wear.
“Well…yes. He, um, thought I might be cold,” Selena added lamely. “In my culture, we’re not used to, er, showing our breasts.”
“In Ma’shorka Centra, you are only permitted to cover your breasts if you wear the Seal of an Independent Female,” the attendant told her. “If you are caught without the Seal and with your breasts covered, you will be heavily fined and possibly sent away to prison for a thousand lifetimes.”
“A thousand lifetimes?” Selena stared at her blankly. “But that’s…crazy. I mean, excuse me, I don’t mean to be culturally insensitive,” she added quickly. “It’s just…why would you get sent to prison for covering your breasts? On my planet, you’d get sent to prison for showing them,” she added. “Well, unless you’re on a designated topless beach or you’re a stripper or something.”