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  He felt like he’d been hit with a brick between the eyes. What was it about these Earth women? One minute they were soft and vulnerable and the next they were fiery avengers, demanding justice. They were very different from the women he favored—the icy cool females of Tranq Prime would never dream of having such an outburst. They would have turned their anger or sorrow inward, would have contained and controlled it. Letting their true feelings show, especially in public, would have been unthinkable.

  And yet…the image of Sophia’s face, eyes bright with tears and cheeks flushed with emotion made him shake his head. In a strange way, it was attractive. There was no denying that despite her emotional reactions or perhaps even because of them, Olivia’s sister was achingly beautiful.

  Not that her beauty mattered to Sylvan. He had sworn never to take a bride and it was a vow he intended to abide by. In the mean time, he was wasting precious moments lingering on Earth. The mate of his kin was no doubt waiting for her things and Sylvan had promised to bring them. Still, as he lifted the large cardboard box and headed for the rear entrance of the HKR building, he found it difficult to stop thinking of Sophia and her beautiful, flashing eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  “Ouch! Dammit, where’s the damn switch?” Liv stumbled over something in the dark, stubbing her toe for what had to be the fifth time.

  After Baird had left, the lights in the suite had gotten gradually dimmer for some reason, not that Liv had cared at the time. She sat on the bed in the dark for awhile, crying and homesick, missing Sophie and Kat so much it made her stomach hurt. But Liv wasn’t the type to let herself wallow in self pity for long. Eventually she decided it was time to stop feeling sorry for herself and at least find out where she was going to be living for the next thirty days. Crawling off the bed, she felt her way to the walls and began groping around for a light switch. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found one yet and she’d been blundering around in the dark stubbing her toes and cursing for the last ten minutes.

  “Stupid man,” she muttered to herself, feeling her way down the dim hallway slowly to avoid bruising any more toes. “He could have at least turned on the lights before he left. But no—he had to run off and leave me in the dark, stumbling around like an idiot.”

  Her seeking fingertips encountered a gap in the smooth, cool wall and she felt her way into another room. As with the rest of the suite, there was a soft, diffuse lighting coming from somewhere but it wasn’t enough to see much more than shadows and vague shapes in the gloom, no matter how hard Liv strained her eyes.

  “Where am I?” she asked aloud and noticed that her voice echoed in the new room in a familiar way. The floor was cool and hard under her feet, unlike the soft whisper of carpet in the hallway. Brushing her fingertips along the wall she thought she felt tile, just like in her bathroom at home. Was it possible this new room was a bathroom?

  Feeling her way forward, Liv heard a quiet rushing sound and bent down to find its source. Feeling forward with the tips of her fingers she encountered something wet and warm. Water? She could see a glimmer of the faint light reflecting from a wide oval surface. Was it a bathtub? But why would Baird leave the tub filled if he was going out? And how did it manage to keep from overflowing onto the floor since there was no lip around the bathtub? Must be one of those infinity tubs or something.

  Moving carefully so as not to slip into the water, Liv made her way around the room, feeling her way as she went. From what she could tell there appeared to be a perfectly normal toilet, which was a relief. Baird’s “Me Tarzan, you Jane” primal male act was so convincing she’d been half afraid all she’d find would be a hole in the floor with a pile of leaves beside it. Of course he’s not bad at expressing himself when he’s just talking, she reminded herself. It’s only when he starts getting…amorous that the inner caveman seems to come out.

  Thinking that made her remember the way he’d ripped her black silk panties away with one savage twist and Liv felt a sudden flare of desire in the pit of her belly. God, he’d really been all over her—kissing, touching, grinding against her with that huge, thick shaft she could feel through his tight black pants…Stop it, Liv, she scolded herself. That kind of thing is exactly what you’re trying to avoid—remember? Yes, she remembered all too well. Having bonding sex, whatever that entailed, with the huge warrior would mean she was stuck here forever. So no matter how hot and bothered Baird made her (even though it killed her to admit it) she had to keep her cool. And that meant avoiding scenes like the one they’d had before he stormed out of the suite at all costs.

  When she had made a complete circuit of the room, she found something she’d missed on the way in. Right by the door was a small alcove that seemed to contain nothing but a long flat counter on an elevated surface about waist high. Resting on top of the counter was some kind of mat or cushion—it was difficult to tell in the gloom. It reminded Liv of a massage table for some reason but shoved into the alcove the way it was, there was no room for a masseuse. “Weird,” she whispered to herself and reached out to press two fingers against the dark surface of the mat.

  Immediately the mat came to life, grabbing at her fingers and kneading them firmly with what felt like fingers of its own. Liv screamed and jerked her hand away as every horror movie she’d ever seen flashed through her head. Her shriek echoed eerily in the tiled bathroom, spooking her even more until her heart was pounding so hard she felt like it might break through her ribs.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered unsteadily, putting a hand to her chest. Finally her breathing slowed and her heart stopped its awful hammering which was good—for a minute she’d felt like she was going into cardiac arrest. At least the weird black mat thing had let her go immediately and not tried to suck her down into its thick surface like something out of a Stephen King novel. She’d stumbled backward when the mat had first touched her but now Liv dared to take a step forward and look at it again.

  Studying the narrow alcove where the mat rested, she saw a series of buttons on the wall above it. There was some kind of marking beneath each one but it was much too dark to even tell if it was printing or some kind of instructional symbols no matter how hard Liv squinted. She supposed she could climb up onto the mat to look more closely but there was no way she was risking full body contact with the thing. Damn it, she really wished she had some light! It was incredibly frustrating trying to feel her way around an alien’s apartment in the dark. The minute Baird came back from his little shopping trip she was going to give him a piece of her mind.

  Sighing, Liv pressed her fingers to the wall again and left the bathroom behind. Further down the hall was another dark opening—the doorway to another room no doubt. Maybe there would be a light switch there so she could see where she was going. Or failing that maybe she’d find a flashlight or a glow stick. Hell, at this point she would settle for a candle and some matches. Anything to make navigating Baird’s strange apartment easier. Or at least more visible.

  The new room, when she reached it, appeared to be much larger that the bathroom she’d left behind and Liv wondered what its purpose was. Maybe a living area? The carpet from the hallway ended abruptly at the threshold and she felt a harder surface beneath her feet. It wasn’t as cold as the tile though—maybe some kind of wood? The light was even dimmer in here, making it almost completely black.

  Squinting, Liv followed the wall until her fingertips encountered a different texture. Something cool and smooth like chilled glass made her fingers tingle as she touched it. Before she could draw her hand away (she’d had enough surprises when it came to putting her hands on strange surfaces, thank you very much) there was a soft whooshing sound and a gust of cold air blew out at her. At the same time, a cool white light popped on, finally shedding some much needed illumination on the room around her.

  “A kitchen,” Liv muttered to herself, blinking as her eyes got used to the new light. It wasn’t very bright at all—maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of a ten or fifteen watt bulb—but she