Killing Time Read online

  She was checking him out, too, with quick little glances at his chest and shoulders, but then she would devote her entire attention to the coffee. Maybe she wouldn’t touch him, but she was thinking about it.

  He fingered a loose fold of her gown, which happened to be on her stomach, where the fabric was a little bunched. “What kind of fabric is this? It looks like water.”

  She looked down at herself, frowning. “It looks wet?”

  “No, I mean the way it sort of flows, as if it’s liquid.”

  “That’s the point. It’s a synthetic fabric, of course, and the comfort of it is the whole idea. It keeps you warm if you’re cold, and cool if you’re too warm. All the really good sanssaums are made from it—”

  “ ‘Sanssaums’?”

  “What I’m wearing. That’s what it’s called. It means, literally, ‘without seams.’ The market name of the fabric is ‘Elegon,’ but who knows how it’s made? Some chemists came up with it.”

  “I like how it feels.” He rubbed the fold between two fingers, letting his knuckles rub against her stomach. He could feel the sudden breath she took.

  Deciding that he’d pushed matters far enough, he got up. “I’m going to hit the shower,” he said as he turned away. “I’ll be finished in ten minutes; then it’s all yours.”

  Leaving the room was almost more than he could do. She looked so damned sexy in that gown that showed every detail of her body without exposing her, her newly blond hair all mussed, her eyes heavy-lidded with sleep. She was getting to him, in a big way. Last night, when he’d seen the stricken look in her eyes, he could have kicked himself for even bringing up the possibility that she might not be human. His damn curiosity had made him open his big mouth and hurt her feelings. Robots couldn’t have hurt feelings; simulated feelings, maybe, but not real ones.

  So how did he know hers weren’t simulated?

  He shut that thought off as he stripped out of his jeans and got into the shower. She’d said she was human. He would take her at her word. She felt human, and that was good enough for him. If she was anything else, he didn’t want to know.

  He was going to have to work for her. He’d never worked for a woman before, not because he was such a hotshot lover, but because any attraction he’d felt had usually been mutual. The few times it hadn’t, well, there were reasons why it just wasn’t there, and he hadn’t pursued the matter.

  With Rebecca, the almost giddy sense of falling in love had been strong, immediate, and definitely mutual. It was as if they looked at each other and simply knew; the sex had been good because they were so in tune.

  The way he felt about Nikita was unfolding differently, growing a little slower, but he was definitely feeling testosterone-driven urges that made him want to grab her up. He was a reasonable man, so he was taken by surprise at how unreasonable he felt about her. He couldn’t just keep his distance the way she’d said; he couldn’t.

  Nikita sat in bed, sipping that awful coffee, and settled her jangling nerves. First he had startled her awake, though, oddly enough, she had seemed to instantly recognize him, because she hadn’t reached for a weapon. Then her senses had been thrown into mild shock because he hadn’t had on a shirt, and all that warm, bare skin made her want to cuddle close and feel the warmth wrap around her, to bury her face against him and inhale the scent of his skin.

  Pheromones, she knew. It was basic biology: a woman’s pheromones were airborne, capable of attracting men from a distance. A man’s pheromones were mostly exchanged by touch. As close as he’d been, she had definitely felt the pull, urging her to reach out and stroke his chest.

  Aesthetically speaking, it was a good chest, muscled and hairy—more muscled than she’d expected, given his relatively lean build. Either he worked to keep himself in shape, or he’d been blessed with excellent genes. Morning stubble had darkened his jaw—which was slightly darker on the left side, where she had hit him—and his hair needed brushing. She had wanted to pull him down on the bed with her, but her emotions still felt shredded. After a while she would get over her hurt, but right now all she could do was cling to her rather tenuous composure. When she was home—she had to believe she would somehow be able to go home—she would deal with the emotional issues he had exposed. In the meantime, she still had to work with him, regardless of how much she would prefer to just go away and hide.

  The sound of the shower stopped. She waited five more minutes; then she heard the bathroom door open and Knox called, “It’s all yours.”

  She didn’t get out of bed until he’d gone into the kitchen. She gathered her clothing for the day and took it into the bathroom with her; it was still damp and steamy from his shower. The smell of him lingered in the air, mingled with that of soap and some minty odor.

  The novelty of a wet bath charmed her once again, and soothed her nerves, though they were somewhat jangled again when she first looked in the mirror and saw her blond self; she’d forgotten about changing her hair color. Overall, though, when she was dressed in her new clothes, she felt almost ready to tackle whatever the day brought, and she followed the smell of cooking food into the kitchen.

  He was standing in front of the stove, his back to her, and he still didn’t have on a shirt. Helplessly her gaze traced the deep groove of his spine, followed the way the muscles in his back played whenever he reached for something. She felt as if she had been plunged into a heated pool. “I forgot my coffee cup,” she said in a muffled tone, and fled to her bedroom.

  The brief interruption to retrieve the cup gave her the time she needed to brace herself. He evidently didn’t intend to put on a shirt until it was time for them to leave, so she would just have to ignore the provocation. When she went back into the kitchen, she asked, “What are you cooking? It smells wonderful.”

  “I didn’t have much on hand; bacon, eggs, and toast is my limit, and I’m lucky I have that. I usually eat breakfast out.” He glanced at her. “You still eat meat and eggs in your time, don’t you?”

  “Some people do, and some people don’t. Real animal protein can be very expensive. I usually eat a nutrition bar for breakfast.”

  He made a face, then pointed toward a section of cabinet. “Get a couple of plates down for me, please. If you don’t mind.”

  She turned and opened the cabinet door, then took down two plates that were a sunny yellow color she wouldn’t have expected in a bachelor’s house. “These are pretty,” she said.

  “Lynnette gave them to me for Christmas last year. She said it was pitiful for a grown man to have nothing but paper plates in his house.”

  Nikita tilted her head and thought the matter over. “She was right,” she finally said, passing the plates to him.

  “Gee, thanks,” he said wryly. He put the plates in the microwave and punched the one-minute button.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Warming the plates. I don’t like for my food to get cold, and this keeps it warm longer.”

  The explanation made sense to her. She looked around. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Set the table. The silverware is in that drawer there.” He pointed with a spatula.

  Place settings were another thing that hadn’t changed much in two centuries: plates, napkins, and eating utensils. She looked around and didn’t see any napkins, so she asked him where they were.

  Again he pointed with the spatula. “Use the paper towels.”

  Marveling again at how plentiful and cheap paper was, she pulled two sections off the roll of towels, folded them, and put one each at the places they had used before. The microwave dinged as she was putting out the silverware, and Knox retrieved the plates, then began dishing up the food directly onto them.

  He had an excellent sense of timing, because two slices of bread now popped up out of the toaster. He grabbed them, put one on each plate, quickly slathered butter on them, then handed the plates to her while he put two more slices of bread in the machine.

  Nikita looked at the plat