Was this room—the one she had given him to stay in—the place where she normally took care of herself? Had she given him her own sleeping chamber and that was why she was so upset with him?
Or one reason why, anyway.
“What’s wrong?” Jodi asked, breaking his train of thought. “Why are you just standing there wrinkling your nose? Do you smell something funny?” She frowned and sniffed the air herself. “I only smell the Glade plug-in air freshener I put in here.”
“Yeah, would you mind taking that fucking thing out?” Vorn asked her. “Kindred have a really sensitive sense of smell and that artificial flower stink is giving me a headache.”
“Sorry,” Jodi said tersely, going to the wall and wrenching the tiny stink-making machine out of the electrical socket. “I was just trying to be a good hostess,” she explained stiffly. “My mom always says if you have a guest over you offer them a neat, clean room that smells nice.”
Vorn thought of telling her that the best smelling thing in the whole damn domicile was her hot little pussy, but of course there was no way he was speaking that particular thought out loud. Better to keep such observations to himself.
“I appreciate the gesture,” he said. “But…is this your room? Have you given me your own sleeping chamber? Because that’s really not necessary.”
Jodi frowned.
“What would make you think that?”
Only the fact that I can smell you everywhere here—and not just you—I can smell your heat.
Again, a thought best kept to himself.
“It’s just that I can tell you’ve been in here,” he said. “The scent of your…uh, hair and skin is very strong here.”
Jodi stiffened visibly.
“I take regular showers, you know. So if you’re going to insult me by saying I stink, you can go right back up to the Mother Ship and—”
“Whoa…whoa!” Vorn put up both hands to stop her. “Seven Hells,” he growled. “Why is it when anybody ever mentions anything at all about personal scent, humans always assume we’re talking about a bad smell?”
Jodi’s frown deepened into a look of puzzlement.
“Well…because, when you say somebody ‘smells’ that’s mostly what you mean—that you can smell their body odor because they haven’t bathed properly.”
It was Vorn’s turn to look puzzled.
“So you’re saying the only time you can smell other people is when they’ve skipped a few bathing periods?”
“Well…yes.” She shrugged. “Except for when they have on a really strong cologne or perfume or you’re really close to them—like almost close enough to touch. Then you might smell their shampoo or body wash or something like that.”
Vorn gave her a horrified look.
“You mean your sense of smell is that weak? You have to be right up next to someone to smell their personal scent?”
“Well, yes—with most people, anyway.” She gave him a penetrating look. “I take it, it’s different for Kindred?”
“Fuck, yeah it’s different,” Vorn growled. “Listen, Josephine—I mean, Jodi,” he corrected himself, before she could get upset—though it felt wrong and disrespectful to him to shorten her name. “Everybody has a personal scent. It’s not good or bad—it just is. And when you smell that scent in a very concentrated form in one certain area, you assume they spend a lot of time there. Which is why I thought this…” He gestured to the room. “Must be your sleeping chamber that you were, for some reason, giving up to me in order to be ‘a good hostess’ as you put it. Which is not necessary, believe me.”
She sighed. “It’s not my bedroom—I sleep in the room right next to it with my fiancé, James. This room is just my…home office. I do a lot of, uh, work in here so that’s probably why it smells like me.”
She was lying and Vorn damn well knew it.
If she had actually only been working in this room, he would have mostly smelled her hair and skin—trace scents that anyone gave off wherever they went. But what he smelled in this room was her pussy—hot and wet and ready. So there was no way she just “worked” in here. Unless her work involved a hell of a lot of getting off.
But again, these were things he absolutely couldn’t say to her. Clearly she wasn’t about to discuss her masturbation habits with him—nor should he expect her to. So they would have to keep to the polite fiction that she was just giving up her home office when Vorn knew damn well that she was actually giving him the room where she regularly got herself off.
The question was—why?
Not why was she giving him the room—clearly it was the only other place to sleep besides the already-occupied sleep chamber she shared with her fiancé. No, Vorn’s question was, why was she getting herself off in a solitary space instead of getting off with her fiancé? Was she also getting plenty of sex in the other sleeping chamber and she just had a really high sex drive? Or was this the only place she was able to relieve her needs?
He had no idea, but he wanted to find out—even though he knew it was none of his business.
“I like the decorations in here,” he said, though the room was done in black and white, the same way the living area was. “You, uh, kept the same color pattern, I see. Is it the same in your sleeping chamber?”
Jodi looked at him mistrustfully, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Well…yes. Do you want to see it?”
Vorn held up his hands.
“Only if you want to show me. Sleeping chambers are private areas. Sometimes people keep the mess they like to hide from visitors shut away and prefer not to show them.”
Jodi’s back stiffened.
“None of my house is messy! Come on.”
She marched out of the spare room and led him to the room right beside it. Flinging open the door, she stood to one side and gestured.
“See for yourself.”
Vorn kept back a little smile. He had suspected that Jodi was extremely house-proud and that alluding to a possible mess would get him a glimpse of her sleeping chamber.
Only it wasn’t a glimpse he wanted—it was a smell.
He stepped inside her bedroom—which was a little larger than his own and had an en-suite bathroom—and glanced around.
This room was also done in black and white, but there were at least some accent colors here and there. Some blue pillows on the bed and a framed picture on the wall of a single tree and a pond reflecting the light of a blue moon.
“Nice picture,” Vorn remarked, nodding in approval. “Who painted it? Is the artist local?”
Jodi gave a reluctant smile.
“You could say that. I painted it at a ‘Wine and Shine’ event with a group of friends.”
“A what?” Vorn asked.
She waved a hand, looking embarrassed.
“Oh, it’s just this place you can go for a girl’s night out. You bring a bottle of wine and everybody gets drunk and paints. It’s fun.” She shrugged. “But I kind of liked the way this turned out—so I kept it.”
“I like it too,” Vorn said frankly. “You seem to have real talent. Are you going to school for art? For painting?”
She stifled a laugh.
“Hardly. I’m getting a Masters degree in Sexual Psychology and Counseling. I’m going to be a Sex Therapist.”
“A what?” Vorn had never heard of this particular profession. He was almost afraid to ask what it entailed.
“A Sex Therapist—someone who helps other people when they have sexual dysfunctions to overcome or work through.”
“How exactly do you help them?” Vorn asked. “Do you show them what they’re doing wrong or—”
“No, no!” Jodi gave a short laugh. “No, I’ll talk through their problems with them—help them see the source of the dysfunction. Then together we’ll work out a plan to resolve it.”
Vorn was still confused.
“I’m sorry but…do humans really have that much trouble just making love?”
“Kindred don’t?”
she shot back.
“Well…no.” He shrugged. “Once you bond a female to you, the two of you have a mental link. Knowing what the other person is thinking and feeling most of the time kind of keeps you in sync. Like…if I was bonded to a female and she wasn’t reaching orgasm when I made love to her, I would know right away. And I would damn-well fix it—not go talk to somebody else about it.”
Jodi shifted, pressing her thighs together.
“Well, it’s not quite so straight-forward with humans. We don’t form any kind of mental bond with our partners. So a lot of times sexual dysfunction creeps in and one partner is afraid to tell the other one, for fear of hurting their feelings. It can go on and on for years, getting worse and worse until it can end a relationship.” She shook her head. “Of course, I won’t only be doing couple’s counseling. I’ll be working with anyone who isn’t having a fulfilling sex life in order to make them feel most comfortable with their sexuality.”
“Sounds nice,” Vorn said noncommittally, though inwardly he was thinking she ought to see to her own relationship first. Despite the faint scent of a male in this room—whom he assumed must be the elusive fiancé she kept talking about—there was almost no smell of sex. Either she and James made love someplace else entirely…or they rarely, if ever, had sex at all.
Which was just sad, considering the intense sexuality Jodi exuded. Maybe she had picked her profession based on her desire to heal her own dysfunctions, Vorn speculated.
At any rate, it was none of his business.
“Thanks for giving me the tour,” he said, exiting the room. “If you don’t mind, I’ll get my carry-all cube from the vehicle and unpack.”
Jodi’s full lips became a narrow line.
“Do you think you should? You might not be here long.”
Meaning she wanted him to leave as soon as possible, Vorn thought dryly.
“Hopefully not,” he said blandly. “But I’m here at least for the night. I’ll need my sleep trousers and oral hygiene kit.”
“Oh, right.” She nodded grudgingly. “Of course—make yourself at home. James should be here any minute. He—”
A buzzing from the small communications device she carried everywhere with her interrupted her words.
“Excuse me.” She reached in her pocket.
“You get that. I’m going out to get my cube,” Vorn told her.
He went out to the vehicle and grabbed his cube (as well as a breath of fresh air—the warm scent of Jodi’s pussy was making it damn hard to think straight)—and reluctantly went back inside.
When he stepped into the living area, he noticed that Jodi was wearing a dissatisfied frown on her face.
“Problems?” he asked neutrally.
“No. It’s just that James can’t make it home tonight.”
“He can’t?” Vorn’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “So he’s going to leave his female alone with another male all night? I mean, not that I’m a threat but if it was me—”
“James isn’t the jealous type,” Jodi snapped, clearly irritated. “He’s working late at his lab and he’s decided he’d rather spend the night at his other house—it’s on Bayshore. He likes the bed better there—says he sleeps better.” She shrugged. “So he won’t be joining us for supper. I was just going to get take-out, anyway.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll pay for it,” Vorn offered. But inside he still couldn’t believe it.
What kind of a male would leave his female alone in their domicile with a strange male present? Vorn was an honorable male—sworn to protect females and never hurt them—but James didn’t know that. For all he knew, Vorn might be out to make a move on his female, but he didn’t even care enough to come home and sleep in the same bed with her. What was wrong with him?
It was un-fucking-believable, at least as far as Vorn was concerned. He wished he could get hold of this James and tell him his female was suffering and needed to be serviced. But of course he couldn’t do that. And clearly Jodi didn’t want to say anything else about it.
“I’ll call in some Chinese food,” she said shortly. “If you want to pay, you can, since you’re staying in my apartment.”
“Fine,” he said. “Just give me a call when you’re ready for the payment. I’m going to unpack.”
He left her looking at a paper menu and punching numbers into her phone and went back to the room which was permeated with her scent. He was going to have to live in here and smell her hot pussy every night while he slept and try to ignore it.
His shaft snarled in his tight leather trousers and Vorn sighed.
Gods, this was going to be a long, long mission, no matter when it ended.
Eight
“So my dorm is kind of messy, I’m afraid,” Melli said apologetically as Liosh carried her through the halls.
Everywhere students were laughing or talking or studying with headphones on. They got a few strange looks but nobody stopped them to ask who Liosh was—students were used to the hook-up culture where anyone might have anyone else over at almost any time of the night or day for a little action. Nobody minded except the elderly security guards who occasionally tried and failed to keep order. USF wasn’t exactly considered a party school…but it wasn’t all academics all the time either.
Melli liked that it was somewhere in the middle—not that she was a big party person herself but she would occasionally go out if a friend invited her. Right now, though, she was wondering if she could get things cleaned up in any way before Liosh saw them.
The moment he put her carefully down—with her weight resting on her good leg—she began unlocking the door and talking at the same time.
“Maybe you should go back and get the rest of that food and bring it up,” she said. “I mean, you wouldn’t want it to go bad and stink up your space car.”
Liosh smiled that dazzling, sunny smile she was beginning to like so much. It showed his fangs but she found she didn’t even mind.
“I’ll get you settled first. Then I can go back for it,” he told her.
“Better not,” Melli said earnestly. “The Florida sun can make things go bad fast. One time Jodi and I forgot a dozen eggs in the car and when we came back for them, half of them were practically hard-boiled. And I know another girl who used to put a piece of aluminum foil on her dashboard with blobs of cookie dough on it so she could have fresh chocolate chip cookies when she came back from her afternoon classes. The sun was so hot it baked them.”
Liosh frowned.
“The temperatures here on your part of Earth are certainly much hotter than what I’m used to back on Tranq Prime. But I hate to leave you without getting you to a safe spot.”
“I’ll just hop right over to the loveseat,” Melli promised him. “I’ll be fine. Go ahead—go on…” She shooed him away as she slipped inside the dorm room and cracked the door so that only her face was peeping out. “I’ll see you in a minute,” she said and closed the door, hoping Liosh would take the hint.
“All right—I’ll be back shortly,” he called at last, which made Melli breathe a sigh of relief. Okay good—the trip back and forth to the parking lot was a bit of a hike, so she had at least ten minutes to straighten up—where should she begin?
Her dorm room wasn’t very big at all, which made her decide to start right where she stood. Bending down awkwardly, she grabbed the pair of crumpled jeans she’d left there a few days ago and then hopped into the tiny living room, gathering stray clothes as she went. She was careful on her hurt leg but found that it hardly twinged at all as she went on her clothes-gathering mission.
It wasn’t that she was a slob, exactly, Melli told herself. More like she was distracted and too busy to constantly be cleaning, which was what Jodi was always telling her to do.
“If you’d just clean up as you go, you won’t have such a big mess all the time,” she always lectured, whenever she visited Melli and took the opportunity to straighten up.
At least the dorm was too small to get very messy, Mel
li thought. There was the tiny living area with a single love-seat and a TV… a galley kitchen which had a half-sized fridge, a tiny microwave, and a hot-plate as the only appliances…a bathroom with a sink, shower stall, and bathtub…and a bed room with two beds in it—one full-sized and one twin—and that was it. That was the entire dorm room.
It was actually nicer and larger than many dorms, Melli knew. She was rooming with her good friend, Cindy, whose parents were both surgeons at Tampa General Hospital and who could afford the upgrade. But Cindy much preferred living with her long-time boyfriend, Kyle. She couldn’t tell her strict Catholic parents that, however, so she kept letting them pay for the dorm—where only Melli lived—which allowed them to believe that she was living there, when in fact she was in Kyle’s apartment off-campus almost all the time.
All Melli had to do was tell Cindy’s parents she was out of the dorm anytime they dropped in and keep up the convenient fiction that her friend still lived there full-time. She always texted Cindy to let her know when her parents were on the prowl so she could “come back home” and see her mom or dad, saying she had only been out to grab a bite to eat or had been in the library studying.
All this subterfuge made Melli a bit uncomfortable, but Cindy’s parents didn’t drop by often and it was really nice having the place all to herself. It was better for studying—though it did get lonely at times. She never brought boys back here with her because of her difficult past so Liosh was the first male she’d had in the little dorm. Speaking of the big Kindred, she needed to get things cleaned up before he got back!
Hopping quickly around the dorm, she finished gathering up the dirty clothes strewn around and dumped them into her hamper. Then it was into the bathroom to clean her hair products and make-up off the back of the toilet and cram them all into the medicine cabinet where they belonged. The tub and toilet were clean, thank goodness and there were some fresh towels in the linen closet. The tub, in Melli’s opinion, was the best feature of the dorm room. It was actually deep enough to take a really nice long soak in.
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