Page 33 of Sublime Target
“He isn’t my master. He’s my boss. There’s a big difference.” Clarissa tucked the umbrella under her arm as she folded her arms and glared at him. “As an employee, I take my job very seriously. Now, I appreciate you clearing out this crowd—in a way that only you can, apparently—but please do not fire any weapons in front of my building again. That was completely unnecessary.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“They’re just protesters.”
“You came out here. That’s what made the difference.”
“Are you trying to put the blame on me for your reckless actions?”
“Reckless?” He chuckled softly, surprising her. She’d thought he was angry. He was infuriatingly impossible to read, even to her. “I would never hold you accountable for anything I do, Clarissa. But when you’re standing in a crowd full of people where I can’t predict actions or outcomes, my instinct is to make you safe. That is all.”
A strange feeling wormed its way into Clarissa’s chest. Did you do that because of me? Because you wanted to protect me all of a sudden?
Why should her safety be such a priority for him?
They’d only just met one another, and he was a Kordolian.
An alien.
Why should he care so much about a simple human like her?
Something was off.
Why?
“I can handle myself,” she said quietly, glancing to her left. A gleaming grape-colored car accelerated around the corner. “We’d better get out of the road.”
She took a few steps backward until she was standing on the footpath. To her relief, Jerik followed.
Several cars—most of them automatically driven—glided past.
Someone honked.
No doubt it was because an armored, pink-splattered alien was standing on the side of the road.
People were going to stare. It was inevitable.
Clarissa sighed. “You’d better get yourself cleaned up, Jerik. You’re welcome to use our facilities, but it’s fine if you decide you want to go and come back another day. I’ll handle Garner.”
“Hm.” He stared at her for a moment, hard and impenetrable behind his obsidian armor. Even though she found him surprisingly easy to talk to, it felt like there was a barrier between them. “You act honorably even when the situation isn’t favorable to you. I won’t cause you more trouble by leaving and returning another time just to go through all this idiocy again. I’ll wait, Clarissa, because I find the time passes quickly when I’m in your company.”
Time froze. Her heart skipped a beat. The scary alien ex-commander wasn’t apologizing to her for shooting freaking plasma into the sky with his gun. Nor was he promising he wouldn’t do it again.
He was just saying things like that; things that almost made it feel like he was flirting with her.
No way.
That couldn’t be possible.
That would be insane.
This man was completely maddening.
Just the thought of him flirting… why did it make her feel like someone had ripped the solid pavement from beneath her feet and replaced it with clouds? And she was sort of falling… and, at the same time, floating.
All she could do at this point was push her luck. Maybe it was nothing, but maybe…
She looked him straight in the eye. “Fine. Stay. Wash up. You’re more than welcome to. I can even get you a spare set of clothes, custom-tailored to your measurements if you like. But Jerik, why don’t you let me see you?”