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DEEDECK DESIGN
Chapter 10
Jax arrived at Alpha 7 Milky Way transfer station in the grip of powerful emotion. Several emotions, actually. He didn’t want to analyze what they were or what they meant—self preservation dictated that he not go there. All he cared to know was that the stew of emotions made him dangerous. He knew this by the familiar hard thrumming in his muscles and by the people scattering out of his way as he prowled through the station, bypassing the usual check-ins and fussy nonsense that accompanied transfer travel.
They knew he was coming. They knew why he was coming, and even security didn’t stop him. He paused only once, to stare down a transfer supervisor and growl, “Which room?”
The man didn’t bother to escort him, just stuttered, “N-number seventeen, Mr. Coltier.”
He stalked down the long corridor and entered the TSU chamber marked seventeen, giving the attending transfer tech the dubious benefit of his full attention. “Well?” he barked.
She took a quick step back, eyes wide, as if he’d threatened her with a machete and a rebel yell. He breathed carefully through his nose to keep his temper under control.
“S-sir, Dr. Bannen made the transfer. Y-your clone is ready.”
“The transfer was successful? No problems?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. Dr. Bannen appears to have made an uneventful transfer into her own clone.”
Jax emptied his lungs in a heavy gust, resting his hands on hips and staring down at the floor to recover his suddenly lost composure.
“She’s fine, Mr. Coltier,” the tech said, her voice warmer and more steady. “She’s recovering well.”
He nodded without looking at her and said, “Good,” in a clipped tone, before turning to the TSU. “Everything ready?”
“Yes, sir. Didn’t you want to, um, change into a robe?”
He sent her a glance that made her blush furiously and look away. “Waste of time. Clone Care will deal with it.”
“Of course,” she murmured, a blush staining even her voice, as he lowered himself into the coffin-like space. She resorted to familiar formality as she reached for the controls to close the TSU. “Enjoy your trip, sir, and thank you for traveling with the Intergalactic Transfer System.”
“If I don’t get there, I’m coming back to haunt you,” he said with a sardonic curl of his mouth.
She blushed harder, but there was a flustered smile on her face when the top slid closed. He sighed as the neural net spread its touch over his scalp and made him itch. This was not his favorite way to travel, and recent events made it even less palatable. “Bugger me,” he muttered, just before darkness stole his mind.
He woke with the blurry disorientation that he hated so much. He was a man of control, and intergalactic transferring stole that control. Usually he fought the confusion of his senses and nausea with grim stubbornness, but he thought maybe this time he’d let himself puke, just to give the bastards something to clean up. And also, there was a horrible taste in his mouth that couldn’t get much worse with a layer of vomit.
“Mr. Coltier,” a smooth voice said, “How do you feel?” He recognized the voice as Ben Kreel’s and fought back the nausea with renewed determination. The man did not deserve vomit as a reward for his speedy work.
“Like shit,” he croaked, not bothering to open his eyes. “As usual.”
“Try moving around and opening your eyes. It helps speed recovery.”
“I know how this works,” he rasped in a less than polite tone. He did not like feeling helpless. That was why he was here in the first place. He couldn’t take sitting on his hands while Moira—his client, he amended—was in danger.
The thought of Moira was a goad, and he began flexing his muscles, trying to work the weakness out of them. “How’s the doc?” he asked, blinking open his eyes and wincing at the smear of nauseating light and color.
“She’s doing well. Apparently she has a near ideal revival pattern. She’s already up and dressed.”
“Show off,” he mumbled, blinking hard to get his eyes to focus on Kreel. The man had a faint smile on his mouth, offsetting the pessimistic lines of his long face. “Good work, man,” he added, feeling a rush of gratitude that came close to affection. “Besh and Connie still with her?”
“Yes, and as of two minutes ago, all was well.”
“Better go check again,” Jax said with dry humor. “That woman’s a disaster magnet.”
“I heard about the rogue bot,” Kreel said as he headed for the com. “That must have been some fancy programming. Too bad I don’t have any evidence to study.”
“Nothing left?” Jax asked, forcing himself up onto elbows and taking deep, measured breaths.
“Blown to dust,” Kreel said with a look of disappointment that fit his long face like a glove. He tapped the controls and then spoke in a voice modulated too low for Jax to hear.
With a relatively clear view of his body, Jax noticed that he was still in the clothes Moira had put him in and smirked. He’d have to tease the doc about not wanting to strip him again. He also noticed a tech standing silent and still on his right. The woman was watching him like a mouse watches a snake. He ignored her.
“Dr. Bannen is asking to see you, sir,” Kreel said from his place by the com.
Ego dictated his response. “Give me a minute,” he said with a grimace, levering himself to a sitting position and swinging his legs over the side of the revival bed. Then he gripped the edge and ground his teeth, forcing back a horrendous surge of nausea. Breathing carefully, he focused his eyes on the tech’s slim feet and rolled his shoulders.
While waiting for the nausea to subside and his muscles to strengthen, he took careful inventory. This body had held someone else, and he was curious about the effects. He moved and inspected each body part, but could find no imprint of Moira. He looked the same, felt the same, even smelled the same. Except for a scruffy jaw and that horrible taste in his mouth, he felt no different from any other transfer.
The nausea slid away while he was doing inventory, and he suddenly discovered another exception. He was starving. His stomach let out a long, low growl, and when he glanced up, he caught Kreel smothering a grin. “You can let her in now,” Jax said wryly.
Kreel touched the door control without comment, and it slid open, allowing Dr. Bannen and Jax’s men to enter. Besh and Connie were shoulder to shoulder on the doctor’s heels, but his eyes wouldn’t leave Moira long enough to acknowledge them.
The punch to his gut was much stronger this time. And not only his gut, but all over—he felt clobbered by her. Air left his lungs in a rush and his throat locked as he met those misty gray eyes. There was a faint crease between her brows as she studied him with a concern that should have been clinical, but felt like a caress. He swallowed hard, making a deliberate effort to unlock his chest muscles and inhale.
“Clear the room,” he rasped, working for a neutral tone, but even to his own ears he sounded ravenous.
No one made a comment, though, obeying him without question or hesitation, and the doctor’s expression didn’t change. “How do you feel?” she asked as the others filed out and the door slid closed, leaving them alone.
“Hungry,” he answered without thinking about it, muscles tightening at the sound of her voice. Smooth and rich, her voice reminded him of warm honey, less bedside manner and more erotic fantasy. He had a moment’s envy for her patients—lying in bed listening to that seductive voice would restore him to health in a hurry.
A flicker of either annoyance or regret flashed across her delicate features, and she made a quick gesture with one fine-boned hand, as if to brush something away. “Sorry, I didn’t eat while I was…” Her brows pulled together.
“Inside me?” he finished with a quirk of his lips and another surge of strange lust. He didn’t correct her notion that his hunger was gastric. “You had something, though, ‘cause my mouth tastes like hell.”
“That one you can blame on Connie,” she said with a faint smirk, stepping closer to him. “Worst coffee ever.”
“I’ll dock his pay.” He was hardly aware of what he was saying, watching her like a predator in high grass. This is not normal, he thought, disturbed by his responses. He hadn’t felt this restless and unfocused since he was a teenager, and just like a young, untried fool, he was plotting ways to bring her closer, to get his hands on her.
The amusement lurking in the curve of her lips and corners of her eyes faded into concern. “You look a little flushed. Are you sure you feel all right?”
He jumped on the excuse with only a small twinge of shame. “Come feel my forehead, Doc.”
She eyed him with a hint of uncertainty, like prey sensing danger in the air, before her features smoothed into a focused expression that he guessed was her doctor’s face. She stepped forward until she stood between his knees.
He almost drooled. She smelled like cinnamon, reflecting the streaks of brooding fire in her dark hair. She wore black slacks and a soft, purplish-gray blouse that bared her arms, throat, and upper chest. The color drew a mysterious smoke in her eyes and added a luscious sheen to her milky skin.
She was asking him a question, but he didn’t pay attention to the words, concentrating only on the honeyed sound and the cool touch of her fingertips under his jaw. His hands came up of their own volition, fingers curling around her arms and absorbing the warm silk of her skin with aching pleasure.
She went still, eyes widening as his circling fingers slid along her skin until they manacled her wrists. He could see her pulse jump in her throat, and he could hardly keep himself from leaning forward and sealing his mouth over that silky flutter. The only thing that stopped him from tasting her there and then pulling her down on the bed to taste her everywhere was the alarm in those soft gray eyes.
“On second thought,” he growled, “touching me is not a good idea right now.”
She pulled away and backed up so fast that he barely had time to blink. He studied the wary alarm on her face, remembered that she was his client, and could have kicked himself. This was not how he’d wanted to approach her. Drooling on her in a crude display of Neanderthalic lust did not inspire confidence and trust. Time for damage control.
Taking a deep breath, he said with a rueful twist of his mouth, “Sorry, Doc. I tend to wake up from a transfer with a couple—side effects.”
Comprehension drained the alarm and some of the wariness from her fine features. “Oh, so that was it,” she murmured, then blushed a lovely shade of rose and looked away.
He would have assumed that she was referring to what had just happened if it wasn’t for the blush. Tilting his head to one side, he studied her with a wicked grin. “That was what, Moira? Had a little more fun with my body than you let on?”
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