Cara Mia - Book One of the Immortyl Revolution by Denise Verrico Page B

knot out of his shoulder with her long, capable hands. “She’s gotten under your skin.”
    “She’d like to.”
    She rubbed harder at his shoulders. He grunted at the pressure of her fingers. “You’ve met your match.”
    He looked up. “Huh?”
    “You don’t take well to strong women. This one is beyond your wildest dreams. She has you by the balls.”
    “Ridiculous,” he said, getting up from the mattress.
    Jean cocked her head to the side and continued to rub it with the towel. “Are you attracted to her?”
    “She’s not my type.”
    “The guys actually have a pool going to see who’ll have sex with her first, you or Kurt. They’re betting on you, I hear. Bunch of jerks, they’d shrivel if she so much as looked at them. Why do you think Lydia gave you this job?”
    “A sick joke?”
    “Maybe there’s a certain irony— but who else could stand up to her? She’d eat the others alive. You’re different. Why do you think Mia responds to you? Lydia knew exactly what she was doing.”
    “First class castrating bitch… ”
    “You make me laugh. Lydia’s barely one hundred pounds, but she has you, too. Maybe women in powerful positions are there for a reason, not just to annoy you. Lydia is the top in her field, and a damned good administrator. She sent you in there because no one else has the forceful personality required for the job.”
    Joe grinned. “Jean, you have common sense. You see things I can’t because I’m too… ”
    “Pigheaded? Arrogant?”
    “Exactly, and now Mia’s pissed off at me and I don’t understand why.”
    “Try treating her like a woman, not a subject.”
    “If I start to see her as a human being, I’m lost.”
    Jean’s face darkened. “What do you think she wants?”
    “Not sex, that’s just a manipulative ploy.”
    “Maybe she’s falling in love… ”
    “Why are we even having this conversation?”
    “They’re people, Joe, even if they aren’t like us. I talk with Kurt when I run scans on him. He’s very sensitive and kind of sweet. He loves her deeply.”
    “Don’t get taken in. They fool me sometimes too. It’s how they operate. They make you think they’re human— then suck everything out of you. Don’t tell me you’re falling in love with Kurt?”
    “Don’t be silly. But there’s something, well— ethereal about him. His face is achingly perfect, with that honey-colored hair and those great big blue eyes— like an angel— a beautiful male angel. Both of them are gorgeous in this unearthly way. Maybe vampires are the angels people claim to see… ”
    “Reading the tabloids at the supermarket again?”
    She flicked her towel again at him and he pulled her down to him laughing.
    “Did you check out those runes, Joe?”
    “Don’t tell me a thing. Don’t spell anything. They must use it as a cipher.” He kissed her on the throat. “Enough about them.” He began kissing her sun-browned skin all over, haunted suddenly by the image of porcelain-pale flesh. Jean wrapped legs around to take him inside, but he was elsewhere, far beyond the confines of her cozy apartment and tanned body.
    Kurt was angelic, Joe had to admit, when he entered his cell later that evening. More like a pubescent boy than the young man he’d obviously been. His eyes caught Joe’s for a moment and appeared vaguely amused.
    “Productive afternoon, Doctor?”
    Joe ignored his observation. “I’m on my way to Mia. You have a letter?”
    Kurt studied Joe’s face again as he handed him an envelope. His expression darkened. “Yes, I see… ”
    Joe let himself out cautiously, not really sure what Kurt was getting at. Moments later, Joe handed Mia her partner’s letter. She rushed over to the armchair to read it, chuckling at something in the contents.
    Joe cleared his throat. “Mia— about Kurt. I saw something last night, on his arm.”
    She looked up. “I thought you knew. The doctors must have seen when we were examined.”
    “Somehow I missed this.