Page 24 of Shielded Heart

“I guess document verification must pay well. What, um…what exactly does that entail, anyway? Do you work for a big company?”

When they reached the car, Alkorin stepped forward and opened the rear door for her, standing aside. “I work primarily with Consortium identification documents. It’s lucrative enough to keep me comfortable.”

“Would they happen to be hiring?” she asked as she entered the car. She slid along the seat to allow room for Alkorin.

“It’s…contract work, mainly. Difficult to obtain without relevant experience,” he replied as he climbed in behind her and closed the door.

She glanced toward the front of the car, and her eyes widened when they met the driver’s, who had twisted to look back at her. He was a very large, gruff-looking azhera with intense green eyes. Like all his kind, his features were reminiscent of a big cat’s—a lion, or maybe a leopard—blended with a lupine hint and something vaguely human. They looked like…well, like werecats. But it was this azhera’s coloring that caught her attention; the tan and brown of his fur was similar in hue and pattern to that of her grandmother’s old cat, Mister Wiggles.

A wave of homesickness rushed over her, dragging the sorrow of loss in its wake. Mister Wiggles and her grandmother were gone. Her father was gone. She’d never see the only people she truly loved again.

The azhera shifted his gaze to Alkorin. “You know people saw you, right?”

Alkorin stretched out his legs, leaned back in a leisurely slouch, and shrugged. His tail lay between him and Sam on the seat, hanging partially over the edge so its slowly moving tip ran up and down her shin.

“And?” Alkorin asked.

The driver released a low, frustrated growl. “We’ve talked about this before. Very recently.”

Alkorin turned his head to face Samantha. “Don’t mind him. He’s just a bit of a worrier.”

Samantha glanced between them. “You won’t…get into trouble for what you did, will you? To Rakkob, I mean.”

“Your neighbor? He would have some difficult questions to answer if he tried to go to the Eternal Guard, wouldn’t he? There’s nothing to worry about.”

The driver released a heavy breath through his nostrils. “Arc—”

“Anyway,” Alkorin interrupted, raising his voice and directing a pointed glare at the azhera, “I should properly introduce the two of you. Samantha, this is Drakkal. He’s worked for me for a long time. I haven’t had the heart to let him go, even though he’s often rude and steps out of line.”

Samantha smiled at the azhera. “Hi.”

Drakkal’s eyes flicked to her. “Hello.”

“Now that introductions are out of the way, shall we get to it?” Alkorin asked.

Drakkal muttered something that Samantha’s translator couldn’t decipher, turned his face forward, and directed the hovercar into a smooth ascent.

Alkorin settled a hand on Samantha’s thigh.

She jumped at the unexpected touch, but he didn’t pull away; he kept his hand in place with such nonchalance that it seemed tobelongthere. Her heart fluttered. The longer she stared at his hand, the more she yearned for it to move upward, to slide between her legs…

“Just relax and enjoy the ride, Samantha,” he said. His voice was so smooth and sensual that she couldn’t help but find extra meaning layered in his words, couldn’t help but hear the promise of somethingmorein his tone.

But she couldn’t relax—not with his hand on her thigh, not with his tail stroking her leg, not after the dreams she had of him, and especially not while a fire burned low in her belly. That heat built to a throbbing ache in her core she couldn’t ignore.

Turning her head slightly, she glanced at Alkorin, catching her lower lip between her teeth as she studied him.

He was reclining with such leisure that it seemed the most natural position in the world for him. The sides of his robe were spread outward slightly, exposing a wide expanse of his chest; she raked her gaze over his delectable gray skin and toned muscles, shifting it up to his yellow tattoos.

A glint of metal caught her attention; his right nipple was pierced. Were she someone else—someone bolder, someone more confident—she’d have crawled onto his lap and run her tongue over that piercing and every one of his glowing marks.

Just imaging that scenario intensified the ache between her legs. The sensation spread up to her breasts, and her nipples hardened. Breath quickening, she tore her eyes away from him.

Oh my God. I’m getting turned on right next to him, and all he did was set his hand on my leg!

As desperate as Samantha was for release from the ache, she didn’t dare squeeze her thighs together; it would’ve been a dead giveaway of what she was feeling.

“Tell me about the city,” Samantha blurted.

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