Brides of the Kindred(32)
Thinking that made her remember the way he’d ripped her black silk panties away with one savage twist and Liv felt a sudden flare of desire in the pit of her belly. God, he’d really been all over her—kissing, touching, grinding against her with that huge, thick shaft she could feel through his tight black pants…Stop it, Liv, she scolded herself. That kind of thing is exactly what you’re trying to avoid—remember? Yes, she remembered all too well. Having bonding sex, whatever that entailed, with the huge warrior would mean she was stuck here forever. So no matter how hot and bothered Baird made her (even though it killed her to admit it) she had to keep her cool. And that meant avoiding scenes like the one they’d had before he stormed out of the suite at all costs.
When she had made a complete circuit of the room, she found something she’d missed on the way in. Right by the door was a small alcove that seemed to contain nothing but a long flat counter on an elevated surface about waist high. Resting on top of the counter was some kind of mat or cushion—it was difficult to tell in the gloom. It reminded Liv of a massage table for some reason but shoved into the alcove the way it was, there was no room for a masseuse. “Weird,” she whispered to herself and reached out to press two fingers against the dark surface of the mat.
Immediately the mat came to life, grabbing at her fingers and kneading them firmly with what felt like fingers of its own. Liv screamed and jerked her hand away as every horror movie she’d ever seen flashed through her head. Her shriek echoed eerily in the tiled bathroom, spooking her even more until her heart was pounding so hard she felt like it might break through her ribs.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered unsteadily, putting a hand to her chest. Finally her breathing slowed and her heart stopped its awful hammering which was good—for a minute she’d felt like she was going into cardiac arrest. At least the weird black mat thing had let her go immediately and not tried to suck her down into its thick surface like something out of a Stephen King novel. She’d stumbled backward when the mat had first touched her but now Liv dared to take a step forward and look at it again.
Studying the narrow alcove where the mat rested, she saw a series of buttons on the wall above it. There was some kind of marking beneath each one but it was much too dark to even tell if it was printing or some kind of instructional symbols no matter how hard Liv squinted. She supposed she could climb up onto the mat to look more closely but there was no way she was risking full body contact with the thing. Damn it, she really wished she had some light! It was incredibly frustrating trying to feel her way around an alien’s apartment in the dark. The minute Baird came back from his little shopping trip she was going to give him a piece of her mind.
Sighing, Liv pressed her fingers to the wall again and left the bathroom behind. Further down the hall was another dark opening—the doorway to another room no doubt. Maybe there would be a light switch there so she could see where she was going. Or failing that maybe she’d find a flashlight or a glow stick. Hell, at this point she would settle for a candle and some matches. Anything to make navigating Baird’s strange apartment easier. Or at least more visible.
The new room, when she reached it, appeared to be much larger that the bathroom she’d left behind and Liv wondered what its purpose was. Maybe a living area? The carpet from the hallway ended abruptly at the threshold and she felt a harder surface beneath her feet. It wasn’t as cold as the tile though—maybe some kind of wood? The light was even dimmer in here, making it almost completely black.
Squinting, Liv followed the wall until her fingertips encountered a different texture. Something cool and smooth like chilled glass made her fingers tingle as she touched it. Before she could draw her hand away (she’d had enough surprises when it came to putting her hands on strange surfaces, thank you very much) there was a soft whooshing sound and a gust of cold air blew out at her. At the same time, a cool white light popped on, finally shedding some much needed illumination on the room around her.
“A kitchen,” Liv muttered to herself, blinking as her eyes got used to the new light. It wasn’t very bright at all—maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of a ten or fifteen watt bulb—but she’d been stumbling around in the mostly dark suite for so long it seemed dazzling for a moment.
What made her think the area must be a kitchen was the dim outline of countertops and something that looked like a sink she could see to her far left. To her immediate left, and much closer, was another flat shiny surface that might have been some kind of a stove or cook top. There was a cluster of buttons on the wall above it but no place to put the food into, like an oven, that Liv could see. Maybe the Kindred didn’t do much baking.