I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Alyx’s voice coming from right behind me. Shit! I was late. I honestly must just sit around and perfect the art of making bad first impressions. “Sorry! I know I’m late. I got…distracted.” Damn, that sounded lame—distracted from doing my job on the first day.
Alyx laughed and damn, it was the sexiest sound in the entire world. “No worries, Kailar. We don’t adhere to a strict schedule in this household.” He looked at the fish and back to me. “It appears the fish are quite smitten with you.”
“Something like that,” I answered. “Is this a trick you’ve taught them?”
He laughed again. “Sea creatures do what they enjoy. I wouldn’t try to teach them tricks. I feel sure they’d make my efforts backfire on me.” He leaned in closer. “Were you communicating with them?”
It was my turn to laugh. “I don’t think any of us have the power to communicate with marine life. That’s silly.” Jeezus, had I just called him silly? Open mouth, insert foot. Why, oh why, couldn’t I be handsome and articulate better?
“We’ll see,” he answered as he placed his hand on my upper back. Once again, the tickling feeling in my sides returned. “Come along. Let’s grab something to eat and then we’ll start my therapy.”
To my surprise, he led me to the main dining room. Keion was already seated with a few other men I hadn’t met but who nobody offered to introduce. All of them were so handsome and they looked vaguely alike. Were they related? There was a huge buffet set up along one side of the room, in front of yet another life-sized aquarium. “You must really like fish.”
Alyx smiled. Keion said, “Oh, yes. You have absolutely no idea how much we love the beauty of most sea life.”
“Would you like me to fix your plate, Kailar?” Alyx offered politely. “You look tired. Did you not sleep well?”
It was a “drop the mic” moment for me, sending me crashing back to reality. I jerked the plate from his hand and started filling it up with whatever—at that moment I could have cared less. “Dying people always look tired, Alyx. There’s really no need for you to remind me.” My eyes darted around the room. “Where do your hired employees eat? I’ll go there and not ruin your appetites.”
“You aren’t dying, Kailar,” Alyx answered softly. “And you’re not ruining anything. I simply meant that your eyes look tired this morning—not as blue-green as they used to be.” He guided me to the table and urged me to take a seat with the nod of his head. “And you’ll take all your meals with me or with Keion if I’m out on business.”
I sat my plate down hard and jammed my ass down in the chair even harder. “How did you know my eyes used to be a weird blue-green color before I got sick? Have you been checking up on me? Stalking me? What exactly is going on here anyway?”
He looked startled at my tone, and to tell the truth, I was pretty surprised myself. Why was I speaking to him this way? I’d let old Dragon Face insult the hell out of me and never said a word, but this man made me feel irritation and I had no idea why.
Keion bit back a laugh. “Alyx, you are such a dumbass.”
Alyx frowned at his brother. “Oh, how? Enlighten me as you so love to do.”
“I think you are remembering the eye color of a stubborn young man you used to know. Kailar’s eyes have just been green as long as we’ve known him. This morning, they’re getting a hint of blue in them, though.” Keion’s attention settled on me. “Do your eyes change color often?”
I stared at my plate. The conversation was definitely getting weird, but the thing that bothered me the most was that there was some young man with beautiful blue green eyes that Alyx obviously thought about on a regular basis. Jealous. Yep, that was me. If anything, my eyes should be pea green with jealousy at the moment. How could I be jealous of someone I didn’t know over someone with whom I had no relationship?
“Nope,” I answered with more snap and venom in my voice than was necessary. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Are they always green then?” Alyx asked, refusing to let me keep wallowing in whatever it was I was wallowing in.
I’d eaten enough and pushed my plate aside. “Yes.Pukegreen. Can we please drop this? We all know I look like a freak of nature. End of story. Move on.” After the outburst, I dropped my head and wished I could suck every word back in. What the hell was wrong with me talking to them like this? I really needed this job. My stepmom needed me to have this job.
Alyx cleared his throat after a long awkward silence. “I apologize. Let’s move to the therapy room and get started, shall we? My leg is already throbbing.”
Shit…now I felt even worse.
“Yes. Of course,” I stammered quickly. “I apologize, as well. I guess I focus too much on my looks…or the lack thereof. I’ve dealt with more than one Dragon lady in the past few years. Obviously, it’s made me an asshole.”
Everyone at the table laughed. Thank God. I grabbed the sleeve of Alyx’s robe and whispered, “I truly am sorry. I’m never this rude. I don’t know what got into me.”
He took my arm and led me from the room. “Don’t worry. It’s just hormones. I’m struggling, as well.”
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “What? I think both of us have passed the ‘hormones’ stage!”
“Don’t rule it out,” he answered softly as he opened the door for me.
The room was massive and obviously served as a gym and his therapy area. He’d been honest when he said the pool wasn’t too deep…on one end. I hope we worked on just the shallow end. I felt a panic attack already threatening to come full on. As I looked closer, I noticed that the shallow end was set up where you could just walk down a ledge to get into the water. It grew deeper and deeper but there was a significant shallow area and bench seats along the walls—that’s where I intended to hang out. I had no clue what I was doing here. Alyx clearly didn’t look as if he needed anyone helping him.
“Don’t panic, Kailar. There’s nothing here that can hurt you. I’m going to go in and get started. Set your own pace.” After that, he removed his robe, and my heart literally stopped beating. He was…magnificent. Every damn thing about him. The small speedo hugged his ass cheeks. Unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten to see the front yet. Without even thinking, I tossed my own robe aside, didn’t pause even for a second to dwell on the differences in our bodies, his gorgeous and mine decidedly less so. I followed him into the water like a puppy follows its owner. And just like when I’d touched the aquarium, my entire body felt like it lit up. Before the Tybee incident, I’d loved to swim, but my body had never responded like it did now. I wanted to follow Alyx as he went deeper into the water but common sense, aka cowardice, finally took over and I made my way to the bench along the wall. The water reached to the top of my knees. I could handle that.
Maybe. Probably.