Just in Time: Portals of Time by Kathryn Shay Read Free Book Online Page B

of desire surged through her. To counteract it, and to show this male he couldn’t push her around, she brought both arms up, broke his hold, jutted out her hand, and splayed his jugular.
    Luke’s reaction was split-second. He thrust her away, circled her and got her in a headlock.
    Dorian wrapped her foot around his leg and took him down. He landed on the ground on his back, grabbed
her
ankle so she toppled onto him.
    They were breathing hard, their legs intimately entwined, their chests pressed against each other’s. “You’re good,” he said with an admiring chuckle as he smiled at her. The gesture was…gorgeous.
    Battling back a grin, she nodded. “So are you.” Then she pinned his arms to the ground but guessed he let her. “Don’t put your hands on me again, Lieutenant, unless you’re invited to.”
    Again some mirth, and what was that? An indentation in his cheek? “You thinking about asking me to touch you, darlin’?”
    Dorian’s body went liquid. She felt
his
harden as they stared at each other, flushed, eyes locked. Suddenly, the air seemed to crackle as much as when they’d backtracked.
    “Am I interrupting?”
    Dorian glanced up to see Jess had come into the living room. Quickly, she climbed off Luke and stood. He rolled to his feet and they simultaneously stepped away from each other. Dorian remembered a time when she, Celeste and Alisha had been a decade and a half old and had gotten into the history chips Rhea, Celeste’s donor, kept in her dwelling. They’d found reading material called
BoyPlay.
Young and old men were posed naked, and the sight had absorbed them. When Rhea came in, she tried to explain why the people of the past liked such odd gazing material; the three of them had been embarrassed by their reactions to it. Like she was now.
    The expression on Jess’s face was one of amusement. “What’s going on?”
    Luke’s fists curled and uncurled at his sides. His face reddened and his muscles pulsed. “We had a disagreement.”
    “And fought physically over it?”
    “Not exactly.”
    Dorian shot Jess a warning glance, trying to signal him that they’d talk about this later. “It’s not important.”
    Hesitating, Jess gave her a long stare. “Okay, I’m ready to look at your report. Helen and I are going to a movie marathon today, and it starts in two hours.”
    Luke eyed him suspiciously. “Jess, is anything going on that I don’t know about? You never take this kind of time off.”
    “Just stopping to smell the roses.”
    Whatever the hellor that meant, Dorian thought.
    Luke seemed to know because he crossed to the table, dropped down and opened his folder. Jess and Dorian did the same. But she was too close to Luke to concentrate, so she moved farther down the rigid couch.
    “I’ve gone through the reports on Petron workers. There are some disgruntled employees who were recently demoted or passed over for better jobs. A few of them might be in a position to know some R&D things. I’m checking them out further.”
    “Research and Development. Well, that’s progress,” Jess said.
    Grateful he’d clued her into the acronym, another proclivity of their time that had not survived and seemed silly to her.
    Luke added, “And there are some environmentalist types who might be trying to scare Jess.”
    “Or be genuinely worried about the earth.” For obvious reasons, Dorian didn’t like his dismissal of people who
did
believe global warming was a threat. Her society knew well exactly how dangerous the condition was.
    He ignored her tone. “My money is on the CEO”—he took a bead on Dorian—“Chief Executive Officer in case you missed out on the term in South America. He’d be in a position to stop Jess.”
    Obviously, she wasn’t keeping her lack of knowledge to herself and vowed to be more careful. Perhaps Alisha could give her more chips to study.
    Luke continued, “I think we should look into who might have knowledge of the brass’s plans and is