THE OFF WORLD COLLECTION (Short, Steamy Science Fiction Romances) (Off-World Series) by Rebecca York Read Free Book Online Page A

gaze, had to look away.
    For several more moments, silence hung in the darkness between them. Then her fingers flattened against his hot skin.
    “Let me see if this salve works,” she whispered. “I want it to work. I want to give you that. Maybe it’s all I can give you.”
    The soft sound of her voice kept him pinned to the bed as her hand glided over his leg, spreading some kind of cream. At first her touch brought him pain, and he clenched his teeth to keep from wrenching away. But in a few moments he felt something else: deep, comforting warmth, radiating through his skin, penetrating all the way to the bone.
    Still, as her hand moved lower, toward the place where the energy burst had charred his flesh, he felt cold sweat break out on his forehead.
    She kept talking to him in a low voice, words he couldn’t quite catch. Yet they held him. He wanted to close his eyes, to pretend that the darkness hid his mangled body. At the same time, he wanted to turn on a light, so he could see her delicate features. He settled for straining his eyes, watching her bending over him, the long flow of her spectacular Farlian hair, with its rippling waves, curtaining her face.
    “Is it doing anything?” she asked, her voice giving away her tension.
    “I . . . think so.”
    “Good.” The word eased from her lips like a long, satisfied sigh.
    He reached toward her, but before his hand could connect with her flesh, she sprang away. For a moment she stood looking down at him, then she turned and ran out of the room.
    The next morning, he might have chalked the whole thing up to fevered dreams, except that he could see the orange salve on his leg. He also felt a difference in the wound. The pain was less gnawing.
    He limped to the bathroom, using the folding crutch they’d given him in the hospital, and took a quick shower, bracing his back against the curved wall and standing on one leg. When he had carefully dried the stump, he attached the prosthesis and braced for the hot pain that always came when he first put his weight on the damned thing.
    It wasn’t quite so bad.
    He started down the hall, then, on second thought, stopped and went back. Standing in front of the mirror, he ran his hand over the dark stubble that covered his cheeks. He had intended to leave it. Instead he slathered hair-dissolving foam on the nascent beard and washed it away. The foam left his cheeks smooth and undisguised, forcing him to acknowledge the weight he’d lost. He looked lean and hungry and, in his own eyes, angry.
    He tried to lighten his expression, to erase the frown, to make his lips curve upward in a smile. When he realized his attempts to rearrange his features only made things worse, he grimaced and turned away.
    Kasimanda wasn’t in the galley. But there was a plate of grain cakes on a warming square. And real coffee. Maybe the residents of the house had left it in long-term storage, he thought as he breathed in the wonderful aroma, then poured some into the delicate ceramic mug she’d set on the table for him.
    Her grain cakes melted in his mouth, like the ones his mother had made, and he realized that she must have used a Dorre recipe. He wanted to tell her how good they were, but she didn’t appear when he called her name.
    “You don’t have to leave,” he said more loudly, hoping his voice conveyed a note of apology for his insensitivity of the night before. “You can stay here as long as you want.”
    No answer.
    Half disappointed, half relieved, he went back to the power center and spent the morning on repairs. When the sun had reached its zenith and begun its slow fall toward the horizon, he headed outside to inspect the farm machinery. He wasn’t going to look for her, he told himself as he limped his way to the large barn, where the equipment was kept.
    After satisfying himself that the riding scour and harvester were in working order, he returned to the galley, where he found she’d put away most of the supplies he’d