Married to Krampus - Marina Simcoe Page 0,44
Shula, of course. She had given me a glimpse into how Earth females might be perceived in Voran, and I had not been looking forward to hearing more insults from anyone.
Thankfully, my worst fears hadn’t been realized. Yesterday had gone pretty well. Sure, there had been stares and even a few whispers behind my back, but no one had dared insult me to my face. Most had actually made a visible effort to be nice to me.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to have a talk with the instructor?” The Colonel glared from under his bushy eyebrows. “I can find some time to visit the classroom this morning. No one would dare to even think about treating you badly after I’m done with them.”
“Oh, I know they wouldn’t.” I snorted a laugh when I imagined showing up to class on the arm of the big, mean Colonel. “Most would probably pee their pants at the sight of you.” I wasn’t even kidding about that one. The Colonel in a fit of rage was terrifying. I knew that for a fact.
“Everyone who disrespects you is disrespecting me,” he snarled.
“Calm down.” I patted his hand that was still holding the freaking tablet. “No one is disrespecting me. Everybody was courteous and polite. Oh, and one woman, her name is Diecrie, but the instructor was calling her Madam Judge Cistridus, she even told me how glad she was that the Voranian government moved ahead with the Liaison Program. Her father recently passed away. He was alone and lonely. She is hoping her three brothers will eventually earn the honor of having human wives to love and grow old with.”
The Colonel took a step closer to me.
“You see, this here,” he waved his hand between us, “it’s bigger than you and me. It’s a hope for many men in my country.” He placed his hand on my shoulder then slid it down to circle my bare upper arm.
The warmth in his eyes heated slowly as he drew little circles on my skin with his thumb.
My arm tingled where his hand touched it, the sensation rippling downwards. The tension in the air now crackled with heat I had no idea what to do with. I felt like either running away from him or throwing myself at him and kissing the living hell out of him.
Neither scenario would be appropriate for what we now were—a boss and an employee. I had hoped that having clear roles would simplify our relationship. On the contrary, it’d only gotten more complicated.
An employer shouldn’t be caressing his nanny’s arms, and she shouldn’t be enjoying every little physical contact with him as much as I was.
So, I dealt with the situation the only way I knew how, by making a stupid joke.
“Well, if Voranian men hope to get human wives, they’d better start getting used to the sight of human feet. The sooner they accept the fact that our women have toes, the less chance of them freaking out the way you did.”
“Hey,” his expression eased into a smile as he chuckled. “I don’t mind your toes. You know I wouldn’t say a word if you were to run around completely barefoot.”
“You wouldn’t? But that would deprive me of the chance to tease you. Besides, all the shoes you got for me are too cute to walk barefoot. Ooops...” I glanced at Omni’s screen nearby, “now, we really need to hurry.” I grabbed him under his arm, tugging him toward the parking platform. “Or we both will be late.”
Once inside the aircraft, I decided he was in a decent enough mood this morning to bring up another subject. Again.
“Colonel, you must have noticed, I’ve been trying to make something in the kitchen,” I started, carefully.
“Yes. What are you trying to do?” He connected his tablet to the control panel for re-charging.
“Baking. I want to figure out how to bake my recipes from home, using Voranians ingredients.”
“Why? You don’t like our desserts?”
That wasn’t the point, but he had been so stubborn about this entire thing from the beginning.
“No, everything I’ve eaten in Voran so far has been tasty. Except for the recols, of course. Since my class ends at noon, I have an entire afternoon with nothing to do.”
“You like to bake that much?” He glanced at me with curiosity.
No temper flare-ups, I noted, so far so good.
“It relaxes me,” I explained. “Baking is something I’ve done since I was a little girl. My grandmother taught me how to bake, and