Free Marked by Elisabeth Naughton

less—was in direct opposition to the tough woman she obviously had to be in such an establishment. He tried to reconcile the two parts of her but couldn’t.
    And then there was this house. Before he’d made his appearance in her kitchen, he’d taken a thorough tour and familiarized himself with both the interior and exterior. The house itself was old, the interior done mostly in white with bead-board walls and delicate crown moldings. The rooms were small, the ceiling only a foot or so above his head. The furnishings were antiques he couldn’t picture her buying, because they didn’t fit with what he’d seen in her bedroom: a red velvet club chair and fluffy gold pillows he could easily envision her sinking into. Modern art on the walls, a silver-framed mirror reflecting back into the room. Most of the house looked decorated by an elderly person. That one room didn’t.
    He made a mental note to ask her about the difference, and then changed his mind. In the long run her answer wouldn’t matter. After tonight he’d never see her again.
    He found the stereo equipment and was just opening the CD drawer when she walked into the room. A hint oflavender preceded her, signaling her arrival to his senses, setting off a heated reaction in his groin.
    “Did you find anything worth listening to?”
    He grabbed the first CD in the stack and read the cover. “Bing Crosby?”
    Casey burst out laughing. He turned at the infectious sound, not entirely sure why she found his suggestion so amusing, but enjoying the reaction. If there was one thing he’d learned about humans over the last two hours, it was that they were wildly unpredictable and passionate in ways Argoleans never were.
    “Is that wrong?” he asked hesitantly.
    “Not if you’re eighty, I suppose.” She walked toward him and stopped so close he could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Her fingers brushed his as she flipped through the stack, sending a tingling along his nerve endings that, oddly, relaxed him. “Most of these were my grandmother’s. She had a thing for good ol’ Bing.” She held up two CDs with Christmas trees on the front. He knew enough about human culture to recognize the holiday. “She’d listen to these year-round. Didn’t matter if it was June or December.”
    She put Bing’s CDs back and flipped a few more before she found one she liked. “Try this one. It’s mine. I’ll go grab my first-aid supplies while you do that.”
    He glanced at the CD cover. A man in a white shirt and big cowboy hat looked back at him. He didn’t have a clue what kind of music it was, but he figured if she picked it, it had to be good. Music began filtering out of the speakers as he moved to the couch and sat down.
    The seat wasn’t large enough for his big body, but he stretched his legs out and relaxed back into the cushions anyway. He could hear Casey rummaging in the bathroom cabinet and smiled to himself. It had been a long time since he’d had to seduce a female. As an Argonaut, Argolean woman were his for the taking. If he wantedcompanionship, a crook of his finger was usually all it took.
    She came back into the room and sat on the edge of the sofa just out of his reach, placing the first-aid kit on the low coffee table. “I love Kenny Chesney. He’s got the best voice.”
    For a fleeting moment, he wondered just who the heck this Kenny person was and how he could find him and beat him to a pulp. Then when she started humming along to the music, he realized she was talking about the singer on the CD.
    And wasn’t that just the weirdest reaction to have? If he were human, he’d have defined the feeling as jealousy, but that was an unknown emotion for an Argonaut.
    He managed a wan smile.
    She glanced at his face with a look of skepticism; then her gaze ran down to his legs and back up again quickly. A blush crept across her cheeks, one that warmed his blood all over again.
    “You”—she cleared her throat—“are going to have to