“Uh . . . yeah. OK.” I took a step backward.

Garth shut the door, leaving it cracked open the barest amount. I didn’t think he realized I could see his reflection in the bedroom window.

Feeling like a voyeur, I moved back to the kitchen island and reached out to let Eva sniff my fingers. She extended her neck, her little pink nostrils flaring, then blinked and turned her head away from me. At least she didn’t try to bite me.

I looked around the dining-slash-living room, trying my hardest to ignore the crack in the door. Garth’s furniture out here fit with what was in his bedroom, his preferred design aesthetic striking me as clean, functional, and simple. There was little in the way of knickknacks or personal touches, unless you counted the big-ass painting of a whale on the wall behind the couch. I thought it was an orca, though it was hard to tell, since the image was done in a distinctly coastal Native American style, all black and red on a white background.

At the sound of clothing hitting the hardwood floor, my focus shifted back to the crack in the doorway. The shirt of Garth’s uniform was gone, as was his bulky bulletproof vest, and he was pulling his white undershirt off over his head. He wasn’t flawless, not like so many Nejerets who’d had decades or even centuries to perfect their bodies, and he was almost more appealing for it. He was muscular, but not jacked, his physique honed more for function than attraction.

I smiled to myself. He treated his body just like he treated his home—function over form.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had some ink, all in the same style as that lone painting on the living room wall. There was a round-ish palm-sized design with a face on his chest over his heart, and when he turned to head toward the closet, I became enamored with the piece on his back. It was enormous, of an owl with outstretched wings, the tips reaching the ends of his shoulders and a moon with a face filling the space between his shoulder blades. It was stunning—so striking and beautifully evocative of his heritage.

The sound of his belt coming off shook me out of my voyeuristic stupor, and I turned my back to the door and reached for my glass. “What?” I said to Eva just before I took a hearty swig.

She was staring at me. Judging me, I was certain.

I cleared my throat. “So,” I said, raising my voice so Garth could hear me in the other room. “I’m surprised they let you go back to work so soon.”

“The station’s short-staffed.” He made a sound that was part grunt, part groan. “They didn’t even wait until I got home from the hospital to ask me to come in on light duty. The guy who drove me home let me know they needed me to come in the next day—chief’s orders.”