Three months of brutal captivity. Three months of attempting to recover. How in the Three Hells could she respond to any man, let alone the one who’d made her a prisoner again and who’d endangered the most important people in her life? Was this sudden awaking of her most primal self part of the recovery process? Was it even normal? She sagged. No way to know. It wasn’t like anyone had the data to define normal parameters for surviving Chekydran victims. They were a rare breed. And the man sitting in her father’s command chair was watching her every move on the galley transmitters. She straightened, scrubbed her face with her hands, unable to escape what she’d seen in his eyes. He liked what he saw when he looked at her. Some deeply hidden feminine core stirred to life within her. She’d seen so many feigned reactions to her appearance that she knew his appraisal had been honest and that it had taken him by surprise. Maybe that’s what had reached her. Extracting a response from someone who did not want to respond made Ari feel richer somehow.
