by A. G. Wilde
Instead, he focused on the scoop and on feeding her the rest of the soup.
Maybe because she was stunned by this sudden change in his behavior or maybe it was because a part of her liked the fact he was being so attentive for a change, but she sat in silence allowing him to feed her.
And the longer it went on, the more intimate it felt.
“Why did you make this for me?” she asked.
His eyes met hers for a second before refocusing on his task of feeding her. “You hurt yourself.”
Lauren huffed out a small laugh through her nose. “It almost sounds like you care.”
Riv glanced at her again, giving her the last scoop. “I shouldn’t.”
That wasn’t a no. That was a yes. Yes, he cared.
He put the spoon in the bowl and leaned forward, his index finger brushing against the corner of her lips as he removed a droplet of soup there.
It was such a sudden, unexpected movement that her breath hitched in her throat.
He must have caught himself then, because his finger froze by the corner of her lips.
His gaze was heated when he finally looked at her.
“I apologize,” he finally said.
Two more words she hadn’t expected.
“Apologize for what?” Her voice was almost a whisper and his gaze fell to her lips as she spoke.
“You’ve been overworked.”
A small, nervous chuckle huffed through her nose this time. “Hardly. I’m just not used to working with my hands. Back where I’m from, work consisted of sitting on my ass around a desk and clacking at keys on the computer. It wasn’t…” She glanced around the room. “It wasn’t anything like this.”
Riv dropped his finger from her cheek, his gaze moving with the same slow precision from her lips back to her eyes.
“Do you miss your planet?”
Lauren’s eyebrows rose a little. He’d never asked her about Earth before.
“I do.” She paused. “My planet has blue skies and green forests. It’s nothing like Hudo III with its pink sky and yellow-orange grass. I had friends, family, coworkers…life was okay.” She paused again. “I can never return there. I have to make a new life now.”
“Is that why you overworked? You didn’t need to.”
“I know,” she used his words. “But I’m a fool.”
Was it just her, or was the air around them suddenly now thick?
He was still leaning forward, close enough for her to make out the small pattern of bumps that dotted the bridge of his nose and rose over his eyebrows.
Still, she didn’t move away, and neither did he.
Tentatively, she outstretched her hand, and Riv’s gaze snapped to it immediately, mild alarm widening his eyes slightly as her hand moved forward and she traced a finger over the bumps on his nose.
He jerked a little, almost as if he wanted to pull away, but he didn’t. He looked down the bridge of his nose at her finger then lifted that same slightly alarmed gaze to her.
“I—”
“Don’t,” his whisper was hoarse, restrained.
Don’t touch him or don’t speak? She wasn’t sure.
The air around them was so thick now, she could hardly breathe and when she pulled her hand away, she saw his throat move in unison with hers.
Whatever was happening right now was dangerous.
She needed to regain control or what happened that night might just happen again.
A girl needed to learn from her mistakes.
“Come.” He stood suddenly.
“Come?” Her brows furrowed a little.
“You need a warm cleanse.”
Ah. The shower.
“Right,” she said, standing and trying not to wince with the effort. Was she really that unfit? She’d tried to keep exercising while in the terrarium. It hadn’t been the greatest way to spend her time but it had helped her keep her sanity. “I guess I do need a bath, don’t I?”
“Why do you ask questions you don’t wish for me to answer?”
Lauren huffed out a short laugh. This was the Riv she was used to. The grumpy, slightly irritable, blue alien.
“They’re rhetorical questions, Riv. It’s in the definition. I already knew the answer before I asked.” She pushed the chair so it moved back under the table and took a step toward the corridor, sucking in air as she did.
Shit. Her muscles were really effed up.
“Then why ask?”
She paused.
“Conversation? I thought we were having a conversation.”
He grunted, his eyes softening a little.
Lauren turned away from him and took one step and another, wincing as she did. It seemed the walk to the bathroom was going to take much longer than usual at the rate she was going.
These last few days had really taken a toll on her, more than she’d realized even, for her body to be reacting like this.
Before she knew what was happening, she was lifted off her feet by strong arms.
A yelp left her lips and the next thing she knew, her view was of Riv’s taut trouser-clad ass.
An ass she’d had the pleasure of viewing in its most natural form.
“What are you—”
“Don’t resist,” he said as he began walking down the corridor. “When you resist, you writhe, and when you writhe…”
Lauren stopped moving, his words rendering her silent and a heat beginning to grow between her thighs.
Falling limp against him, she took a deep breath to calm herself.
This close, his musk filled her nose.
It was the type of smell that made a girl want to kiss a guy and then tie herself up, legs splayed, mouth gagged, so he could delve deep into the center of her universe and make her scream.
Yea, she was thirsty all right. Considering he wasn’t the nicest or friendliest of persons, she was really thirsty.
Her senses came back to her when he set her down in the bathroom.
Moving over to the wall, he pressed a series of small squares embedded into the wall itself and a sort of whirring noise began.
In front of her eyes, one section of the wall began curving forward, forming a tub.
“Whoa.” She could only stare. “The heck?”
Riv glanced her way. “Do you not have cleansing tubs,” he cleared his throat and she realized he was trying out this conversation thing, “on your planet?”
Lauren smiled. “Yes, but they’re fixtures in the actual room. They don’t appear out of bendable walls.”
Riv nodded.
Pressing a few more buttons, he started the jets and the tub began to fill with water.
He brushed past her then and exited the room without another word.
Well, there went the conversation.
She thought he’d gone and was about to start undressing when he reentered with a little packet in his hand.
The packet had some sort of powder that he sprinkled over the water.
The powder created a thin shimmer and the water itself looked warm and inviting, little wisps of steam escaping from the surface to float into the air.
She could just imagine sinking her aching body beneath the surface and she had to bite back a moan.
“What’s the powder for?” she asked, instead, turning to look up at him.
“Healing salts.”
She raised her eyebrows then, opening her mouth to ask him why he was suddenly going out of his way to be so nice.
Instead, she said, “Thank you.”
He didn’t reply. He only seemed to stiffen some more.
She didn’t know what had gotten into him but she wasn’t going to question it.
This was the second time in a year she’d felt like a human being and not just property or something unwanted. The first being when he’d taken her shopping at the market.
Stepping forward, she made to begin undressing when she glanced behind her to see he was still standing there.
“I need to… I need privacy
to undress.”
She wasn’t sure, the steam was beginning to make it hard to see, but she was almost sure the skin on his face flushed to a darker shade.
“You will need help washing.”
It was her turn to blush. “What?”
“I am here to assist you.”
That took her off guard and it must have shown because his shoulders stiffened some more.
“I can do it myself.” She looked down at her palms. Maybe not. Maybe she couldn’t do it herself.
She did need his help.
Fine.
“Ok. I may need your help but you have to turn around while I undress and I only need help with my hair, if you don’t mind.”
Riv swallowed hard. She could see his throat move.
“I don’t mind.”
The air felt thick again as she watched him turn around.
Stripping as fast as she could through the aches and pains, she settled into the tub.
The water felt as good as it looked. Absolutely divine.
“You can turn around now.”
He did so slowly, his eyes taking in the fact that she was completely covered by the warm bath.
She’d dipped as low as she could, and thanks to the dimness of the room, she couldn’t see her body underneath the water.
Riv walked forward, pulling up the sleeves of his tunic.
He came to stand behind the tub and Lauren’s breath caught in her throat as she waited.
The first touch of his hand against her scalp was utterly heavenly and she moaned low in her throat without meaning to.
His hand stiffened at the sound and she wished she could sink underneath the water and hide for a bit.
This was why she never washed her hair at the salon. Scalp massages always had a way of making her express her delight verbally, much to the chagrin of her hairdressers.
Riv’s fingers started moving again as he reached for the soap and lathered her hair, wetting it with one hand and lathering with the other.
For a few seconds, Lauren rested her head back against the tub, allowing him to work the dirt out of her strands.
He was doing it so well, almost as if he had practice.
“You’re awesome at this.”
“I had much practice washing Sohut’s fur as a chid.”
“Oh. You were a caring big brother.”
Riv paused, his fingers stilling. “I was more than a big brother. I was everything.”
She didn’t know how to reply to that so she remained silent.
As he washed the soap from her hair, Lauren realized something.
She was lying naked in a tub in front of him.
She’d slept in a room without any protection while he was nearby.
And not once had she feared for her safety. Even now, when she was vulnerable, there wasn’t that feeling that he might take advantage of her.
She frowned at this realization, not because it angered her but because it puzzled her.
“Riv?”
His fingers paused.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice?”
A few seconds ticked by.
“I know you think I’m a nuisance, that I’m property—”
“I do not think you’re property.”
A small chuckle left her lips. “You think I’m a nuisance, though.”
“You talk to the animals. You sing to them. When you’re gone, they will want me to do the same.”
Right. The smile dried on her lips.
This wasn’t permanent. He was still intent on getting rid of her.
“Right.” She’d forgotten she wasn’t welcome at the Sanctuary. She looked back at him. “Thank you. Are you finished?”
He froze, opening his mouth to say something before it slammed shut again.
With a nod, Riv stood and walked toward the door, opening it and sliding out silently.
When a part of her protested at him leaving, she took it by the neck and stomped on it.
She didn’t need to be nurturing feelings for Riv.
He was the sort of guy you crushed on in high school but who would look right through you.
A girl didn’t find herself in another galaxy, so far from home, to be having juvenile feelings for an alien who didn’t want her.
She didn’t survive this long to die from heartbreak on another planet.
She’d rather die alone.
26
That night she couldn’t sleep.
Combined with tossing around in bed, she just couldn’t get her mind off him.
He’d left some long thin strips of moist material on the bed in her room. The strips smelled medicinal and she’d assumed they were to bandage her hands, so that’s exactly what she’d used them to do. She’d bandaged her palms and left her fingers free.
She guessed he’d had enough of her for one day because after the bath, he’d disappeared.
But it was amazing what a good warm bath could do—or maybe it was those healing salts.
Her muscles didn’t ache so badly anymore and with the bandages over her hands, she couldn’t feel the pulsing of the blisters.
Sighing, Lauren tossed this way and that.
Why was it so hard to sleep?
No matter how she told herself it was bad, really bad for her to think about him in any other way except the fact he was a bit of a dick, her mind—no, her vagina, wasn’t listening.
Maybe she had daddy issues.
Her father had left when she was young.
Maybe this was her way of acting out, albeit that it was happening a decade too late and on the wrong frickin’ planet.
She was attracted to the hot guy who was bad for her psyche even though her mother had warned her about such men.
She should know better.
When she did manage to get some sleep, images of Riv came to her in her dreams.
She imagined how his hands had felt against her scalp, how he’d touched her gently by the lips…she imagined what it must feel like if he touched her in other ways…
She knew what this was. It was that human trait of wanting what you could not have.
That’s what this was.
Turning, she clenched her thighs together and closed her eyes.
Her clit ached for her fingers and the longer she ignored it the more intense the need became.
Fuck.
Turning to lie on her back, Lauren stared up into the roof.
She couldn’t believe she was about to do this.
His sat phone pinged in his pocket.
What now?
Sliding the device out, he frowned at it before he realized who it was.
“Sohut?”
“Riv,” his brother sounded breathless. “I phekked up badly, brother.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something I have to deal with. I don’t know when I’ll be coming back to the Sanctuary.”
“Something like what?”
“Remember that exotic animal I’m here to catch?”
“Yes…”
“She’s not an animal.”
“She?”
There was momentary silence as he waited for his brother to continue.
“She, brother. She. The same species as Larn.”
“You mean La-rehn?”
“La-rehn. Yes.” Sohut’s voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Well, I helped capture one of her kind and…” his brother paused “…I phekked up, brother. I think I’m going to have to do something stupid.”
Riv’s eyes narrowed.
Sohut’s definition of “stupid” was the same as that of “dangerous.”
“Explain.”
“No time. I—”
The call clicked off and Riv stared at the device.
Phek.
It was just one problem after another.
He knew Sohut could handle himself. He’d been the one to teach him how to fight.
That didn’t make him feel better, though.
If his brother had indeed found another human, he wished he would leave her alone.
From his experience, humans were nothing but trouble.
They secretly invaded then wheedled their way in until they became entwined in every aspect of your life.
Speaking of humans…
Riv looked down the corridor at the human’s door.
He needed to check on her.
The way he saw it, she’d almost killed herself by working too hard, even though he’d made a point to do ninety percent of the work himself.
He should just enter the room and check quickly.
It was his house. Why was he hesitating?
She was probably asleep, anyway.
He could slip inside the room, check on her, and slip back out without her even realizing.
He was hovering in front of the door before he could change his mind.
Punching the locking mechanism, the door opened with a soft hiss and Riv stood in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the light in the room.
But the gasp that reached his ears had him freezing as he took in the sight before him.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to do or say.
His eyes had already adjusted to the light in the room and he couldn’t look away.
She was awake and looking at him, her eyes wide, her entire body rigid.
She was only in her tunic and her legs were splayed—long, pink, naked legs wide open with her hand between them.
The world slowed down as he realized what she’d been doing, what he’d interrupted, and his throat suddenly became dry.
“La-rehn?”
Her throat moved but no words came forth.
Shock had them both caught in its web.
He didn’t know he was moving till he smelled her arousal and realized he’d moved to stand by her sleeping pad. The thick, sweet scent coming from between her legs was like a thick dose of her pheromones.
It was exactly how he’d imagined she would smell.
Still, she lay frozen. She’d clamped her legs shut but her arm was clamped between them.
“Riv? What are you doing in here?”
Her words brought him out of his daze and he met her gaze.
There was surprise there and horror mixed with her retreating arousal.
He had to clear his throat and blink away the thoughts clouding his head, very aware that his cock throbbed against his leg. For once, he was wishing she wouldn’t break his gaze and look down.