by Dixon, Ruby
And that is all I do.
It confuses her, I know. Sometimes I see her watching me, a look of anticipation in her eyes. But I do not want her to resent my presence like she did before. I do not give her room to retreat…but I also do not give her anything to retreat from. Perhaps soon enough, she will approach me with caresses and soft touches as well, and then we can become mates.
I suspect that day will be soon. Already she wakes up in the mornings with a smile on her lips at the sight of me. Already she seeks me out for warmth and comfort, and I hear her laughter far more often than her anger.
Even now, as she sews, she holds up her work to show me, seeking my approval. “What do you think?”
I pretend to examine the vines and flowers closely. I know her work is good, but leaning forward lets me peer down the front of her teat-band to the fine cleavage she shows, and lets me breathe in her intoxicating scent. “It is a beautiful sight.”
“You’re not even looking at it. You’re staring at my boobs again.”
“I am.”
She laughs and pretends to be outraged. “Fine then, This isn’t for you. I’ll embroider someone else’s sleeve that’ll appreciate it more.”
I grab her around the waist before she can get up. “You do this for me?”
“Well, whose tunic did you think I had? Silly.” She shakes it out and shows me. Sure enough, there is no mistaking the enormous size of my tunic. I had no idea. When crumpled, one leather tunic looks the same as another…which is why she is so focused on decorating hers.
I am touched. “Calida…I am honored you do this for me.”
“Pff. Don’t get too excited, cabron.” She shakes out the tunic in a busy fashion but I can tell she is pleased by my response. “I can work on mine any time. I switched to yours because I just wanted to practice on something else. You know, in case it turned out ugly.”
“You did it for me,” I point out, touched. “Many afternoons of work for me. This means you must like me a little.”
Calida snorts, but she is smiling. When my arms tighten around her, she does not get up and run away, and I rub my face against the thick fall of her mane, just enjoying her nearness. My khui is angry, its song fierce. My cock aches. But the rest of M’tok is content.
She leans back against me, easing into my arms, but she does not pick up her needle again. Instead, she gazes at the front of the cave thoughtfully. “I can see the suns today.”
“Yes, it does look clearer than before.” The small shell of her ear is so close to my lips that I fight the urge to bite it. “But the paths will still be completely covered in snow. We must wait for it to melt. That means we cannot go anywhere today.”
I wait for it to turn into a fight, but she only shrugs. “That’s good. I don’t want to go anywhere today. I need to finish your tunic.”
“You are doing more?” I am surprised.
“You only want one decorated sleeve?” Calida turns and looks at me over her shoulder, her eyebrow up in skeptical fashion. “I was going to do the other sleeve too, and maybe a design around the collar.”
“I will be overjoyed with anything you make for me.” Unable to resist, I lean in and brush the tip of my nose against her cheek. “And I am humbled that you care so much.”
“Don’t get too carried away,” she tells me, but she is smiling as she gets to work again.
19
CALLIE
I’ve got to get out of this cave.
Not because I’m stir crazy or because I hate sleeping on the ground. Not because it’s cold and remote. Not because I’m claustrophobic.
I have to get out of this cave because if M’tok keeps being cute and flirty, I’m going to jump his bones.
I wake up to another clear morning, the weak sunlight visible through the distant mouth of the cave. M’tok is already by the fire, and when I sit up, the smile he gives me makes my heart race. “I made tea,” he says. “Just the way you like it.”
If his new sneaky plan is seduction, it is working far too well, damn it all. I seem to be a sucker for a big guy that likes to cuddle and dote on me, because the M’tok I’m living in this cave with is impossible to resist. He snuggles all the time. He’s heaven to curl up under the blankets with. He loves hearing my stories and laughs at my jokes. He tells me that my needlework is amazing and basically makes me feel good all the time. And it seems so sincere that it’s thrown me for a loop.
It was a lot easier to hate him.
Also throwing me for a loop? The fact that he touches me constantly but not in a sexual way. There’s a lot of flirting involved, sure, but I’m still thinking about that incredible moment we had when I was bathing, when he touched me and rubbed my clit until I came. I’ve never climaxed so damn hard in my life, and I’m aching for it to happen again.
It hasn’t. Not even close. No matter how much I press up against him under the furs, he just holds me and strokes my hair or my arm, and that’s it. I know he hasn’t been masturbating, either, because we sleep under the blankets together. It’s frustrating.
Then it occurs to me that he might be waiting for ME to ask. And if that’s the case, the stubborn part of me wants to make him wait forever.
The needy, achy part of me doesn’t agree, though.
So basically, I’m a mess, and being in this cave with him has been wonderful and utterly confusing all at once. I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know what I want anymore. Once again, all the certainties of my life have been turned upside down.
Because a few days ago, I demanded that M’tok take me back to the village.
A few days ago, M’tok was an asshole that I wanted nothing to do with.
A few days ago, I wanted the healer to turn my cootie off entirely just to spite him.
And now, I wake up looking for his smile. I sleep pressed against his chest. I keep bathing in the hot water and splashing, hoping he’ll swing by and we can fool around again.
But M’tok doesn’t get the hint. Damn the man. Alien. Whatever.
I take the cup of tea from him and sip it, but pass on the jerky he tries to hand me for breakfast. After days upon days of eating our supplies, I’m tired of jerky for breakfast. We’re all out of roots and there’s no seed-and-root porridge like they usually have back at camp. Heck, I never thought I’d be looking forward to the bland stew they always serve but right now it sounds better than jerky.
M’tok frowns when I don’t take the food. “Do you feel well?”
“Just sick of dried meat,” I tell him, taking another sip of the tea. “I feel fine.” I glance out to the entrance of the cave, where the skies are less gray than usual, which means it’s “sunny.” “Tired of sitting in the dark, too. Maybe I’m just cranky.”
He moves to my side and puts his hands on my shoulders as I drink. Even though I’m wearing one of the bed furs wrapped around me like a shawl, he kneads my shoulders as if he’s giving me a massage, and it takes everything I have not to moan aloud. God, that feels good. “The snows have melted a little,” he admits, his strong fingers working my neck. “We could go down to the lake and fish. That will not be too far, and it will allow us to see how clear the paths are.”
I close my eyes, leaning into his touch. I’m less interested in fishing and far more interested in returning to the furs and letting him massage me all over, but I can’t say it aloud. I won’t. There’s something inside me that can’t spit the words out. I can’t ASK him to pleasure me. I just can’t. “Fishing, hmm?” My voice sounds drowsy with pleasure, even to my own ears.
“Fishing,” he agrees, and his voice is husky. I can hear the song of his cootie, just like mine won’t shut up. “Would you like to go?”
It sounds like a distraction, and at this point, I could use one. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
Going anywhere on the ice planet is a job all on its own. We bank the fire, pack a bag full of useful tools and extra food, just in case. We put on layer after layer of furs and lace
up boots, stuffing them with extra fur to insulate cold toes. When we look more like teddy bears than actual people, M’tok moves to my side and insists on putting a length of braided rope around my waist and tying it to his.
“Just in case one of us loses our footing,” he tells me.
Uh huh. “I’m pretty sure I know which one of us that might be.”
He grins, but he doesn’t say I’m wrong. He just offers me his hand, and when I take it, he shoulders his pack—spear strapped to it and all—and we head down the narrow, rocky path toward a tiny lake we passed on the way here.
I immediately regret my decision—walking on the ice-covered rocky slopes feels dangerous, and my footing skids all the time. I end up clinging to M’tok’s belt and taking small steps behind him as he tests out the footing. We move slowly, but by the time the suns are higher in the skies, I see the distant glimmer of greenish-blue water surrounded by a sea of white snow.
The snow gets thicker as we head down into the craggy valley perched on the side of the mountain, and the lake seems smaller than I remember. Not that I get much of a chance to study it; this part of the mountain seems to be a catch-all for snow, and with every step I take, M’tok has to haul me forward.
“Your legs are too short for this path,” he tells me.
“If you say the word ‘squat’ I’m going to shred your tunic when we get back to the cave,” I warn him. I can’t help but grin as I do. Even now, he’s wearing the tunic I’ve been embroidering, and I’m pretty proud of my own handiwork. He looked handsome before, but now that I’ve smoothed out the ragged edges on his sleeves and collar and am decorating them? It just makes him look even more appealing.
M’tok.
Appealing.
Clearly I’ve lost my mind.
“Do you want me to carry you?” he asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“No. We’re almost there.” I take another step forward and end up in snow to my boobs, but glare at him as I struggle my way out, daring him to say something.
His lips twitch, but the smart man says nothing at all.
The snow seems less thick as we approach the lake, and at one point, it only seems to be about ankle high. The lake burbles and is long and skinny. It smells a bit like sulfur, which means it’s not one big block of ice due to the hot stream somewhere. It might be the same hot stream that gives us water up above in our cave. “I could have sworn it was bigger,” I tell him again. “When we passed it a few days ago?”
“It was,” M’tok says, then points at where we’re standing. “This is all ice covering part of the water.”
I go completely still. “What? We’re standing on ice?” That’s…terrifying.
“I will not put you in danger, my ma—ah, Calida.” He gives me a half-grin.
Yeah, we both know what he was about to say, but I ignore it. I step gingerly forward, looking around at the blanket of snow. There’s no way to tell where the ice starts. It just looks like a big blanket of snow with a bit of blue lake at the far end. I take another step, and the ice underneath us creaks and groans. “Um…I want to get off the ice. Please.”
He doesn’t give me shit for it, thank goodness. M’tok sees my nervousness and nods, taking my hand and leading me a short distance away. “Do you see this ripple?” he asks, pointing at the faintest of lines in the endless snowy expanse only slightly mussed by our footprints. “This is where the water ends. Stay here and you will be safe.”
“Thank you,” I say. He reaches for the rope at my waist and I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “What are you doing?”
M’tok looks up. “Do you not want me to untie you?”
“No! I want to stay tied to you. What if I misstep and fall in? I want you to be able to grab me.”
He straightens, leaving the rope around my waist. A wider smile curves his mouth, and he reaches up to touch my cheek. “You think I would let you fall?”
“No, but I might let me.”
M’tok laughs as if I’ve said the funniest thing ever. He shakes his head, tests the rope to ensure it’s secured around my waist, and then sets the pack down next to me. He gets out his spear and a length of extra rope, and what looks like a net.
I frown, crossing my arms over my chest as I watch him. It’s cold out here and I’m already regretting that we left our nice, snug cave. After all, just because I’m marooned on an ice planet doesn’t mean I have to turn into an outdoorsy girl. I can be me—warm fire, cave loving me. But I also don’t want to whine about going back, not when we just got here. I don’t want M’tok to think I’m a baby.
I also don’t know when I started caring what M’tok thinks about me, but apparently I do.
Disturbed by that thought, I shiver on the shore and watch him as he heads out as far onto the ice as the lead will let him go. When it pulls taut, I give it a little tug to let him know that’s the end of the line. He looks back at me and grins, his normally hard face turning boyish with anticipation. He enjoys fishing, I realize. He wants to show off his skill. It makes some of my sourness at being here fade, and I smile hesitantly back at him. “So how often have you fished out of the lakes here?”
“Never.”
“Wait, never?” Now I’m frowning.
“Hassen showed us many lakes and streams when we went out with him to learn this land. He said they use a pole and dangle a bit of bait to trick the fish, but I think a net is just as clever. I am sure it will be fine.”
“I’m not a fishing expert, but I’ve never heard of anyone using a net in a lake,” I point out. “Especially one that’s iced over.”
“Then they will marvel at my cleverness when I am done,” he calls back.
Uh huh. Sounds a bit more like he’s just showing off to impress me, but that’s kind of cute, too. “So what’s the plan, then? You’re going to go to the edge and what, drop your net off the side? How are you going to get it back?”
“Not the edge,” M’tok says. “The ice is too thin there. I will chop a hole where it is thicker, and make it big enough that I can drag the net through.”
I squint at him, because that sounds…weird. And dangerous. “Chop a hole in the ice? The ice you’re standing on?”
“That is how they do it when they fish frozen-over waters,” he agrees.
Right.
“It is all very safe.”
“Oh yeah, I was just thinking to myself how safe it sounds,” I say sarcastically, and untie the rope at my waist with a defiant look. “You’re going at this alone.”
He just gives me another one of those smug looks that makes me wonder if I want to laugh or punch him in the face.
"And you're going to drag your net through this hole?" I ask again, my hands on my hips. "Wouldn't it be smarter to bait a hook and wait for something to bite?"
"Bah." M'tok thumps the butt of his spear against the ice at his feet, testing it. "Wait and see. A Tall Horn knows how to fish far better than a sa-khui hunter. Trust me." He moves a few feet farther onto the ice and thumps a bit more.
"If you say so."
"I do." He casts me another arch smile and then thumps his spear again, nodding. "This is the spot."
"Great." I give him a skeptical look, waiting for him to show me his brilliance. I watch on the shore as he turns his spear around and with the head of it, starts to chop at the ice between his feet. "And you're sure this is solid enough?" I can't help but ask again, because it seems awfully…dangerous to attack the ice you stand on.
"Trust me," he begins, but he's drowned out by a massive groan of the ice.
We both freeze.
I stare at him, eyes wide. "What the fuck was that?"
M'tok's laughing expression is grave now. He takes one slow step toward me, and the ice groans again. "I think I should wait—"
With a massive crunch and another of those horrible groans, the ice beneath his feet breaks and M'tok's entire body is dumped into the icy waters.
I scream, shocked. I don't know why I'm shocked. He's a bi
g, heavy guy and he was deliberately breaking the ice like an idiot. Even so, when I don't see anything but his horns above the surface of the water, I rush forward onto the ice, ignoring my own safety. I drop to my belly at the broken edge and everything feels loose, like it's all about to come apart. I'm so terrified I can't think straight. I reach forward and grab his horns, trying to drag him forward. All I can think about are the layers and layers of clothing he's wearing—like me—and how heavy they'd be wet. How heavy he is overall. He can't swim in this.
He's going to die and I'll be all alone again.
The thought is terrifying and I yank on his arching horns harder. "No, you motherfucker. Get out of there!"
It all seems to happen in the space of a breath. A moment later, a very wet M'tok surfaces, nearly knocking me backward. The ice floats and bobs around him, breaking even more as he tries to find his grip and nearly dumping me into the water. "Get away," he snarls at me. "Get back onto land."
"Fuck you," I tell him, letting go of his horns long enough to offer my hand. "Grab onto me and I'll help you out."
He pushes me away, heaving his weight onto the ice only to have it break under him again. We both curse, me in Spanish and him saying something about kaari scat.
He motions that I need to move back and when he tries the second time, he manages to haul himself onto the ice. "Get to shore," he grits out, voice rough. "Do not argue. Just do it."
The ice groans again and I move back to my spot by the pack as quickly as possible.
M'tok belly crawls forward a bit, and then manages to get to his feet and staggers forward when he reaches the edge. Then, he stands in front of me, his whole body quaking. For a moment, I think he's shaking with laughter and I want to punch him in his stupid mouth for scaring the shit out of me. Then, his teeth chatter and I realize it's not amusement that's making him shake but cold.
Oh god. This cabron cannot die on me.