His other hand came up to cup her left check. Her face was warmly cocooned between his large palms, his lips amazingly soft. He was touching her in no other way, just holding her face while he gently kissed her, and yet she felt as if he was touching her all over. To have felt all of him Just then would probably have been too much for her senses, already on a thin thread of control.
She found out she was right when a few minutes later, he sat down in the chair she'd been in and drew her onto his lap. Wearing shorts, her legs were mostly bare, and all of that bareness was now exposed to the buttery‑soft leather of his pants. It was one of the most sensual sensations she'd ever felt, not even remotely similar to leather upholstery. But that wasn't even half of what she was able to feel of him, sitting sideways on his lap.
Against her hip was the power and strength of his desire, impossible to ignore. One breast was pressed hard to his side; the other rubbed against his chest as he wrapped her arm about his neck. One of his hands was then placed high on the back of her thigh to keep her from sliding, not that bare skin had much chance of sliding on leather. His other arm fully supported her back and drew her even closer to him as his mouth came down to hers again, this new kiss so different from before, deep, claiming, branding her his.
It was absolutely more than she could handle, the kiss along with touching him in so many places. The passion that overcame her was amazing. She had nothing to compare it with in her own experience. And it took her beyond thought, beyond anything except feeling and need.
She clung to him for all she was worth. She was kissing him back as if she meant to devour him. So she could hardly blame him for drawing the wrong conclusion.
"Have you changed your mind?" he asked. "You will show me where you sleep?"
She was gasping, while his tone was calmness itself. "No, no, I just ... got a bit carried away."
"It was not my intention to punish you, yet does your dating seem to do that very thing."
"Hub?" Okay, so her thoughts weren't exactly coherent yet, but how could anyone equate punishment with kissing? "I thought you had the definition for 'punish' figured out. Need me to break out the dictionary?"
"Punishment may come in many forms."
Her thoughts were starting to clear, enough for her to realize he was probably talking about sexual punishment, the kind sometimes practiced when one half of a married partnership was annoyed with the other half.
"You mean like my telling you I've got a headache?" she said.
His frown was filled with sudden concern. "Your head hurts?"
She sighed. "No, that was just a comparison‑never mind. And you don't have to keep petting me. I've got it under control now."
From the moment he had mentioned punishment, he'd been caressing her in a very nonsexual way, soothing her to calmness like he might a child. Not that it did much good, when any touch from him at all was stimulating. But he didn't seem to need calming down himself. If she couldn't still feel that thick bulge against her hip, she'd swear he hadn't participated at all in the heavy kissing they'd just done. His composure was‑unusual, to say the least, something else beyond her experience of men.
But then she noticed his eyes, and she was completely reassured that she wasn't the only one who'd gotten hot and bothered. He'd been affected, all right. His amber eyes were liquid gold, filled with enough passion for three men, the intensity unnerving in a man his size. And yet his control seemed almost superhuman. His breathing was normal. He hadn't broken a sweat. His tone was steady, his heartbeat probably the same.
But with that passion still there under the surface, just laying in wait, she figured it might be prudent to more fully distract them both. To that end, she asked, "What was that foreign name you called me?" His questioning frown added the prompt, "Cara something?"
"Kerima? It means little one."
She burst out laughing. "I know you're big, but I am, too. It's music to my ears, really, but it's kind of ridiculous to call me little."
"For your men, perhaps. For me, you are a perfect size. Any smaller, and I would fear to break you."
She grinned. "Let me guess. You've had the same problem I have, of finding partners of an acceptable size."
He surprised her by shaking his head. "Size is of little matter. Frailty of body is of greater concern. But you are not frail, are you?"
"Wielding a hammer all day tends to build a sturdy frame, no pun intended."
"Pun‑ah, you speak of house‑building as well as bodybuilding. "
She blinked. "You got it without an explanation?"
"I have the proper translations now for all but what you call brand names."
"I don't get it. It just suddenly all clicked for you? A few hours ago you couldn't make head or tails out of some pretty common words, but now you can?"
"This is so."
"Then I think you'd better convince me that you haven't been pulling my leg all along, because what you're suggesting just isn't possible.
She had shot out of his lap, had her hands on her hips, was glaring down at him, so his remark wasn't really a question. "You are angry”
"Damn straight," she growled. "I don't like being made a fool of."
"Nor have you been," his calm tone continued. "The mistake was made because of the slowness of your computers. It has been corrected. I have been receiving the proper translations for several hours now."
"Language courses don't work that fast!"
"I am told you would understand 'new technology,' " he offered. "The means of teaching me is not known to all the universe yet”
"World," she mumbled, somewhat mollified, though she was
still incredulous that something had been invented that could speed along learning that fast. But apparently all the kinks hadn't been worked out of it yet, since he was still getting a few words wrong.
"Explain?"
"You keep using the word 'universe,' when you obviously mean world. Universe implies beyond this planet, but there's nothing out there in deep space, at least nothing alive, so 'world' is the better descriptive word for what you were talking about."
He smiled at her. "Are you certain?"
"That it's the better word?"
"That there is nothing out there?"
She made a soft snort, would have expounded on the concept that seeing is believing and so forth, but once again she got thoroughly distracted. She hadn't jumped very far away from the chair. He had sat forward, which narrowed the space between them even more, so he didn't have to even stretch his arms when his hands came to her hips to rein her back in.
"Ah ... what are ... you doing?" she asked a bit breathlessly.
He had circled her hips with one arm to put her in the position he wanted and keep her there. His other hand made a slow trip from the edge of her shorts down the back of her bare leg to nearly her ankle. His head was pressed squarely between her breasts.
He tilted his head up to answer her, a grin on his lips. "Dating you”.
She would have laughed if her senses hadn't gone haywire again over what he was doing to her. Her breasts had seemed scalded by his breath. She had so much gooseflesh running down her legs, it was a wonder she wasn't sprouting feathers. And yet he looked so boyish with that grin, so pleased with his answer, so delighted by what he was doing, that she didn't have the heart to correct him. But she had to, because she was afraid he still hadn't grasped where she was coming from, with her objections to their having his kind of fun right off the bat.
"No, this isn't really dating, this is the stage beyond that. Perhaps a better definition of dating would help. The kind of date we're talking about is a social appointment made by two people of the opposite sex to meet, usually for a specific purpose, like going to a movie, out to dinner, on a picnic, things like that. And typically while they are out together they do a lot of talking, which lets them get to know each other better. Now, I've been doing a lot of talking, but you haven't been doing much of any."
That finally got
a frown out of him. "It will be a hindrance, my inability to talk?"
She brushed the hair back from his forehead. "You talk just fine, Dalden, just not enough about yourself. Can you understand my need to get inside your head, to feel like I know all there is to know about you, before we do anything so intimate as making love?"
He released her, slowly. "I am reminded I have a specific task here, and my need to join with you cannot interfere with it. When the task is done, then may I speak of myself. Until then, I am warned to keep my true self from becoming known to your people.
"So there's a specific reason you don't say much about yourself? Because you can't?"
He nodded. He sighed as well. He leaned back in the chair and stared up at her, and there was such yearning in his eyes it made her catch her breath.
She couldn't imagine the reason behind his needing to be secretive, other than to not give that Jorran guy any warning that he was on his trail. The reason wasn't all that important, really. His hands were tied, so to speak. There was certainly nothing she could do about that, other than accept it. And he'd said he could talk freely when his task was done. There was hope in that.
Still, there was some definite disappointment in her own tone that she simply couldn't conceal when she said, "Then I guess we should concentrate on finishing your task. A good night's sleep and an early start in the morning will help for that."
"Will you sleep with me‑here?"
It was amazing, what those simple words did to her. The urge to jump back in his lap and start kissing him again, and to hell with getting to know him better, was so strong that she had to take a step back to resist it. This kind of temptation was more than she'd ever experienced, more than she could reasonably be expected to handle. How could she say no when her body was thrumming with desire to say yes? But how could she throw caution to the winds and say yes?
Honestly, she told him, "I don't think I would be able to sleep, touching you."
"You win," he insisted with confidence as he held out a hand to her. "You will be soothed in my arms. The only thing that keeps you from me is these 'morals' you speak of. This is understood. But understand as well that having found you, I cannot bring myself now to let you go far from me. I will rest easier with you in my arms. And you will know that you have nothing to fear of me."
There was no way she could say no now, not to a simple request for closeness. She knew she wouldn't sleep, she was wound up with too much sexual tension, and getting close to him again was just going to increase it. But she gave him her hand anyway and let him pull her back into his lap, where he positioned her for maximum comfort.
For a moment she felt like a child again, curled up in the lap of one of her parents. The lights were still on, and the TV droned on at low volume. It was silly to try to sleep in a chair when there was a perfectly good bed nearby. She almost mentioned it, but caution prevailed and she said nothing.
He said nothing more either. But his hand pressed her head to the bare part of his chest, where his tunic spread wide. And she didn't know how she did it, but she fell asleep listening to the steady beat of his heart.
Chapter Fourteen
BRITTANY WOKE AT DAWN WHEN THE BIRDS ON the two trees in front of her apartment building began their morning greetings. She didn't stir immediately, just opened her eyes and absorbed the fact that she was laying sprawled across a Very big body and was utterly content to be there.
Dalden had moved down in the chair at some point in the night, to where he wasn't actually sitting in it anymore, was spread at a near prone angle, which was why she wasn't sitting either. She was actually laying on top of him, one leg bent across his hip, the other lost with his somewhere under the table in front of the chair.
She wondered what Jan had thought when she had come home and found them like that. The lights and TV were off now, showing that Jan had quietly passed through the room without waking them. And Brittany and Dalden would probably be gone before Jan got up to go to work, since her job started much later in the morning than Brittany's‑which reminded her she had to call Arbor and the spa to let them know she was taking a short vacation.
"Did you sleep well, kerima?"
She lifted her head to find those lovely amber eyes on her. "The birds wake you, too?"
"No, it was the sound of your purring."
She gasped, sputtered, and chuckled all at once. "I did ... no such thing!"
He smiled at her. "Perhaps it was myself, then. I believe I could wish for no other thing than to wake with you in my arms every rising. "
Brittany was a little shocked‑actually, a lot. Those words spoke of permanence, of forever after, of never being parted. They were something a woman might say or think, but a man? When men tended to go through a heck of a lot of agonizing before they even came close to thinking about commitment? But then he'd used the word "wish," which could put the statement back into perspective. He wasn't really saying, Let's get hitched. He was just being fanciful.
That conclusion annoyed Brittany somewhat, enough to have her pushing off of him. "Careful, big guy, or you might get your wish.
She didn't get very far in the pushing. His arms around her tightened, and she quickly found it pointless to try to squirm out of that. So she gave him a look that said release me or ... actually, she couldn't think of an "or else" in his case, but she was sure he got the point. Not that it worked. He wasn't letting her move off of him yet, and that was all there was to that.
"What has annoyed you?" he asked.
"I'm not annoyed," she grouched.
"What has annoyed you?" he repeated, refusing to accept her evasion.
"Okay, you asked for it. I really dislike how men forever say things they don't mean."
"And women do not?"
"Not nearly as much, and besides‑"
"Did you not just say something that you did not mean when you said you were not annoyed?"
"No. That was a flat‑out lie. That isn't at all the same thing. I'm talking about things that get said between a man and a woman that can affect feelings, that can build hopes and dreams, that will finally shatter a relationship when it's realized that it's been nothing but BS."
"All this resentment over a wish I am inclined to grant?" There was suddenly a lot of screeching coming out of the earphone that
I attached to his ear, reminding Brittany that they weren't
was still alone. "I am told you require asking, that I cannot decide the matter for you as I should."
"What are we talking about now?" she demanded.
"A difference in our cultures, one I find unacceptable. Asking can be done, but if the answer is not the right one, the question will be withdrawn and the matter seen to in the proper ShaKa'ani way."
She had the distinct feeling he wasn't talking to her just then, but to Martha. His own annoyance was sensed, rather than reflected in tone or expression, but it was still crystal‑clear to her. He hadn't liked the interruption from Martha any more than she had.
She had to wonder why he hadn't spoken to Miss Coach earlier. If the woman could hear every word they said, and was speaking to him through that earphone, wouldn't it have been much easier for him to have simply asked Martha for clarification of the things he'd been having trouble with last night, rather than making her guess what he needed to know?
Brittany knew to the second when his attention was fully back on her. His eyes absorbed her. His body seemed to as well, and, oh my, that bulge was back. He even shifted her and pressed her against it in that very spot that nature had intended it to go.
Swirls of desire took flight in her belly, so it was like a dash of ice water when she heard from him, "What is the meaning of bee‑ess?"
She managed to get off him this time. Thrusting an elbow into his belly for leverage helped.
"I know you can hear me, Martha. So why don't you explain that one to him," Brittany growled as she stomped off to the kitchen to make coffee and call Arbor. The spa would have to wait a few mor
e hours until it opened.
She had that flare of passion under control again by the time she turned back toward the living room with the coffee cups in hand. She didn't get far. Dalden was blocking the doorway, a normal-sized bath towel around his neck that seemed more like a hand towel around that neck, his tunic removed. Not enough time had passed for him to have showered, nor did he look clamp, he just looked good, too good, good enough for her to want to meld with that body of his.
She'd already seen a good portion of his chest through the gap his tunic made, but it was nothing like seeing it all. The man was simply too huge. She'd never seen anything like his size before, not even in pictures. Without the height, he'd look really weird; with it, he simply looked gigantic. A fantasy giant came to mind, wielding a club as big as he was. She would have smiled at her own fancy if she wasn't so mesmerized by all that bare, golden skin.
No stressed muscles or overly taut skin to accommodate them, just natural bulges in his relaxed pose, the difference being that everything was oversized to begin with. And those arms, bigger than anything she could have imagined when they'd been concealed by his loose sleeves. The kind of strength represented by them had to be amazing. She wondered if they were registered as lethal weapons. And yet they'd held her with tenderness through the night. Her gentle giant.
She did smile this time, but had it and her fanciful thoughts wiped clear away when Dalden remarked, "Martha says that as long as you have spoken to her directly, you may be allowed to hear her voice."
"Wow, lucky me," Brittany said sarcastically as she shoved a cup of instant coffee in his hand.
"You can shelve that jealousy, doll" came out of the box clearly, which nearly made Brittany drop the other cup she was holding. "I'm not what you've been thinking. Try this one on for size: I was there for his birth, even assisted in it. That help? Yes, I can see that it does."
Brittany's face was going up in mortified flames. God, she had been jealous of a name, a voice, a faceless woman, without even once thinking the lady could be a little old grandmotherly type.
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