Chapter 7
Wooohooo!
Krir rubbed the exposed scales on his arm, and only great restraint kept him from running his fingers through his feathers.
He couldn’t get the feel of her, the scent of her, off his mind since last night.
Nicole’s hair was softer than the webs of the aost, which lived in the nooks and crannies of cool, dark spaces on Qilffir.
And her skin was so smooth. He watched her frown at the tablet he’d handed her on their way out the door this morning.
“Do you need help?” he asked.
She held up a finger, staring at the tablet, then at the instrument planted in the ground next to the oasis on the other side of the rocks near the research unit.
The only water for over a hundred klicks.
The instrument measured the level of moisture in the soil as well as the temperature.
It was helpful for determining evaporation rates as well as the recharge rate of the aquifer.
It was an easy measurement to take, and a good test of her newly acquired ability to read a little Qilffiran.
“Um, I think I got it,” she said after a moment.
Nicole bit her lip in concentration, and Krir’s gut tightened.
He wished he could deny what it was, but he was too honest. It was desire, pure and simple.
He acknowledged the emotion and shoved it to the back of his mind.
It was neither the time nor the place to desire the human woman.
Though he’d healed her injuries, and she no longer looked on the verge of starvation or exhaustion, she was still recovering from a traumatic event, as evidenced by her “dream” last night.
The night he’d finally held her, comforted her, the way he’d wanted since she first woke up.
She finally pressed send and his own tablet chirped. He looked at it and smiled. She had in fact got it.
“Excellent, Nicole. Now we repeat at the other fifteen sensor arrays.” Krir pulled the key to the rover out of his pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it deftly but almost dropped the tablet. Oops, but he was committed to this preposterous plan. “Do you want to drive?”
“Oh my god, yes!” She ran to the rover’s shed and threw open the doors, giggling all the while.
Whatever this outing might bring, seeing her happy made it worth it. Even if she wrecked the rover. Did humans have analogous vehicles?
She carefully tucked the tablet into the console between the two seats, found the start button, and put the key in. The panels lit up, as did her face.
“Get in, bitch, we’re going shopping!”
What in all the ancestors was a bitch, and where did she… Oh, it was a joke. Two could play this game.
“I am not sure what a bitch is, but the shopping district closes in three hours, so we’ll have to—”
“Wait, I thought this was a deserted planet. What do you mean the shopping district closes in three hours?”
He couldn’t keep the laugh in. He chittered as he slid into the second seat, and her face reddened.
“You are a very, very bad lizard man. Now, tell me how to make sure we’re going forward so I don’t put a hole in the wall.”
“Safety first. Put on your harness.”
She slid her arms through the straps and buckled the device. He leaned over, catching a whiff of the soft musky scent of her hair. Using a clawed finger, he pointed at the heads-up display. “Here, the yellow is forward. Purple is backward, and white is off.”
“And if I want to go faster or slower?”
“May I?” He dropped his hand to hers.
She nodded, then corrected herself. “Yes.”
He moved their hands together to the lever between the two seats.
A frisson of electric sensation traveled from this innocent touch and straight to his groin.
This was ridiculous. He’d never experienced attraction like this.
He took a deep breath and tried to pretend nothing had happened, but he did not remove his hand.
“Pull it up to go slower, push it down to go faster. Go slow until you are used to the controls. Do you have anything similar on Earth?”
“A few different vehicles. This is like a golf cart, with more bells and whistles. But we generally use combustion engines.”
“That cannot be good for your environment.”
“It is not.”
“Are you ready to go?”
She grinned, and her eyes lit with a wildness he’d yet to see in her. Nicole jabbed at the yellow and pushed the lever, sending them careening over the threshold and straight into the desert at an unnerving speed. Krir’s teeth clacked together.
“Wooohooo!”
He loved making Nicole smile, loved that she relaxed around him, that she trusted him.
But he wished she’d chosen a safer way to show her joy.
He clenched his jaw and suppressed his admonition to go slower.
She was a grown woman with experience driving land vehicles.
Instead, he let go of her, more reluctantly than he would care to admit, and sent their next stop to the map on the heads-up display.
“Go there,” he shouted over the wind, the creaks of the vehicle, and the crunch of the wheels on the sand and rock.
She took her hand off the speed control and stuck up her thumb.
No idea what the gesture meant, but the dot on the map indicating their position headed toward the destination dot.
So many gestures for “yes” and “no.” He was still trying to keep them straight.
Hopefully, they would have enough time together for them to become second nature.
Nicole settled in and eventually reduced the speed when she almost sent them into a ravine on the path to the fifth sensor array.
After the first measurement, the rest went quickly.
She was a fast learner and diligently studied the program he’d downloaded on the second day.
It surprised him humans still weren’t interstellar travelers.
According to Nicole, they’d never sent people to anywhere other than their own moon, and the last manned voyage had been over fifty years ago.
Robots and probes had visited other planets, and another probe she called Voyager had been the first manmade object to leave their solar system.
The Qilffir had been exploring space for almost two hundred years, cataloguing dozens of sentient species, and dozens more near-sentient ones. The Geological Agency archives held reports from hundreds of planets that could sustain Qilffiran life, and thousands that couldn’t.
Nicole drove much more slowly on their return to home base.
The largest moon hung high in the night sky, hiding all the stars.
He studied her discreetly as her eyes grew wide, taking in the beauty of a Vrul 4 night.
Avians sang and reptilians scurried across the sand.
A cool breeze blew away the heat and sweat of the desert day and brought the smell of rain on dry ground as they neared the spring and home.
“I still can’t get used to it.” Nicole stepped out of the rover and stared at the sky.
“I hope you never do. I have not.”
She turned those wide brown eyes to him, almost glowing in the golden light of the moon. He could lose hours—no, days—in their depths. He closed the distance between them and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers drift to her cheek.
“You don’t act like this is all new and different.”
“We are different species. Your expressions are easy to read for me, but mine might not be for you. The Qilffir rely on subtle shifts in heat signature and pheromones.”
“Oh, yeah, humans are shit at that. There are studies showing we might respond to pheromones, but if we do, it’s subtle and unconscious.
And I guess we do see heat signatures. People flush in their faces and chests when they’re upset or…
” She bit her lip again before continuing in a soft voice. “Aroused.”
Ah, not so dissimilar. It constantly surprised him how divergent humans and the Qilffir appeared, but when he looked closer, the differences were more subtle than at first glance.
He should be careful not to give her reason to be concerned he couldn’t keep his desire in check. She needed his care, not his lust.
Krir was saved from responding by a ping on his tablet, and he stepped aside. A message from the Agency. He held his breath and his fingers trembled as he opened it, sending a prayer to his ancestors that his time with this intriguing, beautiful woman wasn’t coming to a swift end.
“What is it?” Nicole put her tablet on the charging station, then dropped to the bed to remove her boots.
“The Geological Agency wants to confirm your wish to stay on Vrul 4. They have informed the Giuk government of the incident, leaving out your current location. The director says you’re safe enough where you are, especially since I reprogrammed the pod, but if you have changed your mind, all you need to do is ask. What do you wish to do?”
“That took a while.” She rubbed her foot, which was red at the heel and on the biggest toe.
“I sent the message on the regular priority channel, so it has taken several days for transit there and back. Interstellar distances are vast.”
“How long before they are due to come?”
He tapped the calendar and an electric charge rushed through him, followed quickly by disappointment.
“Nine days.” Nine more days until he returned home. Nine more days with her.
“I’m fine, feeling better than I have since I…left home. I’d hate to cut your research short. One of my exes was a field researcher at a university, and cutting research short for any reason was bad. Unless circumstances change, I’m good if you are.”
“What is an ex?”
“Um…former boyfriend?”
He just stared.
“A lover who isn’t my lover anymore.”
Ah. Jealousy shot through him. He had no right, yet the idea of someone other than himself putting hands on her, stroking her hair the way he had when she had woken screaming, touching her smooth skin, drove him to distraction. He hid it, breathing deeply.
“Oh. So you often mate with scientists?”
She snorted as she pulled some food from the refrigeration unit. “We call it dating, not mating. Long-term partnerships are usually, but not always, marriages. And yes, nerdy scientist is kinda my type.”
Nicole smiled at him, but it was different from her other smiles. More knowing, as if she was trying to communicate without words. He examined her closely, noting the slight rise in temperature in her cheeks and the tangy scent of attraction.
Oh. He was not the only one experiencing desire.
That was…good to know. Uncertain what he would do with this information, he tucked it away for later.
She may not yet realize it or might not appreciate how receptive he would be.
It could be awfully embarrassing to proposition someone only to be rejected and have nowhere else to go.
“Very well, let’s record a message so they hear it from you.”
After all, with so little time left, what could go wrong?