Chapter 7 #3
He was an alien. Granted he was built like a brick shit house who'd nearly gotten himself killed to protect me. But I should be terrified. Disgusted. Planning my escape.
Instead, I was standing here with my thighs pressed together, trying not to think about the way water had traced the contours of his chest. The way his muscles had shifted under that pelt.
The sheer size of him. The scent—God, that scent—all male and dangerous and somehow safe at the same time, which made no sense at all.
I was losing it. Had to be. The stress, the fear, the exhaustion—it was all catching up with me, scrambling my brain, making me react to him like some hormonal teenager.
My hands were shaking as I reached for the dress chains. I peeled the dress off with jerky movements, trying to focus on anything except the fact that he was on the other side of this partition. That we were sharing this space. This room. This bed.
That I'd just been caught staring at him like a starving woman looking at a feast.
The shower spray hit my overheated skin, and I bit back a gasp. The water was too hot, but I didn't adjust it. Maybe the heat would burn some sense back into me.
I heard him moving around out there. Footsteps. The rustle of fabric. The creak of the bed.
My body responded with another unwanted rush of heat.
This was survival instinct, I told myself firmly. Stockholm syndrome. Trauma bonding. I could name it, could catalog exactly what my brain was doing to cope with captivity and fear.
And it didn't matter. Knowing what was happening didn't change a single damn thing.
I scrubbed at my skin harder than necessary, trying to wash away the confusion, the fear, the attraction I had no business feeling.
It didn't work.
When I finally turned off the water, I stood there dripping, staring at my only option for clothing. The ridiculous dress with its chains and sheer panels.
I didn't want to put it back on. Didn't want to walk out there wearing something designed to display me like merchandise.
But the alternative was a towel that barely covered me, or nothing at all.
I pulled the dress on with shaking hands. The chains were cold against my still-damp skin, making me shiver. The sheer fabric clung to my wet body, even more revealing than before.
I took a breath. Then another. The thought of Ahrick stretched out on the bed all muscle and loin cloth...
Nope. Not going there.
I stepped out from behind the partition.
Ahrick was on the bed.
My breath caught. He was lying on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes, his chest rising and falling in the slow, even rhythm of sleep. The stitches I'd put in stood out dark against his pelt, and I saw the bruises already forming across his ribs, his jaw, his shoulders.
I stood there, uncertain, my hands twisting in the fabric of the dress. There was nowhere else to sleep. No couch, no chair that looked remotely comfortable. The floor looked like concrete, clean, just obviously uncomfortable and cold. No where else to rest. Just the bed.
The bed where he was.
As if sensing my presence, his arm moved and those golden eyes opened, finding me immediately.
"Come rest," he said quietly, holding out a hand toward me.
I froze. "I can sleep on the floor."
"No."
"I don't want to hurt your injuries—"
"You won't." His hand remained outstretched, steady. Patient. "Come here, Merrilee."
I didn't move. Couldn't move. Every instinct screamed at me that getting into that bed was dangerous—not because I thought he'd hurt me, but because of something else entirely. Something I didn't want to name.
He must have read it in my face because his expression softened.
"You're safe with me," he said, and there was something in his voice that made my chest tight. "I need sleep to heal. And forcing scared females isn't my style."
"I'm not scared," I said automatically.
The look he gave me called me a liar without saying a word.
My cheeks burned. "I'm not—"
"It's okay." He lowered his hand slightly but didn't drop it. "It's okay to be scared. After what you've been through." His jaw tightened. "But I meant what I said earlier. I will never hurt you."
The absolute certainty in his voice broke something loose in my chest.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I approached. Each step felt like a decision I couldn't take back. The mattress dipped slightly when I sat on the edge, as far from him as I could manage while still technically being on the bed.
He made a sound that might have been amusement. "I don't bite."
"You have fangs."
"I have fangs," he agreed and made a soft sound that sounded like the beginning of a chuckle. "But I don't use them on unwilling females."
The word "unwilling" hung in the air between us, heavy with implication. Suggesting there might be willing ones. Suggesting that under different circumstances...
I shoved the thought away.
"Just go to sleep," I said, lying down with my back to him, curling into myself at the edge of the bed.
For a moment, there was only silence.
Then I felt the mattress shift as he settled back down, felt the warmth of his body even though we weren't touching, and the strange safety of knowing he was there—this massive, powerful creature who'd promised to protect me.
"Merrilee?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For the stitches."
Something in my throat went tight. "You're welcome."
Silence again. The kind that should've been awkward but somehow wasn't. It was just sleeping. People slept next to each other all the time.
Except this wasn't "people." This was an alien warrior who'd won me in a fight. This was a male whose body I'd been cataloging and fantasizing about for the last several minutes. This was someone I barely knew, in a prison planet city where trust could get you killed.
Heat radiated from his body like a furnace. I felt it even with the gap between us—a living warmth that seemed to reach across the distance and wrap around me. The room wasn't cold, but I found myself drawn to that heat anyway, my body responding to it on some primal level I didn't want to examine.
I lay rigid on my back, staring at the ceiling, hyperaware of every breath he took. The rise and fall of his chest. The soft sound of air moving through his lungs. The occasional shift of muscle as he settled deeper into sleep.
His scent surrounded me. That clean, masculine smell I'd noticed earlier, but stronger now. More intimate. It filled my lungs with every breath, and made my head swim.
I told myself to ignore it. To just go to sleep.
But sleep felt impossible. My entire body was strung tight as a wire, every nerve ending firing with awareness.
I turned my head slightly, just enough to see him in my peripheral vision.
In sleep, he looked different. Less intimidating. The hard edges of his face had softened, and without those intense golden eyes watching me, I could study him without feeling exposed.
I saw the fresh bruises blooming across his ribs. The stitches I'd put in his chest. The split in his lip that had finally stopped bleeding, the swelling and bruising surrounding his eye.
He'd taken all of that damage tonight. For me. A stranger he had no reason to protect.
Why?
The question circled in my mind, unanswered. Men didn't do things without wanting something in return. Declan had taught me that lesson thoroughly.
Except Ahrick.
And then he'd gone to sleep without touching me.
That should've been reassuring.
Instead, it made me more nervous.
His scent wrapped around me again, and despite everything, I felt my body begin to relax.
The heat of his body, the rhythm of his breathing, the solid presence of him beside me—it all combined into something that felt dangerously close to safety.
And that terrified me more than anything else that had happened tonight.